Diary

I gave a talk at the La Jolla Writer’s Conference this weekend on one of my favorite subjects, “Writing Scared.” In it I talk about how scary writing is even to those of us who do it all the time and are successful at it, at least to the extent that publication is an indicator.
At some point in the talk, I made a point I often made to my community college classes when I still taught research writing. We generally think in terms of things we want to do, but I think sometimes it works better to cast goals as things we want to have done.

“I want to get a college degree,” someone says, when the more accurate statement might be “I want to have gotten a college degree.” Likewise for many things. How many people want to work out, for example? Don’t most want to move on with their day having finished a workout? Don’t we want a clean house more than we want to clean it? To have a weeded garden more than to weed it? My students wanted to have written their first ten-page research paper far more than they actually wanted to write it. I heard thousands of testimonials to that effect over the years!

This seems like a simple enough point, except I suspect that the people who finish things may be those who have the best ability to remember how good satisfaction feels. Let’s face it–when we are working toward a substantial goal we spend the vast majority of our time in what I once named the “middle muddle,” where the tasks seem endless and the finished product far too distant to offer much light. Keeping going is really an act of faith mixed with a huge amount of imagination.

Can you remember how good it feels to stand up, covered with dirt, or sweat (or their equivalents when the task has been one of the mind) and look at what you have accomplished? Doesn’t the down-and-dirty of it just not matter anymore? Life is so good in those moments. and we can have them only if we’ve done the rest without faintheartedness. “I want to have written a diary entry,” I told myself this morning, and now I have!

I dedicated my newly released novel Penelope’s Daughter to “all the children left behind when fathers and mothers go off to war.” While I was writing the book,I spent a lot of time thinking about the impact of Odysseus’ absence not just on my main character, Xanthe, but on her older brother, Telemachus.

Of the two, I think Telemachus had it the worst.  In those days, gender roles were clearly defined, and most of the schooling a child got was from the parent of the same sex.  Xanthe has Penelope to teach her how to weave, how to worship the gods, and how to be gracious; and she has her surrogate mother, Helen, to teach her how to fulfill herself as a woman.

What does Telemachus have?  He has no real peers. A few men remain on Ithaca who were too old or infirm to go to Troy, and otherwise he is surrounded by a group of young men, perhaps ten to twelve years older than he is.  These young men were too young to go to war, but became adults in the two decades Odysseus is gone.

The young men grew up much as Telemachus did, without strong role models to help shape them into strong, productive, appropriately behaving adults. Anyone who could have done that sailed off with Odysseus. A kingdom whose males are almost all young boys and old men does not bode well for the future, and indeed what happens is that the young men grow up to be either  the bullies or the bullied.

The dedication of the book came about because as I wrote, my country was at war. I thought about how important parents are as teachers, and how every deployment takes that away from a child.  From the time I made the decision to dedicate Penelope’s Daughter in that fashion, I knew I needed to put something behind it so it wouldn’t just be a glib little nicety that meant nothing.

I decided to create a blog called Xanthe’s World, and dedicate it to all the children left behind by our current wars. I have posted every day since August. I don’t know how many people are aware that only 2 percent of American families are directly impacted by this war.  I am in the other 98 percent, as are most of the viewers of this website. I hope you will take the time to check out Xanthe’s World, and mark it as a favorite, so you can explore the world of  military children with me.

I’ve been off in medieval Spain for a few weeks now, and I am just now coming back t o 2010.

It’s not very often that an author finishes writing a novel, and I am just about there.

I finished the first draft some time back and took a break to work on other things for a while. Completing a first draft is a huge milestone, but really, putting the first major revision in order is in many ways a bigger one.

THE SHAPE OF THE WORLD is now “done” to my satisfaction, or at least it will be in a day or two.That’s not to say I won’t revise it again and again.  I am in the middle of a sabbatical where I am studying in depth the history of fifteenth-century Iberia, where the novel is set, and as I learn new things, I will figure out ways to work them into the book.

But that’s the glaze on the roast, the frosting on the cake, the nuts on the sundae, or whatever analogy you prefer. Early next week, my agent will get my novel and soon it will go out to editors at the major publishing houses. It is either going to grab them or not, and revising further will not make the difference between sale or no sale.

I think one of the best things experience teaches us is when to know that something is good enough.  Another thing it teaches us is to decide which “good enough” things are really finished and which are not.  This is not like windows that are almost streakless in bright sunlight, or pot bottoms that are almost free of black, or pasta that is one minute off from perfectly al dente.   Good enough is good enough on those, although I suppose some might beg to differ about the pasta!

The kind of “good enough” that this novel is right now is the “best I can make it, but not as good as I want it to be” type.  I won’t be able to keep my hands off the manuscript for long because it will never be 100 percent as good as I can make it. PENELOPE’S DAUGHTER came out less than two weeks ago, and what I wouldn’t give for one more chance to edit!

Still, it’s time to breathe, time to let it go and let other things fill my days with curiosity, joy, awe, and meaning.  I am a writer, and this is what we do.  We grow the flower and then hope its pollen comes to rest somewhere.

It’s fun to get dressed up and go off and be “the author” at the various events I get invited to, but I do have to laugh at the rather glamorous view a lot of people have about  a published author’s life.

Most don’t ask how much money authors make, though I suspect some are dying to. When I explain how little the royalty is on an original paperback, after the agent fee and taxes are taken out, they are always disappointed, because it’s easy to see you have to sell a lot of books to make a eye-popping or even a quit-the-day-job amount of money.  “By the hour, you’re far better off babysitting,”I tell people who really want to know, but of course it isn’t only about money, and I know that. People hold authors in great esteem, and that doesn’t vary that much, I imagine, by the size of the royalty statement.

I’m not sure what people picture when they imagine writers at work (maybe something inspirational, like the image here?) but my guess is it has a least a touch of class. I can speak for myself at least, and say that if I look halfway decent at the keyboard it’s because I’ve either been or am about to go somewhere.  Many times, I look up and see its 6PM and I am still in my running clothes from that morning (though at least the sweat is dried) and I have barely enough time to take a quick shower before my sweetheart comes through the door.  I can picture the look on his face as he thinks “wet hair again, huh?” although all he says is “it must have been a good day.”

I am thinking about this today because PENELOPE’S DAUGHTER is coming out in less than a week, and everyone is commenting on how excited I must be.  Those who are authors themselves might be more inclined to say they know how exhausted I must be.  Yes, it’s very exciting, although less so than for the first book where I was waiting to become a published author, and one day would throw the switch from “no” to “yes.”

This last few weeks has been grunt-hard work, with guest blogs and Q&As to write, links to make with other writers on line, requests for interviews, requests for appearances, emails I have to send and answer, and just one thing after another for days on end.  Sure, it will pass. I’ll get back to my regular rather overworked normal, and then, after a few months to breathe, it will start up again for FINDING EMILIE, out in May 2011.

I wouldn’t trade this author’s life I’ve made for myself, but sometimes I wish I could scribble myself up a character who would do some of this work for me. Maybe I could ask that pretty lady over there on the upper right of this entry. At least she looks as if she’s had time to brush her hair.

I am reaching a crossroads this week.  As of Friday, when my new novel PENELOPE’S DAUGHTER, is launched in an evening of drama and dance at San Diego City College, I will be the author of two works of historical fiction.  Next May, with the publication of FINDING EMILIE, I will be the author of three.

Until now, as the author of one novel, when I get invitations to appear at events, it’s usually because people are interested in my novel THE FOUR SEASONS, and its subject matter, Vivaldi, Venice, and the famous all-female orchestra and choir of the Pietà. I’ve got a busy calendar this fall with events focusing on PENELOPE’S DAUGHTER and presumably I am headed for the same with FINDING EMILIE next year.

There’s a different focus now for me, though, and I am finding that I want to speak not only about  individual books but about my work as a whole. I mean, of course, as far as the whole has reached to this point, with the completion of novel number four, THE SHAPE OF THE WORLD. I hope for many more to come and indeed the competition in my head among ideas for novel number five is pretty intense right now–but that’s another diary entry!

My sense of myself is evolving from being the author of particular books, to being an author person, by which I mean always fully both when I write.  I’ve learned a lot about myself from writing these novels–what I believe deep down, how I think, how I perceive problems and solutions–because these are expressed in how I develop plots and characters.

People say all fiction is autobiographical, and it is, but not in the way people think.  My books express fundamental things about who I am even though they are not my story. I want to talk about these bigger things now when I address audiences.  What do my books add up to?  What do they have in common?  What do they say about my view of the world?  What do they say that might be of interest about me as a person? Where do they come from?  Why do I write?  Why do I write what I write?  Why do I not write what I don’t write?

It’s hard to do that as the author of one novel, although my one non-fiction trade book, UNTIL OUR LAST BREATH, helped me to develop a sense of myself as an author.  But it’s with fiction that I have found where I want to be when I write, using my imagination and my professorial training to create smart reads, with meaningful messages bound up in great characters and stories.

What does it add up to at this point?  What do I really have to say?  I’ll be exploring that more in future entries here, as I use the words I have put on the pages of my novels as a means to grasp for myself, and for anyone else who is interested, what I think life has to say to me and to us.

I have just started writing the last chapter of THE SHAPE OF THE WORLD, and I recognize the symptoms of meltdown that accompany this milestone.  I played tennis this morning, and almost cried a few times when I played badly, and dropped my racquet (TWICE!) in disgust when I played worse.  I didn’t throw the racquet–more of an “I give up” than court rage, but this is not me. I don’t do those things.  I can take just about anything in stride.

Except, apparently, finishing a novel.

Why is it so hard? In a week or less I will have a completed book on my computer (and external drive, flash drive, and email attachments–yes, I have learned  from experience about backing things up).  Why can’t I just say, “well done!” and make a dinner reservation somewhere?

I suppose it’s a cliche to say it’s like a child leaving home, but it’s true.  I’m not losing anything, really, except a period in life that was taken up with novelrearing. I like raising a novel, especially when it turns out as well as this one has. And it will be back. The good thing is that it won’t ask for money, it will bring some, and it will buy me a pretty nice present on my birthday.  But like parenting, it isn’t done for a long time after that first foray from home, and I will have lots more work before this one is out all by itself in the world of readers.

I have something I call the 60 percent rule: when you’ve finished the first draft of a book you’re about 60 percent done. That comes as kind of a shock to a lot of people, who I suppose have seen movies where a hand writes, “The End,” and the credits roll.  In this case there are revisions and then re-revisions and then re-re-revisions, and that’s all before it’s even sold.  Then there’s more, and more, and more until it’s too late to change anything.   Someone whose name the author probably doesn’t know says at some meeting the author isn’t aware of, “okay, I’m good with this,” and that’s how “The End” really gets written.

But I digress (I guess I really am in denial!).  It’s hard to say goodbye because it’s intense work to write a novel. It takes a sustained commitment to something that is not obligated to turn out well, and often may not seem headed that way. It’s mine.  I birthed it. It turned out!  It feels good to hang onto that for just a while before sharing it.

Beyond that, though, authors leave something of themselves behind when they finish a book, a force they can’t have back, and energy they have permanently spent.  Perhaps I’m in mourning for that.  Perhaps the end of a novel speaks to other finite things, like life itself. And then again, it’s hard to say goodbye when you’re having fun.  More than anything, that’s what being a writer is for me.

Authors get possessive about their work, and it’s very uncomfortable to be told well

into the publishing process that the title of one’s novel has to go.  In a way it feels a bit like someone saying, “we really like your child, except for his/her name.”

A few months back the editor for THE LAWS OF MOTION delivered me just that news. The marketing division representatives didn’t think the title would work.  Too arcane, perhaps, not attention grabbing enough, not evocative enough–whatever it was it was clearly not enough of something the marketers needed it to be.  And marketers, I must add, need to be happy.  They are the ones who pitch the book to retailers, and every author wants and needs their enthusiasm.

I learned many years ago through my YA work with Lucent Books, that publishing is a team process in which the author is very important, but not the only one with a vested interest in the success of a book.  I’ve learned to listen and not think I always have the best idea.  In this case, though, I had to admit I was floored.

Newton’s Laws of Motion, in reduced form are these:

–an object in motion will remain in motion and an object at rest will remain at rest unless an outside force comes along to change that

–momentum equals mass times velocity

–for every action there is an equal, opposite reaction

These are bedrock principles of physics but they are also quite beautiful metaphors. Life illustrates all three quite nicely. As I wrote the book, I thought about the application of each of these laws to the story and built the novel to be an illustration of them.  For me, therefore, this wasn’t just a title, it was THE title.

I’ve had to be flexible about titles before.  In fact THE FOUR SEASONS  wasn’t originally called that.  I completely agree that despite my initial resistance, the title Hyperion came up with is better than mine, which was VIVALDI’S GIRLS. In my mind now, the book simply is THE FOUR SEASONS and the other title sounds very, very strange.  If someone had a better title than PENELOPE’S DAUGHTER for novel number two, I would have taken it in stride, and I feel the same about my work in progress, THE SHAPE OF THE WORLD.

I suffered over the loss of the title THE LAWS OF MOTION, though, and for several months my agent, Meg Ruley, and editor, Kathy Sagan, along with my two biggest supporters, big sister Lynn, and sweet partner Jim, came up with one title after another than I revolted against. I even hated the dozen or so titles I came up with, and felt more and more entrenched that there was one and one title only for this book, and I had already named it that.

Late summer is not a good time to have to make decisions in the publishing world. People are getting in last-minute vacations and trying to finish up old projects before the fall season gets underway.  The book remained without a title for so long I was beginning to worry.  I didn’t know how to talk about it, because calling it the “book formerly known as THE LAWS OF MOTION sounded as strange as–well, something that Prince tried a while back.

Then the breakthrough.  Kathy Sagan suggested FINDING EMILIE, and the rest of the team probably wondered the same thing I did:  why didn’t I think of that?  It’s a great title. Though Emilie du Chatelet is not the main character, she is truly the reason I wrote the book.  She a fabulous, brilliant, charismatic woman I wanted the world to know more about. In the novel the reader discovers her slowly and comes to understand that the main character, Lili, must find Emilie (her dead mother) also, if she is to have a chance to shape the kind of life she wants.

I first “found” Emilie in a casual reference in one of the textbooks I used in the humanities survey I teach. I found her more and more as I dug into her remarkable story.  Now, from the moment they see the cover of the book, readers will be invited to find her too.

As I near the end of the first draft of my novel in progress, tentatively called

THE SHAPE OF THE WORLD, I’ve been looking back at this diary for a reality check on where I was a year ago. I came across an entry in which I wrote about a talk I was preparing for the Greater San Diego Council of Teachers of English.  I titled the talk “Writing Scared,” a feeling any serious writer should understand perfectly. “Writing IS scary, unless there’s no chance for growth in it,” I wrote, “and in that case, why bother?”

“In the years I taught college composition, I used to tell my students that it was easy to think of a writing assignment, or indeed any challenge, in a way that would overwhelm them. The trick is to whittle down big problems in smaller ones that aren’t overwhelming and that can be handled one at a time. Is a ten-page paper on the Russian Revolution too scary? Well, how about one paragraph on the lives of serfs? And then how about a paragraph on how the revolution was supposed to improve their lot? Can do! And then, how about…well, you get the picture. Lo and behold, eventually you hit page ten.”

The fact that writing never stops being scary is tied to the fact that it never gets easy, and to keep the fear under control requires figuring out the baby steps every single time, whether it’s for a short paper or a full-length book.

At the time I  wrote the diary entry I quoted from above, I was percolating an idea for a new novel.  Everything about the project terrified me–the subject matter, the lack of a really clear idea of the plot and characters, the setting, the historical period, the work.

The work. Oh, yes. Writing a novel is a huge and utterly draining undertaking. I was apprehensive about going there again, and then, as always happens, the project took hold of me and wouldn’t let me go.

A year later, the book that had me talking to English teachers about writing scared is now nearly finished. It’s not so scary any more, but the next one…?   As I said a year ago, “Some things never change…. It’s pretty big, pretty scary. Can I whittle it down into do-able pieces? Awfully glad I think so.” Do I know for sure?  Not until it’s done.

This morning I was going through old diary entries seeing if there was anything in them I might be able to adapt for the “blog tour” that will be starting in a few weeks for PENELOPE’S DAUGHTER.  These days, most authors don’t tour when they have a new release, because, quite frankly,  there’s not much bang for the buck in spending several weeks in hotels and running up bills in restaurants just to go from bookstore to bookstore or other small venues doing talks and signings. Unless you are in that small group of authors who can fill auditoriums wherever you go, you’re better off  trying to make a success of online promotion.

Anyway, I found one diary entry from a little less than a year ago (September 3, 2009) that really gave me pause.  It’s called “Instructions from My Imagination”:

Some people may picture the Muse as a creature with a toga and a crown of laurel (which I like to think of as a Laurel Corona). She sits on a writer’s shoulder and sings inspirational songs while accompanying herself on the lyre. My muse isn’t like that at all. She’s more like a drill sergeant barking orders. Get up! Get to work! Stay put! You have a novel to write! With all my novels, it was like getting instructions from my imagination, instructions I had no choice but to accept.

I’m not saying I don’t love my Muse. She has never let me down (although, as for all authors, the Muse’s relationship to our unwritten books is yet to be seen). But writing is a real taskmaster, and writing a book feels like going to a very, very long boot camp.

Long indeed. I realized the other day that I have written four full-length books–three novels (THE FOUR SEASONS, PENELOPE’S DAUGHTER, and my in-progress work, THE LAWS OF MOTION) and one narrative non-fiction work (UNTIL OUR LAST BREATH) in six years. I have never not been writing a book since the beginning of 2004, and in some cases, most notably with UNTIL OUR LAST BREATH, rewriting and heavy editing overlapped with creating the first draft of THE FOUR SEASONS.

Those are some pretty serious marching orders! So I’ve been appreciating the fact that, with the first draft of THE LAWS OF MOTION done (and with no editor yet to take the place of the Muse), I have no orders at all. I’m back to having only one full-time job, teaching humanities at San Diego City College, and it is really a treat to be able to give it my full attention. Who knows? I might actually do some reading for pleasure this fall. Play a little more tennis. Get back regularly to the gym. Read more than the headlines in the paper. This could be fun!

Okay, so here is the reality.  I did stop writing for most of that semester.  I  did do a little reading for pleasure (including more than the headlines), played tennis and went to the gym at least sometimes. It was great to give my classes pretty much undivided attention, and except for some unexpected health problems, I had a strong semester.

Then the drill sergeant showed up again.  I made it to early December without letting myself go back to the world of being an author.  By then the idea for THE SHAPE OF THE WORLD, my work-in-progress was taking over my waking thoughts, and I was once again, as Diane Ackerman calls it, “coming down with a book.”

So let’s update one of the above paragraphs: I have written five full-length books–four novels (THE FOUR SEASONS, PENELOPE’S DAUGHTER, THE LAWS OF MOTION, and the nearly finished THE SHAPE OF THE WORLD) and one narrative non-fiction work (UNTIL OUR LAST BREATH) in seven years. I have never not been writing a book since the beginning of 2004 (except for a few months last fall),and in the last few months, dealing with revisions of PENELOPE’S DAUGHTER and THE LAWS OF MOTION  have overlapped with creating the first draft of THE SHAPE OF THE WORLD.

Marching orders, indeed!  Though it’s still like bootcamp year round,  I’m managing my time better.  This time around my year-long forced march comes complete with stops for coffee and lunch with friends. It comes with lots more time for exercise and R&R.  The Muse is still a drill sergeant, but sometimes she’s having a little trouble finding me to boss around.

It’s Sunday morning. I’ve been writing since 6AM. It’s a beautiful day, and perhaps I can convince the Muse to put on some sunscreen and spend the day with me.  Tennis, anyone?

My second novel, Penelope’s Daughter is coming out in a few weeks (the launch is September 24, and official pub date is October 5).  Those who read it will note that the dedication is “to all the children left behind when mothers and fathers go off to war.”

That dedication came from my heart after spending so much time with Xanthe, the heroine of the novel.  She is the daughter left behind when Odysseus went off to Troy, the daughter he does not even know exists, because Penelope was too early in her pregnancy to be able to share the news.

I thought a lot about what it means to dedicate a book in this fashion. I do not want it to be an empty gesture, an easy thing to say and no more.  I am still pondering how to use the platform the novel could provide, as a means of advocating for the dedicatees (is that a word?) So far the best idea I have come up with is to create a website for readers of the book (and others), focusing on resources and information that will help increase awareness of the difficulties faced by children of our own service personnel deployed in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere.

It’s very much a work in progress, but I launched it today.  Take a look at Xanthe’s World, and if you have ideas, please let me know.  I disable comments here because of problems with spam, but I’d love to hear from you! If you don’t have my email address, there’s a link on the “Contact” page of this site.