Something has to be different

Since I returned from France, I've written about 600 words on my novel and a 900+ word poem about Paris, not including a preliminary literature review I had to present for a research project and a narrative that is more or less a grant request for my local library.

School has hit the midterm, which means exams and projects are popping up every other day, even though I only have to classes. I started a new job at a major retail chain who has already scheduled me for more hours that I agreed to at hiring. (A trend I can hope is temporary, but I won't hold my breath.)

I spent a lot of time sick this summer, and it taught me a lot about myself. One major lesson involves the infamous cliché of taking care of myself. This does not mean make sure you eat the right foods and get enough sleep and exercise. I did all of those things and ended up sick because of neglecting myself emotionally. Or at least, that's what I believe.

Medically, at least for now, they might not be able to connect officially the severe anemia I had with the stress I had experienced over the last several years. But anemia and stress do have a link, and the doctors agree it could be possible that the stress caused the havoc in my body that led to anemia. They don't exactly have a test that says "Aha! Definitely! That's it!" because none of their tests for anything are that clear cut.

I've learned new techniques to stave off emotional upheaval from stress. One is designed for the manic, hyperactive me. When things get hectic, I ask myself: "What if this task took twice as long?" Then, I emotionally grant myself that long to get the job done. Maybe dinner ends up getting on the table at 5:30 instead of 5, but I've given myself permission to daydream while stirring the sauce and end up packing less into a day, alleviating that rushed intensity. Even when I'm at my busiest, I've employed this and so far, it hasn't bitten me in the butt.

The second technique involves my new mantra, "Something has to be different." It's about turning around moods that slide in an irritable direction. A wise therapist once told me, "I mean this is the kindest way possible, but when you're overextended, it makes you crazy." So, when I get irritable, I tell myself "Something has to be different." Then I set out to find what I can change.

So, now some of you are saying, "what does this have to do about writing?"

Well, for those of us who have a lot on our plates or a lot on our minds, sometimes, the easiest thing to change is our work. Our writing work. I didn't intend to write this morning. I planned laundry, errands, history chapters and work tonight, but no writing. The stress building in me vetoed that. I need something to be different. And I think the best change I could make today is to push aside the history book and hang out with my imaginary friends. I can take the history book to work tonight and finish reading about the 19th century at work.

For some of us, our hobbies provide an important escape from stress. Don't deny yourself that hobby time-- for writers, this is our writing time, our soul infusion-- or in the end, you'll wear yourself down.

Trapped in poetry

I am still struggling with my Paris poem, painting her as both a whore and a presence who saved my soul. I am not a poet, yet the exercise of writing a poem, especially one this important to me on a personal level, is freeing. It's using a different part of my word brain. It's practicing an economy of words that I don't normally use.

I am a goddess when it comes to meeting word counts, but a poem demands even stricter guidelines. Every word comes under scrutiny. Why did you pick it? What does it say? How does it sound? What else could it mean? These questions all matter in poetry.

What's fun about poetry is the process of distillation. You must think of what you need to say, and compose it in your head, then keep rephrasing it until you hit the right mix. As a consequence, where writers can ponder a scene for an hour while vacuuming, they cannot truly put each exact word together until they sit at the screen or at paper.

A poet, on the other hand, will work those works over and over until perhaps a six-word phrase emerges. Then eventually, those words are recorded. And reworked. But so much of the actual creation can be honed without writing anything down. And that can be really freeing.

The Poetry of Paris

On October 6, I left for Paris. I went on a whirlwind trip that despite the calendar's claim that I returned a mere five days later rejuvenated my soul as if I spent a month in France.

I didn't set myself up with a major list of things to do, because merely needed to be in Paris. The photo at left is me in Étienne's neighborhood.

 I didn't waste time visiting his church, his exact address, his office, the house he grew up in or the boulangerie where he gets his bread.

I needed to live in the rhythm of Paris without any distraction before I could scope out these things. I still have a good idea where they are, but I don't need to decide today where they will be exactly.

I like my writing to have authenticity to it, as much as I can provide. So, while I could pick a place and do a surface description, I would rather wait until I could capture the underlying sense of life within a place. The narrow streets, the odors of urine, perspiration, dog poop, wine, perfume, bread and cigarette smoke that makes Paris memorable. The demi-tasse of coffee and the warm brioche or pain au chocolat. The way the vin du table pours perhaps a tad too easily. Cramming onto the subway closer to strangers than I would normally stand with my husband.

Before I return to my manuscript, I am writing a poem to Paris. Perhaps that is how an author should find a setting, by immersing oneself in the streets until poetry comes out.

Off the cuff

I have fifteen minutes before I leave for class and I'm stuck here at the college library having finished some homework early and having no brain cells left for writing.

Last night, Étienne had his Spring 2011 ready-to-wear fashion show and I imagine he shocked the world by starting the show with the models in full burqas. A couple weeks ago, the French legislature passed a law banning burqas under the French policy of maintaining a "laïc" society. The separation of church and state has led to a severe type of absence of religion from everyday life in France, and there are very real reasons why these policies developed.

But, from a practical standpoint, and a cultural/societal one, the ideology in question is not going to work and the law will cause problems.

Although Étienne is not Muslim, he has friends that are. And he sent those models down the runway in burqas to make a statement. He did finally show the clothes, but even then, every model had a headpiece, i.e. a form of the veil, and he made a statement.

I started editing Chapter 21 of Courting Apparitions, and in that chapter, Étienne flies to France. In a few days, so am I, so this is exciting. Our lives overlap. In a good way.

Magic of Books

I'm reading the memoir "The Piano Shop on the Left Bank" by Thad Carhart.

Not only does it transport me to Paris and remind me of the quirky traits of the French, but it successfully captures the essence of the hobbyist musicians and the complexity and personality of pianos. This is one art I have attempted to understand and even with world music and music appreciation classes. I have never bridged that gap.

Some writers slowly build believable worlds with words, worlds that you accept, but some authors can instantly transport you to the protagonist's side as if by magic.

Thank you, Thad, for the magic.

The werewolf short story

I have begun my werewolf short story (and my final essay for my French class, so when one bores me I can work on the other).

I wrote 300 works on it yesterday, got some positive feedback from several friends, but my husband was the first to point out I have no "hook."

So I started the next stretch of the story keeping an eye out for that potential hook, and I got an additional 125 words before my daughter woke up.

The reality is, especially as a mom, first drafts stink because you never get a chance to sit, write and focus. Writing becomes disjointed and grabbed in brief minutes when you can, where you can.

Like this blog: some days I write long, well-thought out entries and some days I present a few scattered sentences. Today is a scattered sentence day, because my mommy obligations are at the forefront.

It's really no different for writers who work for time or have other commitments (like those deep in the process of marketing their first or current book while writing the next). The reality is you keep writing and you can't make excuses.

The werewolf story proceeds, even if 100 words at a time. I will fix it later, once I have a first draft to fix. It's easier to fix a first draft than to create a story out of nothing. The author with a bad first draft has already surpassed the writer intimidated by a blank page.

New projects

One of the writing groups I belong to, I believe it was PLRW, posted this call for urban fantasy/were-creatures short stories from Ekaterina Sedia:

http://fishmonkey.blogspot.com/2010/04/new-anthology.html

And I thought to myself: well, there's no reason why I can't write something for that. Even if just as an exercise in finishing a new project for a specific purpose. Always a good lesson. Creative people sometimes forget how to complete an assignment that's not muse-driven.

I now have several pages of notes in my journal about a werewolf in post-Liberation 1945 Paris...

The value of setting

Yesterday I reflected upon first chapters, and today I thought I'd ruminate on something equally as important (and often daunting) and pivotal to the success of any story: setting.

The right setting will make or break a book.

When I first started my book, before chick lit existed, some of my characters worked in fashion, primarily so they could wear cool clothes and go to Paris. Yes, this was a 'deep' decision. Without any knowledge of the TGV or basic transportation system in France, I decided that the main female character would frequent the Strasbourg area to visit her German aunt. (I don't even remember if the aunt lived in France or Germany.) The bad guy now was just a love interest then and he lived in Germany selling antiques and making stained glass.

As the story changed and the fashion grew more pivotal, Paris became the obvious setting. But even after I had spent time in Paris (about a month), the city remained illusive in my writing. She seemed nothing more than a shadow of herself. Another contributing factor was the obvious realization that I speak French, not German. Along the lines of the old adage 'write what you know'... I find myself often fighting with my story. Why on Earth would I do anything in Germany when I'm a Francophile?

So, to avoid a two-dimensional Paris, I gave the fashion house a New York office. Problem solved right? I've spent lots of time in New York. I can create an accurate New York. Nope. My New York is a day-trip New York. Yes, I have traveled the subways, the cabs, and different neighborhoods, but I have never lived there.

My story continued to stumble and limp because New York didn't work. But how could I fix that? I couldn't move to New York (ah, but what an idea!).

I gave the main characters a weekend house in rural Pennsylvania. And it happens to be the house I grew up in. Rural Upper Mount Bethel Township. River Road. Half way between Tuscarora Inn and Driftstone Campground. Now these rich Parisians have mounted substantial renovations to the humble farmhouse where I lived... but that's also something I dreamed about as a kid, "fixing" the dilapidated house my parents rented.

But I didn't stop there. The bad guy lives in the outskirts of the school district where I live now. I can drive you down his road.

The characters visit the familiar country bar where I've been a million times.

The story soared.

Have I abandoned New York and Paris? No. Office scenes in a New York Italianate brownstone. Basilie has a fabulous apartment in the Ansonia. (And another fabulous apartment on the Place des Vosges in Paris, which we never see until book three, I think.) The office in Paris. Étienne's Ile St. Louis townhouse. But most of the story, at least 70 percent I'd say, happens in Pennsylvania.

I never thought I'd find a feasible reason for my artistic French character to be in rural Pennsylvania, but when you think about the geography of France, it makes sense. France is primarily rural and their towns are very small. Cities and small towns. Very few medium sized towns. If Étienne wished to leave the city, which he hates because it is not Paris, where would he go? Pennsylvania. And at the time he bought the old farmhouse, he probably paid $120,000 for it which is downright laughable to him. His car cost $250,000.

Never underestimate the setting.

I had a similar problem with book two of my series. I kept trying to open with the bad guy and the good guy working together in New York. My husband kept asking me WHY would the bad guy agree to work for the good guy instead of just killing him? After years of resisting, and the rejection of my critique group, I moved them to neutral territory: the country bar. Where they could casually run into each other.

And then, after their scene, I got to offer this (first draft) depiction of my former home:

"River Road originated on other side of the Portland-Columbia toll bridge. Cross the railroad tracks, pass the coal-fired electrical generator, and follow the Delaware River another four miles and there stood Étienne’s weekend house, a renovated 18th century farmhouse he had purchased as a getaway for his wife. He had spent a year with the architects and contractors overseeing the transformation from crumbling relic to country estate. His idea of a romantic hideaway didn’t quite materialize, since Adelaide sliced her wrists in the master bathroom occurred less than a month after the official housewarming.
He drove his wife’s sedan past Jules’ Volkswagen Touareg to the upper end of the driveway, parking right beside the massive deck that spanned from the house to the three car garage. The crisp air burned Étienne’s lungs. The dark sky showed a breathtaking magnitude of stars and across the street, the river lapped at its banks with a rhythm as reassuring as that of a old woman’s rocking chair. His breath materialized in foggy wisps, but the chill didn’t bother him (except for his protesting leg) because the first day of February in Pennsylvania couldn’t match the bitter damp of winter in Paris.
Climbing the stairs slowly, he lingered on the deck, chasing constellations across the horizon. The pain in his face subsided a bit in the coldness, and he knew he should head into the house and ice his wounds, but something about the night felt good and quieted his soul. The lights from the kitchen spilled into the cedar entryway, casting gold across the deck from the large window and the portes-fenêtres."