RIGHTFULLY MINE - Aggie Villanueva - Free Book

This is Aggie's first time on my blog. Welcome, Aggie. Tell us how much of yourself you write into your characters.

In the case of Rightfully Mine it was hard to stay out of Rizpah, as I was drawn to this story because this independent woman who stands up for justice was always getting in trouble with the religious leaders, though she had the best of intentions. Only the highest leader, Moses, and the two men who loved her saw her for what she really was.

What is the quirkiest thing you have ever done?

(laughing) There’s so many it’s hard to choose. Just ask my children. I would have to say the winner might be when my poor health in KS had me housebound and nearly bedridden for 10 years. I accidentally discovered the climate of the southwest nearly healed me when my Grandfather in AZ was very ill. I took two trips, each with one of my sons, to help care for him, and found to my delight I actually could! So I got myself a used travel van, and me and my white German Shepherd, Seirra, traveled the Southwest for two years. Everyone in KS thought I was crazy. My audacity in doing this gave me back my quality of life. That’s how I settled in the mountains of northern New Mexico.

Sounds like a plan to me. When did you first discover that you were a writer?

I wrote stories & poems when I was five. But I think I knew in the fifth grade. I had poor health as a child and was hospitalized two weeks out of every 9 weeks grading period that year. While under that oxygen tent for all those weeks, I wrote stories on scraps of hospital paper. My physical therapists liked them so much they passed them all around the hospital staff. I was elated.

Tell us the range of the kinds of books you enjoy reading.

Suspense, horror, and historical fiction of all genres are my favorite. I’ve always been fascinated with vampires also. I think it’s the question of, can they find redemption as is promised everyone, or are they eternally damned? I guess it’s obvious the lamenting, philosophical vampires are my favorite read. I’ve always enjoyed problems that seem to have no answers.

My friend, Sue Dent, has written/is writing an interesting vampire/werewolf series that includes redemption. What other books have you written, whether published or not?

The first book I wrote, published before I was 30, was Chase the Wind, also published by Thomas Nelson, as was Rightfully Mine. I coauthored Chase the Wind with my good friend Deborah Lawrence. Thomas Nelson invited me to submit a book to the inspiration romance series they were just opening (this was back in 1986 or so). I wish I had, but my health was already deteriorating.

How do you keep your sanity in our run, run, run world?

Ha. I not only loft my eyes to the hills from whence my help cometh, but I literally run to them. As often as I can get away, I pack up 60 pounds of photo equipment, my dogs, a few days worth of food and water, blankets, and head for my beloved mountains.

How do you choose your characters’ names?

Well, for rightfully mine their names are in the Bible. Thomas Nelson suggested I change Noah’s name, the heroine (though they are all heroines) so she wouldn’t be confused with the Noah of the flood.

Because names were chose for valued personality traits in those times, and many times were prophetic, I also created each sisters’ character traits from the meanings of their names. And it worked so beautifully into the whole Biblical story as it is told in the Old Testament that it guided me into the literary license I took with plot additions.

So in their cases, I believe their father, Zelophehad, was prophetic in naming them. That why I opened the book with his dying prophecies (blessings) for each of his daughters. They were blessed with not only a father’s love, but one who knew them as Elohim would have him know his daughters. I wish we could all have a father like Zelophehad must have been. Those of us who have know it guides the destinies of our lives.

What is the accomplishment that you are most proud of?

Raising my children. I am so proud of the adults and parents each of them grew into.

If you were an animal, which one would you be, and why?

Probably a dog. They are faithful, love you unconditionally, are uncontrollably happy to see you each time you return, have the bravery to protect you and love to remain with you, and still run free like the wind up and down the mountainsides.

What is your favorite food?

Mexican food. I cherish almost any flavor, but could live on Mexican food.

I fixed Mexican food yesterday for my whole family. My Army grandson was home for R&R from Afghanistan, and he loves it. What is the problem with writing that was your greatest roadblock, and how did you overcome it?

Stopping. I don’t want to stop. Don’t want to return to the humdrum, though life is really never humdrum. Actually the way I overcome it is my dogs. They are like children and want me to take breaks and come outside with them. Otherwise I’d probably work more than 10 hours a day.

What advice would you give to an author just starting out?

This is always a hard question because there is so much to say that is vital to writing. I guess I’d have to answer, be sure it’s your destiny. Be sure you’re being led in this direction. My mother always says that I succeed in everything I attempt. Bless our mothers’ hearts! But the truth is I only attempt what I truly feel I’m being led to do. Therein lies success!

I so agree with you. Now tell us about the featured book.

Rightfully Mine: God’s Equal Rights Amendment portrays a women’s equal rights amendment straight out of history, and handed down straight from the throne of God. What I’d like readers to think about through my story is; how much more do we need in order to understand the great worth of women, and our worth to God throughout history, today and tomorrow?

It’s also about justice. The subplot involves a love triangle, greed and murder, and family ties that bind, but that subplot is the parallel of this infant nation finding itself before they can emerge to earn what is rightfully theirs. How could the nation inherit the Promised Land when they denied some of their own (women) their rights to the Promised Land?

The subplot is a parallel on so many levels to the path of Rizpah's life and the life of every believer. Like all of us, she had a public calling, but when she fulfilled it, Rizpah mistakenly believed her calling was completed, and she could go on with life as she had it planned out.

But God had different plans. He knew, though she indeed had fulfilled the great public purpose she was born to, she hadn't yet been circumcised personally, which was the basic physical (personal) requirement for the nation of Israel (all God's children).

I purposely used the male word circumcision for this personal (spiritual) requirement, not because Rizpah did a man's job in the council, but to speak to the calling of each child of God to be cut off from that which is not right for us. Everyone other Christian may be doing a certain thing, but it may not be right for us.

Rizpah’s entire life was grounded in what is right, what is justice and what is love. She thought she knew all about these better than most. She thought they all meant the same thing. When these principals seemed to be in opposition, which would win? Were some false? Were some lacking?

Please give us the first page of the book.

It was inconceivable that after forty years of chastisement in the Zin desert and the recent military successes in the Transjordan hills, the wandering nation of Israel could succumb to the temptations offered by the Moabite and Midianite women, but the tomb-like encampment attested to the sin. As a result, hundreds and thousands of sprawling black tents suffocated their inhabitants with the lingering, putrid taste of the death within them.

The vast camp of Israel lay crippled by plague. They huddled piteously beneath arcing acacia branches along the oasis-like steam of Abel Shittim, the only shelter available in the scorching summer sands of the Moab plains. Israel was halted only a few miles east of the Jordan they yearned to cross.



How can readers find you on the Internet?

Purchase paperback at Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/055708654X?ie=UTF8&tag=visuartsjunc-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=055708654X

Purchase Kindle version
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002NGO4B0?ie=UTF8&tag=visuartsjunc-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B002NGO4B0

For more about Rightfully Mine http://www.aggiev.org/rightfullymine

Visual Arts Junction (teaching site about all forms of promoting your work) http://www.visualartsjunction.com/

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Visual Arts Junction on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/visualartsjunction

Aggie’s profile on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/aggiev

twitter http://twitter.com/visualartsaggie

I’m also a photographic artist:

Photography blog, Aggie Logic http://www.aggiev.org/

Photo Galleries http://www.cielosrojos.com/

Thank you, Aggie, for this wonderful visit.

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