There’s a pile of papers on my desk that desperately needs to be graded.  There’s a pile of laundry in the hamper that needs to be washed.  There’s a pile of mail on the dining room table that needs to be sorted.  But do I care?  No. Why not?

I’m writing a novel this month.

For the first time, I’ve decided to participate in NaNoWriMo.  Originally, I planned to add 30,000 words to my current WIP and finish it.  Only 1000 words a day as opposed to the 1,667 required to reach 50,000 words by November 30th.  I wouldn’t claim a badge or brag that I’d written a novel in 30 days even if I did finish my novel.  However, once I started writing, I realized that I could actually do it. I could actually write 50,000 words in the month of November.  I’ve far surpassed the goal I set for myself, and I plan to keep going.  As of now, I am more than halfway to 50,000 words.  I’m only slightly behind because of a big weekend, but I plan to catch up this week.

And it feels so, so good to be writing.

Sure, the bathroom could be cleaned, the dog could be walked for a bit longer, and I could use some exercise. And those dishes?  They can wait. Why?

BECAUSE I’M WRITING A NOVEL.

A Ramble

The other day I was listening to an interview with Ann Patchett on NPR. Several things she said caught my attention. For instance, she said, “I can teach you how to fix a sentence, how to make that character stronger, but I can’t teach you to have something to say.”

Her interview intrigued me to the point that I sought out my old friend, Google, and looked her up. She has a lot to say about writing, and she knows of what she speaks.  A topic she hits hard that hit me hard was that balance between talent and hard work.  Her thoughts reminded me of what Richard Ford (apologies, folks; I know I’m talking about adult fiction writers….), who, when I was working on a book-length biography and said “Richard, I don’t know if I know how to do this!”  responded, “Writing is 5% talent and 95% butt in chair.”  I think Patchett would agree.

For instance, she said “I’m always looking for ways to break rituals because I don’t want to become obsessive-compulsive, which I think is a real tendency in writers, or in people who spend lots of time alone trying to be self-motivated….I don’t want to have a special teacup; I don’t want to have a special sweatshirt.  I don’t want anything to be the reason that I can work.”

Boy, do I have the reasons!  Let me count the ways!

Patchett goes on to say the difference between writers and wannabe writers is simple:  Hard Work.  She says a writer has to accept his or her writing as “work.”  It’s like getting up in the morning and going to the office.  Not that one blocks out three hours between 10 – 1, no matter what, and writes, but writing is one’s work.  It’s what you wake up every day expecting to do.

And that brings me to my next point in this “ramble.”  I do not wake up each and every morning thinking about or planning to address my writing. Au contraire!  I plan to do anything but!  But I do think about my writing. I think about that story that I love, that’s in the drawer, that makes me feel guilty because I don’t pull it out, clean it up, and send it out.  Alas.

And then, the next point of this “ramble” is that in a meeting with an agent I met two years ago, she said she liked this story. She liked the main character. She thought the story had appeal.  Like a puppy being petted on the head, I immediately packed up my manuscript, went off alone for a few days, and did a complete rewrite.  I was on a roll.

Home again, the manuscript went back into the drawer.  Reading about my colleagues’ progress, their books, their activities, I felt like a complete loser. I went to the same school they did. I completed the same studies. I loved the same instructors. I love the art of writing, the challenge. I thought I had something to say.  But I did nothing.

Ramble number three. Lo and behold, out of the blue, the same agent emailed me two weeks ago and asked, “How are you doing with that story?  I’d love to see it when you’re ready.”

Really?  Two years later?  She remembers the story?  I doubt it. I imagine she has something set up as an alert program on her computer that reminds her there was a story she liked once upon a time.

But hey. It was my story!

So, puppy patted on the head again, I pulled out the manuscript and in two days re-read it and edited it, and started entering the edits into the document on my computer.  I was amazed!  I cut phrases that added nothing to the story. I changed words. Stronger! More descriptive!.  I thought of another writer of adult fiction who has influenced me immensely:  Ernest Gaines.  Ernie told me, “Write with fire, edit with ice.”

And I did. I edited with ice, I killed my darlings, and still, I love the story.

But I don’t work at writing. I dabble at it. And if Ann Patchett is right (and I suspect she is), until I really work at it, this story will go nowhere except where it is now:  in my archives.

So this is the end of my ramble to anybody out there who is reading this. No matter how much natural talent you have, until, and unless, you make this your work, your great story probably won’t be read and appreciated by anybody but you.

And that would be a pity.

My friend, A.B. Westrick’s historical novel, Brotherhood, has recently been published by Viking. It’s got a dynamic set up: post Civil War in the South after a bitter, destructive defeat, and a main character who is torn between wanting to better himself and his fatherless family, and doing the ethical, difficult work of seeing people for who they truly are. The reader gets up close and personal with both a freed slave who tries to teach the main character to read, and meetings of the early Ku Klux Klan. I asked Anne some questions about her approach to this unique novel.

LMc: Brotherhood is set in the period after the Civil War, which was the bloodiest and most divisive war our country has ever known. How did that setting inform and shape the story’s plot and theme?

AW: The setting, Reconstruction, affected everything. Defeated in the war, white Southerners felt angry and grieved massive losses of family members, friends, and property. They resented the presence of the foreign militia (Northerners) patrolling the streets, and their actions were often reactive rather than proactive. The setting allowed me to hint at an underlying theme: children aren’t responsible for the families and situations into which they’re born—we don’t get to choose our families or neighborhoods—but as we grow and become aware of what’s going on around us, we do get to make decisions that matter.

LMc: Are there any parallels in today’s world to the dichotomy present in post Civil War America?

AW: One particular parallel on my mind while writing Brotherhood was the plight of children growing up in families where they’re taught to hate and fear others. What if a child grows up in an Al Qaida training camp where he’s taught to hate Americans? What if children are born Tutsi, on a mission to kill Hutus? What if their parents are members of Westboro Baptist Church? Children aren’t at fault for being born into tough families. They’re stuck. As they grow, how will they come to terms with the animosities of their parents or guardians? I don’t have answers to my questions! But I wonder about them a lot.

LMc: How did you prepare yourself to represent the varied perspectives in this book?

AW: As the daughter of Southerners who moved north to Pennsylvania, I grew up with some of the conflicting perspectives in the book. Winners get to write a nation’s history, so at school I’d learn how great Lincoln was, and at home I’d learn never to mention the name Lincoln in polite company. Years later, when my husband took a job in Richmond, VA, capital of the Confederacy, I began to ask around, inviting opinions about the war, and people gave me earfuls! I tried to make the characters in Brotherhood reflect Southern sensibilities as honestly as I could. In addition to chatting with people, I spent time in all of Richmond’s museums (there are many), and two in particular—the Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia; and the American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar—helped me begin to appreciate the African-American perspective. I think I still have a lot to learn there.

LMc: How did you make sure that you did not bring a present day sensibility to this story?

AW: Well, I doubt we can ever fully disentangle our perceptions from our twenty-first century sensibilities, but I’ll just say that in the course of researching the book, I read a number of newspapers and books written during the 1800s, and those helped me absorb the language and orientation of the times. I completed the initial draft in first-person from the protagonist’s point of view, and later changed the manuscript to third-person. But the first-person sensibility remained, and it was one deeply rooted in 1867 Virginia.

LMc: How did you keep the story from becoming a lecture on being politically correct?

AW: My characters often made me cringe, but I tried to put words in their mouths that were true to them as people. I decided that I’d leave it to readers to discuss the rights and wrongs of their actions. One of the most politically incorrect aspects of Brotherhood is the sympathetic portrayal of Shadrach, a young member of the KKK. What I did was to begin the story with Shad already inside the Klan, with the Klan as his family and racial bigotry as a given, and from that starting point, I allowed him to develop. I brought him to a place where he came to question his circumstances. Approaching the story with this “insider” orientation is probably the factor that kept it from turning into some sort of lecture.

LMc: Do you think people are born accepting the differences in others, or can they learn it?

AW: I think our brains are programmed to help us perceive danger and survive in a hostile environment, and our initial, subconscious reaction to “difference” is fear. We’re born xenophobic, and our primal instincts are tribal. But we’re fortunate that our brains have also evolved in such a way that we’re capable of acceptance and the ability to embrace diversity. We learn to accept differences when we’re exposed to people, ideas, languages, cultures and expressions that are not our own. And when we’re exposed, the conscious brain overrides the subconscious, and we learn that these differences don’t endanger us, but instead, enrich us as human beings.

LMc:  Did you feel grumpy while writing this? If so, how did you keep your mood up?

AW: The story sure is sad at times, isn’t it?! I kept writing because I hadn’t found much fiction set during Reconstruction from a Southern viewpoint, so I felt there was a place in the world for this story. Also, I love my Rachel character, the formerly enslaved girl who now runs a school for African-American children. She gives me hope, and eventually, although Shad’s feelings are dampened by his circumstances, she gives him hope, too.

LMc: Thanks, Anne. Brotherhood is a terrific book about a little understood but incredibly important period in America’s history. I highly recommend it.