Ayelet’s Comments (group member since Jun 08, 2011)

Ayelet’s comments from the Ask Ayelet Waldman group.

Thanks so much, Janet! I wrote the Mommy Track mysteries mostly so I could find other moms who felt like I did. I knew you were out there!!

Marla,

First of all, Fuck your ex-husband, that idiot. I hate him.

Fool.

Blech.

Second of all, I'm incredibly grateful and flattered that you said that. I wrote Emilia because she is my nightmare. My husband is always surrounded by sycophantic young women who slip him their "erotic massage" cards, and I'm a 46 year old woman with 10 pounds (okay, 15) to lose, wrinkles, a weird new bald patch on the left side of my head (was it all those ponytails for so many years?), who also happens to be a raging BITCH 23% of the time. I'm terrified some Emilia-like person will sneak up and ruin my life. So I wrote a book that forced me to confront and try to understand my biggest fear. Therapy, but instead of paying for it, I sweat blood and earned a little money.

Marla -- honest and brave to say it! I always tell my kids that I absolutely have favorites. At any given moment of any given day, one or the other of them is my favorite. I also remind them that if they want to BE my favorite they just need to give me a kiss and a hug, and maybe bring me a scoop of butter almond ice cream.

But in all seriousness, I do think that there are times when different kids are easier to love...not that you don't love them ALL the time, but sometimes you lose track of them, or you worry about them (or you don't worry about them -- sometimes my "favorite" is the one I'm worried the most about!), or they need you more or less. And some kids are just easier and/or more delightful at different ages. My oldest is a stupendous teenager. I find myself ever more in love with her all the time. Who would have thought?

Dina, My next novel is about the Hungarian Gold Train which you can read about here. But it's about so much more than that. It's about love, and suffragettes, and what it was like to be Jewish in the American army in the 1940s, and about the Holocaust, and about Israel, and heroism, and love (oh, I said that), and early psychoanalysis, and love. And love again.

Mimi, you are a doll...but i told you that when we met!!

Erin,
The easy answer is that Michael and I lost a pregnancy in the 2nd trimester (though "lost" is such a cowardly way of putting it. We terminated. We had an abortion.) and that experience so utterly destroyed me emotionally that I felt like I had to keep "writing it out of my system." And though that's an easy answer, it is true in many ways. Beyond that...I just don't know. Why was Red Hook Road the book I needed to write, when I tried to write TWO other books and threw away the manuscript? I just don't know...

My next novel has nothing to do with children dying. Well. Er. Except that it's about the Holocaust.

Gah!

Glen, it's funny that you should point that out...and I think you're totally right. What's so crazy is that I haven't settled at all...not in m life at least. I had a boyfriend for 6 years whom I should have settled for, but instead I left him and then, about a year later, met Michael. I had a career that satisfied me in many ways -- a career I should by all reasonable estimations, have settled for. But then I started writing. Mysteries were going well for me, I should have settled for that, but then I decided I needed to write 'literary' fiction.

So what the hell??? Why do I feel like "settling" is the right thing to do in FICTION but not in my life???

Absolutely, Lydia. It happens all the time. But oddly, the people who are utterly convinced I stole their story are never the ones whose lives I've cannibalized. Those people usually don't recognize themselves, because I've gone to such great lengths to conceal them. I will say, though, that I have someone who was very very close to me who hasn't spoken to me since Bad Mother came out. This is, I think, the heartbreak of my life. I'm sure he used the excuse of what I wrote to cut me out of his life - something he's wanted to do for a while -- but nonetheless it breaks my heart.

OK, well, if you won't ask ME questions, then I'll ask you questions!!!
There is a point in the novel where Iris ponders the love she feels for her two daughters, and thinks to herself that though she loves them both, it's just EASIER to love her older daughter. She's less needy, less demanding of the kind of attention it's harder for her to give. =Surveys show that 1 in 6 moms admits to loving one child more. What do you make of that? Is Iris just reprehensible? Are her feelings "normal" or at least understandable?

Good morning folks! No questions yet, so I thought I'd just post a little morning meandering...

I'm looking out the window at my lupines. They're crazy this time of year. They grow like weeds, everywhere, along the sides of the roads, in everyone's gardens. Even the most decrepit house has lupines growing in the yard. Mine are mostly purple, but the really splendid fields have them in all shades of pink, lavender, purple. They're glorious!

Hello Eliana! Michael is only a proponent of writing programs if they give you time to write, and don't put you into any debt at all. Otherwise, he actually thinks they're a bad idea. No one should incur debt in their quest to be a novelist. The chances of earning it back are much too small.

I started with genre fiction because I thought I could get away more easily with learning on the job. Whether I was right nor not (and arguably I was an idiot, because a mystery not only has to be well written but well plotte), it was a good process for me. My mysteries got more and more complicated as my ambitions increased. Finally, I felt ready to move from the rigid structure of genre to more loosey goosey "literary fiction." I find that much more satisfying now, and have no plans to return to writing mysteries any time soon. Though I do still enjoy reading them!

Hello Jackie! Not only do I not sail, but I am the most landish of land lubbers. In fact, my friend Eric, who is a wooden boat builder, has vowed that he will get me out this year and teach me how to sail. He's sick of the Waldman-Chabon "inflatable craft." (Check it out. Isn't it AWESOME? http://www.overstock.com/Sports-Toys/...).

The short answer to your question is research. I researched wooden boats, I consulted with wood boat builders, I read and read and read. I find the old adage "write what you know" to be incredibly tiresome. How many books about Jewish former lawyers with piles of children do need in this world. I'm much more interested in writing about what I can imagine that what I actually know. But then the onus is on me to do the research.

Welcome Marla! I try to think of each of my characters as people. There are definitely those with whom it's easier to spend time, but in some way I love all of them, even though ( or maybe because) they are flawed. I'm so glad you appreciated that. I have been accused in the past of being hard on my characters. "Make them more likable!" The comment writers dread the most.

No, in the end we decided to leave Fanny in Berkeley with a house/dog sitter. She couldn't handle the flight, and the car ride would have been traumatic, too. Alas. We miss her so much!

From Italy! That's awesome...the story is inspired by something a heard on the radio...about a bride and groom who were killed in a car accident on the way from the wedding to the reception. It was such a horrible story...and my immediate response was, "Oh my God, that would make an amazing beginning for a novel!"

Hello guys! It's Ayelet Waldman posting for this week's discussion from beautiful sunny Maine! I'm going to make this conversation mulit-media (aren't I snazzy) but posting some photos on twitter (follow me at @ayeletw). I arrived here on Saturday night at around midnight -- one of the reasons we love Maine so much is that it's IMPOSSIBLE to get here from Berkeley -- and have been unpacking like a madwoman. But things are a little calmer now. The kids toys are all in their bins, the dust has been wiped out of the cereal bowls (sort of) and I have a few minutes to begin this conversation.

I set the novel Red Hook Road in Maine because we've been coming here for years -- about 8 actually -- and have fallen in love with the place. It took a little chutzpah to write about it, though. Maine is one of those places people feel VERY possessive about. I lost a frenemy over my decision to set the novel in Maine. She told me I had no right to usurp her geographical heritage. I told her to remember that the next time she had a character drive through the Bay Area! Anyway...like I said. Frenemy.

I'd love to hear your thoughts about the novel, about the relationships between the characters, about the place and themes. Basically, about anything. Don't leave me hanging, peeps!