by Susan on August 6, 2011
This piece appeared in the Martha’s Vineyard Times in April, 2011.
Just when I thought I had a little break coming, I get an email from my agent with that taunting, teasing, termagant of a question: so, what are you thinking of for ‘the next one?’
In the words of Snoopy: arrghhh. Here I was, enjoying a well-deserved (in my opinion) hiatus from writing. I’ve been avoiding all creative finger on keyboard activities including, but not limited to, this column and my blog. I’ve submitted and had blessed the next novel, the writing of which had not been an easy experience. The story got messy and the ending eluded me for more than a year. Issues resolved, tweaks tweaked and final words laid down on the electronic page, off it went and I raised my head to notice that the sun was shining and I suddenly had a couple of extra hours in my day. Oh, what to do with them? Taxes, ok. Clean house, maybe. Get my barn chores done in the morning? Oh, yes, please. Then, the Email of Darkness.
Hey, I’m not complaining. Not really. I am extraordinarily blessed to have another chance at doing what I really do love to do, I absolutely understand that. But even Mark Twain must have enjoyed the break between Tom Sawyer and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. I just thought I’d have longer to recharge the batteries.
The question is—what am I thinking about for the next one? Such a good question. One I’d like to answer fully. If I had an answer. Maybe what I need is a palate-cleansing of sorts (refer back to my last column which was devoted to the food/reading metaphor), a little mental sorbet to clean out the residue of the last manuscript.
Where are all you people who come up to me with ideas? This happens fairly regularly, someone says to me: I’ve got a great idea for your next book. My response is usually tepid, but polite; my belief is that, if you have a story idea, it’s your story. At least this far in my career as a novelist, I’m eschewing the role of hired gun in the belief that fiction really can’t be ghost-written, as memoir and autobiography can. It’s got to come from within. It’s a mystery how that happens, but it isn’t something that can be loaned like a pair of socks. Here, I like these, but you wear them. Nonetheless, sometimes a germinal idea comes from someone’s off-hand remark, or a newspaper article, or a glimpse of a stranger’s face.
This is a true story, and one of my favorites: My mother resides in what she calls the old folks home, but is actually apartments for seniors. Rent includes meals and, for reasons I cannot fathom, these mature adults have assigned seating. (I suppose so that the staff can discretely keep track of who’s coming down and who might need checking on.) My mother and her table mates have come up with, not a story, but a title. They cheerfully chirp to me: Chips, No Pickle? Apparently, that singular phrase is repeated daily by the wait staff, echoing the residents’ preference for potato chips and dislike of the pickle spear. And they think this phrase would make a good book. Some of these people are retired professors. If I were to write the book that would adhere to a title as quirky as Chips, No Pickle? I would have to live in the old folks home because what they are envisioning is their experience transformed into a story, sort of “Waiting for God” American version. I wish it was as simple as coming up with a good title. Most of the time, the title is chosen after most of the book is written because the book is what evokes the right title, not the other way around.
Story ideas come to me in mysterious ways. They arrive like lightning bolts, or fish. A phrase, a whimsical thought, a notion suddenly strikes and I get this little frisson of excitement. I have a fish on the line. Can I land it, or will it get off my hook and swim away into the pool of discarded ideas? Is it just a nibble, or is there a striper there that will be big enough to keep? (For the record, I don’t fish, so if this metaphor strikes you as weird, I apologize.)
So, what’s next? Stay tuned…I feel an idea coming on.
by Susan on March 25, 2011
This first appeared in The Last Word: 2-24-2011 Martha’s Vineyard Times
I woke up thinking of the nature of reading. This is probably a result of over-indulging in reading over the past few weeks. I have had a little open time while my editor reads the latest version of the new book. During the hour that would normally be filled with writing, I got to consume the written word. Even without the spare time, since the beginning of the year I’ve worked my way through a glut of reading material languishing on the coffee table, just waiting for me to pull them off the pile: Room, The Irresistible Henry House, True Grit, Jim Harrison’s wonderful Returning to Earth; Ivan Doig’s The Whistling Season and Work Song. (I love finding authors and feasting on their entire oeuvres as I am determined to do with Doig.)
But I speak of the nature of reading, that it is an appetite. Just look at the words I used in that first paragraph: over-indulging, glut(ton), consume, feasting. We have an appetite for croissants, and another for activities. I have no appetite for police procedurals, but relish a well-written historical novel. We hunger for a good book. We have our fill of one genre before sampling another. The metaphor goes on and on.
Reading has another metaphorical association—love. We all know someone who is described as a passionate reader; or, someone with a love of books. There are bookstores and blogs that pair the words, ‘book’ and ‘lover’ in their names. My favorite gets in both the appetite and the amour: Book Lover’s Gourmet in Webster, MA. Is it any surprise that bookstores have become cafes offering the physical appetite edible treats along with the intellectual holdings for the hungry mind? I have a taste for the works of Jane Austen but no desire for those of Tom Clancy.
We read for as many reasons as there are distinct genres. For erudition, entertainment, experience; for information and opinion. Who among us hasn’t admitted to reading the back of a cereal box when desperate? It’s as if, once you learn how, you are compelled forever more to assign meaning to linked letters. Obviously, this doesn’t hold true for everyone. I certainly know folks who’d rather sit staring out the window at the opposite brick wall than read a book. Reading is, perhaps, an acquired taste. Once acquired, it can be teased into a craving satisfied only by the assurance that there is an unread book on the coffee table at all times. For some people, this acquired taste blossoms almost without effort from earliest days; for others, it grows out of a gateway drug—like comic books read on the front porch on a summer Sunday afternoon.
Whatever your taste, there are books out there to satisfy even the most particular of reading palates, and writers earning a living by cooking up plots and characters to serve their reading public. Some, like the late Phil Craig, even combine the two, listing the recipes that show up in the story at the back of the book like edible end matter.
Yum!
by Susan on December 30, 2010
I’ve been very derelict in keeping up with this blog, and for that I will not apologize, simply because if I spend time on this, I’m not spending my limited work time on the new novel. It’s always a balancing act, this need to work and the need to, well, self-promote. Crass, isn’t it? The good news is that the new novel, working title THE DOG WHO DANCED, is coming along apace. Having had the good counsel of both agent(s) and editor, I am burrowed in, improving and explicating, editing and building up to a richer, more powerful conclusion in a book that has been very difficult to bring to heel. Some books recommend their endings right from the start. This one has defied me. Still, I think it’ll be as satisfying an ending as I can create and I look forward to the day when I can announce the publication date and launch a stampede to the nearest book store.
In the meantime, I hope that those of you who blanch at the idea of buying a hardcover book will flock to purchase the trade paperback edition of ONE GOOD DOG that comes out on February first. Personally, I love trade paperbacks…they fit in the hand so nicely and weigh less that a hardcover.
Cheers for now….Happy 2011!
Susan
by Susan on November 2, 2010
During the past few months I have been slowly dropping all but the most important obligation of my life: finishing the next novel. One of those things dropped—I prefer to think of them as simply put aside—is this blog. And balancing my checking account, writing my monthly column, singing in the local chorus, and being social. This isn’t to say that all those unoccupied hours have been filled exclusively with writing, not at all. But, what abandoning these obligations does is to free my mind. By that I mean, if I don’t have to think of how to fulfill a commitment, I can use that time to think about what the main character is going to do next– instead of what I’m going to put in my next column. Even pleasurable duties begin to strain the energy source until they are more duty than pleasure.
I am a very regimented person. I get up at a specific time, read for a specific amount of time, then focus on the writing. If I have other writing assignments, I am immediately thrust into the position of having to rebalance my day. How much time on the novel, how much on the column, or the blog, or even Facebook? Given that I only have a small amount of writing time in any day, how to serve all these masters? The simplest answer was, not to. I dropped everything except the most daunting master of them all…and finally typed the figurative words “The End” to it last week. Ah, but that’s not the end. The end of the story isn’t the end of the work. It’s the new beginning. Now that the manuscript has been delivered—by the magic of email, a hard copy is no longer mailed to an editor who loves her e-reader—I await the next level of task, the revisions. I’d like to think that, like writers in the movies, a finished manuscript is all but print ready. Not so. I sit here and expect that my editor will come back to me with a long list of observations and suggestions that will improve the story vastly. (I’d really like to sit here and think that she’ll love it so much all that’s left is the line editing, but I’ve been in this business too long to believe that particular fantasy has a snowball’s chance in the netherworld.) So, in the meantime, I will catch up with all the neglected obligations that don’t actually go away, but lie in wait for me. Like this blog (fun). And doing laundry (not so much fun.) Some I will keep off my plate until after the final, final, ultimate, ready for the covers, nothing left to do but read it, ‘the end.’ Things like balancing my check book.
This blog first appeared in the Martha’s Vineyard Times
I had the most interesting email conversation with the woman who is doing the Brazilian Portuguese translation of One Good Dog. Professor Regina Lyra emailed me with a question about a reference to the actor Lawrence Olivier and we ‘got talking.’
As she writes: “Translation is, sometimes, a sort of puzzle and maybe that’s why it’s such a fascinating craft. I’m also a professor of literary translation at the Catholic University in Rio and these are the kind of difficulties that surprise my students as well, although they have been reading translations all their lives. As a matter of fact, readers do not give translation any thought, unless it bothers them, preventing the illusion that the book has been originally written like that - in other words, when the translation is bad.”
One of her first problems was that there is a specific word for the term sister-in-law, which created difficulty as the difference between sister and sister-in-law is a key element in the plot and without it, a lot gets lost.
Lyra writes: “The solution that came to me, after a sleepless night, was: ‘If only she’d been attentive enough with regard to that critical, essential, defining information when she listened to the message and then transferred it to the slip of paper… Sterling’s sister - and not his sister - had called suggesting a surprise party.’”
The Olivier reference that gave Prof. Lyra a little pause was, as she explains: “There are also the cultural differences. For example, the name of Lawrence Olivier is familiar to people of my generation, but not for most of the younger generation, so I also changed that for: ‘my performance was worthy of an Oscar.’”
I had never given much thought to the challenges posed to the translators of American fiction into Portuguese, French, Spanish, Norwegian, or any of the other languages my books have been translated into. I guess, being the poor language student that I was, I thought that it was a word for word process. Not so. This is an intellectual Suduko exercise. Evidently, America idioms are not always comprehensible in other languages. For Prof. Lyra, translating the sentence “on the other paw” was its own challenge. Because the familiar, to Americans, idiom ‘on the other hand’ means something, substituting the word paw isn’t incomprehensible to the reader. But, because the sentence didn’t actually have the word “hand” in it, not only was it hard to translate, but the joke is lost too. She writes: “The same goes for some alliterations, like ‘greasy wheat sheaves in a breeze,’ for which, as of this moment, I haven’t yet decided what to do. That’s what the adage ‘lost in translation’ is all about.”
Good translation from English or into English requires more than an excellent comprehension of the language—the words— but the more instinctive quality of understanding the culture into which the words are being translated. It’s not just language; it’s also customs, experience, national identity, and nuance. As a reader of translated works, such as the outstanding Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson (Ut og stjæle hester), a 2003 Norwegian novel that was translated into English in 2005 by Anne Born, I was unaware of the transition between the author’s language and the words on the translated page. That’s good translation. I even thought that at the time. On the other hand, I have read British authors whose work has been ‘translated’ into American English that absolutely stunk because it was so obvious, and obviously unnecessary. It’s why some books do well in some countries but not others.
What’s really cool for me are the translations of the titles of those of my novels I was lucky enough to have sell in other countries. Beauty became Passion Interdite (Forbidden Passion) in France. Hawke’s Cove has become Salatut tunteet (Hidden Feelings) in Finnish, Verao na Enseada (Summer in the Cove) in Brazil and Jestrabi (Hawk) in Slovakia where I became Susan Wilsonova. I kind of like that. I can’t wait to see what One Good Dog becomes.
by Susan on April 21, 2010
by Susan on April 7, 2010
I was taken to task by two readers for using, what they termed, potty language in ONE GOOD DOG. In both cases, I defended myself by saying that 1) I write for adults and, 2) in order to draw authentic characters, one must write as real people behave. Yes, there is an f-bomb or two, but used exactly as a man would use it, under the circumstances that would make it unthinkable that a man wouldn’t use it. If I’d substituted ‘doggone it,’ well, it wouldn’t have been believable and it would have diminished the carefully constructed character that used that language. Dialogue isn’t random, it’s chosen to reflect the character that’s being written. If a word is out of character, the illusion that this is a real person is threatened. I did put that word in the mouth of an angry teenage girl; but again, it’s what a furious, frustrated, young woman at the end of her rope might scream as she runs out the door. And, yes, I did use a term for excrement that might have offended. But, again, when Adam steps in it, that’s the word that comes into his head–wouldn’t it come into yours?
At heart, I think that a generational disconnect is partly what prompts this complaint. And the fact that woman has written those words. But I can assure you, the use of ‘bad language’ isn’t gratuitous. In today’s world, when used judiciously, such language is authentic.
by Susan on March 31, 2010
I think that it’s finally stopped raining. Watching the news last night makes me feel so lucky, no washed out roads, flooded basements or power outages that I know about here. That seven miles of water that separate us from them also seems to separate us from the disasters that befall other communities, especially those close to moving water. We may get high tides and barrier beach openings, but we’re already cognizant of the hazards of coastal living. We watch miles of beach erode, and keep moving lighthouses back from the edge, but it’s never a surprise. For us it’s a dramatic ride along the beach road, observing the fury of nature first hand. Then go home and make dinner. We aren’t out on the water; we aren’t watching the river crest and fill our basements. We are safe and just enough above sea level to go to bed without worrying. If only our insurance companies were so complacent. By examining their computer models, many of them have dumped island homeowners on the once in a millenium forecast that the island might sink. True. I wonder now if those people in Freetown or Stonington’s Birdland will be dumped by their insurance companies now that their roads have washed out and their homes are swimming pools. Let’s hope not.
by Susan on March 23, 2010
Next to the birth of my granddaughter, or that of my own children, the launch of ONE GOOD DOG has been the most exciting thing to happen to me in a long time. I remember being so excited at the launch of BEAUTY in 19whatever, but I can honestly say that OGD has received so much more enthusiasm and love from everyone involved, that I’m humbled. When I received word that the book had made the New York Times bestseller list for the week ending March 13, landing at #30 out of 35 on the extended list, well you could have knocked me over with a feather. I honestly thought that I’d drempt it. When the fabulous bouquet of flowers arrived from my friends at St. Martin’s Press, I knew that I hadn’t. Their cheering squad is the best ever. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/books/bestseller/besthardfiction.html?ref=bestseller
This week and next (March 22-April 4) I’ll be chatting on Library Thing. www.librarything.com. Go to the author chat button and scroll down till you find me. I’d love to hear what your thoughts are and answer any questions you might have.