What is the date you began writing this piece of fiction and the date when you completely finished the piece of fiction? As much as I can figure, from looking back on my files, I started this novel in February of 2019, and I finished it in August of 2020. It was accepted by four different publishers in October of 2020, and then was released on January 4, 2021.
Where did you do most of your writing for this fiction work? And please describe in detail. And can you please include a photo? The majority of the book was written in my own office. (BELOW) This is on the third floor of my home. I write on an English teacher’s desk from the 1800’s, but I use a laptop. I like the combination of old with new. I am surrounded with paintings, all bright colors. One of my walls is floor to ceiling windows, and includes a door onto my 3rd floor deck. Behind me, I have a shelf with my published books.
Usually, at least part of my books are written when I am on retreat on the Oregon coast. This book was different. In 2019, I won a prize for a short story that included a week at a writing retreat house in Amish country. So I went there, and then I went to La Crosse, Wisconsin, one of my favorite spots, for a second week of retreat. I very much missed the ocean. In both places, I nested, and created my own space.
In 2020, I was supposed to go to Oregon on retreat to finish the book, but COVID hit, and so I stayed home.
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? I rarely write on pen and paper anymore; if I do, it’s just to jot down ideas. I write directly on the laptop. I’m an afternoon writer. I meet with clients in the morning, then write from about 1:00 to 5:00. At 5:00, I start in with evening clients and classes.
All of my books are written to a song chosen especially for it. For All Told, I listened every day to “Warning Sign”, by Coldplay (Click on Link Above). Interestingly, on the final draft, I switched the song to “A Thousand Years” by Christina Perri (Click on Link Below). I never switched songs before. I really don’t know what made me do it this time – I came across that song and it just felt so right for the book. Perri’s voice sounds like the Other Women’s voices, if they sang about Jack.
As for drinking – coffee, please.
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 is from Chapter 5, which is titled “When Abundance Isn’t”. It’s from pages 174 and 175, right after Sandy, one of the Other Women, has confessed to Jack that she knows all about his other affairs.
She remained silent while he finished dressing. Then she said, in the new voice she didn’t recognize, “Why were you with me at all, Jack?”
He looked at her, much the same way he did that first night together, when he held her hands, opened her arms, and told her how beautiful she was. His eyes ravished her then, and they ravished her now, slowly, from her head, to her toes, to her head, and then settled on her breasts. Sandy could feel his hands, even though they never moved from his sides, touching her, stroking her. Hefting her. She felt her own heaviness. “Because,” he said softly, “you were there.”
Like the mountain. She remembered hearing, as a kid, that George Mallory, who climbed Mount Everest, answered, “Because it’s there,” when he was asked why he wanted to conquer the mountain.
Sandy was a mountain. There was more of her to love.
But Jack left without another word. Her voice, her new voice, sunk into her depths, into the spaces where the Jack’s secrets hid. More cushion, she thought. Less pushin’.
In the bed, Sandy released a sigh of seven years. Seven years of being climbed. Mounted. Conquered. And now, left for another adventure.
Tears were new to Sandy. She cried.
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?
Well, to begin with, this part means a lot to me because I really struggled over this chapter. I kept writing and writing, and then I’d get to the end and realize I had no idea what was going on with Sandy. What her problem was.
Sandy, unlike the majority of the other Other Women, is a picture of self-confidence. She figured out what Jack was doing, she confronted him, he left, so what? It was driving me nuts.
It was while I was on one of the retreats I mentioned above that I realized it. Jack ate away at her confidence. Her voice, which started out firm and boisterous, shrank. She disappeared, because of Jack.
And this is partly important because, unlike the other women, she’s a good size. She’s based on one of my earlier books, a collection called Enlarged Hearts, where all the women are only called the Fat Girl. Sandy is a Fat Girl, and she relishes it. She has no body issues whatsoever. But by the end of the story…Jack made her disappear. He made her feel like she had no substance.
I cried when I realized where the story was going. When I realized what I wanted to say. And then I said it.
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. No, there were no deletions. And I can’t show any marked-up drafts, I’m afraid. I write directly on the laptop, and when I start a new draft, I write over the old one. So there’s nothing that shows all the changes I made.
Most of the INSIDE THE EMOTION OF FICTION links can be found at the very end of the below feature: http://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2021/03/stephenson-holts-arranged-marriage-is.html