Labor Pains: A True Life Story of Giving Birth to a Book

Writing a novel is hard work. Much like giving birth, one struggles to conceive, grow the thing inside you and then push it out—it is messy and intense, and you are never entirely sure of the outcome.

Before encountering your child, there are countless nights when sleep is impossible, as complicated plot lines revolve around in the expectant mother’s head giving her headaches and making her queasy. Tubs of ice cream are consumed as well as chocolate chip cookies, and as a result, unnecessary weight is gained. Eyes get puffy, and calves become swollen after sitting for hours in front of a glowing computer screen.

And then there is the doubt. Will the author be a good mother? Will her child crawl, learn to walk and then eventually run away and find itself in a world of readers?

But once a novel is published, the birth pains fade away. When a new book is delivered via the stork—that takes the shape of an Amazon delivery truck—the author picks it up and counts all its pages. Then she oohs, and ahhs over it—hugs it, perhaps even kisses it on its cute little cover. At that point, the months of duress and agony start to rescind into the background. In retrospect, it all seems so easy—like a walk in the park she thinks, as she pushes her bouncing baby in a carriage past all of the weeds and the brambles.

And like all proud parents, the author believes—my child is so delightful—she should give her offspring a sibling!

She fondly remembers the fun and games in the beginning—the warm, seductive nights when she heeded the siren call of a new story—quickly forgetting the cramps and blinding pain during the final moments to heave-ho the thing out and into the cold light of day. Blithely she turns on her computer and starts conceiving a new book. In the honeymoon stage, she does countless Google searches and goes to the library, delving into obscure facts unearthing fascinating historical trivia. Adjusting her glasses with notecards in hand she informs her partner that a new arrival is on its way. Giving him a kiss, she reminds him to find a new hobby because she is done with him now and it will be several months before she will be interested in talking to him again.

As the weeks pass, she tells herself the day after tomorrow she will finally put pen to paper and make sense of the ideas floating around in her head. She is pregnant with ideas, but still, she procrastinates because suddenly, with each factoid she jots down, she is starting to remember how very hard the birthing process really is. She knows that once she starts down the road of writing, there will be no aborting the mission and she will be committed to delivering her child even if she is cast adrift into a very black hole for the next nine months.

Regardless of a few flickering doubts, she begins her new story. At first, it is an utterly-excruciating-plodding-process coming up with a captivating tale. She even becomes a bit nauseous from the long hours spent trying to spin history into fiction. But all of a sudden, inspiration strikes, and she can’t wait any longer. The ideas flow fast and furiously, and with each keystroke, she grows more excited to share her story with others. But, despite her impatience to produce—she knows it won’t help to speed up the procedure and wish for premature delivery. Like all children, she has to give it time to grow and ripen inside of her.

So, she lets nature take its course, and after a couple false starts, she writes a 100-page outline. Some bits are still vague, and not fully formulated, but she is sure, given time, it will all work itself out. Testing the fledgling idea with a friend, she gets a positive analysis. Feeling elated, she throws caution to the wind and makes the announcement to the general public—she is expecting again.

She works for three whole months, pounding out the initial draft as the thing grows more massive inside of her. At the end of the first trimester, she is congratulating herself that she is off to a great start and the seed has firmly taken hold. There is no turning back now. And isn’t she brilliant for having developed such intricate themes involving so many characters, witty dialogue, and tantalizing twists? She has craftily if not heavy-handedly, doled out advice and facts, like the maternal counseling of Doctor Spock. Furthermore, she is sure all that historical information she has pitched into the plot will enthrall her readers, as it does her, regardless of the fact it doesn’t make fantastic fiction.

And then after printing out two-hundred and fifty-two pages filled with 90,000+ words, she stands in the middle of her office celebrating the novel she has just completed. Like Gloria Swanson dressed in an elegant gown and red boa, she sings lustily, not aware there is no audience, and the Roxy Theatre is falling down around her. She thinks her first draft is so damn good, this time there will be no need for a re-write. The critics will love her child, as is, sticky hands and all.

Feeling a little smug, she sends her manuscript off to her editor, and when it is returned, she reads his comments and cringes. She realizes that the story is like mushy strained peaches, and the characters aren’t yet fully developed. Somewhere in the middle her original intent went off the rails, bogged down by too many voices and unnecessary plot details. What she had seen so clearly seen in her mind still hasn’t made it from head to paper.

Her first inclination is to toss the baby out with the bath water. But, then, she realizes, she has grown fond of her child, despite the blemishes and its club foot. She still believes there is something she can work with; she may have written some stinky passages, but at least the words are there. She can always fix a bad page, not a blank one.

Galvanized into action, she switches on her computer and page by page—word by word—she begins again. She addresses each and every one of her editor’s comments and writes an entirely new version toning down the villains and the melodramatic scenes and making the history lessons a little more palatable. With his insightful feedback (hooray for editors!) she is able to redirect the content and successfully tell her story—the one she originally intended. Once more, it is a harrowing process, but she knows it must be done and she and her story will be better because of it. The manuscript is pruned way back, to its essential branches, and then it is nurtured and allowed to mature once again it stands tall and proud.

The child has been saved and is growing again. It is starting to kick and is now showing signs of life. This time, the creature she has spawned is a thing of real beauty.

Let’s throw in some more metaphors—why stop now? Her theater is reinforced and secure, and her characters and singers are ready to perform and hit all the high notes. It was well worth the effort, and she blesses her editor again, despite feeling slightly embarrassed that he had to slog through her original half-baked copy. Still, she is happy. She wouldn’t be in her current position, with a fully formed bun in the oven, if she hadn’t taken that first naïve, clumsy first step.

Confident once again, she marches triumphantly into the final trimester.

She picks up the threads of the story like the yarn of a multi-colored baby blanket and continues weaving them in and out, creating greater depth and continuity. Each day, she spends over ten hours and sometimes more, combing through the manuscript over and over again. She reads backward and forwards, sometimes even starting in the middle. She spends an entire morning retooling a single paragraph.

With each new pass, she adds more scenes and flushes out dialogue, reordering chapters, and cutting some out entirely. And now knowing the things that occur in the final chapters, she expertly ties those bits of foreshadowing into the beginning ones. How could she possibly have written originally what she now holds in her hands, she wonders? It is like the chicken and the egg. She had to reach the end and start all over again because the ending now changes the beginning.

And, still, she isn’t done. Now it is time to shift into the last stage changing writing programs from Word to InDesign. Flowing her text into its final composition, she sees things again in a new way, and the precision editing begins. She starts formatting text, and paragraph spacing, adding interior graphics and dingbats and has her first real clear picture of the tangible end product and she falls in love with her child all over again. The feeling is euphoric. She has created something from deep within her that never existed before. It is unique and rare, and entirely original—no child has ever been more loved, by its mother.

She now believes the flow of the story makes sense—the meat and bones are all there. Now she can focus on the minutia—precious little fingernails and tiny eyelashes. Each time she scans a new paragraph, she looks for repetitive words. She does spell checks and searches, hunting down and targeting those pesky little phrases that seem to crop up time and time again in her prose. With each instance of—smile, glance, whisper, look, walk, shook, glance, laugh, nod, and gaze—she finds suitable counterparts. Initially, they were lazy placeholders, necessary at first to imagine and flush out the scene. Now she is in a position to craft the language more precisely to make things more vibrant and entertaining. Once again, the story is improved.

The art of re-writing becomes an addictive game of words. The work consumes her, and she almost doesn’t want it to end. Still, as the days tick by, she can sense delivery is near. She reads the story out loud one last time—this time to her editor—and again they make a few more changes; one last sentence is cut, another is added, and commas and semi-colons are adjusted. All of a sudden, she is antsy and ready for it to be over. She thinks if she looks at the manuscript one more time, she will scream. It sticks to her like glue, and she can’t shake it off. She is completely enamored with her child, but like all kids, this one is starting to drive her crazy! It is time to finally pop this thing out.

When she finally pushes the publish button, and she gives birth to her new novel, she wipes a tear from her eye and smiles with pride at her new bundle of joy. And then, as she tucks her newborn into its cradle, and pulls up the covers, she thinks—wow! that was so easy.

She wanders around the house, feeling lost, and a little depressed, despite the positive reviews and the flowers that arrive with notes praising her efforts. Now that it is all over, she wonders—what’s next?

To avoid post-partum blues, she has already begun toying with a new idea for her next novel, noodling around plot lines and imagining new characters. She gives her partner a distracted look, and he shakes his head and groans.

With labor over and the birth pains—for the most part, forgotten—she thinks quite possibly it is time to start the process all again. She always did love big families.

—

Melissa Muldoon is the Author of three books. Dreaming Sophia, Waking Isabella, and Eternally Artemisia. Her third book Eternally Artemisia is due out in January 2019. All three books form a trilogy of novels set in Italy and celebrate art and creativity. In the pages of her books, you will find the stories of three distinct women, and you will accompany them on their journeys of self-discovery to find love and uncover hidden truths—as they make new lives for themselves in Italy.

Author Website: www.MelissaMuldoon.com

Studentessa Matta Italian Dual Language Blog Website:  www.StudentessaMatta.com

Dreaming Sophia Art History Website (where I blog in English about Art and Artists): www.DreamingSophiaBook.com

Dreaming Sophia Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/DreamingSophia/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/italiamelissa

About WAKING ISABELLA

Waking Isabella is a story about uncovering hidden beauty that, over time, has been lost, erased, or suppressed. It also weaves together several love stories as well as a few mysteries. Nora, an assistant researcher, is a catalyst for resolving the puzzle of a painting that has been missing for decades. Set in Arezzo, a small Tuscan town, the plot unfolds against the backdrop of the city’s antique trade and the fanfare and pageantry of its medieval jousting festival.

While filming a documentary about Isabella de’ Medici—the Renaissance princess who was murdered by her husband—Nora begins to connect with the lives of two remarkable women from the past. Unraveling the stories of Isabella, the daughter of a fifteenth-century Tuscan duke, and Margherita, a young girl trying to survive the war in Nazi-occupied Italy, Nora begins to question the choices that have shaped her own life up to this point.

As she does, hidden beauty is awakened deep inside of her, and she discovers the keys to her creativity and happiness. It is a story of love and deceit, forgeries and masterpieces—all held together by the allure and intrigue of a beautiful Tuscan ghost.

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