Susan Crandall: What Happens at the Beach House…

…luckily for our readers, does not stay at the beach house, despite our pledge to the contrary.  I just came home from my annual writer’s retreat with Karen White (SEA CHANGE and THE BEACH TREES) and Wendy Wax (OCEAN BEACH and TEN BEACH ROAD).  You see the trend here, I’m the only one not writing about a beach, but they let me come anyway.

I look forward to this week every year and yet have little photographic evidence of it, due to our pledge that our retreat is a camera-free zone.  All of those days spent makeup-less and messy-haired, wearing our favorite ratty writing wear while we brainstorm, talk through revisions and meet frantic deadlines—and yes, share a few bottles of wine.  Throughout the year, we do have three-way telephone conversations to work on the details of our novels (sometime while drinking a glass of wine).  But there’s nothing like getting up the instant I have a plot or characterization problem that has no solution in the known universe and wandering in from the screened porch to interrupt another writer who is thrilled to stop dead in the middle of her work and focus on solving my problem, the answer to which is instantly and brilliantly clear.  Amazingly the reverse is also true, I always can shoot right to the heart of the issues with which they’re struggling.  Forest and trees, I believe.  And more valuable than gold.

The stark fact is, no matter how great and amazing a book turns out, there’s a whole lot of head banging that goes on in order to get it there.  My agent said the book I just turned in (WHISTLING PAST THE GRAVEYARD, Gallery Books / Simon & Schuster, June 2013) read as if I’d simply sat down on my screened porch one afternoon and spun this seamless tale.  I wish!  The main characters in this book had been speaking to me for months before I began to write.  The writing itself took just over a full year.  And once I started, the book did not become the one of my vision—it became so much more.  I’m so glad I allowed myself to ride this wave, rather than wrestle and hammer this story into what I’d originally planned.  The support and encouragement of my critique partners gave me the courage to take that leap into the unknown.

WHISTLING PAST THE GRAVEYARD began as a child-in-jeopardy story, but evolved into a coming of age adventure set against the backdrop of the segregated South in 1963. A broken and downtrodden woman, Eula, and my feisty nine-year-old heroine, Starla, discover truths about themselves, as well as the world around them as they make a risky journey to find Starla’s mother.  The choices I made while writing this book were difficult and deliberate—and in the end very rewarding.  Writing this book in Starla’s nine-going-on-ten-year-old point of view made for some challenges, but also offered for the purity of a child’s perspective as she opens her eyes to the realities of not only her world, but of the larger world around her.  It also offered plenty of opportunities for humor, as well as deeply poignant scenes.   In the end, this turned out to be a truly special book, not only in the finished product, but because it brought back to me why I love writing…the process.

This will be my tenth published novel.  To veer away from what’s been working thus far can be dangerous to a career – or it could launch it to the heavens.  Thanks to those folks who gave me the nudge when I needed it, to those who pointed out the uniqueness and the potential of this story, to those (including Karen and Wendy) who encouraged me to follow the creative road that presented itself, no matter where it led.

I think we all need “cheerleaders” in our lives, as well as our creative processes.  Those to assure us that without risk, mediocrity might reign, brilliance might go undiscovered, and special joys might never be found.  I’m trying to take this lesson into my life, to take the time to explore when it would be more prudent to keep pushing forward; to prescribe to the idea that the journey is truly more important than the destination.

What is your philosophy: destination, or journey?  Risk or steady reward?

Do you have “cheerleaders” who bolster your bravery, encourage you to follow that vision in your heart? 

Leave a comment for a chance to win.  I’ll be giving away two books to a single winner: SLEEP NO MORE (paperback) and ON BLUE FALLS POND (hardcover). 

Susan Crandall

www.susancrandall.net

***Susan's winner is Lory Lee!  Please email totebag@authorsoundrelations.com with your mailing information!***