The Dreaded Scene

By Kim

In my last post I wrote about the ghosts of Christmas past. Originally I included the tale of another spirit, but her story didn’t match the tone of the rest of what I had to say, and so I left it out. Like most toddlers, my Great Aunt Penelope is rather persistent. In fact, she is Writer’s Block personified. I doubt she will release her grip until I acknowledge her.

Perhaps it’s best to let Penelope’s mother explain why I dread writing chapter 26 of The Oak Lovers.

In December [1910] little Penelope developed a cold, then the croup. The doctor said it was nothing serious. She was obviously not well at all, however, and I slept on a cot by her crib. The last night she was restless. I was heavy and tired, and dozed for a bit and dreamed. I thought I had wakened and saw the window wide open, the window frame free. Penelope was not in her crib. I went to the window and saw her walking in her nightgown in the snow that covered the porch roof outside the window. I quickly went to her and picked her up in my arms and wrapped her up warmly She looked up at me and smiled. Then I wakened. Penelope was sleeping quietly beside me. I felt a glow of happiness and thought, “the doctor is right after all. She will be better in the morning.” But she was not, and that evening she died in my arms…She was beautiful and rare. I loved her very much and always with a touch of fear. She seemed too lovely to be true, like a dream from which one prays not to waken. We had her for only two years and eight months, but for even that I am grateful.

From the memoir of Madonna Ahrens, written in about 1945

The first time I read these words, my oldest daughter, Sasha, was exactly two years and eight months old. I reacted how any mother would; I rushed into my child’s room to make sure she hadn’t stopped breathing in her sleep. I plucked her from her crib, rocked her, and wept into her hair, imagining how horrific such a loss would be. Even if I were nine months pregnant at the time, as Madonna was, I’m not sure I could ever recover.

I suspect Madonna got through the loss by keeping Penelope’s memory alive, something her husband, landscape painter Carl Ahrens, would likely have encouraged. At least a dozen photographs of Penelope survive, some in historical frames. Newspaper articles from as late as 1917 mention her along with the Ahrens’ other, still living, children. My grandmother, Chloris, born in 1912, spoke of Penelope as she did her other siblings, as if she had grown up with her. I remember a photograph of Penelope in my own dining room when I was small, which is more than I could say for Aunt Sigrid and Uncle Laird. While I knew she had died shortly after the photograph was taken, I always found the image comforting. It hangs in my home now.

She is alive again in my book now, a happy, beautiful child, cherished by both parents, and my own maternal instinct screams at me that as a novelist I have the power to give her a different fate. As much as I want to protect her, it would change the whole family dynamic if I spared her, not to mention that it would go against my desire to tell the truth as much as possible. So, I must kill my darling. I’ve killed characters before, even ones I love, but never a child, and never someone who once existed outside of my own imagination. What makes this deed even more heart-wrenching is that I see whispers of Penelope in my four-year-old daughter, Ashlyn.

The connection between the two girls was especially frightening a couple of months ago, when Ashlyn had the Swine Flu. After the fever broke, she had a week or so of a horrendous croupy cough and temporarily had to go on breathing treatments. The doctor assured me she would be fine and that there was no need to bring her to the ER unless she appeared to be in respiratory distress. Thankfully I didn’t have to experience that particular terror. I did, however, end up rushing her to the hospital about a week before Christmas. My parents and I took both girls to a local park, and the children were anxious to explore a path down by a nearby stream. Sasha, now eight, began running down a steep hill, Ashlyn close on her heels. My mother and I were both poised to yell ‘stop’ when Ashlyn fell. We could tell she landed on her knee, and she cried, but there was no outright screaming. My dad lifted her pant leg, expecting to see a scrape or abrasion that he could kiss better. Instead, we found a long gash, the skin nearly peeled away from her kneecap. Had I had my wits about me I’d have realized the wound, while awful to look at, was nothing serious. My wits were nowhere to be found. For a breathless moment I waited for blood to spurt, and feared we would lose her before reaching the hospital. I’ll never forget that feeling of helplessness.

I’ve already discussed how difficult it is for me to emotionally distance myself while I’m working on a chapter. While I realize my own child will barely even have a scar from the thirteen stitches it took to close the wound, writing about Penelope will require me to channel that feeling I had in the park, to psychologically dwell there until I finish the chapter. It is fitting, perhaps, that I’ve felt the weight of this burden throughout the holiday, and that I would prepare to write this scene so close to the anniversary of her death.

So here I sit unable to start my next chapter. From those of you who managed to push through and successfully write a dreaded scene, I’d appreciate any advice and encouragement you can give me...

NaNo is NaNot for Me

By Kim

Pamela, Julie, Elizabeth and Susan have all blogged recently about NaNo (short for National Novel Writing Month). Most have not committed to the full 50,000 words, of course, but they have all made ambitious word count goals and are well on their way to meeting them. Even Joan, who has not publicly weighed in on NaNo, has her own private goal and diligently worked toward it on our recent writing retreat near Glen Rose, Texas.

When Julie, Pamela and Joan brought up the idea of doing NaNo as a group, perhaps even posting daily word counts on our blog to hold ourselves accountable, my first instinct was panic. The Bullock household was on the tail end of our own private Swine Flu epidemic, the cats had ringworm, the dog had intermittent bouts of explosive diarrhea from raiding the kitty litter, my husband’s travel schedule was insane, we would be out of town for a week, and then, of course, there is the issue of my office. I produced maybe five thousand words worth keeping in October. NaNo purists would jump on my phrase ‘worth keeping’ and tell me that’s the crux of my problem. NaNo is not about achieving perfection, but about forcing yourself to forge ahead even if the words that came before are nothing but literary vomit.

I’ve written a polished novel in three months before, so it’s not that I can’t produce words quickly. It took me a grand total of ten minutes to compose a 525 word excuse about why NaNo was NaNot for me. Here are some of the highlights (with a few extras added in for good measure):

One: I would kill myself writing 50,000 words in a month only to spend the six months after that completely rewriting 49,999 of them. Twice. I’d have plenty of time to do it because my family would no longer be speaking to me.

Two: You are supposed to start a new project for NaNo. I would rather hack off my own arm than abandon a story I’ve lived and breathed for the last three years.

Three: Have I mentioned my office?

Four: Everyone in my family expects to eat and have clean clothes to wear.

Five: NaNo works well for those writers who like to write first and edit later. I write like a painter paints – in layers. Start with a sketch, add a wash or two, build up details here and there, etc. If the composition as a whole doesn’t work, I’m not going to waste my time crafting a scene that will only be cut when I address the bigger issues.

Six: My protagonists are both artists, so writing like a painter paints can only be a good thing. My ‘comfort zone’ works splendidly for this project.

Seven: The Oak Lovers is, essentially, a true life novel. Research is on-going and I have no control over when new details will fall in my lap. Just two weeks ago I heard from a distant relative of Carl Ahrens’ first wife Emily, and the information and photos she possessed clearly spelled out a close relationship between Emily and Carl’s cousin, Eleanor. This completely changes the dynamic between Carl, Emily and Eleanor, which affects at least four early chapters and may come in to play later in the book. It must be fixed before I get there.

Eight: I have two small children. I don’t want the eldest asking me why I spend more time with my dead great-grandparents than with her.

Nine: Writing a chapter takes little time but requires me to disengage from my life and take up temporary residence in 1909. I’m tweaking dialogue while driving Ashlyn to school or composing one of Carl’s clever insults while listening to Sasha talk about her day. Something as disruptive as a phone ringing can make me lose focus for hours. Everyone who lives with me knows I’m not 'all here' when I’m working. It’s mentally exhausting to live trapped between centuries and I always go into it with a mild fear that I’ll be changed in some permanent way. If I spent a month moving directly from one chapter to another without emotionally decompressing, the men in white coats would come to cart me away by the end.

Ten: I have never experienced the kind of all consuming love Carl and Madonna felt for each other and I wouldn’t want to. It took nearly a year and dozens of drafts of the early chapters before I learned how to mentally fall in love with one or the other of them for every scene. I’ve fallen for characters before, of course, but not ones who were real people. It’s uncomfortable, not because their blood runs through my veins, oddly enough, but because the feelings come from someplace outside of me. They are an affliction as much as a gift, and I always feel a bit lost while under that spell.

I have nothing but respect for all the writers who have committed to NaNo. I’m thrilled for my blog partners and the satisfaction they receive from meeting their goals and breaking out of comfort zones. Do I wish I were among you? Not particularly. I’m perfectly content with the high quality 3,000 words I’ve tallied since November 1. I’ve written new material, and in the end I suppose that’s all that really matters.