Wendy and the Magic Crayon

Any fiction I write feels like ripping my clothes off and dancing across a stage. That’s how I know I have it right.

Yet within that general statement there are differences. When I wrote my first novel, Wrong Highway, I felt like I was taking screaming voices out of my head and pinning them down on paper (sorry if i’m using a confusing clump of metaphors). By the time I completed my final version of the manuscript the screaming voices that compelled me to write it were safely under control, relegated to the past.

With my upcoming novel, “It’s Always 9/11”, (to be published August 17, 2021) I feel uncomfortably like I’m writing the future into being, like a dystopian version of Harold and the Purple Crayon. I have no sensation of relief, and little sense of control.

My crayon is not unfailingly accurate. The scenarios portrayed in my novel do not totally parallel the current day, partly because the raw materials of its fictional past differ from reality. “It’s Always 9/11”’s President Kaspar is (deliberately) not Trump. He’s much smarter, and does some social good (single payer health care, banning fracking) before everything goes to hell. He’s not a racist. As my character Teddy puts it, “he oppresses everyone equally” so race does not play a role in my book. When I began writing the novel in 2017, Covid was nearly three years away from escaping a bat or a pangolin or a lab or wherever it came from and wreaking havoc. The health crises that rattle New York City in the book are different. While the book contains social unrest galore, I must admit I never anticipated the right wing assault on the Capitol. In fact, the divisions splitting the country are both far more subtle and far more profound than a right/left split.

Yet so much has come to pass. I chose illness as a fictional device because of its capacity to tap into basic human fears that transcend ideology, and the capacity of that fear to descend into panic, obviate rational thinking, and render people more susceptible to authoritarian creep. This is no longer a fictional device. This is our reality and I put it on paper two years ago, down to the masks and the lockdowns and the emptied supermarket shelves. The (essentially) cashless society. The total reliance on online information, from newsy Presidential chats to comedic relief to helpful advice on adjusting to the “new normal”. The improbable emergence of Portland, Oregon as a center of resistance. Police in riot gear, tear gas, and worse. An eerily empty Times Square where the ball drops in front of nobody.

I won’t tell you where “It’s Always 9/11” goes next but I will tell you I hope that we in the tangible world aren’t following along.

I am Tessa now

I describe my writing process as “method writing”. No notecards, no outline, research as fact-checking rather than prequel. Perhaps a video game might be a better analogy. I have an image in my head. I give my character certain history, certain qualities. I place my character within that image. What does she see? Hear? Smell? Remember? And from there he/she says and does things, and I write them down.

For a long time I was Rikki, or at least part of me was. Sometimes at night I would dream as Rikki. Yet at the same time I was writing Rikki I was writing her away, pinning her character and the circumstances that made her down on paper, transforming all that energy into a controllable entity, an entity that readers can—and have—made of what they want.

For the past two years I have been Tessa. Unlike “Wrong Highway”, which was a domestic family drama, my new novel, “It’s Always 9-11”, is a political thriller made personal. I termed it an “alternative dystopian today”. Over the past few months the reality of the book has in many ways mirrored the real world and my process has seemed less like method writing and more like witnessing. Certain themes repeatedly pop up in my writing: headstrong, alienated women; motherhood; troubled teenagers; stretching the bounds of safety. Beyond that, Rikki and Tessa are very different people. When I first started writing 9-11 I found I was writing Tessa as Rikki and it was a gradual process shifting my fictional consciousness to a new character. Slowly but surely I transformed and made needed revisions to the book, Given current circumstances I feel like Tessa much of the waking day. The journey I’ve undergone as Tessa has changed me as Wendy.

Don’t know if that’s for the best, but that’s how it is! I look forward to sharing “It’s Always 9-11” with you.

But did it REALLY happen?

I get the question all the time, usually from someone I know, phrased in a variety of ways:

Did it really happen?

Are any of the characters based on specific people?

Your descriptions of ________are so vivid and realistic.  Are they based on personal experience?

I've even been asked if the jumping girl on the cover is me.

This curiosity is human nature, of course, and inevitable that my protagonist, Erica, used to live in New York (like me), has four children (like me), and shares some personality traits with me.  Ethan works on Wall Street, as did my husband.  We used to live in New York, and moved.

I also have a very active imagination.

These questions are uncomfortable, but the very essence of publishing any fiction that deals with real human emotion is akin to dancing naked across a stage.  I've already exposed myself as much as I want to.  If I wanted to totally differentiate what is "real" and what is not, I would not be writing behind the veil of fiction.  My answer to all these questions is basically this:   None of the characters are based on specific people.  Many of the events are entirely fictional, and in other cases I have taken great liberty with the facts.  There are a few people who may recognize parts of themselves in the story; they know who they are.  That said, the settings are ones I know intimately, and the emotional truths are real.

No matter how many times I deny that this or that prurient detail REALLY HAPPENED I realize I won't be totally believed.  A nugget of doubt will remain, and I'm OK with that.  There's a lot of people running around thinking I'm more interesting than I really am.