Name of fiction work? And were there other names you considered that you would like to share with us? The title is The Lines Between Us: A Novel. I considered titles referring to the fact that the historical part of the novel takes place in the seventeenth century, during Spain’s Golden Age. Perhaps, The Golden Thread, could also offer the image of a connection to the contemporary character in the story. When I hit on The Lines Between Us, though, I knew that was it. It could refer to the barriers we put between ourselves, since family secrets are a major theme of the novel. It can also be the lines of the diaries and letters in the novel. After the book came out, a reader said that it made her think of the lines of generations that connect us. I loved that!
What is the date you began writing this piece of fiction and the date when you completely finished the piece of fiction? This answer is a bit embarrassing! I started in the mid 1990s, even having quit my job in hospital administration to give me time. After intermittently working on the manuscript for a few years, I lost heart and got my certificate to teach English as a Second Language. I taught ESL to adults until 2013, when I retired. The next year I got out my old files, read over what I had done, and decided it was worth continuing. From that point, it took me three more years to complete, including time spent making the changes suggested by my developmental editor.
Where did you do most of your writing for this fiction work? And please describe in detail. And can you please include a photo? I worked at a u-shaped table set up in our family room. The room is rather large, with the television at one end, a sectional sofa across from it, and my writing table behind the sofa. It’s a large table, so I could really spread out if I needed to. There are bookcases along one side of the room, and filing cabinets in the back, so everything was easy to get to.
What were your writing habits while writing this work- did you drink something as you wrote, listen to music, write in pen and paper, directly on laptop; specific time of day? When I first started the novel, I wrote with a two lovely Cross fountain pens, using various colors of ink. I then transcribed the pages onto the computer. When I returned to the novel in 2014, I just wrote on the computer. I mostly write in the afternoons, though I don’t maintain a strict schedule. Unlike many writers, I find music distracting. I usually have some iced tea on the desk, even in the winter.
Please include just one excerpt and include page numbers as reference. This one excerpt can be as short or as long as you prefer. This scene takes place when Rachel, the contemporary character of the dual timeline novel, is cleaning out her deceased mother’s home. In the next chapter she will find papers that her mother had hidden away.
I wrapped up some dishes to give away, then started packing up the china that Helen had from her grandmother. I would keep that. I’d always thought it was pretty, but she wouldn’t use it very often, afraid that something would break and she’d leave me an incomplete set. I pictured her holding up the large, box-shaped sugar bowl, explaining that these had been customary when her grandmother was young. Wrapping each piece of china, I wished that she had used it more often, instilling it with memories. As I reached for the final piece, I lost my balance and knocked the creamer to the floor. Only pieces, after all those years of self-denial. I stared at them a moment, then got the broom and swept them up.
I shifted to the baking cupboard. Cookie sheets and cake pans wouldn’t be so vulnerable to a shaking hand. Most of these I would give away. I reached into the dark recesses of the cabinet and pulled out an old, chipped measuring cup. I could see my mother standing at the table, precisely measuring out the ingredients she would need for her current project. She never stinted on the ingredients, but neither did she put in any extra. Every week, Helen would bake something for us and present it like a gift. I didn’t bake for my family. Gabe had asked me once why I didn’t. “I don’t need to,” I’d said. “Grandma always bakes for us.”
I walked over to the window above the sink and held the cup up to the streaming light, making out the faded red markings. I turned away and leaned against the sink, and as I clutched the cup, I slowly slid onto the floor. My
eyes stopped focusing. I ran my fingers over the raised lines of measurement and let the loneliness swallow me, crushing me into someone new, someone with no sheltering generation to protect me from life’s hardness. I was the
front line, and I knew myself unequal to the task.
I felt my wet blouse. My mind hinted that it was milk that had leaked from my breasts. I felt the ache in them, and the longing to relieve the pain by taking my baby to my breast. But I wasn’t nursing, only pregnant. It wasn’t mother’s milk at all.
pp. 155-156
Why is this excerpt so emotional for you as a writer to write? And can you describe your own emotional experience of writing this specific excerpt? In this section, I drew on real objects from my life. My own mother had that sugar bowl, though I didn’t break it. She had that measuring cup, and did always bake for us. When I first sketched out this scene it was before my mother had passed away, but I did revisions after she had died. Like my character Rachel, I was remembering my mother, now gone, through something she had touched and used to make gifts of love.
Were there any deletions from this excerpt that you can share with us? And can you please include a photo of your marked up rough drafts of this excerpt. I didn’t really keep the former versions, but as I recall there weren’t major deletions from this excerpt.
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