Bonus post: Interrogating Jeanne Beaumont

(For those of you relatively new to the blog, “interrogating” is when I interview a character in my novel to get insight into their character and motivations.)

I sit on my favorite easy chair at the coffeehouse, musing. How do I explain a relationship — a solid relationship? — between a twenty year old male and a forty-five year old female? Is that even possible? The biology is against it …

A sturdy woman with greying chestnut hair in a ponytail sits down at the chair next to me and sets her latte on the table. “You want an explanation, don’t you?” she shrugs. “What if there is no explanation?”

“Jeanne,” I caution her. “There’s always an explanation. Even for you and Josh.”

“Look, I’m a biologist. A plant biologist, maybe, but I know at least some of the animal side of things. A sociobiologist would say my relationship with Josh shouldn’t exist — he should be looking for a young thing he can make babies with, and I — well, I shouldn’t bother looking. Older women are obsolete in the biological world.”

“You don’t buy that,” I challenge. “You and I are both here, and biologically, older women notice young men. After all, cougars exist.”

Jeanne burst out laughing. “I’m hardly a cougar.  I’m a pretty solid woman who’s grown comfortable with her single life. And then came Josh.” She took a long sip of her latte. “I can’t find an explanation. Society says — those pesky sociobiologists again — that women should have no patience with young men because they don’t know where they’re going in life. But then again … ” Jeanne paused for another drink of latte. “Then again, isn’t the belief that any of us know where we’re going to be tomorrow a bit of an illusion?”

I think of my marriage late in life, my developing career as a writer. “I think you might have something there.”

“Understanding that something, anything can interrupt our trajectory frees one up to look at a situation differently. Stability has to be balanced with resiliency. Although evolution favors the random mutation that happens to work with change in lower creatures, humans can adapt on the fly to changes. So someone like me can be an outlier and maybe that’s a good thing.”

“Enough of the biology, Jeanne,” I chuckle. “Why you and Josh?”

“I have trouble believing in mysticism, you know, but it’s almost something like that. Like, when he showed up at that table that night, we connected. I do alone pretty well, listening to the music and typing on my computer, but when he showed up, I wanted to be in his presence. It was a momentary ego trip spending time with such a beautiful young man, I suppose, but it was more than that. It was like he said to me, ‘I know where I want to go, and I want to go there with you.’ And what he said made perfect sense, if I wanted to tell society to go hang. And I did. I never have regarded what I’m ‘supposed’ to do with much love.”

“So you and Josh were supposed to be,” I teased Jeanne. “Which flies in the face of biology.”

“You would have to say that,” Jeanne muttered. “I feel foolish looking at it that way.”

“But that’s the way Josh would look at it.”

“Yes, it is,” Jeanne mused. “And he might be right.”

Pessimistically optimistic

I miss the boundless optimism of hypomania, that magic feeling when I step out of the house in the morning, and the sun shines just so, and I just know something magic will happen, because I’m blessed that way. 

I don’t miss it enough to go off my meds, because without the meds my moods shift from elation to irritability to despair within a few hours. I have rapid cycling bipolar 2, so moods develop fast, like a volatile weather pattern. And that optimism could crash into suicidal ideations with the smallest speed bump in my life. The meds help, but anything from lack of sleep to a major stressor could derail my balance.

As a counter to my hypomanic pixie dream girl optimism, I have how I was brought up in a repressively Germanic family. The motto of my family was “Don’t look forward to anything, or you might get disappointed.” So normal me without the buoyant giddiness or the crushing despair hides in a coccoon of “This enterprise is doomed.”

I have to learn how ordinary people experience optimism. I have a manuscript out to a major science fiction publisher. It’s been there for three months. I expect to hear about it any day now. Because I’ve put so much work into the book I think it has a chance, I feel optimistic — but I don’t trust it because it looks like mania. Because I’ve gotten a number of rejections from this iteration of the novel from agents, I feel I should be pessimistic, but pessimism takes a lot of energy to maintain and optimism feels better.

So I’m waiting for a report on Prodigies, trying to tell myself that I’m going to get rejected and being answered by a bubble of optimism that I don’t trust. My only answer is to hold onto hope and keep trying.
 

How I started writing novels

Well, I finally wrote/revised for three and a half hours yesterday, fueled by copious amounts of coffee. I didn’t accomplish that much word-wise — maybe 1500 words at most. But I think I’m getting closer with Gaia’s Hands. Lots of work to go, though.

Gaia’s Hands is my first novel. It’s always been a problem child of a story. When I wrote it, I had no intention of writing a novel. I had written a short story based on a dream I had about an encounter between myself and a younger man. (If you think the dream had to do with the fact I was approaching my 50th birthday, you’d be right. And the dream was far more bizarre than anything I wrote from it.)

I wanted to know more about the dream, so I started doing a Gestalt dream analysis method where one tells the story from the viewpoint of the different characters, and even the important inanimate objects of the story. (I didn’t go that far). During this set of writing exercises, a story developed. And then another.

After the third story that developed from the dream, my husband Richard looked at me and said, “You’ve got all these stories. Why don’t you write a novel?”

I had never written a novel before because I think in terms of short stories — small plots with big twists, big themes. Novels have big twisty plots, and I wasn’t sure I knew how to plot those. I wrote Gaia’s Hands anyhow. Its original name was Magic and Realism, and it was heavy in theme and extremely light in plot. It was basically a love story, and although I have nothing against love stories, the characters did little more than hang out together.

And then I wrote more novels, some of which collapsed into each other (For example, Magic and Realism became Gaia’s Hands, and then it subsumed another novel during the same time period called Gaia’s Eyes and that’s the novel I’m currently re-editing) and somehow I got better at writing big twisty plots.

It’s been a lot of hard work editing and re-editing, and then getting help editing from a developmental editor and re-editing, but I’ve learned my goal has shifted from getting published to getting good, then getting published. I don’t want to grow to regret anything I’ve published.

I guess now I can call myself not only a writer, but an author, because I have devoted myself to growth. And it literally, cliche notwithstanding, started with a dream.

Questions I ask myself

Questions I ask myself while writing:

  • Do my characters ring true?
    • Do their emotions and actions fit their character?
    • Does their trajectory make sense?
    • Do I care about my characters?
  •  Does the plot deliver?
    • Does the plot build in suspense?
    • Does the action make sense as it unfolds? 
    • Do consequences logically follow actions?
  •  Does the story flow?
    • Is the time and scene progression clear?
    • Does it avoid getting bogged down?
    • Is too much going on at once?


I feel discouraged looking at all these questions — how can I manage to do all this? Much of this happens subconsciously, or by trial and error. Sometimes it’s hard, because I don’t (obviously) write the whole book at once, but by bits and pieces. A lot of this I miss with my own tired eyes, which is why I have a dev editor and I let others read my stories.  

So in actuality, it’s a matter of trusting myself, trusting the process, and just writing.

Time to Write?

Did I mention I’ve been really busy lately?

Monday through Wednesday have been dominated by doing moulage for a National Guard/FEMA training exercise called Vigilant Guard/Shaken Fury (I don’t name these exercises). My husband and I contracted under Human Domain Solutions. It’s an odd thing for me, a Quaker pacifist, to work with retired military and current Guardsmen, but they put up with me. We learned a lot about moulage from a fellow worker who has been doing this thing for over 20 years. 

Then last night I had to complete my latest class assignment because classwork comes first. And I managed to put in another 2000 words (some of it a re-add of a subtracted part) into the edit of Gaia’s Hands. And submit my revised Apocalypse to my dev editor.

This morning I meet with my TA who’s helping me organize and move around my office for greater efficiency, and then — then I get to write again on Gaia’s Hands.

And then I’m going to a writer’s convention next (not this) weekend…

DIscombobulated

I really want to write today.

But so far, my calendar seems to thwart me from all directions. I have (another!) dental appointment* this morning, followed by a meeting with the outfit that is sponsoring the National Guard training which my husband and I will be doing moulage** for.  And, depending on how long that will take (too long, I suspect; I have no patience with dawdling) maybe then I’ll have time to write.

I had great ideas last night for my rewrite/character development of Gaia’s Hands, and of course I forgot some of it and I’m trying to piece the rest of it together with Richard***. I need a good stretch of time to write with more coffee to fuel me****. 

I’ve written today’s blog and I have promised myself at least an hour on Gaia’s Hands. Hopefully, I will feel inspired.

* I was born with an enamel deficiency and rather soft teeth; I have all my teeth crowned, but one or two of my teeth have broken off and require further work.

** Casualty simulation; making up volunteers to look like victims for training purposes. This run-through is an earthquake simulation to train the local National Guardsmen. For the first time ever, we’re getting paid for it. Woo hoo!

*** Richard is the husband previously mentioned.

**** We’re currently drinking our way through a coffee blend that is supposed to taste like chocolate; no matter how we roast it, we aren’t getting any chocolate notes, just something that tastes like really good commercial coffee. Sigh.
 

Help! I’m so BUSY!

I’m sorry I didn’t get to write yesterday, but I had work to do for my online class (taking, not teaching) and got some writing on the novel rewrite. And I had more work to do this morning for the class. AAAGH! 

I will get some writing done today. I will. I will …

Growing as a Writer

Gaia’s Hands, the novel I’ve gone back to revise, was my first novel, and it’s been a problem child since its conception. I have amended it, added to it, subtracted from it, tried it as a novella, and still it’s been not quite enough.

It’s always seemed like a small novel, one in which not much happened, even though a lot happened. A novel in which a relationship developed and then, after a few chapters, Jeanne’s getting persecuted by her department, and then … 

Almost like there were two halves of the book — first half relationship and second half disaster.

Why didn’t I figure this out sooner? 

I’ve been growing as a writer. Those rejections from agents and publishers have helped me to seek out improvement. My dev editor, Chelsea Harper, has helped me to see where I can improve. The rewrites have helped me to see what I can become.

I don’t know that I would have gone through this process of improvement if I’d gone straight to self-publishing. I’m glad I have to work hard for my dream.
 

Routine and Discipline

Scheduling writing has been a pain lately. Remember yesterday, when I was so excited to write? By the time I drove around Kansas City, visited an intern, and wrote a major homework for my online class, I was no longer in any shape to write.

But that’s why I write the blog every morning — so at least I’ve written something. No matter how short, no matter how trivial, no matter how moody. No matter how much I don’t feel it.

Without routine, I would forget I was a writer during busy times like these. I would forget how to write and all the lessons I’ve learned along the way. I would lose my identity as a writer. 

In other words, even when I don’t write, I write.

Excited about Editing

I really want to get done with my work today (readings for online class, taking the Introduction to National Incident Management System course and exam, driving to Kansas City, visiting an intern). I REALLY want to get done with my work today.

I’m very excited about where Gaia’s Hands is going.

I knew there was something wrong with it before, but I didn’t know what. But after editing Apocalypse and understanding that it got into the plot too quickly, I realized that Gaia’s Hands needed buildup in the early chapters as well, but in its case, the beginning meandered and the plot appeared out of nowhere.

So I’m excited about the editing. I’m excited about seeing what is possible for the book now that I have a handle on editing. There’s going to be a bit of editing. 

But I’m looking forward to editing.