This virtual book tour is presented by Tribute Books.
The official tour site is HERE.
Welcome to The Wormhole and my day on the tour.
It is my pleasure to feature:
Natalie Wexler and The Mother Daughter Show.
Natalie Wexler's Bio:
? When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?
I don’t think there was a specific moment of realization. Starting in high school and continuing through college I wanted to be a journalist, and I did pursue that for a while. But, being a fundamentally shy person, I always preferred the writing to the reporting. I started writing personal essays, but eventually I sort of ran out of material. I think throughout that entire period I would have aspired to writing fiction if I’d thought I could do it, but I assumed I couldn’t. About ten years ago someone encouraged me to try turning an idea I had into what became my first novel, A More Obedient Wife. I was amazed to discover that I could do it.
? How many jobs did you have before you became a writer?
My
first real job was as a reporter, so I suppose you could say I started out as a
writer of sorts. But then I went to law school, clerked for judges for two
years, and worked as a lawyer for all of eight months. After that I got a job
as a legal historian and later freelanced for magazines. When I got tired of
freelancing I thought back to some intriguing 18th-century letters
I’d come across while working as a legal historian and ended up using the
letters as the basis for my first novel.
? How long does it take you to write a book?
It
depends. My first novel took me about eight years, but I wasn’t working on it
full-time, and—since it was a historical novel—much of that time was spent
doing research. The first draft of The
Mother Daughter Show took me only about six weeks, but then I spent another
year and a half rewriting it again and again. Right now I’m about 350 pages
into the first draft of another historical novel. It probably took me about six
months to write those pages, but I started thinking about and researching the
idea years ago, before I wrote The Mother
Daughter Show. And I also had a couple of false starts—drafts I abandoned
after realizing they weren’t working, including one that had a different main
character.
? Where do you get your ideas or inspiration for your characters?
For the
historical novels, I’ve gotten my inspiration from real but minor historical
figures who left behind some evidence of their existence, but not enough
information for anyone to write a biographical account of their lives. For the
first novel I had letters to and from my characters, and for the one I’m
working on now, I have the magazine that one of my characters edited (and wrote
much of) in the early 19th century. I don’t actually want to know
too much about the real people my characters are based on, because then there
wouldn’t be enough room for my imagination to play around with them. I wouldn’t
want to try to write a historical novel about Abraham Lincoln, for example.
The Mother Daughter Show, which is set in 2009, was
obviously different. It was inspired by a real event, but it was never my
intention to have my characters be fictional versions of real people. I suppose
the characters were originally inspired by things I observed about some real
people (including myself), but they definitely took on a life of their own.
Basically I started with traits that served the purposes of my plot (for
instance, I needed one character who was a frustrated writer, one who was a
control freak, and one who was desperate to keep the peace at any cost) and
then worked from there to create what I hope are believable three-dimensional
beings whose existence is completely independent of any real individual.
? How do you decide what you want to write about?
Again,
it varies. The idea for The Mother
Daughter Show kind of dropped into my lap, in that I found myself in a
situation that—to me, at least—suggested the outlines of a comic novel. And
writing about the situation was a way to maintain my perspective on something
that was actually rather difficult and painful to live through.
The
idea for my first novel, A More Obedient
Wife, arose from my job as a historian: I knew a little about the two women
who became my main characters from reading their letters, but I was frustrated
that I couldn’t know more. Filling in the gaps with my imagination was the only
way I could think of to get at their stories.
I’ve
taken a circuitous route to the novel I’m working on now. Originally I was
inspired by a portrait I saw of a beautiful woman from the early 19th
century. Something about her made me curious, so I did some research and
discovered that she’d been quite a celebrity in her time, basically because she
married one of Napoleon Bonaparte’s brothers. Then, as I read through her
voluminous correspondence, I realized that she was an extremely unpleasant
person, and I decided I didn’t want to spend that much time in her company. But
in reading her letters I came across a friend of hers who I thought was a
terrific writer, so I started researching her instead. It turns out that the
friend had a pretty dramatic life herself, and the novel is now basically about
her.
? What are you reading right now?
I’ve
just started How It All Began by
Penelope Lively, a wonderful writer I discovered about a year ago. She manages
to write books that are both funny and meaningful, a feat to which I aspire.
? What do you like to do when you are not writing?
Writing
is a very solitary activity, and while it’s just about my favorite thing to do,
I find I need to balance it with activities that bring me into contact with
other people. One of those activities is teaching English as a Second Language
to adults, which is one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done.
? What do you think makes a good story?
All
sorts of things can make a good story. If you’re terrific with language and
description, you may not need as much of a plot. If you’ve got a great plot,
maybe you can skimp a little on character development. The main thing is to
keep the reader engaged enough that he or she wants to keep turning the pages.
? Who would you consider your favorite author and why?
I don’t
really have a favorite author, but there are many I admire. Of the classic
writers, I keep coming back to Dickens for his humor, the sheer power of his
storytelling, and the quirky details he lavished on even his minor characters.
Some of them may verge on cartoonish, but you’ll never forget them. Of
contemporary writers, I’ve long been a fan of Alice McDermott and Margaret
Atwood, and more recently I’ve been delighted to discover Sarah Waters and
Penelope Lively. Aside from the fact that they’re all women, they’re pretty
different, but each of them has managed to lift me out of my own world and plop
me happily into a universe of her own creation.
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