I think I have the flu. I have done nothing today except lay in bed and sleep, an event which was broken by intermittent bouts of coughing and blowing my nose. I didn’t do any writing today. I’m going to give it a try.
Day One
Day one of NaNoWriMo, and I feel pretty good. I have 2,390 words. I wrote the beginning and two other scenes that will come later on, but that I wanted to get down. I’m fairly pleased so far, and trying my best not to freak out and worry about whether it’s any good, although I did read it all to Steve, and he said it was good. Honestly, though, what’s he going to say?
The NaNo website is absolutely crawling today, though I suppose that’s to be expected. I uploaded a small excerpt of my book into my profile, but good luck trying to access it today. Maybe I’ll put some of it here. I’m on the fence about sharing a work in progress.
Down to the Wire
One more day until NaNoWriMo begins. I feel pretty good about my idea, and I have some scenes sketched out in my head. You know, there might be something to waiting until November 1, even if there are ideas brewing. I don’t think it would be good if, say, the ideas started brewing around about December 1, but I started thinking about this book mid-October.
Am I wrong to be annoyed by NaNoWriMo forum posters who drop their publication credits or mention in some fake blasé way that an editor is already interested? It reminds me of namedroppers somehow. Yes, we’re excited for you. Go pretend you’re not gloating somewhere else.
I am *almost* caught up with grading. Everything that was handed in by Friday has now been graded, but I collected one-paragraph essays from 9th graders today and will collect more tomorrow. On Wednesday, I collect two sets of vocabulary cards. My 10th grade Writing class will have to turn in another essay this week. I never stay caught up for long.
Well, I retire to what feels like a well-earned session with a book.
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And I Call Myself an English Teacher?
OK, time to fess up. I haven’t read Jane Eyre yet. However, I did purchase it years ago, probably when I was going through Jane Austen’s books. I remember it well. I was my first year as a teacher, a very rough year I might add, and I read both Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility with so much pleasure. I began Persuasion, but wasn’t able to finish — I know longer remember why. I purchased Emma, but haven’t read that yet, either. Actually, I think I loaned it to a student and never got it back. Never did get around to contemplating Northanger Abbey or Mansfield Park. And I call myself a Friend of Jane? Yes, I do. In fact, I’d have to say she’s one of my favorites. Anyway, I imagine I picked up a copy of Jane Eyre about that time, thinking that the Brontë sisters were close enough to Austen, if only in slightly similar time periods. Yes, I know the Brontës are much more gothic. I did enjoy Wuthering Heights in high school. I don’t remember finishing the book — not because I didn’t like it, but because I was reading so slowly and couldn’t keep up with the reading assignments in class. I still read fairly slowly, but I have come to terms with that and decided it is because I savor what I read.
Finishing The Thirteenth Tale decided it for me. I had to take that copy of Jane Eyre off the shelf (where it sat nestled between copies of Sense and Sensibility and The Turn of the Screw). It must have been in my classroom library at some point, because it has my former married name “Cooke” printed across the top of the pages in bold, black letters.
So I am about to take a sojourn to the moors, to Thornfield, to meet Jane Eyre at last. It seems to be a long book, and I don’t have much time for pleasure reading, but the end of October/beginning of November seems to me to be the perfect time to undertake this gothic classic.
Cheers to Ms. Setterfield for the inspiration.
On another note, if you are participating in NaNoWriMo, please let me know so I can make you a writing buddy. I am fairly excited about my book. I have written the opening scene in my head, but I’m being a good girl and waiting until November 1 to start.
The Thirteenth Tale
Diane Setterfield’s debut novel The Thirteenth Tale has generated quite a buzz in literary circles. I first heard about the book while browsing Barnes and Nobel’s website, shopping for birthday books with the gift certificate my parents had sent me. One has to admit the cover itself is gorgeous, and despite the old axiom, readers often do judge books by their covers. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been tricked into buying a book I ultimately didn’t like because it had a gorgeous cover (one example that comes to mind is Blackbird House by Alice Hoffman).
The Thirteenth Tale, however, is not such a book. Its gorgeous cover contains a true reader’s book. Setterfield’s own love for books is conveyed through her characters Margaret Lea and the mysterious writer, Vida Winter. Simon and Shuster’s website notes the novel “is a love letter to reading, a book for the feral reader in all of us, a return to that rich vein of storytelling that our parents loved and that we loved as children.” Ultimately, one of the book’s messages is that we all have our stories, and we find joy in other stories because they touch that which is familiar in our own stories.
The strangeness of the story immediately draws the reader in. There is an element of the great gothic Victorian in Setterfield’s story. She carefully lays the groundwork for her mystery, deliberately leaving gaps, until the ending ties together all the loose ends and reader says, “Of course! Why didn’t I see that?” Yet, there is never the idea that Setterfield somehow cheated. She gives the reader enough material to solve the mystery — if the reader will only pay attention.
The characters are well-drawn. I effortlessly called forth images of Vida Winter, Margaret, and the others. In a few lines, Setterfield can create real people on the page and convince you that you know exactly what they look like and how they move. It is a rare gift. In fact, the mark of a good book for me lately seems to be how much I wish I had written it — sort of a strange feeling to have, I suppose, but I won’t apologize. And I desperately wish I had written this.
One of my favorite passages is something of a tangent from the story Vida Winter is telling Margaret, but by the end of the novel, the reader comes to understand it was no tangent at all — if Margaret had only realized, she might have uncovered Vida Winter’s secret at that moment:
“Picture a conveyor belt, a huge conveyor belt, and at the end of it a massive furnace. And on the conveyor belt are books. Every copy in the world of every book you’ve ever loved. All lined up. Jane Eyre, Villette, The Woman in White.”
“Middlemarch,” I supplied.
“Thank you. Middlemarch. And imagine a lever with two labels, On and Off. At the moment the lever is off. And next to it is a human being, with his hand on the lever. About to turn it on. And you can stop it. You have a gun to your hand. All you have to do is pull the trigger. What do you do?”
“No, that’s silly.”
“He turns the lever to On. The conveyor belt has started.”
“But it’s too extreme, it’s hypthetical.”
“First of all, Shirley goes over the edge.”
“I don’t like games like this.”
“Now George Sand starts to go up in flames.”
I sighed and closed my eyes.
“Wuthering Heights coming up. Going to let that burn, are you?”
I couldn’t help myself. I saw the books, saw their steady process to the mouth of the furnace, and flinched.
“Suit yourself. In it goes. Same for Jane Eyre?”
Jane Eyre. I was suddenly dry-mouthed.
“All you have to do is shoot. I won’t tell. No one ever need know.” She waited. “They’ve started to fall. Just the first few. But there are a lot of copies. You have a moment to make up your mind.”
I rubbed my thumb nervously against a rough edge of nail on my middle finger.
“They’re falling faster now.”
She did not remove her gaze from me.
“Half of them gone. Think, Margaret. All of Jane Eyre will soon have disappeared forever. Think.”
Miss Winter blinked.
“Two thirds gone. Just one person, Margaret. Just one tiny, insignificant little person.”
I blinked.
“Still time, but only just. Remember, this person burns books. Does he really deserve to live?”
Blink. Blink.
“Last chance.”
Blink. Blink. Blink.
Jane Eyre was no more.
“Margaret!” Miss Winter’s face twisted in vexation as she spoke. (240-241)
As I read this passage, I too could not help but be caught up in Vida Winter’s “game.” I saw the books, too. I wanted it to stop. I asked myself which title would it be, Dana, that would make you shoot the man with his hand on that lever?
What about you?
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Could Have Guessed
This didn’t surprise me much.
| You Are Impressionism |
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I really don’t like the way the code is rendered on these things…
Lover, You Should’ve Come Over
Isn’t You Tube amazing? I found this video of one of my all-time favorite songs by one of my all-time favorite artists.
I could watch this over and over. He’s incredible.
Look What My Kid is Doing!
Fun with Photoshop
In my excitement to begin my book, I have been doing lots of research, thinking, and planning. I created an icon for my book. It may be somewhat premature to have settled on a title, but it “feels right,” and Steve said it was good. I value his literary opinion, which may surprise those of you who don’t realize his literary tastes run beyond true crime. He’s probably more well-read when it comes to poetry than I am, but I don’t think he reads as many novels anymore as he used to. At any rate, he looked over my outline last night while I was sleeping and told me he really liked my ideas. He paid me the highest compliment he can pay me about my writing: it sounds like something he’d be interested in reading if he saw the story on a dust jacket.
Here’s an image I created for my book.
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Comfy Pair of Slippers
I had forgotton how much I enjoy creating fiction.
I have been doing research for my NaNoWriMo project, and I am excited about a direction in which I’m taking it. You can read up on the wiki if you feel like it, but I don’t advise you to if you don’t want to be spoiled. Anyway, things are kind of up in the air right now, and I’m not sure about some of the directions I plan to go. I think I’ve settled on a title, which makes me nervous. Ordinarily, I’m inclined to save that sort of speculation for much later, but I liked the ring of this. In scouting around for a title (I admit I was at least doing that much), I decided to pull one from a Victorian poem. Elizabeth Barrett Browning leapt to mind, so I checked out a few of her sonnets. I liked the first like from Sonnet VII in Sonnets from the Portuguese: “The face of all the world is changed, I think.” The sonnet is about how Barrett’s world had utterly changed now that she has found true love with Browning. The part of the line I like for my title is “The Face of All the World.” I told Steve I was speculating on a title, and he agreed with me that it was too early until I told him what I was thinking of. He sort of paused, and said it was a really good title. I told him the gist of the poem, as I have told you, but I think my interpretation will be a bit more twisted in the end, and I do plan to use the poem at the beginning of the book.
So that’s my working title anyway.
It’s been years since I really sat down and wrote like this. Well, technically I haven’t started yet, since I’m not supposed to start until November, but I have begun the process of sketching ideas in my head and even bits on the wiki (I suppose those are my notes).
I am finding the research interesting. I have always loved to read about Victorian England, whether it’s Dickens’ A Christmas Carol or Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories. I was looking at Anne Perry’s website, and she was explaining that one reason she likes to write about the Victorian era is she likes “the contrast between glamour and squalor.”
That’s a woman with a story, eh?
Anyway, I think I agree with her on this. I think there is an interesting juxtaposition of in this industrial era that is fascinating. You have such class distinctions, but at the same time, to paraphrase Barrett Browning, the face of all the world was changing. In some ways, we were losing our innocence. In others, one wonders if we ever had it to begin with.