Is the Right Writer Writing?

(This post was originally published on the blog Live to Write, Write to Live.)

I tell people it took me between two and fifty years to write my first book, Her Sister's Shadow. The manuscript itself took two years, but I’d been gathering stories and getting to know my characters (the book was inspired by my mother and her sisters) for most of my life. What might it take to drive sisters apart, I mused, as I listened for years my mother talk about her childhood on the South Shore of Boston, in a weather-shingled house overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. And what might it take to bring them back together? Her Sister’s Shadow was published in 2011.

Then it was time to write another manuscript. What, I wondered, as I sat, fingers tensed, staring at a blank computer screen, could I write about? “You’ve used up every one of your good stories,” I heard myself say. “You’ve exploited every single foible a character could possibly possess and exhausted every topic of interest to anyone. (And all the good lines, too.) And, by the way, you don’t have another fifty years to come up with more.”

                         

My fingers began to cramp; the page remained blank. “It was all a big mistake, that first novel. Eventually someone will figure that out. Not a chance you can write another one.”                                                                                          

Who Asked You, Anyway?

This wasn’t writer’s b--ck (that which must not be named). It was that the wrong writer was trying to write the first draft. Every author needs an internal editor. This persona is as important to subsequent drafts as a copy editor is to the final one. Just don’t let her “help” with the first draft. They say that writing is revising. But first you’ve got to get something down on paper. It’s a bitch to revise a blank page.

Have Fun for Heaven’s Sake

For the first draft, you need to employ your generative side. Invite your kid-self to climb up on your lap and bang away at the keys. Give her plain white paper and colored markers and watch her mind-map her way to a plot. Supply her with colored index cards and see how quickly scenes present themselves. (Pink for romance, green for adventure, blue for drama. Why not?)

                 

Strew your desktop and office with toys, open the windows and listen to birds, take her for a walk down a city street or out into nature (maybe in the rain, why not!) and see what she sees, take her out for ice cream or to a movie, and listen to what she hears. Let her mind roam free. Start transcribing.

Later you will be grateful when that voice says, “That “fabulous” metaphor that you forced into a sentence on page 212, and then shaped into that really awkward scene? Take it out. It doesn’t work. Yes, the whole thing. Out. It. Doesn’t. Work. (Any more than Aunt Betty’s old armoire belongs in the dining room, where it’s blocking half of one window, by the way. Get rid of that, too, while you’re at it.”)

But for now, ignore her. Instead, sail blissfully through your first draft, your mind as open as a summer day. Be a kid, have fun. There’ll be plenty of time to grow up later.

Katharine Britton’s second novel, Little Island, came out in 2013. She is having fun with her third. Visit her website www.katharinebritton.com

Literary Influences

I was asked recently what books influenced me in writing Little Island. It was a tough question to answer, in that every book I’ve ever read, beginning with Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, has influenced me as a writer in some way. That said, my greatest influence for Little Island was not a book at all, but a weekend spent in Maine...

Next door, in a rented cottage, an extended family began to gather. My husband and I had a second floor unit with a balcony, which gave me an ideal vantage point from which to observe my neighbors’ comings and goings. (Writers are notoriously nosy.) I watched family members arrive, greet one another with great enthusiasm, and then cluster on their front and back lawns and on the rocks below the cottage. As darkness fell, the men migrated onto the deck and the women into the kitchen.

The next morning, more cars arrived; by midday the driveway was empty. Later, towels had appeared on the deck to dry, and croquet wickets had sprung up on the front lawn. At dinner that night, in an adjoining dining room, our neighbors, about fifteen strong, loudly celebrated an elderly relative’s birthday or anniversary: the presumptive reason for their gathering.

Their ebb and flow reminded me of our family, which gathers annually for a reunion. We greet one another, ask the requisite questions about jobs, houses, children, and then move on to more substantive conversations, few of which are ever completed satisfactorily. The weekends comprise a series of truncated interactions over meals, games, and cups of coffee all of which leave me exhausted, but wishing we had more time. I love these fractured, somewhat chaotic gatherings, and decided to replicate one in Little Island: it would be a story about a close-knit family that gathers for a weekend on an island in Maine.

It turns out that close-knit families do not make for interesting plots. So, I gave each member of the Little family, as he or she arrives on Little Island, far more “baggage” the suitcases they tote across the threshold. Their issues become subplots that contribute to the central plot (as happens in life). Although I selected one character, Joy, to carry the through-line, I thought it important to present each family member’s story and perspective, and so wrote it from multiple points of view. I could claim Barbara Kingsolver’s masterful, The Poisonwood Bible as an influence for this style. Did I re-read it while writing Little Island? No. I didn't even think of it until I had to write a piece for someone about literary influences on my book. When I Googled "novels multiple points of view," there it was. It is one of my favorites, though, so I have no problem giving Kingsolver credit.

It seemed logical to organize my book into three sections. “Gathering:” as each character prepares for this weekend en famille, and we see what each character is “packing” for the weekend; “Gathered,” once the family is all on the island; and “Gone,” after one character reveals a secret that fractures the rather delicate connections holding the Little family together, and each heads off in a different direction. I suppose I could credit two other favorite books, Julia Glass’s Three Junes and E.M. Forester’s A Passage to India, both organized in three sections, as having influenced my decision to do this. But I don't know… I feel like I'm reaching here.

One definite literary influence for the structure of Little Island was The Art of Racing in the Rain, by Garth Fagin. He presents his emotional story in very short chapters, which I thought would work well as a device to simulate the disjointed nature of a family gathering.

In terms of content for my book, Sue Miller’s extraordinary Family Pictures might have been an early influence. Miller’s book about how a single act (in Miller’s case, the birth of an autistic child) can disrupt a family is a theme I explored in both Her Sister’s Shadow and in Little Island. Families are systems, and what we know from Systems Theory is that a disruption anywhere affects the whole. But I was also in organization development for years and took lots of counseling classes, so who's to say those didn't influence me just as much as Miller's book? (Also, I grew up in a fairly dysfunctional family.)

For inspiration about the setting, I did pour over several beloved books about Maine: Here on the Island, text and photography by Charles Pratt; Exploring the Maine Coast, by Alan Nyiri; Our Point of View: Fourteen Years at a Maine Lighthouse, by Thomas and Lee Ann Szelog; and The Penninsula, by Louise Dickinson Rich. Then again, I've spent part of every summer of my life on the Maine coast.

Writers are readers and tend to be an impressionable bunch. We work hard to find our own voices and those of  their characters and therefore, I know many authors, myself included, who won't read fiction while working on a manuscript because we don't want to be derivative, don't want to be influenced by another author or book. I guess it's a fair question to ask an author, but it not an easy one to answer.

Waiting in Vermont

Writers do a lot of this. We wait for inspiration for stories and for characters' names. We wait for the perfect word, for word from the readers of our early drafts, from agents, editors, publicists, and events coordinators. We wait for cover art, galleys, and books, for reviews and profiles, for invitations from book clubs and from talk show hosts. We can wait a very long time for those.

And while we wait, we pretend we're not waiting and plant lettuce, and then we wait for the sun to come out, and then for the rain, and then again for the sun, so we can walk our dog, while we wait, impatiently, for the seeds to poke up through the soil. 

We wait for the dog to do her "business" and for other dogs to show up to play.

We wait for teaching jobs and freelance assignments and for the coffee to brew.

We wait for emails, phone calls, contracts, and for the contractor to start renovating our bathroom, so we can pretend we're busy and not waiting for emails and phone calls and inspiration.

And then, while our backs are turned, the lettuce seeds turn into pale green rows.

We watch our perennials broaden and wait for them to bloom, wishing each blossom would wait just a little longer before it died. We wait for the Farmer's Market to open. We wait, uneasily, for the season's first black flies.

We wait for local strawberries, tomatoes, basil, raspberries, blueberries, and corn. We harvest our lettuce while we wait, wishing that word from others and inspiration were as easy to come by.

A Day at the Beach

"She has cataracts, you know." This from my vet after peering into my fourteen-year-old dog's eyes. I knew her eyes had become cloudy recently, but no one had diagnosed cataracts. She's also deaf, arthritic, and has numerous cancerous lumps that I keep having removed and that keep growing back.

Last week Maggie and I made our semi-annual pilgrimage to Ogunquit, Maine to walk the wide beach there. We've been doing this for fourteen years. There was a time when Maggie could go with me the entire length of the beach and back, some 1.5 hrs with stops and detours down to the water's edge and up to the cottages lining the beach, and then walk with me along the Marginal Way to Perkins Cove and back, another hour, with stops.

Not so any more. I wasn't sure she could walk, really, any distance on the beach, but thought she deserved to get back to see and smell it one more time. I'd already decided not to attempt the Marginal Way. Maggie rose to the occasion, seeming to sense my fear that this trip might be our last. She frolicked a bit, chased a seagull, waded into the surf, lounged in a tidal pool, sniffed at clam shells and seaweed, and then we shared a nice picnic on the rocks.

I hate this "getting old" thing. The immediate response to that is always, "It's better than the alternative." I'm not so sure. My mother-in-law had Alzheimer's and we watched her slowly disappear before our eyes, each day becoming a little less the person she once was. No one should die well before their time, but must we die in such a protracted way either?

My wish for Maggie is both that she live forever and that she live not one minute longer than she is comfortable and happy. I hope that she will find a way to tell me when that time arrives, or that the need for me to take action will be taken out of my hands. Today, she ate with enthusiasm and enjoyed a short walk: happy, although perhaps not comfortable. Who knows, we might just be heading back to Ogunquit next March for another day at the beach.

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Attachments

I've spent this summer marketing my new novel, Her Sister's Shadow, doing readings and signings at various venues around New England. (Actually, the driving to the various venues has consumed much more of my summer than the readings themselves.)

For years I've listened eagerly to my favorite authors read and discuss their work in independent bookstores and town halls. This summer it was finally my turn to read. Armed with an annotated copy of my book: what to say before I read, what to read, and what to say about what I've just read; a page of "For Katy" stickers (my publisher left the dedication off my book, so I apply one of these stickers to each book I sign); the clothes I'll wear, encased in plastic to prevent wrinkling; a granola bar in case I can't find a restaurant or don't have time to eat; and my poster.

My publisher sent me a poster to take with me to readings. It was a large (about 2'x3') gorgeous and glossy rendering of my beautiful book cover.  It came surrounded by bubble-wrap and embraced by a sturdy cardboard box. I carried it proudly into bookstores before my readings--usually very shortly before my readings--and the bookstore owners (somewhat surprised to see an author come in clutching a poster) would put it in the window, or near the book display, and then return it to me after the reading, neatly re-wrapped and entombed.

One week I had a reading some distance away, and a friend offered to deliver it to the bookstore a few days before the reading. This could only be a good thing, I thought, and dropped it off at her house. One thing led to another: that friend deputized another friend to make the actual delivery, the instructions got garbled, and the bookstore recycled my poster's packaging, assuming that I had given the poster to them. Given them my beloved poster! What were they thinking?

After the reading, I tucked the naked poster under my arm and headed home.

The next bookstore I visited kindly fabricated another case for my poster, using brown boxboard and masking tape. I was very grateful, as I'd planned to mail the poster to the next bookstore on my route, so they'd have it a full week before my reading. I left it in my back hall so I would remember to take it to the Post Office.

Perhaps some of you noticed the past tense in the second paragraph? On Saturday of that week, my diligent husband, whose purview in our household includes solid waste management, took my lovely poster, in its new housing, to the dump. To be fair, it did look like collapsed cardboard intended for the recycling bin.

No one but me misses that poster. In truth, very few probably saw it, but I'd become very attached, and grieved its loss. The poster represented success: it was so shiny and bright and full of promise. It was bigger than life. It was, in short, what marketing is all about. Now I must rely on myself to create that shiny, bright, bigger-than-life aura for my book without visual aids. I have to do it, I suppose, with language.

Transitions and Transformations

Today I am thinking about transformation as all around me the Vermont landscape moves from brown to green-gold to emerald. The goldfinches at my feeder are now bright yellow. (Can one use the adjective "canary" to describe the color of a goldfinch?) Just a week ago they were dun colored. Transformation suggests complete alteration, rather than simple rearranging or updating. Winter into spring is a transformation. Spring into summer is a transition. When someone updates our computer system or rearranges the products on the shelves at our grocery store, we experience a transition. When the caterpillar unfurls itself into a butterfly, we experience a transformation. I have a sense of awe and wonder as I watch my surroundings become transformed, as though an unseen hand is at work.

Old Mills, Balance, and Ingenuity

Below my house is a stream. On this stream once stood a mill. What remains, some 100 years later, are the fieldstone walls, lichen-covered and serving as lairs for squirrels and chipmunks. The magnititude of this project inspires me, as I think about the individuals who collected each of these stones from the adjacent field, transported them by hand, or by wagon, to this site, and then stacked them. There is no mortar, just good Yankee ingenuity. 

The mill foundation inspires me also because of what it represents. A time when people harnessed what nature provided to produce the power they needed. Their needs were much lower than ours are now, and the whole system seemed more in balance. They lived within their means to support themselves. 

Would I be willing to go back to cutting ice from a pond and storing in an ice house all summer for my refrigeration? Probably not. Could I give up my dryer? Yes. My electric oven? Rather not. I've reduced my consumption of electricity significantly, but I could do more. Even so, I am dependent on someone else to supply me the juice. 

When I sit by the stream and look at those stacked stones, which once held a wheel, which spun when the stream flowed, I think about the time when people both took initiative and accepted responsibility. Initiative without responsibility results in anarchy. Responsibility without initiative results in stagnation. We seem to have a bit of both today. 

Some believe we depend too much on our government, and yet, we have proven time-and-again that we need external controls, or at least guidelines. Just look at our recent financial crisis. Others believe that our government should (and will) provide a solution for every problem that arises. That is simply unrealistic. What we need are balance and ingenuity. The kind of balance and ingenuity that allows fieldstone foundations to remain solid for over a hundred years.

Buyer's Remorse

Buyer's remorse, according to the website, definitions.uslegal.com, is "an emotional response on the part of a buyer in a sales transaction, which may involve feelings of regret, fear, depression or anxiety. The word "remorse" derives from the word "mordere," to bite, sting, or attack, and suggests deep regret or repentence for a sin committed. Last week, I bought a new computer. Immediately, I began to suffer buyer's remorse. It's a familiar feeling for me. I tend to over-think problems, and then second-guess my decisions.

It wasn't the money. It was the notion of venturing into unfamiliar territory. Alone. I've been using a PC, and I bought a Mac. I didn't buy it at an Apple store, perhaps sales personnel are more helpful there. Or, maybe because Mac offers Applecare, sales staff are instructed not to give much advice. I signed the receipt, the guy handed me my new computer and sent me on my way. Now what?

Regret, fear, depression, and anxiety, that's what. What was I thinking, changing operating systems at my age? Technology terrifies me. Far from wanting the latest, newest, most complicated device, I want known, familiar, simple, tried-and-true. Remorse settled like fog. Remorse whirred distantly, like a sound I couldn't quite identify coming from a direction I couldn't quite place.

But, wait. What if, instead of simply staring at the box in fear, bitterly regretting my decision, berating myself for this impulse purchase, and allowing remorse to slowly drive me insane, I were to take the computer out of its box and turn it on? What if I were to navigate to the support page and actually read the instructions? What if I were to start... playing around?

Well, then I would have to release my feelings of remorse, as familiar to me as my old computer, and replace them with what? Feelings of excitement, accomplishment, and even a little giddiness. Seems like a reasonable exchange.