Elizabeth Wrenn

Official site of the author of the novels Around the Next Corner, a.k.a. Second Chance

I sent off the final ms. for LAST KNOWN ADDRESS a couple of days ago and the exhaustion took no time at all to overtake me.  I slept for nearly 11 hours each night.  I took naps during the day.  The final push drained me.  But in a good way.  I'm so proud of this book.  Last night I went on a little get-away with my sister, just overnight to a cabin in the mountains just 40 minutes away.  It was great to be out of the house (I am truly grateful that I am able to work at home, but it does make it hard to get away from the office!)  It was even better to be in the mountains; there really is a completely different air up there.  As my friends and family (and most readers know) I am mum about a work in progress till it's done.  But I was newly freed from that lip-zipping.  So as my sister and I talked into the night about a huge range of subjects, I found myself periodically saying "That's in my book!"  How friendship among women is a huge force, often larger than the individual women, both in our own lives, and in society.  How siblings often end up being more different from one another than complete strangers are.  And why that might be so.  How we are all connected, sometimes in miraculous ways.  How women support one another, even save one another, even complete strangers.  How love is necessary, the food of our souls, yet is so often irrational, and is necessarily in a constant state of redefinition as we grow up, over and over again.  How our personal spiritual quests evolve, and yet never stop, and ultimately, if we are very lucky, intertwine.  How the art of writing real letters, on paper, with a pen--probably a lost art--deepens and illuminates relationships in a way email, phone and texting simply can't.

I'm baaaaack!  And blogging!  Not sure about this, since I think I say best what I have to say in my novels.  But there may be something to be said for saying it more briefly, and in real life and real time.  But since real life and real time is a squishy concept for a fiction writer, this is a bit of an experiment for me.  (That's me in my office: Jr. Birdwriter.  Incognito.)

You see, I, like many novelists, more or less go into hiding while I'm writing.  Prior to my first novel, I wasn't one of those writers, and I didn't think I would be, since I am mostly a very social person.  But when I switched from writing for children to a novel for adults, I went much deeper into my writing.  I found a deeper voice, I found deeper characters.  And suddenly, I found myself deep into their world.  Alice down the rabbit hole.  I found my own world (a.k.a. "reality") somewhat--okay, very!--distracting.  When I am in the creative writing of a novel (as opposed to the revising part of writing), I find I need to be alone in the world I'm creating.  I like to not even be reminded that another world exists.  I don't just screen calls, I unplug the phone.  I don't just ignore emails, I unplug the broadband line, checking only at night, after dinner.  My darling husband is about the only one who sees me with any regularity when I'm writing the first drafts, and even he has come to expect a different me during those times.  It can be difficult.  Okay.  I can be difficult.  Moody.  Distant.  First celebrating completing a chapter, then bemoaning that I simply can't write, that it's all for naught.  From my conversations with other writers, this is pretty standard stuff.  If writers are married, we tend to be married to very stable individuals.  Rocks of Gibraltar.