Post-Partum

 

 

 

 

 

On the day after Thanksgiving I typed “The End” on the first draft of a novel I’ve been working on over fifteen years; the oldest file is dated in April, 2007.  Back then the working title was The Yearbook. It was the story of a middle-aged woman who tries to imagine her mother’s early life, while her mother, who died young, indignantly corrects her from some version of purgatory. That misbegotten idea aborted early. Next it was going to be the story of the middle-aged woman’s life. But she resembled me, and I didn’t like her. Finally, after several years, I dropped the middle-aged woman, and wrote the story of her parents, who married in 1946 when her mother was 20 and her father 29. The title became “A Long Marriage,” and it now follows their lives, and that of their children, until 1981.

As I neared the end of the book I was exhilarated, and reported to friends and family, “Only four chapters to go.” Then on Thanksgiving, with only one scene left to write, I found myself unaccountably sad. At first I thought it was post-turkey blues, seasoned with memories of my late siblings. But that didn’t seem to fit my feelings. I was missing not my siblings, but my characters. I had spent fifteen years with them. Two were dead, and the rest really nothing but words on the page.

The next morning I worked a couple of hours, and typed those magical words, “The End.” I wandered around the house and yard, dazed and proud.

The glow lasted two more days. I went through the document, moving all the notes and research to separate files, formatting the remaining text, which was over 675 pages, 1.5 spaced, 235,000 words. I splurged and took it to Renaissance Printing for copying. I put it in an old 3-ring notebook from the days when I taught family law. A bookmark on the spine says “I keep my eyes on the moon, and my feet muddy.” I flipped through the pages, awed by it, awed by myself. All those words!

I know how much work lies ahead. (My fourth novel went through 17 drafts; at 75 I don’t think I have time for that many.) I need to get it down to about 100,000 words; nobody will publish 675 pages by an unknown writer. First I’ll figure out the arcs of the two main characters, and of the marriage.* I’ll analyze each chapter to see what it shows, asking myself what I need more or less of. If it’s too painful to ‘kill my darlings,’** I can turn them into short stories posted on my blog, whetting my vast audience’s desire for the book. (Like my vast audience, this intention is mere fantasy.)

But late last night, quailing at the huge job ahead, I remembered that the chances of my novel being accepted by a publisher are minuscule. My first three novels are set in this century and concern current issues (environmental degradation, child welfare, homelessness). I’ve only managed to get one of them published. This one is a family saga, but it begins right after World War II and goes to 1981. The family is touched by Vietnam, the women’s movement, and racial issues. The story lacks the romance of distant times or places, and I suspect that people under sixty won’t find those years very interesting, or more to the point, that agents and editors don’t believe they will.

Even as I wrote this my doubts began to dissolve. I guess I needed to get it off my chest. I certainly can’t give up now after all these years, so I’ll plunge back in. Based on past experience, it will take me a few years to have a draft worth sharing. If the audience for A Long Marriage is people my age, I guess I’d better get to work.

 

*I think you’re supposed to do this in an outline before you begin, but my outline consisted of a sentence or two for each of the five chunks of the book. I use the see-what’s-around-the-next-bend approach to writing, and only plan a few chapters ahead, as the ideas flow.                                                                                                                                                                 **Stephen King famously said it, but apparently Faulkner said it first.