The first half of my novel in progress is due on October 1st.
That’s soon.
I’ve never written a book on proposal before. It’s proving to be an interesting experience, one I’m very grateful for and, on most days, thoroughly enjoying.
Here’s what’s undergirding my enjoyment:
I never really though someone would say to me (before a manuscript was fully completed): we see the good in what you are trying to do as a novelist. We want to throw our lot in with you, and help you bring this material to life.
This is still pretty much blowing my mind.
Bear in mind that I’ve been tapping away at keyboards (the first being my brown electric Smith Corona typewriter) with hopes of writing novels since 1982.
Bear in mind that my previous books took years to write and then a significant chunk of time to sell. And then the revisions and publishing process kicked in, so that entailed more time, all of which was mostly endured by me in a perpetual state of doubt-laced faith.
Also bear in mind that this book has been rattling around in the back of my mind and at the heart of my soul since 1996. I’ve attempted other versions of it, so I have some material and background development to draw on, which is nice sometimes, and limiting and unhelpful at other times.
Really, if I’m honest, the original sparks for this novel occurred way before ’96 or ’82. The sparks ignited when my father told me stories when I was a very little girl. “Tell me another story from when you were young,” I’d say after dinner. And while my mother did the dishes and listened along with me, he’d do just that.
Of course stories my father told me are one thing. The story I wrote in ’96 and the versions since than are another. This draft of this novel, currently called Sing For Me, is its own piece of work.
Work.
That’s how I feel about writing this novel on proposal.
This is good work, given to me in addition of the other work I do in advertising, teaching, being a wife and a mom.
For instance, even as I write this, I am thinking of the tortoise we will be getting for my son’s 11th tomorrow. I am thinking we may have to write this creature into our wills. I am thinking of a meeting I will be attending on rich media, online advertising. These things are rattling around at the edges and center of my consciousness, along with the chapter I need to generate in the next ten days, plus the amount of time I will need to format the document from my new, beloved writing program (Scrivener) to Word. (Which is familiar, trusted friend of a program some days, and on other days, a real Benedict Arnold.) There is proofreading to be done. Narrative gaps to be bridged. Details to be researched. A lot on my writing plate.
I am thinking of Lucille Clifton now.
She once said, “The best conditions for me to write poetry are at the kitchen table, one kid’s got the measles, another two kids are smacking each other. You know, life is going on around me.” At the kitchen table, Lucille Clifton caught space and time for poems.
Take that, Virginia Woolf!
This summer and fall, my kitchen table has been the Quiet Car on the Western Metra line, to and from Chicago. I’ve gotten a lot done, tracks clattering away beneath me and my laptop.
Of course, I’m not a poet, like Clifton. I’m a long form writer, and there are times when I deeply desire, no, need, a room of my own, a sprawling swatch of time in which to pace around, cradling the loose and baggy baby monster of my book in arms, bearing its weight, shifting it this way and that.
It would be nice to have the time to sing the precious bundle a lullaby and put it sweetly to bed.
But instead we are travelling together, rattling along mile upon rushing mile, doing the work that we’ve been given to do in relatively short increments.
The realist in me is quite happy with that. The idealist in me sighs deeply, reconciled.
All will be well, I tell them both, whenever I’m able.
