"Finished" My Book...

...And killed a darling

Hey, friends and readers!

Michael and I (and friends Charlene, Bill, Kathi, and David) are headed “down under,” to New Zealand, where perhaps we’ll be upside down for five weeks (so they said long ago). But, I’ve got an announcement and a little scene below.

I finished the “First Draft” of my new book!!!

The authors in this group will know how I’m feeling. It’s as if I’ve been under a rock for months and woke up on Valentine’s Day, not knowing where I am. With nearly every non-writing task ignored for weeks, and multiple lists of them to tackle, I’ve hardly done anything I “should have”, except, well, finish my draft!

Poetic License and The Butcher, the Embezzler, and the Fall Guy—both memoirs—took about a dozen years to write. This one took eighteen months!

I’ll be underscoring the key lessons I’ve learned in the coming year. But now, the next 6-12 months will be all about revision—which I love! In the meantime, while we’re off in NZ, a small group of early beta readers will give me their first impressions. With my first two books, I remember feeling both overwhelmed by the beta reader notes but also so very appreciative for the suggestions which included a fully new scene to open Poetic License and a fully different closing for The Butcher. Which reminds me of working with clients when I would interview two dozen people about a topic of importance to the CEO, and sometimes, feel like I was getting entirely conflicting views. But magic happened—and will with feedback on an early manuscript—within all the myriad comments and by taking some soak time to think about them, I can see/hear/feel the true story embedded in what seemed so overwhelming. Magic. So I’m no longer afraid of the input. I’m intrigued to see what my characters and I do with it.

But, the big deal about a messy first draft is that there I have the full plot arc and character arcs, there is a place (actually, several places), there is escalating tension and conflict, and there is a beginning and an end. Yippee! Woot Woot! Hallelujah! How lovely to head off to Los Angeles and then on to New Zealand while the MS wings its way to readers in Toronto, the other Portland, Marin, and Santa Fe. I love each of those places and the individuals who will be letting me know what they think!! [And to get my own break from it myself]

So, here’s a little gift:

This scene occurs fairly early in the book, told as flashback, and is one that isn’t needed. Nevertheless, it helped me understand this family’s dynamics and underlying wounds.

“Killing a Darling”

Wasn’t it Mary Karr from whom I learned this term for scenes or chapters or whole sections of a manuscript that just aren’t needed? But it was Mary Karr who came up with it. It was Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch in his 1916 lecture, “On Style.” Thank you, Sir Arthur!

We writers do love our darlings; we think they’re so special, but one great reason for beta readers is that they can tell us otherwise.

I loved writing this short holiday scene, imagining this family and they’re “dynamics”, but it’s really not needed in the chapter. So here you go, a sneak peek at this darling (I’ve not named my characters as they aren’t ready for prime time and remember this is a shitty first draft):

She thought of a Christmas when she and her twin sister were sixteen. All they’d asked for from their aunt was to call her by her first name. It didn’t seem like much.

After dinner, their father was in the kitchen preparing hot drinks—hot toddies for the grownups, and hot chocolate for the girls. They were hardly girls, even if he still referred to them that way.

Their relative looked at their mother, and said, “I’ve given them what they asked for. From now on, they will call me by my first name.”

The young woman’s mother looked at her sister in shock. “That’s disrespectful. And they’re only girls.”

Her sister rolled her eyes. “They are young women, now, as you well know and its fine with me.”

Their mother gazed at the twins, splayed out on slouchy reading chairs next to the fire in the downstairs living room, noses in used books their aunt had given them a few weeks before—The Little Red Book by Mao Tse-tung for Twin 1 and The Motorcycle Diaries, by Che Guevara, for Twin 2

Twin 1 side-eyed Twin 2, pretending not to listen to their mother or aunt.

“Wouldn’t you really prefer them to call you by your first name?” their aunt said.

“Of course not,” their mother stammered, her slim right leg crossed over her left. She looked like a classical painting as she sat on her rich burgundy brocade love seat. “And I know their father won’t have it.”

“Well, that’s for him to say.”

Their father returned to the living room with a tray full of drinks. “A little Christmas cheer before we open our gifts,” he said. Twin 1 and Twin 2 quickly pushed their new books under the comfy seats of their chairs, before he could see them.

“So what were you all talking about?” he said. “You sounded quite animated.”

“It was nothing, their mother said, looking at her sister.

“Just girl talk,” their aunt said.”

Their father looked at his daughters. “Are you going to say ‘nothing’ as well?”

“Less than nothing,” Twin 1 said.

“Minus nothing,” said Twin 2, slouched so far down in the chair her bottom was nearly off, then saluted, which, in the family lexicon, would tip him off that the thing to do right then was to ignore whatever the women had said.

Despite their parents’ disapproval, the twins called all three adults by their first names from then on. And they learned a critical lesson—that if it were needed in the future, their aunt could handle their parents.

Can you guess the year this scene took place? And the location? Let me know in the comments!

Queenstown, New Zealand • Photo by Ömer Faruk Bekdemir

G’Day Mates!

We’re off for our Kiwi Meander.

If you’re not already a friend on FB, you’ll see trip images here, FACEBOOK or INSTAGRAM or THREADS.

Hei konā mai – Goodbye for now, in Maori