What is the date you began writing this piece of fiction and the date when you completely finished the piece of fiction? I began writing “Tending the Elephant” in September 2020, and I finished it by November 2020.
Where did you do most of your writing for this fiction work? And please describe in detail. And can you please include a photo? We’ve moved since I wrote that story, but I wrote most of it at my kitchen table. Before I drafted it, I remember driving in my neighborhood and seeing an image in my mind of two people washing an elephant, one on either side. It was a strong and vivid image, and I held onto it until I could get it down in writing. So it was partially written (in my mind!) in the car, as well.
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? My writing habits are the same now as they were then: I write in the early mornings, before my husband and kids wake up. I write on my laptop and always with a cup of coffee. I have a ritual of checking email, Twitter, etc. while the coffee is brewing and then getting to the writing after a couple of sips. I don’t write to music! I like silence. I read aloud a lot as I get closer to the final draft, so I want to hear everything. I should also say that I don’t write every day. Some days I can’t. I don’t beat myself up about it, but I try to get that time in most days. When I am actively working on a project, I am much more consistent.
Please include just one excerpt and include page numbers as reference. This one excerpt can be as short or as long as you prefer.
On the other side, she hears the clanking of the handle against the pail, the shaking of the ladder.
“The big girl is so dusty today!” he says. She can tell he’s about the height where she is, on the other side of 30,000 pounds of flesh. She lays her palm flat on the elephant skin.
“Yes! I know!” she says. “I’ve been here since sunup.”
“Late night for me. I’ve had a long day already.” He sings, he whistles.
She’s never seen his face, but she imagines it. “This new soap smells so good,” she says. “Like a bath.”
“Oh, yeah. You know she’s loving this.”
She gets back to washing. Cirrus clouds morph to cumulus. She’ll have to go soon. She smells popcorn, hears a laugh track in a movie somewhere.
She wants to wash around the elephant’s eye before she gets to the legs and feet. No matter how much of a rush she’s in, the eye is important. There are flies, and what’s good about the lavender soap is that it repels them. She uses a cotton swab to apply a thin line just below the eye. You can’t be too careful. The eye’s orange orb is huge and still. She sees her white t-shirt in the reflection.
“I’m so glad we do this together,” he says. “It helps me.”
The elephant’s eye shifts toward the sound of his voice.
“Me, too,” she says. She kisses the bumpy skin of her eyelid.
Her husband’s coffee wafts over on a cloud of air.
“I need to go.”
“I understand,” he says.
She tends to the elephant’s legs and feet. In between toes. The bottom of his ladder is on the other side, just there, next to his giant pail like hers. It could be days before she’s with him again.
From The Clarity of Hunger, pp. 13-14
Click to order The Clarity of Hunger, which features the short story “Tending the Elephant” from Amazon
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? I wrote this during the pandemic, a period of extended isolation. So much focus was on lack of touch. It was also a time of strange dreams, both in sleep and in waking life. I wanted to capture the emotion of longing, which was so keen at the time for so many, and the full awareness of what might never be. These two characters are in love at a distance. My heart felt very open when I wrote this scene. In editing, I carved into it as an object. It’s a different mindset altogether.
Click to read “Tending the Elephant” in its entirety, published by Hayden’s Ferry Review.
http://haydensferryreview.com/cheryl-pappas-tending-the-elephant
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 don’t have tracked changes or marked-up versions as a reference, only earlier drafts. I looked up the first draft, and I found these notes to myself about it at the top:
ferris wheel
strange feeling of being new, out of time
slow hum of desire trickling through
One change in the excerpt from draft to final was the deletion of the line “She’s just cleaning an elephant” at the end of the paragraph about washing the eye. It was my way of showing the woman’s denial (of tending the “elephant in the room”), but in the end it came off as too obvious and intruded on the tone I’d set for the scene. The other change was that in the first draft, I’d ended the story abruptly after the line “The bottom of his ladder is on the other side, just there, next to his giant pail like hers.” But I had notes at the bottom that read:
“She writes in soap, “please see me.” She hugs the elephant (better!!). When she gets to the bottom, she takes the hose and washes down the letters. First “see” so it says “Please me” then “please” so it said “me.”
[Word through flesh]
I never ended up using any of that; it was just me experimenting with the concept. How wonderful to revisit my first draft—thank you so much for asking me these questions. It remains one of my favorite stories I’ve written.
Click on the below link to visit Cheryl Pappas’s website.https://www.cherylpappas.net/
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