Research Road Trip - A Slice of Heaven

Life doesn't get much better than the five days I just spent in Nashville and East Tennessee researching my historical novel. At my first Hamline residency I gave a talk entitled "Addicted To Research." And I still am. The adrenaline rush I get uncovering a new fact or insight gives me shivers or laugh out loud delight. But for this novel, my first historical one, I feared bringing in too much research and not enough character-driven story. So I put off a research trip. I read books and articles and interviewed people by phone. I checked out historical documents and photos online. I wrote two drafts of the novel. But finally it was time to visit my settings, especially when you're a Westerner and have grad student Elizabeth Schoenfeld saying, "Come on, Claire. I'll meet you in Nashville."

Please excuse my effusiveness. But we moan so much about the bad times of writing, that I just have to wax about one of the great times. Last Sunday I flew to Nashville. I walked up the steps from downtown to the capitol. I hung out in the historic Hermitage Hotel where in 1920 Jack Daniels flowed like water. I ate breakfast at the Union train station (now a hotel) where suffragists and antis pin-holed legislators coming into town. I visited the state library and state museum, meeting with curators.

Elizabeth drove me around her former town, showing me the sights and talking about southern life. We noshed with novelist Helen Hemphill, a Vermont grad and former Hamline grad assistant, at a new Nashville hangout. Then I traveled by car to East Tennessee to soak up my main character's roots and visit the archives at the East Tennessee History Center. Everyone, amateur and professional historians and regular folk, were gracious and supportive, even to an outsider. They seemed to appreciate that I had already conducted a lot of research and was ready for the deeper questions and smaller details about a huge historic event. To meet historians like Carole Bucy who loves suffrage history as much as I, and to read telegrams and letters from 90 years ago - pure joy.This trip also gave me a greater appreciation for those who support historic restoration. To visit historic buildings after driving past strip malls and chain stores was a relief and a delight.

I even got a chance to talk to liberal and conservative Tennesseans about politics and Al and Tipper, too. But most importantly, I made the trip at the perfect time for this project. What I needed at this point in revision was to experience the real places I had already written about, not the broad sweep of information as I have been wont to do with other projects. I have returned today to my manuscript with energy and excitement, dropping in specific details, fine-tuning sensory descriptions and with a deeper understanding of time and place.

Take those research road trips. They can boost up a sagging story or a waning writing life. But know when to go. It can vary depending the project and how much research can be done from home. And if at all possible, throw in some writing buddies along the way. Thanks, Elizabeth. You're the best.

I'm off on another research trip - to a slice of Minnesota. Prairie Home Companion's live broadcast this afternoon from little old Spokane, my hometown. Yippee.

Check It Out

The brand new "The New Yorker" has a long piece about dystopian YA novels. Tobin's "Feed" is praised (as it should be) and the author takes others to task a bit for their silliness and lack of internal logic. But those also sell in the hundreds of thousands.

Makes me think I should have set the sequel to "Stoner and Spaz" in a crumbling netherworld. I imagine Colleen could get the better of any vampire and I'll take anybody's action at even money.

While I'm here I'll also tout you on "Winter's Bone," a terrific movie that just opened in L.A. Also just saw "The Father of My Children" and it's worth a look.

That's why I can't leave Southern California -- too many movies, just enough race tracks.

Check out "TNY" piece. Seriously.

Short Stuff

My colleagues are writing short. I admire this. This is a skill. I have some skills. I make very good pie and can swear a blue streak. I can identify a first-or-second season Blue's Clues episode in the first ten seconds, and I excel at cleaning up toddler vomit. But I cannot write short. I have written one short story in my adult life and one poem. The first was for public consumption, the second most decidedly was not.

I've dreamt of trying my hand at picture books. I have ideas. These ideas turn out to be bad ones. I'm in awe of the poets and the picture book writers, to people who can create something in hundreds of words when I need tens of thousand.

I want to try. I know the life you must breathe every word, the control you must have over every image, would be nothing but good for me. But the truth is I can't even think that way, I don't know how to give something like that life.

I think I'll let Marsha Q. try first.

Meanwhile, I have gone through an entire post without complaining about my editorial letter, for which I think I deserve some credit. My editor, I should note, does not write short either.

(That was not complaining, by the way, just a statement of fact.)

What's New?

Ron’s flash fiction posted on Monday sent me back in time. Like a lot of writers I first got my feet wet writing short stories. My first three novels grew out of short stories. It occurred to me when I was done reading Ron’s that I’ve not written a short story in about sixteen years, I’ve been so focused on writing novels.

Readers of this blog know that last winter I took up the challenge to write a sonnet a day for a month. Previously, I’d not written sonnets. Readers of this blog also know I’ve been revising a YA novel. I’ve written lots of YA novels, and there are days I have no heart for writing another one. This story is being revised because a wise editor told me there was no page-turning element in it. Some days I’m absolutely ambitious about turning it into a crackerjack, page-turning mystery. Other days I say, oh hell, I’ve written that story.

What haven’t I written? A trade picture book, for one thing. And last week I finally began work on one, noodling with an idea I’ve had for ten freaking years. I’ve also never written a screenplay, though I’ve wanted to try that for about as long. Last week I finally started messing around with that too.

I’ve no books in the publishing pipeline, no manuscripts on editors’ desk. But I’m playing with language in ways I’ve never done before, and I’m enjoying writing more than I have in a very long time.

How About a Little Flash Fiction to Start Your Week

He comes back reciting the poetry of war. Not that crap from high school, those stupid roads diverging. The real poetry of war. It recites itself to him, and he recites it back.

He’d like to give a rat’s ass about the night school teachers and bartenders his wife has been sleeping with. He’d like to get all riled up and crash his new pick-up. But he’s busy listening to the poetry of war which no body else can hear.

His mother just sucks it up and cooks. His father is hopeless. Crying when those busses pulled up to the Ramada two years ago and now Dad’s – what’s that word? – baffled. Yeah. Join the club.

Then one day at the mall there’s this girl at the Hospitality Desk. Plain. Staring at a book maybe because everybody knows where the Gap Outlet is and half the other stores are closed.

And he manages to put together a sentence. “What are you reading?”

“Something,” she says, “sufficiently sordid to keep me from falling asleep.”

Sufficiently sordid. Even the poetry of war stopped to listen.

Her nametag said Ivy and he knew, from a life before this one, how ivy could, in time, bring down any wall.

“Is that your real name?” he asks.

“What happened to your face?” she answers.

COUNTDOWN by Deborah Wiles

I just finished reading Deborah Wiles’ new book, COUNTDOWN. Brilliant! Fantastic! Talk about heart on the page. Deborah puts herself into every word. Every moment sings. I was totally rapt in the story, but as I was reading I felt the weight of this book. As Jane Resh Thomas would say—it has gravitas. Every once in a while you read something that is larger than the story itself. This book is that. The book spans a few days during the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. It encompasses an era, while still being a story about an eleven-year old girl trying to understand her family, friends and her place in the world. It’s also a book of the 60’s. There are insertions of photographs, speeches, songs, and biographies of some of the leaders at that time—politicians, activists, musicians. These are cleverly placed to heighten the personal story of the narrator, while giving a sense of the issues of the world around the narrator. They help make the book so much more than a story.

The afterward, about Deborah’s childhood and how she memorialized some of the people in her life by using their names, made me weepy. Deborah has called this book a gift to write, and it is certainly a gift to read. I am fortunate to know Deborah, which makes the book all the more joyous to recommend so favorably. I know how hard she works to make her writing meaningful. We have a lot to learn from her. Hats off to you, Deborah!!!

Those of you coming to the July residency at Hamline will have the opportunity to hear Deborah Wiles as our guest speaker. I highly suggest that you read COUNTDOWN, and you will see what I mean about heart on the page.

Kickass Nonfiction - Elizabeth Partridge

Next month at the Hamline residency, Elizabeth Partridge will speak on her process of researching and writing "kickass" nonfiction. Check out her 2009 award-winning book Marching for Freedom and her biographies of John Lennon, Woody Guthrie and Dorothea Lange. Patridge's riveting and insightful writing brings to life people and eras in a style that appeals and informs both young readers and adults. I can't wait to meet her.

Check her out at: www.elizabethpartridge.com

Critical Feedback

Giving response to a writer's manuscript is a delicate dance. We want to respond to what moves us, what confuses us, what keeps us reading. Most of all, I hope that my feedback can help another writer go deeper into the story and write the best book possible. But I must always keep in mind that their heart is on the page. At least I hope it is. And that sometimes the right response at the wrong time can slow a writer down or bring them to a screeching halt. It's that time of year in the Hamline program when grad students need to choose a piece to share in workshop at the summer residency. Which one is ready for deep discussion and multiple opinions?

It's up to each writer to figure out what kind of response we need when. It's not as hard for me to share a nonfiction manuscript that's not fully formed. To get feedback on how it relates to kids and how to structure the topic. A draft of a picture book even early on can elicit feedback on structure and emotional resonance. But a novel, oh, my. Too much feedback too soon can pull a writer away from one's vision, one's dream of the story. My current novel will soon be ready for critical feedback. But it's already been through multiple drafts. This time around I needed to go pretty far down the road on my own before sharing the whole story. I need to be open to comments, and not needing to respond, no, no, no. You just don't get it (you stupid reader.)

Last week I did final edits on a picture book that I sold three long years ago and first conceived in 2004. An illustrator is finally working on art and I can't wait to see it. I did a complete revision earlier this year, tighter and more focused than the manuscript the editor bought. Thankfully she likes this version. With the passing of time, I was able to revisit this story in a new way without so much emotion or resistance to needed changes. And when I brought the final version to my writing group all I needed was feedback in a few places on word choice and their thoughts on my editor's suggestions. Their suggestions were spot on. But this was easy to take feedback because it wasn't open to any and all comments about story and character.

A graduate writing program has to have deadlines. This can be a challenge when work is fresh and not ready for public consumption. Sometimes I share an early piece with just one trusted writer, not a whole gang. I believe that is what working with a faculty advisor is like. When I share an entire manuscript, I need to be ready to step back and listen without defense. Taking in feedback and then returning home to work on it with new eyes, but still my eyes, my vision of what I want this story to be.

Take A Break

and listen to me read some poems. Watch me read, too, as -- Chris points this out -- the light bounces off my shiny head.

Somebody shot and then posted a reading at Beyond Baroque, a local and much revered L.A. site. You may also see two talented and much younger poets -- Andrea and Mindy.

Go to FaceBook and search NOT for Koertge (you'll get a car buff in Texas, I understand) but for SHAKESPEARE MAKES THE PLAYOFFS.

Revision by Hamster Paw

So, there might have been a bit of a self-pitying blog post last week. Mistakes were made. The truth is, in this world, toddler effluvium happens, sometimes with the immensity* and ardor of a twenty-one page, single-spaced editorial letter.

The tot is now post-exorcism. The exorcist is at a heap at the bottom of the stairs, having given himself to the demons. I’ve left the child in the care of people without blogs and have retreated with my computer into the wilds of Pennsylvania, where I have nothing but an inquisitive groundhog to keep me company. I have a book to revise.

There are advantages and disadvantages to having a brilliant editor—mine, for instance, is a charming and able conversationalist but has this incredibly annoying tendency to read my drafts with tremendous insight. I have tried to talk to him about this delicately, but some people are just unwilling to change.

The editorial tome—for calling it a letter seems inadequate and we writers do strive for lexical adequacy—rudely requests that I take some of the ideas in my head and actually communicate them on the page. This is to be accomplished by fleshing out some of the characters and ideas, particularly in the first third. More, More, More, said the editor.

I have already informed him that the first chapter, as it stands, is the greatest first chapter ever written. He did not protest, and I am sure that means he agrees. It’s not simply that he’s humoring me, that’s he’s waiting for me to see the seams in it, that the things that he’s mentioned about that chapter specifically might actually need addressing. And it’s not that I’ve ignored these things—why, I went through the other night and added a phrase here and took out a word there and even cut out a half a scene at the end with the idea I might, someday, add something else. I can totally take critique.

It’s a start, anyway. My friend Laura refers to this as revising by hamster paw—going into the draft like a little furry rodent might dig into an enormous pile of wood chips, displacing some tiny things here and there, and then some bigger things, until eventually we’ve buried ourselves in so deep that we’ve remade what’s around us. I’m still in the tiny phase—it’s all I can see right now, and I can’t envision the wood chips looking any other way but this one. Anyway, I'm sure these tiny little hamster paws will accomplish everything I need to.

Right?

I have to go now. There is a word to be changed.

*My computer’s thesaurus has offered enormity as a synonym for immensity, and I am now shaken to my core. While the actual usage of that slippery word does, in fact, well describe the things my child produced last week, I am discomfited by the lack of precision of this computerized crutch on which I have so relied. Is there nothing left in this day and age upon which we can pin our guileless, tremulous faith?