... for me they are not so much an escape from anything as an escape into my deeper truths, half-thought thoughts, almost-insights. Does that make sense?
Like so many writers I was struck early by the truth telling mania, by a need to uncover what has been swept beneath the carpet. It’s a writer’s thing, I think, to hope that what has not been fully articulated might find its way into the world.
For me that first happened in a poetry workshop. Poems are famously elliptical. They gave me a slanted way to approach things, things that had been moldering beneath the floor boards, early trauma -- early broken joy and the years of a strange forgetting that followed. I was still a functional adult, not so damaged that I could not love my kids or work a job or make music or find the love of my life, but there were things that wanted out, that wanted to breathe. Poetry opened the window. I lived and worked there for a couple decades and I am constantly grateful for all the terrific poets I met, and read, and for the good presses who put my words in print. It was wonderful to find other minds like mine, minds that wanted to look behind the curtains.
But one summer I quite suddenly started writing prose. And not just any old prose. I was writing a story. It was not elliptical, not slanted. It was a story with a beginning, a middle and an end and I had two students in mind when I started. One was a bright rambunctious wholly-engaged boy named Billy, the other his quieter classmate, Jacob. Jacob the thinker. Jacob the survivor. Jacob, the boy who had experienced things that were beyond his understanding.
The story was busy building itself in my brain. It wanted to take place far away, in the 13th century England. I’ve been an amateur medievalist for a long time and the story loved using all the things I’d learned about the early middle ages to tell a tale that two very 21st century boys had inspired.
I wrote The Witch of Leper Cove in Boulder, Colorado where my husband and I had rented a house for the summer. Boulder’s gorgeous. It has great hiking and running trails, lots of music and so much blue sky that there’s always a reason to be outdoors. But that summer I was usually indoors. I was set up at the kitchen table of our rental (I’d left my research books at home because when those are around I read instead of write) with my laptop and the beginnings of a story that brought its own impetus – a strong sense that the time was here.
The writing itself was frantic, fun, scary and constant. I wrote most days from 9 to 3 and for some reason the words never stopped. When I did take breaks I was likely to find my characters waiting for me along the running path to tell me I’d messed up the plot, that I needed to change it because they would never do things the way I was writing them. Sometimes they told me a new character was coming, sometimes they told me the story would change soon. Always they told me not to worry. There was a story. I listened to those comments and went right back to work. And each night I’d read that day’s writing to my patient husband who, I was delighted to realize, was enjoying it.
At night I slept, sort of, meaning I dreamed the book, the story unfolding so strongly that I wondered once if I might be going nuts. But it was not insanity – just a full-time writing flood. I wrote and wrote – and then I wrote some more and when it was over the summer was gone.
The result of that summer is The Witch of Leper Cove. It’s a story about disruption, family loss, and what comes after, not just the dislocation and distress but eventually the fun of new adventures, good fortune and maybe even love. It’s about facing your fears to right a wrong perpetrated by a large power, even when you don’t have magical powers or a team of dragons at your beck and call. It’s definitely about trusting yourself and finding allies and working with them to rescue an innocent when that opportunity comes your way. It’s about being human — which of course, we all are. I hope you will give it a try and let me know what you think.
Like so many writers I was struck early by the truth telling mania, by a need to uncover what has been swept beneath the carpet. It’s a writer’s thing, I think, to hope that what has not been fully articulated might find its way into the world.
For me that first happened in a poetry workshop. Poems are famously elliptical. They gave me a slanted way to approach things, things that had been moldering beneath the floor boards, early trauma -- early broken joy and the years of a strange forgetting that followed. I was still a functional adult, not so damaged that I could not love my kids or work a job or make music or find the love of my life, but there were things that wanted out, that wanted to breathe. Poetry opened the window. I lived and worked there for a couple decades and I am constantly grateful for all the terrific poets I met, and read, and for the good presses who put my words in print. It was wonderful to find other minds like mine, minds that wanted to look behind the curtains.
But one summer I quite suddenly started writing prose. And not just any old prose. I was writing a story. It was not elliptical, not slanted. It was a story with a beginning, a middle and an end and I had two students in mind when I started. One was a bright rambunctious wholly-engaged boy named Billy, the other his quieter classmate, Jacob. Jacob the thinker. Jacob the survivor. Jacob, the boy who had experienced things that were beyond his understanding.
The story was busy building itself in my brain. It wanted to take place far away, in the 13th century England. I’ve been an amateur medievalist for a long time and the story loved using all the things I’d learned about the early middle ages to tell a tale that two very 21st century boys had inspired.
I wrote The Witch of Leper Cove in Boulder, Colorado where my husband and I had rented a house for the summer. Boulder’s gorgeous. It has great hiking and running trails, lots of music and so much blue sky that there’s always a reason to be outdoors. But that summer I was usually indoors. I was set up at the kitchen table of our rental (I’d left my research books at home because when those are around I read instead of write) with my laptop and the beginnings of a story that brought its own impetus – a strong sense that the time was here.
The writing itself was frantic, fun, scary and constant. I wrote most days from 9 to 3 and for some reason the words never stopped. When I did take breaks I was likely to find my characters waiting for me along the running path to tell me I’d messed up the plot, that I needed to change it because they would never do things the way I was writing them. Sometimes they told me a new character was coming, sometimes they told me the story would change soon. Always they told me not to worry. There was a story. I listened to those comments and went right back to work. And each night I’d read that day’s writing to my patient husband who, I was delighted to realize, was enjoying it.
At night I slept, sort of, meaning I dreamed the book, the story unfolding so strongly that I wondered once if I might be going nuts. But it was not insanity – just a full-time writing flood. I wrote and wrote – and then I wrote some more and when it was over the summer was gone.
The result of that summer is The Witch of Leper Cove. It’s a story about disruption, family loss, and what comes after, not just the dislocation and distress but eventually the fun of new adventures, good fortune and maybe even love. It’s about facing your fears to right a wrong perpetrated by a large power, even when you don’t have magical powers or a team of dragons at your beck and call. It’s definitely about trusting yourself and finding allies and working with them to rescue an innocent when that opportunity comes your way. It’s about being human — which of course, we all are. I hope you will give it a try and let me know what you think.