A Writer Reading: White Fang by Jack London

Tags

A Conspiracy of Wolves, authorial voice, How Fiction Works, Jack London, James Wood, reading as a writer, Ronad Barthes, White Fang, wolves

**warning: geeky writer post

For the past several years I’ve been browsing books about wolves because, well, I’m writing a book entitled A Conspiracy of Wolves. In my research one book kept rising to the top: White Fang by Jack London. For a while I ignored it, was even, I confess, annoyed that it kept showing up, an old book, surely something better had been written about wolves. But at last I decided to read it, see what all the fuss was about. [Yes, I know, most people read this as children, but somehow I missed it despite loving books about the wild.]

Wolf-wise (oh, how I love the implication of that pairing), it’s a delightful book in many ways, though not informative about wolf packs in the wild. His subject is the formative experience of the eponymous canine, a study of nature vs nurture, to an extent.

I began this post several days ago, saying “I don’t like to write about books I’m still reading, but the introduction of a new character, ‘Beauty Smith’, stopped me cold last night. I didn’t want to read further. Now that intrigues me.” I’ve since finished the book, and I can attest to the page-long description of the odious Beauty Smith being the point in the book at which my enthusiasm flagged; it never recovered. What happened? I thought I’d share with you my experience as a writer reading a book but also reading a writer.

Let me first explain London’s point of view in the book. We begin in the head of one of a pair of men being tracked and terrorized by a pack of starving wolves, led by the female wolf who will give birth to White Fang. A few chapters in, the point of view switches to the female, and then, fairly quickly, her pup White Fang, as he discovers the world of the cave in which he’s born, and then ventures forth into the Alaskan wilderness. But London does not limit himself to the close third person; in his own voice he provides background, details of the landscape, and, in a sense, translates for us White Fang’s perceptions. And, increasingly, London adds to this his very human commentary on White Fang’s limitations as a wolf.

In How Fiction Works (Picador 2008, pp. 6-7), James Wood discusses this authorial voice:

…omniscient narration is rarely as omniscient as it seems. To begin with, authorial style generally has a way of making third-person omniscience seem partial and inflected. Authorial style tends to draw our attention toward the writer, toward the artifice of the author’s construction, and so toward the writer’s own impress. …Tolstoy comes closest to a canonical idea of authorial omniscience, and he uses with great naturalness and authority a mode of writing that Roland Barthes called “the reference code” (or sometimes “the cultural code”), whereby a writer makes confident appeal to a universal or consensual truth, or a body of shared cultural or scientific knowledge. *

* He means the way that nineteenth-century writers refer to commonly accepted cultural or scientific knowledge, for instance shared ideological generalities about “women.” I extend the term to cover any kind of authorial generalization.

Having read a great deal of 19^th century lit, I am familiar with this sort of authorial voice, and found London’s comfortable for more than half of the book. However, once I reached the introduction of the clearly bad character at the fort to which White Fang accompanies his native American owner, the authorial voice became far too noticeable. I felt London intruding to instruct me in the “cultural code”, and telegraphing so specifically what was coming that I began to speed read, which, for me, is a sign the author has lost me. As I posted on Goodreads, I give the novel a 5 star up to that point, and a 3 after that, which is actually quite generous. I stayed with the book only because I was curious how London would depict White Fang’s reaction to a city, and then the sophistication of his new owner’s estate (complete with chickens and other dogs). There were delightful moments, but they were drowned out by the “instructive” narration.

After pondering this for a few days and reading some critical material about London’s work I appreciate that the split is intentional: he believed man’s “civilization” was far less noble than the wild, and that man was ennobled by embracing the wild. White Fang’s final owner is clearly meant to seem a cut above those around him, appreciating White Fang for his wildness. He meant to leave him in the wild, but White Fang insisted on staying by his side. So be it. I understand, but it still doesn’t make it more palatable for me.

And yet… this intrusive narration might be completely acceptable if performed by a traditional storyteller—an oral performance, with dramatic pauses for effect, droll asides, expressive body language. In fact, as I write this I can easily imagine enjoying such a performance. I also suspect I would have been oblivious of this aspect of London’s style had I read the book as a child, when I simply devoured stories. (Critical reading is an occupational hazard for a writer.) And I’m quite certain I would have found the narration comfortable had I read it at the time it was published, 1906, when the intrusive narrator was more common in fiction than it is now.

All in all, I’m glad I read it, it’s provided much food for thought, and inspired a geeky blog post. (And I fell in love with White Fang.)

I’m now happily reading Chris Nickson’s new book, The Tin God. Has nothing to do with the Owen Archer mystery I’m writing, it’s just a treat at the end of my day.

Advertisements

On My Mind: Wolves, Magda Digby

Tags

A Vigil of Spies, Aleksander Pluskowski, Farley Mowat, James Roberts, John Thoresby, Magda Digby, wolves, Zoomorphic

Why do we so fear wolves? They are predators, yes, but so are cats, and many of us live with cats, indeed sleep with them curled into our warm bodies. Eagles, hawks, and owls are also predators, yet most people I know, though in awe of them, don’t fear them, don’t see them as threats. Granted, domestic cats and birds of prey cannot knock over an adult human, but they can do serious harm. Yet it’s the wolves…

I’m thinking about this not only because of my work in progress, but also because the battle between farmers/ranchers and wolves is a thing in my state, and it breaks my heart.

Here’s a thoughtful piece of writing about that fear by James Roberts in the ezine Zoomorphic: http://zoomorphic.net/2017/10/in-the-eyes-of-a-wolf/
“Wolves mourn their dead. Some wolf mates return over and over to the place where their partners were trapped or killed. Others leave the pack and spend the rest of their days wandering in a state of growing starvation before they too die. Some wolves, when relocated by helicopter in an effort to shrink pack numbers, travel many hundreds of miles back to their home territory, risking being killed by other packs or by starvation. Some have even been caught again, then again relocated and this time have simply given up and died in their transport cages. Wolves create their own cultures. There is much we humans have forgotten we share with them. There is much we still have to learn from them.”

I tend to agree with Farley Mowat: “We have doomed the wolf not for what it is, but for what we deliberately and mistakenly perceive it to be –the mythologized epitome of a savage ruthless killer – which is, in reality, no more than a reflected image of ourself.”

And this: “…in the wolf we have not so much an animal that we have always known as one that we have consistently imagined.” –Barry Lopez, Of Wolves and Men

They are exquisitely beautiful beings, loyal to the pack, mating for life.

In medieval England the wolf was considered an enemy of foresters (i.e., the king’s hunting grounds) and the wool trade (monasteries grew rich on the wool their flocks produced), so the goal of wolf hunts was to rid the realm of their presence. In Aleksander Pluskowsky’s book, Wolves and the Wilderness in the Middle Ages (Boydell Press 2006) he notes that “the last reliable reference to wolf trapping in England is dated to 1394-6, from Whitby Abbey in East Yorkshire, where the monks paid 10s 9d for tawing fourteen wolf skins” (30).

So… there might have been wolves up on the moors in the late 14th century…

Also much on my mind: John Thoresby suggested to Magda Digby in A Vigil of Spies that she might cease referring to herself in third person, that she had surely done sufficient penance for her youthful errors. Would she attempt to change her speech pattern in honor of his memory? I’ve been debating this with myself ad nauseam. I’d be curious to know what you think.

 

 

Writing as a Journey of Discovery

Tags

George Saunders, Kate Clifford, Marilynne Robinson, writing process

I’m happily absorbed in rearranging and polishing the third Kate Clifford novel. The first draft of a novel is always a journey of discovery for me: only after I’ve followed the characters through the story do I see the patterns, the connections, the emotional journeys. Then I dive back in, reading it with curiosity, making notes toward the next draft, what to rearrange, what to rewrite, how to polish it. I love this part.

Clearly this process is shared by many, if not most, writers. Here are  two examples that I came across this week.

• In the last paragraph of Marilynne Robinson’s essay “On Finding the Right Word” in Friday’s NYT she warns against forcing the topic:
  “Writing should always be exploratory. There shouldn’t be the assumption that you know ahead of time what you want to express. When you enter into the dance with language, you’ll begin to find that there’s something before, or behind, or more absolute than the thing you thought you wanted to express. And as you work, other kinds of meaning emerge than what you might have expected. It’s like wrestling with the angel: On the one hand you feel the constraints of what can be said, but on the other hand you feel the infinite potential. There’s nothing more interesting than language and the problem of trying to bend it to your will, which you can never quite do. You can only find what it contains, which is always a surprise.”
  Exploratory, a dance, always a surprised. Exactly!
• This reminded me of a short video I discovered a few days ago, George Saunders on Story. in which he “deconstructs what makes for an effective story, and describes his personal strategies for writing, revealing the importance of conversing with your characters, the pitfalls of fixing your intentions in place, and why good storytelling is a bit like being in love.”
  Conversing with your characters–I find that essential. I’ve learned to let go of my intentions as soon as a character balks. Instead, I follow their idea and see where it takes me. Sometimes it’s a dead end and I abandon it, but even then I’ve learned something in the process, and I know the story is better for having listened.

 

 

Series vs Standalone

Tags

A Triple Knot, A Twisted Vengeance, the Kate Clifford series, The King's Mistress, the Margaret Kerr series, the Owen Archer series, The Service of the Dead, The Writing Life

As a reader, if you asked whether I favor books in series or standalone books I’d say I have no preference. However, as a writer I much prefer working on books in series. The following is a glimpse into what I’ve learned about myself in this regard.*

The Pleasures of Writing a Series

Working on a novel is a long process, consuming my days and nights for months of work and worry. I live with the characters, coax them, argue with them. They wake me in the night with suggestions for plot twists, secrets about their pasts, reminders of threads I’ve dropped. On long walks I eavesdrop on arguments among them. And then, one day, the book is ready to send off to my editor. Such a rush of relief—I’ve done it again! I’ve completed another novel.

And then… I don’t know what to do with myself. I could tackle all the things that fell through the cracks while I rushed toward the deadline, but busywork isn’t satisfying. I’m lonely. I miss the characters.

The only cure is to dive into the next book, which is easy when writing a series. I go for a walk or go out to work in the garden while imagining what might be going on in Owen’s, Maggie’s, or Kate’s life, continuing a thread that began in an earlier book, something not quite tied up. It might be a blooming relationship, a potential conflict, a long-awaited opportunity, the unexpected return of a character from an earlier episode. This might not necessarily be the central plotline, but it primes the pump, puts my characters in play.

I lost this continuity when I stepped away from writing mysteries to work on two standalones (The King’s Mistress and A Triple Knot, by “Emma Campion”). Once completed, I had no easy entrance into the next story. With these, once each book was finished,  that was that. There was no “and then” to play with.

Only by stepping away did I appreciate how much I enjoy writing crime series. In a standalone, everything is wrapped up in one book. In a series, my characters are on stage across a variety of adventures and through time. In the Kate Clifford series, I’ve burdened my main character with her late husband’s debts, his bastard children, an unfriendly clause in his will, a violent past, and a difficult mother. Kate’s issues are presented in book 1, The Service of the Dead, but, as in life, not all are resolved by the end of the first episode. Kate will cope with the hand I’ve dealt her over time, while investigating the crime that propels each book.

Having the leisure of following all the recurring characters over time is a perk of writing a series. Their characters deepen as they face new challenges. In The Service of the Dead, Kate’s uncle Richard Clifford, dean of York Minster, is someone whom she trusts, someone who is there for her when she needs a safe place for her ward, Phillip. But in A Twisted Vengeance he steps back, looking to his own interests as the conflict between the royal cousins, King Richard and Henry Bolingbroke, the heir to the duchy of Lancaster, comes to a head. Because I’ve already established the warm niece/uncle relationship in book 1, this estrangement is all the more disturbing and disappointing—and signals just how dangerous the politics have become.

Or take Kate’s mother, Eleanor Clifford, who arrives at the end of Service, giving Kate an outlet for her pent up anger. In book 2, A Twisted Vengeance, Kate realizes that her mother holds a secret that is endangering her own and Kate’s households. The challenge for Kate is to put her resentment aside and find a way to break down the barriers between them.

The children in Kate’s household are certain to change the most through the series, as they move from childhood to adolescence and beyond. I look forward to exploring how Kate’s headstrong ward, Marie, will adjust to the new member of the household, Petra. And it will be fun to show Marie’s brother, Phillip, finding his way as an apprentice stonemason in the minster yard.

And what of Kate’s heart? She has two intriguing men in her life, Berend (her cook, a former assassin), and Sir Elric, a knight in the service of Ralph Neville, the Earl of Westmoreland. With the country split apart by the warring royal cousins, the two men might very well find themselves on opposite sides. What of Kate? Whose side will she favor?

Stay tuned!

*I am aware that many of you who read this blog don’t follow along on blog tours, so in the next few weeks I’ll share the posts I wrote for my recent tour. This is the first, which appeared at http://booksofallkinds.weebly.com/:

The Subject Is Roses

Tags

Derek Perkins, Minster Rose, The Apothecary Rose

First, an exciting announcement for readers in the US who have wished for Owen Archer audiobooks: The Apothecary Rose is available now, in a new Tantor audiobook narrated by the award winning Derek Perkins. (The Lady Chapel will be available in November, The Nun’s Tale in December.)

https://tantor.com/the-apothecary-rose-candace-robb.html

 

The second rose is this gorgeous one, which Jane Hibbert brought me, fresh from her garden, as she arrived for my talk in the Festival of Ideas in York last month. Called Minster Rose, it has the most exquisite scent. Thank you, Jane!

I believe this is the York Minster Rose bred especially for a minster fundraiser, or so I was told by Richard Shephard as I set it out on his kitchen table. Perfect!

I just wish I might have brought it home. But I’m going to hunt it down. It will look beautiful beside my apothecary rose and in front of my climbing City of York, a white rose (of course!).

The third rose is a rosewood fountain pen made from the remnants of some old rosewood furniture by Bob Newman, a thank you for the Owen Archer books, particularly The Apothecary Rose. This will have pride of place on my desk. Isn’t it beautiful?!

Thank you, Bob!

More about my trip coming soon…

Meet Chris Nickson, Chronicler of Leeds

Tags

At the Dying of the Year, Chris Nickson, Come the Fear, crime series, Dan Markham mysteries, Dark Briggate Blues, friendship, Leeds, Leeds Big Bookend, On Copper Street, Richard Nottingham, the Leeds Library, Tom Harper

In several weeks (8 June) I’ll be sitting down at the historic Leeds Library (7 pm) with my friend Chris Nickson, engaging in a conversation about our work and our friendship. I’m grateful for this opportunity to share the stage with a friend whose work I so admire. We share a love for the north of England, past and present, and for talking shop. Our almost daily email exchanges are chronicles of our work and inspiration.

We both explore the political landscape of the past in our writing and how it mirrors our contemporary concerns. I might seem more overt in my politics because I include the politics of the realm in my books, but we both aim to show how the wider issues affected the people far from Westminster. Trust me, we’ll entertain you with our chatter.

You’re not familiar with Chris’s book? Most of Chris’s crime series are set in different eras in Leeds, although he’s also set short series in Seattle and Chesterfield. Let me just say, I highly recommend all of his books. You are in for a treat.

His most recent published book is the fifth book in his Tom Harper series, On Copper Street, which was named by Booklist as one of the best crime novels in the past twelve months. Congratulations, Chris! (Yes, it is that good.) The Tom Harper books are set in Victorian Leeds. Although Tom is a great character, I am always eager for scenes with his wife Annabelle. You’ll know why when you read the books. Begin with the first, Gods of Gold.

Three years ago I introduced Chris on this blog, talking about how we’d lived in so many of the same places, but never at the same time. Though we’ve since discovered that’s not quite true, we were in Seattle at the same time for a short stretch–we just didn’t know it! It wasn’t until he had returned to the UK that he contacted me. And we haven’t shut up since.

If you haven’t yet discovered Chris’s books, let me entice you with some samples of his writing.

Chris is a music journalist as well as a crime writer–I mention this because he brings a rhythm and a lyricism, to his writing that enriches his crime novels. The streets his sleuths walk are alive with sound. And he can write about music in a way that teases me into thinking I’m actually hearing it. Here’s a passage from Dark Briggate Blues, the first Dan Markham mystery (1950s Leeds): “The music began just as he walked down the stairs, piano, bass, drums and a young tenor player he’d never seen before. He barely looked old enough to shave and dressed awkwardly in something that could have been his father’s demob suit. But he could play, twisting a world of ache and pain through the melody of ‘Someone To Watch Over Me’ with a heartbreak that went beyond his years. Markham waited in the doorway until the tune ended in a slow flurry of notes that rose like smoke.”

Chris doesn’t stop at one sense, he works them all:
“An early mist had come down as the Constable walked into Leeds, giving a cobweb light to the land. Somewhere off in the trees crows were cawing and he could hear the soft smack of hooves on the earth, but he couldn’t see them.” (Come the Fear, a Richard Nottingham mystery)
“Leadenhall Carcass Market stood behind an arch next to Smith’s Tailors and Outfitters, on one of the thin lanes that ran between Vicar Lane and Briggate. It was late in the day but they were still at work, oil lamps glowing everywhere. The flagstones were slippery with frozen blood but the men working under the overhangs walked around easily, laughing, joking and shouting as they wielded their knives and carelessly hauled around sides of beef. There was a sharp tang to the air, and the flesh steamed as men sliced it open to gut and joint the carcasses that hung from iron hooks. Harper felt himself starting to gag as the bile rose in his throat. He stood still for a moment, hardly daring to breathe until the feeling passed.” (from Two Bronze Pennies, a Tom Harper mystery)

He encapsulates Leeds history in his descriptions. “Rob knew about the bell pits; everyone in Leeds did. They were holds that extended just a few feet into the ground, opening into chambers ten or twelve feet across and shaped like the bells that gave them their names; places where folk gathered scraps of coal for their fires. They’d existed for generations, all over the city, for so long that no one really knew who’d first dug them.” (from At the Dying of the Year, a Richard Nottingham mystery)

Now that I think of it, his books beg to be read aloud.

Chris does far more than simply choose a time and place in which to set a mystery, he recreates that time, researching the cultural history as well as the political history, walking the streets. He has a knack for knowing just when to add words common at the time, yet avoids the danger of slowing down the action with dialect. He has an ear for what will bring the scene to life.

You can see why I’m looking forward to our conversation at the historic Leeds Library on 8 June. Come join us! Ticket info here.  Thank you, Leeds Big Bookend and The Leeds Library for sponsoring this event!

 

 

 

 

 

Snippets about Writing & Fairy Tales

Tags

George Saunders, Kate Clifford, Medieval Women's Choir, the Owen Archer series

First it was the run up to the Medieval Women’s Choir concert (songs of pilgrimage), and the concert itself, and now I’m deep into the middle of Kate Clifford #3, in which I’ve been reacquainted with a beloved cast member of the Owen Archer series who is now elderly but still vibrant. At such times, my blog is sadly abandoned.

But it needn’t be! I thought I’d share some snippets of things that have caught my attention recently.

This morning, it was this exchange on Twitter, where it’s #folkloreThursday. I tweeted a quote I’d come across that I love:
A fairy tale is a story where one king goes to another king to borrow a cup of sugar.–Angela Carter
The moderator of the hashtag for that hour responded, Ouch – that’s a bit cynical – I’d have thought it was where one king visits another to borrow some unicorn horn.
And I said, Cynical?! Not at all! Down to earth.
And loads of women expressed delight at my tweet (one adding The queen’s words.)
How much better it would be for all of us if kings/queens/presidents/etc. peaceably swapped homely things like cups of sugar instead of sending armies to take all the sugar cane in the fields. I’m channeling Magda Digby here.

And then recently there was this article by the writer George Saunders, in which I discovered a kindred spirit. We have such similar processes! No, I don’t imagine the P and N on my forehead, but in essence, it’s spot on for me, especially section 7, about the pins.

“A work of fiction can be understood as a three-beat movement: a juggler gathers bowling pins; throws them in the air; catches them. This intuitive approach I’ve been discussing is most essential, I think, during the first phase: the gathering of the pins. This gathering phase really is: conjuring up the pins. Somehow the best pins are the ones made inadvertently… Concentrating on the line-to-line sound of the prose, or some matter of internal logic, or describing a certain swath of nature in the most evocative way (that is, by doing whatever gives us delight, and about which we have a strong opinion), we suddenly find that we’ve made a pin. Which pin? Better not to name it. To name it is to reduce it. Often “pin” exists simply as some form of imperative, or a thing about which we’re curious; a threat, a promise, a pattern, a vow we feel must soon be broken. Scrooge says it would be best if Tiny Tim died and eliminated the surplus population; Romeo loves Juliet; Akaky Akakievich needs a new overcoat; Gatsby really wants Daisy. (The colour grey keeps showing up; everything that occurs in the story does so in pairs.)

“Then: up go the pins. The reader knows they are up there and waits for them to come down and be caught. If they don’t come down (Romeo decides not to date Juliet after all, but to go to law school; the weather in St Petersburg suddenly gets tropical, and the overcoat will not be needed; Gatsby sours on Daisy, falls for Betty; the writer seems to have forgotten about his grey motif) the reader cries foul, …  and she throws down the book and wanders away ….

“The writer, having tossed up some suitably interesting pins, knows they have to come down, and, in my experience, the greatest pleasure in writing fiction is when they come down in a surprising way that conveys more and better meaning than you’d had any idea was possible. One of the new pleasures I experienced writing this, my first novel, was simply that the pins were more numerous, stayed in the air longer, and landed in ways that were more unforeseen and complexly instructive to me than has happened in shorter works.”

It’s a rich, thoughtful article.

Until next time!

The Murder Mystery as a Cultural Lens, part 1

Tags

A Twisted Vengeance, cultural lens, empathy, Kate Clifford, Owen Archer, The Riddle of St Leonard's

In November of last year I was invited by the Classics, Medieval, and Early Modern Studies Graduate Research Cluster at the University of Washington to talk about my career writing fiction about late medieval England, Scotland, and Wales. I flailed around for a topic specific enough to provide some focus, yet sufficiently expansive–so far it’s been quite a ride and I’ve lots to say! I finally chose to talk about the murder mystery writer as a cultural lens.

In case you haven’t encountered the term before: A cultural lens is another term for viewing things from the perspective of a foreign culture. In order to apply a cultural lens on a situation, skills like empathy and understanding are needed. I explained that it’s important for my sleuths to not assume that the people of York (or Edinburgh, Perth, Windsor, St. David’s, etc.) view things the same way they do, or their places of origin did. So this applies on both a personal and government level. I like to emphasize empathy: In an investigation, a detective needs to listen—deep listening—and needs to hear all sides.

I thought I’d share with you the conclusion of that talk, given shortly after the US presidential election.

***

Something odd keeps happening—my books mirror current affairs in uncanny ways. I’d begun writing about the Scottish Wars of Independence from the perspective of the Scottish people—the Margaret Kerr trilogy, seeking to expose the horror of living in a war zone, and how that might give rise to violent rebellion, when 9/11 happened. And we declared war.

When I wrote The Riddle of St. Leonard’s [Owen Archer #5]—about corrodians in medieval hospitals and the financial crisis they were causing at St. Leonard’s in York—the care they received helping them live longer—too long, costing too much to support, I found echoes in political arguments about Social Security and Medicare bankrupting the nation.

And most recently, … in A Twisted Vengeance [Kate Clifford #2] I’m writing about the edginess of the populace in the midst of political upheaval. As I worked through my editor’s notes on the manuscript last week I felt a sense of déjà vu as the election results came in and I realized the enormity of the changes ahead —talk about political upheaval. As a writer I was pleased with the veracity of my depiction of the characters’ fear about the future. Personally I’m in shock to be in their shoes. I have a character question why people have rushed to support the king’s cousin, Henry, who is a cipher to them—yes, he strikes a heroic figure, a tournament champion, but why do they believe his rule will be better for them than Richard’s? Because he says so? And then… almost half the voters in my country go for the guy who promises change—huge change—though he’s never held public office and… well, you see the similarity.

How does this happen? Is it because in writing about the past with empathy novelists are tapping into universals? I think so.

So—since the election I’ve been wondering what lessons I can take from my work. How would Owen and Kate approach what has happened? They would examine the things the other side holds dear, they would frame their questions in ways that opened up dialogue, so the others would reveal themselves. When they met resistance they’d explore different routes in. All in the interest of understanding so that they might see how to restore order.

I’m hoping that the deeper reward for me in using the mystery as a cultural lens, even more resonant and life confirming than my original fascination with discovering what life was like in the past, is in teaching me how to open my eyes in the present, in this difficult present in which I find myself. To look at those I don’t understand as a cultural anthropologist, and to engage them as my sleuths do, with unloaded questions that have some hope of opening up a dialogue in which I might find clues as to how to communicate that we’re all in this together, and this is what’s at stake.

Gazing Inward, With Friendly Curiosity

Tags

creativity, trust, writing

Our most important writing tool is trust in our own unique vision, our own voice. Stop comparing. Look within. I wrote that in my journal after a friend, a poet, confided that she was experiencing a storm of self-doubt. As I reassured her I smiled to myself, remembering times she’s done the same for me.

Here are some inspiring quotes with a similar message (italics mine):

If you get stuck, get away from your desk. Take a walk, take a bath, go to sleep, make a pie, draw, listen to ­music, meditate, exercise; whatever you do, don’t just stick there scowling at the problem. But don’t make telephone calls or go to a party; if you do, other people’s words will pour in where your lost words should be. Open a gap for them, create a space. Be patient. –Hilary Mantel The Guardian 22 Feb 2010

[When asked, what’s the best book you’ve ever received as a gift]: The Professional, by W. C. Heinz. It profiles a boxer before a match in the 1950s. I reread it before taping a stand-up special. Preparing to perform comedy in front of hundreds (or thousands) of people and telling jokes that may or may not make them laugh is just as terrifying as getting hit in the face while boxing. I boxed for a while a couple years back, and the fear of getting punched was a big hurdle I had to get over. But you know what helped? Getting punched. Just one time was enough to learn that the fear of pain is worse than the pain itself. That’s like stand-up. I learned to just get up there and own my jokes. Relax and take the punches. The crowd will forgive you for less-than-perfect jokes, but nobody likes to watch a fearful performer.  –Amy Schumer NYT 8/11/16 By the Book

Wright Morris said that “Writes have an island, a center of refuge, within themselves. It is the mind’s anchorage, the soul’s Great Good Place.”

Paula Fox (Paris Review, The Art of Fiction No. 181) “I never felt any sort of egocentricity about my writing. I think I felt that it was a dispassionate gift that some force had given me. And I still think that. It’s as if something speaks through me, and then I have to sit up there every day for it to have a place to come and speak through me.”  Also:  “Everything you write is autobiographical, even science fiction, and the planet Ork. In some way even that is a reflection of you—who you are. You write about yourself as if you were a specimen, as if you were a specimen of a human being, and so you write about being human. The only one you really know, reasonably well, in some cases unreasonably well, is yourself.”

“…not only must we wake the sleeper in our self, we must help her enter and reenter the state of wonder.” Jonis Agee (The Daily Beast, “The True Secret of Staying Young,” 13 Aug 16)

Richard Wilbur: “Step off into the blank of your mind, something will come to you.”

October Sunrise

Mostly importantly, enjoy your own wonderfully crazy imagination. Untether it. Later, you’ll edit.

My Unruly Characters

Tags

A Gift of Sanctuary, A Triple Knot, A Trust Betrayed, A Vigil of Spies, Brother Michaelo, creating characters, Earl of Westmorland, Kate Clifford, Lucie Wilton, Margaret Kerr, Owen Archer, The Apothecary Rose, The Service of the Dead, writing

At first it surprised me that the characters I created in my books chatted and interacted with each other even when I stepped away from my desk. While I weeded the garden, walked with friends, washed dishes, fell asleep, I eavesdropped on Owen Archer, Lucie Wilton, Bess and Tom Merchet, Archbishop Thoresby, Magda Digby… . Occasionally I woke in the morning recalling entire scenes played out in my dreams—some useful, some not. I had never imagined such strangeness when I first tried writing fiction, but I welcomed it with open arms—what writer wouldn’t?! The continuous exposure deepens the characters for me. It’s especially helpful when writing a series in which many characters appear in each book, and some return after long absences. It’s invaluable to me to imagine these people’s lives between their appearances, to glimpse what’s going on behind the scenes.

As the characters settled in and began to feel as if they were part of my family, they developed autonomy. My first experience with this involved Potter Digby in The Apothecary Rose. He was a fishy smelling weasel of a character in the outline; but Owen listened to him, giving him the chance to reveal his individual moral code. This wasn’t planned. Owen Archer, my creation, took the time to talk to Potter, allowing him to reveal his humanity. I wound up deeply regretting how things were going to turn out for him.

Brother Michaelo, definitely not one of the good guys in The Apothecary Rose, also changed my mind. John Thoresby, Archbishop of York, made him his personal secretary in an act symbolic of donning a hair shirt. But, in the course of ten novels, Michaelo developed a respect for the archbishop and a desire to redeem himself. He was a good friend to Lucie Wilton’s father, Sir Robert D’Arby, in his last days (A Gift of Sanctuary). By the tenth book, A Vigil of Spies, Brother Michaelo became a tragic figure—deeply flawed, but honorable and admirable. Just this week a reader messaged me on Facebook urging me to stop Michaelo from leaving York and returning to Normandy.

How does this happen? How did Geoffrey Chaucer, a man who annoys Owen, become his friend? How is it that Owen deeply mourns—well, best not say who, in case you’ve not reached book 10.

This isn’t just about flawed characters becoming lovable. Many of my characters aren’t planned, but arise in a scene and take on an unexpected significance. In A Trust Betrayed, when Margaret Kerr met her uncle’s groom, Hal, he was meant to be part of the scenery, needed for a few scenes but expendable. But Maggie and Hal formed a bond, and he kept stepping up to help her. In A Triple Knot (one of my non-series novels), Joan of Kent’s childhood nurse, Efa, was meant to appear only in memory; but she was just the person to step back into Joan’s life and help her cope with her unhappiness.

Most recently, Sir Elric, a knight in the service of Ralph Neville, Earl of Westmoreland, popped up in a scene in The Service of the Dead. Kate Clifford was meeting her loathsome brother-in-law Lionel Neville and found he was not alone—not planned, but I found myself adding that detail. It occurred to me that it would be fun if Lionel were accompanied by someone who sees right through him, someone he’s desperate to impress. Sir Elric’s was to be brief walk-on role. But the chemistry between Elric and Kate—well, I couldn’t waste that. He’s back in the second book, and the third.

The eeriest one of all happened late one afternoon, just around quitting time. In the midst of an action scene late in The Service of the Dead, Kate pauses at the edge of the road, uncertain which way to go, and a little hand takes hers. I remember lifting my own hands off the keyboard and looking around my office asking, Who is this? It didn’t take me long to figure it out, but, as with Efa, this character was to be someone mentioned, but never met. Now I cannot imagine the series without her.

This is one of the joys of the writing life—I never know who will stride into the scene, or defy me.