The writing path of flexibility – and faith
February’s the month in which two characters in the historical fiction I’m writing share a birthday. Like me, each has a strong cultural connection with Germany, where they meet in the years before World War II.
One of them, like my mother, is a Leap-year baby with that funky “29 Feb.” on her passport. That kind of thing can make you feel like a fictional character right out of the starting gate.
The other wants her life to resemble that of a character in a movie or novel, yet, as many women have, and do, she keeps giving it away to someone else just as fast as life sends her new opportunities.
I have missed living with these women in their world. Things are about to get a lot more complicated there, because while these two are good friends, the men they love have highly antagonistic ambitions.
It’s an enormous grace to be able to do what I love. And, like many human endeavors, writing requires a curious balance of flexibility and – faithfulness. Having had two books — Snow Fence Road (fiction) and With Thine Own Eyes (nonfiction) — come out within six months of each other, I find it’s the faithfulness part (faithfulness to stay with the work of the writing) that is calling the loudest for me now, after some vigorously flexible months have kept me busy (mostly busy learning) in whole new ways.
Recently, I noticed a kind of inner listing to one side of life’s spectrum that signaled the need for a course correction. I recognized my overlooked need to put the big stone of the writing time into the jar first, then add the rest of life’s activity around it.
Writers write for so many different reasons. I write so that I can dive into that mysterious zone that I know will yield the deepest and most unexpected kind of discoveries. That is the only certainty that I have about it, that there will be such discovery.
The paradox is that while the very best part of it is the not-knowing, it is also, of course, the most terrifying part.
That’s where that marriage of flexibility and faithfulness comes in — or, on some days, of flexibility and faith.
As I head back into the world of my two “February Fräuleins”, I’m marking this juncture with a giveaway-drawing for another jewelry prize because its vintage look evokes just what my characters might admire as they sit across a table from each other — what the more famous of the two, Eva Braun, might have worn in the photographs to which my research keeps returning.
Enter to win these vintage-design earrings from NH artist Diane Kirkup. Email: info@phyllisring.com with “vintage” in the subject line and your reply to the question: “What, as a reader, would you want to know about Eva Braun?” Contest ends Feb. 28.
The photo here on the left shows the February-birthstone prize, and shares information about how to enter.
This time, I’d love to gain thoughts and ideas from those of you who do, so I’ve given you a question to answer. The responses and thoughts you offer will help me a lot as I sit down again with pages and scenes and see where they want to lead.
I also ask, most respectfully and gratefully, for your good thoughts on my behalf.
And finally, as the calendar brings me closer to the end of this first year of the blog, I thank you for making time to stop in here and read, and for sharing the posts with others, as many of you do.
