"When asked, 'How do you write?' I invariably answer, 'one word at a time.'” — Stephen King
The House That Jack Built
Writers work toward the ultimate goal of publication. We stress over sentence structure, editing, agents, pitching, querying, etc. The list of things to stress about is endless. But how often do we stop to take a moment to appreciate the special journey we are on as authors? Since I started to write seriously four years ago, after saying for years I was going to, I've had a few amazing things happen to me that never would've happened if I hadn't embarked upon this journey. I have several anecdotes, but this is my favorite....
The first character to take up occupancy in my mind as a living, breathing human being, was a handsome, successful architect named Jack Harrington. Jack and I ran around together for a long time before I ever put fingers to keyboard to tell his story. I wanted to write about a man who has it all—a wife he still adores after twenty years of marriage, three beautiful daughters he'd do anything for, and a life most people would envy. That life is turned upside down when his wife is hit by a car and plunged into a coma. I wanted to show Jack's struggles to rebuild his life as he becomes the custodial parent for his daughters—two of them teenagers with all the accompanying issues—and I wanted to show his conflict when he finds a new love. These issues make up the core of my first book, "Treading Water," which led to two sequels, "Marking Time," and "My Side of the Street." It's "Treading Water," however, that is the book of my heart.
Since I finished "Treading Water," I've thought of my writing as "The House That Jack Built," tying into his career as an architect and the unexpected building blocks that came from "Treading Water." As I was finishing "My Side of the Street" in July 2006, I decided to drive out to Chatham, Massachusetts, so I could finish it in the town where it was set. Yes, this was a huge indulgence, but it coincided with the half-way point of summer vacation and my kids were driving me nuts. I had earned this night away! The first thing I did when I got to Chatham was drive around to check out the four streets I had chosen from hundreds on a map to place my characters' homes. I figured if there was, say, a cement factory on both sides of the street, the people of Chatham would know I hadn't bothered to come out there and check. I am pleased to report there were houses on all four streets, but on the corner of the fourth street, there was something else—a red house with a sign on the side that said, "The House That Jack Built." No, I am not kidding, and yes, I sat there and cried. If ever there was a "sign" that I was on the path I was meant to be on, there it was. It was without a doubt, one of the most amazing moments of my life, and I will never, ever forget it. (Thanks to my NEC friend Janet Campbell for taking a better picture for me!)
That same week, after I got home and told my sister-in-law this story, she approached me at a family party to say, "You won't believe this! I was having trouble sleeping at my friend's house the other night and got up to see if she had a magazine or something I could look at." She found an old copy of Architectural Digest, which is mentioned in "Treading Water," and there was a spread with the headline "The House That Jack Built." She had torn it out for me and that page is framed over my desk to remind me that this is a marathon, not a sprint, and it's about the journey, not the destination.
Marie on Perseverance
Frequently Asked Questions
Are you a plotter or a pantser?
I'm a card-carrying pantser and proud of it! When I wrote my first book, I had no idea there were two schools of thought on this. I had my idea, a conflict, and a main character who had lived as a living, breathing person in my head for years. That was all I needed to get started. The result? An over-written tome that I eventually had to cut by 55,000 words. The lesson learned? Be judicious. Nothing gets in unless I can answer this question: How does this scene I am dying to write move Character X’s story forward? If I can’t answer that question, I leave it out. I think about what’s next but at the same time I lay the groundwork for what needs to happen later. I work within the confines I’ve established while going back and rereading what I’ve already done. The rereading is critical. It never fails to give me new ideas about where I could take the story.
Where do you get your ideas?
All over the place! Sometimes they literally just appear in my imagination. For instance, I have no memory of “meeting” my first main character. Two of my books have followed others. Another one sprung from seeing a cute guy driving a black Mercedes convertible into Newport, Rhode Island, on an August Friday night. I wondered, “Where’s he going?” The answer to that question is my book, “The Fall.” I also love to eavesdrop! Once, while waiting for a delayed flight, I listened into a conversation between two twenty somethings who were on their way to visit their significant others. They discovered they were on the same flight home. I remember thinking, wouldn’t it be something if they ended up together? That conversation led to my book, “Same Time Sunday?” Sometimes, it’s just a germ of an idea that leads to a novel. A pilot being punched in the face by an irate customer in an airport shop led to “See You Next Time.” Sometimes, I’ll read something in the paper that sets off my imagination. My current WIP, a romantic suspense, was inspired by a real-life story.
Do you know how your story is going to end when you begin?
Never! That’s the beauty of being a pantser. It’s as much a mystery to me as it will hopefully be for my readers. When I was writing my first romantic suspense, I purposely didn’t decide who the perp was going to be until I was three-quarters of the way into the book. I wondered at the time if that was a wise move, but it worked out really well because I ended up with a number of people it could have been. Once I decided who it was going to be, I had to go back and adjust a few things to make it work. That was an interesting learning experience, to say the least. I kept asking myself—shouldn’t I know who’s doing all this? Apparently not!
How long does it take you to write a novel?
The first one took forever—on and off for three years, and then another year of trimming, editing and rewriting. Every time I revisit that MS, I fiddle with it. The next one, a sequel to the first one that I had no plans to write until readers kept asking to know what had happened to one of the characters, took me 90 days. I applied the lessons learned in overwriting the first one and ended up with a solid first draft of the second one that needed very little editing. I've hardly changed a word of it in any subsequent re-reads. A couple of years later, I seem to have figured out how to do it. My most recent MS was 96,000 words, finished in 39 days. I spent a week or so editing before I turned it over to my agent. The romantic suspense novels seem to take longer because they are way outside my comfort zone. But I love that challenge!
Do you like to write love scenes?
Ugh! No! But I've gotten better at it and more comfortable with it over time. I kept it behind closed doors in the first one—something I've since gone back and "fixed." Yes, Jack has REAL sex now, rather than imagined sex. Real sex is always better! I wrote my first love scene in the second MS. I remember being in a hotel room. My husband had the kids at the pool, and I had reached that point in the story where these two characters had to have sex. I said these words out loud in the empty room: "Write it like no one is ever going to read it." So, I did, and the result worked really well for those two characters. Some people can write around the love scenes by inserting a note that says, "Love Scene Here," and go back later to fill it in. I can't do that. I have to write it while I'm in the moment. Sometimes that "moment" is when I have a kid sitting at my feet and another one on the floor while we're watching something on T.V. LOL! I have a secret fantasy to write blazing erotica under a pen name someday. That'd be a pretty big stretch from "write it like no one is ever going to read it."
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