Several years ago I began writing a novel that I abandoned a few months later, in favor of the crime fiction that is now on submission (again, after the publishing hit-and-run incident I shared with you earlier this year: This Isn't the Column I Wanted to Write). It’s a draft that consists of several distinct but loosely interconnected scenes, separated by continents and timelines. I love its glorious, ambitious, messy sweep. But those 10,000 words sat inside a Scrivener draft for years—long enough for me to fall out of love and in again, move, nurse my partner through a heart attack, buy a house (and move again), change jobs three times, lurch through the pandemic, write another novel, and back out the other side.
This abandoned novel pulls from my obsession with the Cathars, a Christian sect wiped out by the Catholic church in the mid-13th century and the focus of my first novel, In Another Life. I loved writing about the Cathars, this mystical and misunderstood culture that haunts every corner of southwestern France, the former Kingdom of Languedoc. Returning to write another Cathar-themed story is a door I cracked open with this jumble of scenes, keeping an eye out to see if the door widened. If anyone was home to welcome me in.
Last year I read a nonfiction recounting of poet Rainer Maria Rilke’s stormy relationship with the sculptor August Rodin, to whom he served as a secretary when his writing career was in its stumbling infancy and Rodin’s fame was at its peak. Something about the time, the place, these men, and the women central to their stories, moved me. I made some notes on a neon pink Post-It and stuck it to my idea board.
Shimmer
A few weeks ago a scene of a young girl fleeing Les Apaches gang in Belle Epoque Paris—one inspired by my reading about Rilke and Rodin—came unbidden and complete and I added it to this novel-in-progress, trusting that wherever it belonged, it would find its way there once written.
Shimmer
And then another historical figure who made her home in France—an outsider like Rilke, but nearly two thousand years earlier—reached out to me from the page. I felt her somehow connected to my abandoned novel and set out to research her story.
As I read an examination of this woman’s life in early Christian times, the author suddenly threw in mention of Rainer Maria Rilke. Not once, but several times, evoking his exploration of the nature of love and comparing it to this woman’s quest for grace.
Shimmer
The author went on to weave in the Cathars, who themselves were centuries removed from the historical character I’m getting to know.
Shimmer
That door I’d left open just a crack? It flew wide. Turns out there was a party happening inside and I’d somehow mislaid my invitation. But I’m not too late. In fact, I think the party was just waiting for me to arrive to really get going. Cue: 70s dance hits (please don’t suggest there’s any finer way to get down than to KC and the Sunshine Band. I won’t have it).
It’s as though these ideas, embodied in Rilke, the Cathars, and the woman I’m calling the Divine Ms. M (not really, just for the moment while I hold her story a little more closely to my heart), have been waving their hands frantically from across a crowded room, shouting “Hello? Hellllloooo! We're over HERE!” Would it have been too much to ask that they set down their glasses of tepid Chardonnay and napkins holding half-eaten triangles of pita smeared with hummus and actually come over to ask me to dance instead of hoping I’d notice them?
Apparently it’s on me to take the next steps.
In her lovely meditation on the writing life Still Writing , Dani Shapiro states, “We don't walk around trolling for ideas like people on beaches with those funny little machines, panning for coins; we don’t go looking on the equivalent of match.com…But when we stumble upon it, we know. We know because it shimmers. And if you are a writer, you will find that you won’t give up that shimmer for anything. You live for it. Like falling in love, moments that announce themselves as your subject are rare, and there’s a magic to them. Ignore them at your own peril.”
I’m listening, Shimmer. This time I really am.
Share your moments of Shimmer. Where did they lead?
I’m delighted to share another Shimmer that’s been accepted for publication. In 2018, the world was riveted by the story of Tahlequah, the orca that carried her dead calf on her nose for 17 days through the waters of the Puget Sound and Salish Sea. I was profoundly moved by this act of mourning and I knew it would find its way into a story. I wrote it into a 300-word piece for a microfiction course I taught over Zoom in the early days of the pandemic, and slowly worked it into a longer narrative. The story, titled Pour Out Like Water, will appear in the November issue of Gold Man Review, an annual print publication that features West Coast writers. I’ll provide another link when the issue rolls out.
Lastly, a question for you. How do you find the books you buy/request from the library/load into your Kindle? What are your top sources for book recommendations? TikTok? New York Times or LARB? LitHub? GoodReads? Your mother-in-law?
First, I'm thrilled your Shimmers are bringing you back to this story. In Another Life was beautiful and I'm glad you're revisiting the world you love so much. Second, please excuse the salty language, but goddamn you're a beautiful writer. I've said it before, many times, and I'll just keep saying it every time I read you. It's all just poetry. Like slipping into a warm bath reading your words. Okay, carry on. I'm done fawning. lol
To answer your question: my first book, Chasing Kate's Shimmer was something a friend of mine said at lunch one day many years ago. "They should prosecute people for inner child abuse." Indeed. And Kate was born.
I wish you the best success with your current work on submission - all the things crossed for many takers with an ensuing bidding war, and I look forward to the next Cathar Shimmer book.
Brilliant, lovely - thank you! And onward! (I so adored In Another Life - I do look forward to revisiting that world through your eyes.)