Kristian Mercer

Signings in Seattle: Tracy Chevalier

Last night Tracy Chevalier spoke about her latest novel, Burning Bright. The novel was inspired by William Blake's poetry, specifically Songs of Innocence and of Experience, and the title is taken from a line in one of his most famous poems, "The Tyger."

Chevalier started her presentation with a reading from her novel, where Blake and the young protagonist, Maggie, discuss his verse. Maggie notices that the poet has crossed out words, lines, whole paragraphs, and can't help but ask him why.

Blake's reply? "What comes out first is not always best. It needs reworking to shine."

Wow. I love it when I go to booksignings--fully intending to enjoy the author's talk--and learn something that illuminates my own writing process.

Because Blake's words (whether he actually said that or not) resonated with me. In fact, I'll even go so far as to admit that this pretty much sums up my writing process. I have a terrible time getting the first draft down on paper--the blank page and the blinking cursor can be terrifying--but I am happy to tweak and tweak and tweak some more.

This, of course, is both a good and bad thing. Revisions can make the story tighter, the dialogue smoother, the characters' motivations easier to understand. I've worked on my first three chapters over and over again, and they certainly are the best they've ever been. (Here's hoping the Hearts through History judges think so, too!)

But there's also the danger of getting locked into an endless loop of fixing things. Like--I can't go on to the next chapter until I edit this one just a little bit more. Or--I'll just go back and add this detail. Or that snippet of dialogue.

So that's the challenge: to keep pushing through the revision process. To make my writing shine--without losing sight of the ultimate goal.

To bring my own novel to "the end."