‘Perilous’ Journey

BELLA VISTA Tamara Hart Heiner wrote the first draft of “Perilous” when she was 12.

Seventeen years and 36 drafts later, the novel was published.

The name had changed and the theme had altered considerably.

But the story line was the same.

The young adult thriller follows three young girls on a cross-country escape from a kidnapper.

The book was published by WiDo Publishing in 2010. A sequel, “Altercation,” came out last month.

Heiner still has the original manuscript, which she shares with school groups during author talks.

The novel is written on white lined paper folded in half to simulate the pages of a book. The neat pencil printing shrinks to minute proportions as the story progresses.

She wanted her writing to look like a real book, the Bella Vista resident explained. So she made the print smaller and smaller to match the typeset in most novels.

The story, broken into short chapters with cliff hanger endings, fills more than 330 half pages.

Heiner started the book as a seventh-grader because she had “too much time on my hands,” she said. Her second semester schedule included choir, student helper and study hall, all periods where the workload was light. She was excited about it, at first, Heiner said, but the novelty soon wore thin.

So she took out a piece of notebook paper, folded it in half, and began to write.

“That became the highlight of my day,” she said. She thought about her characters from morning to night, wondering where the meandering plot would lead. Today, Heiner writes from an outline, with a clear sense of beginning, middle and end, she said.

Heiner finished her manuscript in the eighth grade, and her father helped her type it into the computer.

She continued working on it through her ninth-grade year, revising the original manuscript 11 times.

“This was an obsession for me,” she said. “I wanted to get it published.” She submitted it to a publisher and was rejected. The rejection letter included kind words of encouragement, said her mother, Linda Hart of Springdale. Heiner doesn’t remember it that way.

Her hopes dashed, and her attention turning to high school anda busier social life, Heiner put the novel out of her mind.

NEW LIFE FOR OLD BOOK

Fast forward to 2006. Heiner was living in Provo, Utah, with her husband and infant son. She’d graduated from Brigham Young University and served an overseas mission with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

She’d written another novel after college, this one a fairy tale take-off on Snow White. During college, Heiner majored in English. She didn’t take any classes in creative writing, focusing on essays and literary critiques. The thought of writing fiction was far from her mind.

Yet once she was through with college - in a job that left timeon her hands - she found herself writing another novel. “Again, I was obsessed,” she said. She finished it at home after her son was born.

That Christmas, her mother sent her a box of childhood memorabilia.

Underneath the soccer trophies and stuffed animals was a brightly colored notebook stuffed with paper and a fl oppy disc.

“Oh, please let this be my book,” she remembers thinking. It was.

“That reignited in me that desire to be published, to write,” she said.

But when she reread the fi nal version of her story, Heiner wasn’t so sure. “I started to laugh at myself. I was embarrassed that I had sent that to publishers.”

Her determination led her onward. She revised it again - and again - and again. It was rejected each time.

A critique from an online writing group gave her the breakthrough she’d been looking for.

She realized she had to ramp up the tension, drawing readers into the plot in the first few chapters, Heiner said. She decided to murder one of the teenage friends.

“It was sad, to kill her off ,” Heiner said. But it worked. WiDo, a small press in Salt Lake City, bought the book.

They asked Heiner to make significant changes, which was diftcult, she said. The story she’d written reflected her Christian faith.

Her characters turned to the Lord for strength through their ordeals, she said. The original title was “Walk Beside Me.”

The publishers asked Heiner to remove the religious aspect and focus solely on the suspense. They minimized character development in favor of action and dialogue. They wanted to take romance from the story, but Heiner convinced them not to do so, she said.

“If it’s just three girls, over and over again, what more can happen?” she asked. By introducing boyfriends, she gave her female characters a chance to change.

The publishers gave her more latitude with “Altercation,” Heiner said. The sequel contains more of the character development she prefers. Most people seem to like it more, although several adult men have said they prefer the hard-edged action of “Perilous,” she said.

They’re not her target audience, so that’s OK, she said.

DETERMINED TO WRITE

Heiner has written eight books for the young adult market, in genres ranging from science fi ction and fantasy to nonfi ction. She’s working on getting them published.

She might venture into selfpublishing with one, she said,but she’s holding out for a major publishing house with the others.

“My goal is to reach the best-seller lists,” she said. The people who know her said that just might happen.

“If she sets her mind on it, (she does it),” said her husband, Mark Heiner. “I’ve seen her struggle, but she keeps on going. When she decides she wants to do something, that’s what she does.”

Heiner’s mother, Linda Hart, said her daughter has always been an entrepreneur. As a child, she trapped insects in a box and charged the neighbors to view them. After reading “The Baby-sitters Club,” she recruited several friends and started her own service.

“Once Tamara gets her mind to something, there’s no stopping her,” Hart said. “If she can imagine it, or if she can dream it, she can do it.”

Heiner continues to write every day, carving out time inher busy schedule. She cares for her three young children, 6, 4 and nearly 2, and works at Hook Line and BBQ in Bella Vista several nights a week.

The children take a halfhour of quiet time each day, Heiner said. That’s her time to write. She turns off the Internet and phone so she won’t get distracted.

“As long as I get my writing in, it sustains me,” she said. “Then I have the energy to do the other things I have to do.”

It takes her about three months to write a new book, Heiner said. She pushes through the fi rst draft, not rereading what she’s done until she’s fi nished.

Heiner is equally energetic about marketing her books. She’s doing a tour of Harps Food Stores, setting up a table and signing books. She also speaks at area schools, sharing her journey to publication and the many revisions along the way.

Students respond to her interactive presentation, said Jennifer Daniel, an English and reading teacher at Elmwood Middle School in Rogers. Heiner spoke at the school in February, leading students through a set of exercises to plot their own stories.

“They loved her,” Daniel said. “She got them engaged and got them thinking about a story they might want to write.”