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This is the galley proof of my first historical novel, Just Doll, coming out this spring. Just Doll is the first book of the Staten Bay Trilogy. Books two and three will be published consecutively over the next two years.
The Staten Bay Trilogy is a generational saga, loosely based on three women in my family. It is part truth, part fiction (or lie as some in my family will call it). The premise was hatched in my imagination when I realized that over time many of the Staten women had for various reasons raised granddaughters. My great grandmother, who I named Doll for this book, is the main character for “Just Doll,”--just call me Doll, she says, on arriving at her new home, Staten Bay Plantation.
At the same time as this premise-hatching, my cousin, who I called, Aunt Mae began telling me family secrets. 99 Years and on hold, but sure she was about to die, she told me her side of the story about having been raised by my great-grandmother. Aunt Mae said I could write down everything she told me but not to publish it till after she was dead. But she didn’t die; she just kept snapping back. Her stories included buried gold in our family cemetery, keeping an empty co-cola bottle by her bed to conk her husband on the head if came near her after he’d brought home a girlfriend under the guise of just a good friend, for Aunt Mae to cook for. She told me about living in the Jasper, Fla jail where her husband was a deputy sheriff and how she would slip food upstairs to the starving prisoners. She told me about setting all the prisoners free on the coldest night in the history of North Florida to keep them from freezing. She’d never told that to anybody before. Now she had to die.
Each book of the Staten Bay Trilogy ends with an older woman in the Staten family passing down her wisdom on loving, living and dying to a younger woman. Also, there are the practical matters of fairly and wisely managing the vast acres of timberland and dispersing the money buried at Staten bay, a prosperous working plantation in the late 19th century. Staten bay is about the ties that bind the Staten women, generation to generation. Each book ends with an older woman passing the cup to a younger woman in the family: 1887-1905—Big Doll’s life is governed by duty; 1900-1920—Little Doll’s life is governed by chance; 1977-1998—Little Doll’s granddaughter, Sara Ann, the consummate woman, is motivated by choice.
From first draft to last—not including revisions made directly to the computer—I ’d say Just Doll alone has lost about five pounds in words.
At one point I had amassed so many different drafts that my agent’s assistant said she was having the stack upholstered for a foot stool.
Deborah Davis, archivist at VSU’s Odum Library, has a couple of those footstools herself
Research notes alone make up one of them. Before I got done with the whole trilogy, all three books, I was prettimuch of the opinion that it was fit only for propping one’s feet on
My method of writing is what I call the discovery process—finding my story as I go. Like reading a book and no interruptions, please. I don’t want to know the middle or the end. The first draft is mainly just finding my story, plotting, living inside this world I’m creating. Plotting means sleeping with one eye open and a pen in my hand. Getting my characters to open up and move—that’s the fun part. From the second draft on, I’m playing god, stamping them like ants, herding them like cows, making clouds to rain on their heads. Forcing them to do the opposite of what I made them do in the first place.
Second draft, till the rapture, I’m painting images with words. Making pretty lines, rainbows and sunshine, coining original phrases. It’s a very slow and tedious process. Triple that tedium for the historical novel: you can’t slam a screen door without stopping to check on whether they even had screen doors back then.
Anyway, I finally worked out a system for getting at my finished story. It’s much like juggling—pitching the characters up in the air while tossing details hand to hand and making sure all doesn’t fall to the ground before the scene can form into a whole.
So, after the juggling act, I was done with the book. Right? (Look up) -- wrong?
I still had to work with my editor, who—you guessed it!—Decided to do a bit of herding and stamping on my characters himself: (read list)
--Take doll on a trip to New Orleans
--Give Joe the handyman and Maureen the cook some lineage—not white trash
--Make bee into a role model for Doll
--Enhance all scenes
The list goes on and on, for four pages—single spaced
READ 26-29—(PASSAGE DANIEL AND DOLL AND RATTLESNAKE SCENE- ENDING WITH THE COMMENT ABOUT THE BEAVERS )
GCTE Speech on Just Doll
This is the galley proof of my first historical novel, Just Doll, coming out this spring. Just Doll is the first book of the Staten Bay Trilogy. Books two and three will be published consecutively over the next two years.
The Staten Bay Trilogy is a generational saga, loosely based on three women in my family. It is part truth, part fiction (or lie as some in my family will call it). The premise was hatched in my imagination when I realized that over time many of the Staten women had for various reasons raised granddaughters. My great grandmother, who I named Doll for this book, is the main character for “Just Doll,”--just call me Doll, she says, on arriving at her new home, Staten Bay Plantation.
At the same time as this premise-hatching, my cousin, who I called, Aunt Mae began telling me family secrets. 99 Years and on hold, but sure she was about to die, she told me her side of the story about having been raised by my great-grandmother. Aunt Mae said I could write down everything she told me but not to publish it till after she was dead. But she didn’t die; she just kept snapping back. Her stories included buried gold in our family cemetery, keeping an empty co-cola bottle by her bed to conk her husband on the head if came near her after he’d brought home a girlfriend under the guise of just a good friend, for Aunt Mae to cook for. She told me about living in the Jasper, Fla jail where her husband was a deputy sheriff and how she would slip food upstairs to the starving prisoners. She told me about setting all the prisoners free on the coldest night in the history of North Florida to keep them from freezing. She’d never told that to anybody before. Now she had to die.
Each book of the Staten Bay Trilogy ends with an older woman in the Staten family passing down her wisdom on loving, living and dying to a younger woman. Also, there are the practical matters of fairly and wisely managing the vast acres of timberland and dispersing the money buried at Staten bay, a prosperous working plantation in the late 19th century. Staten bay is about the ties that bind the Staten women, generation to generation. Each book ends with an older woman passing the cup to a younger woman in the family: 1887-1905—Big Doll’s life is governed by duty; 1900-1920—Little Doll’s life is governed by chance; 1977-1998—Little Doll’s granddaughter, Sara Ann, the consummate woman, is motivated by choice.
From first draft to last—not including revisions made directly to the computer—I ’d say Just Doll alone has lost about five pounds in words.
At one point I had amassed so many different drafts that my agent’s assistant said she was having the stack upholstered for a foot stool.
Deborah Davis, archivist at VSU’s Odum Library, has a couple of those footstools herself
Research notes alone make up one of them. Before I got done with the whole trilogy, all three books, I was prettimuch of the opinion that it was fit only for propping one’s feet on
My method of writing is what I call the discovery process—finding my story as I go. Like reading a book and no interruptions, please. I don’t want to know the middle or the end. The first draft is mainly just finding my story, plotting, living inside this world I’m creating. Plotting means sleeping with one eye open and a pen in my hand. Getting my characters to open up and move—that’s the fun part. From the second draft on, I’m playing god, stamping them like ants, herding them like cows, making clouds to rain on their heads. Forcing them to do the opposite of what I made them do in the first place.
Second draft, till the rapture, I’m painting images with words. Making pretty lines, rainbows and sunshine, coining original phrases. It’s a very slow and tedious process. Triple that tedium for the historical novel: you can’t slam a screen door without stopping to check on whether they even had screen doors back then.
Anyway, I finally worked out a system for getting at my finished story. It’s much like juggling—pitching the characters up in the air while tossing details hand to hand and making sure all doesn’t fall to the ground before the scene can form into a whole.
So, after the juggling act, I was done with the book. Right? (Look up) -- wrong?
I still had to work with my editor, who—you guessed it!—Decided to do a bit of herding and stamping on my characters himself: (read list)
--Take doll on a trip to New Orleans
--Give Joe the handyman and Maureen the cook some lineage—not white trash
--Make bee into a role model for Doll
--Enhance all scenes
The list goes on and on, for four pages—single spaced
READ 26-29—(PASSAGE DANIEL AND DOLL AND RATTLESNAKE SCENE- ENDING WITH THE COMMENT ABOUT THE BEAVERS )
---AT LONG LAST, MY RESOURCE MAN AND LEFT BRAIN BEGAN READING THE BOUND GALLEY, AFTER IT WAS TOO LATE TO CHANGE. AN EARLY COMMENT FROM MY HUSBAND: “BEAVERS HADN’T EVEN BEEN DISCOVERED IN THESE PARTS UNTIL AROUND 1960
---AT LONG LAST, MY RESOURCE MAN AND LEFT BRAIN BEGAN READING THE BOUND GALLEY, AFTER IT WAS TOO LATE TO CHANGE. AN EARLY COMMENT FROM MY HUSBAND: “BEAVERS HADN’T EVEN BEEN DISCOVERED IN THESE PARTS UNTIL AROUND 1960
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