Fired Up

From a 30-year corporate career to becoming a debut author: A yoyo journey.

Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash

Looking back, I think the match that lit the fire under my writing was anger.

Irritation. Exasperation. A desire to set the record straight.

I’d read a statement, uttered in an interview, that really irritated me. And like a splinter that’s buried too deep to pull out, it festered.

I didn’t see it then, but this reaction added oxygen to a series of decisions. Ultimately, those strides would lead to my leaving behind a 30-year Corporate America career and totally commit to becoming a writer.

But even bigger, this desire to right a wrong—to tell an untold story—to protest—would also unspool into an unexpected trajectory of serendipitous support I never could have fashioned or fathomed.

When I Got Mad

In 2016, I’d been poking around searching the web for background on Jo van Gogh, Vincent’s sister-in-law. I’d glimpsed her role on a visit to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam where I discovered her work was critical to Vincent being acknowledged as a great artist, yet I hadn’t ever heard of her. When I came home from the trip and did an internet search, a smattering of articles popped up. I’ll never forget the one that set my teeth on edge.

Why do you think Jo was so tenacious in promoting Vincent’s work when no one listened to her, the interviewer asked an expert. He answered that she had no choice; she was simply obeying her husband, Theo. That Theo had been so passionate and dedicated to Vincent that when he married Jo, she witnessed his single-mindedness. So, when Theo died just six months after Vincent’s suicide—and Jo inherited the hundreds of Van Gogh art given to Theo—her subsequent work to promote Vincent was compelled by obedience to her husband’s wishes.

Really? Those words “no choice” and “obedience” pissed me off.

As though Jo couldn’t have her own agency, her own reasons.

The annoyance created questions in my mind: What was her motivation then? If not obedience, what gave her agency? Where did her resilience come from? Who helped her? Who stood in her way?

But, above all: Why was Jo so certain of Vincent’s value when experts vehemently disagreed?

I set to work to find out. I didn’t know then what an upward climb I had ahead of me.

Rookie Mistake – Making Too Much Up

If I could talk to my younger self, I would tell her not to jump in with both feet so fast—get a bigger picture on writing! Understand the publishing business! Instead, in early 2018, I plow right in to “write a book about Jo.” Very little detail is available about Jo’s life, Undeterred, I note the gaps and scribble out imagined filler. With this combination of facts and my imagination, I reimagine Jo’s life.

For the next two years, I work on a manuscript. Along the way it feels like I’m back in school: Two six-month sprints with book coaches Sheila Athens and Jill Angel, a deep manuscript evaluation by Jennie Nash, workshopping the first chapter at a writer conference, and beta reader commentary all teach me lessons about structure, characterization, dialogue and more. As I revise and refine, it feels like I’m learning a foreign language for story craft is wildly different from corporatespeak prowess, which has its place, but not on the pages of a novel.

By the summer of 2020, I finish. My husband breaks out a Chateau Neuf de Pap. We toast! Giddily I post my ta-da! on social media.

Then disaster strikes.

The Van Gogh Museum releases a detailed biography on Jo. My stomach plummets.

For in the face of facts, my beautiful, imagined story about Jo feels flimsy. Disrespectful even. Now that the details of her art dealing are available— and my goal is to honor her achievement—wouldn’t a reader expect to find out what she actually did?

Ugh. It isn’t really a question. Just a sick feeling in my stomach. The courageous, confident Jo I’d put on the page was silenced. I had to shut this version away, to do the very thing I’d set out to correct by muting her. I drop the manuscript in a drawer.

I would begin again.

Lost in Translation – No English Here

With Jo’s new biography as my Bible, in August 2020 I set out to fill in the earlier missing spaces of Jo’s life. Yet, immediately, a new problem arises. The biography is in Dutch, an unfamiliar language to me. Naïvely, I’d planned to use a language app to translate the book’s relevant chapters into English. Soon I discover the English translation is clunky, sometimes gibberish with a non-English sentence structure. Gamely, I carry on for a month, trying, and discarding app after app, until in the end, my research notes are a mess. Nearly incoherent.

I reach out to the Van Gogh Museum. “Is an English version of Jo van Gogh’s biography coming out soon?”

“If we’re lucky, a year. Maybe two. There’s no sure timeline with the pandemic.”

Dead end. And it’s so strange. I can literally hold the heavy three-inch-spine biography containing all the answers I need in my hands, yet Jo’s story is still elusive.

I am so sad.

Then in September 2020, a possible solution pops up. Upon hearing of my dilemma, an author in a writers’ group, Pamela Stockwell, tells me she has a Dutch friend, Annelies, in the Netherlands, who has done a little translation work. Because of the pandemic her in-home day care is closed. Perhaps she’d translate the book chapters for me?

On pins and needles, I dm Annelies on Facebook. And you know what? Her big heart reaches right across the Atlantic. “I’ll help you” springs tears to my eyes.

We calculate that if she translates ten pages/week, I’ll have all the chapters I need by year end. I’m on my way again. Jo’s story, her true flesh-and-blood imperfect, crazy, joyful tale will be told.

As the pages come in, I realize the biography is written thematically, dancing back and forth in time. So, resisting my usual stiff-arm Excel reaction, I create a spreadsheet. As the chapters arrive, Jo’s activities, life events, people she encounters, exhibitions she holds, specific paintings she sells, quotes, are added in chronological order. Gradually, row after row, the spreadsheet grows. After adding notes from Annalies’ last submission on December 3, I print out the spreadsheet: It’s a 55-page chronological gloriously rich record of events in Jo’s journey from being a widowed 29-year-old single parent to a triumphant 43-year-old art dealer (1891 - 1905).

My heart is light. In celebration, I sit down to read through the spreadsheet start to finish, but a few pages my enthusiasm begins to falter. Something’s off. Midway through, I have to stop reading. I am a fool. A new problem is glaringly apparent.

I don’t have a story yet.

Unlocking Narrative Power

Reading the spreadsheet, the familiar drumbeat of biography thumps: This happened, then this happened, then this happened. Yes, I know I am reading a spreadsheet, but still, there’s no inciting incident, moment of opportunity, stakes, no dark night of the soul, no thrilling climax.

The spreadsheet is a bland retelling of events. No heartache or elation. None of Jo’s panicky worry over single parenting her son; no twinge of guilt when she takes a lover.

How do I stay true to the chronological, factual flesh-and-blood progression of Jo’s life and make it compelling? Inspiring? Fun?

I’m cornered again.

Enter my friend and author, Nancy Yeager. who intrigues me with a story structure idea taught by Michael Hague, founder of the Story Mastery program. He advocates telling a story in three acts, six stages and five turning points. Each section carries the narrative forward through elements like a New Situation, Change of Plans, Point of No Return and more. I study it, pondering whether Jo’s true account can fit the framework.

If so, it will give me a structure for a character arc to take her from timid girl to confident heroine. I also see I need a Bad Guy, a nemesis to stand in Jo’s way.

So, I invent Georges Raulf, a male character to be a composite stand-in for all the arrogance and misogynism that I—oops, I mean—Jo experiences in her life. And then—fair is fair— he gets a fleshed-out character arc too, so he’s more than a caricature.

Slowly, using a tool called the Inside Outline by awesome Author Accelerator Jo’s story gradually comes to life. Based on fact, with fictionalized dialogue and other elements, her story, her accomplishments, her trials begin to emerge.

With the completed Inside Outline beside me, one month later I open up a new Word page and begin to write. By June, 85,000 new words are born. Next comes collaboration and revision with my author friend and wonderful developmental editor, Kim Taylor Blakemore. By January 2023, the manuscript is done.

Done!

My heart is singing.

What began seven years ago as a mental protest against a glib remark is now a story on the page. A labor of love, for sure, but not a labor I did alone. Did you notice the names in this post? Sheila, Jill, Jennie, Pamela, Annelies, Nancy, Kim. Sisterhood on steroids. No zero sum game here.

I’m grateful.

A Publisher Accepts Jo!

Last week’s post shares the mindset I struggled with slipping into the Pitching/Querying Phase of writing a novel, so I won’t get into that now. For one thing, this is the story of writing the story. I know better now than to ever claim the journey’s over, but I’m at a juncture when my husband’s just uncorked another bottle of wine.

We’re celebrating!

I’m delighted to share that She Writes Press, distributed by Simon and Schuster, will publish my book in Spring 2025. Every day as I’m dipping my toe in the water of the SWP community, I’m excited and humbled. A new gigantic learning curve lies ahead.

Providing guidance: Publisher pioneer

Brooke Warner

gives a taste of her transparency and foresight here on Substack. And Author Accelerator founder

Jennie Nash

, whose arresting clarity on writing gave me the inspiration to get going, is here too.

Every now and then I finger one of the crisp navy suit jackets in my closet to recall the Joan who cared so deeply about the plans and people on her work watch. She’s still here, just focused in a new direction. Up and down, erratic, one-foot-forward/two-steps back, progress is a yoyo all right.

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Warmly,

P.S. It’s nearly a decade since I read that irksome interview on Jo. Rereading the article now, I see that my memory washed away all contexts. Now I can see the expert wasn’t as bad as I remembered. Does that mean my visceral reaction was unfair? I don’t think so. A stomped-on, exasperated part of me was fed-up being silenced. Look what happened: I wrote a book.

Important Addendum from the Last Post

I fell and scraped my ego last issue. As in, after multiple revisions, I’d thrown in the towel on a short story I’d submitted to an anthology, when guess what: The editors reached out. Not only with a band aid and anti-bacterial wipes, but hands to pull me up. We Zoomed; I rewrote with much greater clarity. The story is now accepted in the Feisty Deeds anthology.

Generously, they valued my character, Nadine, enough to want to include her and to reach out. I’m thankful.

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