Friday: Writing Process Q & A

What made you write a book about grief? 

Two reasons...

When I started writing The Things They Didn't See, my dad had recently passed away and the different ways everyone grieved impacted me. (He had adult children, young teenage children from a second marriage, a youngish wife and many, many close friends and we have a large extended family.)  I was putting myself in everyone's shoes which made for a very compelling narrative.

Additionally, two of my four children were in college and my two other children were young teens at home. I had already learned a thing or two about how important it was to give teenagers independence and respect, but I'd made some mistakes along the way where I focused on worries about misbehaving rather than enjoying who they were. Focusing on the wrong things can quickly turn into regrets, and I wanted to explore the lessons I’d learned.

What is your writing schedule?

Oh boy, nothing consistent. But my favorite time to write was from 3:00 - 7:00 p.m. Which is a challenge when you're chauffeuring kids to after school activities and making dinner. When I was getting very close to finishing (and still it was two years away), I asked my husband to take on making nightly dinners. He agreed and the freedom not having the daily chore of planning a meal and cooking absolutely reenergized my creativity.

I'm not a person who can write something that matters within a fifteen minute session. I need blocks of time to settle into the story and start feeling a part of it again. And with writing my novel, if I'd been away from it for more than a week, I needed a full day just to remember what I'd written and get into the mindset and feeling out what needed to come next. My busy mom life and volunteer schedule often resulted in going months between writing sessions and making progress.

I'd get so frustrated when I couldn't find time to write. But other times it was a relief to ignore the book and let it linger. The good part about setting work aside, is when you come back to it, the good parts still move you and the parts that need work are so stark, you can't ignore them!