Beautiful Things
Some thoughts upon finishing my latest manuscript
A primary part of my self, my personality, my essence is noticing. I notice the hawk in the tree as I drive down the highway. I notice interesting and pleasing color combinations. I notice the repetitive sound. I notice patterns and inconsistencies, symmetry and asymmetry. I notice weeds and dust and the grime where too many fingers have touched white door. I notice those small moments on a person’s face between when they hear something and when they decide what kind of reaction they should have to what they’ve just heard.
I notice details. And I delight in those details. Usually.
The other side of the coin of delight is perhaps discontent. When you notice details that aren’t working for you—a design imbalance, a missing final touch, missed opportunities to make something better—it can drive you a little crazy if you let it, and there are times you have to deliberately decide that good enough is truly good enough. If you can’t let go, you become a miserable perfectionist and drive everyone else a little nuts.
And anyway, disarray and disorder can be beautiful. Wildness and domesticity can coexist, and even things that look haphazard are usually, upon closer inspection, very purposefully and remarkably designed. This should not surprise us.
There is no season that is not a good backdrop for noticing. Spring is a given, as we search for signs of life peeking out of mud and branches. Summer may overwhelm us with input for our senses—everywhere, everywhere is everything. Fall is a favorite time for noticing the changing colors in the trees—but do you notice how the quality of the clear blue sky or the warm gray cloud has also changed now that the leaves against it are not green but yellow and orange and rust and red? I believe most people have trouble with winter—so stark, so cold, so miserable for so many—but it is one of the best times to notice because there are so few distractions.
Part and parcel with the skill of noticing is appreciation. When you take a moment to notice the smell, the heat, the steam from your morning cup of coffee or afternoon tea, you appreciate more of the experience than just the taste. If you take a moment to notice the slant of light and the shadows it makes in your kitchen or your office, you’ll appreciate your surroundings just a little more. When you look really closely at a flower or an insect or a stone or a leaf, you’ll appreciate the intricacies of its loving design.
I don’t know who I would be if I didn’t notice things, and I am continually surprised when others don’t notice the things that seem to me to be very obvious. But as I get older, I am coming to realize that this interest in delighting in the details is both a gift and a skill that can be honed. In our age of staring slack-jawed at screens for much of the day, it is likely a skill that is becoming rarer.
And when you stop noticing the beautiful things in life—when you’re too rushed by your schedule, too incensed by the news, too focused on yourself or your phone to see past either of them—life gets less beautiful.
The writing process is filled with noticing.
You notice salient details during your research. You notice holes in your knowledge you must fill. You notice the flow (or lack of flow) in a sentence. You notice how this spot drags a little, or that conversation is too short. You notice a better way to say that. You notice you’ve already used this word too many times. You notice how each thread of the story must pull together, which ideas have grown into important themes, which character needs more growth or more screen time.
Research, drafting, revision, and editing cannot be done without a highly tuned sense of what works and what doesn’t. And if you don’t notice those sorts of things on your own, you have to employ someone who does to do your noticing for you.
But beyond the actual act of writing, there are other things to notice. The way it feels when you have a breakthrough idea. The way it feels when it’s all coming together. The way you feel when you know in your gut this is going to be good.
And when you type those lovely six letters that spell out THE END, you notice that you have followed through on your intention. You have taken an idea that existed only in your head, as a series of firing synapses, and, through the fine motor skill of typing, you have pushed that idea from your brain, through your fingers, and onto the page as a series of black marks on a white field.
More than that, you’ve created a map so that you can lead other people—many you don’t know and will never meet—down the trail you’ve marked to all of the hard and beautiful things that you’ve noticed. So they can experience them too.
Reader, if you’ve stuck with me to this point, I want to tell you something that’s really exciting to me. Last night, I finished the first draft of my next novel. About two-thirds of it is in really good shape, with tight prose I have worked over multiple times to get just right. About the last third of it will need some of that treatment before I’m ready to hand the manuscript over to my agent.
It’s called Exiles.
It is the true story of five real people—some of whom you’ve undoubtedly heard of if you paid attention in English class—who got together in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1816, the Year without a Summer. Bored by the monotony of being stuck inside during night after night of bad weather, these five people participated in a contest to see who could write the best ghost story.
It just so happens that the latest adaption of one of the stories written as a result of this contest is currently in theaters.
I am betting you can figure out what story I’m talking about.
But I’m also willing to bet that most of you don’t know the full story of that summer, of the friendships forged and tested, of how their story together ended, of how the lifestyles and philosophies these five people had devastating consequences in their own lives—and even influence current views about love, life, death, and humanity.
Exiles explores all of this and more.
Strict historical fiction tied completely to real people and events is a bit of a departure for me. You can’t make these characters do what you want them to do. You can’t force in themes or lessons that are not in some way inherently there in the historical record or the contents of their own writing.
Someone at a recent writing retreat, upon hearing about this book, asked me if I could estimate how much of the book would be factual versus totally made up. I don’t have the math skills to figure that out, but I could say with confidence that almost everything that happens in this book really happened in real life. In both narrative and dialogue, there are many direct quotes (or nearly direct) drawn from the letters, journals, poems, and prose these people left behind. And whatever I developed to fill in the gaps and tie things together is in keeping with the record of history, the personalities and speech patterns of the characters, and the spirit of their lives.
I’ve put a tremendous amount of work into “getting it right”—my reading of printed books alone ballooned to more than 6,000 pages, to say nothing of online research, audio books, and documentaries. And I’ve put just as much work into making it feel right. I’m already proud of what I have accomplished in finishing this draft, and I cannot wait to fine tune each sentence until it sings.
Because details matter to me. Doing a story justice, whether it is true or made up or some combination of the two, matters to me. Delivering my best to my readers matters to me.
Because readers notice. They can tell when a writer has put everything she had into a book, and they can tell when she cheated. Dear Reader, I will never cheat you. I will never hold back my best work. I will always and forever serve the story, wherever it leads, because that best serves the reader.
You’ll be hearing more about Exiles in the coming months. For now, I will leave you with a bit of poetry from one of the story’s principle characters:
“Tis strange,—but true; for truth is always strange;
Stranger than fiction: if it could be told,
How much would novels gain by the exchange!
How differently the world would men behold!”
—from Don Juan by Lord Byron
I'm hooked! So totally hooked! That night has held an interest to me from the first time I'd heard about it. But, now I have to wait until 2027? Torture!
"... you have to employ someone who does to do your noticing for you." That's one reason I ended up doing copy editing and proofreading: I'm better at fixing the writing of others than writing myself. My mother did some writing and taught creative writing in junior high, while I taught English for many years in high school and middle school.
For two years, I taught creative writing, but I burned out. Reading compositions from twenty-eight students for each assignment, even short ones, took hours. I enjoyed teaching grammar at both levels so much more.
Thank you for the stories with which you have enriched my life. I'm starting your short story collection this Sunday. Spartan football and basketball will take up time over the next few days.
This is how I feel about painting and what draws me into certain pieces of art. And why I always appreciate who help me notice better. And yay for your next novel—can’t wait.