2020: Part 2

After a productive summer, wherein I did complete the Haven draft (yay!), we started the new school year with plans for hybrid learning instead of full distance teaching. Determined to avoid the mistakes of spring, 2020, I vowed to finish my school work each day by 5:00 pm in order to give myself a break each night. That meant giving up 10-14 hours of my weekend (on Sundays) to prepare for the week. It was a sacrifice I was prepared to make to restore balance to my weekdays. Friday nights and Saturdays became a sacred recovery time with no thoughts of work allowed. My own private sabbath.

Despite fluctuating between hybrid and distance learning seven times during semester 1, teaching did go better. If spring of 2020 earned a D-, fall of 2020 earned a C-. Progress through curriculum was slow and some students were still entirely disengaged despite my and my colleagues' best efforts. But I learned to let go of former expectations and to allow students to make poor choices without blaming myself. 

My new schedule worked, but it once again allowed no time for writing. Or, to be more accurate, I didn't prioritize writing. So I didn't write. Finishing the Haven draft over the summer felt like coming to a natural stopping point. And picking a draft to revise? It felt like too big a job to do piecemeal. 

Still, by the holiday break, I was itching to start something new. 

I had been reading the latest Beth O'Leary novels, modern British romances, after falling in love with her cover art. 

That's what I wanted to try.

So I did.

2020: Part 1

 

A recap: I started 2020 flush with writing plans and goals, primarily to finish a draft of Haven and then circle back to Aco and fix my pace and character arc problems in both drafts. I made some progress, but my writing was (predictably) derailed when the spring musical started up... and then both the musical and my writing met their premature end due to COVID. 

Across America, schools were closed and teachers and students alike were sent home. And so it was in my small district. For about a week. And then, because we are fortunate to have a supportive community that funded a technology referendum to supply laptops in a 1:1 initiative, we began full time distance learning. 

For me, DL meant sleeping in until 7:30 (no alarm clock needed), shlepping to the shower and making coffee in time to check that my Google Classroom lessons had posted (automatically set for 8:00), and then sitting down in front of a screen for the next 14 hours. Seriously. My routine typically included a short break for lunch from 2:30-3:00 and supper with a TV show from 7:00-8:00. And then back at it until all emails had been answered, online work had been graded, and new lessons were ready for the next day. On an "early" day I was finished by 10:00 pm. Sometimes I worked past midnight.

It was physically grueling, and sitting so long in front of the mac messed up my back. 

But the emotional impact was far worse. As a teacher, you strive to meet each student where they are and inspire them to achieve as much as they can. I was able to continue being that sort of teacher for a few amazing students. But too many of my seniors decided their MO for the rest of the year would be doing the minimal needed in order to pass and graduate. And that meant disengagement and rampant cheating. Let me give an example.

Let's say, during the study of Macbeth, I create a lesson on Lady Macbeth in act 1, scene 5. I am thrilled when I find a wonderful (short) video of Niamh Cusack rehearsing the scene for the RSC and create a lesson with a recorded introduction by me (with a funny personal story from a time I saw Niamh on stage), a link to myshakespeare.com so they can read the scene with vocab and explanatory help, and an interactive Google Doc where they can watch the actress dissect and perform the scene and react to her performance choices in writing. It takes me a little over two hours to put together (typical). I guess that it will take the students maybe 20 minutes to work through. That's only half of a class period, but I don't have another two hours to make more content and frankly, within days I realized that students were unwilling to do any assignment that lasted longer than 20 minutes anyway. I have two other preps to address before crawling into bed... It'll have to do. 

I post the assignment. When I start grading assignments a day later, I realize most of the students have skipped the reading entirely and watched maybe 3 minutes of the 11 minute video before composing their reactions. Some of the reactions make no sense as they are copied straight from the internet, probably after they took my prompt question and pasted it into the search bar at Google. And 5-6 students have the exact same personal response, down to the type-o's and grammar errors. 

From a distance, I could not have made the scene more simple and engaging. I was overly proud, in fact, of how clever I had been. They didn't care. And now I faced another 4 acts worth of lessons to create knowing that no matter how I addressed the lack of effort and outright cheating, no matter how clever I was in creating technology-forward, learner-friendly lessons, I would face similar choices by the students. What more could I do? It was emotionally crushing. 

This led to my realization and DL mantra: You can stay up until midnight creating beautiful, detailed maps leading straight to the freshest water, but you can't stop a horse from using Google Maps to find a short cut that leads to a brackish swamp. 

By the end of each week, I was so physically and emotionally drained that I collapsed for the weekend. Teaching, which is usually fun, became drudgery. I was ready to quit education entirely. I spent more than one moment dreaming of early retirement and looking at the help wanted ads in the local paper . And through it all, there was literally NO time to write. 

Until summer.

That's when the pandemic's restrictions became convenient excuses to indulge myself in days of gardening, quiet time recovering from the soul-devouring atrocity of DL, and finishing my Haven draft. 

So that's what I did.

My New Project (2021)

One of my guilty pleasures is reading romance novels. I have favorite authors and series, but I'll read passably edited self-published digital work as well. Admittedly, this is a waste of time. But maybe... maybe it's research?

An idea came to me mid-winter. An idea for a romance novel. A reverse Notting Hill, where the famous movie star is British and is rescued and enchanted by a book-loving American gal. During a Minnesota snowstorm. I ran with it and spent Christmas vacation of 2020 and January-February of 2021 collecting ideas, creating my protagonists and their world, and digging into the characters' psyches with a goal of actually having character arcs from the get-go. It was distracting, indulgent, energizing work. 

And then the defunct spring musical sprang back to life. I had to choose a direction; with the time-consuming demands of teaching both face-to-face and distance learning simultaneously (a fresh hell), there was room for just one creative endeavor in my life. I couldn't imagine not being a part of the musical, so I chose that direction. By the time it ended, my focus was on graduation activities and the romance was pushed so far to the back of my head I had literally forgotten the characters' names. 

But now it is June. Summer. My time.

First, I printed all my notes from last winter. Aha! Elly Calder. That's your name! Or Charlie. I was thinking about changing it. And Eddie Ashton-Clarke. Plus all your cohorts and family. There you are.

After reacquainting myself with the world of Hartley, Minnesota, I reread Jessica Brody's Blake Snyder-inspired Save the Cat! Writes a Novel to reacquaint myself with his beat system of outlining a plot. 

Next comes the actual outlining. I had solid progress working off a well built outline for SPOTD, so that's the plan. Lio and Lamb probably suffered a bit because I outlined less, unsure of exactly where the story was going. I had a double column day progression excel sheet at one point, but it was more reactive than pre-organized and mostly built to help me follow separated characters over time.

Then it'll be off to the races! For the first time, I'll be using Microsoft 365 instead of installed software. The dynamism of Word + the device sharing of Google Docs? Yes, please. 

I have two favorite bits in the new series. The first is where the female protagonist lives. Instead of a row-house with a striking blue door, Elly (for now) lives in a white farmhouse in Minnesota's rural lake country. It's based on a farmhouse I visited last summer when I was considering a premature end to my teaching career and a move closer to family. I fell in love with the house, but I realized the timing for such a drastic move was wrong. Using it as my character's home was a way to own it without buying it. 

There are very few parallels between my first series (middle grade modern fantasy), my second series (YA traditional fantasy in a created world), and this piece (contemporary romance). And yet, one major inspiration for each was a physical space. For SPOTD, it was the barn at the end of the street where Chase lived. For Lio and Lamb, it was castles. And for Dash Away, it is the farmhouse. 

My second delight is Eddie's imdb.com filmography list. It was delightful imagining a sort of Downton Abbey meets Bridgewater series that has made Eddie famous, although that fame was disrupted by the pandemic. I based the series off actual historical figures from a precise time and place, bringing together people who may or may not have actually met in the 1800's England. 

And nearly as fun to work out was Eddie's next move, which involves one of my favorite London performance spaces, the outdoor theater in Regent's Park. Even though I won't be visiting London again until travel is less fraught and shows have returned to the West End, at least I can visit in my mind. 

Renaming

I think I have stumbled upon a half decent comp for the first novel in my new series: It’s my Martha Kent story. Imagine Martha Kent if Jonathan had wanted to turn over the alien baby to the authorities, and she went on the lam to keep Kal El/Clark safe. In a medieval fantasy world.

This brings me to my topic:

CHARACTER NAMES (symbolic)

When I teach archetypal criticism, we discuss character names quite a bit. I have the students take notes on various ways that authors use names on a deeper level. Then we check for them when we meet new characters. Here's my list, with a few examples.

# 1

Names that are words, with denotative and connotative meanings. "Sweetie Pie" is adorably lovable and loves Opal instantly in DiCamillo's "Because of Winn Dixie". Porter's "Granny Weatherall" is old (and dying) after "weathering all" of life's hardships. In The Lord of the Rings series by Tolkein, "Grima Wormtongue" uses his tongue (language) to worm (burrow) Saruman's messages into King Theoden's ears, with quite grim consequences. "Cinderella" cleans her stepmother's hearth, getting "little cinders/ashes" all over herself. Disney's "Scar" has psychological scars from not being the king, and literal scars on his left eye.

It helps to know some foreign words (or to look them up). Two quick Shakespeare examples: "Benvolio" wishes good things for his cousin Romeo, while "Malvolio" wishes bad things for Toby Belch.  The legendary "Tristan" is destined to be "sad." I could go on all day...

Sometimes, a character is so indelible, his very name becomes a word with connotative meanings. Case in point: The miser, Ebenezer Scrooge. 

So, class, you don't know why Alice Walker picked "Myop" for the name of her young heroine in "The Flowers?" Look it up! Does the naive character see the world in a nearsighted way? Does that change? Because...

# 2 

Irony.

As Thomas Foster is keen to repeat, irony is an author's trump card. It's delicious!

# 3 

As are, of course, allusive names. You know quickly what a character is like (or not like: IRONY) or have been given a heads-up about what kind of journey she is about to go on when names recall other characters or historical people. I like to play a little game with my students. Who is referenced?

Scrooge McDuck? (We start easy!)

Anyone named Juliet, Sherlock, Pollyanna, Jack, Gretel, Alice, Alexander, Diana, Jesus, Mary, Samson, Delilah, Abraham (double dose of reference!), Noah, Adam, Eve... You get the idea. Knowing Shakespeare, Greek myths, fairy tales, and one's Bible really helps.

So when Jafar's hench-parrot is named Iago, it's not an accident. (I usually have to explain that one, which is easy because I have an 8' mural of Othello and Iago on my classroom wall.)

Just for fun, we usually spend a moment considering the name Harry, which now alludes to a certain boy wizard. But for Rowling and all the British kids reading about Harry's adventures for the first time, his name must have evoked Prince Hal (eventually Henry V) from history class and Shakespeare's version of the Hundred Years' War. Even if Rowling picked the name just because she liked it, that resonance is there. And it couldn't be more perfect.

#4

The lack of a name may have deeper meaning. Nameless characters are often generalized, anonymous representations of struggles that all of us endure. Or characters without names are being dehumanized... When one character refuses to learn another character's name, or refuses to call them the correct name, or uses a belittling nickname rather than a given one, that character is demeaned. It can also dehumanize a character to refer to him by his title alone. He becomes his job, not a full person. This extends to women who are referred to only as Mrs. [surname of her husband]. 

Finally,

#5

When a character's name changes, it marks a change in character. 

That seems too simple, too obvious. And a good author will handle this name change business subtly. We read several short stories where the main female characters are defined first in reference to their husbands: Mrs. Marroner. Mrs. Mallard. Mrs. Hale. They do not "earn" their own names (Marion, Louise, Martha) until they gain control of their personhood and are no longer purely defined in relation to someone else/their husbands.

Digging deeper, why do two of these three random characters' names start with MAR?

It's right there in #3: allusion to Mother Mary, the spotlessly perfect mother. The chosen one.

BACK TO LIO AND LAMB...

When I started writing Lio and Lamb's backstory (Haven), I needed a name for their mother. For several important plot reasons, I didn't want her to be too lovely, and I picked a name that I didn't like much to reflect her physical plainness: Thora. It's not a bad name. Thora Birch is a lovely actress. And there's some irony in naming a fairly powerless, southern islander after the Norse god Thor.

But the more I got to know her, the more I realized that she wasn't an ugly girl, or even plain. She had just been isolated too much as a child, so no one had told her she was beautiful. No one was there to say it.

The name I've been using for almost two years started to grate on me. I would type the letters, knowing that they were bound to disappear one day in the twelve seconds it takes to do a Find>Replace all.

When I realized my comp, that this is my Martha Kent story, it hit me. I had been using the name Marjaana for Thora's mother, a minor character who doesn't even appear in the story. I could steal that more lovely, resonant name for my main character.

I love that her name holds the traditional MAR, as her key role in the overall story is being my main characters' mother.

In twelve seconds, it was done.

  

Feeling Capable

As a writer, there are days I feel so clever and legit. Those are the days I allow myself to imagine an end to the day job (and all the correcting of others’ writing that being a full time  language arts teacher entails) and the beginning of a full time writing career that takes me into my retirement years.

I see myself sitting on panels and playing goofy games on stages at cons. I picture myself wearing “Presenter” badges all across America (instead of "Attendee" badges). I picture my agent and a publishing deal and seeing my books on the end shelves at Target.

Then there are days I feel like a dense sham. I suspect my work is okay, even good. But all of those pie-in-the-sky dreams feel out of reach. Silly, even.

Alas.

For the third year, I am keeping track of my writing life in this journal: 

It starts with several pages of reflection and goal setting, which I like. I have to admit, my pattern is to overestimate the amount of work I'll do in a year. By the end of the year, I will have finished my January-February writing goals. But the outline of the story I've made each year has worked as a roadmap. I'm on the path, moving in the right direction, and I know where I'm headed. I just don't make the progress my optimistic January self thinks is possible. 

This year, my main writing goals are:

* To finish draft 1 of Lio and Lamb: Haven

I had hoped to accomplish this in January and February, as March and April will be filled with the spring musical. But January is almost done and the musical has already started. It might be my summer goal.

* To refine my character arcs

"Refine" actually means "make them happen." Thanks to a class I took at The Loft last November/December, I have some good ideas jotted down. Right now, my characters are too similar. Probably too much like me, to be honest. I need to complicate and gunk and weird them up. 

* Deep revision on Aco

I need to use the advice  Matt Bialer offered in his critique to do more than surface level revision. I'll concentrate on making decisions about POV characters, examining chapter length, and introducing the main plot more clearly/earlier. He also voiced an interest in a small, throwaway detail that I've decided to amp up in the earlier volumes so it will resonate later.

With hope, I will move along the path toward my goals and feel even more capable when I fill out my goals for 2020-2021. 

A New Website

Sometimes I feel competent when it comes to technology. Sometimes I don't.

For many years, I had a simple website at snowmoonpublishing.com to share SPOTD with the world. I built the site on iWeb, bought my domain name from GoDaddy, and had it hosted through iPage. More than once I had problems getting GoDaddy and iPage to work together, but with a little patience and grit, I figured it out.

Somehow, at some point, everything stopped working. And I no longer had the patience to fix it.

Over this Christmas break, I finally decided to do something about my lack of professional web presence. The least "banging-my-head-against-the-wall" solution seemed to be starting from scratch. So I bought my name as a URL and set up web hosting -- both products from the same company this time.

There was a definite learning curve as I built the site using WordPress. But an afternoon's work was all it took to get a basic site live.

Ta-da!

Click here to visit annwachtler.com!

Thanksgiving

What???!?! It's not Thanksgiving, it's New Year's Eve.

Yeah, but the end of the year is a great time to be thankful. Besides, I wrote this post a month ago but never posted it. Out with the old, as they say.

Jump on the metaphorical TARDIS with me, and let's visit November, 2019...

NOVEMBER, 2019

Nanowrimo. It was fantastic. I admit, it wasn't my most successful as far as writing new words or writing every day. As usual, book club did me in. But I did (mostly) revise and (minimally) draft 45,000 words.

The reason it was so great is this: I found my ending!

During a Writing Excuses podcast, I have no idea which one, Mary Robinette Kowal advocated for the writing of short stories, if only because it forces a writer to write endings. And the panelists agreed.

Additionally, they said that it is better to finish works, even poor ones, than to leave them undone, because that is how you learn how to write endings. And I completely agree.

I felt great after finishing Aco this summer. In fact, it was a high from which I did not recover well. After I found and drafted that ending, I revised (minimally) for the rest of the summer. I wrote very little new material. I sent it off to my alpha reader and shifted attention to my day job. Until November and Nanowrimo.

So today was Thanksgiving. I was stuffed and bored with watching television. Most of the extended family had gone home many hours before. Knowing that there were only three days left in the month (and in Nanowrimo 2019), I decided to at least work on my outline for the final chapters of Haven…

And VOILA! Several important plot twists practically wrote themselves. Each event led to the next, inexorably and inevitably. The direction I thought it would go? Wasn’t how it went. And I’m pretty happy with how it went. Still a little jiggling and chapter POV manipulating to do. But it’s there.

I remember getting to this point last July and feeling capable. Not brilliant, just capable. It’s a good feeling. I am thankful for it.

DECEMBER 31, 2019

Now I'm in the throes of making that ending happen. Christmas break was lovely, with lots of time for writing. I added around 7000 words to the draft and have roughly outlined the final chapters. If I can keep going in January, I'll have complete drafts of two volumes in the new series. They'll both need work, especially character work, but the stories will be there.

Looking back, I am pleased with my progress this year.
Looking forward, I am excited to continue the Lio and Lamb series.

Full of thanks, I sign off for 2019.