3. A Photograph Unlocks Me

Taking a picture of a farmer at a Vermont agricultural fair got me started again on writing Hiram Falls

(Part 1: How my novel got started. Part 2: Doc and The Man.)

This is a story of how a day taking photographs — and one photograph in particular — got me started again on writing my novel, Hiram Falls.

But, first, the story of why my novel needed restarting.

After my second Hiram Falls sketch, Doc 1947, was presented on stage, I was pumped. People who experienced it were encouraging and enthusiastic. They were curious about the man who appeared from nowhere, the character that emerged from a typo.

I was curious, too. And I also thought maybe, just maybe, there is enough in this to write a long story, a novel.

So at the first of the year I began. I worked on the backstory of the man. I wrote about the town of Hiram Falls. I expanded on characters already created. Since I thought of myself as a night person, I wrote in the evenings, after supper and well into the night. Soon I was on a roll. By mid-February, I had reached 25,000 words.

Then, early one morning, disaster. I had gotten up early, had coffee and breakfast and decided to read what I had written.

But it was dreck — boring, aimless, uninteresting. Honestly, I couldn’t finish it. All I could think of was the old writing adage to write a book that you would want to read.

OK. But this one sucks.

So I deleted it. Every last word. And then I deleted the backup.

I was immensely discouraged. Self-doubt overwhelmed: What was I thinking? I can’t write a novel. I’m not good enough.

For months, I didn’t go back to it. I floated through the spring and summer. From time to time I’d think about the book but mostly about what had gone wrong, how I might do things differently. Could I do things differently? Mostly I let it go.

And I took photographs.

Photography is the opposite of writing. It is an antidote to writing. Photography uses a different part of your brain. You are looking outward not inward; you observe, look for details, think about composition and colors and textures and patterns. You pay attention to light and shadow. You look for the little things.

Flash forward. Late September. Vermont in full plumage. The Tunbridge World’s Fair — the primo agricultural fair in Vermont. My partner was away for the weekend so up I went with my camera. I stayed the day. For 12 hours I took pictures. The fair is, after all, pretty dang photolicious. For a while I focused on taking pictures of feet (dusty hooves on the horse pull, loggers scrabbling up tree trunks, pigs racing), then on hands (quilt makers, basket weavers, a smithy) and finally, faces.

When I saw the man you see here, I was riveted. He was standing under the eaves of a cow barn, leaning against a post. The more I studied his face, the more I was intrigued that he exuded both humor and sadness, was both strong and vulnerable. The deep lines and wrinkles, the scars, the rough texture of his skin showed a man who’d spent his life working outdoors. Working hard.

I noticed something else. People were coming up to him, individuals, couples, people young and old. They seemed to hold him in deep respect; they clearly hadn’t seen him a while, some seemed to be consoling him. For a while there was a line of folks to see him, a couple or three standing a few yards away, waiting for those speaking to him to finish.

Finally, there was a break — no one was waiting to speak to him. I moved forward and asked if he minded if I took his photo.

“Sure,” he said. “Hope it doesn’t break the camera.” He smiled.

As I was clicking the shutter I started talking to him, more to distract him from the lens more than anything. I asked him whether he had some cows in the barn.

“Nope. Sold ‘em all off this summer after my son passed.”

That’s all he said. I put the camera down. “I am so sorry, sir.”

“That’s OK.” He paused, swallowed. “We’re getting by.”

I noticed a young couple had appeared, waiting for me to finish. I backed away.

The man’s response, his face, haunted me all day and all the way home. I tried to imagine what might have happened, what it must have been like for him. When I got home, I dashed inside to my computer and wrote a story that filled in the gaps. Willie — the character and the story — was born. And with him came a few other characters.

The story ‘Willie’ was presented that December by The Vermont Stage Company in its annual Winter Tales program. Seven shows. Cinnamon cookies and cocoa. A feel-good night. My story was on the edge of feel-good, maybe over the edge — even though I backed off some of the sorrow of the first draft of the story.

But the director had loved the story,, told me not to worry about the sadness in it. You end with hope. It works. But I was worried. Perhaps it’s too much. People just want joy and cheer. This is a bit of a downer. Maybe they’ll get up and walk out. (A writer’s critical imagination never ceases.)

On opening night, as the actor got closer and closer to the part where Willie finds his dead son, I slid down in my seat. I closed my eyes. The theater went silent. Finally, I opened my eyes. I looked over at the woman next to me. Tears were streaming down her face.

Whoa. Sorry to make you cry, m’am, but I guess I’m back on track.

Never underestimate a writer’s glee in bringing readers to tears.

On the way home that night I was excited, motivated, eager to start anew. But it’s one thing to be encouraged, its another to actually sit down and bang out a novel that you’ve already tried once to create. And failed. Clearly I had many issues to deal with.

First, how the fuck do you write a novel anyways?

Second, what is the backbone of this story, this hodgepodge of characters?

And third, why was my first stab at it so bad? What was I doing wrong?

So I did what we always do nowadays: I surfed the Web. (When was the last time you heard that expression?) Google: How … do … you … write … a … novel?

I almost expected Google to say: Don’t.

But the Web offered many ideas. Too many ideas. And then, bingo: How to use the Snowflake Method to write a novel. I’d never heard of it. The site looked like it hadn’t been updated since the Early Jurassic Period, but never judge a website by its home page. The “snowflake” method was, in fact, extremely illuminating and helpful. It was a new way of thinking for me. I won’t bore you with details. If you’re really interested, follow the link. The gist is this: Plan ahead. Design the book beforehand.

Well that’s a novel concept. (Sorry.)

I dove in. I got focused. I created a plan. I defined the backbone, rather, the backbones of the story. (Spoiler alert: having multiple story arcs led me down the road to my second biggest mistake — too many plot lines. But more on that at a later date.) I also built a timeline.

The timeline is worth a mention. It became my outline since I decided to have the story span multiple decades.

And I made another major shift. Originally the story was to start in the late 1800s, I decided to move it up so that at least half of the story could take place in my lifetime. It would save me on research, but, more importantly, it would allow me to interject what I knew, what I had experienced living in small towns. I could be more confident that this fictional small town of Hiram Falls would be credible, would come alive.

The timeline also allowed me to create a rudimentary map of the progression of each of the characters’ story lines. Eventually I put it on a white board with sticky notes.

So my strategy would be to combine the old writing saw — write what you know — with Toni Morrison’s plea to her writing students at Princeton: “don’t pay any attention to that … create characters you don’t know.”

Perfect.

But in getting organized (definitely not part of my DNA) I realized a couple of other things. First, Microsoft Word doesn’t cut it. I mean, really, when was the last time you tried to handle a .doc file that was 25,000 words long?

So I reached out to a few other writers to ask them what they use; fellow Vermonter Robin MacArthur (A WRITING LIFE) recommended Scrivener, an inexpensive ($33 then, $60 now) British software designed for people possessed with a compulsion to write novels. It is amazing. I won’t go into a rhapsody about software here, but I will tell you it has been this disorganized writer’s dream.

So between Snowflake and Scrivener, I established a loose structure to the story — the conflicts, the characters, the setting, the timeframe — got set up on Scrivener and was ready to go.

Except.

Why did the first attempt go so badly?

Before I could fully analyze that, something happened.

As I mentioned, I had long believed I was a night person. But suddenly I started waking up at 3:30, 4 a.m. thinking about the story, the characters, the dilemmas I was facing. Worse yet, I was wide awake, raring to go. Really? Four in the friggin’ morning? The first couple of nights I rolled over and tried to get back to sleep. On the third night, I decided, “Fuck it. I’ll just get up and write.”

I made myself coffee, went to my study, and, in the darkness, at 4:30 in the morning, I began writing. I wrote and wrote and wrote and three hours later my partner got up, we had breakfast, she went to work, and I went back to writing.

And again the next day. And the next. And the day after that.

I had a pattern, a routine. And I began to see my mistake in my first stab at this. I was starting after supper and I was already tired. Then I wrote long into the wee hours when my mind was drifting and unfocused, and I really should have gone to bed.

To be sure this time I didn’t wait until I hit 25,000 words. Each morning I’d reread what I had written the day before. I liked it. In fact, it wasn’t half-bad. My writing had energy; I could begin to see, feel the characters; more ideas, more characters, more situations were leaping in. Each morning I couldn’t wait to start in again. I was excited.

Holy shit, maybe I’m a morning person.

For the next few weeks I solidified my schedule of getting up by 4 a.m. and writing by 4:30. I had found momentum. New characters were appearing. I was letting myself go, explore, surprise.

I should add here an important fact: I love writing. It is when I feel most like me, when I feel the drive and excitement of having my fingers desperately trying to keep up with my mind. Writing is when I feel most alive.

But a new conundrum developed: How do I maintain the same headspace as the day before? How can I pick up where I left off and keep the same tone and energy and direction?

That was easy for me when I worked on newspapers. Write a new story each day. A long one might take a week to write. But something this long?

Certainly re-reading what I wrote the day before (a tip from writer-friend Stephen Kiernan) before writing helped, it was not quite enough. I had to find a better way.

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Next (January): How a cellist solved my conundrum.