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Question of the Month: On Location

by Susan Henderson on March 4, 2013

Tell me what it would be like if you spent some significant time in the setting of your current work-in-progress.

Because that’s what my plan is. I’m headed here to do the final edits on my book. Population: 181. That’s the sign to the hotel where I’ll be staying, and they do not take credit cards, I just discovered, but said they could give me a room with a table in it if I paid for the deluxe suite. Oh, yes, I will splurge for a table!

LitPark is on hiatus until the book is done, and then I’ll have so, so much to share! Be well, everyone!

Oh wait! Can’t leave without saying some thank you’s: Just Jenny, Feeding the Brain and the Body, howaboutabook, Brenda’s Blog, Med Bok og Palett, and to everyone who has ever written an Amazon review for my book because it’s a generous thing to do. Okay, see you on the other side of this adventure!

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Question of the Month: Favorites

by Susan Henderson on February 4, 2013

What are some of your favorite books of all time? And what is it about those books that you love?

For me, my absolute favorites include Albert Camus’ The Plague, Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, William Maxwell’s They Came Like Swallows, James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain ( I couldn’t find the right size cover for that one so picked another I love), Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, and yes, A.A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh.

I love these books for big and small reasons–for the dark journey or circumstances that brings the hero’s heart into conflict with itself, for the glimpses of light and dark in the world, for the experience of fully inhabiting both delicate and hardened minds, and for the poetry of individual sentences. (Okay, there’s nothing really so dark about Winnie the Pooh, but it’s some of the most amazing writing I know.)

Besides my all-time favorites, I also have a voracious appetite for gothic stories with Byronic characters facing big moral dilemmas: Frankenstein, Wuthering Heights, Dracula, and pretty much every Shirley Jackson story. Which leads me to the book I’m working on right now. My first novel was the one I needed to write. This time, I’m trying to write the novel I’ve always wanted to read.

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A quick interlude… here are my kids (on keys and guitar) and their two best friends playing jazz over the weekend. It was such a great show, and it’s such a great friendship to watch.

I’m grateful to all who blogged about my book this past month: Girlfriends Book Club, Cure for Crankiness, Cure, part 2, A Design So Vast, Jocosa’s Bookshelf,Daisy’s Book Journal, Storybook Careers, and my books, my life.

Okay, enough from me. Let’s hear about some of your all-time favorites!

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Question of the Month: Renewal

by Susan Henderson on January 7, 2013

Have you been able to use your winter vacation to rest ? If so, tell me what you did to recharge your battery. And if you find holidays more stressful than relaxing, tell me how you plan to recover so you can go strong into the new year.

Mr. H, the boys and I spent a week with family in Dolores, Colorado, a town of 800 people and one paved road. It was great to be together with no distractions, no lessons or activities competing for their time. There were games (Magic Cards, Ankh-Morpork, Fluxx, Munchkin), long walks in the snow, a day skiing at Telluride, and homecooked meals (everything from posole to spinach saag and dahl, to roast beef and Yorkshire pudding).

It felt great to recharge! I’m looking forward to carrying a renewed sense of energy into the new year. I plan on eating healthier foods (but without obsessing over calories or portions) and continuing my daily exercising (but making it more cardio-focused). Basically tweaking things that are already habits to make sure my time is better spent and I’m enjoying each day. And I’m going to finish the new book in 2013. I promise I’ll talk about it in more detail soon, but I can say I’m fully engaged in the writing and editing, and I’m having so much fun this time around!

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Some thank you’s: My Novel Thoughts, Bethany Duvall, Jessica Vealitzek, Writer’s Digest, Cure for Crankiness, med bok og palett, BookMovement, Fingers and Prose.

Oh, I published an essay about book clubs at both BookReporter and ReadingGroupGuides.com. Enjoy! And then come back here and hang out a little while!

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Question of the Month: Drafts

by Susan Henderson on December 3, 2012

Tell me about your editing process, and where are you in your current project?

In May, I completed what I called a first draft of my new book—that initial dump of all of my ideas that resembled the shape and length of a novel.

Since then, I’ve been structuring, cutting, moving, shaping, developing themes and emotional layers, adding and subtracting characters, simplifying some things and complicating others, panning in, panning out, balancing the length and pace of the chapters. All the while, I’m reading, reading, reading to train my ear, to keep the bar high: Camus, Baldwin, Steinbeck, Brontë, Gaiman, Stoker, Irving, Wharton, Dickens, McCullers. I’m nearly done with this second draft, and I like what I see.

Though I’m close to my next milestone, I still haven’t, and won’t, show my manuscript to a single soul. I’m enjoying this time of creating and dreaming alone. I love marking up a chapter, editing it until all the marks are cleaned up, and then starting again. I imagine two more drafts before I send it to my agent for feedback—the third draft where I pay attention to the individual sentences, concentrating on language, imagery, and rhythm; and the fourth where I spend a few weeks living in the town that inspired my setting. (More on that later. No reason to go on about the fourth step when I still need to nail the second.)

So how about you? Want to say where you are in your current project or anything about your process? I’d love to see how you work.

In other news, I’m interviewed at length in a new book written by Chuck Sambuchino and published by Writer’s Digest Books. CREATE YOUR WRITER PLATFORM is an incredibly fascinating and helpful book about how the publishing industry has changed and how writers can best adjust to the new expectations. I found myself underlining and dog-earing lots of advice, and there’s enough diversity of styles in the book to suit different personality types. I particularly like the interviews with Cal Newport and Lissa Rankin. Definitely worth picking up!

I’ll close with some thank you’s: Suder Blog, Esmee-Jacobs, Girl Called Beloved, Rhody Reader, True STORIES, Bitch Media, and The New York Times. I appreciate the press!

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Question of the Month: Divided Attention

by Susan Henderson on November 5, 2012

Tell me about something in your life that keeps you from giving your all to your current writing project.

This month, my manuscript took a back seat to my 16-year-old’s college application. He’s applying early to his first choice school, and on top of the time-consuming nature of applications—and having to balance them with a full course load of regular school work and outside activities—I was seeing him grapple with something I know all too well: self-doubt. How can I capture who I am on a piece of paper? What if I put every ounce of who I am into this thing, and it’s not good enough? What if I’ve misjudged my abilities and I don’t get into any college at all?

The good news is that this early application is now done, and I think he’ll be a strong candidate, though I understand the odds at these top schools. My son is hoping to study theoretical math in college, and luckily, they allow multi-media supplements to the application, where kids can communicate what doesn’t fit as easily into words.

Here is how he told the story of his crazy Moog project that’s made such a mess of his room and our basement:


(Direct link: http://youtu.be/4HuE6lA1TPw)

And here are two examples of different keyboard playing styles (first ELP’s Tarkus, and then Deep Purple’s Lazy) which he needed to submit in order to take electives in the music department:


(Direct link: http://youtu.be/bioEy3ppukg)


(Direct link: http://youtu.be/bCXLesQwHZc)

I know I set aside my own work again and again to tend to my son’s project and the emotions that came with it. But I wouldn’t have it any other way. The period of childhood is precious and brief, and I want to be fully engaged in it. For all of you whose children are in this same process, much luck to you. And for you writers who know rejection and self-doubt so very well, much love.

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Some thank you’s for the links and press this month: Huffington Post, Ragnh, the Star Tribune, Great New Books, and People Magazine. Hope you’re all enjoying fall (my favorite season!), and I’m looking forward to hearing your stories.

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