In the SF Bay area, we’ve recently had unseasonably warm days, totally out of character for us at this time of year in San Francisco and the other nearby coastal regions. Most of us have been delighted to sit out in our yards at night and enjoy this new balmy climate. But then I read in the paper recently that the planet has been recording one of the hottest springs, reminding me that while I’m luxuriating in these above-average temperatures, the weather extremes are killing the planet. It’s a startling and disturbing statistic. (more…)
A week ago I typed THE END on page 264 of the manuscript for the fourth and final book 
I guess there is something comforting about the way today’s youth have become accustomed to their parents/guardians checking on them at all times via smart phones, etc. It may feel like being held in a kind of web (and here I’m not referring to the World Wide Web), a loving network. But it also suggests to me what it’s like to be trapped in a spider’s snare. The idea that none of us can have a moment when we aren’t being scrutinized in some way makes me shudder. What has happened to the notion of privacy and freedom? Am I old-fashioned to think they still are virtues?
I’m grieving the loss of dictionaries, thick, massive volumes that I used to get lost in. I would open a page and find hundreds of words, all of them demanding my attention, each a miniature world to explore. But now I’ve become a victim of on-line lexicons because they are handier than putting aside my laptop computer and marching into the other room to unload the Oxford from a bookshelf where it resides. 
Foghorns blast through the 7 AM San Francisco overcast. The only woman in the place, I saunter into the longshoreman’s union hall, trying to appear as if I did this every day. A few cigarette-scarred wooden tables offer a place for the men to gather and talk while waiting to be called to work. Billowing clouds of cigarette smoke hang ominously over everyone. 
Like detectives, writers need to be constantly observant, picking up clues from what people are wearing, how they gesture, the words they speak, the way they interact with others. They study people’s facial expressions and what they might suggest about the person, storing away the data in their memory banks. Or they’ll take notes in a writer’s journal that they’ll refer to later. 
Memoir writing blurs the line between truth and imagination in this revealing conversation with Lily Iona MacKenzie. We explore how creative writing techniques shape both fiction narrative and personal stories, as Lily explains her unique approach: “you lie in service of the truth.”
Yesterday, I had to kill time (terrible metaphor) while waiting to hear a friend of mine do a reading of his newly published memoir at a Corte Madera bookstore. So I hung out at Marin County’s Corte Madera Library. 
For years I felt guilty about breaking the heirloom toys my stepfather’s mother had preserved, relics of another era. I can still remember the excitement of lifting each object out of the boxes where they had been stored and bringing them to life again: tiny china dishes with hand-painted flowers; a miniature stagecoach carrying riders and pulled by horses; dolls with porcelain faces and hands, features frozen in smiles, dressed in stylish Victorian gowns; a doll house with elegant furniture and a family. 
Editing writing requires tremendous restraint. I was reminded of this recently when a poem I had submitted to an anthology was accepted providing I approved of the editor’s changes. I’m open to thoughtful revision suggestions—a text can always be improved—but I assume the recommendations will be just that, insightful observations that cause me to re-think my work. In that light, I can re-enter a poem or story and see if any of the ideas resonate enough for me to make changes. Yet since I’m the poem’s creator, I expect to revise it myself and have the last word on its content. 
I’ve been thinking about how loosely we use abstract words like love, happiness, and truth as if they had concrete, observable meaning. I tend to revolt from using love to close my email or other exchanges unless I really feel love for the person I’m corresponding with. It bothers me when people sign their correspondence “love” without considering whether or not the emotion really applies to the recipient. Maybe you feel loving towards someone on most days, but not every day. Isn’t it deceitful to say “love” if you aren’t feeling it at the moment? Wouldn’t such a response seem confusing? It leads the reader to believe that the writer actually has such strong feelings, that somehow we’re part of the writer’s inner circle. Often that isn’t true. 
Being a first-rate writer requires the same kind of training that an architect receives. A typical program includes courses in architectural history and theory, building design, construction methods, professional practice, math, physical sciences, and liberal arts. Writers may not need to study math or the physical sciences, but they do need to give themselves the best liberal arts education they can find, both formal and informal. And like architects, in order to be successful in their field, writers need not only vision and a rich imagination but also a strong foundation. 
Thank you, Zackary Vernon, for taking the time to share your professional writing journey with me and my readers. 
Being part of an on-line writing group for several years has provided many benefits. But with the positives come a few negatives.
Until recently, if I had wanted a restful getaway, I would not have chosen San Francisco or any big city. Getting away meant heading out of town, usually for a coastal inn. I wanted the leisurely pace and ocean views of Mendocino, Pacific Grove, Carmel, or Big Sur. Riding the creative roller coaster with author Elizabeth Winthrop Alsop!
January 6, 2025
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Rejoice, Mourn, Repeat
Riding the creative roller coaster
Writing a novel is like riding an emotional roller coaster. So many ups and downs. In the beginning, you’re simply trying to create a world that a reader can enter. That means you need to develop believable characters, be they heros or villains, you need to set them in place and time so securely that your reader knows where she stands, and then you need to let those imagined creatures lead you forward. At least, as I’ve written before, that’s the way I do it. In the beginning, as I’ve told students, it’s as if you’re making a snowball that will eventually become the base of a snowman.
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Once it begins to form and hold together, you start to push that frozen ball up a snowy hill where every turn of the packed base makes it larger, heavier and more unwieldy, but it’s growing. At some point, you reach the top of the hill. Stop there and take a breath because, if all is going as it should, that’s where the story takes on a life of its own and soon you’ll be chasing it down the other side, writing as fast as you can to keep up with your fully developed characters and all they have to tell you.
One day, you realize you’re done. You’ve written, you’ve revised and if you’re like me, nobody’s read it but yourself.
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Here I take another pause. I’ve spent lots of time in this world I’ve created. These characters have kept me company over weeks, months, years so this is my first stage of mourning. I miss my characters and the daily structure they’ve given me. I wander about aimlessly, pretending that the sweater I’m knitting or the photos I’m taking are fulfilling my creative urges. And then when what I call my “creative anxiety” builds to an unsustainable pitch, I send the manuscript out to my editors/readers.
No matter how many books I’ve written, I always imagine and hope that the one I’ve just finished is finally the perfect one, the book that doesn’t need one word changed. Despite having published dozens of novels that hasn’t happened yet, and in my saner moments, I know it never will. My smart readers let me know that there is still work to be done, so I plunge back in, dropping a scene here, adding another one there, changing the direction a character takes and the ensuing consequences. In one book, I had to change the entire manuscript from present to past tense which is the way it should have been written in the first place. I needed a smart editorial assistant to point that out to me and I’m grateful for her honesty.
When the revisions are done and the book has been copyedited, printed and put between two covers, I have another moment of sadness. This stage reminds me of leaving my child wailing at the door on his first day in preschool as I hurry off, trying not to look back.
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Now there’s no way to protect this creation from the reviewers. She must make her own way. I’ve done all I can. However, I’ve proven to be a fickle creative parent. By the time that book is out in the world, I usually find I’m getting distracted by another idea, an island setting, an overheard tale or a wily trickster whispering in my creative ear.
If I’m lucky and the publisher has done its job, the book finds its readers and fans, it lands on bookstore shelves and in library nooks, and sometimes all the way into classrooms.
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Often my book is translated, published in other countries, excerpted in anthologies. The sales are robust in the first years but usually dwindle slowly over time and one day in two years or ten or even twenty, I get the inevitable letter from the publisher informing me they are putting the book out of print.
Another moment of mourning. The little one I sent out has returned to me somewhat tattered and torn, but having lived a full life in the hands of readers who for a while entered the world I created. I order some last copies, revert the rights so that I hold them should another publisher show interest in reissuing the book, and I move on.
This is an especially poignant week for me because for the first time, I am the one reclaiming the rights of a book still in print. For now, The Castle in the Attic, my fantasy novel for middle grade readers will only be available in an audio version or in used bookstores, and libraries.
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I wrote more about the reasons for my decision in my last post, A Big Announcement. Even though it is the right decision for the future of the franchise (a prequel is finished, the first sequel, The Battle for the Castle, is still in print, I’m working on the final sequel and a movie deal is in the works), I am sad at this pause in the 40-year publishing track record of my novel.
But a writer is never not writing. So I’m back on the roller coaster, one third of the way into the final sequel to The Castle in the Attic. The snowball is packed, heavy, unwieldy and I’m teetering on the crest of the hill. Wish me luck on the way down.
P.S. I’m always happy to hear from my readers in any form, but I’m especially grateful if you can write your comments in the Substack app, so that others can read them and respond.
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Elizabeth Winthrop Alsop (www.elizabethwinthropalsop.com) is the author of over 50 works of fiction for adults and children under the pen name Elizabeth Winthrop. These include the award-winning fantasy series, The Castle in the Attic and The Battle for the Castle as well as the short story, The Golden Darters, read on the nationwide radio program, Selected Shorts,and included in Best American Short Story anthology, and Island Justice and In My Mother’s House, two novels now available as eBooks. She is the daughter of the acclaimed journalist, Stewart Alsop. Daughter of Spies: Wartime Secrets, Family Lies, a family history about her parents’ love affair during World War II and their marriage lived in the spotlight of Washington during the 1950s was published by Regal House, October 25, 2022.
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