PlanoSoprano

Dominic's Daughters

Many years ago (more years than I care to admit), I started writing this novel. I had written six others (all still unpublished, and deservedly so!), and I never looked back on those. They were practice novels, the work of a young writer trying different things and finding her voice.

This novel turned out to be something else.

I've been working on it for well over a decade. It has gone through so many changes of character, tone, voice, and plot that I can't begin to enumerate them all. But the core still remains: the story of two sisters at war over the same man.

I started a major rewrite of the story back in 1990, when my friend Patti (Patricia Burroughs) told me that she really liked the version I had written in 1988-89, but there was only one little problem. The story, said Patti, needed to be in third person.

I don't know how many writers have ever converted a novel from first person to third person, but believe you me, it is not a matter of changing the pronouns. It requires a whole new way of thinking. It is, in fact, an entire new novel. You see your characters in a new way; you learn a new voice and style. First person, in my very humble opinion, is a walk in the park compared to third person, particularly since I am a POV purist.*

I almost gave up after a few chapters, and in fact, I did drop the whole thing for many years.

Not that I stopped writing in those years; I just wrote other things (like user manuals for software). I also had a baby. I know that J.K. Rowling has written three of the six HP novels to date while she was pregnant and/or taking care of babies, and my hat's off to her. Pregnancy and child-rearing totally used up any creativity I had.

I picked up the novel again briefly in 2000 and actually wrote my way out of a box I had previously written myself into (a will-they-or-won't-they quandary). However, a major operation soon put paid to that. Add to that major reorganizations at work and the devastation of 9/11, and it was another four years before I picked up the novel again.

This time, however, for the very first time, I knew exactly what I was doing. I had grown spiritually and emotionally, and I felt confident as I approached my material.

Because of family commitments, graduate school, and an overly demanding job, two years later I am still at work. But I know where I'm going with this story.

So climb aboard. I'll post character analyses, plot points, even samples from time to time. This novel encompasses a lot of topics -- it is a big story -- and I've done a lot of research on everything from Irish law to DNA techniques. I'll post some of that research as well.

* A POV purist is one who does not change point of view in the same scene. I know a lot of writers do it, but I hate reading it, and I don't want to write it.