Dismal River

If you know me, you know I write historical fiction, dark (with a smidge of dark-funny) historical fiction set in Appalachia that tries to answer this question:

How did people maintain hope when life seemed so hopeless? 

I realize that sounds like a terrible and pessimistic question to ponder, but I have a good reason to ask it.  When I began doing genealogical research about years ago, I was shocked that one generation was poorer and less educated than the one before.  I think the thing I hoped to find when I began researching my ancestors was evidence of someone like me.  Instead, I found plenty of evidence of the things that are supposed to be only stereotypes of Appalachians: poverty, lack of education, and a tendency to partake in the moonshine.

Instead of writing about my family in the towns they lived in, I prefer to create fictional towns that exist near real places and tell fictional stories of what could have happened, especially when there's no evidence of what actually did happen. 

I'm currently researching coal towns in Buchanan County, Virginia, that were in operation from 1940-1960.  When I was looking on a map for the location of these mines, I couldn't believe what I saw on the map.

The actual river that runs through the region is Dismal River.  Dismal River.

I couldn't have chosen a better name.  This restores my faith that there was someone in that region at some point in time (even if he or she wasn't in my family) that shared my dark sense of humor and love for language and decided on that name with a smirk on his face.  

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I apologize for my extended absence.  I am taking two graduate classes, one of which is a grant writing class where I am attempting to acquire funding for my research.  It's turning out to be a part-time job.  The problem (besides the huge volume of chapters to be read every week) is the fact that I don't have a solid plan for my research, so my work for this assignment is more than doubled because I also need to document my plan (and figure out what it is).

I will probably only pop in two or three times a month until the end of April.

IWSG - January, 2014

In my experience, the only thing that's more difficult than writing historical fiction is writing historical fiction with multiple points of view.  I have the choice of writing anything I want, and yet this most difficult thing is what I must write.  It's my compulsion, my obsession, the thing I think about every day.  It's my white whale.

I wrote the first draft of this novel about a year ago in third person with minimal description of things related to the time period (since I hadn't finished doing the research).  I figured that would be easy enough to add in later.  Last spring I did a huge amount of research and began rewriting the story in first person.  If told in first person, this story has to be told with multiple points of view because no one is present for all parts of it.  To complicate things further, the story cannot be told from the main character's point of view because of what happens to her in the story.

This morning (it's actually Monday that I'm writing this), after getting feedback from my teen (who would make a brilliant editor some day if she didn't loathe the idea of it so much), I figured out precisely how to execute it. 

Insecurities to me means things we doubt about ourselves or our abilities.  I never thought this was something I couldn't do; I just hadn't figured out exactly how I was going to do it until this morning. Part of the job we have as writers is to experiment with different ways to tell a story until we find the one that's just right.  So instead of feeling insecure this morning, I feel incredibly excited to resume work on this very challenging novel. 

I'm very grateful for the brutally cold weather this morning (-1 with -30 wind chills) to keep me and my kids inside.  I'm declaring it a writing day punctuated with lots of fun (puzzles, animated movies, and Nerf gun wars in the living room).

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This post is part of the Insecure Writer's Support Group, founded by Alex J. Cavanaugh.  If you aren't already a member, it's never too late to sign up. 

First Post of the Year - On Writing Like Poe

I want to be more organized with my writing this year.  Toward the end of last month, once I could see and read again (see post about shingles on my face if you're interested), I decided to start writing Write Despite style, 20 minutes a day no matter what.  At the same time, I got an enthusiastic approval from my Poe professor to write some Poe-inspired stories for my literature class that starts in January. 

It turns out that if I sit down to write for 20 minutes, it turns into 30 or more, depending when my small person interrupts me to ask how to spell words for his story. 

When I did write (which was not every day because of interruptions), I wrote more than 1000 words in one sitting.  If I were to write 1000 words a day for this entire year, that would be 365,000 words.  Holy crap, right?  Even if I don't hit that mark every day, I think it's a worthwhile thing to try. 

I don't want to write only to accumulate words.  I want to write more deliberately to improve my writing technique.  Writing the Poe-ish stories turns out to be a fabulous exercise in getting into the heads of the deranged and/or mentally ill and to practice unfolding character in a gradual way.  In all of the Poe stories I've recently read, the first few paragraphs explain what the character thinks of himself and other people - and gradually he (always a man) reveals more and more of what he doesn't understand about himself, the crazy he feels but can't see.  Awesome.

One of the characters in one of my historical novels is a horrible person and is unapologetic about it.  When I read my opening chapter in my class, the visiting professor told me that I need to soften him. She said he's not believable.  She said something like, "He's seems too much like a monster." The irony is that he's based on a composite of real people who were horrible, worse than monsters because they were real.  When one of my relatives recently spoke of one of the people that inspired my character (and only because I asked), she said, "He was a monster."  Some people are.

Last week after reading a lot of Poe, I wrote a story where this same character appeared to another character who was hallucinating.  My intent was to figure out a way to explain the horrific behavior of the character without making excuses for him. 

When my husband read my story, he interpreted it completely different than I intended.  He thought it was a horror story, not a tale of mental illness.  When we read Poe or watch our awesome collection of Vincent Price movies, we have the same reaction.  I see the stories as glimpses into the minds of the mentally ill.  He sees them as sinister horror stories.  I'm definitely on the right track.

Over the last few years, I've read a lot of tips about characterization and writing novels.  The consensus seems to be that the characters, particularly the main characters, need to be likable.  Some of mine aren't the tiniest bit likable.  Neither are Poe's.  That's why I think studying Poe's characterization techniques will be really useful for me. 

What's your opinion about creating characters that are likable? 

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A Note  (in case you saw my deleted post on the blogger list that apparently doesn't update itself although it could be self-updating rather easily if someone bothered to do it):

I am so removed from blogging lately that I didn't realize Insecure Writer's Support Group day was pushed back a week. 

I woke up late, realized I hadn't finished my January post, decided to post my December post since I missed December and the post was more done than my January one.  I published it, realized it still said December in the title, changed it, republished it, read it and realized it wasn't really done, edited it, posted it on Google+, went to the IWSG site to start reading.  And then I saw it's not today.

So I'll save my posts for another day - and maybe I'll edit and then schedule them for the correct day.

Last Post of the Year

I feel compelled to reflect on this year, but it's been a really bad one. 

I think the only good things I have to say about this year are:

• I finally took the step to start graduate school, something I wish I had done twenty years ago.  I love it, and I'm getting more out of it than I had expected. 
• I got closer to my sister, but under the absolute worst of circumstances.
• My leg and foot are definitely getting better.  If you don't know me, I have had nerve damage and incredible pain for more than four years.  The benefit of this is other things like shingles and mammograms and needle biopsies don't hurt so much in comparison. 
• I figured out how to execute the research I need to do for my historical novels and did a huge amount of the research.

I end the year with shingles on my head and face.  It's not getting better.  My doctor said it won't until I boost up my immune system....with lots of sleep and pampering and rest and relaxation...the things I don't have and don't know how to get.  Crap.

My one regret this year is I didn't write every day.  I took huge lapses in time when I did research but didn't write.  For me, the writing is therapeutic in the same way going on a vacation is.  It's my happy place because I can go anywhere without the hassle of a long car trip or the TSA or having to breathe in other people's air on an airplane, which is just terrifying. 

In 2014 I am going to do these things, not to push myself but because I think it will make me happy and/or less stressed:

1. Give up coffee and switch to green tea because it makes me less spazzy.
2. Strive to write every day for at least 20 minutes. 
3. Strive to exercise every day for 20 minutes - apparently this is the key to sleeping normally.
4. Meditate every day (just before writing).
5. Participate in Write1Sub1 and actually do it instead of just thinking about what a good idea it is.  See my little list on the right for the link.
6. Write a collection of creepy short stories during my Poe class (January-April).
7. Finish edits to One Small Betrayal (which is also creepy in a Poe kind of way).
8. Carry on with my historical fiction.
9. Interview my great aunt with my mom.

My great aunt is my maternal grandmother's sister and my grandfather's sister-in law.  Her husband was my maternal grandfather's brother.  That apparently happened a lot in tiny little coal towns before people had cars.  The more I talk to her, the more ideas I get for stories.  She's the last one with the history (a very dramatic history) of my mother's side of the family.  She's in bad health.  And she agreed to be interviewed, not for my novels especially, but so I can write up the actual family stories for my cousins and their kids so it's not lost.

My mom and I have had a complex relationship. This year, she has been amazing about helping me with research, talking to people about questions I have, collecting family stories for me, and simply looking at pictures of coal towns to help me figure out to lay out my fictional town. 

This is my last post of the year.  I hope you all have a relaxing and joyful Christmas and New Year.

Shingles on my Face

My plan for my new blog (this one) is to keep my personal stuff out of it. 

I will let this be an exception.  I have shingles.  On my face.  My right eyelid specifically.

My eyelid is so swollen and covered with lesions that I'm pretty sure I'm going to have a scar.  And it's incredibly itchy if I don't touch it, incredibly painful if I do.

The weird thing about shingles is (and I'm no doctor here so don't take this as medical advice) it's activated by stress, and the pain is worse when I feel stressed.  I'm very light sensitive as well (even more than normal).  It hurts when I blink.  The pain in my eyelid feels like it's in my eye, but my eyeball checked out okay by the eye doctor.  They think I will be in this misery for two weeks.  The doctor recommend taking Benadryl for the swelling and to sleep it off as much as possible.

I'm supposed to relax and de-stress in a permanent, long-term kind of way.

* long pause *

I'm not sure exactly how to do that.  I have a lot of stuff to do.  My house is a mess.  My impulse is to do something, anything.  I could probably relax if I could read, but my eye hurts.

Writing is the one thing that gives me peace, lets me escape to another world, and gives me the satisfaction of having created something even when I'm done writing.  So I will write. I will write a lot.  First I need a nap because the Benadryl is working....

Poe and Friends

If you know me, you know I enrolled in graduate school about a year ago.  The first class was fabulous - I learned how to do the research for my historical novels, which is exactly what I needed.  As an added bonus, I actually did a lot of research and rewrote the first chapter of one of my novels to make it historically accurate and just plain better. 

My summer creative writing class was cancelled, and I decided not to take a fall class because of some health issues and the general state of chaos of my life.   

Just this morning, I registered for a 19th century American literature class that's intended for undergraduate seniors.  They created a graduate section of the class just for me.  The deal is that I have to do more work than the undergraduates.  The cool part is I have a lot of say in what that extra work will be. 

The super awesome thing I found out this morning is it's not just a 19th century American literature class (Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, Dickinson, and other authors I absolutely adore and haven't read in quite a while).  It's specifically a class on Poe.  16 weeks of Poe and friends.

I love Poe.  One of my favorite childhood movies was The Pit and the Pendulum (yeah, I realize that's a little odd).  My favorite genre to write in besides the impossibly challenging genre of historical fiction is dark comedy.  While I realize Poe maybe wasn't going for comedy, for me it always will be. 

Now that I know the class centers around Poe, I'm even more excited about it.  I think I will take the opportunity to rewrite one of my dark comedies while I'm in Poe mode.  The cool thing is I probably can use my rewrite as my final project for the class. 

The recurrent theme that I keep finding in my work is the complex relationship between hopelessness and mental illness. There's a lot of that in the literature of this time period - like "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1892), which echoes Poe's "Ligeia" (1838).  I'm curious to see how authors in this time period write about mental breakdowns of men compared to women. 

Today I'm reading Washington Irving's The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon (1819-1820).  Apparently Irving was the first American author to earn a living entirely from writing.  He is considered an inventor of the short story genre.  Apparently he was a hell of a salesman and a master of self-promotion because what I'm reading so far is not that great.  "Rip Van Winkle" is amazing, but the other "stories" I've read so far are just reflections, like the sort of thing we write here on our blogs.  I can't believe he got paid for them. 

I'm going to trudge through as many of Irving's reflections as I can.  And then I'm going to jump into Last of the Mohicans.  I've seen the movie but haven't read the entire book.  I remember the little sister going a little bit nuts toward the end of the movie.  I'm very interested to see how Cooper handled that in the text or if it's there at all. 

Happy Thanksgiving.  I'm going to spend my week reading - and hopefully will do a little bit of writing too before I pop in my The Pit and the Pendulum DVD.

On Being Stuck and Unsticking Myself

I'm definitely stuck.

Writer's block is an understatement.  I feel as though my Muse has been starved, bludgeoned, and then repeatedly knifed in the stomach before being chopped into little pieces.  She's not coming back. 

My instinct tells me to read, read a lot, read a lot of short stories that will inspire my creativity and will coax a new Muse out of hiding.

I've done that the last few days - that and an almost normal amount of sleep.  It seems to be working.  I signed up for a literature class at my college.  It's 19th century literature.  The fabulous thing about graduate level classes is you get to make it your own.  I'm making this class a study of hopelessness and mental illness. 

Yesterday I bought the complete collection of Poe after being dissatisfied with the free kindle version - the formatting is bothersome.  Today, I am going to make a bowl of popcorn or maybe something healthier and pop in the DVDs of the Vincent Price movies and readings of several of these stories.  I'm pretty sure that while I'm enjoying the movies and stop fixating on my stuckness a new Muse will sit down next to me and whisper some great ideas into my ear (hopefully in a creepy Vincent Price voice).

I also decided to re-join Write 1 Sub 1 - the monthly version - and commit myself to writing a series of short stories, mostly in the historical period of the novels I'm writing.  Nothing bad can come of it.   I know it's a little late in the year to start, but whatever, right?