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The Stories that Haunt Us


In less than a week, I turn 42 years old. Forty two. I don’t mind it, really. I have much for which I can be grateful for and plenty to look forward to this coming year.

There are days, though, when I feel pulled back, when my mind sifts through memories like old recipes, and I become stuck in images of me at twenty-one or my life at twenty-two.

I am swirling through a warm summer in Oklahoma; walking barefoot in the red dirt by the river; taking in a cool night on top of a roof; sitting on the wood floor of that house we rented, playing records we found at the thrift store. There are communal meals – an Eggplant Parmesan dish that took four people and six hours to bake – and quiet bike rides alone, in the early morning hours, to open the bakery where I worked.

My time there ran its course, yet I return, again and again, searching for something. Unable to let go.

Those are the memories that filter their way into stories. They fall clunky and raw onto the page, are taken apart and molded back together again, three or four (or five) times over. The stories wax and wane in how much is revealed, and then, finally – because they are still too much or not enough – they get put into a drawer. Pushed to the way back.

And, those are the stories that refuse to lay dormant.

I have such a piece that keeps bucking its way to the rewrite table. One minute I love the story; the next, I cringe at the thought of anyone reading it. Still, I can’t let it go, can’t stop rewriting. I’ve taken out truths and replaced them with fiction. I’ve changed names and changed them back again. I’ve left out the parts of me that burn.

This story needs a place, whether it’s a permanent station in a notebook no one will find for years to come, or…who knows. I put it through the chopping block yesterday, and I’m giving it one last showing tomorrow, under fresh and experienced eyes at a critique group. After that….

I’ll be honest: I’m scared.

How do you tame the stories that haunt you?

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Interview & Giveaway with Nichole Bernier, Author of The Unfinished Work of Elizabeth D.

But that’s the funny thing about people who don’t fit into a box. They grow to infiltrate everything, and when they suddenly go missing, they are missing everywhere.
~ from The Unfinished Work of Elizabeth D.

Without knowing why, or even how, it happens, a person can fill a void in our lives so quickly and settle into our being so fully that, surely, they must know us as well as we know ourselves. Even better. I have such a friend, who can tell at first glance (or at first long-distance “hello” over the phone) if I’m lying or telling the truth when I answer the question, “How are you?” Yet, even through such deep connections, I bet there are things unknown between us. How well can we really know another person?

This question ripples throughout Nichole Bernier’s debut novel, The Unfinished Work of Elizabeth D., as one woman is bequeathed the journals of her deceased friend.

In reading Elizabeth Martin’s most personal thoughts, Kate discovers a side to her friend she hadn’t known or expected. The truth of Elizabeth’s marriage, her friendship with Kate, and her life ambitions unfolds, and, with that truth, so does Kate’s own pain and understanding of her relationships and dreams. In those discoveries, Kate finds strength to face her fears and embrace what’s genuine. This book speaks to the anxiety we so often hold about the future and to the relief we feel in finally letting go.

I’m honored to host Nichole Bernier today as she talks about her book, about life, and writing. I’m offering a giveaway, as well, with three ways to enter: tweet about the post (tag it with @Christi_Craig), post about the interview on Facebook (message me here so I count your entry), or – the most simple route – just leave your name in the comments. Come Tuesday, August 14th, you could be the winner of a copy of Nichole’s wonderful novel.

And now…welcome, Nichole!

CC: In your novel, Elizabeth’s journals act as a conduit of self-reflection for the protagonist, Kate, as Elizabeth reveals her own angst and struggles with motherhood, work, and relationships. Some of what Kate learns about herself is unexpected, and painful (and, boy, can I relate to what she discovers and how she feels). Have you ever had that experience, seeing yourself through someone else’s eyes?

NB: I was about to answer no, but then I remembered an email I received a few months ago. It was from a woman who’d been in my graduating class at journalism school, and had heard I was about to publish a novel I’d written while I was in the thick of the child-raising years. She contacted me because she was starting to write one, herself, and had just had her second child. We exchanged memories about school, and she recalled — ha ha! — how at a graduation party she had told me she was taking an unpaid internship. Apparently I said, You can do better.

I’d like to think she’s remembering a little incorrectly, and that I actually said something along the lines of, WE can do better. Because heaven knows I made poverty-level wages that year after school. Or that I said it in an emphatic, affirming way — You can do better! Someday, we all will!

But I don’t know what I said, or exactly what I meant. I don’t even remember the blur of graduation week very well, capping a rabid year working toward a degree that was not technically necessary for our field. All of us, subliminally haunted by the pressure to prove it had been worth it. I only know that that’s what her perception was, and that’s what matters in the end, really. But that thankfully, she didn’t take it badly enough that it kept her from reaching out 20 years later to a fellow mom who’s still just trying to do better.

CC: In the acknowledgements, you mention an island cottage that inspired the one in the novel, where Kate reads Elizabeth’s journals. Were you able to sneak away for a writing retreat at that cottage while working on book? And, where do you do most of your writing now?

NB: Oh, I was sneaking away whenever I could. Well, if you can call it sneaking when you kiss five kids goodbye a million times each — whether you’re going away for two hours or two days — and you sneak off after a very orchestrated hand-off to a generous husband who you’ll probably text with five minutes after you leave. Not very stealthy.

But no, I wasn’t able to steal away to that cottage. It’s someone’s primary home except for two weeks in the summer. And it doesn’t actually have that attic loft, sadly. That was an embellishment of my imagination. Though it sure would be nice if they added it, and then let us rent again someday.

As far as my writing space at home is concerned, I sort of wish I had a writing room, some serene window-walled space with a massive antique desk. But even if I did, I probably wouldn’t write there. Our house is never really quiet because we have five kids, and though I don’t need quiet to write, I need the noise to be sounds I’m not emotionally invested in.

So I’ve become that cliché of the coffeeshop writer. I love the impersonal bustle that’s a bit like being part of an office, the juicy bits of conversation you overhear, and yes, the constant flow of coffee and inability to hop up and tweeze your eyebrows. When I need real quiet, I go to the library.

CC: I love what you say in this post on your blog, how writing a novel can sometimes be a cathartic experience. I know that feeling, when a story rushes out and brings with it every inch of pain that’s been held in by grief. You also say that you never imagined yourself “as someone with a novel inside her, but now [you] can’t imagine [yourself] without it.” Do you have another novel in the works?

NB: There are two things I’m obsessed with these days. One is a disturbing premise set in the former Soviet Union. The other takes place on an eerie forbidden island I visited with the Park Service a few months ago, a real-life fascinating and creepy place that spans three distinct phases of history. Once my book tour quiets down I’ll be going to town on one of these stories, whichever one is keeping me up at night the most.

CC: What are you reading these days?

NB: I just finished Gone Girl — which had such exciting use of voice and tension created by unreliable narrators — and Salvage the Bones, a Katrina story about four motherless siblings that knocked me flat. Right now I’m in that hang-time between books, and since I’m on book tour, am traveling with a combination of things to pick up during flights – a hardcover, a galley, and my iPad. The ability to sample first chapters electronically is like a literary buffet, a moveable feast (at least until your battery wears out).

CC: What advice do you have for writers on the rise?

NB: You have to make your writing the absolute best it can be, and find folks who will help you get it there. Find a handful of like-minded writers who will be supportive and honest. Then revise, revise, revise.

When you’re ready to send it out into the world, do your homework. It’s so easy now to learn about agents and editors and the query process with all the resources online. On Twitter, for example, you’re hearing query preferences and pet peeves right from the horse’s mouth.

Network on social media. Write essays, articles, blogs, clever email, anything that’s a limbering-up exercise to keep your thinking process sharp and your creativity going and your voice out there. Then get thick skin and be persistent and find a way to keep up your stamina through the rejections. You’re not rejected until you’re rejected a LOT. There are as many reasons for rejection as there are Eskimo names for snow. You just have to find that one agent and editor with whom your story resonates, and who can bring it out to the world.

Nichole Bernier is author of the novel THE UNFINISHED WORK OF ELIZABETH D, and has written for magazines including Elle, Self, Health, and Men’s Journal. A Contributing Editor for Conde Nast Traveler for 14 years, she was previously on staff as the magazine’s golf and ski editor, columnist, and television spokesperson. She is a founder of the literary blog Beyond the Margins, and lives outside of Boston with her husband and five children. She can be found online at nicholebernier.com and on Twitter @nicholebernier.

Don’t forget to enter the giveaway, through a comment, Twitter, Facebook (or all three). Look for the announcement of the winner on Tuesday, August 14th.

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Writing Prompt: Focus on the Details

I was back with my friends at the retirement center this last weekend. What a gift, to sit at the table and listen to their stories. Some of these folks are new to writing, others more experienced. But, what I’ve learned is that no matter how much time we’ve spent working at the craft, we can all use practice filling in the details of a story.

“A lot of people [have had] an experience that other people might want to read about. But this is not the same as “being a writer.” Or, to put it in a more sinister way: everyone can dig a hole in a cemetery, but not everyone is a grave-digger.”
~Margaret Atwood, in Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing

Regardless of our differences in age or in life circumstances, there are certain experiences through which we all connect: falling in love, falling out of love; our first taste of independence; the death of a parent; the loss of a friendship; the day we noticed how grown up our children had become. And, while anyone can tell a story revolving around these connections, what we, as writers, most want is to tell the story well enough so that it lingers in the readers mind long after they’ve reached “The end.”

This is where details fit in. Lisa Cron, in Wired for Story, says, “A story takes a general situation, idea, or premise and personifies it via the very specific.” It’s in the specifics where the story comes alive with images and readers become emotionally connected. A great example is Carolyn Miller’s piece, “Afternoons”, found in the August 2012 issue of The Sun Magazine. Here’s a teaser:

The dinner (lunch) dishes had already been washed and put away, and the leftovers – fried chicken, mashed potatoes, milk gravy, peas or green beans or corn or tomatoes from my father’s garden – were in the refrigerator, protected by plastic covers held on with elastic, waiting to be eaten cold at supper. The rooms were filled with the smells of food. The only sounds were those of the house slowly settling around us….

Rich details. Details that were not tossed into the story without serious consideration. We experience the world in three dimensions, but we each tune in to the specifics of our day or of an event that have meaning for us as individuals. We see, hear, smell, feel, absorb details that help us define and interpret the world. Think about those kinds of details when you sit down to write this month.

The Prompt.

Choose one:

  1. “Yesterday’s coffee.” (via The Writer Magazine)
  2. “It came in waves.” (via Patricia McNair’s Journal resolution ~ a daily prompt)
  3. “The lie.”

As you approach the prompt….

Keep in mind what specifics you, as a person (or your main character, if you are writing fiction) notice. Use one to three of the questions* below to guide your writing:

  1. About how old are you?
  2. What is to your left?
  3. What is to your right?
  4. Is anyone else in the image?
  5. Why are you there?
  6. Is there anyone who just left or who may be coming?
  7. What are some of the sounds in the image?
  8. What does the air smell like?

* these questions originate from a writing exercise given by Ariel Gore.

Just for today, don’t worry about writing well. Just write.

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* opening photo credit: kakisky on Morguefile.com