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Forked in Nashville: A Blog from Parnassus Books

July 15, 2013 By Susan Crandall 4 Comments

Out of the Mouths of Babes … or Into Their Tiny Hands

An Accidental Forking

It’s hard to be gone from home for nearly three weeks straight, even if I’m having a great time meeting booksellers and readers and discussing Whistling Past the Graveyard. It’s even harder to be away from a 16-month-old granddaughter. To prevent complete Gram-withdraw symptoms, my hubby, son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter made a five hour drive from Indianapolis to meet me in Nashville, TN where I was signing books with author and friend Karen White at Parnassus Books.

The signing was wonderful. Lauren at Parnassus did a great job facilitating (even though she still felt the weight of Parnassus’ Neil Gaiman event just a few days prior). Karen and I both gave our spiel about our books and did our little readings before we had a great q&a / discussion with the fine folks in attendance. Interacting with readers who enjoy books as much as Karen and I do is truly a treat, and helps to pull us through long drives and distance from family.

Afterward, Karen joined the Crandall clan for a Saturday evening dinner (the restaurant will remain nameless to protect my identity). It had been a long, long day for baby Olivia, but she was a trooper, an angel at the dinner table. While we adults chatted, she busied herself unloading and reloading my purse (very into organizing, this baby). Of course, Karen, jokester that she is, maneuvered plenty of inappropriate things into Olivia’s reach to be reloaded into Gram’s purse. Before we left the restaurant I removed and returned to the table a salt shaker, a pepper mill, two different bottles of hot sauce, variously used cocktail napkins and sugar packets. Once all that was back where it belonged we left the restaurant. We put our sweet little girl to bed and I was able to lay my head down with images of her bright smile in my head.

Olivia Grabbyhands at Parnassus Books in Nashville

At breakfast the next morning (in a different restaurant, wherein my husband and son consumed more french toast than perhaps they should), I was searching in my purse for my lip balm and what did I discover? One fork. Misplaced, of course, I won’t go so far as label myself (or my granddaughter) a thief!

At least it looked to be near the end of its useful life.

It is newly loved by me on the road, as a gift from my little Olivia. By the end, this will be one well-traveled fork, and, hopefully, the (nameless) restaurant will be none the wiser.

What’s Next for Susan Crandall?

July 8, 2013 By Susan Crandall 6 Comments

That’s almost always the first question I’m asked after a reader has told me how much he/she loved WHISTLING PAST THE GRAVEYARD (Or on a few occasions, what he or she did not like). I’m flattered beyond words that as soon as they’ve finished one of my novels they want to begin another. I do wish I was a little speedier in my process so I could say that next month you’ll be able to read my upcoming title. Alas, I am not that writer who can turn out three to four books a year. One a year is taxing my comfort level. I have had years with two book releases and those years gave me more gray hairs than my children ever did.

I am a writer who likes to wallow in a story as I create; hone and revise and expand and explore. I like to think that allows me to be the best writer I can be, and I hope it makes for greater reader satisfaction. Because I am a tortoise not a hare, I’m going to stick with that justification. WHISTLING PAST THE GRAVEYARD is the shortest novel I’ve ever written and it took the most time—nearly two years from start to final accepted manuscript.

I am working on a new novel. It’s in the early stages, a time when my story idea is in a steady state of flux and my main characters and I are just getting to know one another. Those secondary characters are still unseen and will be met on the road as my main characters and I make our way through their story.

So, this is what I can tell you about my work in progress. I have chosen another era of great social and economic change in our country, the early 1920s. This part of the decision making took some time in itself, with lots of reading and research to find the just-right backdrop for my characters’ journeys. This is a story of three people from very different backgrounds: a sixteen-year-old orphaned son of German immigrant tenant farmers; a young woman of privilege whose family has lost their fortune; and a WWI veteran pilot. These people have all been set adrift by life-altering circumstances and find themselves bound together by mutual need. Their tumultuous journey is fraught with drama fueled by blind obsessions and conflicting goals. They criss-cross the heartland, exploring the rapidly expanding role of aviation from barnstorming to bootlegging, from a wildly popular flying circus to the newly founded and dangerous sport of air racing. Their lives entwine with farmers and tycoons, tent revivals and rum runners. Love will blossom, unrequited and otherwise. Betrayals will threaten. Danger will come in many forms. These three will be tested … and I’m not yet sure exactly who will find solid ground and who will falter.

What’s next is a question I will ask myself a thousand times between now and typing THE END. A book is a journey. And not just for the reader and the characters, but for the author, too.

►►► Susan will begin her southern US book tour for Whistling Past the Graveyard today, July 8, in Jackson, Mississippi at Lemuria Bookstore. Check her Appearances page to see when she will be in a city near you.

Historical Fiction – 1963 and Me

July 2, 2013 By Susan Crandall 2 Comments

Is It Still Historical Fiction if I can Remember It?

I was a little taken aback when I saw that Whistling Past the Graveyard was on historical fiction lists. Historical??? Hey, I was seven years old in July of 1963. I always think of history as being, well… before me!

Susan Crandall at seven (middle), with sister, Sally and father, Vic.

I get the same feeling when I go to antique shops and find things that were around our house when I was a kid. Then I think about it, about all of the years between then and now, and the changes that those years have wrought in both my life and the world around me and it begins to make sense.

The exploration of these changes enhanced this story in more ways than I’d imagined when I began writing Starla’s journey. As I researched the historical details of the era, I was able to compare the reality against my own understanding of the world in 1963. I didn’t know squat, nor did I really care to. Of course, Starla Claudelle my narrator in WHISTLING was nine-and-a-half, not just seven, so I’m sure she’d tell you she was more worldly than I. She was also living in a less-than-loving environment, so I guess that might have opened her eyes some, too. Still, the cocoon of innocence of the era prevailed; bred by days when kids were out on bicycles for hours on end and no one worried that they’d be snatched, where we weren’t constantly bombarded with world-wide crises and National headlines, where summer days were spent drifting with our imaginations instead of on an organized schedule of activities and the anchor of electronic devices keeping us indoors. (Okay, now I sound like someone who remembers “history.”) But it’s true. Life was different. Not always better, but certainly not the same as children live today.

First Ward Elementary Noblesville Indiana

First Ward Elementary (Noblesville, IN) where Susan attended second grade in 1963. Demolished 1965.

I grew up in a small Indiana town (every time I use this phrase, I get a blast of music in my head—John Mellencamp’s Small Town competing with Tom Petty’s Mary Jane’s Last Dance, but I digress), so I didn’t grow up with segregation per se. We had only a small number of African-American families. We had three grade school districts, geographically divided in blocks from north to south in our town. All of the African-American families lived outside my district, so I was in junior high before I had the opportunity to make African-American friends. Prior to that, truthfully, I didn’t even think about race. My family never even went south on vacation, so I was probably as ignorant of racial segregation as a person could be. I certainly didn’t know there were places in our country where they had rules about where black people could and could not be.

Fictions of Youth

In 1963, the possibility of children suffering at the hands of those who are supposed to care for them was beyond my comprehension. I assumed all kids were safe and secure in their own families—maybe not always happy, but safe.

Kennedy Children in the Oval Office When I was seven, the only reason I even thought about the President of the United States was because he had kids and there were magazine pictures of them in the White House. That held true until November of that year when I watched a black-and-white TV as his flag-covered casket being pulled through Washington, D.C.

When I was seven, kids were kids. Kids with money were the same as kids without money—truthfully, I couldn’t have identified the “haves” and “have nots.” Kids who lived on my street were the same as those who lived on every other street. Kids with divorced parents (kind of a rare and big deal in the 60s) were the same to me as kids with married parents. Kids were nice, or mean, or fun, or boring; those were my designations. We assessed each other blind to all but our interactions with one another. None of the little compartments in which we sort people as adults had yet been formed. I’d like to think that the same stands for seven year olds today.

I thought the teenagers who worked at the public swimming pool at our park were grown-ups and they had the best jobs ever. I watched Popeye cartoons at five o’clock. I loved sparkle paints (they made such a mess it was a rare treat to get them). I was working on hot peppers with my jump rope. My best friends were Patty, Janet, Kathy and Patricia. Boys were generally invisible, except Roger and Steve down the street because I’d walked to kindergarten with them. I liked to walk the two blocks uptown to G.C. Murphy’s, a dime store that seemed much bigger than that building is now, and check out the colored chicks and ducks at Easter time (yes, live chicks and ducks, dyed spring colors) and the pet turtles (little guys, no more than 2 inches in diameter) the rest of the year. I had a clear plastic turtle bowl with an island sprouting a plastic palm tree and lost count of the number of pet turtles that passed through my house.

Segregation: Colored Dining Room When I started writing this book, I was amazed at all of the little details of that time that popped back in my head, things I hadn’t thought of for years. I was able to incorporate some of them into Starla’s life as “color.” Of course, since I was so ignorant of the greater world, there was a great deal of research involved in this book, too. Let’s face it, a seven year old in Indiana (probably some adults, too at that time) had little awareness of in the segregated South. Current events were scraps of overheard adult conversations, incomprehensible in their far-reaching implications and had little to do with me.

When the Adult Remembers what the Child Saw, Does it Become Historical Fiction?

Whistling Past the Graveyard is so special to me in part because it allowed me to both walk down memory lane, enjoying my childhood perspectives, and investigate the reality of a world I’d dwelt in but had little true understanding of. My adult perspective had prepared me for much of what I discovered in research, and yet there were many, many things that were surprising … and sometime shocking. It was much different than researching an historical period that you yourself did not experience. I prefer not to think of 1963 as a historical period, but in fact, ladies and gentlemen, it is. It was a time of great change in our country, which gave me a deep well of material to flesh out this novel.

The World is My Oyster, But Am I Ready for Shellfish?

June 11, 2013 By Susan Crandall Leave a Comment

The Highs and Lows of Writing Fiction

I am a writer. I feel lucky to be able to be able to spend my days alone in my office living in a world of my creation, having conversations with people who live solely in my head. I’m luckier still to be able to share my stories with unknown strangers. Yes, I love my work.

You wouldn’t think there could possibly be a downside to this, right? I mean, loving what you do, no matter how crazy you make yourself with second guessing your choices in a manuscript (because that stack of blank pages can turn into anything, and if you don’t make the right choices you can end up with one hot mess); or how many times you question your own talent or the validity of your endeavor, loving your work is a blessing.

If I didn’t love my work, I’d blast ahead with confidence. I would make bold, careless choices without a backward glance. I would never consult another writer (I’m very fortunate to have brilliant critique partners in Karen White and Wendy Wax) for an opinion. I’d let my brain child run wild. But I want him to be loved. I want him to be respected. I want him to find his place in the literary world once he leaves my office.

And because I feel that way, every nuance of every character, every small twist in plot, every word of every scene is a careful—and probably over-analyzed—choice. Definitely over-analyzed. It took nearly two years (as opposed to my normal 9 months) to write WHISTLING PAST THE GRAVEYARD, a novel of only 320 pages. Because with this book I was in uncharted territory: I was stepping outside the world of genre fiction, a land with defined boundaries.

It was liberating. It was exhilarating. It also came with a boatload of new decisions. When the world is your oyster, you have to figure out if you want it raw, fried, or in a stew.
I tinkered. I toyed. I pondered. Luckily, I had Starla, a spunky little girl and my main character, talking steadily in head, so I knew I was going to use a child narrator. But is her story ultimately a coming-of-age, or a child in jeopardy? Exactly how old was she going to be? (This became very, very important not only from the plot perspective, but for the narration as well.) Do I tell her story in first or third person? Do I use multiple points of view? Do I use past or present tense? Do I tell her story as Scout Finch told hers, from the perspective of an adult recollection, using her adult understanding to filter her observations? Or do I use a more immediate perspective, as in Huckelberry Finn, telling the story strictly through the eyes of a child, with her misunderstandings and her childlike sensibilities fully intact? The list of decisions went on and on. Raw, fried, or in a stew?

In the end, I had to start writing, using variations of all of the above before I struck on the right combination.

I discovered Starla’s voice was so strong and so specific that, after all of the experimentation, I had to go with the pure child’s perspective, in deep first person. It made this work stand out from other child-narrated stories, but it also challenged my writing abilities to maintain it. I was limited to Starla’s vocabulary. I had to filter all events through her understanding and still convey to the reader a true picture of what was happening.

I plunged ahead, pushing away the worry that this book may not be marketable. Then I held my breath while my agent read it. Once I received her enthusiastic phone call saying she was thrilled with it, I held my breath again while it made its rounds to publishers. Lo and behold, there was interest! Lots of interest.

WHISTLING PAST THE GRAVEYARD found a loving home with Gallery Books at Simon and Schuster. There, Starla and her journey are being treated with literary joy and respect. My brain child has found a place that validates the long and winding road on which it was reared.

Now I’m off to worry about that next batch of oysters.

Finding a Critique Partner, It’s Like Dating, Only Harder (Part Four)

March 7, 2013 By Susan Crandall Leave a Comment

Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four

Breaking Up with Your Critique Partner

Breaking Up is Hard to Do Once you’re past the trial period and have decided to go on together, that doesn’t mean you’re married for life. You may sail along on similar seas for eternity. But quite often there comes a time when you need to write that Dear John/Dear Joan letter. Sometimes you outgrow a critique partner, you’ve given each other all you can and now it’s time to move on. Sometimes one writer’s goals change, you may both start as casual hobby writers, but may change your commitment to the craft in either direction. Sometimes time and distance become a problem. And sometimes there has been a thread of toxicity stinking up your relationship from the beginning and has grown to be a serious detriment to your creativity.

Such is the case I’ll call, The Clubbing of the Baby Seal: I was in a group. It was working. When someone asked to join our group, we didn’t evaluate our dynamic and assess what would change. We didn’t establish a specific trial period. This person was unassuming, exuding vulnerability on so many levels that the baby seal moniker was set in my mind immediately. No one had any objections upon initial meeting—who could object to such a gentle person? So off we went.

This person’s chronic health problems (all part of the air vulnerability) occasionally prevented attendance, so it took some time for the pattern became clear. Once it was, we tolerated; for this was really a nice person, just not mixing well with our format. The same material was presented meeting after meeting, with no changes from the previous critiquing (regardless of the reminders that new material should be brought). When suggestions were made, they were met with argument, not discussion. Whenever we were discussing other people’s works, the baby seal sat like a stone (I’m not even sure any of our works had been read). We were unhappy, but pushed on with gritted teeth and scrunched brows. The person was so…so…so baby-seal-like, what else could we do?
But the baby seal was becoming a toxin to our meetings, a soft spoken, innocent looking toxin, demanding respect not shown in return—and surprisingly assertive for someone in such frail health. Was it just me? Was I the only one who felt the seal was destroying our group?

Then, one by one, I began to see it in the other members’ eyes. Still, no one wanted to be the first to say the baby seal needed to go. It was weeks before we finally broached the subject. The consensus was the same: How could we be so cruel to someone who was so nice and appeared so fragile? We delayed. The baby seal grew more demanding. It wasn’t just the time the seal took away from more productive critiquing, the cloud of negativity was enveloping all of us. In the end, someone had to do it, someone had to club the baby seal. We had a reluctant volunteer. I’m ashamed to say, I wasn’t it.

The clubbing was done. The baby seal left our group. A lesson was learned. One I’m happy to share with you with the hope you’ll be better prepared and not end up in a similar situation. This all could have been avoided with the right stipulations laid out in the beginning … then again, maybe not. The same ugliness might have come when the trial period ended. However, the group wouldn’t have endured months and months of our productivity decreasing by the half-life with the radiation of that toxicity.

I suppose it’s like dating in this way, too. No matter how prepared we are, how carefully we proceed, sometimes it comes to a messy end. But we can’t let that prospect chase us away from the quest for that just-right relationship. Do your best to safeguard against failure, then get out there and look for your writing partner. The creative process is solitary, and yet it’s possible to find a synergistic partnership if you look. Almost always both you and your work are better for it, no matter how it ends.

Finding a Critique Partner, It’s Like Dating, Only Harder (Part Three)

March 6, 2013 By Susan Crandall Leave a Comment

Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four

The Critique Partner Plan

Wanted: Critique Partner Once you find someone you think you might be compatible with, it’s best to start with some parameters. Whether in person or online, set up a trial run with some structure.
Suggest a format that will ensure equal opportunity and avoid one-sided critiquing. If you only write one chapter a month, do not agree to critique more than that for another writer. If you’re hooked up with someone uber-prolific, you may be using all of your valuable writing time critiquing their work.

Be specific in your expectations. Regular scheduling is important when getting off the ground. Decide on the amount of material and time span. One chapter a month. Ten pages a week. Twenty pages a month. Specify what a page is: double spaced, 1 inch margins. You wouldn’t believe what some folks consider one page of material. Whatever the agreement, respect it.
Do not over-commit. Your time is limited. Whether you’re meeting in person, or communicating some other way, keep your time allocation realistic for both supplying work and critiquing another’s. Critiquing can be a great motivator, a deadline of sorts; but you don’t want it to become a millstone that takes you under.

Set a limited period for a trial run. Give enough time for multiple critiques, sometimes it takes a while to find a groove. Agree once this stated time is up, the future is a fresh negotiation. Walk or stay. Tweak or go forward as previously.

Be courteous. Make certain your work is polished and ready before you share it with your critique partner. No one has time to reread and re-critique the same material over and over again. Even if you don’t plan on resubmitting the same material to your partner, it’s very frustrating to spend time critiquing only to have your partner say that the material was just first draft and they’d planned on fixing that anyway. Really? So what good did I just do you?

Be clear on what kinds of things you want your partner to comment on. Plot? Story construction? Pacing? Punctuation? Spelling and typos? Appropriateness for your chosen genre and target readership? You don’t both have to have the same areas for feedback. Once established, follow those guidelines. If you discover some glaring problem outside of the requested critique area, ask if your partner would like the feedback before you offer it.

Sometimes, especially of the skill levels are a mismatch, one may discover the problems are so many and varied that the page would literally bleed with comments. In that case, I’ve always thought the best approach is to deal with the most basic areas now and leave the rest for later. We all started somewhere and build our skills one step at a time. Overwhelming a person with constructive criticism is often as detrimental as offering nothing but unwarranted praise.

Do unto others … it’s relevant in critiquing, too. When making your comments, do it in the same way you want to be critiqued. Some of us are fine with the direct approach, some prefer a softer approach. Some want bare bones; some prefer more extensive comment. It’s important that you understand one another’s needs.

See you tomorrow when we wrap up with Part Four: Breaking Up

Finding a Critique Partner, It’s Like Dating, Only Harder (Part Two)

March 5, 2013 By Susan Crandall Leave a Comment

Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four

The Search for the Right Critique Partner

Critique Partner When I first began writing, on-line groups were in their infancy. An established writer suggested I try (are you ready for me to date myself?) the CompuServe Writer’s Forum. I was young. I was unsure of my own skills. In other words, vulnerable to having my creativity squashed or inflated beyond reality. Some of the feedback I received was, well, frankly, it was crap. But I tried not to label it as such before I gave it a rest and then examined it for validity. I do recall one very, very clear and true criticism that has stuck with me to this day. One writer asked if I had a period on my keyboard. Run on sentences? Me? Um, yeah. Perhaps not the most delicate way to state his criticism, and yet, oh so valid.

There were plenty of misses as I tried to get something going on an individual basis through this group. Sometimes you know immediately if you and the other writer are simply not simpatico. Other times, it takes a while. But a break up is inevitable if your creative process is going to thrive. After a couple of false starts and break-ups, I was very lucky to Karen White, another fledgling writer from Atlanta whose talent I admired. We understood one another immediately, her comments were offered with thought and consideration, as I tried to assure my own were. We worked together for a full year with only email contact. We then met in person at a writer’s conference. We’re still together. A fairly tale marriage from a really blind date.

I want every writer to find that fairy tale critique partner or group. And I want every writer to find the strength to walk away from toxic or useless relationships. Critiquing needs to be beneficial to both parties. It’s best to find someone at a similar level in their writing, someone willing to work hard to improve. That way you insure you’re both learning and growing.

Here are a few suggestions to find those with like interest:

Many public libraries have writing groups meeting there. Call your locals and see if they have one using their meeting rooms and when they meet, if they have a contact person whom you can ask if their group is open to new members.
Often bookstores have both book clubs (a great place to find writers) or writing groups meeting in their space.
Writing conferences are a treasure trove. If you search, you should be able to find one that is both local to you and not overly expensive. I met my local group through a very small one-day writer’s workshop.
There is a wealth of talent literally right at your fingertips. Yahoo has several groups that are centered around writing. Many of them are genre-specific, some are closed, but all are worth a look.
Join writer’s groups that are specific to your genre; Mystery Writers of America, Romance Writers of America, etc. Many have local chapter meetings as well as online groups and workshops.
There are several book oriented websites that have forums that cater to writers. I don’t have any personal experience with any of these, but they might be worth investigating: http://authonomy.com/ ; http://www.writingforums.org/ ; http://www.legendfire.com/ ; http://www.thenextbigwriter.com/forum/index.php ; http://mywriterscircle.com/ . I’m sure there are dozens more.

Finding the right fit can be daunting, but nothing ventured, nothing gained. Like dating, my advice is to take it slow and get to know one another before taking the next step.

Do not take someone’s unwillingness to critique with you as a personal insult or a critique in itself about your writing. Many writers prefer not to critique with others, some already have a partner or two and don’t want to upset the mix, some may be intimidated by you or your writing (we writers are a self-doubting bunch).

See you again tomorrow for Finding a Critique Partner Part Three: The Plan!

Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four