Ways to Avoid Actually Writing

The "power of the white" blocks the creative juices of some writers when they sit down to a blank page. Painters feel it, too. When I took Painting 101, we were told to just add a tone--any tone--to the gesso and that would help. But people who tend to stall or go blank can be resourceful when it comes to spending hours and having little to show for it. One day a couple of months ago, I started a list of my personal patterns of distractions. Maybe some of you can relate to it.

45 Ways to Avoid Writing a Novel

1. Check FB.
2. Open Google Drive. Open manuscript.
3. Stare at list of scenes.
4. Open to last page and try to continue writing, but feel stuck.
5. Do a little more research.
6. Check FB.
7. Think about your next blog post.
8. Check FB.
9. Read a scene you wrote three years ago.
10. Wonder why you wrote something so lame.
11. Re-write scene from three years ago.
12. Check email. Respond to three emails.
13. Post a status update on FB.
14. Read the last place you left off in novel.
15. Message your sister. Exchange six other messages with sister.
16. Call sister.
17. Write a few lines and refill your coffee.
18. Let the dog out.
19. Check word count.
20. Call your Mom or Dad to ask what life was like when X happened.
21. Feel inspired and quickly write next scene but run out of time (to go to paying job) to finish.
22. Realize the dog has been barking and let him in.
23. Have out-of-town guests who hate that you’re writing a book so you go three days without writing a word. (Of course it was worth it :).)
24. Post 50 (phototshopped) pics from weekend on FB.
25. Check FB for responses to pics.
26. Write your next blog post.
27. Check pageviews on blog post every 15 minutes.
28. Ponder over old photos to try to beam yourself back in time.
29. Write some good stuff but realize you haven’t eaten all day.
30. Notice there’s no food in fridge. Grocery shop.
31. Start writing something awesome and realize your husband has been sharing (with you, presumably) a personal experience he’s really excited about and you have to ask him to start over, respectfully.
32. Go to your paying job, again.
33. Re-read nearly the whole book. Might lead to clarity and inspiration...but no new pages.
34. Turn off your computer. Your two-year-old grandsons are tag-teaming on the keyboard and pull up the trash can.
35. Check FB.
36. Let the dog out. Follow the dog out and notice you haven’t been weeding the garden.
37. Change the font and spacing and see if you like the look of it better.
38. Let the dog in.
39. Start doing reseach but buy stuff on Amazon.
40. Read a scene you wrote last night. Revel in it, while indentifying your own narcissistic tendencies.
41. Read the scene to your husband. Run out of time to write anything else.
42. Spend twenty  minutes figuring out what time of day it is in the novel to decide if the characters would be having a meal. Oh, wait...I’m hungry and they don’t matter.
43. Pet the cat.
44. Check the word count. Oh, my. the book is nearly long enough to be a book!
45. Repeat all.

Even with all that, I am happy to be at the 70K+ stage of the book and look forward to seeing the final storylines come together and the last chapters being completed so we can start to ask friends, relatives and co-workers to proofread it for us!

Not Ready for Prime Time

Innocently enough, I wrote to a couple of hometown papers last week. In my never-ending search for the kinds of letters, newspapers, diaries and photos that our characters are finding in trunks and through word-of-mouth, I decided to do a little reaching out of my own. I was at a point where I felt kind of stuck--like I was just making things up without hearing some more first-hand accounts of life over a hundred years ago.

This is a clip from the Warren Sheaf where
they mention that my great grandmother's
sister had been up for her sister's funeral
It happens to be election day, as well.

Now, those of you who are my Facebook friends know that for a couple of weeks I was posting incessant clips of archived newspapers from the early 1900's which I found online thanks to "The Warren Sheaf"--the newspaper from Warren, MN, near my mother's home town. (See link below.)

There was the one about the guy who took a train ride but wasn't cracking jokes as usual because he was dead. (It was his obituary.) Then there were ads for a massage parlor in Warren offering massage and medical gymnastics...in your home. My favorite ads were telling of the whereabouts of my long ago relatives and their visits to each others' homes. I even found my great-grandmother's obituary, which no one, including my mother, had ever seen. It recounts her untimely death a few days after giving birth in 1900.

But, back to my innocent emails to local papers in Grand Forks and East Grand Forks.... By the next morning, I had received an email from "The Exponent" in EGF wanting an interview with Cindi and me--and photos. Both of us went into a frenzy, because we hadn't even thought about the publicity aspects of writing a book, beyond this blog, of course. (For me, this is just an extension of the book, more than anything.) All I was hoping for is a 2" by 2" ad requesting that people send me their grandparents' stories!

Should we give the interview already? Should we wait for a bigger publication? Should we wait until the book is going to print? I called and talked to the person who wanted to do the story--a Ryan Bergeron. I thought, "Hmmm. Sounds pretty young." But having been interviewed by high school kids for the school paper every year of my life, I figured it has to turn out better than most of those stories! In the backs of our minds, we were (and are) pretty excited and flattered that anyone is interested in the book.

Cindi and I spent the next twenty-four hours (besides working our jobs) answering the interview questions and sharing them back-and-forth for editing and locating pictures we didn't both hate of ourselves. Guess I'll need some professional head shots in the future! Anyway, the finished product will be here Wednesday:
http://www.page1publications.com/editionviewer/?Edition=09ed0444-8da6-48de-9e4c-7633159d3268

However stunning (or not) this newspaper coverage comes across, please remember that we are interested in your older relative's stories of Grand Forks & East Grand Forks between 1900--1930. Did they save old newspapers, diaries, letters? We'd like to read them or just hear about them through you! Of particular interest are stories that involved crimes, The Hollow (red light district), the lumber or railroad workers but ordinary family life can be very helpful, as well. This is a book of fiction and no names will be used. Also, we're not really looking for story ideas--the book is over half written and the plot well-developed--just more texture; more authentic events.

Best of all will be when our parents open their paper and are surprised to see the story. When you're in your late 80's and your "kids" are in the paper, you have bragging rights. If you know them, please don't call them and ruin the surprise.

The Warren Sheaf may be found here: http://www.warrensheaf.com/74444/2118/1/home

P.S. I found myself wondering what happened to Miss Christina Lind, who may have been just a teenager at the time of her sister's death, that in the April 9 issue it was reported that she was "able to be up again" and would soon be returning to her home. It didn't seem like anyone recovered from much of anything back then, so I'm relieved.

The Fading Distinction Between My Life and the Story

I wonder if all writers get so submerged in their plots that they forget something they wrote didn't really happen. That happens to me, and novels I'm reading on the side start to blur into my plot, as well. Someone receives sheet music in Bel Canto (Ann Patchett) and my characters discover sheet music in the bottom of a trunk, for example. After a while, I have trouble distinguising between the two. Who found what music?

Cindi and I have had repeated and sometimes spine-tingling coincidences all along the way and I wish I could remember them all. When we were working on the gemstone idea, for example, and Cindi chose the chrysoprase. We later learned that the stone is said to be associated with her astrological sign (Libra) and my birthstone (May) and neither one of us had ever heard of it before. (We now both own charms containing chrysoprase stones.)

Last week I spent a couple of days working out a favorite scene in which our main character and her guy friend find a trunk of old instruments. They carefully take them out and gently play a couple of them. They decide to refurbish them. Later, our heroine time travels back in time and becomes a young woman who receives a marriage proposal after which her betrothed plays her a love song on a violin. Back in the present, she learns that it wasn't her imagination--that a young woman actually did receive a proposal and that the old violin in their trunk is one and the same.

Carrie Cartee, original owner of the Weber
piano purchased in 1877. She told the man
who was about to refurbish it that it was the
right thing to do.

The next day, the Idaho Statesman ran a story about a young woman in 1877 who purchased a piano in NYC and had it shipped to Boise--part of the way by covered wagon. She played the piano for many years, wearing indentations in the ivory the size of her small hands, but recently, it has been in storage. Now, it is about to be refurbished. The man doing the refurbishing says (see link to article below) about the young woman who owned the piano in 1877, "Carrie told me it was the right thing to do." The story goes on to say, Working on the piano, especially in the dark, quiet recesses...lets him experience something akin to time travel, he said--like "Back to the Future"....

Now, I understand that to the average person that's not such a remarkable coincidence, but I had just struggled through the writing process. I had gone mentally into not only the present day world of the novel, but also the 1914 world of the novel. I was barely digging my way back to the present that foggy morning I sat inhaling my strong coffee and blinking the sleep out of my eyes to read piano repairman's version of what the piano--and it's owner--said to him. And I was there.

Whether I write in the morning before school or at night, I later walk around still in the plot, like an actor who stays in character after the curtain. So I guess in only makes sense that the past and the present and the fact and the fiction start to run together.

http://www.idahostatesman.com/2014/10/24/3445489_new-life-for-old-idaho-treasure.html?rh=1

Target Audience--or What Will My Mother Think?

One of the motivations for my sister and me is that our parents are tuned in to our efforts to write--and to finish--our book. They are in their late 80's--Dad will be 90 in April--and have battled (and mostly conquered) health problems. I guess you might say we feel we have a soft deadline. 

From the first days of the book's inception, we were around our parents, discussing the history of the area in which they live and asking a lot of questions about what life was like 'back in the day'. We've interviewed them both, for the book and just because that's what we do, so, though they don't know a whole lot about the story line, they know their experiences, personalities and even quirks may be reflected directly or indirectly in our characters and the plot itself.

All that has made it more difficult for me to write some of the upcoming scenes that may or may not include--wait for it--sex. Our lead character is a woman in her mid-forties. She has interesting men in her life--one where she works as a college professor, one in her hometown (that bears a striking resemblance to East Grand Forks, MN) and one when she time travels. We (the writers) know where these relationships are going, but not how much detail the reader will enjoy second hand, so to speak. 

I've read some pretty sexy books along the way and often wondered what kind of person writes all that soft porn. Then there was the Girl With a Dragon Tattoo series. Not sure what you call that sex (other than rape). So here I am, deciding whether I'm that kind of person! 

Some practical issues I have to consider are the authenticity of the storyline. If you know me at all you know I will fight like hell to write--with my sister's steadfast input--a story that is the one I want to tell. Another issue is that I don't want to fall into the sugary world of the Hallmark made-for-TV-movie, though those have their place. Do I do like movie directors and insert the required number of F-bombs or nudity to get the movie/book the PG-13 or R rating? I hope not. Do I depict a sexy love scene that adults in their 40's might have? Hmmm. I'm trying to tread lightly here because I've recommended my blog to high school students. But I must admit, brainstorming a love/sex scene is not all bad. :)

Of course I hit the interwebs to find (not only these photos) but articles and blogs about writing to a target audience. I figured maybe someone had suggestions. I didn't read about the sexy part (I dread seeing what I get if I include the word sex in my search string, for starters) but I did find some inspiring and useful tips.

One I found-- http://www.yourwriterplatform.com/how-to-target-an-audience/ had a good checklist that included geographic (check), demographic (maybe), psychographic (?) and behavioural (too deep for me). 

Since we have time travel in our book, I learned that the novel might be categorized as soft sci-fi, which was a new term for me. 

But my favorite link was: http//storyfix.com/6-ways-novelists-can-use-target-marketing-a guest-post-from-jan-bear  
There is a category that the author calls literary sophistication that addresses "unusual narrative techniques for their own sake". Jan Bear references the novel Time Zone by Tom Lichtenberg and discusses the way he uses time travel to show a variety of character interactions and character development. Our plot is not exactly like that, but is similar. As novice writers, it felt like quite a validation--that it's good to write in a way that feels natural--even if it's quirky. Maybe it will hit a target audience and maybe it won't, but at least it won't get lost on the romance novel shelves...assuming it gets on anyones shelf!

So what all this has to do with my target audience is that I'm about to decide--is my mom (or dad*) at the top of my target audience or do I include mildly sexy scenes? Do I avoid sex in order to give the story line more of an historic angle? And then there's the question of what intimate sexual relationships do to tarnish or give credibility to the character of our heroine. 

I believe I mentioned this blog is about the writing of a novel (not the end product)--which, by the way, I can happily report is now nearing the halfway point. So, I guess you'll have to read it to see how steamy it gets...or doesn't. (Sorry, Mom :).) The next scenes I write will answer all these questions and as someone famous once said, "How do I know that I think before I see what I say?".

*Did I ever tell you about how my mom made my dad have a talk with me after they saw the statue I'd carved of a pregnant woman for the high school art show? I point this out only so you don't doubt their level of intolerance for controversy of a sexual nature! 

Incorporating a Gemstone Into a Generational Storyline

  

Chrysoprase is highly prized for its opalescent 
minty, apple-green color. It is one of the 
rarest varieties of chalcedony quartz.

The splendor of gemstones has been with us for centuries. Today, as before, they are treasured for their beauty and worth. Some ascribe to them healing and good fortune.

Revelation 21:18-20 Living Bible (TLB)

The city itself was pure, transparent gold like glass! The wall was made of jasper, and was built on twelve layers of foundation stones inlaid with gems: the first layer with jasper; the second with sapphire; the third with chalcedony; the fourth with emerald; the fifth with sardonyx; the sixth layer with sardus; the seventh with chrysolite; the eighth with beryl; the ninth with topaz; the tenth with chrysoprase; the eleventh with jacinth; the twelfth with amethyst.

     The Bible tells us the tenth layer of the New Jerusalem will be made of chrysoprase, a beautiful green stone.  The meaning of chrysoprase comes from two words, chrys being the Greek for gold or yellow and prase from the Greek for 'leek', referring to the green coloring.

     For over a decade, I have written and recorded radio ads for a jewelry store.  Poring over the glass cases of brilliant, colorful gems set in sparkling gold and silver is an enjoyable part of the research needed for writing effective ad copy. When we decided to include a special, period piece of jewelry for our book, I was eager to take on the challenge. I settled on the chrysoprase gemstone because its rumored abilities to encourage hope, happiness and friendship. These qualities bring meaning to our story line that spans generations. Our main character, Prof. Norah Martin, travels in time throughout the story. At one point, she is taken back to the early 1900’s, and learns that a chrysoprase brooch was worn on a young bride’s wedding day and on special days thereafter.  It was a diamond shape, outlined in filigreed sterling silver.  A costly piece for the times – but valued more, for the love and eternal friendship of the giver. The bride had dreams for the future. Those dreams included her dear husband, her precious daughter and the notion that someday she would pin this chrysoprase brooch to her daughter’s wedding dress. Tragic events related to the turbulent history in the Red River Valley interrupt those dreams until Norah is pulled into the young woman’s life. She unwittingly becomes the missing part of a story that will be told.

Two Books and a Dozen Articles=Three Pages of Our Novel

This is an example of one of the flyers
that would be posted ahead of the train
full of orphans. Notice that in January
of 1907 there were likely children
adopted in Winnebago, MN.

What captivating reading it is to learn about adoption practices in early America!

In our plot line, there is the subject of adoption, so I needed to know what practices were in place during the early 1900's. I knew the most interesting and useful reading would be first-person accounts, but I also needed to base the storyline on common practices.

I started online, of course, looking for any first person accounts I could find. A book entitled The Adoption Reader, edited by Susan Wadia-Ells, was available for $3.99 on Amazon and it ended up sucking up several of my evenings with stories that ranged from joyful to poignant to downright miserable. It's broken down into birth mother stories, adoptive mother's stories and the last section is adopted daughters. (Don't know what happened to the sons.) The stories had all been published in the 1970's and '80's but didn't give any other dates, so it wasn't as directly applicable to what I was trying to do as I would have liked.

Then, I stumbled onto the history of the Orphan Trains. I seriously don't know why it took me so long to discover it, because there are thousands of accounts, photos, novels, movies and documentaries of the Orphan Trains.

Basically, there was a do-gooder in New York City in the 1850's by the name of Charles Loring Brace who was training to be a preacher. He moved to NYC and saw the thousands of homeless children living on the streets and was appalled and saddened. So the children were rounded up and taken to children's aid societies. Their parents were located if they were still living and signed over custody, giving up their parental rights. Then the children were put on trains to what they then called the West (which was the Midwest) where children were wanted for adoption and to work the farms. Generally this occured in the late winter or early spring, in anticipation of the seasonal need for farm hands.

In the Midwestern states, prospective parents would fill out paperwork to determine if they would be fit parents. Some matches were made ahead of time, but many others were made on the spot as the trains went from town to town. Children would be scrubbed up after the long journey, clean clothes would be put on them, and they would be lined up in places like the schoolhouse stage or other public places. Farmers and their wives would walk through the rows of children, looking them over and then say "I pick that one!" The child (if old enough) could refuse if they didn't want to go with that person.

There are many first-person accounts by these children because around 500 of up to 200,000 who were on the orphan trains are still alive today. They will break--and sometimes warm--your heart. (I will include some links below, but there are SO many. Children were split up from their siblings, older boys sometimes ran away to get paying jobs and sometimes there was abuse, but also, many families were blessed by the new additions and the children--especially the youngest ones--often thrived. Two years after the placements, The Children's Aid Society did follow-up visits and sometimes changed the childrens' placement or sent them back to the children's asylums or to jail if they were deemed incorrigible.

The trains first originated out of New York City, but eventually,
other states started their own orphan trains.

This practice continued until 1929--3-4 years after my parents were born, so it seems like quite recent history. Now, with the wisdom of time, we know that it is a tough call whether it was the right thing to do--or not. Usually minorities and the poor were the ones who lost their children, so clearly, there are major human rights violations that occured.  Some people credit the movement with advancing better adoption laws, but other sources blame the orphan trains for delaying improvements. They feel that instead of helping poor parents feed, clothe and house their children, shipping them away buried the seriousness of poverty.

It wasn't until the economy changed and the Midwest didn't need farmhands as much and families began getting social services, that there wasn't the demand for orphans.

If anyone knows of someone who was on an orphan train, I would really appreciate speaking with them. The likelihood is actually quite high, because one of the primary destinations was the Minneapolis/St. Paul train station! They continued all the way to Texas, depending on where they started out, I suppose. Please ask any older members of your family if they know of anyone or even heard about the Orphan Trains. (I was surprised that my dad did not know of them, but then, he grew up in a very small town in a rural area of Wisconsin.)

So, a couple of evenings ago, I sat down to write about our characters and their adoption experience and though I pulled bits and pieces of various accounts into the story, it felt like old news to me. Before I wrote it, I knew exactly what happened to them! (Sometimes surprises when you are writing are a bit more fun.) But it's historically accurate, so yay!

Here are some links the reader might find interesting and worth reading:

http://www.childrensaidsociety.org/about/history/orphan-trains

http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wcl.american.edu%2Fmodernamerican%2Fdocuments%2FTrammell.pdf&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNGqbhcCIdtrgQ1l2tuNEtfb4pqXUg

http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonpost.com%2Fwp-srv%2Fnational%2Fhorizon%2Fnov98%2Forphan.htm&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNEn7S9g6mHI_npVdxdGQtsVnsJegA

http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pbs.org%2Fwgbh%2Famex%2Forphan%2F&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNFjdFTRVbJS_W63ov-BcojIjsE-eg

What We're Learning Along the Way....

What we're learning along the way....

1. Having never written historical fiction before, I don't think either one of us realized how time-consuming the research would be. At first it was fun and exciting because everything we found fed into our plot lines. I have to say it is still fun and exciting, but it takes sooooooooo long. I have read about this early history of North Dakota, including first person accounts of the postal workers, the trappers, the lumber workers, the railroad workers and the ladies of the night. We have read the 35-page diary of my Great Aunt Palma Windahl, which was particilarly fascinating, partly because she frequently mentions my grandmother at ages 13-14 and my grandfather (her brother) who was about 10 years older. I know Cindi has been studying Ponzi schemes and jewels, since both tie into our plot. We have also poured over old photos, trying to beam ourselves into the past to feel what people in the early 1900's were feeling, thinking, worrying about, wearing and using for tools. The photo above is a family funeral in the late 1930's??? (Anyone know the year or whose funeral it is?) Of course during all this time, hardly a page of the book is being written.When we had worked on the book on and off for two years and had only 25 pages, it was kind of an eye-opener.

2. The easy part is developing a plot. The hard part is the writing. No matter how developed the plot line is, when you begin to actually write it, there is still so much to decide/resolve/make up. Constant character discussions and plot revisions are required along the way. You just have to blaze through it and deal with any fallout later. Did I say too much--too little? Just get it on paper and worry about that later.

3. Every website about writing a novel says to set goals. Well...that doesn't always work. But, as mentioned in #2 you just have to keep writing. My current goal, which is working out pretty well, is to write a page a day. If you haven't tried to write a book, that seems laughable. Who could not write a page a day. See above...I've almost written a page in 10 minutes. Well, for some reason writing a book is different. You're constantly thinking about where you've been, where you're going and how all the other characters are impacted by what you're writing. So, a page a day (or even 4-5 a week) is a good clip and with two authors, you have a book in a year--especially at the stage where we are--well into it.

4. While this will seem repetitive, it's really not: Don't stop. From the fall of 2013--July of 2014 we stopped. We didn't work during the winter, we didn't Skype--we stopped. That was the point at which I began to doubt whether we would ever have a book. Fortunately, this summer, we had a week to reread, discuss, brainstorm and finally resume the writing process and that's why I won't stop again. Even writing a little--or at least editing--every day, I have to go back and reread parts, refreshing my memory. Where did we leave it, what was the year, exactly what was said? I think once the book is nearing 300-400 pages, that will be even more critical. Never stop!

There are a few  more things I've learned along the way, but I guess I'll save those for another post. Time to do my real job...writing a book!                 

Why (and How) My Sister and I are Writing a Novel

A little more than three years ago, shortly after our dear Aunt Delores Bakke passed away, my sisters Cindi, Rebecca and Diana were together helping sort through Auntie Dottie's photos. We mused over the many details of her life that we had missed, being small children when she was a young adult. We marveled at the meticulousness of her photo albums and the careful notes she made about most of the photos. Delores had no children--just many, many nieces and nephews--but there was no one to keep and cherish her memories the way a son or daughter would do.

We began our research and writing by immersing ourselves
in the ambience of a (not too) posh motel in Warren, MN,
spending days writing in Melody's Diner and hanging out
at the old Gander/Olson farm to get the feel of early farm life.

Something about her passing triggered deep thoughts about of the meanings of our own lives and caused us to stop and think about many of life's questions. What will happen to all of our "stuff"? Who will care about the mementos we leave? What about our valuables? Will they get into the hands of our loved ones or end up lost or stolen? Probably most importantly--will we be remembered?

None of us--the sisters--has ever written and published anything of substance, though we all are creative in a variety of ways. Still, sitting down and writing anything of any length was not in our list of accomplishments. Yet, we started to brainstorm about what we could, should or would like to write. First we came up with a novel idea that centered around our aunt and her life. Somehow--and maybe that will be our second book :)--we moved on to an historic novel loosely set in the Grand Forks/East Grand Forks area and a lot of fictictious characters (as all authors probably do) who are composites of ourselves and everyone we've ever known.

That's all I can tell you right now, for a lot of reasons but I can tell you this: If you have any notion to write a novel with anyone--do it. Cindi and I are the two who ended up taking on this challenge and whether we get an agent and publish the work in progress or whether we self-publish it--this is a very cool, very challenging and very bonding experience. Working in Google Docs on a Google Drive is so perfect and so fun. We can watch each others cursors moving in real time as we tackle the scenes and chapters! We can brainstorm and chat and Skype as needed. And more importantly we can encourage each other to keep going and to keep challenging ourselves to immerse ourselves in the characters and the scenes we are writing. I think it's broken new ground for us both as writers, as thinkers, as researchers and as sisters. (Once I figure out how to do it, she may want to co-blog here...hope so.)

Well...enough...I have a scene to write!