Dress up as a book for Halloween

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This quote from L.A. Times blog last year:

Interviewer: Your book "The Handmaid's Tale" has become a seminal feminist work taught in universities all over.

Atwood: You know you've really made it when people start dressing up like that on Halloween.

I think a "You know you've really made it when..." blog might be amusing.  

On rejection, or fear thereof

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I may have mentioned this article before, but I found a reference to it in my computer files and feel it's worth mention:

30 famous authors whose works were rejected (repeatedly, and sometimes rudely) by publishers — an article by Michelle Kerns for examiner.com.

We all need to remember this. 

Laden with fear and doubt

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You might have noticed the addition of tabs to this blog. One is for quotes, most often to do with writing. I've just added this one by Philip Roth:

“I find it arduous and un-doable. It’s laden with fear and doubt. It’s never easy—not for me. The ordeal is part of the task, and the satisfaction usually comes at the end. You stood up to it, you endured it! You achieved the unachievable—for you. But the next time out, I find it impossible all over again.” —Philip Roth, as quoted in Vanity Fair, November 2010. 

(It goes to show what riches await in the magazine stack at the beauty parlour.)


I think a first draft is by nature exciting: so much is possible. But then comes the long, long middle—drafts two, three, four ... . These are so tough: fear and doubt indeed. The last draft is indeed satisfying; the words "the end" must surely be the most beautiful in the language.


On a personal note: we're now in San Miguel de Allende. I'm almost settled in. Soon I'll be getting back to work, laden with fear and doubt. 


Sandra Gulland
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Ask and ye shall find

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Doug De La Matter, a reader of this blog, sent me the answer to my question: Who painted the image I pin in front of my computer—an image I find profoundly evocative of the creative process? (See my post below.)

The artist, it turns out, is Evariste Vital Luminais, from Nantes, France (1821-1896), and the name of the painting is "Enervés Jumièges," which refers to an ancient and tragic legend about the sons of Clovis II. 


Frankly, I don't really want to know what the painting represents because I've created my own story around it. What I do find quite interesting, however, is the evolution of the work. 


The first draft
The first study for the painting is, I've read, of torture. (No! Don't tell me that.)

The second draft

Second image shows a boy grieving:

The final

There are two versions of the final. The first, "The Sons of Clovis II," has a hopeless, leaden quality ...

 ...  quite different from the second, which is the one that "speaks" to me. In this one I like the way the man on the left stares into space in such a focussed way. I like to think he's on the edge of waking, thinking ... thinking ... .

For more on these evocative paintings, see this article on Wikipedia. For more on the work of Evariste Vital Luminais, click here. 

Thank you, Doug! He revealed that he was able to solve the mystery by posting the image on LinkedIn Questions and within 10 minutes was directed to images on tineye.com. Another person supplied a translation of a Wiki entry. All of which proves how incredible powerful Net research can be. 


A note on TinEye.com: this is an amazing search engine. You can upload an image, and it will tell you where else it is on the Net. Artists use it to make sure that their work isn't being used without permission, but I will find it useful, I'm sure, to track down the name and artist of an image. 

Sandra Gulland

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Good-bye Bunker

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Today is my last day in my northern office—affectionately called The Bunker. I love the office I'll be moving to in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, but my Bunker in rural Ontario, overlooking fields and a maple forest, is my favourite writing space, and it's always hard to leave. Not only is it lovely and cosy and quiet, but this is where my books are, this is the core of my research library.

Your home is where your books are, someone said, and I believe that to be true.

Books everywhere!
Right now, the desk in the photo is covered with stacks of books: books to be considered, books without a place on my shelves. (Another problem, that!) Which books should I take with me? What research books am I going to need in the six months ahead? This is not a question that can be answered easily ... at least not by me.

With so little time left, I'll aim to simply tidy today, leaving post-it notes on all the various piles.

I can't take my bulletin board, alas
On the wall in front of the desk I have a framed print, a bulletin board and a Edward Gorey calendar. The bulletin board has inspiring images and quotes on it: "Want • Obstacle • Action," for example.

Images of creativity
Two of the images on the bulletin board are especially dear to me. One, of men carving up blocks of stone, is evocative of the heavy lifting of the revision process.

The other image is one I haven't been able to identify. (If you can identify it, I'd be eternally grateful!) It's of two people, possibly a man and a woman, floating on a platform on a lake, half-emmersed in water. This image captures, for me, the feeling of the creative process, of immersion in unconscious.

The two images—one evocative of the unconscious, the other of the conscious, I think—work together in any act of creation.

Should I take my Edward Gorey calendar? I've loved it so! No: I'll fast-forward through November and December, and in the Spring, on return, I'll put it in my keeper box. Ironically, I just peeked at the caption for November:

It would carry off objects of which it grew fond, 

And protect them by dropping them into the pond.

Construction image: Granite for monuments (for future monuments), 1939. Lithograph by Louis Lozowick.


Floating image: unknown to me. If you know, please write.

Sandra Gulland

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What's holding you back?

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This article—"What's holding you back?"—was written for academics, but the suggestions are excellent for any writer. For me, achievable daily goals are key: goals I try to meet before allowing the rest of my To Do list to topple me.

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The visual dimension: tips from film-makers

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Before I begin my writing day, before my mug of decaf cools, I check my email, Twitter, a few websites. Today this blog by Alexandra Sokoloff on visual storytelling resonated, especially with respect to rewriting.

I am in a slow, difficult crawl through my third draft. This is the draft that (to paraphrase Kingsolver), "brings the meaning up and turns on the lights." I have to fill out the visual dimension—which, for me, requires quite a bit of research.

Read the Alexandra Sokoloff blog. I like her film-making suggestions for thinking in terms of "establishing shots" and "master shots." Approaching a Big Scene is intimidating. I'll see if it helps to mentally put myself behind a camera.

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Joyce Carol Oates on creating character

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This is excellent (thank you, DeAnna Cameron):






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How close are you to your character?

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I'm putting away my notes from the Kingston WritersFest, and I think the one big message I got, in both Joan Thomas's workshop on narrative voice and point-of-view and Michael Winter's on "found fiction," had to do with narrative distance.

Thomas asked: How intimate is your stance with respect to the character?

Winter talked about the importance of changing that space: closing in, backing up, closing in again.

When writing from the 1st person, that distance would seem to be fixed—although the character's degree of self-revelation would vary.

Right now I'm writing from a close 3rd person point-of-view (that is, I'm always with my main character), and I've been wondering how to interpret this concept of narrative distance. Sometimes I show my character focussed on what is going on around her, and at other times, I show her lost in the swirl of her emotions. So, in a way, when writing in the 1st person or close 3rd, the narrative distance is within the character.

This is the type of thing writers love to talk about. Put two writers together for 10 minutes and the subject of point-of-view is sure to come up. At one point in Kingston, I was in a packed elevator—we were strangers, in fact—and from the 5th to the ground floor, the talk was of point-of-view. Writers!




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Leaving, returning

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Stepping into my writing room this morning after four days away, I wished I had left it tidy. There is hardly room for my mug of decaf midst the festering mounds of post-it notes and scraps.

It's always hard to return to writing after time away. Of course I had intended to write while at the Kingston WritersFest; of course that was impossible!

Later today, after I emerge from my writing room into that vast demanding arena called Life, I intend to gather my learnings and post them here. But now it's time to dive back in...or at least dip in a toe.

Leaving the Festival hotel, a volunteer called out, "We love you, keep writing!" I'm a writer; I should be able to express in some fresh way how moving that was to hear. Instead I'll just say that I'm tempted to print that out in bold and post it to my bulletin board.

Yes, I'll do that, and then I'll put my toe in, check to see how cold the water feels.

Returning to where it all began

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Returning to Kingston, Ontario, is always special for me. When I first decided that I was going to write, be a writer—go for it—I began by attending a workshop here. That was about 25 years ago.

Returning to Kingston always brings back memories of that long-ago self, memories of my longing to be a writer; of walking along the shoreline, lost in thought; memories of my flying elation over my instructor's encouragement. Memories of attending the inspiring readings given by writers — writers I regarded with awe, writers who are now my good friends.

Each time I return, I add another layer of experience. For two years I've been coming to the Kingston WritersFest.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of meeting Joan Thomas, whose book Curiosity I mentioned earlier in this blog (a novel now long-listed for the Giller!). Her workshop on narrative voice and point-of-view has me thinking, considering loosening the fixed "narrative distance" I've imposed on the novel I'm writing now.

Last night, Jane Urquhart interviewed Joyce Carol Oates on-stage. Oates had finished a novel and 1:00 that morning. She said that for months it had felt like crawling across a floor pushing a peanut with my nose. That, believe me, resonated!



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Construction site revision

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Years ago, I came upon a slender little book titled My Editor, by M.B. Goffstein. It's a poem of few lines, with simple, geometric illustrations, describing the process of working with an editor on revision.

I loved it so much I bought three, thinking of people I knew who might love it too. Now I only have one.

I've been thinking of it a lot, of late, going though the revision of The Next Novel, working with The Taskmaster (editor). The poem evokes the rewriting process as a construction site:

I begin to dig again, and lose myself in the excavation. 

Of course the new creation isn't quite right at first, and his editor sends him back to revise.

... my building worries me. It's stone cold, and I cry, "Why not have left it wobbly?"

There is a feeling of integrity in the early drafts that is initially lost in revising, until, with time, a new integrity emerges.

Take it apart, and suddenly see how it goes. 

This book is a treasure, and greatly heartening.



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A lovely video interview with Eudora Welty

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Research overload

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It's fall, and time for me to begin thinking of what research books I'm going to take south with me this winter. What am I going to need as I continue work on The Next Novel?

The technology changes so quickly, my database and library systems have radically changed. Now I note which books are searchable on Amazon.com and which on Books Google. Other books are fully on-line or downloaded onto my computer.

I've a towering stack of books that I've already read and marked with notes. I'm considering photographing the pages: put into EverNote (or DevonThink, possibly?), they would then be searchable. I could scan, but that takes longer.

My luggage lightens, and my computer swells. And as for my head? It's about to explode!



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A Revision Rule-of-Thumb

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In A Writer's Time (a book I recommend), the author Kenneth Atchity describes the state called End Time, when the work at hand is approaching finish. He says:

"End Time is characterized by high energy flow and pressure to finish. ... Think of the slow-moving horse, after an exhausting day in the field, who hears the whistle and gallops at high speed for the barn. ... Lock yourself up if necessary, turn off the phone, leave home, anything to allow End Time its way once you're sure its way can lead to the end."

The Taskmaster (the editor I'm working with now) is cleverly feeding me only three or four chapters at a time to revise. Each section must be right before we move on. With each chunk, I go through all the phases of completing an entire novel, including the exhaustion of End Time.

It's a technique I recommend.

Key to The Taskmaster's technique, as well, is to ask for a slow-motion rewriting of the opening chapters: set the scene, properly introduce the characters, the themes.

In practical terms, for me, it has meant doubling the first 40 or so pages of my manuscript, and doing the same again for the opening of Part Two, where there is huge leap in time and place.

I'd venture to guess that it could be a revision rule-of-thumb: double the first 80 pages of your second draft.

Today I'm in post-End-Time euphoria, the glow that comes with the magical words, The End.

For now ....

Time management for authors

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I love InkyGirl cartoons:

This is, alas, too true! I start my day with a mug of coffee and the Social Net. Then: to work.

Novelists: a magpie mind

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I love Sunday mornings with the Ottawa Citizen's wonderful book pages.

This morning I very much enjoyed an interview of David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas and, newly-out, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. Here are the passages I highlighted:

"Sometimes I try to write a scene, sometimes a sentence, and I can't get to the end of it without half a morning's research."

I often fall into what I call "The Black Hole" of research when writing, and Mitchell's statement makes me feel better about what I sometimes think is a diversion.

"Novelists ... require a magpie mind."

I love this.

I was thinking the other day about a South American author who said, "I'm a writer. Of course I steal." (If anyone knows the name of this author, I'd love to give him credit.) I am incapable of making things up: I have to find each nugget, each tiny detail. Magpie mind indeed.

On the process of writing, Mitchell said: "It's making something that isn't working work. It's like fixing an engine."

And so, with that, I'll head back into the machine shop ... .

A beautiful cover!

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I'm thrilled with the Talpress Czech edition of Mistress of the Sun. It's gorgeous, ribbon bookmark and everything!

In praise of ugly ducklings

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I've been having a beastly time with the chapters I'm working on now. My characters are not speaking to me. That's a writerly, romantic way of saying I've lost contact with them, I'm not seeing them.

I've hit that patch of despond every writer knows:

"I should give up writing."

"I'm no good at this."

When not writing (that is, wrestling), I've been compulsively reading a wonderful novel: The Lovers by Vendela Vida. It's a short, elegant, emotionally gripping story.

And word perfect — the sort of novel that makes any writer envious. In my present mood, I was flushed with a feeling of awe mixed with inadequacy, and so it was with relief that I read in the acknowledgement the author's long list of readers who had helped the novel through "its early and inelegant forms."

This is a beautiful novel, and I find it perversely reassuring to know that it, too, was once an ugly duckling.

Lost and found in revision

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This morning, braced by a good sleep, I went through my manuscript scene by scene, listing the changes I would have to make were I to change the Mortemart mansion to the left bank, where I now believe it did exist. (See my early post: here.)

And decided: I would make the move.

Making the decision is half the battle. Making the changes will be painful, but I like the security of place, the foundation of fact. Plus, there's an excellent floor plan: how delicious.

To see my findings, a map and the floor plan: click here.

The problem writing with fact-based fiction

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The problem with writing fact-based fiction is ... well ... facts. They can really mess up a good story.

I'd read that the Mortemarts, the family of Athénaïs, Madame de Montespan, lived on rue de Rosiers.

Perfect: rue des Rosiers is not far from where Claude des Oeillets, my main character, lived when she first came to Paris. It worked into the story perfectly. Their lives do become entwined; nobody knows how their relationship began, but as a novelist it helped that they were walking distance from one another.

Twice I scouted rue de Rosiers on research trips to Paris. I took many photos, but more than that: I walked the cobbles, dreaming.

Unfortunately, I didn't read the fine print at the back of one of the texts. Hôtel Mortemart was on another rue de Rosiers, a street that is now named rue Saint-Guillaume ... far, far from my heroine Claude.

And that's not entirely certain, either. Some accounts claim that Hôtel Mortemart on rue Saint-Guillaume was built in 1663—three years after the young women meet.

So where were the Mortemarts living in 1660?

I've spent all morning researching possibilities (when I should have been writing). Vivonne, the eldest child, was born in the Tuileries palace. Both high-ranking parents served the King and Queen for three months of the year, and were likely entitled to live there ... so that's a possibility, although they certainly would have had a residence of their own in Paris.

I'm not really sure what I'm going to do about this. I could leave the setting as it is and make a note about the change in the Author's Note or on my website.

Or I could change it, place the Mortemarts either in the Tuileries or on rue Saint-Guillaume ...  difficult, and not necessarily good for the story.

I'm still perplexed.

Beginning, again and again

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Editor Dan, who I will now refer to as The Taskmaster, is taking me through the manuscript revision slowly. The first 40 pages became 100. Now I've only 20 pages to work on—the first chapters of Part II—but it feels like looking up at Mount Everest.

I keep thinking: non-fiction would be so much easier. Easier to describe the dead than to try to bring them back to life.

Once again, I'm somewhat at a loss where to begin, how to begin. One consolation of experience is that I know that once I do, I will feel much more at ease.

Temptation: coffee.  I must resist (I've given up caffeine); I'll console myself with breakfast popcorn, the perfect anxiety snack. 

Revision: shoving the MS back into the womb

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What does a writer do when a manuscript is with an editor? Clean closets, shop, throw stuff out, look for mouse nests, tame the desktop. In short: house attack. This is arduous work, and I'm very much looking forward to getting back to writing.

Not that there isn't writing work I should be doing: research, for one, taking notes. I've yet to organize my notes from my latest research trip to Europe, for example.

But for now, something from the book pages of the Ottawa Citizen. (A wonderful book page that hasn't expired!)

The quote, which is spot on with respect to the revision process, is from author Sloane Crosley, author of How Did You Get This Number?

"I am handing in a draft and we will see what happens. Trying to shove it back into the womb and have it come out something else is a very tricky experience as it looks familiar, but is a bit off...." 

Indeed!

Old-fashioned keyboard + iPad: perfect

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Blowing on a dead man's embers: the process of writing historical fiction

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I've been struggling with the third draft of The Next Novel, in part because it has been taking me so long to get these first four chapters moving. It's July already!

In off hours, I've been working on a guest blog on the definition of historical fiction, and in going through my files I discovered the first stanza from a wonderful poem by Robert Graves:

To bring the dead to life
Is no great magic.
Few are wholly dead:
Blow on a dead man's embers
And a live flame will start.

I'm blowing on the embers: blowing, blowing … .

To read the rest of "To Bring the Dead to Life," so evocative of the process of writing historical fiction: click here.