An Interview with Nancy Peacock, Part 3

For a final question, I asked for Nancy Peacock's advice to beginning writers.

NP: There are two things I tell all beginning writers. They are my mantras and they carry me through every book I write. The first is "No one's going to do it for you." Meaning, if you want to write you're going to have to figure out how to fit it in with everything else you have to do, and everyone has things to do besides writing, even writers. The second mantra is "You can fix it later." Meaning, keep the story moving forward. Don't try to get page 1 perfect before moving on to page 2, and so on. Writing can be a very forgiving art if you understand that you have many passes at a particular story. For sure, get it as right as you can before you send it out, but know that this doesn't happen in one day.

And, yes, I've come to learn that both of these are true for me. Often when I'm on a roll with a story, I'll even skip words, leaving behind empty brackets because I know I need a dictionary or thesaurus, but I don't want to interfere with my progress. The best second "pass" for me becomes typing my first-draft handwritten scribble into a Word document.

But Nancy's first one, "No one's going to do it for you," is enough to get me back to the story right now.

An Interview with Nancy Peacock, Part 2

Nancy Peacock and I continue our conversation related to her memoir about supporting herself by cleaning houses while writing and publishing novels. Here's one of many quotations I've appreciated from the book: "I think that in the beginning of my writing life I believed that writing, publication in particular, could, besides making me rich, also make me invulnerable. It might have been the stupidest thought I ever had, because there is nothing, with the exception of love, that has ever made me feel more vulnerable than writing and publishing."

I'm glad she adds publishing to that thought, the reminder that a couple poems or stories out and about online, or even a printed novel, doesn't relieve us of the vulnerability we feel as writers forging ahead, or falling behind, on some creative project or other.

In fact, though, in beautiful weather, at the South Carolina Botanical Garden, I had a chance to immerse myself in her memoir in the early evening, and, as a reader, I didn't feel vulnerable at all; rather, I enjoyed it very much.

But here are some of Nancy's additional thoughts from our interview.

AK: Do you have regular writing habits (for example, 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. five days a week) or do you work your writing around your other obligations (your teaching or your housecleaning, for example)?

NP: The only house I clean these days is my own, and I don't do that much. But I do have to earn a living. I try to put my writing first. It helps that I am naturally a morning person - so I get up early (5:30) and write for one or two hours before anything else. If I am not working on a big project - a novel or a book of essays - I tend to be more casual about it. But I love it when I am working on a large project, and am keeping that early morning schedule.

 

AK: How long does it take you to compose a rough draft of a full manuscript?

NP: It depends on the book, but a first draft usually takes one year.
 

AK: How long does it take you from first rough sentence to final polished draft?

NP: Usually 2 to 3 years.

AK: Do you know many, or any, successful novelists who also have full-time “careers” and children? Does it seem like these are luxuries a contemporary American writer cannot afford or the exclusive realm only of our few “rich and famous” writers?

NP: Most of the writers I know also have jobs. Many are teachers at universities, but I also know lawyers, tech writers, secretaries, counter help at a garage, ministers, scientists, mothers, bartenders, etc. I live in an area where you couldn't swing a cat without hitting a writer. But I also live in an area which is very academic. I did feel pretty alone when I was cleaning houses for a living - and although I've met writers who cleaned houses at some point in their lives, I don't know of any who were doing it during the time their books were being published.

AK: What are some of the other more interesting writer's day jobs that you are aware of? In your literary circles in North Carolina, how are writers surviving if they aren't teaching school?

I always wanted to work several different jobs (knowing that each was temporary) simply so I could write about them. I've named some jobs above. Some of my own have been milker on a dairy farm, bartender, cocktail waitress, carpenter, newspaper delivery, drum maker, costumer, exercise instructor, stall mucker, locksmith, hardware store clerk, drugstore clerk, grocery clerk, baker, and housecleaner of course. They were all interesting, and although I may have hated some at the time, I always observed what each was like, and I could write about any one of them.

AK: I have several friends who are struggling in this economy, and I know of many others are having a hard time of it. From your perspective, does it seem as if this “recession,” or whatever we should call it, is any worse than what we’ve been through before as a country?

NP: I think it's worse in that the culture seems a lot meaner now than in the past. I think classism is much worse. I think there's very little respect for hard work, and that too many folks assume that anyone who doesn't have a desk job is not intelligent. But everyone is intelligent. Everyone has something they are smart about. Most people have many things that they are smart about. I think a lot of our problems could be lessened if only we respected each other more.

AK: Stay tuned, as there is possibly a Part 3 on the way.

 

An Interview with Nancy Peacock

Novelist Nancy Peacock was kind enough to respond to e-mailed questions related to her memoir on work and the writing life, A Broom of One's Own: Words on Writing, Housecleaning & Life. I'll post the first couple now and then the others in a future blog:

AK: Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickle and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America is one of the most famous contemporary works about how difficult it can be for women to survive in America. It’s nonfiction of course, but I’m wondering if you have any favorite, or even inspiring, books from the genre (fiction or nonfiction not only about struggling in the “greatest country on earth” but also struggling from a woman’s perspective)?

NP: I read Ehrenreich's book as about the working class, and not just about women's survival. But in answer to your question - sort of - one of my favorite books of all times is A Piece of Cake by Cupcake Brown. Her story is about one woman's survival from homelessness to becoming a lawyer. It's a great read. I don't think this answer is really to the point of your question (I'm having trouble thinking of books specific to that) but it's a chance to plug Cupcake Brown's book. Really - read it. So many of the memoirs I've read had to do with dysfunctional families and sexual abuse rather than with society as a whole.

AK: Is Virginia Woolf’s classic, A Room of One’s Own important to you? Are there other classics with similar themes that you see as influences?

NP: I certainly played off of the title A Room of One's Own - A Broom of One's Own. I think that women have more trouble finding time, quiet, physical space, and psychic space for writing, but I think we all need it. In my own life I have, as I've grown older, found it easier to get this for myself, probably because I recognize the importance of it more now than I did when I was younger, and because I am more willing to take it without apology.