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!