Choose-Your-Own-Adventure
I'm writing a new book, my fifth. My fourth, a memoir-history hybrid, is in the publication tunnel, on its way to copyeditors and cover designers. It's exciting, but also a little weird, since I've spent a long time obsessing over the project and now it doesn't need me anymore; at least, not yet.
Writing fiction again feels good, though, a port in the storm midst the rising tides of waves hands around at US all this. But breaking into a new fictional world has its challenges, ones that I conveniently forget about when I finish a novel and only remember again when I find myself trying to write the next. Which is to say, I'm at the point in writing a new book where I can't stop switching points-of-view.
ID: photo of open notebook with "new novel" written in the middle. Some writing faintly visible on the reverse side of the page.
Despite my amnesia (optimism?) I know this happened last time, too--after ages of working in first-person while writing Girl at War, switching to third for True Biz was hard. I knew third-person made the most sense for the story I wanted to tell, but writing those early pages still felt a bit like I was wearing my shoes on the wrong feet. So I did some toggling. Inordinate amounts of toggling, really--I wrote and rewrote Charlie's chapters in first-person before switching to third. Eliot's too. Then I switched the whole thing back and forth between past and present tense multiple times.
What's right for the story isn't always the same as what's comfortable, which is a hard idea to contend with in a field where we so frequently rely on our gut instincts. Often writing is described in very mystical terms, and in the best times it can feel that way. But for me at least, more often I think it feels like exercise. Something I do because my brain and body need it. Something that sometimes feels good, and is sometimes hard and painful--like stretching a muscle. And something that can't necessarily be "completed," just as one cannot do some stretching exercises and then check it off the list expecting to remain indefinitely limber.
Another crafty way of thinking about this is in the language of "containers," something Heidi Julavits talked a lot about when I had the pleasure of taking class with her. (Read The Folded Clock. Do it.) What it boils down to is that stories have an optimal container--word choice, POV, structure, tense--and it's our job as writers to find the right one. You can, of course, do whatever you want; you can carry your coffee to work in a Ziploc bag. Or you can put it in a thermos and move on with your life. What's your goal? What is the story's?
However, unlike with your coffee, there doesn't seem to be a shortcut in figuring out which container is the proverbial thermos without some experimenting. So here I sit, pouring my coffee between a sandwich bag and cup, wondering which is which. Third-person present or third-person past? Two different first-persons?
This stage of writing can feel both tenuous (how could I not know something so integral to the story I'm trying to tell?) and tedious (does it even count as writing if I'm just changing verb tenses back and forth ad infinitum?) But it can also be a reminder of one of the best parts of writing--those hundreds of tiny sliding door moments where make choices that shape and reshape our worlds and characters, the power of pulling us out of our own perspectives, and the absolutely radical ways things can change when viewed through the eyes of someone else.
When I look at it that way, its easy to see that it's not a coincidence that our overlords are banning books and pronouns and empathy. Words, and what they can make us see and feel, are powerful. They can change the story, and they can change us.
Reading recs:
Thing I just read: Careless People Sarah Wynn-Williams, about Facebook/Meta and how I thought it was bad but it's SO MUCH WORSE.
Thing I'm currently reading: Great Big Beautiful Life losing my Emily Henry virginity on this (I think?) enemies-to-friends story about journalists warring over the same biography gig.
TBR: King of Ashes SA Cosby. I actually know nothing about this, his latest, but I am a Razorblade Tears fanboi (and am also inordinately proud that I've sent my dad down this path, too.)
PS--I loved choose your own adventure novels as a kid, but all the ones I can remember were weirdly evangelical-coded? If you have good kid's recs, send them my way on Bsky/Insta, please!
Other Biz
I've got a list of books with disability representation by disabled authors featured in the free Reese's Book Club newsletter later this month. Signing up gets you weekly book recs, reading guides, coloring pages, and other bookish stuff, so if those strike your fancy you can sign up on their site.
If you're seeking weekly updates on the state of disability rights (and intersections thereof) in the US, please visit www.disability-rights-watch.com. Also on Bsky @disrightswatch.bsky.social