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a writer's journal
I’ve been thinking about the various connections between the three eras of H&H. There will be thematic connections and generational ones. But the temptation is to keep adding more threads to tie the characters’ stories, primarily symbols that recur across stories and time. My problem now is to be selective, both as to the number of them and how firmly they’re rooted in meaning. These things can be gimmicky, gadgets. How to be selective enough and demanding of each that it carry real weight, that will be the big challenge. I’ll likely over-do in the early drafts and cut back as I edit and shape the novel. This year has been amazingly fruitful for me and my writing, beginning to end. I’ll be more than satisfied if 2007 is half as good. Thursday, December 21, 2006
I'm still searching for my novel's narrative voice/language/diction in the Civil War era sections. The other two sections' voices have come easier. But not the 1860's. The tones struck in period journals and letters seem affected, as if the writers strain for something loftier than a natural mode of expression. Picking up a pen can do that. At the same time, a modern narrative voice would surely sound wrong. Whatever voice I settle on needs to both blend and contrast with that of the other two eras, while seeming true to its time. No small order, this.
For now, I'm writing forward, letting the voice be however it falls on the page (screen), writing with absolute faith that all this will work out in the end.
Sunday, December10, 2006
I signed copies of
TKTLB
at
Poor Richard's Books in Frankfort, KY on Thursday. There were sixteen
other authors there signing books for holiday shoppers, sipping wine, and
nibbling on crackers and cheese. The weather outside was frigid and
breezy, the temperatures near record lows.
Writing the first draft of H&H is moving happening, but slowly. It seems now that the Civil War era section of the novel will feature brothers serving in the same unit of the Union Army.
Monday, December 4, 2006
I'm reading The Life of Billy Yank by Bell Irvin Wiley. Based on Wiley's reading of several thousand letters, journals, and documents by and about Union soldiers in the Civil War, it depicts a typical soldier's daily life from enlistment (or conscription) thorough training and battles. It's the sequel to Wiley's similarly researched The Life of Johnny Reb published several years earlier. I'm not intending that H&H be heavy with researched detail. But I'd like for what details are in the novel to be authentic.
I'm arranging a reading for the Berea Arts Council as part of the reception for their Bookends and Books Exhibit in January. I'll be reading, along with Richard Taylor, former Kentucky Poet Laureate and author of the recently released Sue Mundy: A Novel of the Civil War. We may have appropriate music, too, if that can be arranged. It should be a fun evening.
Thursday, November 23, 2006 (Thanksgiving Day)
H&H grew by a few paragraphs in recent days, these in the Civil War era section. I still haven't written anything from the Dust Bowl era. Interestingly, I see that the book I'm reading for related background, The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan, just won the National Book Award. It is excellent.
The big news of the week is the New York Times review of TKTLB, which has me wonderfully pleased. See my news & interviews page for details.
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Yesterday was the
25th Kentucky
Book Fair in Frankfort, KY. I've attended each year since moving to
the state eleven years ago, buying books for myself and presents for
friends. This year's fair was my first on the author side of the table.
What a marvelous experience it was.
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