Nadine Feldman, Author

celebrating strong female characters and whatever else strikes my fancy

books

The Mysteries of Timing

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This morning I read in the U.S.A. Today about the movies Invictus and Up in the Air, both new releases with interesting timing. Invictus details Mandela’s ascension to the presidency in South Africa, providing interesting parallels to the Obama presidency. Up in the Air tells the story of a corporate downsizer–but took six years to make, so its release during economic difficulties suggests a certain serendipity. Julie Powell’s new book Cleaving shares details of her marital infidelity as she achieved a certain celebrity status. With mixed reviews, Cleaving could get a boost from the Tiger Woods saga.

For years now, I have struggled with writing a novel. Other projects have come and gone. My hair is grayer, my middle thicker. I’ve gone to workshops in hopes of being laughed out of the room, only to get encouragement for my work. I hired someone to critique my novel, and she said it was one of her most enjoyable projects ever. Yet all would agree, including me, that the novel needs more work. I’ve written before about my elusive villain and how his motives slither toward and then away from me. The relationship between me and my novel has been a dysfunctional, love-hate roller coaster. I don’t quit because yoga has taught me the importance of exploring difficult, seemingly impossible poses. It took me two years to stay balanced in half moon, so why not take longer with a 400-page tome, if that’s what needs to happen? I keep making up reasons I should quit, but none of them are good. So I keep going.

While writing, I continue to read. Right now I’m into Gabriel Garcia Marquez: A Life by Gerald Martin. I like Garcia Marquez’s work. I love magical realism, and my novel is filled with it. Turns out that his masterwork, 100 Years of Solitude, took years to write and originally existed as a manuscript called The House. Mind you, I am not comparing myself to Garcia Marquez–but as I read his biography, I am reminded that all books come in their right time, and sometimes decades.

We as artists cannot control this timing. Sometimes, as in the case of Invictus and Up in the Air, the timing brings additional interest in and commercial success to a project. Sometimes, the timing causes troubles and heartache, as in movies that were pulled after 9/11 because their content hit too close to home. Sometimes the timing requires the writer to gain maturity and perspective in order to give the project what it needs.

Yesterday I gained some glimpses into solving some of the problems with Blood and Loam. I cut two chapters and one character, with ideas on how to convey the information through my villain…which will allow the reader (and me) to understand him better. I don’t know if this will be the last draft of the work, but I do know that I am getting close to resolving the issues that have kept me from submitting it. I don’t understand the mysterious ways of timing, though I do understand that in many ways I created my own suffering through all the stops and starts over the years. I don’t know if this book will be a commercial success or failure, or if it was just meant for me to heal some inner wound. I know that finishing this novel is just the beginning, because then I need to think about agents, editors, query letters, and, if someone takes on my work, more revisions. But after all these years, I am starting to understand the story that wants to be told. And that, after all these years, is deeply satisfying.

Special Promotion for Patchwork and Ornament

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Patchwork and Ornament arrived yesterday! For those who don’t know, P&O, by Jeanette Feldman, is an artist’s memoir written in a collage-style format of short essays, stories, and poetry. She tells her story of growing up in poverty in the South Bronx with an immigrant mother and disabled father. As her interest in art unfolded, she found a new and happier life filled with love, travel, and creativity. P&O includes several full-color photographs of Jenny’s work and was recognized as a finalist in the 2009 Texas Writers’ League Manuscript Contest (under the name Pentimento).

This is a labor of love, and we are honoring Jenny Feldman’s memory with a special pre-release promotion. From now through December 31, we are selling P&O for $18 (plus tax and S&H). $10 of every sale will be send to Donorschoose.org to support arts in the schools. Everyone wins! P&O will not be available to the general public until early 2010, so you get a fascinating story before everyone else, and at the same time we all support a worthwhile organization.

I believe that Jenny Feldman’s life would have been very different (and not in a good way) had she not had access to an art education. In addition, we believe strongly that an education in the arts benefits all students.

For ordering details, please visit www.patchworkornament.com. Feel free to share this with everyone you know!

Back to Work – Catching Up and Breaking Out the Red Pen

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Some people have problems looking at red ink. It reminds them of third grade in Mrs. Johnson’s class, when bloody papers also held a bloody grade of C, D, or F. For a long time I was one of those people. Overly sensitive about my work, I saw every mark as a personal attack, the affirmation that I had no skill. Bloody pages chased me in nighttime dreams and paralyzed my daily attempts to create. I played tricks with myself, using inks of green, blue, or purple to mark up my tentative drafts so that I would feel better.

Times have changed. I guess one thing that happened was that I passed 40 and my near vision went south. These days, red pens are requisite so that I can see the changes I want to make. Sometimes I can’t read my handwriting, but that’s another matter. I’ve come to a place where I am proud of my red ink, because it tells me that I am committed to making my work better. I can be tough on the writing without being tough on myself, and that feels good.

So this week, back to work after a month of travel, I felt oh so happy to break out the red pen yet again. I am focusing on two projects: Exodus (boy, I need a new title) and Blood and Loam. Yes, I’ve decided to get back to work on the novel! I thought I would begin some new material, but I feel excited and motivated to finish what I’ve started. I love vacation and travel, but it feels great to be back to work, doing what I love.

My plan is this: once I finish the next round of revisions on Exodus, I’m going to start posting it, one chapter a week (there are 52 chapters, one for each week of the year), for free on my website. I’m also going to podcast it. I am convinced that Exodus needs to be a gift. Time–and level of interest–will tell if I end up putting it in traditional book form.

Then there’s Blood and Loam, my marathon effort that I can’t seem to shake. The idea has been with me for decades. In the late 80s I went to work on it, but destroyed my draft after a premature critique. The person liked the work but felt my lead character was unrealistic. At the time, she was more than loosely based on me! Devastated, I shut down my writing for years. In the early 2000s I picked it back up again, but dropped it again in favor of some other projects. B&L is a dark, foreboding, treacherous kind of book, and I wasn’t willing to “go there.” I still have mixed feelings about it, but I keep thinking it’s a good story. By the way, my heroine no longer resembles me in the least! She’s developed her own background, appearance, and foibles. I like her a lot, particularly because she’s made up.

Last year I went to a writers conference hoping to be sent home with an admonishment to give up trying to write fiction, but the opposite happened. “Keep going,” people said. This summer I hired a published author to critique the work, and she said it was one of her favorite projects ever to work on. So, no matter how much I want this book to go away, I have a story that wants to be told.

So I break out the red pen yet again for yet another revision, one that will take me deeper into the story and into my craft. Yet again, I will have to poke around in dark, interior spaces. I may have bloody pages chasing me in the night again for a while. And I’m happy about it. I am where I need to be.

Thoughts on Self-Publishing

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Back from vacation, I’m trying to figure out where I left off with my various projects. Exodus is ready for fresh eyes, as is Blood and Loam. There’s also the updated version of When a Grandchild Dies. I also explored a few new ideas while I was gone, and one of those is ready for some good ol’ uncensored creative writing.

Most exciting, though, is that Patchwork and Ornament, Jeanette Feldman’s memoir, is on its way. As with When a Grandchild Dies, I am both excited and nervous. Part of me says, “What was I thinking?” Initially, P&O was meant purely for family, as a way to preserve my mother-in-law’s writings and art in book form for future generations. Still, I couldn’t let go of the nagging thought that others outside the family might find it interesting as well. When I handed the manuscript over to others, expecting a quick, cursory “that’s nice,” I found that readers didn’t want to put it down. Still, as the books make their way from Canada to Houston, I know that the real work has just begun.

As I go forth to market this book, I am aware of strikes against it. We all know that self-published works tend to be dismissed as being of poor quality, especially now when anyone and everyone can put a book out there.

Here’s the thing, though. As part of my research into this market, I read some of those self-published works. One in particular grabbed my attention. The author didn’t bother to get the book edited, and it was filled with typos and other errors. It had a plain cover, just a single color with an uninteresting title. Yet when I read it, I found it a compelling read, and I let go of my editorial eye as the story swept me away.

Maybe I part company with some of my writer friends, but I believe that the one prerequisite for putting a book out is to believe in it. I learned that from When a Grandchild Dies. Bookstores didn’t want me to come in to hold signings because “it might depress our customers.” Bereavement organizations aimed primarily at parents didn’t want me speaking, because the parent/grandparent relationship can be rocky. Even at a conference for bereavement professionals, one therapist told me, “I saw the subject of your book and almost didn’t come over to talk to you because I’m a grandparent, and I can’t imagine anything more devastating.”

In other words, getting the word out to my audience, the bereaved grandparents, wasn’t easy. I had to work hard and persist to find speaking opportunities and ways to find the people who needed the book. Yet I did so, and WGD has done well.

WGD is a self-published book. Ten years later, as I work on updating it, I know I’m a much better writer than I was then. Although I’m still pleased with the book overall, some areas need substantial improvement. Yet I have received enough letters from people who read the book to know that my efforts are appreciated. Had I waited for a traditional publisher, I might still be waiting yet today, and those grandparents and other family members who benefited from WGD would not have received the help they needed.

I agree that writers should take care that their book is of high quality by utilizing editors, cover designers, etc. We should try to elevate our work to its highest and best potential. However, we should not hold back our ideas because they might not sell, or maybe they’re not “good enough” somehow. One never really knows what’s going to sell anyway! Also, although I am pleased with WGD’s sales, that has never been my measure of success with the book. The lessons I learned, the growth I achieved, and the knowledge that I helped people in the process is what matters most to me.

Patchwork and Ornament is a different kind of book. It doesn’t have the specific niche that WGD has. That will make it both easier and harder to market. That said, I have done my best with P&O to make it beautiful, and I will do my best to find its audience. That’s the best that any of us can do–and it is what we must do, whether or not there are naysayers.

Return of the Muse

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Getting back into a creative thinking mode after wearing my “business” cap for a while, as I’ve already written, hasn’t been easy. I have gone forward knowing that the well runs dry from time to time, and eventually the juices flow once again. Sometimes we plod along for days, weeks, or months, doing creative exercises and writing wooden, boring prose, waiting, sometimes patiently but more often not for the muse to show her face.

Of course, sometimes when we look back during those plodding moments, we realize that we did some of our best work, or at least created the foundation for it. When we write for a period of time, we know that our relationship to our work is much like our relationships with our spouses. There are times of intense romance, times of slow, steady flame, and times of just getting through–but if we hang in there, those moments of “just getting through” can deepen our commitment.

Still, I admit to loving the romance! So I’m happy to report a reappearance of the muse. And it happened in an instant.

It was Saturday, Rosh Hoshanah, the Jewish New Year. This is always a difficult day for me, because twelve years ago on RH, I learned that the child I was carrying was dying. Over the years, my grief has diminished considerably, but on Rosh Hoshanah and Mother’s Day, I give myself permission to be a complete, sobbing mess. This year was no exception.

By afternoon I was feeling better, and we decided to go to our storage unit where we keep my late mother-in-law’s art. Since Patchwork and Ornament is done, I wanted to put the piles of journals I had used as source material into storage…it’s quite a stack that has occupied my living room for the past nine months.

Within five minutes of completing our task, I felt lighter and happier. I remembered an old creative project that could be a lot of fun to finish. I started to talk to Henry about going to Sorrento, Italy, where my mother-in-law conceived her “Blossoms” art series, to develop some text to go with the 100+ drawings in the series. Ideas flowed easily, and along with them flowed a deep river of joy. We stopped for a glass of wine and a plate of cheese, and I talked nonstop about all the fun things I wanted to work on.

Working on Patchwork and Ornament, I have worked on my own grief about Jenny Feldman’s death. Perhaps in putting away the journals, I was ready to put away some of the sadness. Perhaps the tears had washed away enough pain that I could feel new again. Or maybe I just plodded along enough, keeping the faith, until the switch of creativity came on again.

Who knows?