Not Yet

For the record, I am not an 80-year-old woman. Not yet.

The Silence of Trees is not an autobiography. It is fiction set in a historical context.

Last night I paid my first visit to a couples bookclub for The Silence of Trees. I am most often invited to speak at bookclubs comprised predominently of women. If there are men present, it’s for a mixed-gender bookclub, but they do not usually attend as couples.

This group met when they had been seated together for the wedding of one of their children. They hit it off so well that they decided to continue to start this bookclub.

The hosts and guests were gracious and enthusiastic, their discussion lively and a lot of fun, but the hostess was slightly disappointed that I was not an 80-year-old woman.

She was sure that the novel was actually an autobiography, and she was prepared to welcome Nadya to her home. She had decorated the dining room table with a tablecloth and china that she thought would befit an elderly Eastern European guest.

When I walked in the door, she was completely thrown off. She couldn’t shake the image she had constructed in her mind of the author and narrator as the same person. What followed was an interesting conversation about how I could put myself into the mindset and create the voice of an older woman.

I’m thrilled that the character of Nadya was believable, that’s so important, but I couldn’t stop thinking about our discussion all the way home. I wonder if other writers get asked variations of that question, “How did you write this character (who is unlike you in some way: be it gender, race, age, etc.) with such authenticity?”

Clearly, when writing science fiction, horror, or fantasy, the author is creating characters who are magicians, clones, werewolves, monsters, and aliens. There’s an inherent suspension of disbelief when you open a genre book. I wonder if the genre audience is better prepared to accept a character who is unlike the writer in some way?

Can I explain the magic that happens when I sit down and slip into a character to write his or her story? Not really. It’s like trying to explain the terrain of the imagination.

When I sit down to to write, sometimes five hours will pass by in a flash. When I look up from my writing, it will be some ungodly hour in the morning, and I’ll have written thousands of words and feel as if I’ve been out of ordinary time and space for a while.

That’s the magic of writing.

After that comes the hard work of craft: shaping and revising to make sure I’ve told the story in the best way possible.

That’s the work of writing.

I love what I do. I’m so grateful that people want to read my words.

I thank you for reading–wholeheartedly.

Now back to the work.

Published by Valya

Valya Dudycz Lupescu has been making magic with food and words for more than 20 years, incorporating folklore from her Ukrainian heritage with practices that honor the Earth. She’s a writer, content developer, instructor, and mother of three teenagers. Valya is the author of MOTHER CHRISTMAS, THE SILENCE OF TREES, and the founding editor of CONCLAVE: A Journal of Character. Along with Stephen H. Segal, she is the co-author of FORKING GOOD: An Unofficial Cookbook for Fans of The Good Place and GEEK PARENTING: What Joffrey, Jor-El, Maleficent, and the McFlys Teach Us about Raising a Family (Quirk Books), and co-founder of the Wyrd Words storytelling laboratory. Valya earned her MFA in Writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and her poetry and prose have been published in anthologies and magazines that include, The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, Kenyon Review, Culture, Gargoyle Magazine, Gone Lawn, Strange Horizons, Mythic Delirium. You can find her on Twitter @valya and on Mastodon.social @valya

One thought on “Not Yet”

  1. Freda Becker says:

    Good evening,
    I just finished reading your book, The Silence of Trees, after it was recommended to me by a woman in a genealogy forum to which we both subscribe. For four years I’ve been looking for clues into my family history in the Volhynian area of Ukraine. I believe my grandmother was born in Poland in 1872, my grandfather somewhere in Russia or Ukraine in 1975. On most census records they both state they were born in Russia, except in the 1940 census grandmother stated she was born in Poland. Other than that I know very little. I want to put together a timeline of historical events that may have brought them to Volhynia, then Germany, and ultimately to America in 1907. I’m hoping you can recommend history books or other publications (I only read English) that might help me understand the time period and emigration patterns.

    Kind regards,
    Freda Becker

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