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

Fun Family Gatherings

Planning a family reunion this summer? Whether your group convenes at someone’s home, at a campsite in the Adirondacks or a dude ranch in Montana, a little planning will help ensure that far-flung friends and family member meet and greet, talk during the event, and remember the visit fondly long after it ends. 

Why leave food preparation to just a few? 
Divide the adults (and kids, too, depending on ages) into mixed, non-family groups and assign them each a meal, which they are responsible to plan, cook, serve, and clean up. This eases the workload and gives people a chance to mingle.

Rent a pizza oven for one meal, and have everyone make their own. Give prizes for tastiest, most creative, most unusual… (Try Fairy-ring Mushroom, Prosciutto, and Leek from Little Island.http://www.girlichef.com/2014/06/mush... )

Bake cupcakes and set out frosting, sprinkles, candies… and have people decorate their own. 

During meals it can help to have a few prompts to kick start conversation: 
Have everyone come up with two true statements about themselves and one falsehood. Guess which one is the lie. 

Ask people to get out one item from their wallet or purse and tell something about themselves based on it. 

Periodically ring a chime and have everyone answer one of the following: 
1. What was/is your dream job and why?
2. Which celebrity/famous person would you like to invite for dinner and why?
3. What is your dream vacation destination and why?
4. What is/was your favorite subject in school? Why?
5. If you were an animal, which animal would you be and why?
6. What is your favorite food / movie/ book / sport…?
7. What is the most important item you pack in your suitcase?
8. Name one modern convenience you couldn’t live without.

Some structured activities between meals will get people laughing and talking, rather than gazing at their tablets and smartphones.
Give everyone a sheet of paper and have them write down one or two things about themselves that others aren’t likely to know (and that they don’t mind others knowing, i.e., not that upcoming elective surgery.) Then have them fold the paper into an airplane. (Be forewarned, some folks will spend a long time on this.) Line up and launch the planes. Allow several tries and some time to refine designs. After the final flight, everyone retrieves someone else’s plane from those scattered about the lawn and tries to match the plane with the owner by what’s written inside. (You can award a prize for the plane that flies the farthest, most creative flight pattern, best design…) 

Organize games of sardines (a variation on hide and seek: when you find the person hiding, you hide with them); blob tag (each person who gets tagged attaches themselves to the person who’s “it,” and runs with them to tag the others). 
Plan a scavenger hunt.

Crafts are a great way to bring people together. 
Give everyone a sheet of paper, and ask them to make their coat of arms. Post these somewhere prominent. 

Have people paint t-shirts or faces. 

Ask each family to make a page for a family scrapbook. (Alert folks to bring photographs and items with them.) If you don’t have the materials for a scrapbook, make a photo exhibit.

If you have computer access, get people to post photos and entries into a family blog or Facebook page.

Other forms of entertainment:
Put together a family band and give a performance one evening. Have some noisemakers, drums, spoons… available for those with less skill and training, but who’d like to join the fun. 

Announce a book club. Have everyone read the book in advance (maybe Little Island; it’s about a family gathering, after all), and then discuss it in a fun setting like hiking up a mountain, or floating on rafts.

Make a video of the event.

Use Skype video to call those who couldn’t be there so they feel included.

Downtime
Remember that absence makes the heart grow fonder and allow some solo time for walks, naps, and reading.

Turning Words into Conversations

All my life I’ve enjoyed stringing words together and watching what appears on the page. While, initially, the writing process is solitary, at some point you bring in readers. Some authors do this early on: members of their writing groups read ten to fifteen pages every few weeks throughout the gestation period. Others, like me, wait until the whole manuscript is finished before handing it off to a few trusted readers. We then wait, anxiously, for their feedback. It’s not unlike sending your child off to school for the first time. Will others like her? Will he behave? Is she as delightful and precocious as I think? (Yes, yes, and no.)

You ask for feedback and, guess what? Your readers give it. Thus begins the first of many conversations you, the author, will have about your manuscript. A manuscript that is no longer entirely yours once you open the door and invite others in. “I liked this part.” “I found this part (the same part) kind of boring.” “Loved the protagonist.” “I just couldn’t relate to the protagonist.”

And so you turn to the solitary task of revising, but the writing feels different now because others have read your words and been moved by them (for better or worse). A conversation that you previously had just with yourself now has other people listening in.

Then you send the manuscript to your agent (or an agent, or many agents) and the conversation grows. The agent sends it to an editor. The conversation grows even more. That editor buys the manuscript, and the conversation grows again, and now it’s no longer just about the story. It’s about marketing and cover art and blurbs and reviews and marketing.

Soon publicists become involved and managing editors and copy editors. And the marketing department is still weighing in via your editor. And then you’re talking to booksellers and bloggers and media people. Once the book is published you again hear from readers. These are not all family and friends (although some, maybe a lot, will be). They won’t all like your book. But, if you’re hearing from them, through email or reviews or in person, they were moved by your words and are now part of the conversation.

A whole little industry evolves around your manuscript. A manuscript that started with you, alone at your desk, coming up with an idea, writing down that first word, and then the 80,000 or so that followed.

Writing is a kind of alchemy. Authors assemble letters into words, words into sentences, sentences into paragraphs… And, in doing so, create emotion and conversation. What an amazing process that I’m blessed to be part of.

With that, I hope you’ll leave a comment about this post, or books that moved you to contact an author or write a review, or any other topic that seems relevant.

Why Crows Don't Make Good Pets

Alternately winging and stalking around our local wildlife rehabilitation office, investigating the philodendron leaves, the computer keyboard, the top of the bookcase, a stray piece of paper, an electrical cord, a bit of red pepper… is a juvenile Corvus brachyrhynchos, American crow. Last spring, a nearby resident found this bird, then a nestling that had apparently fallen from its nest, and brought him to his house. The man and his family fed the crow (no small task as nestlings must eat every half hour) and provided shelter and affection. The crow survived and, in the process, became thoroughly imprinted on humans. Being a crow and more curious than was good for him, he somehow injured his beak, and the man brought him to the wildlife rehabilitation center.

The website, http://www.birds.cornell.edu/crows/babycrow.htm warns that, while baby crows might seem to make appealing pets (being exceedingly curious, crows can be quite entertaining) it’s important to remember that, because they’re wild animals, keeping them as pets is illegal. It is also a lot of work. Crows are extremely social and will demand constant interaction. Constant. This crow spends part of every day in the wildlife office, where he flies from bookcase to file cabinet, hops from chair to shoulder (and, keep in mind, crows cannot be diapered) splashes in the pan of water staff members have provided for him, and strews his food, including “pinks:” hairless, control mice donated to the wildlife rehab department by labs. There’s one reclining on the chair beside me now, and another submerged in the water basin. Having a crow around is not unlike having a toddler under foot, albeit one with very odd eating habits.

The crow has just stolen a staff member’s pencil from her desk and now struts off with it. She trades the pencil for a pea pod so she can get back to work. The crow accepts the exchange, and then tosses the pod on the floor. The staff member returns it to him. He drops it again. She, wisely, leaves it there. Within seconds, the crow has hopped down from the back of her chair, vigorously disemboweled the pea pod, removed the peas, and scattered them across the floor.

Now bored, he stalks around the office, holding the peapod with one foot, occasionally tearing at it with his beak, which is very sharp. I know this, because he has communicated his displeasure at my insistence that he not peck at my keyboard by pecking at my hand. The crow, like most toddlers, does not like the word, “no.”

The rehab staff is now this young crow’s “murder” (crow flock). They play catch with him using a balled up bit of paper towel, bring him “toys” to keep him stimulated: a feather, an empty gum package, dog toys, a chicken foot dangling on a string... He’s especially taken with computers, however, and pecks relentless at the towels covering the office computer and printer. He eyes mine greedily as he parades around the office now holding a peanut in his beak. Crows in captivity require special care and lots of patience.

What should you do if you find a baby crow on the ground?

 If the young bird has almost no feathers and cannot perch by itself, i.e., a nestling, or you are certain that the bird has been injured, call a local wildlife expert. If the bird is partially or fully feathered and can perch by itself, it’s probably a fledgling. Leave it alone. The parents may well be nearby, watching. Watch to be sure the bird isn’t injured or in danger. If you have a pet with you, restrain it. If necessary, move the bird to a high, well-protected branch for safety. To avoid imprinting, try not to let the young crow see your face. (At our rehabilitation center, staff members don feathered masks whenever they feed any of the young raptors.)

Once imprinted on people, crows are unafraid of them and cannot be trusted in public areas, such as neighborhoods or schools, where uninitiated humans (especially Hitchcock fans) are likely to misinterpret a crow landing on their shoulder and giving them a few friendly pecks on the neck. Nor can imprinted crows ever be returned successfully to the wild. Not realizing that they’re birds, they’re vulnerable to attacks from other crows and raptors. The Cornell website reports that crow ownership generally ends in one of two ways: “1) The crows start leaving for a day or so at a time (usually in the fall), and then are never seen again, or 2) some neighbor… kills them when they are too friendly/aggressive.”

There’s good reason for the law that prohibits individuals from capturing and keeping wild animals. As adapted to captivity as this crow, now gazing out the office window may be, he would have been better off left wild.

When Writing is Like Gardening

Each spring in Vermont I shuttle from garden center to garden center, buying plants to fill what appear to be holes in my garden. I fill pots and window boxes with Moo-Do and pile in as much color as possible. (Impatiens do the trick with, really, very little effort on my part.) Gerananium, angelonia, lavender... go into pots. Lettuce, basil, and bean seeds land, inexpertly, in four, 3X3 foot raised beds. Cherry tomatoes live in large pots on the patio. I water, fertilize, and anticipate. 

For weeks, it seems, not much happens. Then I forget to check on things for a few days and when I go back, those holes in the garden turn out to have been the spaces the plants needed when they grew to full size. Lilies now overshadow iris, echinacea fight for space and light, the phlox has marched right over the sedum, and monarda has insinuated itself everywhere. Out in the vegetable patch, the basil has gone to seed, and the deer ate half the lettuce. Okay, so maybe my absence was slightly longer than a few days, but still. 

Novels, if you leave them alone for too long, will also run amok. When life first calls me away from a new manuscript I'm working on, I experience acute separation anxiety. I long for those relationships I've come to rely on and the characters who've kept me company for months. Plots often unfold as I go along, so writing a novel engenders almost as much eager anticipation as reading one. What will he say the next time they meet? When will she discover the girl's true identity? It's like a thirst for knowledge. 

By day three, my anxiety becomes nostalgia for friends fondly remembered. By day ten I have trouble recalling characters' names. By day fouteen I am afraid to go back. Much as I am when I haven't visited my garden in two weeks. (See note above.)

My initial reaction when faced with my garden in mid-July, after a two-week hiatus, if the weather has been (as it was this summer) very wet is panic. "This garden looks terrible!" I say to anyone who'll listen. "What was I thinking planting all those lilies?" Those lilies looked so petite and perky in June! They now bristle with unadorned stems, their foliage sags, spent blossoms litter the ground. "Off with their heads!" I want to start pulling plants immediately, despite the fact that it is 90 degrees and digging them up will, truly, leave some holes in my garden.

Gardening is a process. So is writing. It is a love of the process-as much as, or more than-the outcome, that gardeners and writers must learn to cultivate. There are days, even weeks, when my garden looks great. And days and weeks when it doesn't. The same is true with a new manuscript-or even one well into a fourth or fifth draft. Moderation is the key. Putting in too much material, too early, tempting as it is, isn't good in either medium. Impulsivity rarely pays off: whacking out huge sections of a book or garden now often leads to regret later. Better to pull weeds, edge, take notes, contemplate, watch, wait. Just don't leave it alone for too long.

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.