So right now I’m trying to work on two books simultaneously. Making background notes, shuffling story lines and clarifying plots on one while I await my editor’s revision (-ary) notes; and finishing up the first draft of another book. Why do I feel like two different people? -A friendly, fuzzy cardigan-wearing, slightly myopic, cuddly librarian type on the one hand, and a sarcastic, bitter, combat boot -wearing anti-social hellcat on the other? Because the two books are about as far apart in genre as could be. The publishing deal I have, is for my Feltus Ovalton series, a middle-grade fantasy about a reluctant hero, but the novel I began while on hiatus (as it were) and am hoping to shop to an agent when I’m finally finished, is raw, edgy, visceral and definitely not meant for children.Think Jesus’ Son by Denis Johnson. Depressing, realistic stuff.
Sinking myself into a voice that is so completely different from Feltus’s partially omniscient 3rd person narrative has been hard and not just because I chose to write in the first person this time. And not as hard as it’s likely to be when I’m also re-immersed in the Feltus revision; sometime in the next couple of weeks with any luck. I’d like to think that I can devote two hours to one book, two hours to the other, (cause other writers manage to do it after all!) but as my husband likes to remind me, there are only so many free hours during the day especially with two kids under age 6, and I should work on the one I have the deal for. Lots of time for my petprojects when the real work is done.
Since the two voices are characteristically opposite maybe my brain will be able to handle the task better than I’m expecting. On the one hand we have Feltus- twelve years old, facetious, lonely, and on the other we have Janie, nineteen, punk rock, world-weary, gregarious and opinionated. He is immature, insecure and unintentionally hilarious. Her voice is piercing, strident and what little humor there is in her story is black. Different tales, different moods- a different style of writing entirely.
It’s a relief of a sort to move from descriptive, evocative passages to stripped down, bare prose. Sort of like sharpening both sides of the blade. I make great, healthy vegetarian soups but I also enjoy baking fantastic desserts like hazelnut torta with chocolate ganache frosting and whipped cream. Writing such fundamentally divergent characters and stories and keeping it all straight and true, is sort of like juggling the soup and the cake. We’ll see how much lands on my head before I’m done.
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