Anxious People by Fredrick Backman Is Oh-So Depressing!

I do NOT recommend the book Anxious People by Fredrick Backman.  It is well-written, and there is a sort of dry wit, but is oh-so tremendously depressing.  The author portrays a series of miserable, hopeless lives and often purposely misleads the reader. Nothing so finely done as The Sixth Sense, where the twist at the end was plausible.  No, this is simply an unreliable narrator—well, does that imply it was intentional?  It’s obviously intentional.  Annoyingly so.

  But seriously, don’t read it.  One of the author’s more subtle tricks towards the end, if I understood it correctly (I listened to the audiobook and didn’t back it up), was to make you think for a moment that one woman had jumped off a bridge (a minor, surprising plot point).  The story was so depressing throughout that by that point, I almost found it a relief!  Needless to say, when I realized she hadn’t, I wasn't as glad as you’d expect, which struck me as dire.  But again, I’ll say that there is a snarky wit that keeps you listening/reading, and the author wraps things up tidily at the end--almost too neatly, as if the smidge of hope that the author is giving you is fake, just a nice, 'happy ending' for the book.  The connections between the characters’ pathetic lives unfold slowly, and that part is well done. If you do choose to listen to the audiobook, stick through to the end, at least, as the narrator will provide you with a hotline number for if you’re feeling suicidal.  You may need it.

Writing Tip #1: Finish a Novel Using Daily Word Counts

To write my very first rough draft ever, I used a 30-day novel-writing kit by the founder of NaNoWriMo (originally National November Writing Month).  It had inspirational cards, one a day, and a calendar to fill in with my progress. I loved it!  The most important part of this kit, however, was its emphasis on and support for keeping up daily word counts.  

It really isn't so impossible to write a novel in a month!  Less than 2000 words per day can bring you to a short-novel-length work. For an optimal word count of 70,000 to 80,000 words, however, a writer probably needs to extend well past the 30-day cycle. My daughter used the process effectively in a month-long break from school, keeping up her word counts, but her novel was not near to being done when her time ran out, and she never did get back to writing on it--not yet, anyhow (I keep hoping she will; she's incredibly gifted). Some authors may find it works to just stick to that 50,000-word initial draft length, making sure to wrap it up shortly after hitting the mark, and then go back to add descriptions and metaphors and senses later--all those things that draw in readers.  Sometimes you'll add extra scenes--and at other times you'll delete redundant sections. I can be extremely redundant, I've found!

The worst part is finding yourself rewriting, again and again, when you meant to merely be proofreading that final time.  Each time you go back to do a 'last proof', you think of a better way to say something, a new comparison, more succinct phrasing.  I went through a strange phase where I wanted to clarify everything, and so that was one massive rewrite, but then I went back through later, slashing it all, wondering how daft I thought my readers were!

I say that's 'the worst part', but really, I think my books improve in some way with each go-through.  The edits certainly take more time than the original drafts, so be prepared for that.  I've heard amazing authors say versions of the same thing time and again: "I'm not a very good writer, but I'm a great re-writer!"

Word counts help motivate me to continue my writing. That daily grind is essential to completing a novel and helps it to be cohesive. Print out a calendar and fill in a progress bar.  I even use little foil star stickers to help motivate me--a gold star means I've met my goal that day, but I get a star for any day I even meet half my word count!  After all, at that rate it's only 60 days to a short novel, right?

So there we go. The basics of my writing process in a single-blog nutshell!

Silk: Caroline's Story, My Debut Novel

'Caroline Corbett is ready for the 20^th century, excited to find work and meet new people, but she gets more than expected when a rough-hewn farmer and a small-town doctor both engage her affections. She must choose between the two, but in doing so she fails to consider the girl Jessie, a young sociopath riddled with jealousy. Before long astonishing and horrifying events are set into motion.'

I am both looking forward to and dreading the release of my debut novel, Silk: Caroline's Story on October 14th, 2021. It feels rather like the kids leaving home for the big, wide world--I'm relieved not to have to clean up after them anymore, but they're my babies! I wrote Silk the fastest of all my novels--and then proceeded to spend the greatest amount of time on it, revising, proofing, revising, adding, deleting, editing, and then revising some more in an endless cycle. I wanted to at least share the above blurb with you all here, as I haven't done nearly as much blogging about the novel or this process as I thought I would--though, in truth, I actually did share the initial writing process on a blog of yesteryear. I had been wrestling with some mysteries in my genealogical research, trying to piece together what might have happened. Initially I stuck with exact dates and tried to stay true to known facts--but by the time the novel was done, I realized I'd miscalculated. Some of the dates were off. Not that this was a huge deal, when main characters were already entirely made up. The story is mostly fiction, inspired from here, there, and everywhere--but it was initially inspired by the confusing web of my family tree.

 The whole trilogy is, in fact, based on genealogical research as its very base inspiration. It's so romanticized and fictionalized, however, as to be fairly unrecognizable (adding stories to get from point A to point B, just as much of historical fiction does). I originally wrote it with the real names of my ancestors and relatives, but most of those have since been changed.  Caroline's given name remained the same, however.  I did keep that much.   

Writing Jane Austen by Elizabeth Aston

Writing Jane Austen was a jaunt to modern-day London and Bath, where an Austen-hating writer who specializes in the Victorian era is saddled with the daunting task of completing a Jane Austen manuscript. 

The actual author of this entertaining novel has written several ‘Mr. Darcy’ spin-offs, which I suspect provided fodder for all the negativity towards Jane Austen that she convincingly spews—especially from the protagonist, Georgina.  Of course most of it came from ignorance, as Georgina eventually discovers, though her obstinate resistance to all-things-Austen disappears so suddenly that I wonder if the editor sliced out the transition. For Georgina to go to such lengths to avoid Jane Austen and then to hardly remark on her shift to Austen-worshipper left me bewildered.  Where was the chagrin?  Where was the surprise?  I liked the spin at the end, which salvaged a situation I couldn’t see being concluded satisfactorily, though I would have liked for it to be foreshadowed a bit more, perhaps. 

Having read Jane Austen’s novels long ago, I appreciated learning about the Jane Austen tours in Bath and a few details about her life. Sometimes, I’m afraid, unexpected characters seemed to randomly know far more than expected about Jane Austen, as if everyone were an authority on Jane Austen but Georgina. I could see where it fit in the conversation, but they seemed the wrong ones to tell it. However, despite my issues with this novel, the characters were colorful, and it was a fun, light-hearted read—while still managing to teach me a bit about the incomparable Jane Austen. Ms. Aston’s love for Jane Austen shines through, and that, along with the book’s charm, makes me willing to file her book right next to my Jane Austen collection on the bookshelf—which I suppose is exactly what the author intended with a pen name like Aston.

[Oh goodness, I just looked her up online to verify that it was actually a pen name, and it seems Elizabeth Edmonson (AKA Elizabeth Aston) passed away in 2016, only six years after the publication in 2010 of this delightful read for Jane Austen fans. RIP, Elizabeth.]   

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

 

Delia Owens’ debut novel draws you into the marsh and the swamplands with its lyrical, exquisite prose. The main character, Kya, is supposedly in the coastal marsh of North Carolina, but it seemed to me like we could have been right here in Southeast Georgia. The girl ends up living alone in the marsh, abandoned by her family, evading the truant officers. We follow her as she grows up. Her skittishness and sensitivity are endearing, and I cried for her a number of times. Owens even includes an epilogue filling us in on the rest of Kya’s life, which leaves one richly satisfied, as if all the loose ends were tied up that possibly could be. All that said, I’ll admit that I began the book four different times before I was able to stay focused. Not sure why…but I wanted to throw that out there to encourage other readers who might not have the urge to continue past the first chapter. It really is worth it.

Three Sisters, Three Queens by Philippa Gregory

Three Sisters, Three Queens starts off in the sour tongue of a petty, jealous Margaret Tudor, eldest sister of the notorious King Henry VIII.  I kept expecting the point-of-view character to change to one of the other queens in the title, but it remained in the voice of Margaret Tudor. I'm a big fan of Philippa Gregory, but I kept wondering, "Why would she choose to write about someone she obviously doesn't like?"  I assume she was trying to show her writing chops, not only illustrating a character's progression and improvement but demonstrating her own flexibility in writing from a different perspective. By the end of the book, thank goodness, I began to like Margaret more.  I'm not sure I've ever had that experience of not liking the protagonist of a Philippa Gregory book, and that's saying something, as I even liked the delusional zealot Margaret Beaufort (this Margaret Tudor's grandmother) in The Red Queen (which actually might be my favorite Philippa Gregory book of all!). 

[Spoiler Alert. You may want to stop reading here!]

Margaret Tudor became a queen when she married King James IV of Scotland, who died at the Battle of Flodden when his son James was still a toddler. Gregory then goes along with the rumors of the day in assuming it's a romantic match when Margaret remarries to Archibald Douglas, 6th earl of Angus, but given how he treated her and his obvious power-grabs, I question whether she had much say (much as I'm convinced Mary Queen of Scots was strong-armed into marrying the earl of Bothwell).  Margaret's story is quite long and convoluted, but after following her through so many difficulties, you're as happy as she is when things finally work out well for her in the end.  She finally has a good husband in Henry Stewart, 1st Lord Methven, and her son's on the throne.  Meanwhile, her sister Mary is dying, and her sister-in-law Katherine of Aragon has had her crown stripped from her and is spurned by her husband.  We're happy for Margaret and relieved she isn't overtly gloating!  

While I enjoyed the end of the book, and of course I liked her rich descriptions of court life, I also had issues with Margaret's inexplicable inconsistencies.  I suppose Philippa Gregory was going with 'less is more' and thought it obvious enough that Margaret was being disingenuous or fickle with her communications towards her sisters, but I really needed her to give me Margaret's motive, to clue me in if she was being falsely warm in her letters, or if she'd gotten the angst out of her beforehand and then felt a flood of real affection when she was actually writing.  It was hard to tell. I listened to the audiobook version read by Bianca Amato, and she read the letters as if they were sincere, which added to my confusion.  I suppose it's possible that Philippa Gregory meant for us to read them in a wry tone, so maybe I wouldn't have been as confused if I'd simply read the book.  It wasn't just with the letters, though. Margaret flip-flopped somewhat whimsically in her affections and opinions so much mid-book that I was feeling quite grumpy about it all!  Perhaps Philippa Gregory was simply trying to depict the course of events and allowing her to be a 'flawed character', but even flawed characters have reasons for what they're doing, why they're changing. I'd have like to have heard Margaret's thoughts in those shift periods a bit more.

All that said, if you make it all the way through the novel, you may find yourself like me, inexplicably pleased with the scale of the work--and with Margaret's improvement.  I'm assuming it was improvement, and not merely that she wasn't as jealous once she was doing better than the others... 

Records Research on Our Old House

My husband and I spent the afternoon a couple of weeks ago at the Kingstree courthouse, looking up the history of our South Carolina property.  We had to make an appointment and were shown into a room with vault-like doors, really impressive!  There we were allowed to handle massive, beautifully-bound deed books--or should I say tomes--some of which were over a century old. They had the thickest, most durable paper.

In the course of things, I happened to see several of my ancestors in the deed indexes, and so I do think we will be returning, hopefully soon.  Honestly, I could fall into this wormhole for quite some time.  I've collected family stories and have done online and library research, but I've never researched my genealogical records via land records and such, not directly (though I've gathered a very few in family folders at historical societies). I tried once, but I was confused with no help, whereas the clerk gave us a tour of the basics this time. 

Nonetheless, it takes me a while to learn!  I was bemoaning to my husband how the lawyers had apparently signed for people, as again and again in the deed books, I could tell that the signatures were in the same hand as the handwritten deed records (in the days before typewriters, of course!), with that handwriting changing from deed to deed.  He laughed and pointed out, "Honey, I don't think those were the originals. They just copied the deeds into the official records. The owners kept the original deeds."  Um, right! I felt so silly!  There were also no photocopy machines in those days...