Once upon a time

.
.
This video shows that we are born story-tellers.

And then ... .

And then ... .

And then ... !

Analytics

.
.
When I first published, I became obsessed with numbers: how many printed, how many books were still in the warehouse, how many had sold ... ? I don't do that any more: I don't watch my Amazon.com ratings, I don't call the warehouse. When people ask how my book is doing, I tell them I haven't a clue.

But lately I've been watching my blog and website numbers — now that I've finally figured out how to use Google Analytics. Through Analytics, I can see how many people are reading what (not many), how many move quickly on (most everyone), how many linger (only a few), and even how people got there (and what search terms were used if they used a search engine).

This is dangerously intriguing. Through Analytics I can see what pages on my website are most often visited. I can't help but consider these relatively low numbers in terms of the thousands of dollars I've invested in my website, but will any of this information change how I do things? Doubtful.

I tell myself that I rather like talking in the dark, that I'm blogging for myself (this is true) — but too, I've a weakness for a rising graph curve, I know. Perhaps I'd better return to the 17th century.

Imagine!

.
.
Imagine: a writer in the White House!

Deadlines

'
'
I met today with my wonderful agent, Jackie Kaiser, over lunch. Invariably I come away having committed to a deadline: and today was no exception. I told her my general (and, to my mind, vague) plan, which was to write the first draft of the next novel next summer, and to have a "viewable" manuscript the following year. In no time at all Jackie had excitedly caluclated a 2011 publication date, and suddenly, there it was: a target. It's not a bad thing: and, foolish as this may prove to be, I actually think it might even be possible.

Single-malt scotch

.
.
The morning of my birthday — the 64th — I was in the CBC broadcasting studios for a short recording that would be used for a new radio show, The Next Chapter. Farley Mowat was being interviewed by Shela Rogers when I arrived, and I had the pleasure of watching his session. Shela's voice was all present -- but I was puzzled: she was not there. I later learned that she lives on the west coast and that all this is done at a distance.

After Farley's session, he signed about having yet another interview that morning, and a call went out throughout the CBC building for single-malt scotch — "for medicinal purposes," Farley said. It was amusing to discover which radio shows and which announcers did have scotch on hand.

Tom, the Poetry Correspondent, was guiding me through the recording. (I love that Canada's national radio even has a "Poetry Correspondent"!) He confessed that he'd recently gone to some trouble to give his office an artistic look — special Italian notebooks, etc. He considered that a bottle of scotch would have appropriate, but he didn't drink it and the notebooks had used up the budget.

I do love hanging around watching the comings and goings of most media, but I especially love radio — and the CBC is tops. I even got to wear Farley's headphones.

Dictation!

.
I have a number of letters to answer -- e-mails from readers. I woke up this morning with my right hand cramped, and so I decided to test out the new dictation program. And it works! I am dictating this post.

There is an interesting difference however. When I am at the keyboard, words come. When I'm dictating, I'm stumped. My initial plan was to use dictation to make it easier to record research notes from books. I begin to see that that's going to work, but it's possible that once I get used to it I'll be able to use it for writing, as well.

Jumping between blogs

. .
Oh, I'm bad. Too many blogs! Readers of this one might be interested in the post from guest blogger Mary Novik over at my 17th century research blog, Baroque Explorations. I have tremendous respect for her work, and her description of the writing process is comforting, because it's so meandering.

Mary mentions the book coming to her in a dream. I've heard this from two other writers of late. Josephine B. came to me in a dream, as well. This is all well and good, but what if no dreams come? What then?

(I did dream of Obama saying he had better get to work, that he had a big job ahead. And he does!)

As for me, I'm packing again — heading south for Mexico ... and for good reason. I've about 100 lbs. of books to pare down. Books and files and more books. It's not easy being a travelling writer of historical fiction.

Oh no — not another blog!

.
.
Just what I don't need: another blog! But I'm pleased nonetheless:

Bookmarks: a collection.

It's a beginning.

Festivals and Book Clubs

.
.
I've had a few days doing author-type things. I was in Ottawa at the Ottawa Writers' Festival for a few days, and last night I was at a book club meeting in Combermere. All very enjoyable, seeing old friends, meeting new ones.

A conversation at the book check-out counter at the Festival was delightfully confusing:

SHE: That will be $10.30. Oh! [Seeing my Festival name tag.] You're Sandra Gulland. I've read all your books.

ME, taking the book: Thank you, that's wonderful. [Handing her a $20.] I have 30 [as in cents].

SHE: Oh, I've not read 30.

ME, realizing what she meant, and overwhelmed at the thought of 30 books to my credit: I'll never make it to 30.

SHE, laughing and giving me my change: That what all 24-year-olds say — "I'll never make it to 30."

I take the book — Mortifications; Writers' Stories of their Public Shame, the perfect companion for a writer on tour, BTW — and back away, dazzled by the notion of being a 24-year-old with 30 books to my credit. If only!

Unicorns and more

.
.
I recently got a letter from a friend who had just read Mistress of the Sun, which features a white horse which is mythic in spirit, magical — rather in the way of a unicorn. She reminded me of a party I’d gone to over 35 years ago. The theme of the party was to come as your “true essence," and I’d gone as a unicorn.

I have only a vague recollection of this. People ask me, "What is the significance of the horse in the novel?" My answer has been that it’s my main character’s true self, Petite's unbridled essence. And now I begin to see how much this is about me, as well.

In St. Louis, while on tour this last June, I had the pleasure to meet Beckah Voigt, the woman who had danced the part of Josephine in an amazing one-woman production. She understood that I might be too tired to meet — and I was — but mentioned that she did "energy work." I told her I could use "energy work"; I didn't know what it was, but, as the Quakers say, "it spoke to my condition." We made a date: we would meet, and I would rest. (The ultimate in multi-tasking.)

Meeting Beckah was like discovering a sister, and after the "work" — which was meditative in the extreme — she talked of what she had sensed. She didn't know anything about Mistress of the Sun, so I was astonished when she said that she got a very strong impression of a flying white horse.

All this just to say that it seems to me that the process of creation — whether it be a novel, a poem, a painting — has deep roots in an unconscious personal mythology, and that you won't really even know this until long after the work is completed.

Ergonomic issues

.
.
I slept last night with my right wrist bandaged in "pain pads" and a tensor — a reminder of how hard on the body working at a computer can be. When I am in full work mode, I set a timer to ring on the hour: a reminder to get up and go through a series of exercises intended to relieve the neck, back and wrists. But like most good intentions, this doesn't always happen. A friend noted that her son, a musician, had to take courses on ergonomic issues and how to avoid harming himself. Writing courses should do the same.

Accomplished yesterday: ordered a number of books related to my current area of research (17th century theatre); made bookings related to a trip to NY; posted to my research blog (and here); looked over my Sandra Gulland Inc. tax reports; began to organize my To Do lists, which include preparing for a library reading in a few days, a festival interview and CBC recording next week; sent off a photo and release form for an anthology I'm part of; rescheduled writer's group meeting; responded to an email from someone whose grandmother owns a portrait of Louise de la Vallière (subject of my research blog); printed out the manuscript of a novel written by a friend — which I will begin reading today.

You will notice in all this that although everything is writing-related, Not One Thing has to do with actually writing. Today I have over 20 emails from readers that need to be answered (a backlog from being away). Keeping up is hard to do!

Research!

.
.
I'm in book mode. Winter will soon be upon us, and we plan to leave for sunny Mexico in only a few weeks. What research books will I need to take? I'm still somewhat unsure about the subject of The Next Novel. I have been thinking that it will be about La Grande Mademoiselle, but another possibility pounced upon me a week before we left for Europe and has taken root in my thoughts. It would be told against a background of the theatrical life in the 17th century. There is so much to be learned. On a practical level, I will need information, books — and I don't have very much time to order.

More anon!

(I also just posted to my research blog: Baroque Explorations.)

Tuscan dreams

.
.
Tuscany is a long way to go to sleep well, and perhaps it's the late-night dinners, but I seem to dream well here, too. Last night I dreamt that I asked a woman what she would not want to ever give up. Her teeth, she said. For me, it was my office.

My writing life began, I think, with my first winter in Canada, in Nain, Labrador, the sub-artic. I read a lot that winter -- all of Lessing's Children of Violence series, Anais Nin's diaries, Virginia Wolf's A Room of One's Own. And it was in reading Wolf's book that I began to dream of just that, a room of my own.

I've had desks in dark and crowded basements, desks in the corner of utility rooms. In reading Cameron's The Artist's Way I began to seriously dream of an office I could call my own. I put it on my wish list. For a long time I was considering a tent and then a house-trailer. Then came my first foreign sale and lo -- the means to consider the impossible: an office addition to our house.

And yes, my office would be the one thing I would not ever want to give up.

Ciao!

.
.
We're heading off on our travels this morning, to Paris and Tuscany, and will be on the road for over 3 weeks. My husband and I are each only taking a carry-on bag — a challenge! — but I'm always grateful for a light bag.

I hope to blog now and then, but that's likely optimistic. I forget about how awkward it can be to type on French (or Italian!) keyboards.

In the last week, my entire concept of what novel I will be writing next has changed. I saw a way into the story of Athénaïs — just a brief image came to me, and it opened up. Will that be the next book though? I'd always thought so, but after finishing Mistress, I didn't think I could write about her. (I was too angry.) Now, I'm not so sure.

Ciao!

Living the questions

.
.
I subscribe to Stephanie Bennett Vogt's newletter, Your Spacious Self: short, inspirational nuggets on clearing out clutter (a constant battle in our house), and, what makes Vogt's concept different, clearing out muddled thinking in the process. Yesterday, she simply posted this Rilke quote, which, as the Quakers would put it, "spoke to my condition."

"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart ... The questions themselves are like locked rooms, like books written in a foreign tongue. ... Live the questions now, and perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer."

— Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet, from "Letter Four". Translated by M.D. Herter [and ammended by me]. Norton, New York, 1954.

I'm grappling with big questions now: What will my next novel be about? If La Grande Mademoiselle, might it be more than one novel? What about a novel about Athénäis? I'm trying to condense my galaxy of thoughts into an email to Dan, my adopted mentor, before leaving for Europe in one week.

The To Do List grows — preparation for the trip, but also, the nuts and bolts of the writing life: fax to my UK publisher about buying some of the remaindered copies of The Lives & Sorrows of Josephine B.; a Q&A to fill out for M.J. Rose's Powell's blog, due this month; research preparation for the trip; a letter to decline a request to "blurb" a book (I'm already committed to one right now); Sandra Gulland Inc. bookkeeping; many emails to answer, especially those wishing to pin down a date for an event.

All this is urgent and pressing, but most of it is "author" work. The all-essential work, the work of the "writer," seems so easily overtaken.

Totems

.
.
I've not been sleeping well, so I've been reading quite a bit through the long nights. One book I finished last night was How I write; The Secret Lives of Authors. At first glance, I didn't like it: it looked like a coffee-table book — cool design, but no substance, I thought. I was wrong.

It's an anthology of very short statements from over sixty authors on how they write — specifically on the wierd habits or objects that have become an essential part of their process. Johathan Lethem's list of names, Jay McInerney's axe artifact, Lionel Shriver's toy Clippity, A.S. Byatt's "Antonia Writing Time!" notice, Jonathan Franzen's old and ugly office chair, Claire Messud's graph paper pad and fine .005 felt-tip pens ...

I came away with a fuller understanding that the process of writing is magical, that for many writers, it requires some sort of incantation, totem or ritual. Which made me give some thought to my own:

The cork from the bottle of champagne I brought to the class party at the end of the first writing workshop I attended. I was celebrating because I'd committed to becoming a writer. The cork reminds me that I'm lucky to be doing what I'm doing.

The tiny frame of the words "1-inch square" — this a reminder from Anne Lamott, I believe: When stuck approaching a scene, imagine viewing it through a 1-inch square. Describe what you see.

Two images, both of which "describe" to me the creative process. The first is a painting of a man and a woman on a floating raft, the bedding dragging in the water. The woman is asleep, the man awake and staring. (I wish I knew the artist's name and the name of the work.) This image evokes the unconscious at work.

The second, is Louis Lozowick's "Granite for Monuments (For Future Monuments)". For me, this image captures the feeling of "constructing" a novel.

None of these are essential to me, for I have more than one office, and I don't carry them with me. What is essential is my computer. I love the idea of writing long-hand, and I'm hopelessly romantic about notebooks, pens and pencils, but I rarely write more than a few pages before running back to my computer ... my computer which is both my friend and foe. I spend far too many hours on it not writing.

Overwhelmed!

.
.
I'm at that familiar "it's impossible" stage, brought on (as usual) by research. My focus has been La Grande Mademoiselle, but — like the lady herself — it's a big, brave, sad story, rather like that of a female Don Quixote. It's hard to take on a subject about which much has been written. I waded into Josephine blindly — and over a decade later waded back out.

Also, I waver between fact and fancy. I've been (as a novelist should) giving way to fancy — but now, rereading Pitts' La Grande Mademoiselle at the Court of France, I'm face-to-face once again with fact. It's like poking a hole in a balloon.

(For notes on the research, see my research blog, Baroque Explorations.)

Writing by dictation

.
.
I just started to use my MacSpeech Dictate program and I have to say I'm impressed. I am standing away from the computer talking into a microphone, not even looking at the screen. In a few minutes I will go over and see what in fact has appeared.

I can't believe it. It's perfect.

So now what? I wish I had some research notes to test. Okay. I'll talk about Elizabeth George's book Write Away.

I like this book: she details the professional nuts and bolts of her way of writing a novel. She's candid and honest and not too abstract.

For example, she writes:

"To give myself a sense of direction, I do two things. I create a step outline. I then expand it to a running plot outline."

I find this interesting. Right now, I'm creating (in brief) scene ideas which I will, at some point, arrange in the order I think they might unfold in my novel. I am a long way from the making-order stage, however. Right now I just imagining scenes, one upon another. Soon, I will begin to think about ordering these scenes.

"Every scene contains something within it that triggers a scene that follows."

She can type her step outline on a single sheet of paper, and it doesn't take her longer than a few hours. It's confessions like this that make me feel like a wimp!

However, having now read the entire book, I understand how much preparation she's done before creating the step outline:

1. Idea: basically, the story described in one long paragraph. I find this one paragraph impossible to write. I'm still looking for the idea, no doubt casting my net too wide.

2. Research: once she has an story idea sketched out, she begins her research, which is extensive and well-organized (I am impressed).

3. List of characters: she lists all the possible characters in the novel, giving careful thought to their names.

4. Detailed description of each character: her documents describing each character are extensive — three or four single-spaced pages long. I always mean to do this, but never do.

5. Develop settings: layout, photos, maps, etc.

6. And then — the step outline. She aims for 10 to 15 causally-related events, noted down in abbreviated form.

I thought: okay, I'll give it a try — see if I can come up with a short list of linked events. But no way: it's hard. She's a thriller writer, so that surely must help.

More on this to come.

(I'm finishing this post in a café in Berkeley. I just stocked up on my new favourite pen — a bold Uni-ball Gel Impact RT — and my long-time favourite pencil, Twist-Erase with a .9 lead. Plus a lovely grid-lined spiral notebook, one of the many I buy and never use. This is the store I remember buying stacks of tiny cards for French vocabulary as a pre-teen. It now has a sign on the door, "This is a soft building" — a warning in case of an earthquake.)

.
.
I'm in California now, in the basement apartment of my father's house. Tomorrow is my sister's wedding: the Big Day. Yesterday I got my toes and nails done, and took Dad to a barber to get trimmed up. Today I'll find a card, which as any woman knows is a time-consuming task, necessitating reading every card on the rack. The card store I have in mind is close to two of my favorite clothing-shopping stores, so will I be able to resist? (Doubtful.) A very good bookstore used to be in this block too, but the last time I was here, it seemed on last legs. If it's still there, I'll browse there, too.

I've been reading Elizabeth George's Write Away, and I like it. I love the quotes from her journals, her fears and struggles. She has a very matter-of-fact way of putting things. I'm almost finished with it, in part because I don't read the excerpted examples included (never have, never will).
Here are some quotes.

"...your setting should be a place that you want to know about, a place you are interesting in exploring, a place you want to describe, a place that resonates with you ... " [24]

"What you should keep in mind is that anything in a character's environment can serve as an indicator of his internal landscape if you use it wisely." [38]

She makes it clear that you need conflict to have a story, and that events must occur as the conflict unfolds, and that these events "must be organized with an emphasis on causality." (Like dominoes.)

Which made me ask: what is the central conflict in my story?

I like this especially:

"Skilled writers know that what you're supposed to do is continually open up your story. You do this by creating scenes in which you lay down — but do not answer — dramatic questions. You do this by making sure that if you do answer a dramatic question in a scene as the novel progresses, you've already laid down another. You do this by making partial disclosures instead of giving out all the information you possess." [43]

In other words, the writer is a tease.

On character (which is where she begins):

"I believe it's critical to know the basic need each character has in his life because the denial of that need leads directly to the second area that I consider crucial in developing a character. This is his pathological maneuver. Better said, it's what the character does when he's under stress. The supreme stress he's ever under, by the way, is having his efforts to meets his core need thwarted." [50]

"The final important area that I include in my analysis is to decide what the character wants in the novel. (I make this decision about each scene as well, giving an agenda to each character in a scene.) [52]

More on voice and plot to come ...

And no, I haven't been getting to my scenes. Thinking of them, but coming up short.

(Having written that, I wrote the five.)

.
.
I'm in the middle of so many books it's crazy: The Hour of Our Death (a history of attitudes toward death—excellent); The Plot against Pepys; a book on 17th century French cooking; three or four books on writing; a novel; a book of short stories. Like a bee in the honeysuckle, I fly from one to another.

I'm also ordering books, because fall is coming, and we're approaching that period of time when we move to Mexico for the winter, where it costs quite a bit to order books in. The problem will soon be deciding which books to take, and which to leave behind. I need to finish some of the research books I'm reading, and (this is the hard part) record notes onto computer.

I've complained of this before. The day before yesterday, I recorded notes from two text pages to the Timeline and the Research Notes — it took an hour. (In large part because I became absorbed.)

I'm going to try a new method: computer dictation. I've ordered the software, but will it help or hinder? That remains to be seen. If it does work, it might also prove way to rewrite a second or third or zillionth draft: by reading it into the computer. I always find reading my work out loud changes how I see and hear it. I hear the redundancies, the unnecessary phrases. I've read pages from a work in process out loud, but never an entire draft — although, with every book, I tell myself I should.

Today: packing. I'm going to California for my sister's wedding: my sister and her female partner of over twenty years. It's a joyous summer in California this year, so many couples leaping at the window of opportunity to legally bless their union. Certainly, Robin and Betsy's wedding is going to be a big "hats off!" whoop of joy. People are flying in from all over. My blind, 90-year-old dad will be proudly walking (hobbling?) my sister down the aisle, my brother's band playing.

I will try to blog while away, but I might disappear for a week or so. My father doesn't have Internet (torture!) and even the connection at the local Starbucks is slow and frustrating.

Did I write my scenes yesterday? No. Have I written my scenes today? Yes.

Still catching up

.
.
I'm keeping to the scenes. Today, being Sunday, I thought: just one. But it ended up being five index cards. They are stacking up.

I'm also filling out the Timeline with respect to La Grande Mademoiselle: I've read many books on her, "T" marked in the margins — this is my code for "post to Timeline." Posting facts to the Timeline is a big job, engrossing but time-consuming, and also somewhat hard on my body (in spite of all my ergonomic equipment).

My intent is to get the facts about La Grande Mademoiselle's life down and then print the significant events onto cards, and sort them in with the scene cards. Before I do that, I'd like all those "T" notes posted. I question the wisdom of this: am I procrastinating in the guise of research?

As well, I found a down-loadable version of one of La Grande Mademoiselle's novels, which I now have on computer. It would be a worthwhile project to attempt a translation. (Reminding me now of the lost project, the "translation" of the 17th century book on horsemanship.)

All this helps to explain, I think, why it takes me so darn long to write a novel.

Am I doing my taxes? NO.

.
.
Am I doing my taxes? NO. I'm reading writer blogs. I so totally relate to this post on revising on C.W. Gortner's blog:

At times, I honestly thought the book would crumble apart and found myself ruing the day I decided I could tackle such a difficult subject. Catherine led a long, eventful, and unbelievably complicated life; the decision during this revision rapidly became one that often put me, as they say in Spain, between the cape and the sword. I had to make very tough decisions between what must stay and what must go; and when you're writing a historical novel that covers an actual person's life, that is not an easy thing to do. In fact, I had an agonizing few weeks when I wondered if I could even do her justice, given the constraints.

I'm very much looking forward to reading this novel, The Confessions of Catherine de Medici.

Books on writing

.
.
I love reading books about writing, especially when I’m somewhat stuck, or balky. Yesterday I took a load of unwanted books to The Bookstore in Golden Lake, run by my writing friend Jenifer McVaugh. In exchange, I brought home a load of new books, a number of them books on writing. The Art of Dramatic Writing by Lajos Egri is a classic; a number of people have mentioned it. The Practice of Poetry by Behn & Twichell is a book that Jenifer loaned me, a book she recommends, and one I’m looking forward to exploring. The Sound of Paper; Starting from Scratch by Julia Cameron looked interesting. I got a great deal out of her book The Artist’s Way, but haven’t connected with any of her newer books. This one might suit; I don’t know. I'm skimming it — I'm a little annoyed, already, by her predictable list assignments, but, as is always the case with a book by a writer on writing, finding bits that resonate.

The book I started reading right away was (heh) Write Away by Elizabeth George. I like it. It’s nudging me to do things I know I should be doing, like character analysis.

“ . . . you cannot bring a character to life in a book unless he or she is alive before the book begins.”

I’ve always been a bit lazy about this, I confess, allowing a character’s eccentricities to emerge during the writing, or during a 3rd or 4th draft emergency analysis.

I like this about setting:

“Your setting should be a place that you want to know about, a place you are interested in exploring, a place you want to describe . . . "

And further:

"But it's tough to make a place come to life unless you've been there . . . "

I find this to be true, and it's a key reason for my research trips. But it's not only the sensual experience of a place that matters — for me it's the deep conviction that something happened, and that it happened here, on this spot.

One thing I like especially is that George heads each chapter with an excerpt from her writing diary.

"I am filled with doubts. Why isn't Steinbeck filled with doubts?"

Yet Steinbeck was filled with doubts while writing Grapes of Wrath. I suspect that every writer is filled with doubt, most of the time.

As for today: after writing in my journal that I was entirely dry in the scene-creation department, I wrote out (in brief) my allotted 5 scenes. Which pleases me greatly.

And then, on discovering that my reader mailbox was again 3-weeks deep, answered emails: one to the German translator of Mistress of the Sun, whose glowing email I treasure. One to a woman seeking a relative who may be related to Josephine (I get emails of this sort regularly) — I need to do a little research to answer. Several heart-warming letters from fans.

And now: taxes, which I hope to finish today. Beyond that, perhaps a walk on my horse, some research recording, some Q&As to work on, preparation for my European research trip (coming up).

.
.
I’ve been spinning my wheels, but this is not entirely unproductive. Mucking about on my computer this morning, filing things away, discovering things missing, giving some thought to how things might be better organized. This is important in terms of research, which generates so many files — files that need to be found quickly, as needed.

In general, I use Notebook as a repository for most all information, but it has limitations. (Too, it’s possible that I’ve not learned to use it perfectly. )

I also store larger documents in DevonThink – but I’ve never been at ease with Devon, in spite of all it’s qualities. I keep thinking I will spend some time with their on-line tutorials – but that requires a high-speed link, as well as time. Also, now that the Mac OS is so searchable, why not simply keep these documents on my computer?

All of this mulling (and hair-pulling) has come after a discovery that a “translation” of an 17th century horsemanship manual I worked on for years is no longer to be found on my computer. When my new computer stopped working, and I had to move back into my old computer, I needed throw off lots of data to make room. Surely, it’s somewhere.

Sideswiped

.
.
I've been sideswiped by summer, family matters ... and now: taxes. All good intentions have been forgotten. Not that I haven't been busy — with writing-related and other work — but as for scenes ... ?

Writing is so like exercise or dieting or any of those things that require resolve. You just have to keep at it.