“ONE MORE DAWN…
ONE MORE DAY…
ONE DAY MORE!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qkf0fLU2Ao
Getting yesterday back
Yesterday’s gone on down the river and you can’t get it back.
– Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove
As a writer of fiction, I draw from my own experiences. But I also tell stories that I make up, out of my imagination. I don’t tell a story the way it happened, but the way I thought it should have. *
So “yesterday” is a good place to look for ideas, even though in life, you can’t get yesterday back.
Lots of things that happen in my novel MAKE THAT DEUX really happened (or a version of them did), but lots of other things didn’t. I did spend a year in France when I was young, and I missed my boyfriend back home. When I wrote the novel, I got to tell the ending of our story, not as it really happened, but as I wished it had.
My latest novel, UNDERWATER, isn’t based on an experience. But some of the characters’ internal conflicts are drawn from my own struggles. The water “down the river” isn’t always calm. Even if it looks okay, in my characters’ lives, there’s a lot lurking below the surface: Guilt. Lies. Jealousy. Hurt. Bitterness. Regret.
The tension builds, and as an author of suspense, I know that
worry = suspense.
As I wrote UNDERWATER, I knew that its “yesterday” had to be problematic at best. I wanted to keep you, the reader, worried about what was going to happen next.
And since by nature, I’m a worrier, I just had to let the river flow.
* to paraphrase Betty Smith, author of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn: “A story was something you made up out of something that might have happened. Only you didn’t tell it like it was, you told it like you thought it should have been.”
L’anniversaire de my (French) “Charlie Brown” Christmas Tree
I(t) made it.
Since last Christmas, I’ve kept my Charlie Brown Christmas tree out (in my bedroom) all year. When shopping for gifts at Sur La Table earlier this month, I found the rest of the ornaments it needed, including a Buche de Noel.
This year’s tree:
To borrow a question from my husband, How many pair of black pants pair of boots purses Eiffel Towers does a person need?
Answer: Beaucoup. For this tree: five, to be exact – though one was a gift from a friend.
Our (real) tree is still up, and it will be for a few more days. It’s nine feet tall and loaded down with ornaments that we’ve collected over the years. Perhaps next year, the ornaments pictured above will go on it – but it’s too early to know that now.
When it comes time to pack up the Christmas decorations, I’m not going to want to store this little tree away in the storage room. So it just might have to stay out for an encore (but not on the dining room table).
Since I like to keep a little bit of Christmas out all year.
Last year’s Tree:
“How is that romantic?” – 4 ways, and a comment
During a recent family vacances au Colorado, I was asked this question about Paris.
Imaginez! (Imagine!)
To be fair, I think the person who asked me has never been there. I joined in his conversation with another (male) family member about Italy and France, and I was probably the person who brought up the idea of romance. But when he asked the question, I was speechless at first. What was the answer, and how could he not know it?
I started to say something about the history, museums and art, and then he they quickly seemed to believe that it was that simple, and didn’t let me explique.* Non, messieurs! C’est pas vrai!
Because I’m an esprit de l’escalier** kind of woman, and a list-maker, I thought about it later, and here is the réponse I might have given:
1. It’s not just the art and history; it’s their relationship – their connection – to the people, and to the city. It’s something tout à fait français – absolutely French – and something you just feel. New York City and Washington D.C. have a lot of museums and history, but I don’t find either place particularly romantic. For other reasons, I really, really like them, though.
2. It’s the streets, the restaurants, the gardens and the neighborhoods of Paris…and it’s les français (the French) themselves. What (American) woman doesn’t know that Frenchmen are (normalement) très romantique?
3. It’s La Seine, the river that runs through Paris! A body of water*** (whether sea or river) at sunset or later, makes everything more intimate. How? Je ne sais pas.
La Seine
4. It’s l’amour – love. It’s in the air in Paris, whether you’ve just discovered one another, or are rediscovering…Trust me.
Enfin, the “comment:” Another (short) conversation came up about becoming fluent in French, and someone (who doesn’t speak a foreign language) asserted that “you have to live there.”
Hmm. I diligently studied the language, il y a longtemps et récemment, lived in France for a year as a student, and now I practice and speak it autant que possible. I’d love to live there again un jour, but in the meantime, I’m going to continue speaking it and improving my fluency. C’est possible, madame!
Sunrise at a beach on the Atlantic in Florida earlier this year
* With over thirty members of the famille converging in two cabins in the Rockies for a week, it was hard to finish your sentences without being interrupted (and I’m just a belle-fille et belle-soeur – much nicer sounding than “outlaw” daughter- and sister-in-law)
** See my post L’esprit de l’escalier, spiral staircases and faux-amis
*** While there’s romance in my novel MAKE THAT DEUX, there’s more water than romance in my upcoming Suspense novel…. More later!
How I’m like my protagonist(s)
Remember that scene in the movie ELF when Buddy the Elf gets on an escalator for the first time? When he puts one foot on the moving staircase, holds onto both handrails and drags the other foot behind, doing a semi-split?
I’ve never done that on an escalator, but I’ve been known to get freaked out on them. If it’s impossible to hold the handrail – if I’m lugging large suitcases or carrying a heavy desktop computer – I almost can’t even get on. Elevators bother me, too, especially if I have to ride them alone; I always fear the thing will break down, and then I’ll panic so much, I won’t be able to call for help – or that if I can, it won’t come.
I’m able to dispel such elevator-fears if other people are riding with me. But then I always think of the fact that we’re suspended by cables, riding through space. Which arouses a whole new set of fears.
Jenny, the main character in my novel MAKE THAT DEUX, doesn’t have these phobias, but like me, she’s afraid of heights. Whether she’s in the Swiss Alps, the Medieval fortress of Carcassonne, France, or the Leaning Tower of Pisa, she’s afraid she’ll never make it down, or that one false move could be the end.
I’ve always been afraid of heights – that hasn’t changed – so it was natural to let Jenny have the same phobia since MAKE THAT DEUX is drawn from my own experience as an exchange student in France. Facing my phobia hasn’t cured it, malheureusement.
But here’s a list of places I have climbed or visited, in spite of my fear:
1. – 3. Those first three I mentioned above, where Jenny also went: the Alps, Carcassonne and the Leaning Tower;
4. The Colosseum in Rome (not a tower, I know, but it’s high)
5. (the top of) the Arc de Triomphe in Paris
6. Sacré-Coeur Basilica at Montmartre
7. (the top of) the Bell Tower at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill (I know, not that high, but still)
8. The “nosebleed” seats in the Georgia Dome and Turner Field in Atlanta, and in Sanford Stadium at the University of Georgia
9. The top of Stone Mountain, Georgia (I’ve hiked it several times, once while carrying a toddler all the way)
10. Numerous (steep) hiking trails in Arizona
11. The East Maui Volcano in Hawaii
12. Chateau Eza in Eze, France
13. The Empire State Building in New York
You may ask: What about the Eiffel Tower, pictured above next to the Leaning Tower and the Colosseum?I’ve walked over to it, but I’ve never ascended it. Last summer, in Paris with my husband, we decided it was too crowded to go up in the Tower (a good excuse).
However, I wanted to have a drink with him one evening, nearby or in it (if that can be done), to see it lit up at night. But we didn’t look into the possibility. Next time, perhaps.
I’m like Jenny in many other ways, but not all. Not even most, despite what those who know me might believe. The protagonist in my new novel (to be released later this year) is also like me in some ways. For example, “C” and I are of the exact same mind when it comes to jewelry: what we like and don’t like. And neither of us are fond of flying, though we do it.
But she’s her own person, with her own (deep) fears…
Stay tuned.
Par avion, with a kiss
“So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you’ll wait for me
Hold me like you’ll never let me go.
I’m leavin’ on a jet plane
I don’t know when I’ll be back again
Oh, babe, I hate to go.”
– John Denver
I’m leavin’ on a jet plane
I don’t know when I’ll be back again
Oh, babe, I hate to go.”
– John Denver
Every couple has certain songs they know by heart.*
Like Jenny, the protagonist in my novel MAKE THAT DEUX, I didn’t mind almost enjoyed flying when I was younger…unless I was leaving behind someone I loved.
What once was an event – for which you dressed up – has changed. It’s now just a method of transportation that’s full of hassles and short of comfort, with bags, meals, and even legroom charged à la carte.
But some changes have been positive. No more smoking (if you don’t remember that, watch Mad Men). Better security, if sometimes aggravating. Presumably, better made airplanes. Cheaper flights? I suppose so, in “real dollars.”
The estimated cost of my round trip ticket from New York to Paris in 1979 and 1980 (with UNC’s Study Abroad group) was $385. Sounds affordable, but according to a Consumer Price Index calculator, that’s equal to $1233 today. I recently booked a round trip ticket from Rome to Atlanta for a family member for $1268.
[I know it was $385 because I saved the Estimated Costs information for my Year-in-Montpellier Program (based on 15 students in the group). Academic fees were estimated at $1,646 for the year. Lodging was $450, and ten months of meals totaled $820.]
In MAKE THAT DEUX, Jenny travels en avion, en train, en voiture (by car) and en mobylette (moped). She doesn’t hate to go to France, but she does hate to leave someone behind. She does it though, with a kiss…
In my upcoming novel, to be released later this summer, the main character (“C”) travels here and there by plane with the man she loves. She’s older than Jenny, and, like me, she’s not fond of flying. But she gets to travel the way I wish I could: first class, and sometimes by private jet – with a kiss kisses.
I won’t say where she and her boyfriend (“R”) go, or what happens while they travel together. But in an instant, everything changes…
*What are some of “your” songs? Here’s a few more of ours: “Danny’s Song” by Loggins and Messina; “Chuck E.’s in Love” by Rickie Lee Jones; “Lean on Me” by Bill Withers; and “Rescue Me” by Linda Rondstadt
Encore: “From the Author, and Behind the Scenes”
My friend Rachelle Ayala featured me and MAKE THAT DEUX in her BookChat post of April 9, 2013 in Rachelle’s Window…
Two sections in particular offer some insight about why I wrote the novel, and what was going on in my life while I did…
“From the Author:
A new world of adventure and romance opened up to me during my junior year of college when I was an exchange student in the south of France. Instead of living with a French family, however, I shared a beach apartment on the Mediterranean Sea with two other American girls, and I left my boyfriend behind in the U.S., unsure of whether our relationship would survive the time apart.
We three girls bought mopeds (mobylettes) to drive to and from our college campus in Montpellier, France, and we spent the year learning French, traveling and doing everything else that college girls do…
The year we shared made a big impact on me, and the three of us have stayed in touch since, even as our lives have taken different turns. When my children began growing up and moving out, I considered my long-held dream to become a writer. I decided to draw on my memories of my experience in France and write a novel set in the time I was there.
I felt that Jenny – with her innocence, naiveté and idealism (and that of her two roommates) – could be a fresh character in a literary world sometimes crowded with cynicism. While not everyone would identify with the girls’ belief in “The One,” many would relate to Jenny’s feelings dealing with a long-distance relationship, especially when other appealing men enter her life.
Through Jenny’s story, I wanted to show that even (and maybe, especially) for young people on the threshold of adulthood…
…love is possible and important, and that it’s okay not to want to “do life” alone, and to want to go through life with – and to love – another.
Behind the Scenes:
Lots of things happened while I wrote the book…
I got lots of feedback on different drafts of the story from my Writers Critique Group, several beta-readers, and some interested literary agents. I took all their advice to heart and revised the novel many, many times. I connected with one of the readers, who turned out to be the most helpful, through the friend of a friend.
Before I finished the novel, though, I took a break from writing/revising because one of my sons, age 19, was diagnosed with a brain tumor in May 2010. He had two surgeries and 5 weeks of radiation therapy and was able to go back to college as a sophomore that fall. His second surgery was performed at Duke University Hospital by the renowned neurosurgeon Dr. Allan H. Friedman.
My son faced his illness with courage, strength and hope, and cheered me on in my writing. He is now cancer-free and involved with raising funds for cancer research at his university, and he will graduate later this year.
Just before I published MAKE THAT DEUX, I traveled to France to celebrate a milestone anniversary with my husband.
We did a tour of the south of France, visiting Montpellier and Palavas, where I had studied and lived, as well as other lovely spots, then spent several days in Paris. I was thrilled to go back to visit the place where I had spent my year in France and to show it to him.
When we returned, my mother was diagnosed with non-hodgkins lymphoma. She moved in with us and had chemotherapy and radiation last fall, and she shared my excitement about publishing my book. Her cancer responded to treatment and she moved back home (a few miles away). She is now cancer-free.”
Mom and me at her college reunion in fall 2011
Une interview de 5 questions avec Rona. Merci, Madame!
My friend Rona Simmons has posted her recent interview with me about my novel MAKE THAT DEUX!
You can find mes reponses to her questions on the Review and Interviews page on her blog Write, Write, Write! Here’s part of Rona’s intro:
“As a member of the Atlanta Writers Club — purportedly the largest writer’s organization in the United States — I have had the opportunity to come to know a number of emerging and established writers and to read their works covering every genre, voice, and style and providing a wealth of innovative, insightful, and interesting reading.
A few weeks ago, I read a novel by fellow member Julia McDermott. A fun romp, the story follows the college age protagonist as she confronts a number of trials and tribulations during her Junior Year Abroad. Having learned that Julia herself spent time abroad, I was interested in exploring how much Julia drew from her own circumstances. I learned this and even more….”
Merci beaucoup, Madame! Voici les questions (cliquez sur son blog pour mes responses, s’il vous plaît):
1. Describe your book and why you chose to write it
2. What is your favorite passage and why?
3. Can you share the evolution of a few sentences of your writing … one that you labored over, revised and revised, and revised until it was just right and one that flew off the keyboard in final form, why did you make the changes you made to the first one and why did you particularly like the latter as it was?
4. How did you edit your manuscript, assuming you did at least some editing yourself? Did you read it aloud? What do you think, if you did, reading aloud does that reviewing on screen or in hard copy does not?
5. Would you share a favorite passage from one of your favorite authors? What makes this passage special to you?
Make that…my Book Trailer!
Voici ma vidéo….!
https://vimeo.com/62004504
From storyboard to final release, it was a pleasure to work with Frank Martin, who did the animation for my Book Trailer! Merci, Monsieur!
Alors, qu’est-ce que vous en pensez? (What do you think?)
A (baker’s) dozen little-known facts – about me
Look for my BOOK TRAILER to be released soon for MAKE THAT DEUX!
While I wait for the finishing touches on it, here’s some trivia about me. My family (and relatives) know most of these faits peu connus (some of which are a bit embarrassante), but the rest of the world may not:
1. When I lived in France for a year as an exchange student, I didn’t (yet) have a driver’s license. But it wasn’t necessary to have one to drive a moped (mobylette). Phew!
Not my mobylette, but the same color mine was. (Why didn’t I take a picture? Because cameras – and film – were expensive!)
2. Since my birthday is October 20, I was always one of the oldest in my class growing up (when I started 1st grade, you had to be 6 years old by Oct. 1). In 9th grade, I set out to finish high school in 3 years, which I did, tying with another girl for 1st in my class. When I started at UNC, I was 17.
3. I was 2nd-runner-up in my high school beauty pageant (“Miss Tiger”).
4. I worked at the Carolina Coffee Shop on Franklin Street (and other restaurants) when I was a student in Chapel Hill, and I once waited on Alan Alda. I don’t remember getting a big tip…
5. I didn’t get my ears pierced until I was 26 years old and pregnant with twins, & I’ve never had another ear piercing (or any other kind).
6. One of my sons is a brain cancer survivor and was operated on by a renowned Duke neurosurgeon.* My son is doing terrific now & is involved in Relay for Life at UGA, which helps raise funds for cancer research.
7. I don’t wear bracelets or turtlenecks (though I used to wear both, but only once in a blue moon).
As a college freshman, wearing one of the two turtlenecks I remember ever owning.
8. I’m a slow reader, and always struggled to make A’s in English (which I did in high school, but not in college…Oops!)
9. Maybe because I’m very nearsighted (and my parents didn’t realize that until I was 12), I didn’t learn to ride a bicycle until I was 10 years old. I couldn’t see the ground in front of me!
10. I don’t get seasick, but I do get migraines occasionally.
11. My hair is naturally curly, and while my kids were growing up, I experimented with many different hairstyles and lengths.
Me when my third child was a toddler and my twins were in 1st grade
12. I left the promising field of computers and technology in the mid 1980s to stay home and raise my 4 children for 20 years, during which my family moved across the country 4 times.
13. I don’t know how to cook (much)…actually, that’s a well-known fact about me!
* Dr. Allan H. Friedman, Neurosurgeon-in-Chief, Duke University Hospital; the same doctor who operated on Senator Ted Kennedy several years ago.
JULIA MCDERMOTT 