I've been fascinated by the concept of time travel most of my life. I'm sure some version of H.G. Wells' "The Time Machine" started it, and of course Dr. Who just added to the intrigue. History was one of my best subjects in school, and my mother-in-law once said that my husband and I were born in the wrong century, meaning a hundred years too late. The fact that, at the time, we drew our water from a shallow well with a hand pump and were building a room in which to use the wood-burning cook stove we'd just acquired probably contributed to this notion. We agreed whole-heartedly.
I've been writing seriously since 1996, and have published several short stories. In 2004, I saw a mention of NaNoWriMo on a writer's list. NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) http://www.nanowrimo.org/ is an opportunity to write 50,000 words in 30 days. I say "opportunity" because getting those 50,000 words down is a necessary beginning to writing a novel. Too many people say, "I'd love to write, if I could just find the time." I'd heard of it, vaguely, in the past, but had never looked into it, mostly because November tends to be a very busy time for me. But that year, my usual obligations had somehow not materialized, with the exception of Thanksgiving dinner. I decided to take the plunge. I informed my family I was going to do this, and they were wonderfully supportive. Now, what to write? The "rules" say you are not to have any of the story written down when November begins, which was not a problem for me, as I never write from an outline. I tried it once, and lost all interest in the plot before the outline was finished. I'd had the idea for years, sparked by a comment from a weaver friend of mine, of a character living in an old house who goes downstairs to discover time has moved backwards and it's 100 years earlier.
The opportunity to travel backwards and "live" in 1904 was irresistible. In order to simplify the research, I decided to put my character in my grandmother's house, in a small Kansas town, which was built around 1900. I also decided that setting the story in a town similar to the small Nebraska town I lived in at the time would simplify the research--there was a museum and an active Historical Society to draw from. I wanted my protagonist, Kate Edwards, to be a weaver, so I made her a Textile Historian, recently moved to Nebraska from Virginia. She would know something about earlier historical periods and have useful skills. Except that, by 1904, looms and spinning wheels had been chopped into firewood or consigned to barns for many years, and a historian from Virginia would be more likely to deal with a much earlier timeline. My favorite advice for writing fiction is: Give your character a problem. Then make it worse.
I calculated the daily output required to meet the challenge: 1,667 words a day would put me just over the 50,000 words in 30 days. With that goal in mind, I carried my laptop into the small spare bedroom and required myself to leave the mouse, the Internet cable and the power cord disconnected. I would not play solitaire, because it's too awkward to do with a touch pad, I would not get sucked into surfing the web, and I would only have the life of the battery before I ran out of power, which was something like an hour and a half, if I recall correctly.
Each day's writing became a chapter, which I sent to my critique partner to read and comment on. Nothing in-depth, just an eye on the plot to make sure it didn't wander too far afield. I saved most of her comments for the rewrite, although she did catch a couple things that required immediate revision. After about a week, I found my pace and was able to complete the day's word limit while allowing time for necessary research. I heard a historical mystery author say once that there are two ways to do research: 1. learn everything you can about a historical period, immerse yourself in it, and then write a story that fits, and 2. do the research you need to do in order to tell the story you have planned. In this case, time constraints led me to use the second approach.
In addition to old newspapers on microfilm at the museum and local historical references at the library, I dug out my trusty 1902 Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalog for everyday items. I bought a set of Life Magazine history books (missing one volume, but not the relevant one) at a library book sale. I did some online research, but only accepted things I found in more than one reference. I also took advantage of an opportunity to talk to some people who had lived in the area all their lives, and had stories to tell from their parents.
Since I write without an outline, I began not knowing who the villains or the victims were, or even the nature of the crime. Several chapters in, I realized what the crime had to be, given the time, the location and the characters I had come to know. Everything fell into place at that point. I made notes of revisions that would be needed to bring it all together, and forged ahead. I ended the month of November with more than the required 50,000 words to win the NaNoWriMo Challenge.
December is an even busier month than November at my house, so I took a necessary break, and then in January I went back to my novel, ready to finish it. I completed and revised the manuscript over the next few months, and started submitting it to agents and editors. That's when I learned that, according to publishing wisdom, any story that deals with time travel is either science fiction (this definitely isn't) or it's romance (ditto). I did briefly consider revising the story to fit one genre or the other, but I was happy with the story as it was and didn't want to make the kinds of changes that would entail. So I let it sit on my hard drive, until I started reading about the success of electonically published books. Rather than leave Kate and her friends, neighbors and enemies languishing in my computer, I decided to take the plunge. TIMEWARP is now available for the Nook and the Kindle, and I hope some of you will consider reading it.
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