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Prima
Donna
The Spiritualist An Inconvenient Wife |
Frequently Asked Questions
What is your writing schedule? Is there a
time of day that’s best for you? The time of day that tends to work best for me is 11-2,
but until recently, I have almost never had the luxury of writing during that
time. I have two children, so my writing schedule tends to fit around them,
and has since they were born. What experience has taught me however, is the
ability to focus quickly. I can be writing within five minutes of sitting
down in the chair. I don’t spend a lot of time gazing mindlessly about or
playing games on the computer–if I did, I’d get nothing done. Generally, the day goes something like this: I get up
and take my children to school, and then I exercise for an hour, either on
the treadmill at home or at the local public pool (I’ve had a bad back since
I was about twelve, and exercise is the only thing that allows me to sit in a
chair for the next 3-4 hours relatively pain-free). Then I go to my office,
which is in an outbuilding behind our house, and I write until it’s time to
pick the girls up from school again. Once they’re home, I usually stop work
for the day, though this doesn’t always happen. I also try not to work on
weekends–this almost NEVER happens. When a book is really rolling, it tends
to become an obsession. It is very hard NOT to work on it. How long does it take you to write a book? Generally a year to fifteen months, depending on the
amount of research that needs to be done. If I set a book in a period and
place I’ve researched before, it takes less time. More often, however, I
spend about 4-6 months researching, and then 9-12 months writing and editing.
Do you ever get writers’ block? I don’t really believe in writers block.
Certainly there are times when life conspires to make writing more difficult or impossible than it
already is, but for me writing tends to be a place to escape. I’ve also found
that the more often you write, the less you suffer “blocks.” Writing every
day tends to set habit–I think the
mind likes routine, and thus is ready to go when it knows what to expect.
It’s much harder to write on the Monday after a weekend if you haven’t
written for two days. So routine is necessary. What I’ve also discovered is
that when I come to an abrupt halt in a manuscript, it usually means I’ve done something wrong
along the way–a character has done something out of character, or a plot
point was wrong–and the halt is my subconscious mind saying, “No, go back and
fix it. You can’t go on until you do.” Once I go back and find the problem, I
can go forward again. There are days when writing is difficult for
whatever reason, but many years ago, I discovered that I didn’t hit “flow”
until I’d written five pages. So now I don’t stop, even on a difficult day,
until those five pages are done. If I hit them, and “flow” still doesn’t
happen, it’s not going to that day. But it’s more likely that if I can get
past five, I can write fifteen. Where do you get your ideas? Coming up with ideas has never been
difficult for me. I have files of them, cards scattered all across my
bulletin board and my desk, notes in coat pockets and purses and on
nighttables. I get them from my research, from news stories, the radio,
music, movies, other books, overheard conversations, dreams.... Simply being in
the world and being open and aware means one is bombarded with them. Being
curious helps as well, and always asking the question: “What if....” Some
ideas are just little snippets of thought that need to be fleshed out or
joined with others. Some come fully formed. Generally, one or two tend to
stick with me, sort of haunting me until I write them. The idea for Susannah
Morrow stayed with me for about five years until it formed to the point
where I had to write the book. An Inconvenient Wife came from a dream
I had about the characters, and a line I read while researching for something
else, about doctors manually bringing women to orgasm in the 19th
century to alleviate symptoms of hysteria. The Spiritualist came from
the 19th century account of a seance I read, also while
researching something else. Both it, and An Inconvenient Wife demanded
to be written right away. Sometimes, ideas are pretty insistent. I don’t have
much control over how they come or how they coalesce or how persistent they
are, seemingly. The only control I have is in shaping them once I decide to
pursue them. Do you know the ending in advance? Are you a plotter or a “write
by the seat of your pants” kind of writer? A little bit of both, actually. I usually
know a general outline of the book: usually the quarter point, the halfway
point and the end. So I know what I’m writing towards, though I have no idea
how I’m going to get there. I am often surprised along the way. I’ve learned
to be flexible. Sometimes characters you didn’t expect to have an impact have
a greater one than you’d intended, or a plot takes a wild turn, or you decide
that a character doesn’t deserve the fate you’ve
assigned them. Often this means I have to stop midway through and re-plot the
book. For the last few books, I haven’t known exactly what the ending is going to be. In general, the more
loose I am at the start, the more editing I
must do later, but since I do so much editing anyway, sometimes it’s nice to
let whatever themes and problems your subconscious chooses work themselves
out without interference. How do you research? I go into research with a specific idea. Sometimes it’s
pretty general. For The Spiritualist, for example, I knew only that I
wanted to write a book about spiritualists. From that point, I began doing
general research on spiritualism, and that research gave me a jumping off
point to be more specific. I rely a lot on bibliographies to lead me. As I’m
researching, the plot and characters of the book begin to take shape. At this
point, I tend to use primary sources: diaries, journals, newspaper articles
and periodicals written at the time. Many of these are available now online,
at sites like The Making of America, which is a joint project of Cornell and
the University of Michigan. They have scanned 19th century
periodicals and books and made them searchable. It’s an invaluable resource,
and there are many like it online. The historical New York Times,
which I can access through my library, is also critical. I also spend a great
deal of time in special resource rooms at libraries–there’s a Northwest
Reading room at the University of Washington library, for example, and
genealogy collections at many libraries have histories that are impossible to
find anywhere else. I also look for thesis papers and research papers in
trade journals, which have proved helpful in the past. I still take notes by the method I learned in eighth
grade. I use 3x5 notecards, and note in the corner the source and page number
for future reference. The cards are all filed according to subject: for
example, my New York City notecard file has broad categories like: homes,
churches, transportation, food, clothing, entertainment. All of these are broken
down into smaller categories. It makes it very easy to find something, which
is important, because after publishing eleven books and writing countless others, I have literally thousands of
notecards. I currently have them all stored in an old and beautiful wooden
card-catalog filecase that the University of Washington library sold a few
years ago when they computerized. At what point do you allow other people to
read your work? Usually it works like this: I have an idea,
which I brainstorm with my critique partner (also a published author). Then I
write two hundred pages and hand it off to her. She comes back with her
critique, we discuss it, and then I go back in, edit away, and go on.
Sometimes this first two hundred goes back and forth a couple of times. At
this point I usually give it to my agent, just to be sure there’s nothing
fatal in the idea. I give it to my critique partner again at the four hundred
page mark, edit again, and then finish, at which point she sees it again. If
it needs a great deal of work, she’ll see it once more after I edit it. At
that point, I let my critique group see the full manuscript, as well as my
agent, and my husband if he wants to read it (sometimes he waits for the
galleys or the finished book). All of these people will come back with
changes–sometimes very extensive–and I’ll edit again. At that point it goes
to my editor, who will have changes of her own, and the manuscript might go
through two or three more rounds of edits. At that point, I’ll let anyone
else read it, because that’s how it will go out to the public. Before that,
I’m very particular about who sees it. The process, especially in the
beginning stages, is a fragile one and very vulnerable to criticism
(well-meant or not). I like to wait until I feel safe with the manuscript,
until I know exactly what I want, before I give it to anyone other than those
I mentioned above. Copyright 2007 Megan Chance/Photo Credit
Jerry Bauer |