Natalia Sylvester · Finding Truth Through Fiction

Fresh Ink: An Interview with Debut Novelist Seré Prince Halverson

January 25, 2012 in debut novelists, Fresh Ink, interviews | 105313 comments2012-01-25+10%3A41%3A46Natalia

Fresh Ink is a monthly series of interviews with debut novelists that focuses on the journey to publication. Today we’re starting off the year with Seré Prince Halverson, author of The Underside of Joy, which was published January 12 by Dutton and is forthcoming in 14 other countries.

I first learned about Sere through Sarah Jio‘s blog (another Fresh Ink interviewee) and am now counting down the days till February 23, when she’s in Austin for a book signing. Sere will be the first author I’ve interviewed who I get to meet in real life! (You bet I’ll be taking pictures!)

Length of time from book’s start to pub date: About six years, with many breaks in between.

# of agents you queried before signing: current agent, 12 (in the distant past, 75+ before I found my first agent.)

# of books written before this one: 2.5

# of revisions you went through: Too many to count. I’m all about revision.

We’re lucky that there are so many great resources for writers to learn about publishing these days. That being said, what’s the one aspect of the process you never could have predicted?

The kindness of strangers. People are not only taking the time to read my novel, but to write me, and also spread the word. And don’t even get me started on the writing community! I’ve met so many talented and supportive writers. I even belong to an online group called Book Pregnant, made up of 22 debut authors, and we’re all helping each other through the book-birthing process. It turns out that remembering to breathe is key.

I smiled when I read on your website that you worked 20 years as a freelance copywriter. It seems there are many of us copywriter/novelists out there! How did you choose this career path, and how did it lead you to fiction? Do you feel there are advantages to this mixture of writing backgrounds?

I’ve always loved writing but when I was younger but I lacked the confidence to pursue writing fiction as a career. I majored in Journalism. My dad’s guidance went something like, “The only way you can make a living by writing is in advertising.” So I took a lot of advertising and public relations classes. I got married right after graduation and worked so my first husband could finish his degree. But I soon realized that what I really wanted to do was write fiction. So while I worked and raised kids, I took writing workshops and classes.

Sometimes I wished that I had an unrelated day job, because as different as copywriting and novel writing are, they take up the same brain space. While I showered, or drove, or folded piles of laundry, or whatever, I either thought of headlines and concepts, or character and plot. So when work got busy, my fiction didn’t get its due attention. But when work slowed down, I’d plunge into the novel. Of course I’d want to stay there, but eventually the phone would ring and I’d force myself back into advertising mode and create a tagline or write a website.

In retrospect, I can see a lot of positive aspects. Copywriting taught me to set deadlines for myself. It taught me to never wait on the Muse, because, as Barbara Kingsolver says, “She has a lousy work ethic.” I was a single mom for a lot of years, and working freelance gave me flexibility so I could be around for my kids. I’d take work with me and get stuff done while waiting in the car during basketball or lacrosse practice. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Sere Prince Halverson

The Difference Between Recording and Remembering

January 19, 2012 in craft, Home, honesty, memory, writing | 104526 comments2012-01-19+15%3A47%3A15Natalia

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I have this tiny red digital voice recorder that I rarely travel without. Blame it on the journalist in me (and also the fact that I work freelance). You just never know when a moment worth recording is going to pop up, or a random, can’t-turn-it-down assignment will fall into your inbox.

So while I spent three weeks in Miami over the holidays, my recorder came with me almost everywhere. I’ve never really had to use it; most of the time I forget it’s there. But on one of the last days of my visit I sat down with my grandmother (my Nonna, as we call her, which is Italian for grandmother) and we got to talking.

It was a spontaneous talk that traveled to the past, to the days when she was a teenager and met my grandfather, to the details of what bus she rode that day, which girlfriends she was with as they went to the beach, what she whispered to them the first time she locked eyes with him. She told me about the first time they finally spoke, days later, and I remember thinking how romantic it must’ve been, to live in a time when even teenagers saying hello at a beach used their first and last names for introductions.

I’d never heard this story before, so I sat there and soaked it in. I asked questions, hoping she’d get into more detail, and by the middle of the conversation Nonna pretty much took the reins. We weren’t just talking anymore; she was telling me the story of her life.

For a moment, as this dawned on me, I thought about running to my purse real quick to get my recorder. I wanted to capture every word, the way her voice changed pitch and became more youthful at times, how it slowed down to follow her gaze in other moments when history became difficult to recall. I wanted to, years from now, replay her giggles (there were so many) and picture how she smiled so wide that her eyes closed up and her shoulders shook.

I kept wanting to get my recorder, but I never did. The moment never felt right. You can’t just push a pause button on life and expect it to go on interrupted. Disrupting the natural flow of the conversation for the sake of capturing it wasn’t nearly worth it. I told myself that I would write everything down later in as much detail as possible.

But we had plans that evening, and the next day was a rush of getting our luggage together and saying our goodbyes as we prepared to go back home. Once in Austin, with more time on my hands, I was shocked to realize I wasn’t ready to write it all down yet. It took me two more days. When I finally opened my journal to record my memories of our conversation, eight pages came out, cramping my hands.

I started how she started. I still remembered her exact words. But the more I wrote the more I realized I wasn’t just writing her history; I was writing about the experience of having it passed down to me. Her story became intertwined with mine, in the way family histories often do; her expressions became filtered through my perception of them.

My retelling wasn’t perfect, but in its own way it was. It occurred to me that the reason I waited so long to write it down was that I had to process it. A tape recorder or a camera might have captured the moment more accurately, but I wanted to write about it truthfully. That’s the job of the writer, isn’t it? Of fiction. We observe life but we do it a disservice by simply regurgitating the cold facts. Bringing something to life on the page is a craft, a careful process that pulls from every little piece of us. In sharing stories we share parts of ourselves, even if the story is about someone else entirely.

It’s like the quote in one of my favorite books, The Book of Embraces, says:

Recordar: To remember, from the Latin re-cordis, to pass back through the heart.

 photo credit: Denzil~

The Book You Most Want to Read Giveaway

January 12, 2012 in blogging, books, just for fun, Party book-nerd style, writing | 102838 commentsThe+Book+You+Most+Want+to+Read+Giveaway2012-01-12+15%3A39%3A55Natalia

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I thought for weeks about how I could celebrate this blog’s one-year mark and celebrate the things it’s come to represent. One year ago today when I wrote my first post by hand, I didn’t really have a clue where I’d go from there. I wrote a lot about writing, and about books, and about how random things in my life gave me insights on the creative life and the importance of storytelling…but when I think about the ways the blog’s really evolved (in the ways that matter to me most) it all comes down to you. This blog has become a way for me to meet wonderful people like you, and I can’t tell you how much it means to me that you’ve all stopped by this past year, read about this journey, and most of all, talked to me.

So I wanted this one-year mark to be a big thank you, I wanted to be able to give you all a gift of some sort, and I wanted it to be personal. But as much as I wish I could do that for every single one of you I can only pick one.

Tell Me What Book You Most Want to Read

So here’s what we’ll do. I want to give you a book, but not just any book. I want to give you the book you most want to read. The one that’s been on your TBR list that you haven’t bought yet and you’re dying to get your hands on. Tell me what book that is and I’ll randomly choose a winner, buy them the book, and send it to them with a personalized thank-you note inside. (If you don’t like people writing in your books, just let me know and I’ll write the note on a card).

And there’s one more thing. One of my goals for this year is to read more books—at least twice as many as I read last year. You know me; I read mostly fiction, and will always read mostly fiction, but this year I want to sprinkle some non-fiction and classics into the mix. But I need suggestions (from all 3 categories). I want to know what books you think I have to read. The ones that kept you up all night.

So to enter: leave a comment recommending a book to me and telling me which book you most want to read.

Tweet about this giveaway (mention @NataliaSylv so I can see it) or share it on Facebook and you’ll get an extra entry for each action.

You have until Tuesday, January 17, to enter; I’ll announce a winner on Wednesday. Use the box below (I’m using Rafflecopter for the first time to keep track of all the entries).

And you know that part about how I wish I could thank every one of you? I really mean it, so if you’re so inclined, email me your address anyways so I can send you a thank you note. I promise I won’t keep your address or send spammy things your way years from now.

Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

photo credit: The_Skinny_Boy

Fresh Ink: A Look Back at 2011

December 28, 2011 in books, debut novelists, Fresh Ink, interviews | 101322 commentsFresh+Ink%3A+A+Look+Back+at+20112011-12-28+07%3A09%3A58Natalia

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I’m so lucky to have connected with the amazing authors I got to know this year through the Fresh Ink interview series. Each is uniquely talented, incredibly kind and generous with their time, and above all so down-to-earth and supportive of the writing community. It really was an honor to get to know them and see how the year of their book debuts unfolded.

Now that 2012 is just a few days away, I thought it’d be nice to check in with these authors to see what their thoughts and impressions of this year are, and what they’re looking forward to in 2012. There are a couple authors who I wasn’t able to get in touch with (who can blame them? The holidays are such a crazy time and I know that both are busy with exciting new developments!) so I made my best efforts to fill in what I could.

As for all of you, dear readers (like how I got all Brontë there?) thank you so much for being a part of this blog in its “debut” year, for sharing your thoughts with me, and letting me get to know you. I can’t wait to see what 2012 has in store for all of you! Read the rest of this entry »

The Bookmark Has to Be Worthy of the Book

December 20, 2011 in books, just for fun, reading | 100715 comments2011-12-20+07%3A32%3A28Natalia

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That’s one of my reading rules, anyways. So imagine my disappointment when, while traveling this week and daydreaming about all the time I’d have to read, I forgot to bring a decent bookmark.

My 2012 planner has these cute tear-away list sheets that are just about the size and shape of a bookmark. At the top they say “To Do,” so I took the liberty of making a bookmark/to do list for every time I have a book in hand:

With a special cameo by Keith Cronin‘s Me Again, a book I’ve been enjoying way too much to just use a grocery receipt as a bookmark.

A City With a Million Faces: How Characters Influence Setting

December 15, 2011 in characters, interviews, setting, writing | 9836 comments2011-12-15+13%3A49%3A00Natalia

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I absolutely loved this interview with novelist Cristina García for so many reasons. Let’s count the ways, shall we?

1. I adore her work. Dreaming In Cuban and Monkey Hunting are books I still think about even though it’s been years since I read them. Cristina also happens to be a master at writing in multiple POVs, so if any of you are doing the same, her books are a great example of how one story can have so many different truths.

2. I adore her. I was lucky enough to take a workshop with her back in 2005 and in just a few short days I learned so much. She had us do a great exercise in which we read poetry before writing. It helped us loosen the mind and play with language as a warm-up.

3. She recently finished teaching a semester in residence at my alma mater, The University of Miami. Oh, to have graduated five years later.

4. Even though I don’t live in Miami, it’s still home to me. In this interview Cristina discusses how she approached writing about the city at different times in her writing career. And it doesn’t hurt that the photographs are breathtaking. Nothing like being away from a place and seeing it through someone else’s lens to make you fall in love with it all over again.

5. Yes, the interview is a bit on the long side. If you’re short on time, start at 2:20 (the intro’s a bit long, and she starts talking at this point). Even though the focus is on Miami as setting, her commentary applies to any location:

“It’s a living breathing organism, and it’s something that depending on where you are or who’s telling the story, will change.”

Cristina refers to her characters as a lens through which we see setting. “I think I construct it through character. Character and their experience of it.”

The Necessity of Silence

December 7, 2011 in feelings, honesty, journals, writing, writing spaces | 99429 commentsThe+Necessity+of+Silence2011-12-07+17%3A16%3A17Natalia

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Today’s a special day for me reasons I won’t mention here. I thought about blogging about it, then realized I’m still working through it in my mind, figuring how (or if) I feel about it. Most likely I’ll work through it by writing it down.

When I do figure this out, it’s probably something I’ll never share. I say this not to be vague or cryptic, or purposefully mysterious, but just to remind us that there are parts of us it’s okay not to share.

Writing is always described as such a solitary act. But writers dream of being published and having their voices heard. We have blogs and Twitter accounts, which allow every thought to be broadcast for public consumption (or public indifference).

And while there’s something very beautiful in that because it helps us build a community, I can’t imagine sharing every last piece of me. I need something that remains my own, a quiet place I can go to at the end of the day and be completely alone.

I was looking through old journals a few days ago and it occurred to me that I have years and years of writing that no one will ever read. It made me sad not because it’s a waste, but because for the most part I stopped writing in those journals over the last few years. In the last few years, my life and my writing shifted. I started working as a full-time freelance writer, I started my first novel, I started focusing on establishing an online presence. Everything I wrote became something others would read. And that’s not a bad thing. It’s not like my writing’s suffered because it suddenly had an audience.

But I will say that yesterday, as I was driving around and thinking about what today marked, I realized I wanted to write about it in a journal. I realized I needed to write about it not so that someone might read it, but simply because I had to get it out for myself. It was the oddest sensation. It was like remembering I had a safe place I’d totally neglected, and now that I knew it was still there I ached for it.

I wondered how many of us forget this the deeper we delve into our online existences. How many of us obsess over what the next blog post will be about, what word count we’re at in our WIP so we can share it with our buddies, but then forget to nurture the part of us that made us writers in the first place, back when we scribbled thoughts (any thought) just for the sake of discovering them.

This isn’t a post about how, to do our best writing, we need to write for ourselves and without an audience in mind. It’s just a post about me realizing that I need to write for myself again, period. Not so that the writing will be better. Not so that one day it’ll be read by others. This isn’t about craft or what a story needs.

It’s simply about what I need. I need to write things that I keep to myself. And I suspect a lot of us need that, too.

 photo credit: redcargurl

Take it Like a Writer: No Disclaimers, No Excuses

December 1, 2011 in writing | 97528 comments2011-12-01+15%3A04%3A33Natalia

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Tell me you haven’t been tempted to put a huge WARNING sticker on a work-in-progress.

It is, after all, in progress. So let’s say you just finished a rough draft and you’re sending it to your writer friends because you want to get their initial feedback*. Your book right now is like the skeleton of a building. You have the blueprints, and you’ve laid some bricks and cement and erected a lot of wooden boards.

But before you add the finishing touches, before you start putting up dry wall and picking paint colors (clearly, I’m not an architect, so bear with me with this metaphor) you want to do a walk-through with a new set of eyes. Eyes you trust to catch any structural errors you might have missed. Eyes that are seeing this all for the first time, making it easier for them to see any fatal details that could make the whole building crumble if ignored.

Obviously, the work’s not done yet. Obviously, you’re not expecting someone to walk in and say, “I love it! When can I move in?”

But you’re still tempted to disclaim a few things.

This is a very, very rough draft.

I’m still planning on developing so-and-so’s character.

I’m going to be researching this event a little more to add in the details in revision.

You feel the need to defend the work because it’s not yet at its best.

But here’s the thing: You know that bit about writers needing thick skins? It starts right now. Before the first round of feedback ever comes your way, you need to tell the world you’re open to it. No warning signs. No disclaimers. No excuses.

Because the last thing you want to do is scare people away from walking in in the first place, or from being honest with you. When we start off making excuses for our work, it sends a message that we won’t be able to take the truth, or worse, we won’t be able to use it to keep improving.

Leave the door wide open (to your most trusted readers, of course). Let them take it all in like future readers would, with the writer’s voice only showing up on the page. Take the criticism like a writer. Hear it out, gather it all in your toolbox, and keep building till you’re proud of it: No warning signs here.

*by you, of course I mean I.

 photo credit: Lee Cannon

Fresh Ink: An Interview with Debut Novelist Rebecca Rasmussen

November 22, 2011 in books, debut novelists, fiction, Fresh Ink, interviews, Rebecca Rasmussen, writing | 96611 comments2011-11-22+14%3A59%3A09Natalia

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Fresh Ink is a monthly series of interviews with debut novelists that focuses on the journey to publication. Rebecca Rasmussen, author of The Bird Sisters, is celebrating the release of her paperback today (the hardcover launched in April). It’s the beautiful story of two elderly sisters who live together and spend their days nursing injured birds back to health, and the summer from their youth that bound them together when their hopes for the future were changed forever. The Bird Sisters was selected as a Target Emerging Author’s Pick and the Ladies’ Home Journal Book Club Pick for November/December.

I’m really excited to have Rebecca here as the first Fresh Ink interview to be featured after the original launch, so I’m interested to get her insights on what happens during this time. Thanks so much to Rebecca for being here!

In what ways did launching your debut novel live up to your expectations, and in what ways (if any) did it take you by surprise?

Launching a book is an extremely emotional experience, and for authors I think it’s made more so by the fact that it is your project and in the end you have very little control over it. Unless you are personally wealthy, you can’t create an advertising budget if your publishers don’t create one for you. You can’t sit in on the pitch meetings and try to convince everyone at Random House that yours is a book worth spending time and money on. You can’t do so many things you want to do.

Most authors I talk to are in some way disappointed by their launches—the world didn’t shift, maybe at all, the day their books came out. I knew all of this beforehand, and of course I couldn’t help but hope my experience would be different. It was and it wasn’t. The best part of my launch was that I met so many lovely people who really moved the earth for my book. These people included bloggers, other writers, reviewers, radio personalities, editors, etc. I owe them everything because eventually, if you are in any way normal, you strain your voice talking about your book and you need someone to take over for you. I was simply amazed by my generous friends. What a joy to meet so many of them when I drove all around the country on my crazy, three-generations-of-Rasmussens-book-tour (Wow! That’s another story altogether!).

In the months after your launch, what are some of the ways you kept momentum and the excitement going for your book?

I put a lot of miles on the car! All in all, I think I visited (and read at) over twenty bookstores!

I read in an article that some of the initial feedback you got for The Bird Sisters was that it was “quiet.” So my question is really two questions:

How did you interpret this, and what does “quiet” mean to you when describing a book?

To be honest, I knew those editors were the wrong readers for my book, and I knew I wasn’t going to change my book into something it wasn’t meant to be for the sake of someone else. I was happy to work on the book to make the writing stronger, the scenes tighter, etc., but I wasn’t about to turn a funeral scene into a parade if you know what I mean…

How did you work with this feedback ?

Luckily, my editor didn’t try to make the book a loud one. She tried to make it better, which I know she did. My editor is no longer with Crown, and I miss her and her brilliant editing every day.

With The Bird Sisters coming out in paperback, did you have to approach promoting this any differently than your initial launch? In what ways?

I’m happy to say that for the paperback launch, my publisher is the one doing most of the work for me. This time around, Crown/Broadway is putting a lot into the book, which basically means I am feeling relieved and somewhat like a normal person again, tweeting here and there, blogging here and there. That’s one of the risks of having to market yourself almost exclusively; you can easily lose sight of what’s important. Now I have time to teach and grade papers, to play with my daughter and make supper, to have a conversation with my husband, etc. It’s a big blessing. I’m very grateful.

What are you working on next? What is the most important thing you learned from writing The Bird Sisters that you think will help you with future writing?

I am actually working on my third novel. I wrote my second when I was waiting for The Bird Sisters to come out – from the day I signed my contract to the hardcover publication about 18 months passed, so I had plenty of time to work on a new project. My novel is about an old country doctor whose life gets turned upside down when a woman accuses him of malpractice in Oneida, Wisconsin.

About The Bird Sisters:

When a bird flies into a window in Spring Green, Wisconsin, sisters Milly and Twiss get a visit. Twiss listens to the birds’ heartbeats, assessing what she can fix and what she can’t, while Milly listens to the heartaches of the people who’ve brought them. The two sisters have spent their lives nursing people and birds back to health.

But back in the summer of 1947, they knew nothing about trying to mend what had been accidentally broken. Milly was known as a great beauty with emerald eyes and Twiss was a brazen wild child who never wore a dress or did what she was told. That was the summer their golf pro father got into an accident that cost him both his swing and his charm, and their mother, the daughter of a wealthy jeweler, finally admitted their hardscrabble lives wouldn’t change. It was the summer their priest, Father Rice, announced that God didn’t exist and ran off to Mexico, and a boy named Asa finally caught Milly’s eye. And, most unforgettably, it was the summer their cousin Bett came down from a town called Deadwater and changed the course of their lives forever.

Thanks, Rebecca, and congratulations on a great launch year!

The Thin Line Between Writing Style & Writing Habits

November 10, 2011 in craft, fiction, honesty, language, style, voice, writing | 94121 comments2011-11-10+18%3A31%3A40Natalia

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I don’t exactly consider myself an expert on fashion style. I try my best, but sometimes an outfit works and sometimes it feels uninspired. When I can’t figure out what to wear I fall back on the ever-reliable jeans, white t-shirt, and cute accessories combo. But lately I’ve been thinking a lot about style, not just in fashion but in writing.

I have a friend who, no matter what she wears, makes it look like the most chic ensemble ever. She mixes and matches items I would never dream of combining and pulls them off flawlessly. It’s a beautiful thing. Okay, yeah…sometimes I find myself envying her and wondering why I can’t make a parka seem glamorous. But for the most part I admire her vision, creativity, and the fearlessness that comes with pairing a $200 skirt with a $4 top found at a thrift store. Her style is hers alone. It can’t be cloned (trust me, I’ve tried).

It’s the same way with writers. The best writers have so much style you could probably pick up on it just by reading their grocery lists. Sometimes it’s in the form of a metaphor so surprisingly true, you wonder why you never thought of it. Other times it’s just the rhythm of the language, a cadence so unique to them it’s like recognizing their footsteps from down the hall. You start picking up on a writer’s voice, their underlying cynism or wit, maybe their continuous exploration of a theme that, even when they’re writing about completely different situations, creeps into their words.

True style is difficult to pinpoint. You don’t know exactly why you recognize it. You just know it’s there because it’s powerful and awe-inspiring.

On the flip side of that, we have habits. Like style, habits can be unique to a person. They can become someone’s trademark. They can even be endearing for a while (someone who always answers a question with a question when they’re nervous, or a writer who makes the second person POV sing, stripping it of all its awkwardness) until they become overused and flat-out annoying. Habits are easily cloned and repeated; they’re clutches we can’t help but fall back on when we’re challenged. What’s worse is we hardly ever recognize them, or when we do, we mistake them for style.

Me wearing a white t-shirt with jeans and a funky purse anytime I want to look casual but put-together? That’s not style. If I wore that outfit every single day I can assure you the novelty would wear off. That’s why writers have to be aware of their habits. Make sure that that one thing you do really, really well doesn’t become the only thing you do, or the thing you do too much of, or the thing that eventually becomes so predictable it’s distracting to the reader. Don’t expect to catch all these habits yourself, either. Have your writing group read your work. Have an editor take a look (waves hello!).

And once they’ve pointed out your recurring ticks, don’t just eliminate them; think about why they’re there in the first place. Challenge yourself to come up with new ways to achieve the effect you’re going for. Go crazy and experiment. Read a ton and write a ton. Eventually you’ll find something other than habits creeping into your writing— something you can’t put your finger on but your readers recognize as your style. Then (and this is so important) don’t be satisfied that you’ve found it. Embrace it, keep writing and let it evolve over time.

Be honest, now: Do you know what your style is? Do you know what your habits are?