The Furious Spinner

I've been working on Church of the Old Mermaids for sixteen hours today. I didn't do anything else. Didn't go outside. Okay, I did two loads of laundry and the dishes, but that's about it. I worked on it all day yesterday too. I love working, and I love this book, but something I've always had trouble with is finding a good balance between every day life and work. I should have taken a walk today. Should have stopped to smell the roses. (Okay bad example—although someday I hope to be able to smell the roses.)

It's almost midnight, and I'm too wired to sleep because I worked too long.

A centipede just scurried across the room. Makes me shudder. Why do they only come out late at night?

Anyway, about writing novels.

Each book has its own voice. And that voice ain't mine. If I read a passage and it sounds like I'm talking, that means the passage (and maybe the book) is in trouble. Or if people are talking and I could switch names on the he said/she said/they said and it wouldn't make any difference, then I'm in trouble. Each person and everything they say should be unique to them. When rewriting, it's especially important to maintain the voice and tone of the novel. It's easier on first draft, probably because I'm more in the flow of the novel then. A voice is easier for me to write when it's a white middle-class woman. That doesn't mean the book is better when that's the voice; it just means I don't have to stretch much outside my comfort level—but I like stretching. Part of the fun of being a writer is that you can be anyone in any place when you write.

Some voices are easier than others. Keelie's voice in The Jigsaw Woman was easy for me. That book just flowed out of me, as though those characters had been a part of me forever. I was so angry and sick when I wrote that book, so it was easy to write an angry woman. Women. It was more difficult to write the characters who lived in peaceful times in that book. (I've always said I'm good at writing war stories. Most American writers are. It's peace that's more difficult. Why? Because we are raised in this warmongering society. Come on.) It was difficult at first, but then I really got into it. It was fun being in a peaceful, creative, and sensual world.

Gloria in The Gaia Websters was a bit harder—until I figured out she wasn't in touch with her emotions. She was good at one thing—healing—and she figured that was enough. Social niceties were beyond her. I could relate to that. Not because I was a healer but because I was really good at a couple of things—and to hell with all that social conformity crap. And I really liked her life. She had a house in the desert, someone brought her three meals a day, she had a coyote to keep her company—and a good man who dropped in occasionally to trip the light fantastic with her.

Coyote Cowgirl's voice was easy, but not because Jeanne was anything like me. She wasn't. But I understood her, and Crane was so funny. I loved writing that novel. I barely changed a word from first draft to the final published book.

Mercy, Unbound was like that too. Easy. Wonderful. Like I was a stenographer. Plus I understood Mercy's angst. Poor sweetheart. And she's such a cool person. I liked spending time with her. I barely rewrote a word of that book either, just added a few scenes.

The voice in Broken Moon is very different from my own. Nadira is an 18 year old Pakistani woman. This book was more difficult to rewrite. I was often unsure of myself. In the end when I reread it, I could hardly tell I had written it. I loved that feeling. That gave me confidence that I had, perhaps, gotten her voice right.

And now the Church of the Old Mermaids. Myla is a completely new voice for me. The whole book is completely different from anything I've done: the tone, the style. (Of course, all my books are different from one another. That drives publishers crazy.) In Broken Moon, Nadira tells stories. I really liked doing that. It was tricky because if you tell a story within a story it can break the rhythm of the story—or stop it completely. So it has to be done just right. If you tell a story within a story, both stories have to be equally interesting. Telling the story within the story has to be the story. (And to my way of thinking one of the stories can't be a framing device or a flashback—unless you're a genius—because nothing can kill the liveliness of a tale more quickly than a framing device or a flashback.)

In Church of the Old Mermaids I have to get Myla's voice right—and the voices of the Old Mermaids—while maintaining perfect pitch. Of course I try to do that with every novel. From the first sentence, I want the readers to suspend their disbelief and follow along with me, so I don't want to do anything to disrupt that suspension.

We'll see if I succeeded. It is fun. And scary. Impossible. Wonderful.

Don't know if any of this made sense. I just needed to think about my books tonight. Prepare me for more rewriting tomorrow.

Time to try sleep again.

P.S. Didn't work. Got up and kept working until 4:30 a.m. ish. Slept for three hours. Now I'm awake and very cranky. It's full moon. Lunar Beltane. Need to shake the crankiness off...or at least get some sleep. 0 comments

Thursday, May 11, 2006

Voting Machines