The Promise of a Good Read

Last week at the monthly meeting of the Pulpwood Queens of Southwest Louisiana, I had the pleasure to meet Ann Weisgarber, author of The Promise. An intriguing historical fiction, it personifies the 1900 hurricane that devastated Galveston, Texas and weaves the reality of social class, and the power of the human spirit to survive into a superb tale of love and loss on multiple levels.

Ann, a delight herself, chose to attend our meeting rather than Skype. We enjoyed her enthusiasm and description of her writing process. She graciously agreed to share her writing method and journey to publication.

Ann,

How did the idea for The Promise evolve? 

After I finished my first novel, The Personal History of Rachel DuPree, but before I found a publisher, I freelanced for The Islander, a magazine published in Galveston, Texas.  My assignment was to write articles about people who had unusual jobs.  For one article, I interviewed a brother and sister who owned and managed a small independent grocery story on the west end of the island.  Their father bought the store in 1963 when this part of the island was sparsely populated.        

The interview was fascinating.  Tap water wasn’t safe to drink, the electricity went out frequently, and there were more rattlesnakes than children.  If that was the west end in 1963, what was it like at the time of The 1900 Storm, the worst U.S. natural disaster where at least 6,000 people perished?  Did anyone live there?  If so, who were they?  How did the hurricane impact them?

Curious, I read everything I could find about Galveston.  I learned that dairy farmers, cattle ranchers, fishermen, and their families lived down the island, as the rural end was called then.  Much had been written about the hurricane’s impact on Galveston’s densely populated East End but almost nothing about the people who lived outside of the city limits.  They’d been forgotten and that felt like an injustice.  Their lives mattered. 

When my first book was published, I was offered a contract for the next two books.  I immediately knew I would write about rural Galvestonians and the storm.  Although my characters were not actual people, The Promise is my way of honoring the memories of the victims and the courageous survivors.   

You said last night that you aren’t creative but use research to move your story. Could you elaborate? 

Some writers such as J. K. Rowlings and Stephen King spin wonderful, creative worlds only they could imagine.  I don’t have that gift since my practical nature keeps me grounded to the real world.  I begin with a one-page rough outline and then turn to research to help me fill in the blanks.  As an example, during the very early days of The Promise, I took a cemetery tour conducted by the Galveston Historical Foundation.  I went simply to learn more about Galveston.  Long after the tour ended, I kept thinking about the cemetery and its possible role in the novel.  Months later, I wrote a scene where three of the main characters gather around a headstone in the cemetery.  If I had not taken the tour, this scene would not exist.         

Is The Promise your first novel?

It’s my second.  The first one, The Personal History of Rachel DuPree, takes place in the South Dakota Badlands during 1917, and is a story about ranchers.  It was inspired by an unlabeled photograph of a woman and by a sod dugout I saw while on vacation at Badlands National Park.  At the time, I taught sociology at Wharton County Junior College in Texas and didn’t think of myself as a writer.  Haunted by the photograph, though, I felt compelled to write a short story about the woman whose name had been lost to history.  I was three pages in when I realized I didn’t know how to write fiction.  I took non-credit creative writing classes from Houston’s Inprint and during the first four years, publication was not my goal.  That was liberating since I don’t worry about critics. Instead, I focused on doing the best job possible to give the woman in the photograph a voice.   

Things changed when an Inprint instructor suggested I consider publication.  Three years later, it was published first in the UK by Pan Macmillan, then in France by Belfond Editions, and next in the U.S. by Viking. 

Since I had a contract for the second novel, The Promise was a different writing process.  My UK editors never pushed but I felt internal pressure to perform and imagined critics saying the second book didn’t live up to expectations.  A writer friend, Thomas Cobb, told me the second book is often much harder to write than the first one.  This eased the pressure.  Other writers had struggled with their second novels and had survived.  So would I. 

You mentioned to our group both books were published first in the UK.  Why?

It took a year to find a literary agent who was willing to represent The Personal History of Rachel DuPree.  She helped me with the ending and I’ll always be grateful to her for that.  She showed the manuscript to editors in the U.S. and they turned it down.  The agent lost interest and we ended the relationship.   Months later, I read in Poets & Writers about Will Atkins, an editor with Pan Macmillan who was willing to look at manuscripts not represented by agents.  I dusted off the manuscript and sent it to him figuring I had nothing to lose.  Eleven weeks later, Will offered me a contract. 

Rachel DuPree was nominated for several literary prizes in the UK, and Will offered a contract for two more books.  Although it didn’t win either prize in the UK, the nominations sparked interest in the U.S and Viking published it a year later.  The Promise was also published first in the UK and a year later in the U.S. by Skyhorse. 

Will Atkins gave me a break that changed my life.  The Promise is dedicated to him.

Any advice for new writers?

            Writing is hard work.  It requires dedication and calls for making hard choices about how to use your time.  Having said that, write your heart out.  Ignore the people who say you’re wasting your time and you’ll never be published.  Keep writing but find a writing critique group that gives honest feedback.  Listen to what your fellow writers have to say about your work.  It can hurt but we writers are hardy and we can take it.  Consider that these critiques might be valid.  If so, make edits, throw out pages, and start again. 

            I’ve been meeting with my writing critique group every Friday for four hours for ten years.  They’ve seen me through both books and they aren’t shy about pointing out mistakes.  They make me a better writer, and I hope my feedback about their work helps them.  I’m counting on the group to see me through the next book.   

Have you started the next book?

I’m in the rough-draft stage and I do mean rough in every sense of the word!  It takes place during the winter of 1887 in Utah’s canyon country which is now Capitol Reef National Park.  The narrator is a woman whose husband disappears while mining silver.  The federal government has cracked down on polygamy and men with plural wives are arrested and often imprisoned for years.  Some of them try to evade arrest and hide in the canyons.  The narrator is one of the people who helps them. 

            That’s what the story is as of today.  It could change tomorrow.   

To find out more about Ann Weisgarber go to www.annweisgarber.com 

To Do List

The Right to Write, by Julia Cameron, have you read it? The complete title proclaims, “An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life.” Of course this immediately appealed to me, but as Cameron points out though essays and example, “We come into life as writers.”  She believes we all have an innate need to write whether we profess to be a writer or not. I tend to agree.

I’ve known for years journaling is healthy. I easily get my feelings hurt or sit down on my pity-pot, yet from the depth of despair I have been lifted, simply by creating what I call a gratitude list—things we are grateful for—starting with the air we breathe, warm socks, or air conditioning. Hope springs from gratitude, and from a list of simple thanks bubbles joy. It is no small miracle available to anyone with pencil and a sheet of paper.  

Many years ago, I took a linguistics class where the professor pointed out the obvious—we are the only creatures with a written language. All animals have their own language, some seem to understand our dialect, but no other species besides the human animal have the ability to write and record. This was a revelation to me; something I never considered. It is not our intellect, but the ability to write that separates us. I am humbly grateful for this gift to clarify my thoughts, order my day, use metaphor, or write music.

Julia Cameron acknowledges and encourages each of us to utilize this gift on a daily basis. Each chapter in The Right to Write is an essay of poetic prose, contemplative, and designed to encourage the reader to write whether a proclaimed writer or not. She debunks writing myths and phobias of perfection, and I have found the exercises at the end of each chapter fun and helpful.

Someday meeting Julia Cameron – it’s on my bucket list. 

Silence, Writing, and Anne Lemott

Some books stimulate the muscle between the ears.

"The thing about light is that it really isn't yours; it's what you gather and shine back. And it gets more power from reflectiveness; if you set still and take it in, it fills your cup, and then you can give it off yourself."
Anne Lamott - Traveling Mercies

I spied Lamott's Traveling Mercies on the library shelf while sitting in a meeting at church. No doubt donated by a progressive parishioner, I was familiar with her name from years of referencing her writing helps in Bird by Bird. I plucked this volume, subtitled Some Thoughts on Faith, and reflected--what am I doing?I'm in the middle of three book studies and have 17 books I have not read, plus I have this blog and my novel to edit and complete. I devoured this personal epistle of short stories in less than a week, and I don't want to give it back. What do you think God thinks about covetousness to the point of stealing a book from the church library, Anne? No doubt, he loves me.

I'll probably purchase this one for my own library, but first I'm anxious to reread it on several different levels. Published in '99, it's still poignant and satisfying in an armchair coffee-sipping type way, but her faith journey in brutal honesty fascinates the author wanna-be in me. Anne's poetic prose infuse me; make me want to write more creatively with sincerity and openness, and lest I lie, covett the other two books on the church shelf by Lamott.