For this week's Poetry Friday I thought it might be interesting to go back to the first poem in HUGGING THE ROCK and see if I could trace it from idea to finished poem. So here you have it from raw idea to what you can read on the first page when the book comes out. I didn't journal much as I wrote this book so there aren't a ton of notes. Some, but not a lot.
Summer of 2002
What's the point of this book? Mom leaves. Okay. So what. Big frigging deal if Mom is such a creep to start with. She can't be a total creep. Who wants read a book about a kid who misses a rotten Mom? I need to go back to basics. Start with the day that is different.
(This first bit - below - was originally written in the margins of an agenda for a meeting I was attending. The words wrapped around the border of the typed part of the agenda. I would have turned it over to write on the blank back but then it would have been too obvious that I wasn't paying full attention. The writing is big and loopy, the kind I used back in high school, which means I was definitely "in the zone." I was still thinking prose novel at this point, not verse.)
Don't go. When my mom decided to run away from home she packed up her car with all the little things that mattered most and when she was done there was no room left for Travis her dog or my dad or me.
November 2002
From an email to a friend.
Prepare to be whined at. I have no idea what I am doing with this book and why I am crazy enough to want to write about divorce because mine still hurts too damn much. Don't worry, I AM happy NOW but when I think about writing this story it means dealing with all that old crap all over again and I don't know if I can handle that and all the other junk that is going on in my life too. My body hurts too much. I am physical pain and then I come up with the frigging brilliant (insert sarcasm here) idea to go back to the worst emotional pain in my life? I must be crazy. I need drugs. That's it. Medicate me and then maybe I can handle it.
From email to a different friend.
I just wanted to say thank you. A few months ago you recommended that I try working in poems for the short bursts of time I have for my own creativity. I wanted to tell you that it is working pretty well. I wish I had more time but I can see progress and that's what counts. I have tried to write this MG novel 5/6 times before without much luck. So I'm trying it in free verse. I can rough one out (or at least the idea of it) during downtime at work. In bed, just before going to sleep, I'll work on it a little more by hand in my notebook and then the next time I have computer time, I type it in and revise a bit more. The story is slowly unfolding, I'm getting something new down on paper, and it all feels good. So many thanks for the nudge at a time I needed it.
11/16/02
NO ROOM FOR LEFTOVERS
When Mama decided to run away from home
she packed up her car
with all the things that mattered most to her.
Her guitar (of course)
and cookbooks (good riddance)
all her CDs
her clothes
her shoes
and Grandma’s music box..
Just before she left
she threw in some dishes
and a plant from the front porch.
She put a bunch of plastic grocery bags
with who knows what in it
on the floor in the front seat.
When she finally started the car
there was no room left for anything else
and dad and I were leftovers in the driveway.
Okay, it's got a hint of a voice and idea but nothing really reaches out and grabs me except for the feeling of being leftover. The title doesn't work. Not yet. There might be too much information and I'm not sure at this point what I am going to do with it.
12/26/02
NO ROOM
When Mama decided to run away from home
she packed up her car
with all the things that mattered most to her.
By the time she was done
there was no room left for anything else.
No room left for dad.
And no room left for me.
I was hoping for impact with this shorter version. No such luck. Alas, there isn't enough specific detail to make you care enough to read anything else. And where the heck is the voice? And crud, does this character even have a name and if she does, do I need it here, at the beginning of the book? How long will a reader read without a name?
Email to a friend in February 2004.
This book still scares the hell out of me.
Reply from friend.
Good. Keep writing. The more you hurt the stronger the connection with the reading. Let yourself cry. You're safe now.
3/25/04
NO ROOM
When Mama decides to run away from home
she packs up her car
with all the things that matter most
to her.
Her guitar
and some books
all her CDs
her clothes
her shoes
the quilt from the bed she shares with Dad
and Grandma’s music box
that sits on the fireplace mantle.
At the last minute
she throws in some dishes
towels
and a potted red geranium that keeps guard on the front porch.
She jams plastic grocery bags filled with odds and ends
into the small spaces left in-between things
and ties a couple of suitcases onto the roof.
By the time she is done
there is no room left for anything else.
No room left for Dad.
And no room left for me.
Better. It is more specific and the ending leaves a specific image in the reader's mind which is what I wanted.
For the next year and a half, as I went through the various revisions for myself, my critique group, my old agent, my new agent and editor, this poem didn't change very much. A word here, a line break there. What follows here is the final version (I think - there might have been an odd change that I can't find in my emails) that will appear in the book (September 2006, Tricycle Press).
November 18 2005
No Room
When my mom decides to run away from home
she packs up her car
with all the things that matter most
to her.
Her guitar
and some books
all her CDs
her clothes
her shoes
Grandma’s music box from the fireplace mantle
and the quilt from the bed she shares with Dad.
She jams plastic grocery bags filled with soap and shampoo
into the small spaces left in between things
and ties a couple of suitcases to the roof.
At the last minute
she throws in a few dishes
some towels
and a potted red geranium that guards the front porch.
Dad tells her not to pack stuff too high
so she can still see out the back window
but she ignores him
and shoves her pillow
between her guitar case and the portable TV.
By the time she’s done
there’s no room left for anything else.
No room left for Dad.
And no room left for me.
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Things to Do
Quotes
"We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are. Sheep lice do not seem to share this longing, which is one reason why they write so little." Anne Lamott
"Love the writing, love the writing, love the writing...the rest will follow."Jane Yolen
"The whole thing is, you’ve got to make them care about somebody." Frank Capra
"As writers, we must be willing to feel our sadness, our anger, our terror, so we can reach in and find our sweet vulnerability that is just sitting there waiting for us to come back home." Nancy Slonim Aronie
"Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they're yours!" Richard Bach
"Yet somehow, we write; and most of the time, we like what we write. The dark place seems less dark when we get there. It was only the journey that was fearful." Susan Shaughnessy
"You must want to enough. Enough to take all the rejections, enough to pay the price of disappointment and discouragement while you are learning. Like any other artist you must learn your craft -- then you can add all the genius you like." Phyllis A. Whitney
"Writers write about what obsesses them. You draw those cards. I lost my mother when I was 14. My daughter died at the age of 6. I lost my faith as a Catholic. When I'm writing, the darkness is always there. I go where the pain is." Anne Rice
"I write in terror. I have to talk myself into bravery with every sentence, sometimes every syllable." Cynthia Ozick
"There have been societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories." Ursula K. LeGuin
"Your first job is to get your own story straight." Natalie Goldberg
"Only one thing is more frightening than speaking your truth. And that is not speaking." Naomi Wolf
"Few children learn to read books by themselves. Someone has to lure them into the wonderful world of the written word; someone has to show them the way." Orville Prescott
"A writer either speaks to adults and bores kids, or speaks to kids and upsets adults." Ursula K. LeGuin
"I'd always thought you had to be a special person to write. And then I realized you just have to start." Abigail Thomas
"You will recognize your own path when you come upon it, because you will suddenly have all the energy and imagination you will ever need." Jerry Gillies
"But they’re not telling the truth if they don’t teach, one, that writing is hard work, and, two, that you have to give up a great deal of life, your personal life, to be a writer." Doris Lessing
"A poet's autobiography is his poetry. Anything else is just a footnote."Yevgeny Yentushenko
"And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the
greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't
believe in magic will never find it." Roald Dahl
"I compose sometimes with a pen and notebook, sometimes on the computer; it makes no difference. If all I had was a chisel and a rock I would write on the rock." Ursula Le Guin
"If you want to write from a place of emotional integrity, it is important to learn everything you can about all kinds of emotions, including those that exist in you, that you wish didn't." Elizabeth Berg
"And this is the way a novel gets written, in ignorance, fear, sorrow, madness, and a kind of psychotic happiness as an incubator for the wonders being born." Jack Kerouac
"Successful writers are not the ones who write the best sentences. They are the ones who keep writing. They are the ones who discover what is most important and strangest and most pleasurable in themselves, and keep believing in the value of their work, despite the difficulties." Bonnie Friedman
Who am I?I was born on the Cancer/Leo cusp and share a birthday with Ernest Hemingway and Robin Williams. The similarities don't stop there as I can go from depressed to ecstatic without ever passing go. I feel scared most of the time though my friends call me brave and I find it easier to believe in my friends than to believe in my own abilities to make what I want out of my life.
Who am I? A wife, a mother, a daughter, and even, gulp, a grandmother.
Who am I? A writer who never gets tired of playing with words, even when the words are hard to find. A writer of books for children and articles for grown-ups and many things in-between.
Who am I? A motivational speaker, writing instructor, workshop leader and full-time follower of dreams.
Who am I? Read and find out.
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Comments
Such a long, hard process but so worth it! The final poem is pitch perfect!
Wow - that must have been amazing to see. And thank you.
*fidgets*
*relaxes*
I can relate to obsessive!