I haven’t done a trip like that in a long time. Hopping from place to place, sleeping in four different beds, taking planes, trains and automobiles to go and see and do and find inspiration.
It’s exhausting.
And exhilarating!
I left for London on May 18th, and landed early in the morning, excited to see one of my closest friends, Catherine. We met in 1993 at my cousin’s wedding, and began writing letters to one another. Catherine hails from Dublin, Ireland, and I was living in New York City, and over those first years, we wrote letters and visited one another and then it became just letters for 20 years as she settled in London and I returned to Michigan and we built careers and families.
I have a bread box full of her beautiful handwritten letters. We started visiting each other again in 2017, and have spent time together quite a bit since, and it’s just amazing. We never stop talking when we are together, and can really go deep. A friend like that is precious.
Then I took a train north to Scotland, where I would spend a week writing and note-taking for my next novel, which takes place partly in Edinburgh and Loch Lomond, and partly in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I wanted on-the-ground details of place, and so I joined a writers retreat as a participant for five days in Edinburgh.
I made friends. I generated new ideas and depth for my characters. And I figured out the places they’ll go and the things they’ll do in the story.
The Making of a Novel
This story has had many evolutions, and the first very-messy draft is done. But it needs a whole lotta work before it can meet the world.
Last summer, when I spent a month in the Scottish Highlands, I researched Jews in Scotland and found three people that I wanted to write about. I outlined the novel. I wrote 20,000 words. And I felt like I needed to know the places they lived to write better. So when I decided to go on this retreat, I reached out to the living descendants of two of the people, who were a couple in the mid-1800s.
I found an inn near their family estate, which is open to the public in July and August. I asked if I could visit in May. I asked if I could meet the family to learn more about their ancestors than is already written (and there is quite a bit). I booked the inn near the estate for the one night that it was available, and then I contacted the Scottish Jewish Archives in Glasgow to see if I could pop in to go through files.
The family responded and said, “We don’t want our family fictionalized.” Arrogant, right? Like they have any say?
I sent the email to my lawyer and asked if they could shut me down. He said no, but. They could make my life difficult.
After the anger subsided, I took an honest look at my work-in-process and realized I didn’t want to write historical fiction. It’s not my strength. Great historical fiction requires knowing the time period, the language, the dress, and I don’t have the patience to build that.
So I regrouped. Mapped out a contemporary novel with three fictionalized characters based on the real people I had found, and now there’s a person in the story who doesn’t want a book written about them and their secrets unfurled for all to see.
Flow with the Story
I didn’t go to the archives, mostly because Thursday through Saturday was Shavuot, a Jewish holiday, and because it was no longer relevant for my writing. And I moved the historical family in my book to a fictitious name and an estate near Loch Lomond, and so I went there, spent two nights on the calm lake, rode a boat across it, hiked a mountain on its edge, waded into its cold, clear waters.
I did the things my characters will do. I walked the streets of Edinburgh. I drove the roads between that hilly city and the calm shores of the loch, mapped out how one of my main characters will get between the country cottage where she lives and her city job (she takes the train from Stirling).
Writing a novel takes time. Thought. Planning. Endurance.
I thought I knew my story twice and it still talks to me, tells me what it needs to be. I have to be patient (which I am not good at). I have to let it unfold and shape it and mold it and love it as it changes.
I have to trust that I’ll get there, and it will be worth the effort.
I loved my ten days abroad. The journey home always seems longer than the journey there because all that I anticipated is over, done.
It may take a few days before I can comb through my notes and return to the novel and start to work with it again. But it’s why I went. And so I will, and it will be fun and I will birth a new book that will be so worth the wait.
For me. And for my readers.
(Below, I’d like to share a video clip from my reading of a new essay at Golden Hare Books in Edinburgh.)
What Travel Has Changed You?
I’d love to hear a trip that was particularly inspiring to you, perhaps one that motivated an essay or story or which inspired a book?
I’ll be sharing the winner of this month’s book giveaway next Monday - if you’re not a paid subscriber but would like a chance to win The Friendship Breakup by Annie Cathryn, please upgrade your subscription before Thursday of this week!
Below are some upcoming titles I’ll be giving away in monthly paid-subscriber gifting!