Today marks a first here at Writing & Ruminating: a post written by someone who is not me. Instead, today's content was written by my friend and sometime retreat-partner, Jenn Hubbard, author of The Secret Year and the forthcoming Try Not To Breathe, and it's one of my favorite kinds of posts - one about process. Many thanks to Jenn for doing this!
I’m Not a Poet, But I Played One in a Novel
Jennifer R. Hubbard
Kelly asked me to write about poetry, and especially what it was like to have a poetry-writing character in my first novel. I’ve written poetry for years, but mostly as an emotional outlet rather than as a serious attempt to make art that anyone else would want to read. While I’ve worked to bring my prose to a professional level, poetry is a creative stretch, particularly helpful in its focus on rhythm, strong imagery, and word choice. I try to bring those elements into my prose writing.
In The Secret Year, I had a character, Julia, who wrote both prose and poetry. We get to read some of her writing, viewing it always through the filter of her untimely death. When I had to show her poetry, I asked myself how I could do this, not being a strong poet myself. I didn’t want her work to be a joke, to be laughably bad.
On the other hand, it didn’t have to be expert either; Julia wasn’t a poetic prodigy. And her words—both prose and poetry—often had a self-consciousness, a bravado, a trying-on of attitudes, an attempt to portray her life as more dramatic than it actually was. I asked myself what her poetry did have to be. And I realized that the part of it that was relevant to the story would reflect her passionate attachment to the main character, Colt, as well as her fears about the strength of that passion. I also realized that I didn’t need entire poems to appear in the book, just a couple of lines that worked in the story.
So I wrote a “Julia poem,” in character. Then I pulled from it the most intense, cringingly intimate lines, because they reflected the depth of what Colt had lost and also the depth of his secrecy. The point was to show the exposed nerves of loss, and to emphasize how vulnerable Colt had been in his intimacy with Julia. She put into words the most raw needy part of him, what Colt would feel but never say himself.
Again, many thanks to Jenn for writing this!
It's not that late, but I have my jammies on already, and will be going to bed soon. I consider that a good thing.
This afternoon, I had some of the best potato salad I've ever ingested. That sure knows how to peel a potato (and combine it with just the right amount of other stuff). I also had some delicious peach cobbler. NOM!
Tomorrow is Sunday, and my writing partner is back from vacation, and this means WRITING TIME WITH ANGELA! *is ded of excitement*
I promise to come up with some better posts in the near future. Meanwhile, if you're after poetry, I hope you'll read the original poem I posted yesterday. And if you want something a bit substantive, you can check out Wednesday's post about poetry being "the rhythmical creation of Beauty".
Today I have the privilege of interviewing debut novelist, Jennifer Hubbard, author of The Secret Year, a YA novel that is about secrets and loss, although it's about so much more than that. I've known Jenn personally for at least 7 years. We first met at the Philadelphia Writer's Conference in 2003, and ran into one another at the Fall Philly Conference run by the always terrific Eastern PA SCBWI as well. At the time, I knew that Jenn was working on a novel for teens and that she is the author of a number of short stories for grown-ups as well as some poetry.
Since then, Jenn has completed her novel, landed an agent, gotten a book deal and seen her first novel released. In the words of the Grateful Dead, "what a long, strange trip it's been."
1. Your debut novel, The Secret Year, came out a few months ago. What has surprised you most about being a published author?
That strangers really do read and talk about one’s book. I know that sounds incredibly naive, but I published short stories for years, and it’s a very different experience. I’ve only ever seen one review of a short story of mine. But novels generate much more conversation, for whatever reason—which is wonderful and strange at the same time!
2. The Secret Year features a teen male narrator. Did you always conceive the book as being written from Colten's point of view?
Yes, always. His voice came to me rather insistently, and provided the engine to move this story forward.
3. The voice sounds like an authentic teen male voice. Given that you are not now, nor have ever been (to my knowledge) a teen boy, how did you go about putting yourself into his shoes?
Whatever I know about male voices comes from living with guys, working with them, being friends with them, overhearing their conversations in school halls and on trains and in restaurants, and from reading their work. And still, I always think of my characters as people first.
4. As anyone who has read your blog knows, you put a great deal of thought into your writing. How conscious are you of theme when you write? Is that something that you start with, or something that evolves throughout the writing and revision process?
At first, I just write. As I go, I have an idea or two that I’m trying to develop: in this case, “secrecy” was uppermost. Why do people choose secrecy, when they do? What do they get from it? Why is it so appealing? What are the consequences of keeping secrets? Of revealing them?
After the first draft, I figure out what the theme is and sculpt the later revisions to emphasize that theme. In later drafts, I also consciously choose language or symbolism that reflects that theme. Although secrecy stayed a central focus of The Secret Year, loss and grief were important topics also, as well as the issue of class differences, and the fact that people often become emotionally involved with one another even when they’re trying not to.
5. You've written (and sold) short stories for the adult market, but your longer fiction is for the young adult market. Have you (or would you) write short stories for the YA market, or, alternatively, novels for the adult market? Why or why not?
To me, the main difference between the forms is that a short story revolves around one incident or idea or concept, while a novel requires subplots and a wider scope. I have written YA short stories, although there hasn’t been a huge market. However, there’s Hunger Mountain now, and there are always anthologies. I would love to do more short fiction. I think it’s fascinating that short stories haven’t been more commercially successful in this era. We keep hearing how people have short attention spans
Because it's Jane Austen season on PBS
In honor of tonight's U.S. television debut of the new ITV production of Jane Austen's Persuasion, here's one of the most popular quotes from the novel for you, in the context of its entire paragraph. Oh, and for the interested, I provided a very short and completely incomplete cheat sheet in the comments of Friday's Persuasion post. The quote (about learning romance) comes from early on in the book, when Anne Elliot is thinking about the choice she was persuaded to make when she was nineteen, which was to renounce Frederick Wentworth, the man she loved, for financial and other security reasons:
How eloquent could Anne Elliot have been,——how eloquent, at least, were her wishes on the side of early warm attachment, and a cheerful confidence in futurity, against that over-anxious caution which seems to insult exertion and distrust Providence!——She had been forced into prudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older——the natural sequence of an unnatural beginning.
On revision
From the very wise and talented Jennifer Hubbard, with whom I spent so much time at ALA yesterday:
One byproduct of the revision process is doubt. . . . The inner critic helps identify trouble spots. The inner critic tries not to let me get away with crap. The inner critic keeps me working when I might get lazy. But sometimes, one must stuff a pillow in the inner critic's mouth and listen to the story.
On poetry
"All poems are journeys. The best poems take long journeys. I like poetry best that journeys——while remaining in the human scale——to the other world, which may be a place as easily overlooked as a bee's wing." ~Robert Bly
