Celebrating a #coming-of-age story

A year ago,  I wrote about a message I’d received from an old friend who congratulated me for having “the nerve and energy to write so many words and to see [#Minerva’s Fox] through to publication.” This month, as I celebrate the novel’s first birthday, I’d add: It takes at least as much nerve and energy to #market a first novel as to write one, particularly when you’re an #indie author.

Some of the perils and pitfalls I’ve worked through:

1. Finding myself tongue-tied when someone asked what my novel is “about”
2. Learning to accept face-to-face critiques with a smile
3. Struggling with the online resources available to me to market my book
4. Remembering why I wrote the story in the first place
5. Maintaining my belief in my character and her coming-of-age story

Solving the “tongue-tied” problem: I was tongue-tied because I had too much to say and didn’t know where to start. So I simplified my messages, repeated them until I became  comfortable with them.

Accepting face-to-face critiques: I learned to ask my critic how he or she would change the character/scene/plot point. I discovered how many people love an opportunity to #tell stories. No harm, no foul!

Untangling the social media conundrum: Not quite there yet, but I’m gradually getting the hang of it, thanks especially to organizations like http://www.wfwa.com and http://www.BooksGoSocial.com.

Remembering why I write: It’s like the mountain you climb because it’s there. I do it (did it!) because it’s a satisfying way to learn and think about the world we live in through creating characters and stories I believe in. In an interview, playwright and novelist Sara Ruhl puts it like this:  “What moves me [in a work of literature] is the trifecta of memory, love, and the passage of time. The close observation of character, of the moment as it passes–suffused with love. The writer who says: Here I stood! I loved the world enough to write it all down.” (NYT Book Review, 2.28.16)

Believing in my character and her story: Reader’s comments have reassured me that there is an audience for stories like Malorie’s, that the #coming-of-age narrative continues to resonate. Sure, it’s a well-known, widely-used theme and structure. There are many reasons for that, including the one I think of most often when I think of how to describe #Minerva’s Fox to someone who hasn’t read it: The coming-of-age narrative makes it possible simultaneously to entertain and enlighten by offering a model we readers or audience members can hold up as a mirror for our own efforts to understand ourselves better.  Coming-of-age stories appeal to us because they let us see ourselves clearer as we learn about and explore a fictional character’s discovery process.

Coming-of-age: It’s a winner.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged coming-of-age narrative, life lessons, market a first novel, Minerva's Fox, telling stories | Leave a comment

You’ve published your novel. Now what?

What to do? Like a former lover who hangs around, the novel you just published won’t move quietly out of your life. I’m not talking here about the amount of time you choose to spend with it—marketing it, talking about it, thinking up ways to “get the message out” –I’m talking about how the making of it comes back to haunt you, sometimes startling you awake in the middle of the night like your “worst nightmare.”
Long after it’s bound, boxed, and warehoused, a published novel takes on a new aspect, one I associate with deeds wished undone, or, at least, done differently. Its characters flatten out into mere vestiges of their “real” selves, their voices sound tinny or hollow, harshly or barely inflected; scenes that seemed to move smoothly from start to finish, with subtexts just subtle enough to pique a reader’s continued interest, limp along, dull and over-determined; even the copyeditor’s queries, queries long-since answered, return, provoking rampages through pages of marked-up manuscript in search of this semi-colon, or that “curly quote.”
Is this just a peculiar form of buyer’s remorse? Or the standard self-doubt that plagues even the most accomplished writers? Why one experiences it and what one can do about it are, of course, related—and highly individual. Here’s what I’ve learned.
My first clue about how to live with—and survive—my discomfort came to me when a friend commented she wished I had written more about one of my secondary characters.

My first impulse was to defend what I had done. But I didn’t want to make excuses. It’s my book, after all. Instead, I asked my friend what she wanted to know about the character. As it turned out, the kinds of things she wished I had included had mainly to do with the backstory, details I had left out—deliberately—because putting them in would have drawn attention away from the main character’s development. I had made a decision—many decisions—based on the story’s direction and the main character’s development. Of course I could have written more about the character my friend liked, but that would have made it a different story. What I learned: I’d made decisions that excluded interesting details in favor of other, equally interesting details—for my character’s sake. I could—and do—live with that decision.
When another reader remarked that a scene had surprised her, that she had expected it to end differently, I asked her how she would have ended it. From that conversation, I learned that fiction, like life, almost always surprises us. Who wants to read a predictable story? Sure, we want the best outcome for the characters we like, but they—and we—don’t always get what they want, or behave the way we’d like them to behave. Why explain I had rewritten the scene countless times before I realized there was no perfect way, just the one that worked best—for the characters at that moment in the story? That the published version had been a hard choice, one I had wrestled with for days?
Why didn’t someone warn me that my old demon “When is ‘good enough’, good enough?” would return night after night to whisper, “If only you’d revised that scene one more time…”
Well, I didn’t, and now I live with the consequences, which include rereading again the scene I “should have” rewritten one last time and recognizing it for what it is: Good enough. Yes, it could have been better. It would have been different.
Nearly a year after Minerva’s Fox went into production, I am revising short stories I’ve worked on over the last ten years. In them, I’m reworking themes and characters who resemble some of the ones in the novel. However, they’re not the same. Nor am I.
The lesson here is that the fictional world derives much of its inspiration and coherence from themes, characters, and plots the writer revisits time and again, each time confronting new challenges, new puzzles. And that is more than “good enough.” It is one of the best reasons I can think of to continue to write.

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New Literary Fiction Memoir Book Review

http://www.prlog.org/12487216-new-literary-fiction-memoir-book-review.html

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My Week at Hedgebrook: March 2013 Master Class with Carolyn Forché

4 AM 3.19.13. I wake to the smell of wood smoke, redolent of douglas fir and western cedar. The loft’s chill, dry air feels like an extra layer of fragile, impermeable skin. I inhale it in short, shallow puffs. Even so, my throat closes against it. Pulling the duvet up to my neck, I concentrate on the faint hissing-sliding noise on the roof above me, the sound that woke me. Not an animal. Not the wind.
Snow. It’s snowing.
So began my first day at Hedgebrook, where I took part in a week-long poetry master class led by Carolyn Forché in March 2013.
Located on a forty-acre farm on Whidbey Island, Washington, Hedgebrook is a writer’s retreat for women. Founded by Seattle philanthropist, Nancy Nordhoff, it offers a Master Class Program and a Writer in Residence Program.
Six of us enrolled in the poetry master class. We were each assigned one of Hedgebrook’s six cottages, our home—and workspace—away from home. Warmed by a Yotl stove, this “room of our own” offered something we all yearn for: private, uninterrupted time to think, read, and write.
After lunch in the cottage, we met daily with Carolyn in the common room to share and discuss our morning’s work. Critiques, questions, lively interchange, and banter wove around and through her insightful suggestions.
Our communal dinners occasioned wide-ranging exchanges about life-and-writing, life-in-writing, life in general against a backdrop of spectacular sunsets over sea meadows, Useless Bay, and the Olympic Mountains.
7 PM 3.25.13 Our last evening together. Just below the farmhouse, in a nearby inlet, a flock of migrating snow geese settles for the night. Preening and feeding, the birds bob in the blue-grey water, at home, far from home.
For more information about Hedgebrook and its application and selection process, go to http://www.hedgebrook.org. Deadline for applications for the Writer in Residence program is midnight, PST, July 28, 2015

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To market, to market: Better Late than Never

In the early stages of producing my novel, “Minerva’s Fox,” I had a half-hour conversation with a marketing person at Hillcrest Media, my publisher.
I’d been looking forward to our chat, certain he would offer many valuable suggestions I would use—eventually. There I sat, pen at the ready, prepared to listen and take notes.
After he introduced himself, he asked me to describe my marketing plan. Dumbfounded, I told him I didn’t have one—yet. He cleared his throat. “You might want to, um, think about that. Soon.”

Talk about misplaced expectations.
Of course it’s important to think about a sales and marketing plan before your book comes out. But if you don’t have the time or the bandwidth to nail down the details ahead of time, don’t throw in the towel. Instead, consider the following steps you can take just before and just after your title releases:
1. Get thyself a domain name. GoDaddy.com is one among many resources for this and other web-related information.
2. Tweet well; tweet often. Once “Minerva’s Fox” was out, my I began to tweet 140-character snippets from it, as well as dates and places for my reading, talk, and book group invitations. Also, I post related photos with captions, separately.
3. Visible web information. Once your website goes live—but only after the book has been released—sign every email, even the ones to family and friends, with your web coordinates.
4. Word-of-mouth. Make a list of people to whom you will give a book—all those named in your acknowledgments, for instance.
5. Advance Mailing. Send out postcards announcing your book release to friends, family members, and acquaintances. Follow up with an email. The front of my postcard featured the cover of “Minerva’s Fox”; the back, a brief synopsis of the book, all online information, and the release date.
6. Blog it. Start your blog with FAQ’s about how and why you wrote your book. I update my “Minerva’s Fox” website and blog regularly. Try to talk about a variety of topics related to your book—themes, character and/or plot development, etc.
7. Talk it up. Mention your book whenever you can. Share your excitement about it. In May, I gave three book-related-talks: at a bookshop in Hardwick, Vermont; at an assisted living facility in Hanover, New Hampshire; and at The Redwood Library and Athenaeum in Newport, Rhode Island. People you tell about the book will help you get the word out.
8. Double your money. I printed enough postcards announcing the talks and readings to have extras to hand out. They double as a marketing message for the book and a bookmark.
9. Take advantage of local resources. Sign up for the Bookshop Santa Cruz local authors’ consignment program. There is information at the Bookshop Santa Cruz web site about how the five-month program works.
Most of all: Share your enthusiasm about your book freely and often. Your excitement is your best marketing tool.
Kristina Baer, author
“Minerva’s Fox”
http://www.amazon.com/author/ebaerk
Follow me on Twitter @ebaerk
This article appears in the 6/1/15 issue of Scribbles, published by the Central Coast Writers Club (www.centralcoastwriters.org)

Posted in Marketing and promotion, marketing and promotion first novel | Leave a comment

Celebrating another coming-of-age story

A year ago,  I wrote about a message I’d received from an old friend who had written to congratulate me for having “the nerve and energy to write so many words and to see [Minerva’s Fox] through to publication.” This month, as I celebrate the novel’s first birthday, I’d add: It takes at least as much nerve and energy to #market a first novel as to write one, particularly when you’re an #indie author.

Some of the perils and pitfalls I’ve worked through:

1. Finding myself tongue-tied when someone asked what my novel is “about”
2. Learning to accept face-to-face critiques with a smile
3. Struggling with the online resources available to me to market my book
4. Remembering why I wrote the story in the first place
5. Maintaining my belief in my character and her coming-of-age story

Solving the “tongue-tied” problem: I was tongue-tied because I had too much to say and didn’t know where to start. So I simplified my messages, repeated them until I was comfortable with them,

Accepting face-to-face critiques: I learned to ask my critic how he or she would change the character/scene/plot point. I discovered how many people love an opportunity to #tell stories. No harm, no foul!

Untangling the online resources conundrum: Not quite there yet, but I’m gradually getting the hang of it, thanks especially to organizations like http://www.wfwa.com and http://www.BooksGoSocial.com.

Remembering why I write: It’s like the mountain you climb because it’s there. I do it (did it!) because it’s a satisfying way to learn and think about the world we live in through creating characters and stories I believe in.

Believing in my character and her story: Reader’s comments have reassured me that there is an audience for stories like Malorie’s, that the #coming-of-age narrative continues to resonate. Sure, it’s a well-known, widely-used theme and structure. There are many reasons for that, including the one I think of most often when I think of how to describe Minerva’s Fox to someone who hasn’t read it: The coming-of-age narrative makes it possible simultaneously to entertain and enlighten by offering a model we readers or audience members can hold up as a mirror for our own efforts to understand ourselves better.  Coming-of-age stories appeal to us because they let us see ourselves clearer as we learn about and explore a fictional character’s discovery process.

Coming-of-age: It’s a winner.

Posted in Genre | Tagged coming-of-age narrative, market a first novel, telling stories | Leave a comment

Just Desserts: Malorie’s favorite

A friend recently asked for my recipe for vacherin, Malorie’s favorite birthday treat (Part 1, “Ardis,” p. 85). There are many recipes online for vacherin glacé, a dressed-up version of this dessert, which has alternating layers of meringue and ice cream (http://www.recettes.de/vacherin-glacé). Due to its round shape the vacherin glacé takes its name from a round cow’s milk cheese (vacherin) produced in France as well as in Switzerland and packaged in a container made of spruce wood.

The vacherin Malorie has in mind comprises a single layer of meringue with a topping of whipped cream and fresh, seasonal berries. Similar to a pavlova, this version of vacherin can be sliced and served at the table. Alternatively, you can bake meringue cookies and crumble them into bite-sized pieces (two or three cookies per person). Place the crumbled meringues on individual dessert plates and top them with whipped cream and berries.

The crunch of meringue, the silken whipped cream, and the tangy juice of the fresh berries create a delightful combination of tastes and textures.

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Minerva’s Fox Discussion Guide for Book Groups

Minerva’s Fox
By Kristina Baer

Discussion Guide for book groups

Part 1: Brookton University, 1969-1970

1. In what ways is Malorie’s reaction to the fox in the fresco an over-reaction? In what ways does it prove to be valid? Does Malorie set herself up to fail at Brookton?

2. Malorie feels out of place at Brookton from the beginning of her first term, out of synch with the teaching methods, at odds with several people she meets there (Jack, Danielle, Hal Rose). What are some of the reasons?

3. There’s a rowan tree outside Malorie’s dorm window, which gives her “an illusion of solitude”. Why is that sense of isolation so important to her? What role do trees play an in Malorie’s life?

4. Malorie’s teaching methods are at odds with the ones prescribed by her department. Both the TA coordinator and Jack advise her just to “follow the rules.” Although she describes herself to Patrick as someone who prefers to ‘stay within the lines’, she doesn’t, in this case. Why not?

5. Malorie doesn’t tell Jack about her pregnancy and miscarriage; she refuses to confront Hal Rose or the Dean with the evidence of Danielle’s plagiarism. How does she justify her rationale in both cases? What does her thinking show us about who she is?

Part 2: Flagy, Saône-et-Loire, 1971-1975

1. Flagy’s small size is a point of pride to its inhabitants and one of the reasons Malorie feels at home there. What are some of the other reasons Malorie feels such an affinity for this village? And Milou?

2. Malorie and Ted have very different relationships with their parents than with their grandparents. How would you describe those differences and what do you think accounts for them?

3. Lucie and Milou reveal to Malorie a long-held secret that fundamentally changes her understanding of the relationship between them. How might the relationships among all three change now that it’s out in the open?

4. What are some of the reasons Malorie initially hesitates to reveal to Ted her feelings for him?

5. Describe the changes Malorie experiences in Flagy. In what ways does the place itself encourage and nurture this change?

Part 3: Newport, 1980-1992

1. Malorie left Brookton for Flagy under the weight of multiple traumas. Five years later she returns to the U.S. What have her years in France given her?

2. Contrary to the advice of her mentor, Sandor, Malorie decides to keep the giant sycamore maple in the back yard of the Beech Street house. Sandor is far more knowledgeable than Malorie. Why does she ignore his advice?

3. What events does the chapter title “The Dying of the Light” (277) refer to? How are these events related?

4. How does Malorie’s parenting style differ from Ted’s? How do they work through the tension created by these differences? How does Malorie’s infertility come into play in her relationship with Annie?

5. Malorie dreams of a secret room in the Beech Street house (278). How do you interpret this dream? She has the dream again (338), but this time its tone is different. What has changed?

6. Malorie and Ted’s time in Newport is shaded by pain and difficulty. What are these painful events and how do they lead to the final section of the novel?

Part 4: Alden, 1992-1993

1. What do you think of Malorie’s decision not to tell Ted that Jack is the new owner of their house? Did she do the right thing? Did it play out in the way you expected?

2. Just before the housewarming party at Prospect Hill, while she’s on the phone with Steve, Malorie spots a fox standing with its paws resting on the stone wall. It appears to be watching her watching it. Before she goes back to Newport for her talk, Malorie sees the fox again. She decides she wants to be like him, “alert yet relaxed” (402). How has Malorie’s affinity for the fox developed over the course of the novel?

3. As much as Malorie hopes to avoid seeing Jack, when she arrives in Newport the night before her talk she takes a real risk and steals onto the property of the Beech Street house to visit her old garden. How do you interpret her reaction to the disappearance of the tree? To the slide of the tree that she shows at the beginning of her talk?.What does this tree mean to her?

4. In what ways does the final conversation between Jack and Malorie tie up the loose ends of their relationship? Is the conversation a satisfying conclusion to this subplot? In what ways does it leave matters between them unclear or unsettled?

General

1. In this novel, Malorie’s relationships help or hinder her development of self-awareness and self-confidence. Which relationships are nurturing ones? Which ones are destructive?

2. How would you describe Malorie’s relationship with her mother? With her grandmother? What are some of the emotional and psychological issues between and among these three women? Are they resolved by the end of the novel?

3. What role do deceitful or deceptive acts play in “Minerva’s Fox.” Examples: Malorie and Lucie cover up Alan’s alcoholism; Jack lies about the foxes; Hal Rose betrays Malorie’s trust; Henri conceals his and Théo’s attempted escape into Switzerland and Théo’s disappearance; Milou and Lucie conceal from Malorie the existence of Milou’s first daughter, Malorie, who dies of scarlet fever. Others?

4. Rarely are life-changing decisions clear-cut. Sometimes circumstances force our hand; sometimes we talk ourselves into doing something because we believe it’s for the best, even though there may be other equally “right” options. Sometimes we get a second chance to repair a misstep. Examples in “Minerva’s Fox”?

6. Here is a partial list of the themes in “Minerva’s Fox.” Which ones seem most important to you? What themes would you add?

1. Learning to trust one’s self and others
2. Empowerment
3. Overcoming isolation
4. Learning to balance ‘needs’ and ‘wants’

Posted in Book Group questions | Tagged book group discussion, Minerva's Fox discussion guide | Leave a comment

Minerva’s Fox FAQ 2

1. Readers praise your descriptions of landscapes and gardens, descriptions that create pictures in the reader’s mind. Is this an example of writing “what you know”?
It is Malorie’s point of view that presents the gardens and landscapes we discover in Minerva’s Fox. Also, Malorie sometimes pays attention to things another person might not  notice. She sketches garden and landscape elements that catch her eye and redesigns existing gardens, on paper, creating new sight lines and perspectives. This practice of hers connects deeply with her development from being a closed in (and closed off) person to being a person who learns to face life’s surprises. In the end, we only know what Malorie knows, which helps us to understand her development–as a person and as a designer.
2. When Malorie enters graduate school in 1969, she is twenty-two. The fractious sixties are drawing to a close. The assassinations, the Civil Rights movement, Viet Nam, Woodstock, Stonewall—it’s as if these contemporary events have barely touched her. Why?
Malorie is an only child who learns early in her life to conceal what goes on at home. Alan Ellsworth, her father, is an alcoholic; her mother, Lucie, cultivates an all-is-well appearance and makes sure Malorie does, as well. Malorie knows very little about what goes on in the world because she turns inward to protect herself. Her protective shell begins to crack when Lucie decides to divorce Alan. Even so, most of what Malorie knows about national or world affairs, for example, comes to her only indirectly.
3. At certain points, Malorie uses the word “plausible.” At the beginning of the first chapter when she and Jack meet, he describes a secret society’s use of fox carvings to identify the donors.  Malorie thinks, “This at least sounded plausible. Too plausible?” Why so dubious?
Plausible means “believable, possible, conceivable,” in other words, not necessarily true, perhaps even intentionally untrue. That Malorie is dubious about Jack as well as his explanation stems from her confusion about academia and her misgivings about her decision to go to graduate school. That is, a newcomer to the academic world, she is uncertain of her place in it. This is why she interprets the fox’s regard as a warning; this is why she heeds the warning and keeps her guard up. Besides, at this point in the story–Malorie and Jack have only just met–why should Malorie take Jack at his word?

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Minerva’s Fox: FAQ 1

Minerva’s Fox: FAQ 1
1. Why did you write Minerva’s Fox?
I had written several drafts of a short story about a woman, recently widowed, who sells her home. Paying a last visit to the empty house, she finds a note on a piece of paper crammed between a floorboard and the wall in one of the bedrooms. The handwriting is that of her now-adult step-daughter. With that discovery, with the tangled relationship it reveals, Minerva’s Fox began to take shape, although this episode never made it into the novel.
2. How long did it take to write Minerva’s Fox?
I began writing Minerva’s Fox in June 2008 and sent it to my publisher in January 2014. In May 2013, I had a complete manuscript, but something was missing. While on vacation, I read Vikram Seth’s An Equal Music. Narrated in the first person, this extraordinary novel showed me a way to bring Malorie Ellsworth, my main character, to life. By changing the narrative voice from third to first person, I knew I could bring the reader closer. So I spent the next eight months helping Malorie find her own voice.
3. Did you attend workshops, participate in a writing group, or work with an editor or a coach?
I went to one writers’ conference, a three-day affair. It was interesting but useful only to the extent that I met an editor who agreed to read and critique my first draft. Due to circumstances at the time, I had limited time to write—not enough time, that is, to take part in a writing group. So I found help in books on writing (and reading) including: Writing Down the Bones (Natalie Goldberg), Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel (Jane Smiley), The Plot Whisperer (Martha Alderson), and The Artist’s Way (Julia Cameron).
4. You’re a woman writer. Minerva’s Fox is an example of women’s literary fiction. Who else do you read?
First of all, I’d call Minerva’s Fox an example of literary fiction, full stop.  But that’s not the question you asked. The novelists and memoirists I read and enjoy include Emmanuel Carrère, Rebecca Meade, Geoffrey Wolff, Hilary Mantel, Jane Smiley, Colm Toíbín, and Tessa Hadley among many others.
5. Where would you place Minerva’s Fox in relation to novels you’ve read recently?
In terms of theme and development—it’s about a woman who discovers her own strength and capabilities and comes to terms with her past–Minerva’s Fox is similar to Clever Girl (Tessa Hadley), Private Life (Jane Smiley), and Nora Webster (Colm Toíbín).

Posted in Theme and development | Tagged Tessa Hadley | Leave a comment