Romance Novels: What do women want?

I’ve always wanted to do an academic research on the gendered experience of reading romance novels but never had the opportunity.  This semester in my Readers & Readership course (SMC  229H) at the University of Toronto I was FINALLY given the excuse to start researching! The following notes on the book I’ve shared focuses on Harlequin romance novels. I know there’s a difference between Harlequin and the “single-titled” romance novels (i.e. novels by Julia Quinn, Teresa Medeiros, Julia London, Mary Balogh,etc.,), buuuuut the romance genre is the romance genre at the end of the day (edit: the notes below are actually based on what seems to be an outdated theory — since the book was published in 1982! Just realized. Nevertheless, it’s interesting how the genre has shifted over time).  As I go deeper into the research,  I’ll continue to share my findings with you guys.  

Loving with a Vengence: Mass-Produced fantasies for women 
by Tania Modleski

 Rejecting the theory that mass art imposes “false needs” on its consumers and creates “false anxieties”, Modleski argues that these mass-produced feminine narratives are popular in part because they successfuly speak to desires which are all too real in today’s woman but which our culture has found no adequate way of satisfying…

• In 1793, Susanna Rowson, a writer of the “sentimental novel” remarked “I wonder that the novel readers are not tired of reading one story so many times, with only the variation of its being told different ways.” While Rowson’s observation could, with even more justice today, be applied to most popular novels, which are, of course, deeply conventional, it pertains most forcibly to Harlequin Romances, for the company which produces them requires its writers to follow a strict set of rules and even  dictates the point of view from which the narrative must be told. The peculiar result is that the reader who reads the story already knows the story, at least in all its essentials. It will show that this situation both reflects and contribbutes to a mild “hystical” state — using this term in its strict psychoanalytic sense…[A] kind of duality exists….at the very core of romances, particularly in the relation between an “informed” reader and a necessarily innocent heroine (32)

• The element of fantasy in romance lies less in the character traits of the hero than in the interpretation readers are led to make of his behavior. For the reader, acquainted with the formula and hence in possession of what Wolfang Iser calls “advance retrospection,” is always able to interpret the hero’s actions as the result of his increasingly intense love for the heroine… (40)Male brutality [i.e. moody, cynical, scornful, and bullying] comes to be seen as a manifestation not of contempt, but of love.. (41)

• Romantic literature performs a crucial function in assuring us that although some men may actually enjoy inflicting pain on women, there are also “bullies” whose meanness is nothing more than the overflow of their love or the measure of their resistance to our extraordinary charms (43)

• Since in real life women are not often able to reinterpret male hostility in such a satisfactory way, the novels much somehow provide and outlet of female resentment (43)….A great deal of our satisfaction in reading these novels comes, I am convinced, from the elements of a revenge fantasy, from our conviction that the woman is bringing the man to his knees and that all the while he is being so hateful, he is internally grovelling, grovelling, grovelling…. In most of the novels, the hero finally becomes aware of the heroine’s “infinite preciousness” after she has run away, disappeared, fallen into a raging river, or otherwise shown by the threat of her annihilation of how important her life really is…. (45)

 

• Romance novel’s “disappearing act”: On the one hand, as readers we identity with the heroine’s anger and frustration. On the other hand, due to our adherence to the rules of the formula and our desire for a happy ending, a part of us wants the man to see the heroine as a pert, adorable creature rather than as a true rebel. Our conflicting emotions as readers would seem to point up a dilemma: the heroine’s expression of resentment, which is the result of and only potential remedy for her belittlement, is felt to be the very means by which she encourages her own belittlement. This can only lead to self-hatred and to more anger against the man for putting her in such an impossible situation. But our awareness of these feeling is prevented because we are prepared for the termination of the process in its logical extension: the fulfillment of the fantasy of ultimate revenge through utter self-destruction (47).

• An understanding of Harlequin Romance should lead one less to condemn the novels than the conditions which have made them necessary. Even though the novels can be said to intensify female tensions and conflicts, on balance the contradition in women’s lives are more responsible for the existence of Harlequins than Harlequins are for the contradictions…. (57)

• The reader of romances, contrary to the arguments of many popular literature critics, is engaged in an intensely active psychological process. The energy of women now use to belittle and defeat themselves can be rechanelled into efforts to grow and to explore ways of affirming and asserting the self. Moreover, the very fact that the novels must go to such extremenes to neutralize women’s anger and to make masculine hostility bearable testifies to the depths of women’s discontent (58).

So this is what one scholar has to say about romance novels. I couldn’t help but smile when reading the observation about how the  threat of le heroine’s annihilation is a technique used (and a technique I’ve noticed in many romance novels…along with my own writing) to make the hero have his Ah-hah-I-Love-Her moment. Is this a technique you guys have used in writing and/or observed in this genre? What do you guys think about the revenge fantasy theory?

 

Book give-away winners!

Finally! Today is December 17 (ergg, a day late!) I’ve used the random number generator website to select the two winners for Christensen’s OF MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. The first winner will receive the signed hard-copy of the book, and the second winner will receive an e-book version!

Archer Hamilton is a collector of rare and beautiful insects. Gina Shaw is a servant in his uncle’s house. Clearly out of place in the position in which she has been discovered, she becomes a source of fascination . . . and curiosity.

A girl with a blighted past and a fortune she deems a curse, Gina has lowered herself in order to find escape from her family and their scheming designs. But when she is found, the stakes suddenly become dire.

All Gina wants is the freedom to live her life as she would wish. All her aunts want is the money that comes with her. But there is more than one way to trap an insect. An arranged marriage might turn out profitable for more parties than one.

Mr. Hamilton is about to make the acquisition of a lifetime. But will the price be worth it? Can a woman captured and acquired learn to love the man who has bought her?

 

1. Mystica
2. Noelle
3. Noelle
4. Sapphire
5. Sapphire
6. Sapphire
7. Alex
8. Sharmon

And the winner is… *drum roll*

Congratulations to Sapphire (1st winner) and Alex (2nd winner)! The author will email you guys soon to obtain the necessary information to send off the prizes. Happy reading!!!! And for everyone else who entered, thank you SO much. Have a great holiday

 

Interview with V.R. Christensen

V.R. Christensen has two copies of “OF MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES” to give-away. Two winners will be randomly selected and announced on DECEMBER 16, 2011. The first winner will receive an autographed hard-cover copy and the second winner will win an e-book version of the book. To enter:

1) Leave a comment & your email address

2) You can also post an entry about this contest on your blog, leave a link to your blog in the comment box here, and you’ll gain two more points. This means you have three times the chances of winning!

3) You can tweet about this interview and earn one extra point, Make sure to add in your tweet #OfMoths #Bluestocking

 

I have had the privilege of interviewing a very, very special author… V.R. Christensen. She is the editor I constantly mentioned during the time when my manuscript (The Runaway Courtesan) was going through intensive rewrites and when I was querying. She’s the person whose inbox I flooded with emails of writerly frustration – and always, always, she would reply back with words that gave me courage to keep on pursuing my dream. I don’t know what I would have done without her. Seriously. I’ve also had the privilege of following her journey to publication, which is why I’m SO happy that her book has been published to share with everyone. I remember the days when she would send me one chapter (of her earlier manuscript) a week and I’d always look forward to reading it…. Let me tell you, she’s one great writer. But before you read her interview, do have a look at her lovely book trailer.

 

• Can you tell us a bit about your book?

Of Moths & Butterflies is set in 1882 England, just before the passing of the Married Women’s Property Act. It’s the story of a young woman who is suddenly freed from the control of her licentious uncle, but finds herself with the unexpected burden of his fortune. Normally such a thing would be a miraculous blessing, but she knows why it’s been given to her–to make up for the ill use she received at her uncle’s hands. To keep it would be a reminder of all of that, and she wants to escape that past, and, with it, the wrath of her aunts who have been disinherited because of her. They will, of course, endeavour to get at it by whatever means they can. And so she runs away and hires herself out as a maid of all work in a large country house. There, by chance, she becomes acquainted with the nephew of the man she works for. He doesn’t, at first, realise her station. He sees her rather more accurately than she is trying to portray herself. But in her own estimation, she is something quite low and despicable. These are the affects of abuse. In the mean time, her aunts are trying to find her. When at last they do, they see a way to gain by her good fortune. Her eldest aunt, her godmother, marries her off, basically selling her in exchange for a portion of her inheritance. And so, thrust into this marriage, she has to find a way to be happy. Only in order to love another, one must always learn to love themselves first. And so the story, truly, is about overcoming the effects of abuse. That was the main theme I wanted to explore. And secondary to that, how it is our choices, more than anything, more than circumstances even, determine our happiness.

• What inspired you to write this story in the first place?

It was a combination of things. Firstly, I had read Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles and, while I loved the book, it made me so extraordinarily angry. I wanted Tess to have a happy ending. I felt she deserved it. And so I started mulling around in my mind what that would mean. I had written my first book already (yet to be published). It was about an arranged marriage, but one that would end, one way or another, in disaster. It got me thinking about all the arranged marriages that I had read about (and a few I knew of personally) that had turned out well, and so I thought I’d examine the same subject, but from a completely different angle. It was a very difficult book to write, and underwent several rewrites and a couple dozen revisions before I had it quite right. I had to wrestle with some personal demons in order to really address the issues properly, but in the end, I’m glad I did it. I think if ever writing was therapeutic for anyone, Moths was therapeutic for me.

• I remember reading the earlier draft of this book a while back (which I adored!) How much as the story changed since?

I think you’ve read a couple different versions, June. The first you read was that which I first put up on Authonomy. I remember being so confident with it. A friend had read it and pointed out a couple of fatal plot flaws, but I didn’t listen at the time. And then a few others read it, a very few read beyond the first few chapters, and I began to see that my friend had a point. The plot was forced. It was a sequence of dramatic events toward which I was pushing my characters. It wasn’t working. And so I rethought it. I began by telling the same story, but by really getting inside the characters’ heads, which I think I was resisting to do before then. The original draft took maybe four or five months to write. The rewrite took ten. I did some really in depth research into the psychological effects of abuse in all its forms, I studied Judith Flanders’ Inside the Victorian Home, which delves far deeper than just how they decorated (which I had already studied at university) but what what went on in those rooms, and how those events translated to the outside world. I studied writings on what it was like to be a servant, and I researched the property and marriage laws, mainly by reading old texts. It was time consuming, often gruelling, it was emotionaly torturous, but I think I really had to do it in order to get it just right. I did, in the process, lose a beloved character, but I think I gained a richness, and a preciseness that I couldn’t have achieved otherwise.

• Through this process of rewriting, what kept you motivated?

Well, that’s a difficult question to answer. In part, it was knowing I had people counting on me to finish it, who had invested themselves in it and wanted to see it done perhaps as much as I did. At the same time there were a couple of fellow authors that I really looked up to, and I wanted to put myself on par with them. I’m not sure I achieved that. I hope I did, but it’s useless to compare ourselves to others. Still, I wished to gain their respect, which I recognise now as vanity. If I don’t believe in myself, who will? But I think most of all, I just had a drive to see it finished. I’ve never been a quitter. A project started, for me, must be finished. I really wanted to see it bound and in print. I had to know that this huge thing that I’d begun would result in a finished product.

• What was the most difficult experience you had while trying to get published?

Oh, boy. I can’t really go into great detail, but I had someone try to sabotage me. In the end it worked out for the best, but it was a horribly painful experience.

• What did you learn on this journey to publication?

You really ask some hard questions, don’t you? I think the lesson I learned the most was to trust in myself and not lean on others for reassurance, and in tandem with that, to know when to listen to criticism and when to trust my own judgement. I think Authonomy taught me that, but it was a difficult lesson to learn, and it took a great deal of experience before I realised that I could very easily listen to everyone with an opinion, and then have a book that wasn’t mine at all. Not all criticism is helpful. Sometimes it isn’t even well-intended or particularly informed. I had to learn how to distinguish between the two. And that is very difficult.

• Why did you choose to set your story in the Victorian era? What is it about the past and history that attracts you as a writer?

I think there’s a lot to be learned from the past, actually. At times I feel like I was born in the wrong time. I sincerely wish for a time where gentlemen are still gentlemen. Where women cab expect to be treated with a certain amount of respect. Where ALL can expect a certain amount of respect. Where people are passionate about life, but keep those passions in check. I love that feeling you get about the Victorians that they are straight-laced and proper, yet their passions are pulsing just beneath the surface. The Victorians really believed that a society’s survival hinged on its moral practices. At the same time, I am aware of the hypocrisies and prejudices, and they enrage me. And so it becomes quite natural for me to put myself in that place. To write characters with feelings and desires just like mine, but with tangible barriers that can easily be delineated. I feel that we still have those barriers, but that these days we have placed them there ourselves and they are more psychological than circumstantial. Those that are circumstantial, the economy, for instance, are a result of the past half century’s poor choices. I guess I like to think that we can take the lessons we’ve learned in regard to human empathy, and combine them with a greater sense of responsibility for each other and the world we live in. There is a sense of refinement, too, that comes with the Victorians that I’d like to emulate in my own life. My ideal world would be one that was a hybrid of refinement, responsibility and sensitivity.

• What’s one of your favorite quotes from your book?

I get to toot my own horn? Hmmm. It’s difficult to find one that works out of context, but I think this will do, which sort of outlines the title, which is an analogy to one of the key themes in the novel.

“It seems to me,” Archer offered, though cautiously, “that we are all rather a lot like winged insects in various phases of development. In the larval stages it’s impossible to tell which will be moths and which will be butterflies. Even once wings have formed it is sometimes difficult to distinguish one from the other. Some are glorious beings at home in their element, the unwitting target of scores of admirers. Others are merely drab impostors, fluttering and bumping about blindly. How to know which is which, though? And which, by the same token, are we? We all seem to have the common inclination to be drawn to the brightest thing in any room.”

• Which actor/actress would you cast for the role of your main male and female character?

At last an easy question! If I were to cast the film, I would choose Hugh Dancy to play Archer Hamilton, (I love Hugh Dancy, especially as Daniel Deronda) and the lovely, lovely, lovely Rose Byrne to play Imogen. And I cannot resist the temptation to add that Tom Hardy is my vision for Roger and the amazing Rosamund Pike was the actress after whom I fashioned Claire. Paul Bettany would play Wyndham. I do find that it helps me to to imagine real people playing the parts. It makes it much easier to vision their mannerisms, etc.

• If you could meet any author, dead or alive, who would it be? And why?

Wow. Um…I think I’d like to meet George Eliot. I have a feeling she would not intimidate me as much as some of my other favourite authors might. Dickens, I think, would intimidate me. Perhaps George Meredith, too, though I think he might have been more approachable than Dickens. But George Eliot had so much against her, and yet her novels are filled with so much enlightenment and inspiration and empathy. She was very knowledgeable, had some really fortunate connections that allowed her to write in a remarkably informed manner, and yet she was virtually shunned from Society because she could not marry the man she loved and chose to live with. (Of course he was welcome in Society.) She was a victim of circumstance, I think, an exception to the rule. She lived, in spirit, a highly moral life, though circumstances were against her. I would very much have liked to have known her.

• What are the five books that have influenced you most as a writer?

Well, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, of course, which I think gave me the drive to write about injustice. Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend, which taught me a great deal about plot. C.S. Richardson’s The End of the Alphabet, in which I learned a great deal about conciseness of language, brevity and how to use distance rather than intimacy to engage a reader to the characters. (Louise Galvin does this marvellously, too.) I learned a great deal about dealing with themes and writing in allegory from George Meredith’s The Egoist. All of his books are very deep, though they seem straight forward on the surface. What else? There are so many, really. Daniel Deronda. That was an odd book because I did not love it right away. It was only after I really thought about what it was Eliot was trying to achieve in that book that I realised the genius of it. It’s sort of a Trojan Horse, if you will. She was presenting a rather controversial idea in what seemed like a perfectly acceptable wrapping. She fooled her audience into reading and made a fairly powerful point about social, religious and class prejudice.

• If you could give one piece of advice to unpublished writers what would it be?

Oh, man. Just one? Believe in your inherent greatness, but be humble enough to know that greatness requires a LOT of hard work in the achieving. It’s sort of easy now for anyone to publish. I think the work it takes to get published the traditional way needs to be applied to everyone, whether they are published traditionally or independently. Assemble mentors, editors, friends who won’t spare you. Listen to them, and learn how to decipher the good critics and criticisms from the useless. That’s really two, but I think it’s a combination of really knowing the craft, having the necessary team of supporters and assistants, and having the right balance of confidence and humility. Success happens in groups and the proud are the authors of their own downfall.

Now, June, I want to ask a question. When will you be writing again? We want to see your work published, too!

• Haha, good question. It’s been a few months since I’ve worked on a manuscript – mainly because I felt like I neglected life too much in order to write last year (from morning till night I wrote, rejecting (almost all) invitations to socialize). I do believe my writing-well has filled up. Hopefully I’ll start writing once winter vacation arrives! I’ll be writing…and I’ll be spending a good  chunk of my time reading your book, Ms Christensen. I’ll read it while sipping on hot chocolate and listening to holiday music. Thank you  so much for letting me interview you!

 

On poetry, on inspiration, on writing, on life, on blogging, on confidence, on hope (…aye, what a stimulating title)

A lecture by my first year prof. He is the bomb. So make yourself a pot of tea, open the balcony window, let the warm summer wind and the twittering of birds into your room, and click on the play button. Anyone who loves poetry or loves Sylvia Plath or loves a good, intelligent, witty lecture will enjoy this one!

As for the writing front, I’m still working on the next chapter of TRC. I haven’t opened microsoft word for days. Literally. But I’m not at all anxious. I’m not hypverventillating as I  would have last year – last year I would have thought:I am not writing, therefore I am not a writer, but writing is my identity, so now I am a nobody!!!! Surprisingly I’m at total peace in my most vulnerable moment – the period when inspiration is silent. Rather than trying to force myself to write I’m just filling up my writing-well with life experience and knowledge from other books. This way when inspiration does strike…I have a huge well of thoughts to tap into, so as to add more depth to my story. I’ve come to realize that no matter how great one’s inspiration is, if that writing-well isn’t full, the story remains shallow. Like the original draft of TRC. So if there is anyone else stuck in a deep, deep writer’s block, don’t go nuts, don’t stare at microsoft word for hours – like I use to do. Fill your head with knowledge. Fill your heart with understanding drawn from life experience (in other words, go out and socialize!). And journal. Reflect upon your day.

Though I cannot say that I have unwavering confidence in my writing and in myself as a writer - I  do have unwavering, rock-solid hope.

I can’t promise when I’ll next update this blog… there really isn’t much to blog about when I’m not struggling with my writing. But thank you so so so much to everyone who has stuck around – always checking up on my blog posts and leaving such encouraging comments. Love you all : ) And I hope everyone is having an awesome summer! I certainly am…. hehe

 

Rewrite of Chapter One (The Runaway Courtesan)

Dearest readers!

I’m sorry I haven’t been updating often. I’ve neglected both blogging and  writing. Evidence of the latter is shown below – the one chapter is all I’ve written during the two (?) months that have passed since school ended (and this is strange indeed, as I once wrote half a book in two months). I have had so much on my mind that my head was too crowded to spend my time writing fiction. Instead I was journaling. These days I’m finding life more interesting than writing. This is a break I need. Last year ALL I  did was write — seriously, I would cut down on my socializing hours just to write. I would write from the early morning, skip meals, and write until the wee hours of the night. So the time I’m having away from writing is so important to me — not only as a writer, but also as a human being! I’m actually discovering so much about life, coming to appreciate life so much more. This makes me uber excited as a writer. Life experiences are filling up my writing-well….

Anyway, here’s the rewrite of chapter one. This is a big change for me. The original chapter is four years old, and during those four years, the content remained pretty much the same. But one night I had a dream (a dream perhaps induced by my new love for stories that don’t occur chronologically), woke up at 5:30 a.m., made myself some tea, typed away madly, then sent it to my sister to read. An hour later I emailed her again writing: DON’T READ THAT VERSION, IT’S SO CORNY. I rewrote, sent, then later emailed her again telling not to read it. I totally flooded her inbox. Anyway. I am in love with this version — though a bit iffy about how short it is, and a bit iffy about the idea of having a prologue. But still. I like this version better. I’d love to know your opinion. Do remember that this is the rough draft : )

P.S. I’m moving out of the romance department. As much as I love this genre, it doesn’t work for me anymore. I want to write general fiction now – general fiction, as in, there will be dashes of romance, but the book’s focus won’t be on that subject alone anymore. But hey… I might switch TRC back to romance if, while rewriting, I believe that the romance genre is truly where my writing still belongs.

And while you read, to manipulate your judgement a bit (har har), here’s something to listen to…

PROLOGUE 

~~~

Nov. 4, 1811

I rode for hours. My hands were icy within the gloves. At first light I went out to check at all the coaching inns & see if you were there. But no trace of you could be found. Guilt drove me onward, the guilt of when I had seen you last, leaving you to be soaked in the rain. The cost of guarding ones pride is too great. I should not have feared your betraying eyes. I should have let you remain, the thorn in my side. Yet I took you out and cast you aside. & now my spirit is dying.  

Here under this wretched roof, as I wait for a word of you, all I can do is look back on the past. I ask myself once & again: Why? Why am I repeating this journey, searching for you? I imagine ourselves playing out Boethius’ consolation of philosophy. I imagine spheres orbiting around a central point in which the divine mind exists. The inner spheres are confined to the simplicity of the center while the outer spheres whirl in wider orbits. I imagine us tangled in the net of Fate, straying further from the center, further into the cold blackness of space.

As our lives are being tossed in circles around the orbits, both of us lost to each other, I feel by a tenfold the dismay I experienced when I first met you. And what a burden I carried then. I remember the sound of rain tinkling against the pipes & the rumbling of carriage wheels passing down the cobbled road. I took cover from the rain beneath a stone archway & slipped a miniature portrait from my coat. The painting was of you, a young woman no older than sixteen—your face too narrow, your cheeks too prominent, & your chin too pointed. Your features, which I then called unappealing, were easily overshadowed by the restrained animation that brimmed over in your clear brown eyes & the arch of your lips.

If hands can express emotions, then how bitterly I closed my fingers over the portrait—through no fault of your own I resented you. Half of me longed to turn back, but I instead stepped past the veil of rain trickling from the arch and headed toward the brothel. By the time I arrived at my destination I heard the muffled sound of laughter & music. I knocked on the door, then thinking that I’d arrived at one of the best houses in Brighton. When the keeper of the establishment opened the door (I knew she was the Madam by the confidence with which she carried herself, her dress, and the age marking her face), she greeted me with a great smile.

“Good evening, sir,” said she. “How may I help you, sir?”

I think I replied: “I am looking for a young lady whom I took interest in.”

Smiling, the woman at once stepped aside. As I entered & was led up to the main parlour, the laughter & cajoling that filled the room lowered into hushed murmurs. They stared at me as I walked past, with the mistress sauntering ahead. Before I got far, a hand grabbed my arm.

“Oh, look at ‘em legs. Never saw such long ‘n lean ones in the whole of me life.”

I glanced at her yellow teeth encased by her smiling red lips, & peeled her fingers off, walking on. Dread gripped me. In such a place as this, I doubted that the animation that had shone from your countenance at the age of sixteen would illuminate you still at the age of two & twenty.  I worried that reality had battered you to an unrecognizable state.

“And might I inquire,” said the mistress, “whom the subject of your interest is, sir?”

“An Amanda Hollingworth.”

“Amanda?” She laughed with confusion & I believe she said: “She may be a sweet lass, but she’s only a plain-faced chit. Would she like me to bring you my prettiest girl, sir?”

“No, I’ve come for Amanda, no one else.” To nullify any suspicion, I offered her a bag of coins. The madam snatched the coins from my hand. Her reaction—you would have laughed seeing it. How high her brows rose as she looked into the bag. With a smile, she declared, “You are the best gentleman that ever breathed!” & then she called out, “Amanda!” The longest pause ensued, a pause in which a million sensations passed in & out of me. “Ah! There she is.” She pointed ahead. “D’you see her, sir?”

I scanned the crowd. In the far corner of the brothel, I saw the face from the portrait: the common brown eyes, the oblique brows slashing darkly across your white skin, the curly pile of chestnut-brown hair. You wore a low-cut dress & white threaded stockings. The bleakness of the underworld had stolen the youth from you and had transformed your features to sharp angles. How I would have laughed had someone informed me that in a few months’ time I would have to withstand the wrath of society because of my regard for you—that of utter adoration.

The man I was then I am ashamed to recall, looking upon you without the slightest stir of pity, looking upon you as the object I had been driven by the cold sense of duty to retrieve.

The Madam called out your name several times again. Goaded by impatience, I too called out your name, “Miss Hollingworth!” Just as I do now. But this time it is with fear & longing & sorrow that I call out to you, “Beloved!” 

Answer me, just as you had then.

 

Once Upon a Time…

While I was looking through my cousin’s photographs (she’s a magical wedding photographer, so check out her blog) I remembered something funny from my past. When I was a kid I once clung onto my mom, crying, snot streaming down from my nose, and telling her in a broken voice: “I’m never going to get married! I want to live with you forever!” I was so serious that day. I thought I’d never change my mind. I thought I’d never want to get married. But here I am today believing that the subject of love between a man and woman is one of the most beautiful themes to write about.

Change can be scary.

I find that a lot of change is occurring in my life – perspective wise. I’m having paradigm shifts about myself, life, people, and even writing. This is in part the reason why I’m not updating my blog as often as I should. And this is the reason why I’m unable to even work on my book these days. There’s just too much going on in my head, in reality, for me to break away and drift off into my imaginary world…

One of my favourite quotes on change is from a book I studied at school:

One cannot “cling to ritual” (231), for “things which don’t shift and grow” Betonie declares, “are dead things (116). – Ceremony, by Silko

Life and change – the two can’t be seperated. To fear change, therefore, is to deny life. So while I’m a bit fearful of all the changes that’s occuring in my life (mostly internal), I’m trying my very best to embrace the fact that I’m “growing up”. Yes. Growing up. I can’t live in neverland forever.

Here’s a picture of me back in the days when I thought getting married and leaving my parents was a monstrous idea. My mom, who has an…interesting sense of humour, decided to put me in the wedding gown I told her I’d NEVER EVER EVER wear when I grew up.

 

Growth Pain – Even Writers Get Them

The first pang of growth pain that I felt as a writer was with The Runaway Courtesan. For almost four years now, I worked on TRC, and while I revised the story several times, the original structure of the story remained. The very story I wrote at eighteen was the very story I was fixing by the age of twenty-one. It was only a year later that I realized that this was a problem. It’s like a twelve year old trying to squeeze her feet into the shoe that she wore at the age of three. Just as the passing of time made her feet grow, time has made me grow psychologically and intellectually—especially after entering into university.

Somehow I didn’t realize this – trying to squeeze feet into an infant’s shoe – was what I was doing. But it was. I would read over TRC, feel a deep sense of dissatisfaction, but no matter how much I tweaked the story, I would still remain dissatisfied. And yet I remained wilfully blind to the answer of what I had to do with the manuscript.

I love the story; don’t get me wrong—I’ll still cry as I read Amanda and Lucas’ story. And though the second half of the story needs to be worked on I’m happy with it, and it’s most likely because I wrote it when I was older. Others noticed this too. They say the story blooms in part two. But in the first half, there was something about the character’s personalities, their thought process, their belief system….that was somehow immature.

Our Writing Group

It didn’t dawn me until my editor Kerrie told me that a rough draft is a rough draft. A rough draft is getting to know your characters. From there you write from scratch. I’m sure it differs from other writers, especially those who have written several books before and are now able to write a decent first draft. But what Kerrie told me was something I needed to be told. For four years I was clinging onto the words written by an eighteen year old. There were so many memories attached to my original draft that I ignored the obvious: Rewrite. The past agent interested in my work asked me to rewrite. The rewriting I thought I was doing was actually tweaking.

The second pang of growth pain hurt much more than TRC. With TRC I was more excited than agonized by the thought of rewriting. The acknowledgement that I needed to rewrite the first half of the story from scratch was liberating. But this second growth pain occurred recently as I was trying to get back into working on book 2: Fall of the Sparrows.

After two years of studying English Literature, it’s difficult to look at writing the same way. For nine years I’ve loved writing romance. For nine years I’ve loved writing flowery prose. For nine years I’ve loved writing in chronological order. But after reading and falling in love with contemporary lit – I found myself writing the old way that I do while glancing longingly at the writing style that is minimal, “indifferent and impartial” (as Sapphire put it), and a story with a broken timeline, and a romance that doesn’t always work out, or is an un-romanticized romance, or where romance is minimal and the focus is on other issues in humanity.

Not that the said attributes are what constitutes modern literature per se. But, nevertheless, I’m coming to find the qualities of modern/post-modern literature more and more attractive. And this thought frightened the heck out of me for some odd reason. The thought of me departing from the romance genre. The thought of me trying to break away from a writing style that suited me as an eighteen year old. I guess the fear came in part from me questioning myself—if I could actually succeed in this different realm of writing.

But I’m all good now. I think I was doubting myself because I hadn’t been writing for so long because of school. Now that I started writing again, the question of how I’m to write  doesn’t matter so much anymore, but rather, my focus has returned to: I love writing so much that as long as I can write and share my story that’s all that really matters in the end.

But.

There is one thing that has not changed in the nine years of writing.

My love for writing about history.

I once told my mom that I would never stop writing stories set in England’s past. Maybe one day I’ll write about Canada’s past. Or some other country’s past. But the past… There’s just something about history that makes my heart beat madly against my chest. Not the history of events per se, but the history of people. A history of people making decisions. A history of people rising and falling. A history of people fighting, loving and dying. Maybe it’s the fascination for people who thought so differently to us—and yet, at the same time, knowing that human nature has remained pretty much the same. Or maybe it’s this feeling of detachment, history being forever lost to us, and yet, at the same time, engraved within us—and therefore allowing myself to tell a story less restricted within my awareness of the present cultural context. I don’t know. I’m not even sure if I’m making sense. I guess it all comes down to: The past is always so much more romantic.

Dear Readers, What has and has not changed for you as a writer?

Listening to:

Here are some of the tweets/FB updates to summarize why I was not updating my blog for the past while:

Stephen Dedalus from ‘A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST…” always seems like he’s high on drugs.

I need to sleep so I stop missing classes. So my hand automatically picks up PORTAITS OF A YOUNG ARTIST. Hmm…

ugh, just finished my european history paper. Just brutal. Let me say that I’m doneee with feminism

Another successful all nighter. Am now at Starbucks #amwriting in my journal before working on history paper # 2

I am so burnt out. Mention the name “James Joyce” and I’ll burst into tears!

Looking over history lecture notes. Can you find where my mind (half-asleep) began to think about creative writng?: “…who controls the land, had existed even before 1663, under their part, land divided up as small plots, until he realizes the he has captured beauty…”

Faulk it, I’m not reading William Faulkner ‘Sound and the Fury’.

Discovering so many stirring assertions while doing my readings: “…men were born free yet everywhere they are in chains.” -Rousseau

Dear Rebecca Black, please make a song about TUESDAY! While Friday is a day of partying, Tuesday is the day of liberation. Why? Because that’s when I finish my last exam. Woooooo

 

Margaret Atwood Interview

Throughout her writing career, Margaret Atwood has received numerous awards and honourary degrees. She is the author of more than thirty-five volumes of poetry, children’s literature, fiction, and non-fiction and is perhaps best known for her novels, which include The Edible Woman (1970), The Handmaid’s Tale (1983), The Robber Bride (1994), Alias Grace (1996), and The Blind Assassin, which won the prestigious Booker Prize in 2000. Atwood’s dystopic novel, Oryx and Crake, was published in 2003. The Tent (mini-fictions) and Moral Disorder (short stories) both appeared in 2006. Her most recent volume of poetry, The Door, was published in 2007. Her non-fiction book, Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth, part of the Massey Lecture series, appeared in 2008, and her most recent novel, The Year of the Flood, in the autumn of 2009. Ms. Atwood’s work has been published in more than forty languages, including Farsi, Japanese, Turkish, Finnish, Korean, Icelandic and Estonian. In 2004 she co-invented the Long Pen TM.

Margaret Atwood and I @ the book signing

Yesterday my friends and I went to attend  the annual Pelham Edgar Lecture where Margaret Atwood would be interviewed by CBC’s Carol Off at our school, the University of Toronto. Margaret Atwood is actually a graduate of our school [along with Michael Ondaatje, who wrote THE ENGLISH PATIENT!!! #$@$$%^-- something I discovered just yesterday] so it was very exciting for us to learn about the old days. The days when street-level pubs did not exist, as there was the potential of a pedestrian looking into the pub to see people drinking, which would surely corrupt them… The days when people would say: “What is Canadian literature? Isn’t it a second rate version of American or British literature?” 

 Good times, good times, I’m sure.

To be seeing and listening to Ms. Atwood, the author who contributed greatly to the shaping of Canadian lit, I imagined someone…not quite human. But she seemed pretty ordinary. And super humble about her achievements. Carol Off would, several times, praise Atwood for her great contributions not only to the literary but also to the political sphere. But Atwood would constantly disown the praise, saying that she did not deserve the red badge as an activist. She mentioned that the only reason why she would take a political stance was due to the fact that there would be hundreds of people pushing behind her. Towards the end of the interview, Carol Off urged Atwood to accept some credit, and the crowd broke into applause.

The interview wasn’t quite what I expected it to be. Atwood rarely talked about her books. As I was telling my friend Kerrie, who was unable to attend due to a cold, I could summarize the interview with two words: Martians and turnips. The chunk of the interview was focused on the reading materials Ms. Atwood said she’d recommend to Martians to read if they ever visited North America. Another chunk was focused on….well…I don’t quite recall because it was rather confusing, but something about how she would vote for a turnip to become prime minister? President? Not sure. But that was her answer to Carol Off’s political question on her thoughts of this year’s election. Atwood’s reason for wanting to vote for a turnip sounded quite intelligent though…

Though I wished she could have talked more about her books, the inspiration behind her writing, I really enjoyed the interview. Ms. Atwood is a quirky, humorous and superbly intelligent woman. It’s always a great experience to get to know a bit about the author before reading her works. And I’m ashamed to say I never read past the first few pages of her books. I always meant to. But they’re a bit difficult to get into, I find. Anyway, time to try again. I’ll be starting with ‘BLIND ASSASSIN’ which I got signed by her.

Have you guys read a book by Margaret Atwood? If you have, do share your thoughts : )