The Immaculate Conception of Birthing Characters in a Novel.

When my novel comes out, it will have been in gestation for 14 years. I daresay, raising an infant to the age of 14 would have been a lot easier than writing this novel, but you can't close the chapter on raising children, so I won't complain.

Here's the number one reason why it has taken me so long to finish the novel:

I didn't listen to my characters.

Bad move.

There is no such thing as writing.  Writing is channeling.  I have been fighting it for years, and it's taken at least 4 versions of my novel for me to get it right, or as right as its ever going to be.

We are in the Age of Aquarius, and are experiencing leaps and bounds of information-gathering from diverse sources, some far out there, and others through social media. I wrote earlier about how my research ended up presaging actual events, or prognosticated other facts, as I was gathering the information to write my novel.

The dilemma for me was how much should I listen to the characters begging for attention? Because, trust me, there was a battle going on, especially in a mystery full of potential suspects.

In my mystery, whichever character told the most compelling story got my attention. Amidst the din of the voices of adults in my novel, I heard the nagging voice in my ear of a teenager who wanted to belong in my story. As I don't have any children, I ignored it.  But as the years wore on, in the different iterations of my story, the teenager became more pronounced. He really wanted in.

So Melvyn was born.

www.blackyouthproject.com

Melvyn is in transition from being a Black American child to a teenager. He is navigating his life, trying to decide how he will comport himself in a country that sees him as a statistic, an ambassador for trouble: big clothing, hanging with his homeboys in the Louisiana suburbs (upper-middle-class, mind you). As far as anyone in the U.S. would see him, he's likely to be considered trouble. He does well in school, but tries to keep his street cred.  Apparently, there's a problem in some parts of Black culture that being intelligent is for nerds. Hopefully, he'll live long enough to accept that you can be both intelligent and fashionable. He's the product of a nasty divorce, but his father, a professional, is heavily involved in his life. Melvyn spends time with his father and respects him. It is easy to get lost in the shuffle, however, as both his parents work, and his yard work for a pair of male Hollywood types ensconced in the northwestern Louisiana university town will complicate his life.

I think Melvyn found me because, though I am childless, I feel for young Black boys who don't have the luxury of being multidimensional. They must be grown before their White peers, who only play-act at being rude-boys. I wonder if a Black kid ever gets to truly be a kid. Or does he or she have to stay grown?  To be vigilant? Don't trust. Don't show weakness. Be firm. Strong. Life is a struggle.

The following Daily Kos blog is worth reading as it says so much in fewer words than I would have used. And the Louis C.K. video is also worth viewing. He gets it: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/10/21/1338191/-One-of-the-Best-Statements-of-White-Privilege-and-Entitlement-That-I-Have-Ever-Read

My hope is that Louis C.K.'s progeny won't have the same luxury as he has, to be "better" than others by virtue of his skin color.

And as for Melvyn's story, will he ever be heard? I hope so. Let's start with one of his real-life teenage role models, Aaron, who suggests that Black youth should not be ignored, and the organization where his blog was posted, www.blackyouthproject.com which is helping to give Black youth, like my fictional character, Melvyn, a voice.

Grasping at Grief While Researching Death for My Mystery Novel

I'm not proud of the fact that it's taken me 13 years to write a novel. I wish I could say that it was an epic James Michener piece of sprawling historical landscape, or a Tolkien world of other civilizations that would justify a length of time usually reserved to writing a tome. My novel, "Severed," is no tome.  It's what is called a "cozy," with no significant amount of sex or violence to assault the senses, and it will likely be well under 350 printed pages, and/or whatever its eBook page equivalent turns out to be.

drawing source unknown

So what took me so long to write it?

The idea of my protagonist was born after I moved to New Hampshire (and where I have stayed ever since) in 2001 to tend to my mother after she lost her second husband of four years.  My birth parents had been divorced at least seven years by the time my father died in 1988, and I was an adult of 30 years at the time my father's body was found in his apartment, after family members had been trying to reach him.  Had he given any of his children a key to his apartment, there's a chance he would still be alive.  Anyway, on or about the time of my father's death, my youngest sister had visited him, knocking on the door, turning around after no one answered, and I, three thousand miles away, had called him out of the blue, I believe, at about the time he was dying--alone, of a heart attack.

I know enough about death to understand that when it comes, it comes.  End of story.  And as aggrieved as I am about my father's death, I understand that it is a part of life.  We are born.  And then we die. But, perhaps, subconsciously, in researching my novel, I wanted to know a bit more about what happens to the body when someone expires alone and exposed to the elements around him or her.  In my case, I wrote about what I learned what happens to our bodies when we die. Literally. I was not concerned with cosmos, parallel universes, airy-fairy hocus-pocus musings about the after-life.  I was focused upon what happens to our bodies' remains when we are no longer physically able to inhabit this corporeal world. Only years later did I realize that the universe was playing a role in teaching me what happens after death so that I could come to grips with my own father's untimely demise.

It also took me 13 years to write my novel because I had no idea how difficult it is to write. I had no idea that just because words are on paper doesn't mean that they belonged in print. +Marie Brown, a celebrated agent in New York, a close friend of a friend of mine (because, generally, being a friend of a friend is  the only way someone can get an agent's attention), was kind enough to read my manuscript and politely exposed my novel's shortcomings, suggesting that I do more work on my characters' back story, then focus on the plot logistics, which was the nuts and bolts of my novel.

Originally, I had three separate locations for my novel: Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Washington, D.C., and New Hampshire.  A logistical nightmare.  I chose Baton Rouge because I didn't want to have to conjure the stereotypes of Louisiana to give the readers what they are used to reading about the often-storied colorful people in that state.  My novel was not about perpetuating stereotypes, but breaking them.  However, after Marie Brown's wise counsel, it had become apparent that it was also not logistically feasible for Lula to live in Baton Rouge, but work in Cane River country.  I was also concerned that a state-by-state manhunt for a serial killer, although feasible (see my blog post of last week), didn't make sense in mine.  My characters needed to be in one place so their back story, and therefore, place in the mystery novel, could unfold.

Marie Brown critiqued my novel in 2006 or 2007 (I'll have to dig through mounds of research to find her letter to me), and it's taken me this long to re-write it. I dare not burden her with reading it again, as I'm ready for the baby to be born, now, however good or bad it might be.  Truly, I have written the equivalent of three novels, when it is all said and done. Writing is easy for a lawyer.  I can write an emergency motion or a brief within hours.

Writing well? That's another story.

Just because the words are on paper does not mean they are ready. I would have finished years earlier if I hadn't made that ego-driven faux pas of believing that because I could typewrite.


Another reason my novel took so long to write was because, as I explained above, I was writing about alien topics about which I had no knowledge, and I wanted there to be some semblance of authenticity, which required research.  I harangued different forensic anthropologists, relying mostly on Dr. Midori Albert, a professor at the University of North Carolina, in Wilmington, who let me tour her office, and who graciously gave me a book that could answer most of my questions when I became too big a pest. Another consult was +Dr. Jeffrey K. Tomberlin, a forensic entomologist, who divined the clue to my mystery's resolution.  We have never met, although I owe him a debt of thanks. I am certain that my blanket email inquiry to all of the members of the +American Board of Forensic Anthropology, so far back, inspired those with better knowledge of the field to beat me to the chase, as I had promised to hire any consultant in the event that any television series might germinate from my novel. Within 2 years of my inquiry, "Bones," was on television, characters not inspired by me, that's for sure, but I'm sure I was a catalyst to jump starting the idea.  I didn't care. I was still doing my research.

I'm okay with the pace it has taken to write my novel. It's been a learning experience; I understand what happened to my father, which is more important than meeting any self-imposed deadline.  I guess I have held on to my father's tragedy for some time, and now that I understand what happened to him, I feel I can let go.

And Before I'll Be a Slave....

Artwork by JerriAnne Boggis****

I cannot put into words how I feel right now. I want to go to sleep, as it is late.  However, I can't help but memorialize the debut of my blog, this blog, hours after experiencing a climactic event.  Today's (Sunday) event is profound for many reasons.  I attended a celebration--the culmination of an historical event that precipitated my writing frenzy of the last 12 or so years, that has also found its culmination in the past week, because I finally finished it. My novel, titled, "Severed," is ready to go to the 2nd Editor.  The symbolism of my experience today is profound to me, and I am being self-indulgent in sharing it, I feel, but I shall continue, nevertheless.


The event today was the culmination of a long journey home, for thirteen (13) African slaves whose coffins were found under the streets of historic Portsmouth, New Hampshire. It was a momentous event when they were discovered, sometime in 2003, and after much to-do about what to do with the bodies inside the coffins (they had been dug up in the 1800s, and unceremoniously returned to their hiding place, to be found over a century and one-half later), they were sent to their proverbial home, the universe, this time, free of anonymity.  A memorial will now stand on the street, where they will eventually be reburied--this time for good, in Spring of next year, when my novel will be available for publishing.

I came to New Hampshire as a caregiver to my mother who had lost her husband (2nd) of only 4 years. The day he died, in 2001, I hopped on a plane from California, where I was attempting to pursue a writing career, to be with my mother.  I have not left her side since.  Whereas I was born in Oberlin, Ohio, raised in the suburbs of Los Angeles, and lived over a decade in Washington, D.C. (Arlington, VA) -- I am now from Dover, NH (six miles from Portsmouth).

My creative juices were inspired by that historic Big Dig, so much so that I created a character, Lula Logan, a forensic anthropologist.  I changed the setting, however, probably because it was too close to home:  she is a Black female, single and childless, like me, navigating through life in a small town; however, not in New Hampshire, but in Louisiana (I came to learn that the connections between the two states is deeper than one would expect, but I digress).

My novel is not about the slaves, per se, but the people who came after them and our incarnation in the present day as a people free, but still enslaved.

Finally, my writing is over, at the same time, that these slaves have gone back home, into the universe. I feel my characters are free, too.

****
I must acknowledge the above-referenced artist JerriAnne Boggis, who is more than that: she is the Executive Director of the Portsmouth Black Heritage Trail (also a champion of my writing efforts), who worked frenetically to make this event a truly one-of-a-kind event.  That all people could commune with their ancestors the way I felt I experienced today. Thank you, JerrieAnne.  You,  Portsmouth's treasured historian, Valerie Cunningham, and Rose Downes, have created history in a big way. I feel honored to have been a part of it as a spectator.