Diane Chamberlain's Blog, page 35

The Pledge: Where Did Day Four Go?

I truly don’t know what happened to today. I got up early with great plans, but one thing led to another and the day disappeared with only two pages in the can. I accomplished non-writing things, but that wasn’t part of the pledge, was it? And tomorrow we leave, so I doubt I’ll get much done before we take off, but I’ll try. Clearly, I need not only a pledge but a full-fledged New Year’s Resolution.

So what did I do today? Well, our new little beach condo needs some serious sprucing up, so my friend, interior designer Elizabeth Samuels, came over with a carpenter/electrician/knows how to do everything sort of fellow who took measurements and will come up with an estimate for the work. Liz brought her pup Sam over, so the dogs needed to play together on the beach. Then I had to enjoy the view from the deck for a while and before I knew it, it was time to meet friends for dinner.

On my first research trip to Topsail Island a couple of years ago, I had an appointment to meet with Ken Bogan, the Surf City fire marshall (I think that was his title) to help me figure out details of the arson fire in Before the Storm. Ken turned out to be a real gold mine, and he and his wife Angie spent hours with me so that I could pick their brains on all things Fire. We became friends–they are delightful people–and tonight we met them for dinner. We had a great time.

Once we left Ken and Angie, we went to visit our friends Glen and Sterling. Those of you who have been reading the blog for a long time may recognize Glen’s name, since he’s a frequent commenter. We quickly became friends and he and Sterling have been so supportive of me and myTopsail Island writing.

It was a great day, filled with wonderful people and a lot of fun, but not much work. We’ll be home some time tomorrow and then I’ll have a serious discussion with you–and myself–about resolutions.

The Pledge: Day Three’s a Winner

I woke up this morning feeling great! The bed here is like a slab of granite, but we put 2 inches of memory foam on top and what a difference. I’m a new person! I took the dogs out at daybreak, not realizing it was all of about 28 degrees on the beach, so we didn’t last long, but it was still lovely. Then I got down to work.

Writing fiction is an amazing process. I know my characters so well and I know the story inside out. Yet, when I start writing a scene, I suddenly discover new secondary characters, the houses I’ve only vaguely imagined suddenly become homes, and the emotions described in my outline are suddenly etched into the faces of people I’m coming to care about. I filled eight pages today, and I’m very pleased.

It warmed up this afternoon and the dogs and I played on the beach. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t let them off leash, but we were the only three souls for as far as I could see, so I let them run and you can see they had a great time. I did too: I found a perfect starfish, nearly a foot across! So beautiful. John, feet warm in his Wellies, spent all afternoon bent over in the cold as he took pictures of shells in the breakwater. I’m looking forward to seeing the results.

I can’t believe we have only one more full day here, but for now I’m living in the moment. Which reminds me. . . I have another snippet of time before bed, so I’d better get to work.

The Pledge: Back Slidin’ on Day Two

Well, I woke up today with a small health crisis. Not a big deal, but big enough that it couldn’t wait until I get home, so I spent the morning searching for a clinic where I could be seen and remembering why, although I adore being far away from home on an island, there’s a lot to be said for being close to everything familiar. Anyhow, I found a lovely doctor who fixed me up, but wow today was a real pledge killer.

Still, it was another beautiful day in Paradise and I had a great walk on the beach, followed by a nap. All of that left me with less writing time than I would have liked, but I managed to fill the snippets with five good pages in which I was surprised by a ten-year-old girl, a cat named Patches and a hidden key. I also turned a character’s seedy apartment into a run down but cute little arts and crafts cottage. Going into those five pages, I had no idea any of that would occur. Writing fction never fails to amaze me, and all I can say is I hope tomorrow’s surprises are only of the fictional variety!

The Pledge: Writing in Snippets on Day One

Twelve pages today, plus two walks on the beach, a shopping spree to the dollar store, shrimp and grits for dinner at Sears Landing and now we’re watching a movie and eating French Silk ice cream. All in all an excellent day.

One thing that helped me tremendously today was a little trick I recently picked up from Mary Kay Andrews. On one of our recent writing retreats, Mary Kay challenged us to write as many pages as possible in the thirty minutes before dinner. I whipped out five pages, amazing myself. You would think that after writing nineteen books, I’d know that I’m capable of making good use of small amounts of time, but I tend to think I can only write if I have several uninterrupted hours in front of me. I also tend to get distracted as I write, stopping to research whatever I’m writing about as though I can’t possibly put another word on paper until I know the perfect accellerant for an arson fire or the method used to name hurricanes or–my current distraction–how to kill off a husband (fictional, of course). Part of the writing-in-snippets approach is forgetting about research for the time being. No distractions allowed!

The movie just ended. John’s washing the ice cream bowls, and I can hear the ocean through the double-paned windows. Maybe I’ll steal another few minutes before bed…

A Pledge to Myself

December has been a fascinating month–so fascinating that I’ve gotten almost no writing accomplished. I had some health challenges, followed by fairly minor-ish surgery, followed by some more health stuff, all of which resolved beautifully and I am well, or as well as someone with Rheumatoid Arthritis can be. Then the holiday preparations hit. The first few weeks of December had already demolished my writing schedule and as Christmas approached, I gave into the season and stopped feeling guilty about not working. Now, though, it’s time to pay the piper, and I’m psyched and a little nervous.

We came down to our beach condo late this afternoon. It was in the fifties when we arrived and the pups and I had a great walk on the beach. Then I left John, Keeper and Jet at the condo while I drove to the store. This is my first time to the beach in winter, and I already love it. It’s extremely quiet and the roads are nearly empty. It was dark as I drove home from the store. Hanging from some of the telephone poles were lights in a variety of shapes: anchors, starfish, sea gulls, swordfish, snowflakes, sailboats, lighthouses, and this turtle, a bit blurry since I caught him on my cell phone. It was so lovely to drive through the darkness with these happy lights to guide me home.

I’m not here for the fun, though. One of the joys of writing–of working for yourself in any capacity, actually–is the ability to make one’s own schedule, but it’s so easy to let other things take precedence when there’s no supervisor looking over your shoulder. Sometimes things must take precedence, as is the case when it comes to health issues, but no matter what drives us off course, it’s hard to get back on. This is my week to catch up, to get back in the groove. The Midwife’s Confession is due May 1st and I have a ton to do. So this is my pledge to myself this week: No more goofing off. We’re here for five days and I’ll post my progress each day to keep myself honest. I have my outline spread out on the dining room table, my work-in-progress copied to my new laptop, and after breakfast tomorrow morning, I’ll begin.

Right after a walk on the beach…

Greetings of the Season to my Readers!

Happy Holidays!

I want to take this opportunity to thank you, my readers, for bringing me such joy this year. Every writer’s dream is to reach people with his or her words, and I’ve been lucky to be able to do that throughout my career, but this year has felt particularly special. I’ve loved hearing from you on the blog, in individual emails and on Facebook. I’ve adored speaking by speakerphone to your bookclubs as you discussed my books. I’d partiularly like to thank my new UK and Australian readers for bringing my stories into your hearts and homes this year. It’s been fun knowing that my books have made their way into your hands.

I write because I love to tell stories, but without you all, it would be a lonely business. I hope you can get together with family and friends as 2009 winds down, and that books hold as prominent a place in your holiday celebration as they do in mine.

Books We Loved in 2009

Time for a year-end wrap up of the stories that touched us most in 2009. I’ll start, and then I’d love to hear about your favorites. With the exception of The Help, these are not in any particular order.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett: Sometimes you simply want to thank an author for writing a book, and that’s how I feel about this one. It’s probably my favorite of 2009. This all-too realistic look at race relations in the early ’60s is full of heart and I loved the voices of the women. A great bookclub book.

Sweeping up Glass by Carolyn Wall (I listened to it on audio): Set in depression era Kentucky, this is a story of one woman’s simple yet extraordinary life. It’s Wall’s debut novel and her character, Olivia Harker, is real, imperfect, and sympathetic.

Run by Ann Patchett: An unusual story of African American twin brothers adopted by way-liberal white parents. As a writer, I was intrigued by the fascinating structure of the novel and the deep characterization. I loved how each character was immensely flawed, yet a good person in his or her own way.

Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay: Almost too painful for me, but I’m glad I read it. The story of one girl’s experience during the French round up of the Jews during World War II alternates with a current day story of a woman obsessed with trying to learn the girl’s fate. As I’ve found with my own books, it’s sometimes hard for a contemporary thread to compete with the more engaging story of the past, yet I found this a very engrossing and satisfying read.

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield: A very unusual book you will either love or hate. The story, about a young woman biographer hired to write the biography of an elderly author, is hard to place in time, but that only adds to the dark, Gothic atmosphere. One of many things that impressed me was the link Setterfield drew between the protaganist and the woman whose story she’s telling–that link being twinship. Without that thread tying the women together, I don’t believe the story would have the same power.

Belong to Me by Marisa de los Santos: I tend to like fairly serious novels, so this fairly light book is not my usual fare, but I loved it and will read anything de los Santos writes in the future. She is wryly funny, her characters are human and easy to identify with, and her message of love and family shines through.

The River Wife by Jonis Agee: I nearly passed this book by because I’d read some negative reviews on GoodReads.com, but I started it and was instantly caught up in the story. I love well-written, multi-generational tales that span decades, and I particularly loved the way Agee linked the tales from the different eras. I found the characters fascinating and am so glad I gave the book a try.

The Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks: What an amazing book! The protagonist is a wonder herself, and watching her grow during the year the plague stole two thirds of her small English village was heartening and inspirational. As a novelist, I’m awed by the research that went into writing this book. Warning: it’s gory, but worth it.

The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb: Okay, it’s really long and all over the place, but it’s Wally Lamb and that makes up for any flaws. Lamb moves from the Columbine massacre (a risky, but well-executed use of real life tragedy) to Katrina to women’s prisons to family secrets, and he takes over 700 pages to get from point A to point Z, but his characters are so fascinating that the pages flew. If you love a good saga, this is for you. If you want an author to get straight to the point, you may need to look elsewhere.

Tethered by Amy MacKinnon: A fascinating book. MacKinnon took a rather simple, almost trite, mystery and lifted it up through her stunning writing and the creation of an unforgettable and (almost) entirely sympathetic central character. The character, one of the most complex ever to grace the page, is an undertaker, and my skin crawled at times during the book, but I kept turning the pages and was glad I did. As a writer, I was floored by MacKinnon’s use of description. I don’t like a lot of detail when I read, but MacKinnon’s judicious use of detail–especially in the way it helped me understand the characters–was spot on.

So there you have it. My faves for 2009. I’d love to hear what books touched you the most this past year.

The Bay in the UK

The Bay at Midnight just came out in the UK. I love the cover they gave it, even though it doesn’t quite fit the book. The youngest child in Bay is Julie, who’s 12, and this little girl looks younger, but I think the innocence portrayed on the cover does fit the story. Julie is so young and naive, and it’s that naivete that leads to the tragedy of her sister’s murder. Although all of my books have an element of mystery, The Bay at Midnight is a bona fide who-dunnit in addition to a family drama.
I’ve been interviewed by some of the media in the UK about this book and I love thinking about the story again. Since the setting for Bay is the summer bungalow of my childhood, it’s fun getting to talk about it one more time.

This is my second novel to be published in the UK. The first was The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes under the title The Lost Daughter. I heard from so many readers who loved that book, and I hope they find The Bay at Midnight equally as intriguing. I hope, too, that it will be under a bunch of Christmas trees in England this year!
http://www.dianechamberlain.com/blog/...

Shh....

Here’s something most people don’t know about me: I had selective mutism from elementary school until graduate school. What’s selective mutism? It’s an anxiety disorder in which a child or adolescent who is capable of speech doesn’t speak in certain situations. I’ll get back to my own experience in a minute, but first let me tell you how selective mutism comes into play in Breaking the Silence.

Five-year-old Emma is home with her stepfather when he kills himself, and from that day forward, she stops speaking. Her Mom, Laura, takes her to a therapist, who recommends that Laura get in touch with Emma’s biological father to see if he can play a helpful role in the little girl’s life. The problem: Emma’s conception was the result of a one-night-stand, and her father, Dylan, doesn’t know of her existence. This is only one of many, many problems in this complicated storyline.

Now back to me. The term “selective mutism” didn’t exist when I was a little kid. I was merely considered very shy. In my memory, I was always a shy, anxious child but the mutism began around the first grade. I have no idea why, nor do I believe it matters. All I know is that I stopped speaking in school and certain other situations. I spoke at home and to my friends–I was actually quite outgoing with my friends, even in a school setting. In the classroom, though, I was anxious to the point of being phobic. If called on, I would struggle to speak in class, but raise my hand? No way. I longed to be able to speak up the way my classmates did, but I felt paralyzed. Thank God I could write, and that skill helped me keep up my grades.

Here’s one of my funniest memories from my high school days as a “selective mute.”

I was with my boyfriend at a diner one night after a movie. We were laughing and loud and having a good time. At the next table was a guy who sat next to me in homeroom. He lit up a cigarette. I was a smoker in those days and asked him for a cigarette, which he gave me. Then he asked me if I had a sister who went to Plainfield High School. “There’s a girl in my homeroom who looks a lot like you,” he said. I was so shocked. He had no idea I was the same girl who sat next to him every day. It really hit home for me how totally different I was in the classroom and out.

I made it through four years of college with excellent grades, a 4.0 in my social work major, still never voluntarily uttering a word. So how did it change? When I was waiting for my first class in graduate school, I made a decision: I was going to be a high participator. I sat in the front row and kept my hand in the air and turned into a different person overnight. It was amazing! When I became a therapist myself (yes, it’s rare to find a therapist who was never a little kooky sometime in his or her own life), I discovered this behavioral approach works in many circumstances, but that’s for another blog.

Even though I had personal experience with mutism, I needed to dig into the current research to write about Emma, because her situation is very different from mine. Her mutism clearly stemmed from an event. I loved getting to explore Emma’s problem and discover how her therapist would work with her. It was rewarding for me personally to “help” Emma become a healthy little girl again. I’m glad it didn’t take her as long as it took me!

Brainwashed

One of my favorite ways of coming up with book ideas is to stroll through the stacks at the library and see what books jump out at me. Years ago, a book that caught my eye was Gordon Thomas’s Journey into Madness. As a former therapist, how could I resist pulling that book from the stacks? When I did, I saw the subtitle: The CIA Mind Control Experiments. Intrigued, I sat down in a corner of the library and began reading. I had a vague knowledge of the mind control experiments, but the book put a human face to a shocking chapter in US history.

During the cold war, the US government was concerned that our enemies were perfecting mind control techniques which could be used against our military. As a result, the CIA developed a covert program, MK-ULTRA, to devise similar techniques. Every experiment needs guinea pigs, and in this case unwitting psychiatric patients, primarily at Allan Memorial Institute in Canada, became those involuntary subjects. They were subjected to various brainwashing techniques, including something called psychic driving in which the patients, in drug-induced comas, were forced to listen around the clock to tapes designed to wipe out their personalities so that new thoughts and memories could be inserted in their place. Many, if not most, of the records related to the program were destroyed prior to the investigation of MK-ULTRA by the Senate Intelligence Committee in the seventies.

I knew I wanted to write about the experiments, but I didn’t want them to overshadow the rest of the story. So, it becomes the backstory of one of the characters, Sarah, an elderly woman with Alzheimer’s disease. I was also curious to understand how the staff at the psychiatric hospital could follow the lead of the barbaric physician in charge. That’s why, instead of making Sarah a patient, I made her a nurse so I could explore her reasons for taking part in the experiments–and her mounting discomfort with them.

It’s unusual for one of my books to have such a gritty element. Yet I think the Mind Control Experiments add a suspenseful layer to an already complex story. I look forward to hearing what my readers think about it.

You can read chapter one of Breaking the Silence here: http://www.dianechamberlain.com/chamb....

Note: The link I provided for the MK-ULTRA program takes you to one woman’s story. If you want to learn more, you’ll find plenty of information by doing a search on either MK-ULTRA or CIA Mind Control Experiments.