My Writing Journey by Nancy Thayer

By Nancy Thayer

My first novel, Stepping, was published by Doubleday in 1980. What a long time ago! We were living in a fourth-floor walk-up apartment in Kulosaari, a suburb of Helsinki, Finland. I wrote the first six chapters by hand in a small notebook while my two children, two and four, were “taking naps in their room.” My unpleasant and soon to be ex-husband had been invited to teach on a Fulbright fellowship. The apartment we lived in had no television, radio, record player, or toys. I’d written one novel titled A Faithful Woman which an agent, the elegant Julian Bach, had liked but couldn’t place. I’d had a few short stories published in various literary and academic journals.

Why did I continue to write? Well, I’d always written fiction, read fiction, and wanted to be a writer. I couldn’t imagine not writing. I was all the things people say you have to be: determined, persistent, dedicated. I rewrote and rewrote, but the first few pages of my first published novel are exactly the first few pages I wrote in Helsinki.

My first novel wasn’t accepted for publication until I was thirty-five.

Before that, in my twenties, I taught freshman English in several colleges and read, read, read, all the classics from Fitzgerald through Tolstoy, and Agatha Christie and Victoria Holt as well.  I also wrote, wrote, wrote.  Mostly I wrote short stories, trying to find my voice. My first short story was published in the University of Tulsa’s literary review, “Nimrod” and also in a Spanish journal.  But I wanted to write about women like me, and gradually I found a way to do it.  I remember the days when I did research by going to the library and checking the card catalog. Yes, I’m that old. I called people to ask questions. I sent snail mail asking questions. I once called my physician’s office and asked the nurse how many Valium I’d need to kill myself. (They wouldn’t tell me.) (But they knew me well enough not to worry.)

I’ve never stopped writing. I’m working on my thirty-seventh novel now, and I intend to write several more. I keep to the routine I had after my first novel was published. After I was happily divorced. I woke in the morning, got my two small children off to school and pre-school, went into my study, sat down at my IBM Selectric, and wrote. I didn’t get dressed because I knew if I got dressed, I would derail myself by doing laundry, exercising, and talking with friends on the phone. I held the morning sacrosanct for writing. I still do. I didn’t drink coffee then, although I do now. My energy supply then was taken from a large pack of M&M chocolate-peanuts.

After I write, I do housework, talk with my wonderful husband of thirty-nine years, play with the cat, and read. I try to walk every day. It’s wonderful to do what I call “letting the breeze blow through my mind.”  Late night genius thoughts? I used to scribble notes on bits of paper. Now I’ve got my iphone! Just before I turn off the light before I fall asleep, my mind likes to tease me with brilliant ideas for the book I’m working on. I can’t write at night. I’ve tried it. But I can talk to my phone and send an email to myself with the brilliant ideas, which would look weird to anyone else but make sense to me. Drew drunk. Ruby ring. Dog sugar?

I start with a character or several characters, and write the first page, allowing it to lead me to the next page, even though I know that eventually I might throw the first page away. I don’t outline or plot, but after a few pages, I make a kind of constellation of characters, with lines between them, scribbling notes about who does what to whom. After a few chapters, the novel does take on its own life, but after the first draft my editor reads it, and she is remarkable at pointing out what I’ve left out or overstated. I can’t stress how important a good editor is. I do many revisions, large and small, for my editor, and she’s right every time. 

I write on a computer, correct with a couple of taps, and then I just—push a button! And it’s there! In New York! I’m still sitting in my robe!

And I have no idea how this magic works.

But technology is a kind of magic for a writer. Not only does it make my life easier, it has made it more interesting. I can do research in my robe. I can email and take photos and zoom. Through sites like Facebook and Instagram and my newsletters, I can be in touch with people I don’t know, because they like my books and they comment on my posts. For a writer who spends a great deal of her life alone in her study talking with imaginary people, technology is a gift. The connection I feel with my readers is real, important, and sustaining.

When I’m working on a book, which is often, I save the books of writers I love to read for later, when I’ve finished the first draft of my book. But I can’t imagine a day without reading, so I read mysteries. Ann Cleeves. Deborah Crombie. Charles Todd. Jacqueline Winspear. And everything about Agatha Christie. My To-Be-Read books tower on the table next to me. My husband’s own pile is on a table next to him. Often in the evening, we sit near each other, reading, and the cat lies on the floor sleeping, and we are perfectly content.

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Nancy Thayer is the author of 36 novels, including All the Days of Summer, Summer Love, Family Reunion, A Nantucket Wedding, Secrets in Summer, A Very Nantucket Christmas, and The Hot Flash Club. Her novel Let It Snow was made into a Hallmark Christmas Movie called Nantucket Noel. All her novels are available as ereaders. Her books are about families and friendship and the beautiful island of Nantucket.  Her work has been translated into fifteen languages, including Lithuanian, Hebrew, and Finnish. Nancy Thayer has a B.A. and M.A. in English literature from the University of Missouri at Kansas City.  Before settling down to write and have children she taught English at various colleges and traveled, living in Paris, Amsterdam and Helsinki. She was a Fellow at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference in 1980 and she was awarded the Romantic Times Career Achievement Award in Mainstream Fiction in 2015.

Nancy has two grown children and five grandchildren.  She has lived on Nantucket for 39 years in a captain’s house built in 1840 with her husband Charley Walters, their cat Callie, and several thousand books. 

ALL THE DAYS OF SUMMER

A woman’s second act on the island of Nantucket delivers much more than she expected in this captivating novel by New York Times bestselling author Nancy Thayer.

“A beautiful, hope-filled, heartwarming story about new beginnings and second chances.”—RaeAnne Thayne, author of The Cafe at Beach End

Heather Willette has a good life in Concord, Massachusetts. But when her marriage has fizzles out, Heather has to decide what sort of life to live next. Ready to seek out her own happiness and discover herself again, Heather decides to leave her husband and rent a cottage on Nantucket. And her plan is going perfectly—until her son, Ross, announces he’s moving to Nantucket to work at his girlfriend’s family’s construction business instead of going back home to work with his own father, like he’d promised. Worst of all for Heather, this means having to get along with her.

Kailee Essex is thrilled that Ross is willing to move to her hometown. She has big hopes for their happily ever after, especially now that her parents are finally showing interest in her career. She’s less thrilled, however, about his mother living nearby. Kailee has clashed with Heather since the day they met. But anything is possible in the summer sun and sea breezes of Nantucket—even reconciliation. And when change comes sooner than either Heather or Kailee expect, they must learn to overcome their differences to fight for the future they want.

With All the Days of Summer, beloved storyteller Nancy Thayer delivers a moving novel that explores the complexity of family and the unexpected ways fate can guide you forward.

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Category: Contemporary Women Writers, How To and Tips