This postcard from the remarkable Seánan arrived today. The timing a bit eerie, no? But writing is eerie. The quote and the figure in the portrait are of course Samuel Beckett. The plan is mine: I will fail again today. But I will fail better.
October 2011 Archives
Well, I’ve reached a new phase in my professional life. I shall call it the Great Stuck phase.
Backstory. Last Christmas, I finished up a solid draft of my second novel, Sorrow’s Knot. I’d already sold the book, as an unspecified “book two” in a two book contract, so I took a deep breath and sent it off to my editor. The draft I sent was not a first draft (I would sooner break my fingers than share my first drafts with my editor) but it was not a finished draft either — I still had ideas about things I wanted to try. But deadline pressed, so I dutifully sent the draft on.
I was excited about the book at first. It had problems, but I loved the main character, loved the world, and was giddy about the ending. The ending makes me cry and grin like an idiot at the same time. It’s probably my favourite of all the things I’ve ever written. I wanted to dive right back into it and try to make the rest of the book live up to that ending.
But, well, circumstances. I won’t get into them here, but Because Of Reasons, it was impossible for me to dive back into the book. That hurt. A lot. I began to see only the book’s weakest points. The frustration began to border on heartbreak. It was like sitting next to the phone, waiting for That Call, and every moment it doesn’t come is worse than the moment before. So, eventually, I put Sorrow’s Knot into the past tense. I thought: well, that book is done. It will come back some day, but for now, it’s done. Put it in a box with the other failed projects and move on.
And I did. I wrote a different book, Children of Peace. I have always been a slow, careful writer — Plain Kate took me six years, Sorrow’s Knot three so far — but Children of Peace came tumbling out in about six months. Lightning fast. Lightning exciting, too. I even started a sequel (a sequel!) and got about 20,000 words in.
And then, those circumstances? They changed. And it was suddenly time for me to write Sorrow’s Knot again. That was two months ago. And here’s the thing. I can’t get the book out of the bloody box.
I have a revision plan, good ideas for what I want to change, and how, and why. But the words themselves won’t come. I try and try, but they just WON’T. I feel like A.A. Milne’s Rabbit, “braining out” notices: “Notice a meeting of everybody will meet at the House at Pooh Corner to pass a Rissolution By Order Keep to the Left Signed Rabbit.” Just that artificial, knocked together of prefabbed parts. If it were up to me, I’d give up. I’d leave the book in the box forever. But it’s not up to me: it’s a sold book. A lot of people have put a lot of work into it already.
So, now what? I’ve always advised young writers — and always believed for myself — that you should follow your writing passions, and not be concerned about what you “should” be writing. “Should” is so often a trap. And there are few good reasons to write beyond passion. I usually throw in a caveat here about the difference between following your passion and chickening out halfway through — but really, that doesn’t feel like chickening out. This is different.
What do you do when you want to quit but can’t? I’ve thought a lot about this this week, and here is what I’ve come up with.
First: forgive myself. I’ve had very little time to write, recently, because of publicity pressures and dayjob craziness. (Recently my “half-time” job has seen me leaving at closer to 3:00 than 1:00 — I decided that that was temporarily okay to deal with a temporary problem. I’m redrawing that boundary now.) With all the stuff going on in my life in September and October, it’s no wonder there’s been little time to write. Good Stuff is still Stuff.
Realize, too, under the heading of “forgive myself,” that part of this is reacting to the “You Must” nature of having a book on contract. My muse says: Make Me. That is the nature of the muse (and possibly the reason sophomore books are … ahem … problematic). Realize this, shake my head at myself, and move on.
Second: realize diving back in is about more than just plot. Oddly enough, each of of my light little fantasy novels turns out to deal, in fact, with one of my Big Scary Personal Issues. (The plus side of writing about talking cats is that no one asks you if they’re autobiographical.) To get back to Sorrow’s Knot, I probably need to get back to the thing about it that moves and scares me. (Swell, that should be fun.)
Third: be less like Rabbit and more like Pooh. By this I mean, sit quietly with the stuckness and have faith. This is an act of creativity, and creativity is more about faith than will. (For me.) This week, I’ve decided to trust that there is a door back into the work — just one I have yet to find. It’s my book, after all. I liked it while I was writing it. I loved Otter. And I still love the ending, unabashedly. Nothing there has changed. It will happen.
So I record all this so that others can see that Real Writers Get Stuck (I have many students who read this blog) and so that someday when I’ve written a dazzling book that I love beyond all reason, I can remember that I once hated it and wanted to leave it in a box. At that time I will probably have another book I hate and want to leave in a box, so this note to myself may be useful.
I am stuck, but I am waiting with faith. Someone can come read me a Strengthening Book, such as might comfort a Bear in Wedged in Great Tightness, if they’d like.
Want to see the look on my face on winning the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award? There’s a video!
In today’s interview, a member of my beloved writing group (my “bridesmaid,” she says) talks to me about romancing PLAIN KATE in “Here Comes the Bride.” We’re both friends of the great national literary journal, The New Quarterly, and so the piece is on their blog, The Literary Type. Here’s an excerpt:
The Wedding: After six long years along came the big day when Plain Kate entered the world with that beautiful cover. She looked radiant.
That cover! I was so happy when I saw the cover. I had no control over it at all, which is sort of like not getting to pick out your own wedding dress. I was so glad to see Kate getting a cover that suited her.
But the day of the wedding …. To tell the absolute truth, though, the actual day of publication is a bit of a non-event. I’d already had all these huge emotional days with Plain Kate. The day I first saw the cover. The day they sent me my advanced reader’s copy, which looks just like a paperback book: I looked down at it as if I’d had a baby. My goodness a real book! All the pre-publication publicity I did … Scholastic sent me to New York, to Washington DC; I did a blog tour. In New York, I brought my family, and Scholastic sent a limo to the train station so that we’d all fit in the car: my Fancy Nancy daughter was so enchanted. Books started cropping up in stores, here and there. Then I got my copy of the book. And then, one day, a month or so later, it was the official release date.
And … nothing happened.
Well, I threw myself a party, knowing from my poetry publishing experience that nothing would happen on release day. It was a great party. All my best writing friends came. I got all the food from the Croatian store by my house and to this day don’t know what I served. “Is peeg,” the woman told us, when we inquired about the spicy dried meat. “Oh, pork! Smoked or spiced or what?” “No,” she said. “Is Peeeg.”
Want to know more secrets — like why I almost wrote out Taggle? The whole interview is here.
Here’s an excerpt from an interview, up today, at WriteOn, a cool blog and forum for teen writers — that is, writers who are teens, not writers who write for teens. (Oh, internet. Where were you when I was fourteen?) Anyhoo, Maggie at WriteOn does a good back and forth interview — a not-to-be-underestimated skill — and this piece has more than the average number of interesting bits. Read this excerpt, then go read the whole thing.
MAGGIE: Voice is so important in a novel, and you’ve really got yours down. What are a some tips for teen writers on voice?
ERIN: I think having a voice as a writer is mostly about confidence. It’s sort of the same as public speaking: you want to sound like some version of yourself, not nervous or stilted or artificial, as if you were about to faint at any moment. People will feel bad and awkward and want to leave. That confidence might come naturally to some people — I think many writers have never thought about their voice at all — but for many of us, it has to be earned.
How do you earn it? Two things, I think: practice and play. Practice is just writing a lot — and particularly finishing things. Most young writers start things and don’t finish them. It’s so hard to push those early stories or poems forward. Ira Glass said something amazing about this — that writers get into the game because they have taste: they know good writing when they see it. And then, because they have taste but don’t yet have skill, they dislike their own writing. They can see all its failures. How do you keep going when you’re failing like that? Well, first know that everyone fails at first. Ray Bradbury said you have to write a million bad words before you write one good book. Let’s hope he’s overestimating that, but still, take it from Ray: everyone fails. But it’s by making yourself finish, keeping going at things, that you’ll fail better.
The second way to earn confidence is to play. …
“Writing can be hard, but it’s also a kind of play. I do lots of fast scribbling in notebooks. I mess about with words, ideas, images, characters, and test out all kinds of possibilities. I allow myself to write lots of rubbish and to be surprised by what comes out of my head.”—David Almond, author of SKELLIG
Note to self: remember this. Today writing feels like work. It doesn’t always. It shouldn’t.
Also remember: don’t squish the kids.
Also also remember: thank your mom and your dad.
(this image is all over tumblr, but seems to originate with deviantart, here.)
In case you are wondering, no, I have not yet recovered from the win at the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Awards. In part because I’ve been very busy with the delightful business of giving interviews. Here’s the press round-up so far!
Here’s the CBC website piece, where I’m apparently “visibly stunned.” There’s a link included to a long radio conversation between Sheryl MacKay and me about Plain Kate.
Here’s The Record, my hometown paper, where I talk about getting hit by a happy bat and planning to use my prize money to buy a new mattress. That was the last interview of the day; I was somewhat loopy.
Here’s the Toronto Examiner, which picks up that great line from the citation: “this is a book that will be read for generations.”
Here’s the National Post. Just the announcement, but they’ve got a spiffy picture!
Also carrying the annoucement, the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, Quill and Quire, Publisher’s Weekly, and probably others I’ve missed
So. So, Plain Kate won.
This time yesterday I was going through a checklist: Little Black Dress? Check. Fresh manicure (cobalt blue)? Check. Big earrings? Check. An undergarment so supportive that I no longer bent in the middle? Check. Time to go off to the Canadian Children’s Book Centre awards, where Plain Kate was up for the big prize, the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award for most distinguished book for children. My goal for the evening was to not throw up. At least not on anyone important.
The event was at the Carlu, the old Eaton’s Centre ballroom from the days when department stores had ballrooms: a restored Art Deco beauty of a place. There were seven hundred people there: book sellers, librarians, publishers, editors, writers — all people who love children’s literature. There was great food (I was too busy to have any) and a drink named after Plain Kate, the Plain Kate-tini. (Vodka and Sour Puss Raspberry Liqueur.) So we mingled and schmoozed than then all us nominees got sent to sit in the front of the gorgeous theatre.
I had written a speech, just in case (remembering about Francis at the Tonys) and memorized it. But as I waited for the big award announcement, which of course came last, I got more and more nervous. I thought: If I have to get up there, my jaw will just drop open. Nothing good will come out. I figured I’d better make a cheat sheet, so I did, on the back of the program with a lipstick pencil. The awards ceremony was great, especially because all the books I was rooting for won. (The Agency! I Know Here! The Glory Wind!) Still, the “don’t throw up” goal was beginning to prove challenging.
And then — well. Then I won. Here is the citation:
“Plain Kate is a triumph of imagination. With astonishing skill, Erin Bow creates the world of Kate, whose talents as a wood carver mark her as a witch. The fascinating, intricate plot bravely explores the wrenching complexities of cruelty and of love. Bow’s prose is at once lyrical and raw, and her characters are indelible. This is a book that will be read for generations.”
I got up on stage without either tripping or barfing and stood there for a second. Frank McKenna handed me a very big cheque and told me to cash it right away, as the markets were taking a beating.
Wow, I thought. Big Room, I thought. Bright Lights, Big Room. Wow. I’m pretty sure my jaw did fall open.
But then I did collect myself and gave my speech. I have no idea what I actually said, but this is what I had memorized.
This is my first novel, and I wrote it very slowly; it took me six years. It’s been very strange to put it out into the world. My Kate is an unloved and outcast girl — and yet when I put her out into the world, she was embraced. Maybe even loved. And while a writer is not her work, I can’t help feeling that I’ve been embraced, too, by the kind of people who are hear tonight: readers and writers and publishers and the true champions of children’s literature, booksellers and librarians. And for that I thank you, all.
There are of course some particular people I need to thank. First, TD and the Book Centre, for throwing this wonderful party for us. (Well, it’s a wonderful party for me.) It is good to see children’s literature on centre stage, not off in the side ring.
Second, of course, the Plain Kate team. It turns out (and as a poet I didn’t know this) that a novel is not just the work of an author. A lot of people who have put their professional energy behind Kate. Emily van Beek, my agent, loved her first — picked her out of the slush pile and read her while having her toenails done on rainy Tuesday. She called me the next day, I think. Emily found my editor, Arthur Levine. And from there the whole team at Scholastic, and in particular the wonderful people at Scholastic Canada, many of whom are here — everyone, thank you.
Finally, I want to thank some of the people who came here with me tonight. My husband James is here: my fellow writer, he’s been with me every paragraph of the way. Neither of us would be half as good a writer without the other. Thank you James. My mother’s here: She’s come a thousand miles out of her way for me, because she always does — everyone in my family always has. My little daughters Vivian and Nora — they are five and three — they are not here, because they have patience with Mommy’s A Writer. It would be hard to be a writer without that. So I thank them. Actually this is a complete lie, they cried when I left and I know they’re sulking now, but I have faith that someday they’ll be proud.
You know, everyone always says it’s an honour to be nominated, but truly — have you seen this list? I’ve read all these books. Burn — as a poet, I’m so pleased to see something formally adventurous get the nod. The Glory Wind — I just read that this weekend, and loved it so much the bath water got cold; it’s the best Middle Grade I’ve read this year. I really did Know Here. And of course I know there was a time in this fair land when the railroad did not run, but now we can see that made fresh again. To be among that company is amazing. To be up here is beyond words.
(photo credits: Me and Frank McKenna and the stack of books — The Canadian News Wire Services. Me speaking: Carly Popenko.)
