Shiloh Blog

love how it made me feel

Comment:

I read your book Shiloh, and I loved it! Thank you so much for publishing this book!! I loved how it made me feel!

Phyllis replied:

I’m happy to hear that it affected you that way.

 

Shiloh

Comment:

My question is if you were in the book and/or movie, what would your name be and what would you do and be like?

Phyllis replied:

Marty’s mom, of course.

The Shiloh movie

Comment:

if you were the editor of the movie would you make any changes.

Phyllis replied:

Yes.  I would try to find a four-room house for Marty’s family, and put him on the couch at night, not a bedroom with football decorations.  I think I would have the father a bit more gentle–more tired than authoritarian.  But it was great being on the set for some of the scenes.  Shiloh was played by two different beagle actors who traveled by plane to the set and were taught their parts.  When one got tired, the other took over.  While all the other actors loved talking and playing with those two beagles when they were between scenes, the actor who played Judd was not allowed near them.  He could not pet them or get friendly in any way.  The producers did not want any scene to show Shiloh wagging his tail when Judd approaches….

The Attack on Shiloh

Comment:

Why did Shiloh have to get attacked by the german shepard? the story Shiloh really touched my heart.

 

Phyllis replied:

Would the story have touched your heart so strongly if Shiloh had not been attacked?  Difficult as it was to write, it was important to show that even as Marty was doing what he thought was best for Shiloh–keeping him penned up so that Judd wouldn’t find him–he was unknowingly making it impossible for Shiloh to get away from an attacking dog.  There are many times in the book that Marty has to think for himself and make decisions.  Some are good, some not so good.  And no matter how you decide something, there are consequences, one way or another.  The book is about decision making…thinking things through when there is no clear answer what is “right” or what is “wrong.”  The theme is continued in the three Shiloh books that follow.

Setting for the Shiloh movie

Comment:

how did you get a setting so similar from the book into the movie? Also we love the book.

Phyllis replied:

I didn’t have any part in where the movie was filmed.  It was actually filmed in a canyon in California where many movies are made.   The producers carefully read the book and tried to find an area that looked very much like the one in the book.  What they didn’t get quite right, and they admit this, is that the house in the movie (which was there in the canyon and is used for multiple movies) was not at all like the little four-room house Marty and his family lived in.  Marty’s bedroom in the movie was too fancy; in the book, he slept on the couch.  In the final Shiloh book, “A Shiloh Christmas,” he wants very much to have a room of his own….

Shiloh

comment:  What was your favorite part of book one?

Phyllis replied:

Marty continuing to work after Judd said it wouldn’t matter.

shiloh

Comment:  What was the hardest part about writing Shiloh?

Phyllis replied:

Making myself stop and do the laundry or make dinner and do all the other things that needed doing, when all I wanted to do was write.

If you will make another shiloh book?

Comment:

We would like to know if you could make a new book called Judd is fighting to steal back Shiloh.

 

Phyllis replied:

No.

Judd’s Dog

Comment:

Paige and I’m almost done reading A Shiloh Christmas. I was wandering if there was a certain reason you chose Judd to name his white dog Norman?

 

Phyllis replied:

Judd tells you why:  it’s his middle name.  It could have been anything.  What’s important here is that it shows Judd really bonding with his dog, giving it part of himself–his name.

I have a question about the first shiloh book.

Comment:

Even though you are the author i want to ask and see what your favorite scene was and least favorite scene about the first shiloh story.

 

Phyllis replied:

My favorite scene is when Marty keeps his word by continuing to work, even though Judd says he won’t get Shiloh, as he’d promised.  My least favorite scenes to write are the connections between two major scenes…when I have to move time along, but am not writing anything especially important.