Nadine Feldman, Author

celebrating strong female characters and whatever else strikes my fancy

writing

No Place Like Home

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My sweetie at Stonehenge
My sweetie at Stonehenge

I love to travel, I really do. Our recent month-long trip to the U.K. was extraordinary. We met warm, friendly people everywhere we went. The diverse geography of Scotland and Wales surprised us, and we struck a balance between rest and activity.

Meanwhile, now we’re home, returning to routine. Smells of beets and carrots roasting in the oven, and kitchari on the stove, fill the house. Apples are picked and applesauce made. I’ve aggressively pruned my lavender since I now understand it’s nearly impossible to kill it. I’ve installed mulch under the fruit trees and planted cover crop to provide a protective blanket of green to bare soil.

Henry and I both feel changed by the trip. Magic is afoot, though its definition eludes us at the moment. The last time a trip impacted us this much, we moved cross-country.

While I continue to process its meaning, though, I have noticed a shift in my writing practice. I have returned to my novel manuscript, slowing the pace to consider individual sentences or to ponder word choice. At the end of each day I don’t have a lot of pages under my belt, but the work is stronger and more detailed. I am more protective of my writing time. I feel quieter and more creative. I feel more determined.

Other changes are showing themselves bit by bit. I have “unfollowed” Facebook friends who over-post or dwell on the unpleasant. I have unplugged from all Facebook games. I visit Facebook less often.

Six days ago, I quit drinking Diet Coke. This addiction, in my opinion, has affected my physical and emotional health, so it has to go. Instead, I’m drinking tea. For the afternoon, when I need a bit of fizz, I combine a homemade root beer tea with a splash of club soda. I’ve failed several times in my attempts to abstain, but I am ready to try again — and hopeful I have a better strategy, which I’ll write about in more detail at another time.

I’ve returned to healthful eating habits, and I’m exercising daily. Travel is tough on the waistline!

Who knows what happened to cause so many shifts? Maybe the ghosts of the Bronte sisters are urging me on. They knew how short and precious life can be. Maybe I’m just refreshed from the long break, especially since we could ignore our legal woes for a month. Maybe genealogy provides a longer lens that changes my worldview. Or maybe Stonehenge worked some goo-bi-di-goo on me. I don’t know.

In short, I am returning to the routine and activities that nourish me and bring me both health and happiness. Much as we love travel, it’s good to come home.

The View from Our Deck -- Truly, There is No Place Like Home.
The View from Our Deck — Truly, There is No Place Like Home.

Bad Boys and Nasty Girls: The Unlikeable Characters We Love

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Apparently my lead character in my work in progress is not “likeable” enough. “She’s shallow and materialistic,” one person declared.

I know. I made her that way. On purpose. I’ve also heard this before, about other characters I’ve written. One of those novels is now so overwritten it may never see the light of day. It tries to hard to somehow apologize for my protagonist, in that case a promiscuous young woman with an alcohol addiction.

I’m not dismissing the critiques. Writers benefit from having fresh eyes looking at our manuscripts, and as I work on my latest revisions, I have kept my readers’ valuable comments in mind.

But something bothers me about this likeability thing.

Turning to that vast repository of information and opinion, the Internet, I found other authors who are bothered by it, too. Daniel Swenson of Surlymuse.com wrote a thoughtful piece about this very subject. Roxane Gay also weighs in on Buzzfeed.com.

Granted, characters should be enticing. They should fascinate. But we don’t have to like them.

Take two of television’s most iconic antiheroes: Tony Soprano and Walter White. Believe it or not, I’m just now watching The Sopranos, and we didn’t catch up on Breaking Bad until after the finale. Both men are violent, sociopathic, despicable. Yet these are characters we remember.

Granted, in both cases we are watching the skill of extraordinary actors. In Tony Soprano, we see the lost, wounded little boy who suffers from depression and panic attacks as an adult. We also see, in spite of his mobster lifestyle, a guy having to deal with mouthy teenagers, aging parents, and other life problems we can all relate to. In Walter White, we feel the frustrations of a brilliant Everyman, for whom life has dealt repeated doses of unfairness.

These are also men, though Woody Allen’s caustic Blue Jasmine could give both men a run for their money on the female side. Television has also given us Glen Close’s Patty Hewes in Damages, though methinks the writers tried a bit too hard to soften Patty’s mean streak. She’s a lot more fun when she’s at her worst.

Truth is, my protagonist interests me. In all of my work, there seems to be a focus on redemption, on people growing into better versions of themselves. It feels more like the human journey to me. It’s why I prefer Spiderman and Batman to Superman. It’s why, from a story perspective, I prefer the Old Testament to the New. Those people were messed up…much like we all are.

What do you think? Who are your favorite heroes or antiheroes from books, television, or movies?

Meeting the Shadow

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Normally I wouldn’t discuss a writing class in this blog, but the one I’m taking is more about inner growth work than writing, so I thought I would share! This class, Shadow Writing, is taught by Gloria Kempton, whom I met at a recent writers’ conference. I loved Gloria’s warmth and honesty, and something inside me whispered, “You can trust this teacher.”

For those not familiar with the concept of the “shadow,” it’s the part of ourselves that we keep hidden. We bury it under social masks, and the more we deny that part of ourselves, the more it wreaks havoc with our lives. For writers, denying the shadow self makes for weak and uninspired characters, because as writing brings us closer to our shadow, often we start making excuses for not finishing our work.

I signed up for the course because I have a villain in one of my novels whose head I’ve never quite been able to get into. I’ve also felt that my writing of late has been bland and boring, and I’ve lost some motivation to write — and yet, I know that when I am writing, I am a happier person.

In the past few weeks, I’ve gotten better acquainted with this character. I’ve poked into his childhood to try to understand why he is so cruel and sadistic. I’ve poked into my brain to uncover why I’m so unwilling to let him express himself fully. As a result, I’ve bumped into my shadow on several occasions already. Good thing my teacher feels so safe to me, because I’ve shed many tears in the past few weeks as I get to know this side of myself.

Through my studies, I am encountering the way I envy others who have been more successful at writing. I’ve also uncovered a great deal of ambition that I had pushed aside. No wonder I’m so darn tired all the time! So yes, I am admitting that I would like to sell some books…maybe even a lot of them. No more apologizing for wanting that!

Already I’m spending more consistent and focused time on the novel I’ve been working on, and in December I should be able to dust off the old novel with my problematic villain to try, yet again. The more I embrace my shadow, the more I am at peace.

Do you have any buried longings or dreams?

Random 5 Friday…A Little of This, a Little of That

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It’s Friday, so it’s time for the Random 5! Check out Nancy at A Rural Journal to catch up with a lot of fine bloggers. I’m still making my way through the list, but I’m seeing some quality writing and brilliant photography. Enjoy, and have a great weekend!

Here’s my five:

  1. Cloris Leachman has the town abuzz. She’s been visiting, and the Cloris sightings are everywhere (she even showed up at an open house for a friend’s birthday). We caught a glimpse of her, too, as we passed by one of our favorite restaurants and saw her sitting at a table near the window. She looks amazing! 
  2. I picked the first figs off the tree. The fruit will keep me busy for the next few weeks. Figs are fragile things and can get mushy if left unpicked for too long. I’ve just put a batch of them in the freezer!
  3. I’m oh so close to finishing draft #2 of my next novel. I have about twenty pages left, though I am sure I will need to add more to the end. I’m wrapping it up waaayyyyy too fast. I was hoping to finish this draft by the end of August, and it looks like I may make my goal, even with adding more scenes!
  4. The sun has returned after two rainy days. We took a walk in the rain yesterday, and it was glorious! It made a mess of my hair, but I didn’t want to put my hood up…it was like getting a nice, misty facial.
  5. Just as I woke this morning, I learned from American Express that someone tried to use my card number yet again. I’m grateful that the good folks at AmEx are on top of these things, but I’m annoyed at what will be the third replacement in just a few years. Worse, it creeps me out that any time someone attempts a fraudulent charge, it’s for something that I might actually purchase. Are these creeps reading my blog? Makes me wonder.

Here’s a bonus for friends who may be going through menopause. I’m going to be listening to a webinar this coming week. If you’re interested in learning more about “The Powerful Transition of Perimonopause and Menopause,” take a look at this video here. I hope it’s helpful!

Random Five Friday

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Thanks to my friend Tina Fariss Barbour of Bringing Along OCD, I have hooked up with Nancy’s A Rural Journal for Random Five Friday. Don’t know what I’m getting into yet, but I’ll see how it goes! I invite you to visit these blogs and participate in Nancy’s Random 5 if you so choose.

My Random Five for the week:

  1. It’s been a great harvest week for the garden. Blueberries, onions, artichokes, and lots of tomatoes! I’ve had a bumper crop of peas and have frozen several batches, but they’re just about done for the year. The pumpkins are blooming and zucchinis are forming. 
  2. I volunteer at the office of our local public theatre, Key City Public Theatre. We’ve had a hectic week, selling lots of tickets to a musical history of the world, The Big Bang, and getting ready for Shakespeare in the Park. My husband is an actor who will be performing in Much Ado About Nothing.
  3. I didn’t write a regular blog post this week. Well, actually I wrote several, but nothing feels ready for prime time. Bear with me. I’m hoping that by doing this Random 5, I’ll get back to a regular routine, including book reviews and blog recommendations.
  4. My latest novel concerns a Manhattan-based financial planner who gets unwittingly swept up in the Madoff scandal. At the same time, her estranged aunt has died and left her a house on *cough* the Olympic Peninsula. Soon I plan to start sharing my draft with you.
  5. I’ve learned that it’s impossible to predict the weather here on the Peninsula. When we lived in Houston, we would not only know that a storm was headed our way, but we would know when it would  arrive. Here, the forecasts are useless. The other day we had a predicted high of 81, but it hit 63. There was no rain in the forecast, but my deck was wet this morning. Go figure.

Have a great weekend! See you next week!

Bedspreads and Novel Writing: It’s the Little Things

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A few weeks ago I got it in my head that I wanted to knit a bedspread. I don’t know why. These notions just sort of show up, and I either wait for them to pass or jump on them. Usually I jump on them and am sorry later as I ask, “What did I get myself into this time?”

So, of course, I’ve jumped in. Again. I’ve given up the quest for self-improvement in favor of self-acceptance, so all I can do is shake my head, smile, and say, “Yep, that’s what I do.”

After some searching, here’s the pattern I settled on. It’s easier than it looks, because I’ll make a lot of little pieces that I then sew together. Of course, making a lot of little pieces can get tedious. I started knitting the little colored strips…80 of them for each of 13 colors. I don’t like doing math, but I can tell you, that’s a lot, and those pieces represent just part of the quilt.

It’s no coincidence that I’m revising a novel at the same time. Without boring you with all the little details, it feels much the same as working on this quilt. There is the whole that is the ultimate goal, which I’m reaching by working on thousands of little, tedious pieces.

I’m reading The Wonder of Aging: A New Approach to Embracing Life After Fifty by Michael Gurian. Based on what I’ve read so far, it would appear that this new approach to quilting, writing, and life is a reflection of my age and current stage of life. I’m okay with taking time to work on the little details. Yes, I’d like to write books faster than I do, but I’m more interested in writing better. Eventually I’ll have enough of those little pieces done to put them together in one of the rings. Eventually I’ll read through a draft and say, yes, this one’s ready to go to the editor, because I’ve done my best.

It seems curious and paradoxical to want to slow down the process. There is so much to write! So much to get done! Sometimes it feels maddening to become more deliberate, more thoughtful, less action-oriented. Yet somehow, I suspect, I will get more done. My drafts may go more slowly, but I will need fewer of them (I hope). In the end, I hope to have a beautiful heirloom quilt and a beautifully written book to share.