Diane Chamberlain's Blog, page 32

“Humanity in Orange Shirts”

The best part of being a published author is being able to reach readers far and wide with my stories. Every once in a while, I’m reminded of exactly how far and wide, and it’s always an eye-opener. With their permission, I’d like to share with you some communication I’ve had recently with a not-your-typical-bookclub. Instead of describing this exchange to you, I’m simply going to copy an abridged version of it here.

I received the following email about a month ago from a remarkable woman named Vonnie:

I want to tell you how inspiring your book THE SECRET LIFE OF CEE CEE WILKES was to a very special group of women. I started a book club at the South Dakota Women’s Prison eight years ago. I am a retired teacher and an avid reader. I accept 12 women into my book club and we have four requirements:

1. Must finish the book

2. Must complete discussion sheet

3. Must attend and take part in book club discussion

4. Must listen to each person as they contribute to the discussion.

I always have a long waiting list waiting to get into the book club. They get to keep their book each time. Many people and organizations have contributed to this ministry (It has become that for me). I have also written several grants to buy books for them. It is a wonderful time for them to share in an intelligent discussion after reading a great book. Your book really spoke to them. I would like to email you some of their comments about it. I am also asking you to email a letter of encouragement for women who have made a mistake and deserve to be forgiven. They are humanity in orange shirts.

I hope you will consider this.

Thank you so much for your wonderful book!

——

Of course, Vonnie’s email moved me to tears! I was in the middle of deadline crazies, but when I had a few spare minutes, I wrote back:

Dear BookClub members,

I was so pleased to hear that you enjoyed The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes. Writers live such isolated lives as we work. We never know what our readers will take away from our stories, so it means a great deal to me to know you were touched by CeeCee and her plight.

I’ve spoken to many bookclubs about The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes over the past couple of years and what is always interesting to me is the compassion people feel for CeeCee. Nearly everyone is able to understand how a very young woman can be swept into such a devastating scheme. I worked hard to make CeeCee a sympathetic character by showing how she was shaped by her past: she has no father and loses her mother far too young. Her need to be cared about and loved draws her to the wrong sort of man. None of that excuses what she did and ultimately she has to pay for her actions, but I believe her background does make her behavior more understandable.

My previous career was as a psychotherapist working mainly with teenagers with behavior problems. I thought it was important to know about their growing-up years to understand why they were now getting into trouble, yet I felt it was even more important to focus on the future. They may have been abused or abandoned or raised by an alcoholic father in the past, but what could they do now to move forward into a positive and productive life? That’s what I always wanted to explore with them in therapy—how to move forward. In CeeCee’s case, I believe she made the choice to be the best Mom she could be and to help other young people through her role as a therapist as a way to atone for her mistakes in the past. I really liked her strength and I always sympathized with her fear of being found out. Sometimes that fear is worse than actually facing the consequences of the things we’ve done wrong.

Your bookclub sounds fantastic! I’m in a bookclub myself, and I love how it exposes me to books I might never read on my own. Many of the women in my club are very different from myself and I learn so much from listening to their ideas about what we’ve read. I’m sure you’ve found that to be true in your club as well. There are few things that can draw women together more than exchanging their thoughts and feelings about a good story.

I wish you all the best and I hope you can move toward the future with strength and courage. Thanks for letting me share my book with you, and I would love to hear some of your thoughts about it.

Sincerely,

Diane Chamberlain

———

Then I received Vonnie’s response, along with feedback from the women in the bookclub:

Hi Diane,

The women were thrilled with your letter! I made a copy for each of them. Thank you for taking the time.

Here are some comments from them on The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes:

* “Your book was a page turner. It seemed real. It had aspects of multiple genres.”

* “I felt this was a very edge of your seat book. I really enjoyed reading it. It makes you really sit back and wonder about many people. We each know individuals that are living under different identities. Can’t wait to read more of your books.”

* “this book encouraged me that long standing mysteries can one day be solved and that somewhere out there someone knows the truth and will one day do the right thing for the right reason.”

* “This book was awesome. Everything was perfect and made you feel every emotion as the situations developed. I couldn’t put this book down without thinking this could really have happened, and what was going to happen next.”

* “You wrote this book for me! I am a redhead. I lost my daughter in a very violent birth similar to this one.”

* “CeeCee Wilkes was the best book I have read in a long time. It gave me hope that good can come out of a bad situation, and honesty is still the only way to be. Great story! I look forward to reading more of your novels. Thank you.”

* “I have been in this book club for four years and this book is by far the best I have read. I would like to know where you came up with the story line. What inspired it?”

* “I enjoyed the book a lot. It was a page turner. It had me thinking of all kinds of things. They lived all kinds of lies.”

* “A book made for us! Thank you.”

* “I have never read a book so quickly!”

* “Please come back with another book this good. I want to read more of your books. I hope we get to read more of them in our book club.”

——–

Me again. Thank you, Vonnie, for the work you do with these women. I’m so glad I could be a small part of it.

A Few Very Full Days

I’m in Wilmington doing a couple of days of promotion. Yesterday was a huge Luncheon With NC Authors, a fundraiser for the creative writing scholarships at Cape Fear Community College. The place was packed and it was a wonderful opportunity for me and several other authors to meet new readers.

Then bright and early this morning (6:30 am is way early for me. Not sure how “bright” I was), I was interviewed on WWAY, a Wilmington TV station. Last year, I had a wardrobe malfunction prior to that interview, and this year the same thing happened. Well, almost the same thing. I was caught in a downpour last night and my “TV clothes” were soaked. Plus the hem in my black pants somehow disappeared. But I was able to come up with an alternative outfit for my 60 seconds of fame this morning!

Quick nap, and then I went to the NPR station where I was interviewed by Jemila Erickson, one of the finest interviewers in the business. Jemila knows how to get to the heart of a book during an interview. Then my publicists, Tori and Kim, took me to lunch at Jester’s Corner. Yum!

I had an hour to catch my breath before my signing at Two Sisters Bookery. Thank you to my local readers for stopping by and to the new readers willing to take a chance on my books. Finally, I had dinner at Tori and Kim’s, where I played with Kim’s Sheltie, Brody–one of the highlights of the trip!

It’s been a rewarding few days. Any time I can communicate with my readers, my friends, and an adorable dog is a good time for me.

Book Launch!

I had a blast last night at the official book launch for The Lies We Told at Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh. Please go to my website to see the pix!

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Whirlwind at the BEA

I’ve spent the past two days in New York at the Book Expo, meeting the booksellers and librarians who sell (and read) my books. The BEA is absolutely wild, filled with your favorite authors giving away signed copies of their books by the boxload. It’s a wonderful way to alert booksellers to the books that are coming to the market soon.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to go to the ABA luncheon since The Lies We Told is an Indie Next Pick for June.

Awards were given to those 2009 books voted the best by Independent Bookstores around the country, and I was excited to see my favorite, The Help, win for best debut book. Kathryn Stockett was there to accept her award. Then I was interviewed for Serius Radio. Today was the big signing day at my publisher’s booth. I flew through a couple of boxes of books and met so many lovely people. I adore getting to give books away!

Now, John and I are back in New Jersey for a visit with my sister, and if I never have to take a cab anywhere again it will be too soon!


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The Lies We Told Launch Day!

Two sisters are very close . . . or are they? One of them dies . . . or does she? Her husband grieves with the surviving sister, and they grow very, very close. Exactly how close? And what the heck is really going on?

This was the seedling of an idea that prompted the storyline for The Lies We Told. From that seedling grew my two physician sisters–wild, thrill-seeking Rebecca and cautious Maya. When they were teenagers, their parents were murdered and that incident–and the lies each of them told about what happened–will always haunt them. Now, while working as part of a medical aide team after a hurricane destroys part of Wilmington, North Carolina, Maya is in a helicopter crash. Rebecca and Maya’s husband, Adam, believe she is dead, but Maya is actually trapped in an area with a few people who, for some reason, seem intent on keeping her there.

Things are not what they seem. That is always my favorite element in telling a story. I want to surprise you as well as entertain you, and I hope The Lies We Told will do both.


Beginning June 1st and running for two weeks, I’ll have an online booksigning on my website. You’ll be able to request up to four special “The Lies We Told” bookplates, autographed by me and personalized for you and your friends (You like to give books as gifts–I know you do!) and the postage will be on me. I’ll let you know when the form will be available on my site.

FreshFiction.com said about The Lies We Told:

“The Lies We Told is a tender story of two sisters’ path toward rediscovering their friendship for each other. . . Chamberlain beautifully bares their dreams and their souls in The Lies We Told.”

I love that! The writing of The Lies We Told followed a rocky path and I’ll share bits and pieces of the journey over the next couple of weeks. Meanwhile, if you’d like to read an excerpt, it’s available at my website. Enjoy!

An Exercise in Empathy

I’m going to go all Buddhist on you today. I’m also going to give you a task. Do you believe we’re all connected? I do. I believe it on both a physical and metaphysical level, but I’ll try not to get too deep here.

I’ve always done what I call “empathy exercises” with my characters, putting myself inside their skin to better understand how they think and feel. In recent years, though, I’ve started doing this with real people to remind myself that we are all connected.

Sometimes I get carried away with this. I was at a party at a neighbor’s house not long ago and each time I spoke with someone there, I reminded myself of our connection as human beings. I imagined myself in his or her skin. One woman said that she saw a homeless woman on the street and gave her some money because “she could have been me.” Full of my connectedness-euphoria, I said, “You are her! And I’m you! And you’re me!” And everyone stared at me like I had a screw loose and I decided it was a good time for me to keep my euphoria to myself.

When I imagine myself in someone else’s skin, it gives me an extraordinary feeling of empathy and understanding. I guess I’m wondering how it feels to others, so I’m asking you to try it for twenty minutes or so. Wherever you go today, look at people and imagine yourself inside their skin and see how it feels. I’d love to hear about your experience!

Finished! (And a First and Fifth Draft Comparison)

I finished The Midwife’s Confession yesterday and John and I are going to see Wicked this evening to celebrate. Yeah! The last month of writing a book is sheer torture; there seems to be no way around it. Every time, I tell myself I’ll figure out a way to prevent that last month from being such a killer, but I have yet to find the cure. Something miraculous always happens during that last month, though: the characters grow into themselves, the details fill out the story, and most significantly, I finally start to think I’ve written a really good book. Up until that last month, I’m never sure.

As I did when I finished The Lies We Told, I thought I’d share a paragraph or two from the first draft as well as from the final (fifth) draft so you can see the transformation. I do this to encourage those new writers among you. While you may be writing a pile of garbage in the beginning, you can eventually end up with a real book!

This book had two major challenges in addition to the usual task of telling a good story. One, I decided halfway through to change the four points of view from third person to first. You’ll notice below that Emerson changes to first person in the final draft. I hope you’ll feel closer to her that way–I certainly did. But making that sort of change in a 400+ page manuscript was exhausting and tedious! Whew. Second, three of the characters are women around 40 years of age with similar backgrounds and values, which made it difficult to give them distinctive voices. I think I succeeded, but that is one thing I’ll still be working on in revisions.

Speaking of revisions, what happens next is that my editor and agent will read the book. They will then make their suggestions, which will force me to take to my bed for about twenty-four hours before I pull myself together and start fixing whatever they think needs fixing. But for now, I’m going to sit back and enjoy the sense of accomplishment.

So here are the two examples. I am not giving anything away by telling you that the midwife in the story, Noelle, kills herself very early in the book. Emerson is her sister, who hasn’t heard from Noelle in a couple of days and is worried about her. Enjoy!

—

Old Draft:

Emerson unlocked the door and walked into the kitchen.

“Noelle?” She shut the door behind her, hitting the lock for no reason she could name. Just unnerved. She walked toward the bathroom. A slip in the shower maybe. But then why would she have told Lizzie to take care of Patches? The bathroom was small, spotless and empty. From the hallway, through the open door of the bedroom, she saw her. She lay on her back, her hands folded across her ribcage, still and quiet as though she were meditating. But her waxen face, the line of pill bottles, told her something different. It was impossible. Impossible. Emerson fell to her knees at the side of the bed, grabbing Noelle’s cold lifeless hand. “Noelle,” she whispered. “Why? Why?”

—

New Draft:

The key was caked with dirt and I wiped it off on my t-shirt, a sure sign I didn’t care about a thing except finding out what was going on with Noelle. I unlocked the door and walked into the kitchen. “Noelle?” I shut the door behind me, turning the lock because I was starting to feel paranoid. Her purse lay like a floppy pile of leather on the table and her car keys rested on the counter between the sink and the stove. Patches’ food and water bowls were upside down on the counter on top of a dishtowel. The sink was clean and empty. The kitchen was way too neat for my sister. Noelle could mess up a room just by passing through it.

I walked into the postage stamp of a living room, past the crammed bookshelves and the old TV we’d given her a few years ago when we bought the big screen. Past the threadbare brown sofa. A couple of strollers sat on the floor in front of the TV and three car seats were piled on top of some cartons, which were most likely filled with Stork Village donations. More boxes teetered on top of an armchair. I was definitely in my sister’s world. On the wall above the sofa were framed pictures of Jenny and Jack, Gracie and Cleve and Leo. The kids of the Galloway Girls. Noelle’s family.

I walked past the first of the two bedrooms, the one she used as her office. Like the living room, it was bursting with boxes and bags and her desk was littered with papers and books . . . and a big salad bowl filled with lettuce and tomatoes.

“Noelle?” The silence in the house was creeping me out. A slip in the shower? But why would she have told Libby to take care of Patches? I reached her bedroom, and through the open door, I saw her. She lay on her back, her hands folded across her ribcage, still and quiet as though she were meditating, but her waxen face and the line of pill bottles on the night table told me something different. My breath caught behind my breastbone, and I couldn’t move. I wasn’t getting it. I refused to get it. Impossible, I thought. This is impossible.

(PS Margo, thank you for reminding me of this “I’m finished!!!” photograph of Keeper and myself!)

The Lies We Told is now available for preorder. Watch for my online booksigning the first week of June!

Wordle Time!

I’ve completed draft four of The Midwife’s Confession (well except for the epilogue), so it’s time to see how it looks on Wordle! Wordle helps me see what words I’ve overused. Of course the character names (and there are a lot of them!) are all over the place. Noelle, front and center, is the midwife. I can see that I’ve overused “just” which is a typical problem of mine. Also “like”. I’ll look for those words as I work on the final draft, but since the book is entirely first person . . . well, people say “just” and “like” a lot.

Tonight I’ll work on the epilogue and one chapter in the middle that’s been driving me bonkers. Tomorrow I start the read-aloud, which will help me catch any remaining problems, I hope. And then I’ll be done!

The Lies We Told is available for preorder now. And watch for my online signing the first week in June!

Dup [doop]

The Midwife’s Confession is due a week from tomorrow, so if I blog this week at all, it will not be with anything profound! Right now I’m writing drafts three and four at the same time. Hard to explain, but that’s what I’m doing. (Keeper and Jet are helping me organize the mess of paper on the floor of my office).

To simplify, I’ve gone over the entire second draft in manuscript form and made changes by hand. Now I’m putting those changes, chapter by chapter, into the document on the computer. After 50 pages or so, I take a break from the computer, print out the part of draft three I’ve just created, work on that by hand, put those changes into the document, thus creating draft four. Get it? No? I can’t imagine why not.

Meanwhile, John is reading draft four as I turn it out, jotting down what works for him and what doesn’t. Once I’m done with draft four, I’ll take a look at his comments and create draft five. Then I’ll do the read-aloud. All this means no sleep for Diane this week!

So what does this have to do with the title of the blog post? Well, as I go through the manuscript, I constantly find words I think I’ve overused. I jot dup above the word. Dup stands for duplicate. Then when I input the changes into the document on the computer and I come to one of those words, I do a “find” to see how many times I’ve used the word and also, to make sure that different characters don’t use the same unique word. For example, if one character always says she’s “psyched,” I want to make sure another character doesn’t say the same thing. Here’s one of my favorite quotes from my brother Rob’s blog. He’s blogging here about his own writing:

First I check for the words I tend to overuse. They are usually the bits of physical punctuation that fit between lines of dialog, like frown, shrug, and sigh. (My sister Diane Chamberlain says that the characters in her novels tend to wince too much, which suggests that while being in one of my works is boring, being in hers is actually painful.)

That just cracks me up!

Anyhow, I’m going to get back to drafts three and four right now. I’ll check back in later this week. Have a good one!

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The Joy of Third Drafts

Ah, Topsail Island. We just went out to dinner (shrimp and grits for John, shrimp scampi for me) and had a look at the sound on the way home. The sun and sky were such an intriguing color. It was lovely. So good to be at our home away from home.

Here at the beach, I’m working on my favorite part of writing a book. I tend to forget how much I love this part: the third draft. This is where I have the story written and “merely” need to fix it up, work on the voices, add the plants, and generally make sure everything flows nicely. This is also when I begin to realize I’ve written a good book. Up until draft three, I feel unsure of myself. Every Single Time. The only negative thing is that it takes a looooong time do this and I don’t have a looooong time. I have to pick up my speed. No more leisurely wandering around the sound after dinner!

Tomorrow, I’ll work all day except for a break to have lunch with Lori Fisher, owner of one of my favorite independent bookstores, Quarter Moon Books in Topsail Beach. I’m only a few miles from the bookstore right now (and yes, that was a big selling point when I bought this place!) and I’m looking forward to seeing Lori. I’ll do a signing in mid-June at QMB too.

Friday, I’m going to Wilmington to do some research so I can flesh out the details of the setting in The Midwife’s Confession. My Wilmington publicists are going to give me a tour of my characters’ neighborhoods. My publicists go well beyond the call of duty! I can’t wait to “find” my characters’ houses.

I’m heading back to my third draft right now. More later. . .