writing process – Page 2

I believe I’ve mentioned once or twice (or thrice) that my current work in progress has taken about 18 years of my life to get to the complete first draft point. I can assure you, it hasn’t all been about writing and editing and revising. A huge chunk of that time has been spent on research.

Because I believe in historical accuracy.

I love reading good historical fiction – I’d either start screaming hysterically from joy or faint from shock if I were ever to actually meet John Jakes. Any historical fiction author worth her salt knows the value of honest, accurate research. Part of creating your world is understanding… well, the world you’re writing. And nothing makes me more twitchy than reading historical fiction in which the author has obviously not done the required homework.

I don’t care what your historical passion is, but if you want to be taken seriously, I really believe you should know what you’re talking about when you place your characters in the middle of the American Revolution or Tudor-era London. If you want me to read your book, do your homework. Yes, you can sometimes get away with vague references, and a little creative license is allowed as long as you’re not changing history. But that said, nothing makes me put down a book faster and think the author is an ignorant git more than stumbling across a fact that is blatantly wrong.

I am a slave to historical accuracy. When I sat down six years ago (!) to start my complete rewrite, I vowed I would fill in the historical blanks in my original manuscript. I felt it was important for my characters to exist in a world that was as true as possible (at least, true from their perspectives). And besides that, in the years between my first attempts at publication and the start of the rewrite (years that included a personalized rejection letter stating areas I needed to improve upon), I had done a slew of my own research and exploration into the Civil War. Not specifically for my book – rather, I am a geek. And while I am an avid student of all history, the Civil War is, by far, the most fascinating to me.

Anyway, I digress.

Because historical accuracy is so important to me, and because I’m sure there are writers out there who also would like to churn out a bit of historical fiction of the Civil War persuasion, I decided to list out some of the resources I’ve used over the years to hone and expand my knowledge. This will be something of a “living document” post, as I will add and edit as necessary (especially in the case of websites). If anyone comes upon any broken links, please let me know!

Books

Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era by James McPherson (2003)
Ordeal by Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction by James McPherson (2000)
Everyday Life During the Civil War by Michael J. Varhola (1999)
Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust (2004)
They Fought Like Demons: Women Soldiers of the Civil War by De Anne Blanton and Lauren M. Cook (2003)
Civil War Hospital Sketches by Louisa May Alcott (Dover unabridged version, 2006)
From Manassas to Appomattox: Memoirs of the Civil War by James Longstreet (1898/2010)
Reminiscences of a Rebel: The True Adventures of a Confederate Soldier by Wayland Fuller Dunaway (2008)
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Written by Herself by Harriet Ann Jacobs (2004)

Online Resources/Websites

Library of Congress: Selected Civil War Photographs
Civil War Animated (part of the History Animated website – animated battle maps with detailed descriptions of troop movements and conditions leading up to and following major battles)
Manners and Etiquette in the Antebellum South
Civil War Medicine
Civil War Trust: History Center (photographs, battle maps, biographies, primary sources, etc.)
Examples of letters written during the Civil War: Civil War Letters, Civil War Love Letters, The Civil War Archive
Library of Congress: Selected Civil War Resources
The History Channel: Civil War 150
Civil War Portal (Wikipedia) (one of the topics on Wikipedia I trust to be accurate, and also provides excellent references and external websites for further research)

Documentary Videos and Other Media

“The Civil War: A Film by Ken Burns” (PBS, 1989)
The History Channel, “Battlefield Detectives” (Antietam(2004); Gettysburg (2004); Shiloh (2006))
The Civil War and Reconstruction Era, 1845-1877 (Open Yale Courses – iTunes Podcast) – Excellent lecture series by Yale professor David Blight

When I was in graduate school (earning my first Master’s degree in Elementary Education), I took an excellent class called “Literature, Art and Media” from an excellent professor during the spring semester of 2004. We had the opportunity to attend a poetry reading by the 2001-2003 Poet Laureate Billy Collins.

If you ever get a chance to attend a reading by Billy Collins, I highly recommend that you do so.

We prepared for this reading by studying a few of his poems and discussing his career. Hearing him read his poems aloud, however, was a vastly different experience than dissecting them in class. His delivery, his explanations for the genesis of each poem, brought a new dimension to his art.

It was my first time ever attending a poetry reading, and I was floored.

Now, in addition to reading several of his poems, Mr. Collins also provided some discussion of his writing process, how he views poetry and the art of writing, and, knowingly or not, gave some advice to the young (and old) writers in the auditorium.

One particular piece of advice has stuck with me for the past seven years.

“You can’t just get up in the morning and commit an act of literature. It requires some effort on your part.”

I’ve been writing since I was a very small child. I’ve always loved putting ideas and stories down on paper. I’ve dabbled in poetry. I’ve played in several different genres. I’ve lovingly put my heart and soul into my written words. But as an adult, as someone who really does want to see my work in print someday, not just someone who writes for pure pleasure (though I certainly derive plenty of pleasure from writing a particularly good scene or passage of dialog), I needed to change my focus.

That one bit of advice from Billy Collins totally changed my perception of what I was doing when I sat down to write. It’s not just about the love of the craft, though without that you’ll fail before you finish the first page. It’s about loving and developing the process, learning what works for you.

There will always be fits and starts, I think, when I write, just as there will always be bouts of writer’s block (and that’s where the effort comes into play!) – and of course, life does get in the way, especially when writing isn’t your full-time job. The effort is finding those few minutes every day to consider your work – to figure out what’s coming next, rereading that scene that just keeps nagging you, or just plunking down and kicking the internal editor off your shoulder and just writing.

Put in the effort, and the act of literature will come.