Traces of Mercy
Page 26
“Thank you for saving me … Mercy.”
Elijah stuffed the note into his pocket and started to bundle up his bedroll. “If you just head due north from here, you’ll be fine, Isaac.”
“But you said Miss Mercy gone south,” Isaac said.
“That’s right.” Elijah lashed the bedroll to his saddle. “Which means she could be headed to any number of places.”
“She be smart,” Isaac said. “She won’t go the way you s’pect her to go.”
“You’re right about that,” Elijah said. “It would be like looking for a needle in a haystack with the number of hours she might already have on us.”
“You makin’ it sound like it be impossible to find her,” Isaac said.
“Could be,” Elijah agreed. “That’s why I think you should head north. Go get yourself a new life.”
“I ain’t going north, and I ain’t going back, Cap’n,” Isaac said firmly. “Only way you can make me is if you pull out that gun of yours and shoot me.”
Elijah looked at the resolve on Isaac’s face and shook his head in frustration. He slipped the mercy medallion around his neck and then mounted his horse. Isaac stood and looked at him, hands fisted at his side.
“Well?” Isaac demanded.
“Well, what?”
“Well, what do you say?”
“I say get on your horse,” Elijah told him. “We’re going to find Mercy.”
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—Michael Landon Jr.
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• From the Authors
From the Authors
After sixteen years of working together, there are two questions that routinely surface about our writing partnership: How did you meet? What is your process for working together? To answer the questions from our respective points of view, we thought we’d defer to the He Said – She Said format since we never work in the same office, let alone the same state.
He said: I grew up in the film business with a father who was not only a successful actor, but a writer, producer, and director as well. Though I wasn’t interested in acting, I was passionate about becoming a filmmaker. I learned my craft both on the job and through formal education, and like most filmmakers serious about earning a living, I was working on multiple projects. In 1997, a screenwriter, Rick Ramage, who had attended AFI (American Film Institute) with me, called to say he had a screenplay he thought I might be interested in directing. It was written by his sister—who had absolutely no experience in the business. I asked him to define “no experience,” and he told me she was a Lamaze instructor who had tabled her dream of writing to raise three kids. This was her first screenplay. Alarm bells started to go off, but in the next breath he said something that got my attention. The script was inspired by Margery Williams’ children’s classic The Velveteen Rabbit. There is only one way you can add another iron to the fire—you have to have a certain belief in the viability and success of the project to take it on. For me, at the time, the belief was in the title of the book and the idea that no one had made it into a long-form, live-action story. I told him to send the script.
She said: Growing up, my dream was to become a professional writer. But as is so often the case, life happened, and the dream stayed just that—a dream. I had no formal education in creative writing, but I filled journals and wrote poems and family Christmas letters. After some urging from my brother, I finally wrote my first screenplay. When Rick called and told me he was going to send that script, an adaptation of The Velveteen Rabbit, to Michael Landon Jr., I couldn’t believe it. “You mean Little Joe’s son?” I asked. He said yes. “Charles Ingalls’ kid? That Michael Landon Jr?!”
Yes, he assured me. “He’s a nice, normal guy who happens to be a really good director with an amazing background in the business.”
I was thrilled, of course, but after our conversation, I knew I was in way over my head.
He said: I read Cindy’s script and told Rick it needed a ton of work and warned him that I would want to scrap most of it. He told me to go easy on her. “Don’t forget—she’s my sister.” I called Cindy and told her I’d always loved the story of The Velveteen Rabbit and its theme that love makes us real. I didn’t want to damage either her confidence or her spirit as I prepared to discuss my notes with her. I told her that while her adaptation had some interesting elements and charm, she needed to understand that wholesale changes would be made if we moved forward. At the end of the conversation, we decided to start working together from page one. I remember hanging up the phone and saying to my wife, “What have I gotten myself into?”
She said: When Michael called to discuss the script, I had butterflies the size of bats in my stomach. He was very nice and told me how much he loved the idea of turning the classic children’s book into a film, but he had some ideas of his own about the tone of the story. In other words, he had some notes. I learned very quickly that “some notes” meant we were rewriting the whole thing. By the end of our initial conversation, I had such terrible writer’s cramp I needed to ice my hand. But I was undaunted, and even though I had taken copious notes, I was still floating on a cloud, thinking that I might actually become a professional writer. I hung up the phone, turned to my husband, and said with a big grin, “He loved it!”
He said: We worked together almost every day for six months on the rewrite of the script. What Cindy lacked in experience, she made up for with hard work. She’d rewrite a scene five, six, ten times until we were both satisfied we had it right. In the end, we were both very happy with the screenplay.
She said: At the end of six months of rewriting, I’m pretty sure all that was left from my original draft were the kid’s name and the attic where all the imagining takes place. Michael is all about the work. It didn’t take long for me to forget that I was talking to the son of a television legend because he never played that card. He’s just a guy who has a talent and a passion for good storytelling.
He said: With The Velveteen Rabbit under our belts (the film was released several years later once animation was complete), the collaboration between us became more solidified when we wrote Love Comes Softly. A typical day when we’re doing a project begins early. I start my day at 4:00 a.m. to review the pages Cindy has sent the previous night. I’m rewriting, making notes, and laying out future story beats, so by 8:00 I’m on the phone with Cindy to go over the day’s work.
She said: It’s not unusual for my phone to be ringing by 6:00 a.m. when we are working on a screenplay or novel. Our conversation usually begins with, “Got your pen handy?” And so we begin to discuss the scenes we’ve done and the scenes we still have to do. If we’ve been stuck on a scene or a certain story point, sometimes the phone call starts with him saying, “I’ve figured it out. Here’s what needs to happen.” He describes it—and then I write it. He sees things in pictures—I paint the picture using words. Sometimes when we’re stuck on something, I’ll say, “How about we do this?” Usually his reply is, “No. What else have you got?” I’ll pipe up with another idea—and hear another succinct no. On the other hand, he can get quite tangled up with the actual words. “I took a pass at rewriting that last scene you did. I think it’s working
, but could you just do your thing and clean it up a bit for me?” It just works out so well that he loves story and I love the words.
He said: So after sixteen years, a dozen screenplays, and now two novels, our process hasn’t changed much at all. One thing that has changed, however, is how much Cindy has grown as a writer. I feel blessed that we’ve been able to work together the way we have.
She said: It still amazes me how it all came together. Inexperienced mom of three has a dream to write; experienced filmmaker believes in the project enough to make it happen. Who knew that The Velveteen Rabbit would be just the beginning? There’s been so much more—more than I even dreamed. I am truly blessed.
We said: In one of our first conversations, we both agreed that we wanted to tell stories that would be appropriate for entire families to enjoy together. Stories that would reflect our worldview and our faith—and we would never compromise for the sake of commerciality. While the work has evolved over the years, we are proud of the fact that we’ve stayed true to our conviction. Our hearts are in the same place they were all those years ago. We want to tell stories that are inspiring and to speak to the truth of the brokenness of humanity and the wholeness that is only found in God.
TRACES OF MERCY
Published by David C Cook
4050 Lee Vance View
Colorado Springs, CO 80918 U.S.A.
David C Cook Distribution Canada
55 Woodslee Avenue, Paris, Ontario, Canada N3L 3E5
David C Cook U.K., Kingsway Communications
Eastbourne, East Sussex BN23 6NT, England
The graphic circle C logo is a registered trademark of David C Cook.
All rights reserved. Except for brief excerpts for review purposes,
no part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form
without written permission from the publisher.
This story is a work of fiction. All characters and events are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is coincidental.
LCCN 2013946265
ISBN 978-0-7814-0869-1
eISBN 978-1-4347-0715-4
© 2013 Michael Landon Jr. and Cindy Kelley
The Team: Alex Field, Jamie Chavez, Amy Konyndyk, Nick Lee, Caitlyn Carlson, Karen Athen
Cover Design: Dog-Eared Design, Kirk DouPonce
Cover Photo: iStockPhoto
First Edition 2013
Photo by Gary Dorsey
MICHAEL LANDON JR., son of television legend Michael Landon, is an award-winning storyteller, first in television and film and now in books. His print works include One More Sunrise, cowritten with Tracie Peterson.
CINDY KELLEY is an author and screenwriter who worked with Landon on the Love Comes Softly television film and cowrote the novel The Silent Gift with Landon.
Visit DCCeBooks.com for more great reads.