WHAT?
I write realistic fiction. Sometimes my books are filed under “mystery” or “thriller,” but when I’m writing, I’m thinking about the people involved—usually families at a point of crisis. My own term for this is “family drama.” I write about the ways that humans get tangled up in situations or secrets and then try to untangle themselves.
These days, I’m gearing up for the publication of my third novel The Drowning Girls (MIRA, April 2016), which is about a family that grasps at a chance for a better life and sees things begin to go horribly wrong. I’m also finishing my teaching semester at the University of California, Merced, and chugging away on the first draft of my next novel. I sat down a few days ago and realized that my calendar was full, and that life was crazy and good.
Right now I’m trying to remember to slow down when I can and come up for air.
WHY?
When I’m not writing, I’m teaching—that’s my other life. I see myself in so many of my students. They’re eighteen, nineteen years old and they’re just starting out; they have, in a very real way, their whole lives in front of them. Sometimes I wish I could take them by the shoulders and give them a shake—a gentle one—and tell them to stop being so practical. Oh, sure, they’re smart and focused, and this is not necessarily advice they’re willing to hear. It’s hard to read articles about the best careers and “jobs in demand” and not take practical considerations to heart. Still, creativity is more important than ever in just about every field, and I don’t think that’s a message that comes across in the classroom as much as it should.
I grew up hearing that I had writing talent, but I didn’t understand that writing was something to value or consider as an actual career—it seemed like a potential bullet point on my resume, but not the objective itself, as if what I had to say and how I could say it were not as important as the speed at which I could say it. Basically, I didn’t know that I could go for it, or how to begin. I lacked that confidence until I was in my early thirties, and in many ways the discipline I have now when it comes to writing is my way of making up for that lost time.
HOW?
I’ve long considered observing other humans to be my sport. When I begin to write, it’s usually just with a line of dialogue or a glimpse of a character from some oddity that has lodged in my brain. As I get going, I write and write and write, imagining a backstory and a present story and a next story for this person. I want to make this character seem as real as possible, as if I’m translating real life into fiction. This isn’t the most efficient way to write a story, but I’ve learned that this is simply my process. I’m not a particularly fast writer, and the longer I can let these characters rattle around in my brain, the better the story will be.
A year ago at this time, I’d submitted the rough draft for The Drowning Girls and I was deliberately not checking my email on a regular basis because I was afraid to hear back from my editor. (She’s great; the problem was with the manuscript.) I had devoted a crazy amount of hours to that book, but many of those hours had been spent picking at tiny threads. I couldn’t see the big picture or understand how it was all going to come together.
Then, a month before my second draft deadline, I had an epiphany: the book had two narrators. Once I saw that, I couldn’t unsee it. I had to rework the timing of every event in the book and even the ending. In other words, I had a month to rewrite the entire book, and coincidentally, this was the month in which I started a new teaching position.
There’s not really a moral to this story. I wasn’t reaping the punishment of procrastination; I was simply learning something about myself as a writer. What I learned is that writing is damn hard work. Somehow, my first two novels hadn’t prepared me for the challenges of this third one—but now that I can look back on it from a safe remove, with the sleepless nights and clumps of hair in my drain only a faint memory—I can see that this was simply the way the story came to me, and that was the best way I could tell it.
I won’t presume to speak for all writers, but I think this is true for most of us. There’s a bit of suffering that has to happen, and when it does, the writing is all the better for it.
Paula Treick DeBoard holds an MFA from the University of Southern Maine and divides her time between writing and teaching. Her novels include The Drowning Girls (2016), which was selected by Target as part of its Emerging Authors program, The Fragile World (2014) and The Mourning Hours (2013), soon-to-be re-released in a mass market paperback format. Professionally, she is a member of PEN America, the Association of Writers and Writing Programs, and the Women Fiction Writers Association. She joined the Merritt Writing Program at UC Merced in 2015, and lives in Modesto with her husband Will, two small dogs with surprisingly vicious barks, and the world’s least patient cat.
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