The strangest things happen while
writing a book—a whole lot of unexpected emerges from the fertile ground of the
primary source (or the backbone) of the story. It always amazes me where the
original idea takes me, it all seems so simple at first, then there’s this
beautiful sense of wonder that occurs as pieces fall into place, I go with the
flow because it feels right—it’s truly magical how it happens. The Fractured Hues of White Light turned
out to be a bigger, far more complex story than I initially imagined, and there
were times I feared I took on something too big. It surprises me that I wrote
it in that “I really wrote this book!”
sort of way. I’m a little bit partial to this one—I think “she’s” my favorite
novel because it was so challenging to write it. I have a special attachment to
it, maybe I’m a little sentimental about it—some might criticize me and say, “It’s done, it’s out of the nest, let it
go.” It’s not that at all, it’s the experience of the creation that
interests me most, when I revisit the book (I open it up and drop in now and
then to say “Hi.”) I will remember the stuff that went into it, and the events
surrounding the time I wrote it. It was a time in my life—a time when my
writing started to make sense and I had to learn to juggle writing with life,
work, home, and everything else that happens along the way. It’s an immersive
experience, very much like falling in love, it’s exciting and exhausting at the
time it’s happening, and when I “drop in” to visit the pages, it’s familiar
like an old friend. I love what I do, I love what I’ve done.
The Fractured Hues of White Light—is the second one in the line-up of published
books that I’ve put out there, but in the “birth-order” of creation, it was the
third manuscript that came out of a creative sweet-spot that happened to me
between 1999 and 2003. (I have archived files on my computer dating back to
2000-2001, pretty crazy.) It was as if my longtime dream to be a writer went
supernova inside my head and all of it burst out at once, I couldn’t write fast
enough it seemed. It’s so strange how the books start. It’s magical how they
come together, fragments that grow into this larger story, full of layers and
characters, their histories, their personalities, quirks, passions, and fears.
It’s hard to explain. I love the process so much, the creating, the polishing,
then the terrifying, yet satisfying part of putting it out there to be read—learning
to accept the likes and dislikes as they come. I do enjoy hearing from readers
about their experiences with my books. I’ve had readers tell me very personal
reactions, like when I made them cry. Then I get all embarrassed and say stuff
like, “Shucks, I’m sorry I made you cry—awwww—let’s
hug!”
I’ve pissed people off
too—might as well while I’m at it. It’s part of the package. Books are a
special thing, readers gobble them up, they lose time while they’re reading,
and not every book works for them—it’s a subjective thing. A reader who loves
commercial or genre fiction might not appreciate literary fiction. My books are
literary—they are gritty, yet they have a silly streak in them, and dark
humor—I do try to bring the reader back to a safe place after taking them into
the darkest corners of shit happening—the examination of the human condition is
messy and can be ugly. I write in the vein that goes deep into the interior of
the character’s personality, what makes them tick. In Samantha Ryder’s world, specific
things like the sound of the ocean, the texture and color of the old glass
windows of her house in Gloucester, Massachusetts, dust motes in a shaft of
sunlight, stones on the beach, the sugar bowl and creamer on the kitchen table,
and the color yellow have special significance. The things that happen in the
past have made her, and the future links with the past. I’ve written the book
from four points of view—Samantha, Guthrie, Helena, and Sylvester—there is more
than one side to the story, and this is another thing that interests me about
writing—how characters influence one another, each one has their own
interpretation of events and opinions about what’s happened—and where they’re
going. I’ve populated all of my novels with people who have met before, so Guthrie
has a small part in Drinking from the
Fishbowl, which takes place before the events of The Fractured Hues of White Light. Sylvester pops up in two other
books not yet published, but they will be someday, these things take time. A
lot of being a writer is about patience.
When I started it, it
began with two people driving through Wyoming having a conversation, from there
I filled in around this one moment in time. I had no idea who these two were or
why they were out there, where they were from, how old they were, their names,
nothing, I knew nothing. It was just a conversation between a man and a woman,
traveling companions, maybe lovers, maybe spouses, friends, or
siblings—eventually, after a good deal of questioning, they became Guthrie and
Samantha. Their complex relationship is complicated by the definition of love.
It was tragic and yet, in the drama brewing in the cloister of a car driving
through a springtime rainstorm in the Red Desert, they could laugh at
themselves, and at how things are—by this part in the book, it was time for
them to stop avoiding the inevitable and go home. Samantha, being autistic,
rarely journeyed far from home where the familiar things keep her sense of
security intact—although it was a journey of self-preservation, it was possible
that it could’ve been her undoing as she withdrew inside herself, on the verge
of shutting down. Then while looking out the car window at the rain, she spied
a dildo on the shoulder of the road. Seeing that thing cracked her shell open
enough to let out a giggle, and then she started to laugh her ass off. It’s
these little happenings that make the experience of writing so fascinating—I’m making
things up as I go along, it’s part of the fun.
Just so you know—I really did see a dildo on the
side of the road one rainy night many years ago, it was the funniest random
thing to see, that’s something you don’t see every day—I’ve seen some weird
shit in my time, but that just seemed curious, standing up like it was hitching
a ride. So odd. Who knows how it got there, god knows where it’s been!
It’s long gone, but the memory is still there. When you see stuff like that,
it’s all fodder for later. I have a head full of this nonsense. (It was on East
Genesee Street in Syracuse, on the way to DeWitt, near Nottingham High School,
as if that matters at all, but it’s funny every time I go by that spot, I still
laugh.)
The Fractured Hues of White Light was a tough one to write in some respects, but
once I started it, it flowed out of me like I knew what I was doing. Yet there
were so many surprises that I did not foresee—like the ending. I had no idea
how it was going to end when I started it. Most of the time, writers have the
beginning and the ending figured out, it’s the stuff in the middle that’s hard
to get through. I was all over the place while writing this one, and then
printing it, and piecing it all together, sometimes getting out the scissors and
tape. (Yikes, right?) Occasionally, I would ask myself “Where is this going?” Then I’d shrug and kept writing because I
knew it could reveal itself eventually—“I’ll
know it when I see it.” When it happened—I was surprised, yet not. It was
there the whole time.
Patience. It takes
patience to write a book.
I’ve also come to grips
with the fact I’ll never get a six figure advance from Alfred Knopf—I’m okay
with that, I’m not one of those real “go get-ers,” chomping on the bit to do a
book tour, and all that, best seller list stuff. Nah, it’ll never happen, I
have a lot of patience, but I don’t have the patience for that shit. Nope.
