The art of writing

They say write what you know and no one can know Charlotte better than me, because it is me!

My very first draft of the first chapter I hand wrote in a spiral notebook. Almost nothing from what I wrote in that notebook made it into the final draft, but it was very good therapy for me. I guess you could say I exercised my demons from the past. I got out all the childish feelings and hurts that I had apparently harbored inside me for almost 25 years.

When I wrote it all out and sat it aside for a day or two, I read back over it. I was struck with how absolutely silly it was. I decided then to grow up and get over it. I focused on the facts and scratched out the petty emotional whining.

Then I got down to the business of writing a story. An interesting phenomenon about writing that I discovered is how sometimes the subconscious writes for you. (I'd prefer to think of it as a guiding spirit or some other ethereal being channeling through me.)

I did write out an outline to some extent. I knew some scenes ahead of time that I wanted to write about. I laid out an Act I, Act II, and Act III of sorts. But when it came to the individual words flowing from my fingers, the words revealed themselves to me in surprising ways.

For instance, I was surprised at Charlotte's bubbly spirit in the beginning. I don't know why I was surprised, really, because that was me back in those days. I was naïve and carefree, just living from day to day not concerned about too far into the future. That free-flowing spirit came back to me in the process of writing, and I was reminded of who I once was.

For the first few weeks of writing, I was absolutely giddy with the discoveries I was making. Unfortunately, I was unable to really talk about it with anyone without spoiling the book for them. I wanted to talk about what a romantic Charlotte was. She had such an idealistic view of the world, especially the past. She loved the nature all around her and because she lived surrounded by trees and small animals she was able to experience nature on a small scale.

Even though she was a carefree teenager, she did appreciate the small things. She did "stop and smell the roses" every chance she got. She observed the wind blowing through the trees and the stillness in the forest. She inhaled the air and admired the colors. She was very observant even when others thought she wasn't paying much attention.

Another unique aspect of the book is the time period for both the lives in which she lives. Charlotte's life starts in 1988-89. This was a time still untainted by cell phones and the internet. (I, however, could have never written this book without the use of the internet. Most especially, Amazon, where I ordered 38 printed books and 47 digital books. More on that topic later.)

I feel like an old foggy when I tell my kids now, "Back in my day we couldn't just text one another constantly and know what was going on with them every single second." It was refreshing, for me at least, to constrain myself to a time when we couldn't just reach for our smartphone and look something up (although I would die without that connection today.) If we got lost in the woods, we had to use the direction of the sun, telephone wires running overhead, or landmarks to find our way home. And sometimes, we got lost. My brothers and a friend of theirs rode their bikes through the trails and came out onto the highway. They asked a man how far it was back to Paragould and he said 12 miles. I think one of them started crying because to them that was a long way on a bike. But in actuality, it wasn't that far because our house was on the edge of the city limit and it was probably no more that 3 miles for them to get back. They made it back somehow without calling mom to come pick them up. And I can't imagine that my mother wasn't at all concerned that she didn't know where they were and hadn't seen them outside for awhile. She must have had a lot of trust that we would show up at home come supper time. There are many more stories like that that I could tell, but I'll save them for later. Today, my kids have to call me from their cell phones at regular intervals to let me know where they are and that they are okay. And if they don't check in on time, I call them.

After I wrote the bulk of the book, I went back over it to fine tune it and edit it. I was reading along and really getting into the story, when I took a step back and said, "This is really good stuff. Who wrote this, oh, I did!" There are some parts to the book that I honestly have no memory of actually writing. I must have really been in the zone. When I read back over it, I couldn't recall having written a certain part or using a particular word. Like I said, it was like spirit channeling.

I smiled as I read each of the individual character's personalities coming out through the story. Some of the characters are based on actual people, especially members of my family. But then others are a combination of people I knew. I couldn't include everyone I knew and interacted with back then. It would be too many for the reader to have to keep up with. I narrowed the characters down to a minimum so the story could be told instead of bogging it down with character analysis. Many names are mentioned as incidental characters and include names of my nieces, nephews, and cousins so they will be immortalized in the book.

Even though I have a master's degree and have written many professional papers, I have never had the opportunity to write prose. I had to really teach myself to be more poetic and descriptive. I was able to write the basic scenes then as I went back over each chapter I added in a sentence or two to elaborate the beauty or the feelings involved. I was amazed at how just a few more words here and there really bolstered the eloquence of the writing.

I have become sort of a reader snob now as well. I deliberately read other books on Kindle to get a feel for how others were writing. I came across several books that I just could not get past the first page or, at most, the first chapter because the subject verb agreements didn't line up or they constantly switched from past to present tense. I'm not an English major; I am a Biology major with a Chemistry minor. My master's degree is in Educational Leadership. So, although I am still a newbie when it comes to writing fiction and prose, I must have enough writing skill to get my thoughts across through words and be able to write clearly enough that others can understand my message. Even though those writers might have had a good story, it was painful to try to read when I was constantly having to make corrections in my head over their English grammar mistakes.

I'll admit, my writing isn't perfect. I may not put all the commas in the right places. But, I hope I have done well enough that any minor mistakes I made won't get in the way of the overall story.

All in all, I fell in love with the act of writing. I have a memory of when I was around the age of six. I went to the half bathroom that was in my parents' bedroom. While in that bathroom, I must have been chatting away at myself. I distinctly remember saying to myself, "I love talking. I could just talk all the time." I was a chatty Cathy for a long time before I learned to keep silent and listen to what others have to say. Now, I'm in love with writing just for the sake of writing. If no one ever reads this, then, well...I've enjoyed myself anyway. Although, I sincerely hope that at least a few people read my writing.  Whether or not they appreciate it, that's okay with me too.