Day 3

And we're off! Today is Day 3, and so far everything is on schedule. My novel this year is about a young girl, Rachel, who is part of a large Evangelical Christian family. It's told as if it were a memoir, with Rachel looking back on her family and life on their farm -- and her eventual escape from her father, a man so wrapped up in his religion and quest to keep his family pure that he abuses his children to keep them in line.

Here's a first excerpt for you - the beginning of Let Down Your Hair:


They told me it was for the best. That the Lord desires his maidens to be pure. Untouched. Unsullied by the modern world. The modern world was no place for the Lord’s true children. We were not allowed off the family’s land without Daddy present to guard over us; it was for our benefit, they said. I had no reason not to trust them at the time. I knew nothing else, nothing outside of our land, nothing outside of our small town. If Daddy told me that the outside world was dangerous, than it was dangerous. I trusted him completely.

Daddy worried about my sisters and I in particular. He believed that my brothers were strong men, following in his footsteps, and so shielded them from the outside world a bit less than us girls. After all, one day they would be the man of the house, in charge of their own wife and brood of children. They had to be prepared to shield their families from the dangers found outside of our small church community. Us girls, though, we needed to be protected. We were Daddy’s property until we entered our husband’s houses, and we were to abide by his rules.