It's been a lot of fun reading the He Wrote / She Wrote blog by Jennifer Cruisie and Bob Mayer as they collaborate on their next novel. I am continuously amazed at how my style of writing seems to be down the middle between what they each do. (And since I really love Cruisie's work and Bob is becoming a favorite as well, it makes sense, I suppose, that their styles are similar to mine.)
Bob likes to outline; he's very linear, very action oriented. Jenny likes to meander around the character for a while, trying to get to know them, figure out their internal stories first, then the external. I end up doing an amalgamation of both. (I'm a Gemini. Maybe that explains it. Or maybe I'm just weird.)
I think I sort of drive my husband nuts for a while during the initial process of the book, though. I'll tell him I have the story, not to worry. (Because he worries. A lot. This whole book a year for three years thing is great, he's excited, but it also makes him very nervous.) So I reassure him, that of course I have it figured out. Then I'll start to pick his brain about south Louisiana locations. Carl's been in places few people from here have even seen, much less been in, and he's got an artist's eye for details and an amazingly good memory for characters (people he's met and their unique personalities). Carl is my secret weapon when I'm first putting together the direction a book will go because I couldn't get some of the stuff he already knows from pure research as quickly as I can just sit down and bug him. He doesn't mind (I think he enjoys it), but the phase I'm in at this point when I'm asking him the questions is not the linear phase... it's the meandering around getting to know the people and places phase, the Jenny phase, the blank stare when Carl asks me a simple question phase.
"You have how long to turn in this book?" he'll ask, and I'm pretty sure his blood pressure ratcheted up a few points.
I think he's a whole lot grayer than he was at this time last year. oops.
Me? It doesn't bother. This is how I work. I've got a sort of rudimentary linear outline. I know that in the beginning (page 1, literally), an event happens which is going to send Bobbie Faye carreening around trying to solve a pretty big problem with some pretty big ramifications if she doesn't solve them. I know some of the twists, some of the things which will escalate the problem into a much bigger and more personal problem. I've gotten to know the characters pretty well through writing pages and pages (two five-subject notebooks' worth for book 2) on just character detail: their emotional journey, why they do what they do, what they want, what they don't want, how this affects the others, etc. I'm pretty settled on how I'll do that first few pages so that readers who aren't familiar with Bobbie Faye from book one will know her pretty well without having to go backward and read the book. I'll spend the next couple of weeks working out more of the later details while I start the writing of the chapters.
The fun part -- and the scary part -- is that I don't try to figure out every detail of the story as I go. I keep a list of things that I need to figure out, questions I've set up that I need to answer, (both plot-wise and character-wise). And by list, I mean, I tend to remember them and then toward the end of the book, make massive notes in frantic red print all over the notebooks making sure I don't forget to tie up the loose ends.
Still, there are discoveries along the way which are a blast and surprise me. I won't know where they come from or why, but something about a particular character will present itself, and I'll realize it takes the character in a much better direction than I would have predicted. Or certain aspects of a location will present itself as an opportunity to do something better than I'd planned. Or I'll realize something about a character due to having grown with him or her throughout the story and I'll weave backward to set up that better.
(One hopes.)
Over on The Lipstick Chronicles, guest blogger Nancie described how she was teaching women to shoot safely with guns. I loved her entry, and it reminded me of the first time I learned to shoot, which was after this particular event: (this blog entry was once posted on an old site, so a tiny few of you will have seen it before)...
... "that wasn't you in here"...
Something had awakened me. I pulled myself out of a deep, heavy sleep, the kind you have with feeling ill at seven months pregnant; a thick, smothering feeling of ache. I was lying on my back, buried in a comforter, hidden to the world and I turned my head slightly to see the time.
The clock glowed red: 10:04. I will always remember that. 10:04.
I had gone to sleep early, something I almost never did. Carl had wanted me to go with him while he helped a friend move, but I felt like a slow, meandering whale, enormous at seven months, more-so than anyone would have expected. And tired. I remember that -- so very tired, like I'd traveled across the universe and had to still make the trip back, somehow. I'd begged off and put Luke to bed, happy that, at four, he was finally willing to go to sleep at a reasonable hour.
And something had awakened me, at 10:04. I half-rose, knowing Luke was going to be standing by the side of the bed, touching my elbow, “Mama, can I have some water?” He wasn't there; I blinked the sleep away, still half-rising, realizing that what had actually awakened me was the ceiling fan ceasing to turn and the heat of the July room already pressing down on me with just the first stillness of air.
That, and the hall-lights were on. I had turned them off, turned everything off, before going to bed.
A soft yellow light streamed across the foot of the bed and the man standing there, hand still in the air, reaching for the chain-pull to try and turn the over-head light (on the fan) on; only there was no over-head light on those old antique fans.
I swam up through sleep, groggy incoherence, shifting lights and darks and swelling-stomached illness and saw the man there and reflex won first and I said, “Carl, is that you?” just as logic and reason kicked in, a slow lagging second to say to myself, that's not Carl.
It was plain to see, if only my senses trusted themselves to see what was out of place here, in that sort of desperate, half-step two-step logic does when it tries to reconcile what it's seeing with what it should see. Though roughly the same build, this was, plainly, a black man, and not my husband. I had given away that I was in the bed ; he couldn't have seen me there in the dark with the light shining only at the foot of the bed where he stood. Carl, is that you? hung in the air and he waited a beat and said, “Just a minute, I have to go to the bathroom.”
And he turned and walked out the bedroom and shut the door.
I blinked, adrenaline rushed, and stared. He had shut the door and I could hear him walking around the house, mumbling something, to whom, I knew not; he was somewhere between me and my four-year-old, between me and the life of my child and I sat, still half-risen, in disbelief.
Thoughts ran and slammed against me, none of them coherent, none of them near the basket, personal foul, walking, jump shot, out-of-bounds. Had I imagined it? Was I dreaming? Was I still dreaming, only thinking I saw someone, only thinking I heard someone, only conjuring up the voice in the other room, the soft padding of his tennis shoes on my hardwood floors, straining to hear if he had gone to my child's room, straining to hear if my child was breathing, feeling the baby at seven months kicking in gear in my stomach, mom's awake, oh good, let's play. I had to get in there, to my four-year-old. I had to move, but I had no clothes in my room, with all of them piled in the dining room while we remodeling my closet. No robe, and the gown I had was so short, nothing was left to the imagination, esepecially at seven months, but that didn't matter, I needed to get to Luke... and the baby kicked again, another child to protect.
I stood. I'm not sure how I got out of the bed, because I know it took two eons and a crane to move me, but somehow I had pulled myself up to almost-standing; almost; not quite able to stand all the way up, not sure what else to do, semi-hunched over as if I was somehow hidden like that, not knowing where to go, how can I be such a coward and just stand here while my child is in the other room? and how can I risk this one?
I knew, finally, the term “frozen in fear.” Everything locked up, everything ceased to function, and then as if my brain knew that I had ceased in reality, I heard a voice, a distinctive voice in my ear saying, “Move.” Move where? I asked the voice. “To the office.”
I eased over to the door which stood exactly opposite the one which entered the hall; it looked like an exterior door and once, long ago, had been, until someone had tacked on a porch spanning the back of the house, the bedroom and the kitchen, a narrow room which we had converted into an office. I silently cursed the remodeling project and my near-nakedness.
The office was little comfort. Pitch black, but there was a phone.
I remembered the gun.
I had never held it. Only seen it, knew it was there.
Carl had a 22 pistol he'd kept to shoot snakes when they coiled under the house (it was built up on piers, old construction) and when Luke was still a baby, Carl had hidden it up on a top shelf, taller than he was, and nearly impossible to reach.
Fear said to get it. Get it now. Right now, don't wait, you don't have time to think about this.
In the pitch black, I climbed on top of my desk, sliding on paperwork I couldn't see, shifting my awkward weight, pressing my pregnant belly against the shelves, straining to hear what was going on in the other room, as I felt along the dark of the top shelf to rake my fingers across the smooth leather of the holster and the cold butt of the gun. I thought it would be reassuring. I thought having a weapon in my hand, something to even the odds would make me feel like I could handle this intruder into my world.
My mind screamed with what ifs.
what if it's really Carl and you're dreaming and you shoot him just like the next-door neighbor's son died? what if it's really Luke? what if you don't know how to shoot the gun? what if he takes the gun away from you and uses it against you or Luke? what if what if; what if what if it's the only thing that stops him? what if you put it back and it's the only way you could have saved your child? what if what if
I climbed down, still holding the gun, shuddering, shaking, desperate.
The sound of the man moved away somewhere and I went for the phone, tried to dial 911. I kept getting a busy signal (busy signal? how can that be? how can emergency be busy over and over and what's wrong here? why won't this work? why can't I get through?). I cannot remember when I realized what the problem was and furiously cursed Sony up and down for making a phone with numbers flush to the housing because you cannot feel the difference between the “8” and the “9” in the pitch black. I managed to get 911 dialed and just as they asked what I needed…
The light snapped on in the bedroom. I could hear his mumbling, and knew he was all the way in the room, not content to just stand at the foot of the bed.
I hung up, afraid he'd hear me, afraid he'd head in my direction. I heard him open the closet door, saying, “I know she was in here, man, she was in here. Where'd she go?” The door I was hiding behind would be plainly lit now, not fifteen feet from where he was standing, looking in my empty closet, wondering how I had gotten out of the room. It was the only other door. There was no lock. He would be heading my way.
I had one option.
There was another door in the office, which led to the back of the kitchen. It was a new door, not even a knob on it yet; I decided to scurry through there and go to the kitchen while he was in my bedroom. At least, once he entered the office, I'd be gone. I eased open the door, about to tiptoe the three feet to the back kitchen door when the kitchen light blinked on.
How many people were in here? What did they or he want?
There was nothing worth robbing. New babies and bad economies and young marrieds do not make for a combination of yuppie-dom and there were only the bare essentials, and most of it a tad worn already, at that.
I was beyond calm. I hit a plane of where's Luke where's Luke where's Luke what if what if what if what if ohmygod what if ohmygod my baby, oh please let Luke be asleep, please don't let anything have happened to him, I have to get to him, I have to, I don't know how to, and then what? what if what if what if ohmygod…
It was harmonic motion in thought, pinging at light speed, screaming for attention, screaming for me to do something, anything, while other parts screamed that “anything” wasn't an option, be smart about this and still other parts fiercely battling for getting in there to Luke.
The light that had snapped on in the kitchen cut me off from that escape, and I hung there in that new door frame, not sure whether to go forward or back.
Someone was at the back kitchen door. So far, no one had come through the bedroom door into the office; I backed up, eased the new door-knobless door closed, listened with the intensity to hear breathing on the next street and tried not to let my thoughts be sooo very loud that he could hear them.
He pushed open that kitchen door, and I stooped to watch him through the hole where the door knob should have been. I felt the weight of the gun in my hand, the cold heaviness of it, the firm steel, the trigger, don't touch the trigger! you don't know how this works, it might be a hair-trigger, just hold it, holding it isn't going to do any good, it'd be a lot scarier to him if you took it out of the holster, how do you take it out of the holster? can't see it, it's pitch black in here, is that a snap? I don't know, what do I do, I don't know what to do with this, take it out, hold it, point it, don't point it, what if it's Carl? what if it's Luke? ohmygod, Luke, what do I do?
It didn't matter that I could see him, see it was a black man, see his mustard yellow shorts and converse tennis shoes with no laces, see the bulge in his pocket, like a knife or something, see the red bandana tied over his head, the white muscle shirt, all illuminated from the streetlight shining in the back door... my brain had ceased to any reason and thoughts criss-crossed in a hysterical race to send me over the precipice. I kept trying to convince myself that what I was seeing was really real, that he was really there, walking toward my office door, which had no knob, much less a lock, and that I really ought to move, ought to shoot, but didn't know how, but still ought to, and another part of my brain kept flogging the story of how the next door neighbor's son had come home early one night and so startled his wife, she'd shot him and had slowly driven herself insane with the guilt afterward and what if what if what if.
As I hunched over to watch through the open knobless hole, I could smell him, acrid sweat; he was about a foot away, looking at my door, saying, “Where the hell does that go?” and reaching for it, dirty fingernails, when he stopped.
Frozen. A moment. Backed up, looked through the kitchen door and turned to the back door. A deadbolt lock, requiring a key to get out and the key was nearby. He walked out and I watched him, through the window, memorizing everything about him, seeing him in the light, seeing him walk past my car and turn up the alley, moving toward the front of the house.
I wanted to move. Go find Luke, make sure he was okay. I was so afraid of what I would find, I couldn't move, couldn't breathe, trying to convince myself it was over.
Another light snapped on in the bedroom.
I turned toward the bedroom door, heard a voice approaching fast, heard someone saying something, demanding something and nothing was coherent for me then. I just lifted the gun and pointed it at the door, an inch away from whoever's chest who opened it, maybe that would teach them something, maybe I would pull the trigger and it would all be over, and the door swung open and there was a man's chest and there was the mouth of the gun touching it and there was the trigger and something waited, paused a moment and his hand pushed the gun down toward the floor as his other one pulled my chin up to look into his eyes.
Carl was home.
I tried saying something, tried explaining that as we spoke, or rather, as he was asking questions, there was a man walking up the alley who'd been in the house, a man who'd turned on every light, who'd tried to find me, ohmygod, Luke, and the only coherent thing I could manage to say was
that wasn't you in here
I broke and ran for Luke, who had, miraculously, slept through the entire thing, even though it was his window the man had broken into and his floor that had the trail of muddy footprints strolling across it, heading into the rest of the house, apparently alone, staying for more than forty minutes before hearing Carl come in the front door and so choosing to go out the back.
I ran back to the bedroom, stood in the corner of the room, tried to press my entire pregnant self into the wall-paper and screamed into my hands, afraid of waking Luke up, afraid of everything, that wasn't you in here that wasn't you in here that wasn't you in here.
I'm not sure when or how Carl finally made sense of what had just happened. I'm not sure when I got dressed, or how, but with every light on and with me armed with a CB base radio (and him with the other in his truck), he decided to cruise around the neighborhood, trolling through just in case he found the guy. He must have radioed back every three seconds to make sure I was okay.
He found someone lurking which matched my description and had me call the police. They got there immediately, stopped the guy. Had me look at him; wrong guy. He also happened to be wanted for being a peeping Tom, but still, the wrong guy.
A week or so later, they would call me and tell me they caught the guy; he had raped and beaten an 80 year-old lady in another house in our neighborhood with a large stick -- like a limb from a tree. Someone had caught him, however, and they wanted me to ID him.
I would later remember a limb that had been just outside that window and wonder why I had gotten so lucky.
He would later get off with a short sentence, two years, I think.
I returned from New York this week, having loved just about every minute of it. It was an extremely fast trip, with zero time to see anyone save the agent, editor and Tamar, with whom I spent one night. To my friends, like Kymm, who I very much wanted to see but didn't even e-mail, my apologies -- it was just that fast of a trip with no spare time built in.
The point of the trip was to meet the agent and editor in person (and discover to my complete non-surprise that they were as wonderful in person as they've both been on the phone) (and pretty!), and to discuss the editor's response to the book, any notes, and marketing strategies / ideas, etc. Of course, I was elated that the editor had read and loved the book. We discussed a few note-like things, in a sort of broadstroke way, and honestly, all of the notes are small, very do-able. In fact, two or three were things I'd realized I'd wanted to do anyway, so I'm pretty jazzed that we are not only thinking alike, but that her notes resonate with me so well. Plus, my agent had several brilliant suggestions that will make the polishing even easier. This also means the work I'd begun on book two can contunue as planned, since I don't have to rethink anything major. The actual written notes won't be ready until around Valentine's, though, so I'm back to focusing on book two, writing-wise, for now.
There were many things discussed about marketing, but it's premature to put them here. I'll be going back in the fall, though, which is very cool. The pub date is set at May 1, 2007. The reason for the distance from submission is twofold: one, unless you're famous already and/or there's some sort of reason to rush your book to press, the average is one year to eighteen months from submission of the manuscript until you've got a book in your hands. This gives the editor time to edit you, revisions to be done, then copyediting, then proofing of galleys, then Advanced Reading Copies to be printed and sent out with blurb requests and sent out for reviews, and time must lapse for those people to get a chance to read and do the blurb or review (if you're lucky and they do them). Our second reason for settig the pub date at May 1, 2007 is because it coincides with a particular festival here which is the background for my book (more on that later). The publisher wants to tie the launch of the book in with the opening of the festival, and maybe we'll have some sort of book signing there. If that can be arranged.
It was a little bit weird to me to fly to New York alone. I've been traveling to L.A. now for years, and while the first time was a bit scary due to the size of the city, the fact that I could drive around to navigate made it all seem relatively normal. Also, the architecture in L.A. is ironically very similar to that in Baton Rouge -- they are both heavy on the Spanish influence, transitioning into the Victorian and Colonial and Craftsman eras in much the same way in their neighborhoods as Baton Rouge did. New York, however, as everyone well knows, has subways. Baton Rouge does not have subways. We very rarely have anything underground except lots and lots of water, so the idea of walking down into a catacomb-like structure, sort of trapped under there by the turnstiles, getting on these subway trains and zooming underneath a city... well, it's just a little weird. My agent bought me a Metrocard, which promptly refused to scan. I flunked scanning! Children can scan a Metrocard, but not moi. Something like seven or eight times I tried to scan my Metrocard and couldn't, to the point where she had to come back through the turnstile, scan my card for me, and then go back through herself.
I felt like I should be wearing a giant "I am Southern fried and confused" neon sign above my head.
Yes, this is the person you want to give an advance to and trust she has a clue.
At any rate, I loved the convenience of the subway once I got acclimated, though the numbers for the stops whizzed past so quickly, it was a little difficult to know where the hell I was. I can imagine that day when I'm supposed to navigate the stops by myself or, God forbid, change from one line to the next to cut across town... I will probably bug everyone within hearing distance to help me.
Which is what I did when I took the bus out to Montclaire.
Everyone getting on that bus figured out within three nanoseconds that I didn't know what to do or where exactly my stop was, so three or four of them volunteered information (from descriptions of the routes, to telling me which stop mine would be after they got off), and one woman kept bugging the driver to be sure to let me know which stop was mine. I'm pretty sure that as often as she shouted, "Sir? Sir? Is this her stop? Because she doesn't know which one is her stop. Could you let her know, Sir?" the man would have gotten up and tossed me off the bus at my stop just to make sure I was gone.
Overall, I found New Yorkers extremely friendly. Not something you'd expect to find given the sterotype portrayed on TV and in films, but true for my experience.
The main thing about the trip was how the city juxtaposed itself to what I had seen and heard and known from countless TV shows and film imagery. Walking down a subway entrance was simultaneously new and a first for me and yet, old hat, because I'd seen it on hundreds of Law and Order shows and the like. Seeing the subways whoosh by was normal and expected, the imagery merging with that memory in my mind of having seen it before, only I hadn't, not really, not this way, not in person with the roar of the trains being so loud, you can't really hear what anyone next to you is saying and you can feel the platform rumbling, hear the rattle of the trains against the tracks, feel the air against your face. From standing in awe at the enormity of Times Square, seeing the overhead neon signs and giant screens and the utter competition between buildings to out-technologically shine over everyone else, to see the throng of people everywhere, to the wonderful little Italian restaurant in SoHo with its checkered tablecloths, jukebox, old world tin ceiling painted green and polished wood bar, where the food was utterly excellent, it was all both familiar and strange, a bit like falling down the rabbit hole.
I am very much looking forward to going back. The next time, I hope Carl can come and we can make a vacation out of the trip as well, because there are hundreds of things I would have liked to have seen and I know he would enjoy it as well.
For now, off to work. I'm finishing up outlining Book Two. I haven't done anything nearly so fancy as Diana has done for plotting, although I considered it. I have the board, I have the notes, I got started and then the trip interrupted it. I have written reams and reams on the story in my own way of outlining, but it's not a system anyone else could follow, as it's more my way of devling into character and plot simultaneously. Of course, if I get stuck, I will be coming back to this system Diana's mentioned here and giving it a go, because it looks like it could take some of the guesswork out of the fear of whether a story line is working and is being threaded through well enough.
More later...
Apologies for the lack of content here. I'm in the process of working with a designer for a new site, plus regular work, plus some travel, plus a couple of family things. More updates soon, and then when we go live with the other site, there will be regular content. No, really. I promise. Quit looking at me like that, I'm serious.
I never really bother with New Year's resolutions. For one thing, I tend to forget whatever it was that I resolved by the second or third week of January, which makes adhering to them a little difficult. And honestly, I don't believe in making a bunch of resolutions of difficult things to do all at once, because if they're difficult enough so that I'm having to make a big fat honking resolution for it at the first of the year, then odds are, I'm not likely to do it anyway -- especially if there's more than one. But there's all this pressure at the beginning of the year to make resolutions, like you're not a good person if you don't have them (or you're shallow, because you think you don't need improvement) and why the hell do we do that to ourselves anyway? Do we really want to start off a new year with a buttload of guilt and a side-order of dread? No. No we do not.
So, keeping that in mind, I decided to make a New Year's resolution list I know I will keep so I don't have to worry about them, don't have to feel guilty because I'm not all that likely to break them, and I will have bragging rights even by July when the everyone else will be hiding their list. Feel free to use and adapt to your needs.
I hereby resolve to:
1) breathe. This is a handy little resolution I'm pretty sure I can keep, except when my head is spinning around in fury. (Given that this is when my husband usually reminds me to breathe, apparently there are some moments where it is remotely possible I might break this rule.) I especially like this one and feel it is my greatest candidate for "Most Likely To Keep."
2) eat. Whatever the hell I want. This is probably my second favorite category, although the third one competes heavily.
3) sleep. Especially naps. Long naps. Long naps where the phone is turned off. I'm liking this one better and better.
4) love my family except when they're being really stupid and I'd rather smack them. This may possibly be self-explanatory. (See note on #1.)
5) chocolate. If it enters my house, it is mine. If the kids don't get it out of their stockings and inadvertently leave their stockings here overnight, the chocolate will migrate to my room. All by itself. Magically. I don't know how this happens or why, but I accept that it does and that this means it is mine to eat whenever I damned well want to.
6) have convenient lapses of memory. (See #5.)
7) procrastinate. I feel this particular resolution gets short shrift at the first of every year because so many people make resolutions about being all industrious and shit when WHO ARE THEY KIDDING? My particular method of procrastinating is farting around on the computer. So far this year, I'm doing extremely well.
8) I think napping needs a second entry. Just because.
9) buy more shoes. (Feel free to substitute "tools" or "computers" or "gadgets" or "clothes" or "toothpicks" or whatever you like. This is an equal opportunity vice.)
10) write, read, talk to friends, e-mail, watch movies, HAVE FUN, do whatever it is I feel like doing to fill in the time between all of the above resolutions. Which may only be five or so minutes a day, between the napping and the procrastinating and the chocolate. In fact, I think the have fun part of this entry is going to be the most important of all. Because what the hell is the point of living if we aren't having some fun?
Well, I think I can keep that list. It might be a bit rough fitting in the napping and the procrastinating all in the same day every day, but it's worth a shot, and I will give it my best effort.