The Next Big Thing

Hi all.  Yvonne at TheOrganic Writer  tagged me for The Next Big Thing.  Yvonne is currently working on Black River, which she calls a crossover between literary, commercial and contemporary NA and if you ask me, it looks amazing.  She asked me to share some details about my newest project.  I’m excited, because even this little exercise helped me to pull it into better focus.  Here are my answers...

What is the title of your current work? 

Working title: Marnie I-don’t-know.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

It was my turn to present my work in progress at my local writing group.  They’d just finished reading a draft of my previous novel, so it was time to start something new.  I wanted to touch on a challenging topic, one in which I had to dig down to my own emotional core to address.  Once I gave myself those parameters, I sat down at the computer and started typing. 

What genre does your book fall under?

Adult fiction/Woman’s fiction

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

I’m lacking in pop culture-expertise, so this is hard for me, but when I think of Marnie, I imagine Ashley Judd.  Vinnie is George Clooney, ten years younger. 

What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?

When Marnie St. Marie sees images of a boy from the nineteenth century in her apple tree, she can’t decide whether she’s going off the deep end, or if her son who’s been missing for years is trying to communicate with her.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

I’d love for it to be represented by an agency…I'm not sure I have the patience or fortitude to do it any other way.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

I’m still writing it, and I have a long way to go.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Since I’m not even close to being done yet, I’m struggling here, but I’ll go with Anita Shreve, Light on Snow (A girl can dream, can’t she?).

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

I had 20K of Marnie complete when I read a book this fall, written by a college classmate of mine (Cascade, by Maryanne O’Hara).  Her book is a fictionalized account of the building of the Quabbin Reservoir in western Massachusetts, a topic that always intrigued me…but she got there so well, and so very…first.  This made me realize I shouldn’t hesitate to go after another idea that’s been churning around my brain for years.  I’ve been captivated by the story of an Irish immigrant ship that hit ledge and sunk off our coast in 1849.  When I began writing about Marnie I thought of including something related to that in her story, but wasn’t sure how well it would tie in with the rest of the tale. 

Cascade gave me the inspiration to scrap about 14K of the manuscript and write about what I wanted to all along.  As expected, it is hard, and it’s making the going slow.  But I don’t want someone beating me out this this time.  Now, if only I could write as well as Maryanne O’Hara.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

Well, when I get the thing written, there may or may not be supernatural images, and there’s probably going to be some forensic stuff, but in all, it is a book about discovering the strength to survive and embrace life in spite of unbearable misfortune.  

Other participants have posted a snippet...so here's mine...

He sat above the spot where a blizzard had hacked a huge branch from the tree Thomas’s parents had planted when they were first married.  The remaining limb splayed out like a crooked wire and to hold it up, Marnie had fashioned a crutch out of two-by-fours and forced it underneath.  With his back to her, the boy’s feet dangled.  Bare calves reflected below pants that ended mid-shin.  Raising a hand to her heart, she pressed her chest, trying to still the rapid beating.  After ten years, she still dreamed Trevor might return…but this child had blond hair, not dark curls, and he wore cloth cap.  She couldn’t be sure, but she thought he wore leather shoes.

 

Time Crunch

As I write this, it’s a rainy Sunday.  I haven’t posted here in over a week.  I’ve had to pick up extra hours at work as a result of the office being short staffed.  I hope this is temporary, but have braced myself in case it is not, since it eliminates the availability of the time I dedicate each morning to writing endeavors.  For the most part, I’ve been diligent with my Morning Pages, but this weekend, suffered a lapse.  Writing three longhand pages first thing every morning has helped me maintain a word flow but having missed both days this weekend, I feel guilty. 

Due to the lack of available time, I’ve returned to the schedule I kept when I used to work full time, back when my daughter was a high school student.  But, instead of getting up to prepare breakfast and lunches, I lean over to grab my notebook, put on my glasses, wrap myself in a shawl and pick up a pen.  On the positive side I’ve learned, at 5:30 a.m. it is more pleasant to write than to make sandwiches.  There’s an owl that hoots from one of the remaining trees in our side yard…though from the distance of his call I can tell the loss of six trees there recently has altered his location.   

While I’m writing, a grey wash lightens the sky in the west.  The yard out the picture window comes up like an old photograph floating in bin of developer.  My handwriting loops and scrolls.  On some days, I purge myself of anxiety, on other days I add to my current work in progress, on the best days, I do both.  Regardless, each morning, when I finish, I’m relieved when I review the neat, consistent cursive filling those pages.

I’ve read over and over, that if I want to bad enough, I can always find the time to write.  For now, it appears that predawn is my time. 

A Letter to Myself

I’ve never been an outliner.  In high school, when the teachers demanded outlines before we passed in our papers, I wrote my paper first then created the outline based on what I’d written.  I’m sure this indicates some kind of brain deficiency, a backwards way of thinking, but it was the only way that worked for me.  I couldn’t write an outline before I knew what I was going to write.

  

More recently, I’ve tended to write my stories in a similar fashion, although in order to avoid getting totally lost, I keep track of characters and locations in an Excel spreadsheet.  I keep it open while I write and each time I invent someone or something new, I add it to the table.   This helps me remember names and places…so I don’t call someone Simon in the third chapter, and Terrance in the 25^th.  Separate from the spreadsheet, I write detailed character descriptions, so I know what each character looks like and what they eat for breakfast, so it's all good there.

But while helpful, these practices don't do much for plot. 

I began writing what I hope will be a new novel several months ago, but struggled. I had a main character; an inciting event, some periphery information plus thoughts of how things will end, but no idea how to get there.  Even I recognized an outline would have helped.  But similar to my struggles in high school, I couldn’t figure out how to write one, since I didn’t know the story.

Last week, I mentioned my dilemma to one of my amazing critique partners and she suggested I write a letter as if telling her the story.  Growing up, I was an avid letter writer, so this felt more like fun than an assignment.  Imagine my delight when during the process, the stages of my tale revealed themselves to me. The next time I sat down to work on the project, I knew where I needed to go.  I've been writing ever since.

So, while I, II, III, a, b, c and i, ii, iii may not work for me, I’ve learned something.  Regardless of how it's structured, it helps to have a plan.  Once that's in place, following it makes the writing easy.

How do you organize your writing?

Did She or didn't She?

It's the first Wednesday of the month and time for IWSG.  To ready more posts, click here.

I’ve been playing mind games with myself.  Query letter, check.  Synopsis, check .  Edit by the AP English guru, check.  Requisite waiting period before reading manuscript again? Check.  Another wait, this one over-kill?  Check.  

In short, I inched my way toward ready.

I researched Publisher’s Market Place and Query Tracker, and read submission guidelines.  I built my own spreadsheet so I could track who I queried…yes, I know I can do that on QT, I just wanted my own.  There wasn’t much more I could to.  The trigger finger was itchy to press “send.”  I knew though, that it would be smarter to give it just a little more time.

Then I got this idea.  It may seem petty to some, but if you’ve been reading me for a while, you may have recognized that I can be a tad sensitive.  Like an elephant, it’s hard for me to forget and as I write this on January 31, I’m coming up on an anniversary.  On February 4, 2009, the pink slip from the 23 year job came sliding under the door.   Although I wouldn’t trade my accomplishments since for those heretofore hefty paychecks, I still get a touch grouchy around this time of year.  Damn it.  When they tell you they can live without you, it hurts.

Wouldn’t it be cool if I could get out from under that—if I could turn the date into a positive?  What if I earmarked February 4, 2013 to send my very first submission to an agent?  Might there even be some poetic justice involved?  In my way, wouldn’t that be like thumbing my nose at the former employer who dropped me on my bottom four winters ago?  I know it's petty, but I liked that idea.

But then, I got nervous.  I read a glorious book and hated my writing. I reviewed my first ten pages again.  I could still make them better.  So I did.  I re-read the first three chapters.  I could make them better too.  So I did.  Did that mean I needed to make the rest of it better?   Yep, I could and I did.  The cycle was about to repeat itself, yet again, when my-wise-beyond-her-years daughter said, “Mom, you will ALWAYS find things to change, you could do it forever.  It’s time.”  She was right.

But then, because I tend to be thorough when I worry, I had a massive panic over my query letter.  Thank you to my lovely critique partner who talked me off the ledge on that one.  Right after that though, I got superstitious.  What if February 4^th is a bad day for me?  Maybe I shouldn’t go forward with something that means so much to me on that day.  Maybe I should wait.

So here you are, reading this on or about February 6, thinking, enough already.  Did she or didn’t she? She did!!!

Out with the Wind

I take a lot of pictures of the ocean.  On windy days, I’ll head down to watch with awe as the sea explodes upon the rocks and geysers over out lighthouse. I love watching the still waters of the harbor when the wind kicks up a heavy churn.  There is such magnificence about it and a comfort of watching the drama, as it happens far away.

At home though, in our house at the bottom of an incline, surrounded by towering pines and massive oaks, I’m less inclined to love wind and more disposed to worry.  

The day we moved in almost 21 years ago,  I looked out one of the picture windows to the grove of hundred foot pines out back and announced, “I don’t ever want to do a hurricane in this house.”

In the last year plus, we’ve dealt with two hurricanes. Both times, the weather folks had a field day, and I bought into their drama.  I purchased water, batteries and canned food we’d never touch otherwise. I wrung my hands when my husband drove 66 miles toward the storm the morning of Sandy to get to work, and I looked up at those darn pine trees and I prayed.  After both storms, we gazed at our intact trees and smirked, “That was a hurricane?”

The bad news is there wasn't much warning for what happened in our yard Wednesday night.  The weather man said it would be windy.  Well, he got that right.

The good news is no one was hurt and nothing happened to our house.  In the future, I’ll continue to respect the wind. Now though, I have a healthy appreciation for homeowners insurance.