I was asked this question yesterday, and I figured you might be interested in the answer.
Short answer: it began with a poem.
Long answer: it’s been a long journey, but it began with a boy, a poem, and some books.
When I was ten, I developed a crush of epic proportions. Since I was an avid reader, I was also a writer. I’d been making up stories and writing poetry since I was in grade three. The unexpected, overwhelming emotions involved in this crush, led to outpourings of poetry. The theme was common: where had this emotion come from? Surely something this intense couldn’t just have happened? Surely such emotion must have been in the universe forever? The year I was twelve, I wrote this poem, which summarizes this sensation:
When I look at you
I see sunshine in darkness
Passion through naïveté
I think that we were lovers once
In another life
You and I belonged
And that is why we were drawn
That is why I love you so much
And why your name
Brings happiness through sorrow
A wisp of a smile
When day dies
I remember you and I smile
You are my day and my night
Your face is a memory
That time cannot erase,
And someday
In another life
We will be lovers
Once again
It’s the poem Grace’s hand writes in the library. She is shocked and dismayed by what it reveals to her. I know it isn’t a great poem, and I would tighten it up if I was writing it now, but I wanted it to be here as an authentic voice, flaws and all.
That poem begged to be a novel. There was a need to explore that sense of infinity that comes with a profoundly intense relationship like a first love, and like a lasting love, as well.
I tried to write it a few times over the years, but it didn’t go anywhere. I could get a narrative, but there was no hook to hang the story on. It was boring. If it was boring for me, it’d be boring for readers. Still, that love story wanted out, and it waited.
Then one day, I was reading some questionaires I”d given my students. In answer to the question, “What is the best book you’ve ever read?” About a quarter of my class had answered, “Twilight.” I’d never heard of it. I mentioned this to one of my older students and she told me she had all three of the books that were out, and that I needed to read them. The next day I had Twilight. A few hours later I was dying for the next books. They were delivered, and I read between work, dance classes and way too many Rotary meetings. I adored the story and I adored the characters. I was making connections like crazy- the key to one’s enjoyment of a book- and I had an epiphany.
Myth could be the hook. I started writing the week after Thanksgiving 2008. The characters started introducing themselves. I tried to move them in one direction, they chose to go another. The book was done the week before April. And it was good.
It wasn’t perfect, of course. The first readers picked out weak scenes, slow spots, confusing things, etc, but they loved it. They wanted more.
And that’s where it all began…
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If you’re visiting from Poetry Potluck 48, please include the link to your poem in any comment you leave! Thanks and thanks for coming by!
Shawn L. Bird 
latest press September 21, 2011
Tags: awakening dreams, first love, Grace Awakening, Observer, poem, Salmon Arm, Shawn Bird, writing
I was recently interviewed for the local paper. I ended up being interviewed by phone, and the interviewer did not have opportunity prep by visiting the blog and reading up on what the book was about. I tried to explain succinctly, but her questions led to complicated places. Had I been writing the responses for her, I could have been quite clear on the facts. As it was, paraphrases were just off enough to twist the meaning. The resulting interview was basically accurate, but had a section that was significantly off what I thought I’d told her.
I learned something from this experience. The journalist will miss something critical in your longish story! Typing and listening simultaneously is difficult. I must remember the Keep It Simple principle!
Aside from actually getting my website address incorrect, the biggest problem was that she missed that I was actually quoting from the poem for a bit there, and she wrote a quote as if I was speaking.
Specifically, the article says,
Based on a poem she wrote the year she turned 12, Bird says the book started as a story about the power of her first crush on a musician
That part is fine but then this
“I think in another life we were lovers and belonged together,” she says.
is a paraphrase of the quote from the poem that I recited for her which included, “I think we were loves once. In another life you and and I belonged.” Since it is not in the context of the poem, it gets a completely different slant.
“When you have one of these strong stories, you have to imagine it has been around in the universe before.”
must be a paraphrase of “I think a lot of people have the feeling when they fall in love that it’s so profound that it must have been in the universe forever.”
Regular readers of the blog who’ve read about the development of the story, the poetry, etc, will spot these issues right away. Other people will just raise their eyebrows. I was rather alarmed.
Yeah. Like I said. A learning experience. Keep it Simple. Simple. Simple. Phone interviews are apparently dangerous!
Live and learn.
PS. If you’re curious, the interview is here.
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