Lifescapes

Writer At Work

Several readers have asked me, recently, to post something about my writing process--so here it is, for what it's worth.

As you can see from the photo, I'm a very messy writer. I wish I could be tidier, but I can't: I simply work best when I'm surrounded by resource materials, in stacks on the desk, on the floor, in my computer browser. (These days, more and more of my resource materials are online--true for everyone, I suspect.) When I finish a project and turn in a manuscript (an e-file, sent via email to the editor), I try to clean my office, reshelve the books, refile the papers, and get ready for the next project. And yes, that's Molly Maguire's butt under the desk. She spends the day there. Toro prefers to sleep in the hallway, where we can stumble over him more easily.

Currently, I'm working on a novel about Rose Wilder Lane, set between 1928-1939, when she was living in Missouri and working with her mother (Laura Ingalls Wilder) on the Little House books. I've been compiling background materials since 1991, when I visited the Herbert Hoover Library and copied Rose's journals and diaries for those years. (I have several of these long-held novel ideas--hoping to get to them over the next few years, before somebody else does!) RWL's diary is the primary source for the novel; as I've encountered secondary sources, I've added them to my collection. I'm plagued with the thought that I'll never know enough to start writing, but I have to make a start, so I have.

When I'm writing, I like to write every day: if I go away from the work, I forget what I was doing and have to do too much backtracking. I go to work as early as I can, after the morning chores (walking/feeding dogs, managing chickens, garden upkeep, laundry, life) and breakfast. I'm on the job usually by 10 a.m. I start with the new material from the day before, revising, adding, subtracting, multiplying. Then a lunch break (these days, I also take chicken breaks, to check on the health and welfare of the new flock).

Back to work after a quick lunch, usually producing new material until 4:30 on the dot, when the dogs come to tell me that they'll starve if I don't stop and do something about their supper. (I suspect them of carrying watches in their pockets, so they can inform me of the time.) And then of course, our supper, which is usually a one-dish skillet meal with a side or two. In the evenings, I read project-related material.

When I'm writing mysteries, I usually calendar 90 days for a book, planning to complete the book in about 70-75 days, depending on its complexity. (The "extra" days are for those necessities of life: shopping, doctor, dentist, short trips, etc.) I set a goal of about 1500 words a day. With the RWL novel, my word goal is 1000 words: it's much more complex and multi-layered; I'm working with many primary/secondary sources; and I have the sense that I'm writing for several different audiences, some of whom will be highly critical. I usually work straight through until I have about 50,000 words. Then I go back to the beginning, reading and redrafting the lot--and "coast" on that energy into the second half (roughly) of the book. At about 75,000 words, I go back to the beginning and redraft again, then "coast" through the end of the book.

Update, 1:45 Sunday: I just remembered something I wanted to add. I keep a simple log of my daily work, so that I have a record of what I've done on each project. This is just a little spiral memo notebook. Starting with #1, I number the days down the left side. I add the date (10.21) and the day Sunday and my total word count: 80,600. Tomorrow, it will be 10.22, Monday, 81,600--that's the plan, anyway. If I go to the library tomorrow (I have microfilm to work with there), I probably won't make that goal, so I'll jot down a note: Library 1-4, or whatever. I have a log for every book I've ever written. It helps me know where I am, where I've been, where I'm going--and when I'm likely to get there. Invaluable. 

Questions? I'll try to answer them in the comments.

Reading note. And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.~Sylvia Plath

Pecan Harvest!

It's pecan harvest time here at Meadow Knoll, and Bill has been busy--working hard to keep ahead of the squirrels. The trays in this photo contain nuts gathered from a single tree, and we have 20 bearing trees. They don't all produce as well as this one, but all together, it's a good year for pecans.

Bill grafted these trees, on native stock planted here and there by squirrels, floods, and other random acts of a kind and generous nature. He chose the natives for their sturdiness and location, and grafted them with scions (graftwood cut from the previous season's growth of a productive tree) of different cultivars: Choctaw, Desirable, Kiowa, Dobie. They usually bear in alternate years, but the drought confused them and they're out of sync.

Still, this year is a good year and there are plenty of nuts. Bill gathers them; we settle in front of the TV for a shucking party; and then he takes the nuts to a guy in Bertram who cracks/shells them for us. We store them in the freezer--they keep well until the next crop.

All of which means plenty of pecan pies, naturally, like this one I baked yesterday.



Bill's Absolute All-Time Favorite Pecan Pie

1 cup dark corn syrup (if you use light, use brown sugar)

3 eggs

1 cup sugar (brown sugar, if you have light corn syrup)

4 tablespoons butter, melted

3 tablespoons bourbon (rum, if you'd rather)

1-1/2 cups chopped pecans

1 (9-inch) unbaked pie shell

Mix ingredients in order listed. Pour into pie shell. Bake 10 minutes at 425 degrees, 40 minutes at 325. We like this warm, with ice cream.

Reading note, from Calvin Trillin, American Fried (a collection of his newspaper columns from the 1970s):

When it came to poetry, my father was not an absolutist. Pie was his favorite subject for a couplet, but every three or four weeks he would write about something else—perhaps a couplet like

"'Eat your food,' gently said Mom to little son Roddy.
'If you don't, I will break every bone in your body.'"

The next day he would be back to pies --

"Mrs. Trillin's pecan pie, so nutritious and delicious
Will make a wild man mild and a mild man vicious."