Research

Dear Karen,

I have heard that when a woman is about to go into labor it is not uncommon for her to clean the house. This is what I have been doing lately, although what I am pregnant with is uncertain.

There’s no doubt that I am anxious about the release of my recent novel. I believe that’s normal. I try to simply say hello to the anxiety so it doesn’t feel neglected and throw a little tantrum to get my attention, but I also try not to feed it. It’s a delicate balance this whole writing and publishing thing, and I watch myself with interest.

For instance, today I unexpectedly burst into tears when I ran across a stack of notes I’d taken while researching this book. I opened maps I’d drawn, and fingered my jotted notes on the fall of New Orleans during the Civil War, on the layout of a sugarhouse where the cane was processed, and on how cane was cut. I found notes on how slave owners punished the enslaved people, and I found notes on the architecture of Louisiana plantations, not just the big house, but the barns and outbuildings and the quarters. I found notes on steamboats and river currents. I found notes on how many buffalo hides the Comanche used to make one average tipi, how they dried meat for winter, and what weapons they used. In 1873 a comet appeared, and a medicine man named Isi-tai predicted it would be gone in five days and it was. That summer there was a locust invasion in upper Texas, and lots vegetation was killed, and in the winter of 1873-’74 there were blizzards, one right after another. It was the same year the buffalo were wiped out above the Canadian River, and the southern herd would not migrate up there any longer, so the buffalo hunters migrated south.

Was I crying for all the awful things we have done to each other as human beings and continue to do, or was I crying because I missed my character and touching these notes I’d made was like touching old love letters, or the knitted booties of a child taken away? I admit it was the latter. The former is almost too overwhelming to consider, but the latter is so personal.

My relationship with this character is forever changed. We are different now. He is a solid character, a person whom other people will meet, and I am still me, worried about promoting this book, and worried about writing the next one, hence the house cleaning, hence the trying to take care of the one thing I think I have any control over: the level of dirt in my house.

So I have a question for you. It’s a practical question, a house keeping question. What do you do with your old drafts? What do you do with research materials? In my studio closet I have a dozen or more drafts of this novel stacked on the floor. Many are from my writing group when they critiqued it. I’ve heard that writers should keep all their drafts in case some graduate student comes along wanting to study my work. But that seems so far fetched, even more far fetched than writing the novel was in the first place, and this is my closet space we’re talking about, and my psyche. It feels a little unhealthy to keep them all, like carrying around a paper shrine to myself. I want to have a ritual bonfire, but it’s summer and hot, and even when winter comes along, I live in town and my yard is too small.

But the research materials, the ones that made me cry today, these I will keep. These I wrapped a big rubber band around and I will find shelf space for them. These are too precious and personal to throw away.

Love, Nancy

P.S. – When the Comanche hunted buffalo they located a herd by its collective breath-cloud on the plains. Isn’t that beautiful? It has nothing to do with this letter, but I just wanted to tell you.