Frozen on Ice and Letting Your Novel Boil
We went to Disney on Ice and maybe I fixed my manuscript
Hi pals.
Right now I write you from the car where Leora naps. She’ll still only nap in the car, when she’s home. Naps fine at preschool. If you were with my newsletters at the beginning, you will remember our Nap Struggles. Horrid times, and one reason I’m so glad she’s not a baby anymore. Now, at home, she’s fine without a nap most days, but she has a cold so I wanted her to have some extra rest. So I’m in the car, listening to a toddler snore, and writing a love letter to you. I hope it finds you well.
We went to Disney on ice this week, and it was every bit as magical as I’d hope it would be for her. I mean, the show was amazing — there were acrobatics! Ice skating donkeys! They lit the ice on fire!!! Leora wore an Elsa costume, complete with a long cape, which had to be held by her grandparents as we walked through the halls of TD Garden.
It was really the best. I’m not glad we had covid, but I’m glad we had covid *at the moment we did* so I didn’t hesitate when Paw Patrol Live and Elsa on Ice came to town, back-to-back weeks. Her face glowed with absolute light from within (and from the high-quality show lighting in TD Bank garden).
It was also worth the price of admission to see all of the little girls dressed like Elsa. Leora is usually the only one at the playground in full Frozen regalia.
New episode of Good Moms on Paper this week--where we talk about how to have a writing community/ friends in general when you have a toddler. I think really this should be a 10 part conversation, since only really scratched the surface of why this is so tough. For example, one of my best friends just called me--presumably to catch up, maybe to ask me for money IDK--but I’m in the car with a sleeping toddler so I can’t pick up. I haven’t talked to her since Christmas. And one of my other close friends was supposed to drive 5 hours to visit this weekend but after Leora started feeling sick, we decided to cancel. The second time we’ve cancelled this month. It’s always something.
Anyway, both the podcast and the newsletter are my efforts to be more connected to friends old and new. But I know it’s one-sided, so feel free to write me back with thoughts and updates of your own.
The big thing that happened for me this week is I made a major breakthrough on my novel—and we’re talking *major* breakthrough. I’ve been working on this novel now for a year and 6 weeks (but who is counting) and all of its elements just weren’t gelling together. I have a great setting, a cast of solid characters, two major events that serve as the engine for the plot— but I hadn’t figured out how those events and all the characters were connected. I knew I *want* them to be connected, but wanting isn’t good enough.
Writing this book for the past year has been much like watching a toddler do a wooden puzzle — okay that piece fits, cool I’m a genius, ok the next piece doesn’t fit, but why doesn’t that piece fit, mommy why doesn’t that piece fit, damnit I am going to put this whole f*ing puzzle in the trash now.
Ok, toddlers don’t swear like that. But when I’m writing, I do.
Most of the time Goodreads isn’t useful for writers, because it makes writers feel bad about themselves, but once in a while a review can help you understand your own writing process. A reviewer of Unlikely Animals said: “This book is like an episode of Chopped, where the contestant has to cook with tuna and chocolate, and you’re like: how the heck will those two things ever go together? And then, by the end, it does.”
With my new book, I already have my tuna and chocolate, but I’ve been struggling to make a coherent dish with both of them for a year now. But finally: I figured out what I needed to get rid of and what I needed to add — and just this week, the book is finally beginning to work, act I is done, and the rest of the plot is falling into place. Tuna and chocolate soufflé coming right up!
I’m thinking that maybe that is part of my writing process—I have a lot of ideas, but I can’t always figure out how they’re connected, and I have to let them boil together for a long time until I finally figure it out. And I have to watch the pot boil, and it’s painful as hell to watch something boil, that’s why there’s a whole expression about it.
I’m obviously speaking too soon to say I’m done with the most painful part of writing Novel 3, but also: somehow I do think I am. The beginning is always the worst part for me. I love to edit, and can edit for years without the agony of the early puzzling out the plot. And I think that painful boiling process takes about a full year, and maybe the sooner I accept that there will be a boiling year for every novel, the less frustrated I will be with the process.
Anyway, maybe this is helpful to someone… to know that sometimes things have to boil, and you have to sit with it, and just try your best to keep doing the work, and not look away.
Unlikely Animals is out in Paperback tomorrow!!: please buy a copy for a friend or come see me at Newtonville Books in Newton MA on March 1st, 7 pm, or White Birch Books in North Conway NH on March 2nd, 6pm. I also added an event in John Irving’s hometown, Exeter NH, and I hope to be adding more throughout the spring/summer. If I can drive to your bookstore from MA, invite me—I will come!
Still a few spots in our accountability workshops for March. Join for the writing community, stay for the work you get done! More info here.
Reading: Just started the new Rebecca Makkai on audio and will also likely buy a hardcopy at Newtonville Books on Monday. Recommend so far.
Alright, you be good. Or mostly good. I won’t tell.
Xx
Annie
For a special treat for paid members, I’ll be sending out a more detailed email later in the week about the boiling process and how I finally got unstuck. I originally made the Elsa cartoon just for paid members, but it’s so hard for me not to share my drawings with everyone. If you are a paid member and you’d ever like the drawing from the newsletter for your personal collection, let me know and I’ll gladly mail it to you. First come first serve, of course, I’m not made of endless cartoons. Okay, you’re right, I totally am.