Author Janet Nichols Lynch steers her rich life into passion for stories

McClatchy Newspapers (MCT) - If you described Janet Nichols Lynch's latest novel as solely a story about a man's mid-life crisis, that would shortchange the journey of its protagonist, Gordon Clay.

Clay is a community college music instructor who couldn't make it as a professional musician. Lynch weaves in themes of religious faith and doubt, human connection and redemption. She also uses her own experience as a triathlete, musician and teacher.

Lynch, an English teacher at El Diamante High School in Visalia, Calif., has previously published short stories and a coming-of-age novel "Peace is a Four-Letter Word." Her new book, "Chest Pains" (Bridge Works Publishing Co., $23.95), was released in February and is her first published adult novel. The book is available online through Web sites, such as Borders, Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Lynch, 56, started on the novel while in a writer's workshop headed by award-winning author Steve Yarbrough, who is an English professor and coordinator of the creative writing master's program at California State University, Fresno.

"It's a wonderful story," Yarbrough says. "It's very well written, and the characters are memorable. The subject is serious. She's writing about some pretty big questions that we all face and, in doing so, not in a serious way but in an entertaining way."

We recently caught up with Lynch for an interview:

Q: How do you balance everything you do and still write?

A: Anyone who wants to do something will make time for that thing, whatever it is. I train in three sports, plus weight training. I practice piano every day. I write most every day. I teach and correct (papers) ... I live a working vacation because everything that I do I like to do. It's hard work, but it's what I want to do.

Q: You're known for your short stories and young adult work. What prompted an endeavor into an adult novel?

A; I've written just as much for adults as I have for young adults. It just so happens that I've had more success selling young adult novels. It just is a matter of what gets accepted for publication. I have many, many adult books that just never went anywhere. The mainstream literary novel is very hard to publish. It's not something that a publisher is going to make a lot of money on. I don't write best sellers. I write about things that interest me.

Q: This story centers on Gordon Clay, a community college music instructor who's really down on his luck. Where did the idea come from?

A: I get ideas from real life. I have to say that two things happened to my husband (Tim) that were the kernel of this story. One thing was that he got a call in the middle of the night from a woman he thought was an old girlfriend. She called looking for her child in the middle of the night and woke us up. He began to talk to her ... It was a wrong number. We never knew if she found her child. That's really what started the novel, to explore that idea.

"Chest Pains" touches on themes that you know firsthand, including Catholicism, music and long-distance running. How does using those things that are familiar to you strengthen your writing?

I remember in the eighth grade, I wrote a story about a person's last day in prison ... I thought it was a really good story and gave it to my teacher. I thought she was going to compliment my story. She handed it back to me and said: 'Write what you know about.' I followed that advice. It's really true. If I don't know about it, I find out about it.

Of all the characters in the book, I found Cecelia to be the most frustrating but then one of the most redemptive. How do you create a character who may not be that likable in the beginning?

I guess that's why I'm not a best-selling writer. I don't care if my readers like my characters or not. I don't care to write about likable characters. I try to create authentic characters ... I'm not too concerned about whether they're likable until my editor starts really bugging me about it.

Q: People who read the book will find different meanings in it. But what do you hope readers take away from the story?

A: I hope people will enjoy the book. I hope they'll think about the characters after they're done reading it. I hope they'll realize there's redemption. Sometimes, our lives are not as happy as we would like them to be, but we can do better. We can find that happiness. I'm a true believer that a person makes his or her own happiness.

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© 2009, The Fresno Bee (Fresno, Calif.).