Inspiration II

 I had been tempted to leave this a blank page to emphasize the dearth of this essential element in a writer’s repertoire in my own circumstances.

 

Then, lo and behold, this magical ingredient returned and I had a thought for a sequel to my American historical, Pavane for Miss Marcher.

Inspiration struck just as I was having a conversation about a mug that my son sent me as a birthday present which reads “Please do not annoy the writer, she may put you in a book and kill you.” The conversation happened to be about a distant cousin-in-law and I commented that, many years after this CIL had annoyed other members of my family with her “I’m so far superior to you” attitude, I had taken a tiny bit of revenge by casting her attitude as the reason the parents of my character, North (in Pavane for Miss Marcher), refused to attend his wedding.

What has that to do with Inspiration, you may wonder.

North is a veteran of the American Civil War. He and his brother-in-law, Aurelius, have been on my mind since, as secondary characters, they made their presence known — in the proverbial ‘pantser’ form of writing — by appearing as the story unfolded.

Following this conversation, I sat quietly for a moment. A progression of images appeared as the tissue of an idea for North’s story unfolded. Except that his tale will have a happy ending, where it goes from this inspired moment is a mystery.

And I like it that way.

Lazy Fingers & Cognitive Assumptions

Every writer faces the task of proofreading at every stage of the writing process. We sometimes do this onerous task at the end of a writing session or we wait until the entire work in progress is commented to paper or even to the last minute before the novel is published.

Competent typists are usually accurate to within a very small percentage point. Two-finger typists, commonly called the “hunt and peck” variety can actually be better at accuracy but much slower. Whichever we are, we occasionally make assumptions about the manual aspects of producing a written work.

Last year, I happily published my seventeenth novel of twenty written works with my name on the cover. While considering a new cover and further research into that period of American history, I reviewed a small section of the novel and—shock horror—even after careful and intense proofreading of the “Advanced Reader’s Copy,” I discovered a typographical error.

Not much further along, I found another error—the “My brain thought this word but my fingers typed that one” kind. During proofreading, the brain often wins the argument, making the assumption that the word typed was the word thought.

With more than one such error, I began at the beginning of the novel, making note of the errors in pencil and marking the pages with strips of multi-colored plastic stickies (my stash of these useful writers’ tools are well-used).

The whole process of re-proofing an already published novel taught me yet another lesson: Proofread more than once and proofread backwards. If you’re self-publishing, asking a friend or paying a professional editor are options. Even so, there will be the occasional missing letter, word or punctuation mark.

In that instance, take the philosophical approach: No one is perfect.

The Mystery of History

My most recent novel is set during the American Civil War. The idea sprang from a visit we made to Virginia for a family wedding and I had the opportunity to visit some of the many Civil War battlefields and to hear some of the stories of the valiant men and women who lost their homes and their lives in this tragic period in our history.

Though my ancestral family is almost entirely Northern, my extended family includes members with historical links to the South. I doubt there are many families whose ancestral links go back to the 18th and 19th centuries in the United States that don't have close family members somewhere along the line who took a different side in the conflict that has so deeply defined our national character.

One of my sisters married a charming young man from Oklahoma. As soon as he joined our clan, he was subjected to hateful abuse from another sister's Yankee husband. Seeing this, more than 150 years after the end of the conflict, made clear to me how deep the scars have been embedded in our collective psyche. Although my Southern brother-in-law had taken no part in that war, my Northern brother-in-law took great offense at the welcome extended to him, as if the Oklahoman carried the guilt of his ancestors by virtue of his place of birth. 

Seeing for myself how deeply hatred had infected one brother-in-law actually opened my heart and mind to discovering more about the history of my own country, from both points of view. Not long ago, I was confronted by a colleague who informed me that I "must" take the correct side if I was going to write about the Civil War. 

Is there any such thing? Aren't there always, at least, two sides to any story? Yes, there were terrible atrocities committed against other human beings but, as in all wars, the truth is somewhere between the two sides of the conflict. We demonize whichever side is opposed to our worldview but are we right to do so?

When I undertook to write Pavane for Miss Marcher, I thought long and hard about 

• the ancestors of my own family who fought on both sides; 
• the teenage cadets of the Virginia Military Institute who gave their lives to protect their homes; 
• the freed and runaway slaves who fought for their freedom putting their families at risk; 
• the enslaved men, women and children who never escaped;
• all the kind and generous people I've known of all races whose roots are in the South; 
• the black Americans I know who have served in the military; 
• my father as the training officer of young men about to go into war; 
• the heroes of the American Revolution who were considered traitors when they opted to fight for the Constitutional  Rights of States; 
• the citizens of California who are considered courageous for considering secession when their fellow citizens were called traitors for taking the same action 150+ years ago;
• the 600,000 Americans killed in the Civil War on both sides who all believed they were doing the right thing.

After all these many years, can we accept that, because we are all human, we are flawed? That our thinking processes are tainted; that we inhabit an imperfect world which we strive, as a nation and as one people, to make "more perfect"? And, isn't writing with an open heart and mind critical to writing truthfully?

Pavanes, Italian Songs & Yankee Doodle

My most recent novel, released on the 15th of August, Pavane for Miss Marcher, is set in the post American Civil War era in a small Maine village. Throughout the novel, my love of music and singing forms the connecting tissue between the heroine, Cathryn Marcher, her students and her antagonists as well as the hero, Rupert Smith. 

My love of music has played a significant part of my personal life as well. When I moved to Wales many years ago, I married into a musical family. Although I had taken a few years of piano lessons as a child, my lack of musical knowledge undermined my efforts to assimilate into a country known as a nation of musicians. I had sung solos and performed in musicals as a young woman but those experiences were inadequate in my own estimation to win the hearts of my in-laws.

My husband is a professional musician! How was I to measure up in comparison? 

Pavane for Miss Marcher is, in a way, a tribute to music and to the American contribution to the rich heritage of world music. The novel is also about healing and reconciliation between enemies, as well as strategic retreats in the face of overwhelming odds. And is a tribute to the strength of the American spirit, the will of a nation to overcome its differences and threats to its survival.

1871. The war has been over for six years but Rupe Smith still fights his demons. Ten years have passed since he left his Maine village. His Wyoming ranch is the one place he wants to be and the last place he can be. There is no escape from the guilt of his parents’ grief or his longing for the girl whose one letter kept him alive, without knowing she is beyond his reach, married and raising a family.
 Cathryn Marcher is not the giddy, giggling girl with high ideals she was before the war. The woman who waited for Rupert Smith’s safe return has no doubt she isn’t the reason he has finally come home. The haunted expression on his handsome face reminds her of the outcome, the horror and suffering of war she saw close at hand, all those years ago, in the faces of soldiers she nursed in Boston.
 Captain Smith and Miss Marcher share a love of music but Cathryn must hide her disappointment when Rupert chooses to sing in harmony with the widow, Mrs. Miller, whom the residents of Oslo Hill believe will be his bride.
 Susan Miller's disdain for her voice teacher, her rival for Rupert's love, is matched by Colonel Jericho Colson's loathing for his fellow Union Army officer, his rival for Cathryn's heart.

Years ago, as a Christmas gift, my husband arranged for me to have singing lessons for six weeks. The gift became "the gift that kept on giving" for nearly ten years! That experience, besides giving me the confidence to perform as a solo soprano on St. David's Day before a Welsh audience and join several semi-professional choirs, also gave me the knowledge to write this book. 

A Book in Search of a Cover

The manuscript is written. The editing and revision are progressing. But your thoughts are locked on a visual representation of your story. The protagonist has been in your head for months, possibly even years, indistinct in exact details—you don’t want anything too recognizable: no photos of starlets or hunks. Other characters live in your head as nebulous physical entities.

What are distinct are the props: houses, trees, a painting, a ball gown, a uniform, the main street, a churchyard. But do any of these express the essence of the novel?

For my novel, Wait a Lonely Lifetime, published by Avalon in 2012, the cover artist chose a night scene of the Ponte Vecchio—one of the most recognizable landmarks in Florence. Though this bridge is mentioned several times in the novel, including a reference to World War II and how it was saved from destruction, the Vecchio does not represent the underlying theme of second-chance at love.

I followed this safe, tried and true, method of cover design with my second novel, published in 2014, using a photo of the city in which the novel, Salsa Dancing with Pterodactyls, takes place. Initially, we used a silhouette including the skyline, ballet slippers and a flying reptile, but this didn’t make the cut to the paperback edition. Following this publication, I used flora to indicate the season of the story but had little to do with the story.

My current work in progress, Pavane for Miss Marcher, is an historical novel, set in the 1870s in a rural village in Maine. The male protagonist is a Civil War veteran who returns home many years later, suffering from guilt and an aching heart, hoping to find the woman whose one letter had given him hope that he could once again be human.

 

A red ball gown, a painting of lilies, a pumpkin patch, a piano, a New England house or village?