Never Apologize, Never Explain

In the age of remake, reboot, revise.

I have a painting in my office that my father did of him and my mother in 2001. My dad was 75 at the time. My father painted in oil and watercolors, and I tend to lean more toward his watercolors, but this one is in oil. It shows four faces in all: on one side is a profile portrait of my father as an old man, with a profile of him as a young man right in front of him, partially obscuring his older face. The other side of the painting is a mirror portrait of my mother, one face older, one face younger. Dad nailed the portraits of Mom. Both the younger and older faces look exactly like her. I would guess anyone that knew her in either time period would recognize her. The same can be said of the older portrait of my dad, a reflection of where he was at the time. The younger portrait of Dad, however, missed the mark by quite a bit. He looks like Alan Alda and, in reality, my father did not look anything like Alan Alda.

For the younger set, I present Alan Alda:

I think his failure to capture an accurate portrait of himself as a young man was because he was so far removed from that man when he painted it. It was hard to go back and step into that face again. Too much water under the bridge, too many miles on the tires. But my Mom? He still remembered her younger face like he’d just fallen in love with her. She was both of those faces to him, everyday.

I saw, and reposted, a great quote from Neil Gaiman recently about his older books:

When people ask if I’d change anything about a book I’ve already written, I want to explain to them that I’m not the person who wrote that book any longer and even if I tried right now I’d write a different one. Everything you make as a writer* is a combination of what you want to say and who you are at the time you are telling that story.

*possibly also as an artist and a human being

I think this explains, in a way, my father’s predicament when it came to his younger self-portrait. He wasn’t really telling that story—the story in the painting was more about his older self reflecting back, which is a different story altogether.

As I’m getting ready to release my new book, BRODIE, I find this Neil Gaiman quote to be spot on. Especially when it comes to new books in a series. I wrote the first book in The 93rd Highlanders in 2014. That’s ten years ago, and I think we can all agree it’s been an interesting ten years. As I start work on Hastings, the next book in the Brothers in Arms series, well, I wrote the first book, The Courage to Love*, almost twenty years ago. 20. That’s … a lot of water under the bridge. Trying to find that same voice after ten, twenty years, that’s not easy to do, and some times it’s impossible. I’m not the same person I was then. I look back on previous books and sometimes think, did I actually write this? I don’t remember writing this. This doesn’t sound like anything I’d write at all. And yet, I know I did.

That predicament becomes ten times harder when I have characters that carry over from book to book in a series. In the case of BRODIE and CONALL, the books are written so that they occur simultaneously. So I had to recreate those characters at that same moment in time, ten years later. It was … difficult, to say the least. In Brothers in Arms I’ve not done that. I can give every recurring character growth and major changes in their lives since we last saw them, so the characters have naturally changed, their character arcs continue to develop. That makes writing them so much easier book after book.

I’m recovering all the Brothers in Arms books, as you know, and the temptation was there to revise them all, but I resisted. Those books told the stories I wanted to tell at the time I wrote them. They are a marker of where my writing ability stood when I wrote them. As with anything else, practice tends to improve performance. My writing skills on the first book I wrote, The Courage to Love*, weren’t as developed as they are now. I’ve written a lot of books, taken a lot of classes, consulted a lot of experts, to get where I am now. In a recent Google search I happened to see a well-known review site (at least to me?) did a reread of The Courage to Love. Caveat: I didn’t read the article, I only saw the little description in the Google listing. But what I did see was that she didn’t think the book held up? Like I said, I didn’t go read it, but that seemed to be where she was going. I still choose not to revise it. I know so many people who love that book. It’s still one of my best-sellers. I almost feel like I’d be betraying those readers if I changed it. Sort of like when they do a remake of one of your favorite movies, and they change something that you loved about it. A revised book, like a movie remake, is a different book. And if I’m going to write a new book, I’m going to write a new, new book. Not rehash an old one.

This turned out to be a lot longer than I anticipated, lol. I know, I’ve said that before. Anyway, I’ve finished edits on BRODIE (universal link to all preorders except Amazon), and it will go live on my Ream subscription page this weekend (for paid subscribers), and then it will be officially released at retailers on June 15. Finally!! But you can preorder (Amazon) it now, don’t forget! Also, the sale on HAMISH (Apple link because Amazon refused to make it free) and CONALL* ends this week, so if you haven’t grabbed your copies better do so quickly.

*Amazon links, I may get a commission if you buy anything after you click.

My Favorite Things This Week:

• This flourless chocolate cake recipe from King Arthur Flour. I sort of Sacher-torted it by adding some apricot jam to the top before I covered it in that rich chocolate ganache. It was decadently delicious, and surprisingly easy!

• I just did a virtual conference called the Writer MBA with Russel Nohelty and Monica Leonelle. I learned so much, particularly about marketing. It was free this past weekend, but now you have to pay for access. It’s only $50 and so worth it if, like me, you’re trying to figure out the whole marketing thing.

• The Gentlemen on Netflix. It’s a new series from Guy Ritchie, so it’s alternately extremely violent, and hilarious. A real indictment of the modern British system of aristocracy. We love it. Theo James, who stars in it, was also in the first season of Sanditon on PBS, so he checks my Jane-Austen-affiliated box, too.

Quote of the Week:

I already gave you a quote, up above!!