Reading Steinbeck's East of Eden Letters

I've been reading Steinbeck's East of Eden letters; every day before working on that novel, he began with a letter to his editor. He called it his warm up--in the letters, he discussed his goals and worked out his problems in the book. This is my second read. My writer friend Heather gave me a gift certificate for a book years ago, and that is what I bought and have since been fascinated with it.

I have no editor friend to write to, but I see the usefulness of his technique. I've been intermittently working on a novel--when I bought Steinbeck's book, I was in the beginning stages, and I started a computer journal with the same purpose. But  I let both the novel and that journal subside over time. Now I'd probably find most of what was in that journal--a list of things I wanted to put in the novel, things I wanted to change about what was already written, and ruminations about what my goal was and what characters should be like--quite irrelevant. In letting a book idea sit for months/years at a time, it evolves.

The novel started with Asher, an ill-fated baby born in a short story I began in 2005. I think it was my writer friends Polly, Brian and Sarah who suggested maybe the story was the beginning of a much bigger work. Now it's a multi-generational tale and most of the book focuses on Asher as an adult, and his marriage to Ginny. The working title of the book is "The Still House."

SO maybe this blog is simply my attempt to do what Steinbeck did, though I see it problematic. After-all, he wrote full time. He could afford time to write a letter to start the day if he was putting 7-8 hours a day into writing. I'm a "nap-time" writer. When I get maybe 90 minutes a day, how can I justify starting with something like this? But Steinbeck says it helped focused him, so that when he got to the writing, it was better, clearer, executed with purpose. And the way I've been lately, I could use that! I've spent the past 2 days mostly wasting my writing time because i need to do the reflection on where I'm heading.

It's comforting to read this experienced writer talk about how he makes changes, changes a character form one intention into something entirely other. I just did my first ever character assassination, realizing its' necessary. I heard somewhere recently that most novels have too many characters to being with, but I didn't want to get rid of any of mine--of course. But I just did. I had, as a minor character who served as mentor to Ginny, a main character, a middle aged Protestant nun who grew up as a missionary kid in Africa, who still wore full African garb in her life in the US. And anther minor character was the same main character's yoga teacher, an East Indian woman, who becomes a new friend to challenge Ginny's views on the world. Yesterday I determined to conflate them. Now I've got the role of mentor filled by an Indian woman who wears traditional garb and grew up in a mission, who asks Ginny to edit a book she's writing. What both women had in common was that they were a bit eccentric and exposed Ginny to another culture. But I didn't really have room for both. interestingly, while the African one was always single, the new conflated character seems to be single, but after being widowed at a young age--early 20s. Funny, as Steinbeck says, that sometimes characters tell you who they are.

While some in his letters is comforting, I'm not so sure it's good i keep reading from a man who wrote an epic of a book, hundreds of pages longer than most books on the market. He got away with it because he was established. My biggest problem is that I think I'm only a quarter through my plot and yet I've got 200 pages already. No first time writer in today's climate publishes an 800 page book. Sometimes I get really discouraged to think that what I'm laboring through will end up getting drastically cut if I ever get to the publishing stage...

So what do I have on tap today? I'm redefining Thomas, a supporting character for Ginny, a neighbor who fulfills what she's missing in her marriage--intellectual engagement, conversation, etc. I've had this theme of her remodel of her old house, and I decided a while ago that she's going to want to expose some of its old features (including some secrets its holding) and a new possibility is that Thomas, already a rough, works-with-his-hands type (to balance his cerebral life), is going to help her. I think he is going to be an ex-construction worker or mason, and they're going to do some demo on the walls and unearth 200-year-old fireplaces. It might be a great opportunity to get her husband angry as well as get the house to reveal a secret of its past inhabitants.

SO whether or not I ever make another entry here, there's one... And if I ever do write, it's obviously for me, and maybe a few writers who might resonate with process issues. Maybe it can strike up some helpful, constructive discussion with a few writer friends. Or it might be horribly unappealing reading...

Other stuff I write:
Waterbirth Lowers Group B Strep Risk Better Than Antibiotics?

Power Your Electronics with Your Body's Own Movement? The NPower PEG, The First Kinetic Energy Recharger

Hormone-free Milk: Dairy Companies Pledging Not to Use Artificial Bovine Growth Hormone

Natural Family Planning: Success and Reliability?