My guest today, Marian Palaia, is a San Francisco (and often Missoula, Montana) author whose first novel, The Given World, was praised in a starred Kirkus review as “an immensely rewarding and remarkable debut.” It has been nominated for both the PEN/Bingham Prize and the Saroyan International Prize for Fiction. I’ve done readings with Marian both for Litquake and the Squaw Valley Community of Writers, and not only is her book terrific, but she is delightful herself–as is evident in her post. Enjoy! – Meg
Three years ago (if I am being completely honest, more nearly four), I began a new novel. I did this in response to the first few passes my agent received for “The Given World.” For the most part they said, “Lovely writing. Compelling characters. Too quiet.” For whatever reason—I guess because it was so early in the submission process—it did not occur to my agent, or to me, to think about revising the manuscript, even a little bit, so that it would not be so “quiet.” When later on I decided to try to do that, the attempt was apparently successful, at least in so far as we sold the book fairly quickly post-revision, a thing that of course made me quite happy, and still, with some minor caveats, does. Happiness about that book, however, is not what I came to talk about.[1]
What I came to talk about is the second book, which is a work in progress, and has been for a long time. Whether that is three years or four is a detail, and it means not a whole lot. The thing is, I began writing it in response to those early rejections of the first book. I thought, “Too quiet? I can write loud.” (Or, in the words of Debra Winger in “Urban Cowboy,” “I got a thumb. I got a middle finger.”) So I began a book, a sort of “up yours and your desire for louder” (but not really) to the publishing world, which in the first 40 pages had Iraqi soldiers buried alive by American soldiers (a true story, I think I believe, because it was in the New Yorker), a Golden Gate Bridge suicide, and two female characters joining forces to blow shit up in the mountains of western Montana. So far so loud. In three or whatever number of years, I wrote 50,000 words of something called, “The Hello Kitty Justice League.” This amounted to just over 180 pages, which is about 60 pages a year (if you don’t count that other year). Which is five pages a month. But they were very good pages. Very polished. Beautiful sentences. (Subjective, of course.)
Fast forward to this past April, when I showed it to someone I very much trust, who said, in essence, “Uh uh.” She said, kindly, “I do not think you have found your narrative structure yet.” The “yet” was a generous addition to that sentence. I took it to mean she believed I would eventually find that structure. It was nice of her to believe that, or to let me believe she did. I did think, briefly, about sending it to someone I knew would be even more generous, and ignore that lack of structure because this person (whomever) loves me, but I didn’t do that. I started over. From scratch. Because I realized, with a clarity often attributed to alcoholics who have hit bottom, that my story had no foundation.
Funny part is, I was at the same time learning about real foundations, the kind that go under real structures, like, buildings, and I think this helped with the clarity issue. I was taking a class in rough framing at City College of San Francisco, because I like to build things, but I was untrained re such tools as Skilsaws and Sawzalls and nail guns, and wanted to be able to use them, to not be afraid of them. About the time I was made to understand my lack of narrative structure, we were building an actual foundation, upon which we built walls, and eventually put up rafters for the roof. What I learned was this: If your foundation isn’t square, and solid, and true, good luck building on top of it. The metaphor could not have been more apt (or more obvious, but.) So when I started the book over, I thought, I will give this a foundation, by way of giving my main character a history of some kind, which will relate to her latent propensity to blow shit up. I thought I could do this in 20-30 pages. I am now 105 pages in, and have yet to include any previously written material. I have found that I take great delight in building foundations, and am considering hiring myself out to build more of them. (No, not really.)
It would be unwise and unnecessary to belabor this point (to beat this metaphor to death) and I feel a little silly that it has taken me so long to learn it. But every book is different, and maybe some don’t need the kind of foundation I’m building for this one. But I will remember, when I begin the next book, two things: One, it will need something to stand on—something that has been intentionally built; and two, it’s probably not a good idea to begin a book as an “up yours” to anyone, even if it seems perfectly legitimate at the time. I imagine along the way I will remember other things, or at least I hope so, but for now, those two seem a very good place to start. Then, as always, one word in front of the other, until it stands, because at its foundation it’s true. – Marian
[1] Nor could I could adequately articulate the means by which I “de-quieted” it, while still remaining true to my gut instinct to not bash readers over the head or even sneak up behind them to attempt such a thing. Maybe someday, after I’ve been writing for another 30 years, I’ll have a clue.
