The Hard Work of Birthing a Novel
Some years ago, I was
sitting with a group of women writers in the house we’d rented on Martha’s Vineyard for a week-long writing retreat when the
topic of favorite books came up. “The
Scarlet Letter,” I offered vigorously.
“Hester Prynne is my all-time favorite heroine!” (Pause).
“But I always wondered whatever happened to Pearl.”
My immediate reaction to that
self-imposed query was “Damn!” I
remembered Anne Tyler’s line to the effect that if she could only stop getting
ideas, she wouldn’t have to be a writer.
But the dye was cast. Or to put
it another way, the seed had been sown and was implanted into my psyche just as
firmly as a well-rooted embryo embeds itself in the uterus.
I moped around out of sorts for
days, fully aware that I could never write a historical novel about a 17th
century woman. Conquering that kind of
Herculean task just wasn’t in me. But I
was also fully aware that there is no such thing as being a little bit
pregnant. So I began to think of Hester
and Pearl in a
new way. What if they weren’t 17th
century Puritans, but 20th century feminists? That was something I knew a lot about. I’d lived it up close and personal. I could write the story against a backdrop of
Second Wave feminism.
And so I began. I re-read Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic,
marveling at his extraordinary insight into women, human emotion, psychology
and behavior as well as the myriad themes he had tackled, ranging from love and
lust to guilt and betrayal. I read literary criticism about the book that had
started a genre (psychological romance).
I played with the iconic scenes in the original work, my mind obsessed
for weeks and months. I contemplated the
huge task of crafting a novel, something I had never attempted before.
Then I began to write. My first
vignettes focused on the major scenes and characters in The Scarlet Letter. Arthur Dimmesdale became Jesuit priest Arthur
Dale. Roger Chillingworth morphed into
Roger Worth. Governor Bellingham grew
into Judge Hamilton Belling. I wrote a
“scaffold” scene in which Arthur reveals to Pearl that he is her father. That was followed by an episode in Judge
Belling’s chambers in which Hester is threatened with the loss of Pearl. Then I tackled the moment when Hester and
Roger must come to a point of reconciliation in order for Hester to continue
her personal (archetypal) journey.
My Hester, being born in 1929 into
a “puritan” community of conservative Jews in Boston ((I am Jewish so capturing that milieu
came easily), has advantages that Hester Prynne did not. She is able to educate herself, to be
economically self-sufficient, and most importantly, to find support among other
women waking up to the promise of autonomy and shared visions for a
self-determined future. She has a feisty best friend and a lot of women, real
and imagined, to help her as she matures.
Still, the writing did not come easy and there were, to continue the
birthing metaphor, many months of labor in which things got stuck and I suffered
the dreaded “failure to progress.”
I struggled with structure,
dialogue, and verisimilitude, panting and sweating all the while. I needed rest periods and lots of deep
breathing. Readers were supportive and
loving but ultimately unable to guide me through the taxing process of birthing
a novel. So I called in a midwife. His name is Stuart Land and he is one great
editor. With his help, I was able to relax
and reconcile the difficulties I was encountering. I continued to push, and then push some more.
Fifteen years after it was
conceived my novel Hester’s Daughters came into the world in January
2012. Like my Hester when Pearl was born, and like Pearl when her own daughter Aviva arrived, I
marveled at this glistening new thing I had produced. I held my literary offspring in my hands and
caressed it. When people told me how beautiful
it was, I cried. I even experienced postpartum depression and it was a long
time before I could write creatively again.
But I had done it. I had gone through the hard labor of writing
a substantial work, I had continued when it seemed just too much effort to do
that, I had doubted myself as a writer and written anyway. Because that is what we writers do. Even when we “fail to progress” we push on. Impregnated with ideas and imbued with
compulsions toward plot, and in love with the characters we wish to create, we
write. We do it despite doubts and frustration, despite the internal and
external editors that so easily destroy our confidence and craft, despite the
horrors of the publishing scene today.
We do it because we must. There
is simply no denying the muse or the moment.
Our voices matter, even if only to us.
It is unlikely I will attempt
another novel; I prefer writing in shorter forms. But I did it and I’m proud of what I
achieved. My Hester, Pearl and the other characters I created are
with me forever now. I’ve recorded a
piece of women’s history that will remain embedded in my creative work. I’ve winked at Nathaniel Hawthorne, and
joined a sisterhood of writers who actually have a published novel.
As so many people in Hester Prynne’s
life would say, “A is for Able.” It’s a
Scarlet Letter I, like my literary heroine, would be proud to wear. What writer cannot relate to that, no matter
how difficult a birth they experience?
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Elayne Clift, is a writer in Saxtons River, Vt. Her latest
book and 4th anthology, TAKE
CARE, Tales, Tips and Love From Women Caregivers, will be published this
year.
