Nadine Feldman, Author

celebrating strong female characters and whatever else strikes my fancy

novelist

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.

Big Hike, Little Hike, Inspiration?

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The hike from Schynige Platte to First is considered one of the best in Switzerland. We were cautioned that it is strenuous, 10 miles with about 2,500 feet of climbing. We had planned to do it on Thursday, but the weather is expected to change, and this hike is a must-see.

We made the 6:49 a.m. train, then connected to the Little Engine that Could. Seriously. We were on a 100-year-old train that puttered up the hillside, and we wondered how we would make it. The train ride alone was worth the trip, though, with even the Swiss train employees gazing out at the beauty surrounding us.

After hiking for three hours, we stopped at a tiny bed and breakfast in the middle of nowhere for a snack. Clouds rolled in, cooling things off, which we didn’t mind. At first we felt too warm, and there are few trees to provide shade, so the cooling made the hike more comfortable.

After that point, the hike became a meditation. I needed single-minded focus to find the right placement of feet and poles so as not to lose footing on the loose shale on the steep ascent. And, of course, I had to remember to stop to catch the view. We took our time, ignoring the locals with their mountain goat nimbleness, and we made it through with no incidents.

Was it worth it? Oh, yes. 360 degrees of jaw-dropping splendor, from glacial mountains to Sound of Music meadows. Pictures are amazing but do not do justice to the sense of life and accessibility of these mountains. Will these mountains show up in my writing somewhere? Yeah, count on it. I just hope I can come up with some words by then to describe them.

Exhausted and with sore feet, but triumphant, we took a gondola from First to Grindelwald, where, looking and feeling like something the cat dragged in, we had to navigate through the town’s monthly street market. We grabbed pasta from a restaurant and hurried to the quiet of our apartment.

Today we decided to take it easy. We only hiked seven miles! This hike, though, was almost entirely on level ground. Our goal was to see the Trummelbach Falls, which collects runoff from three major mountains. The falls themselves are inside a mountain, so we took a lift that gave us entry inside, where we could view the falls from multiple vantage points. I shot a brief movie on my camera of the falls so we could capture their roar–if it turns out, I will post it on FB.

We then took a cable car to Murren, a charming village, where we ate lunch and enjoyed, yes, the view. Murren hugs a hillside with a 2,500 foot sheer dropoff.

Afterward we walked for another three miles among the trees. Ready to collapse, though not as sore as yesterday, we made it back to Grindelwald and home sweet home (until Saturday).

Tired as I am, I am inspired by the landscape and being out in it. Last night I drafted a synopsis of a new novel and introduced myself to several characters. Since it has to do with travel, this trip is research!

Tracking Down a Villain

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Some time ago I hired someone to take a look at my novel. I’ve worked diligently on it, but it still doesn’t work, and I needed another pair of eyes to help dissect the problems. Yesterday I read through her comments, and frankly, there weren’t too many surprises. The ending is too gentle, in part because it hasn’t been rewritten enough yet. A few of the relationships need a little extra from me to make sense to the reader.

Then there’s the villain.

“What does he want? What made him this way?” she asks. She’s right. I’ve known this. He’s a monster, he craves power, and he terrorizes people…but why? What made him such an ugly, miserable creature?

Sadly, I don’t know. After all this time and all this work, I do not know.

Whenever I write, new information becomes revealed to me over time, and I expect that my villain has hidden out for a reason. I also hope he shows up to tell me what’s going on really soon! The other night I had a dream about him…a good sign. He was younger looking than in my story, although in my dream he had redeemed himself. That’s not going to happen in the novel, but maybe it’s the beginning of some insights.

I write this today in hopes that this action will jog loose some details and open his lips so he is more willing to tell me what hurt him so much. Or maybe he’s a psychopath who never had a conscience…but that tends to be boring in literature, so I vote for the former. Adrian, come out, come out, and talk to me. I promise I will do better at listening this time.

Packing the Right Suitcase

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My husband and I love to travel. Because both of us require only a computer keyboard and, in his case, an Internet connection, we have the good fortune to be able to work–and play–in many different locations. This fall we will experiment with a month-long trip to Switzerland and Provence, where we will hike and bike our way throughout the region. Henry will work three days a week, and I will shop in the markets, using my rudimentary French to buy fresh food for cooking…I’ll add here that cooking is, for me, a relaxing activity, especially when I am not loaded up with other tasks.

When I’m rejuvenating in the presence of nature, new ideas spring forth without effort. Almost as soon as I leave Houston, that “still small voice” begins to chatter away like an excited child, and I can barely keep up. Since I’ve been spending my energy almost entirely in book production lately, I welcome the opportunity to experiment with new material, and perhaps spruce up some drafts that I have lying around.

Today, in preparation for the big trip, we are taking a smaller one to Estes Park, Colorado. We have practiced using our new trekking poles and want some real-world practice, away from Houston’s flat, concrete sidewalks. We have thoughtfully equipped our backpacks to account for weather changes and longer hikes. Of course, this means that packing the suitcase is a different experience. Despite my best intentions to pack lightly, all the equipment takes up a lot of room. It meant choosing a different suitcase. It meant taking fewer changes of clothing, with the intention of re-wearing certain items. It took extra time and care to account for these deviations from my typical packing routine.

Each writing project feels a little like that. Patchwork and Ornament has given me the experience of a book containing visual imagery as well as text. When a Grandchild Dies required me to develop interviewing skills. Exodus demands a deeper observation of the inner self. Blood and Loam, my first novel, provides numerous writing lessons, especially “how not to write a novel.”

As I finish packing my suitcase, I find that in the end, it is packed, complete. Ultimately, if I take my time, everything I need will fit comfortably inside. I may feel a bit clumsy at times. I may worry about whether or not I “did it right.” Sometimes I’ll wonder if I can get the darn thing closed, if I can get everything to fit.

Once my suitcase is filled, I can then travel. Each book’s journey provides an opportunity to meet new people, to learn to skills, and to improve confidence. When I wrote When a Grandchild Dies, I had no idea what a unique and special journey I was about to undertake…and I am looking forward to all the future travels.

The Novel Approach

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A year ago, I pulled a novel draft out of a drawer and began retooling it. Blood and Loam, as I call it, tells the story of a confused, dysfunctional young woman who must find her inner strength to save a small farming community from a villainous “land vampire.” The idea has haunted me for years, and I am pleased to have finally found the path of the story.

Writing this novel has been a real education on what not to do, and even after a year of dedicated, hard work, the story still has problems. Part of me has wanted to put the story back in the drawer and write it off as my “practice novel.” It may still end up that way, but I’ve had enough good feedback on the story to not give up just yet.

Earlier in the year I submitted the first few chapters for critique in a novel writing class. I also submitted the first ten pages to a contest. In both cases, I received helpful feedback. Problem is, the story careens off track later on, in places no one has yet seen. I have bumped up against my limitations as a fiction writer, and I realize that I need help to take it to its next level…help that will allow me not only to improve my skills with this story, but also to make writing the next novels (I have three more ideas so far) easier, faster, and better.

This week I took the brave step of hiring a freelancer to provide a manuscript evaluation. I went through Elance, and I was impressed to find several bidders with impressive qualifications, including published and well-reviewed books of their own. It was tough to make the final choice. The woman who won the bid not only is a published author, but also has a mental health background, which I thought would be a great bonus for the psychological elements in the story. In about two weeks, I hopefully will have some guidance on what to do with my story.

I had mixed feelings about taking this approach, but seeing the quality of some of the bidders has changed my mind. I’ll pass along the results of this venture once I get them, and we’ll see if it was worthwhile, but in the meantime, I feel like I have taken a positive step with my writing. Stay tuned!

What’s Next?

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Last August I began work in earnest on a paranormal thriller that won’t leave me alone. I’ve had a long history with this book, initially trying to write it more than 20 years ago…long story. Anyway, I attended the Writers’ League summer writing retreat in Alpine, Texas, hoping that someone would talk me out of finishing it. Of course, no one did!

I worked feverishly on the novel for ten months, including getting the first 40 pages or so critiqued in the Gotham Writers Workshop. I also entered the synopsis and first ten pages in the Writers’ League manuscript contest, and while I didn’t win or even make the finals with my novel (I did make the finals with a narrative nonfiction that I’m working on–yay), I received a helpful critique that identified a significant problem in my manuscript.

Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, I realized that the novel is still not ready to pitch. I still feel that there are some fundamental flaws that I need to address. I’m going to take a little break from it to create distance and to create some new material. At that point, I am going to get more critiques and see if some fresh eyes can help me figure out the problems.

I’ve just spent a weekend hanging out with other writers who understand the crazy road that we writers take, and it helps to know I’m not alone…that some books take years and years to complete. They are done when they are done, and no sooner.