Okay, I know, a Cat Post...

I hesitate to write this blog post because I am aware of the stereotypes regarding writers and their cats... but I'm plunging ahead anyway for two reasons.

1. Recently, I was sent a copy of Revolutionary's jacket with the cover copy and the cats are mentioned in my author bio.  In short, they're legit.
2. I really do believe in the message of this post and how it affects my (writing) life.

So here goes.  Our apartment building has begun an HVAC renovation, which means that every weekday the apartment must be ready for workmen to enter each room at 9am and stay until 5pm.  Hence, no furniture within six feet of certain walls, cardboard taped to the floor to prevent gouging, and (most importantly) the cats locked up in the bathroom.

Every morning, therefore, I set the bathroom up for them -- fuzzy pet cups to sleep in, a litter box, water, and food.  Then I go and write, leaving the cats to roam freely until I hear the workmen in the hall.

Now, just for entertainment, here are pictures of the two of them, hopefully capturing their personalities.

The one above is Magic.  Sometimes spelled Magick.  But never Magique.

And this one is Soda.  They're both sixteen.

Every morning, as soon as I set up the bathroom for them, Soda saunters past, jumps on the bed, and promptly falls asleep on her favorite blanket.  Magic, on the other hand, prowls and paces for the hour until I lock them up.  Both of them know what's coming... neither one of them enjoys being sequestered in the bathroom, but one of them lets the future (the unavoidable, inevitable imprisonment) wreck the last hour of freedom she has and the other one just does her thing.

Perhaps this is a lesson that resonates with me because of the rather looming event in my future (i.e. publication of my debut novel) but even without any large or impending (positive or negative) occurrence on the horizon, I think these cats give a fair reminder. And it's not the lesson that I've often heard (and dislike hearing) about why pets are great... this is not a case of "ignorance is bliss."  Soda knows darn well what's going to happen: she just doesn't let it affect her routine.

Understanding Your Characters...

This post is tailored specifically to those who are developing characters in historical fiction, but is, I believe, applicable to the craft of understanding your characters in general.  It also builds on some previous posts I have done about women in the revolutionary war.

You can read the earlier posts (I hope you do!) about Molly Pitcher(s) and their role not only during the war (camp followers) but after the war (loyal wives, in-the-moment-soldiers).  Given how these women are celebrated, as I noted earlier, it is not surprising that Deborah Sampson was given little attention for many decades:  she didn't fit neatly into the women-who-followed-her-husband-into-combat mold that felt "safe" to 19th century readers and writers.

When I began the research for my first novel, Revolutionary, I wanted to look at as wide a range of sources as I could on Deborah.  The earliest material is filtered through her biographer, Herman Mann and the later material is filtered through the biases and predispositions of the era in which they were written.

So here's the first part of the craft lesson for writers of historical fiction: make sure you look at your "real life" characters not just from one historical vantage point.  Get the fullest picture of them that you can by considering how they were written about by their contemporaries, by their children, by their friends, by their rivals, and by later writers.  It is poor history (and poor historical fiction) to rely only on one source or from sources all from the same era (even if it is "eye-witness").

For Deborah, two visual images will suffice to prove my point.  Here they are:

Both are early-mid 19th century depictions of Deborah Sampson that accompanied pamphlets or short writings on her. In both she is in uniform and with a weapon (or two!).  But, as those who read the earlier blogposts might note... she is also posed near a cannon.  It is not impossible that Deborah might have been near cannons in her service.  Certainly, she was at sites that would have had them.  But it is quite hard to argue that she used cannons at all.  Cannons were for pitched battle and Deborah was involved in small skirmishes only.  (Granted, she did claim to have been at Yorktown, or Mann placed her there, or both, but this is not true.)

So, when I was researching her character, I asked myself: why is she depicted this way?  What is being said about her?  I believe that both artists are making a subtle nod to the Molly Pitcher(s) legends.  By putting Deborah near a cannon, they are indicating to the viewer that this is a woman on the battlefield.  It is somewhat comforting -- suggesting that she served in the familiar and acceptable manner -- to have her depicted thus.  Much more comforting than Deborah just waving a sword or holding a gun, I'd argue.

To leave my particular case and look at craft in general, what I'd suggest is this.  Read (and look) widely as you explore your historical character.  Chip away at bias.  Consider how your character has shifted and been reinvented over the course of history.  And then...

Take good stock of how you wish to depict your character.  Realize that you are situated on this continuum that you have just explored.  Your depiction will be no less biased, no less a product of your own time and expectations (and this, I would argue is true for fictional characters that aren't historical) than any other.  It is better to be upfront and aware of your bias though.

In my own case, I knew that being transgender, I would come to Deborah's story from a particular angle.  Likewise, writing with a 21st-century understanding of gender and women's rights, I would also be biased against certain depictions of her and want to show her actions as reasonable and even virtuous -- quite the opposite of how many of her contemporaries saw her and wrote about her.

In order to fully understand, fully develop, and fully realize your characters, you need to understand your own perspective on that character!

Let me know what you think... Leave a Comment!

Getting Settled

We have recently moved from RI to DC, and, after the major aspects of moving were accounted for, i. e. the kitchen, a place to sleep, the cats content, I made it my priority to get my new writing space set up.  I have a good span of time to work this summer, and I turned in those first pass pages of Revolutionary, so my desk is now loaded up with work on new stuff... exciting!

This first one is the larger view of the space.  Please note the cat, Magic, sleeping in her carrier in the lower right.  She is, as always, essential to the writing process.

And a closer view of my messy desk.

How do you like to arrange your writing space?  Or do you prefer to work at a cafe?  I know that everyone's different in their requirements... 

Deborah Sampson Gannett and... George Washington?

As I was sleuthing around the internet, looking for information on Deborah's years after the war (a fascinating story, though not part of my novel), I kept coming across an image of her handing a letter to General George Washington.

Here's a link to this image: Deborah&Washington.

The image is a 19th century engraving, and in it, Deborah (on the right), stands with her arm extended, offering a letter to a seated Washington.  She is dressed in military garb, of a sort.  Certainly, her garments are men's wear.  However, she doesn't have a weapon nor does she have any sign of rank.  In one hand, she holds a tricorn hat -- the emblem of the "minute man" and revolutionary war soldier.  She is also bent, as if bowing to Washington, her eyes clearly downcast.  In all, she appears submissive, especially in comparison to how the men are depicted.

Two men are in the engraving.  One, his back to the viewer, has epaulets and a sword at his side (signifier of rank as well as of masculinity!) and stands in a posture that appears almost hostile.  He has a hand on his hip and his face, shown in profile, bears a look of disdain.  It isn't clear who this person is supposed to be -- General Paterson (Deborah's commanding officer)?  An aide to Washington?  What he represents, though, is clear: he is the military establishment, overseeing the scene before him, asserting dominance and displeasure.

The other man is George Washington.  He is seated with epaulets of rank on his shoulder, his body turned to face Deborah, suggesting openness.  Together with his seated position, his posture is much less combative than the other man's.  However, it would be too much to read acceptance into his depiction; he doesn't reach for the missive and his face is shown with a clear scowl.

Overall, it is an odd engraving.  The scene that it claims to depict is Deborah handing a letter to Washington, a letter that discloses her female nature (the letter was purported to have been written by the physician who treated an injury of hers).  Two things are strange.  First is the lack of factual basis.  It is possible that Deborah met with (in the sense that she was in the room with) Washington during her service.  She did carry messages between New Windsor (where General Paterson was stationed) and Newburgh (where Washington was stationed).  However, she doesn't mention any meeting in the biography written about her, and that biography is inclined to take notice and make use of any possible means of aggrandizement.  Indeed, she reports that she handed her letter to General Paterson and it was he who dismissed her (the apocryphal engraving account says that Washington read the letter, recognized the sensitive nature of the contents, dismissed Deborah to another room, and then went to meet her there, handing her a letter of discharge as well as a sum of money).

Why make this history up?  I interpret it as a sad statement about fame.  It is not enough to tell one's own story on one's own merit.  Rather, it must be appended to the story of another famous person.  (The old riding of coat-tails cliche.) For the 19th century, claiming a connection with Washington was a means of gaining some celebrity.  Especially for Deborah, this also legitimizes her claim -- it implies that she "passed" in front of Washington and that her service wasn't peripheral to the war but right at the heart.

But, on the level of the art itself, there are several peculiar factors.  It makes sense that Deborah wouldn't be happy about the situation (if she knows what the letter holds).  But why are the men upset?  They don't know what the letter says.  Their apparent disdain could be nothing more than a reflection of the class differentiation at the time; ranking officers had little need to be indulgent with enlisted men.  But I think that their facial expressions and body postures, together with Deborah's positioning and costuming, connote something more significant about gender relationships.  They are showing superiority; they are showing mastery; they are showing disapproval.  Deborah is lesser in every sense.  She is smaller, she is bent, she is not given a rank or a weapon.

Even though this scene is apocryphal, meaning that the artist had ever license needed to recreate it as he wished, he appears to have interpreted it through a heavy lens of 19th century bias, translating his disapproval for her service and her "masquerade."  Too bad... this moment, in my mind, was one of victory and triumph.

Transgender Teens and Sports

Today's New York Times article on transgender teens (Here) really grabbed me.  I've written on a lot of different aspects of transgender identity, mostly in nonfiction, but also in fiction, and this isn't one I've grappled with fully.

The article's gist is this: when high school students transition from one gender to the next (whatever the "direction" or end destination), it is often difficult to figure out which team that person should play on.  The catalyzing agent in this article seems to be the number of legislative initiatives cropping up to support the rights of transgender students to play sports in their reassigned gender.  

What amused me, in a dark way, about the article is that the critics from the conservative side make verbatim the same arguments that were used 17 years ago when I came out as transgender and were used 35 years ago when Renee Richards came out.  I find it baffling that anyone would think that a person would transition from one gender to another merely to get a competitive advantage (unless there are field hockey teams full of MtFs of which I'm unaware).  So unlikely for so many reasons... given the social stigma still attached to being transgender weighs much heavier than any possible advantage one could gain (professional avenues for female athletes being limited).  

I found it heartening that many states and sports governing bodies have policy on this matter -- clear cut standards about who can play on which teams after how many years of hormones or how much reassignment surgery.

Like many issues within the transgender world, this one is of greater concern for MtFs than FtMs (given that someone born biologically male would have greater natural strength and therefore athletic advantage).  However, the article gives a little airtime to FtM athletes as well, capturing with one short vignette how hard it can be for a sporty FtM to give up athletic competition.

It was for me.  I was a three sport athlete in high school and serious about two of them, ice hockey and lacrosse.  I loved to play sports - I loved to run and lift weights and be on a team.  I even loved to play pick-up games in sports I was lousy at like basketball or softball.  When I started living as a man, I felt I had to give up sports.  Briefly -- and with great personal conflict -- I skated for a season on the Harvard womens' ice hockey team.  It is a long story, and perhaps one I'll fully explore in an essay... but the NYT article brought up that sense of loss I felt.  Being an athlete had been a huge part of my identity, and I lost that when I came out.

Once I started taking hormones, years after college, I did start competing again, in running races and triathlons.  I competed against biological men and -- though certainly no superstar -- held my own.  Often placing in the top 5 or 10 in my age group.  It fills some of the gap.  I take heart from the article that, maybe, this generation of trans-folk won't have to cede their spot on a team.

The Cover of Revolutionary....

There's the old saying, I know: you can't judge a book by...

BUT.

There are books I pick up, and books I let sit, and sometimes that is based on the cover.  (That said, there are books that have terrible covers that I love nonetheless.  And sometimes covers I once didn't like will grow on me in a thoroughly irrational way.  Perhaps there's a future blog post out there about covers I love, covers I loathe, and covers I've been converted to.)

I am THRILLED with the cover of my first novel, Revolutionary.  So many thanks and so much admiration to the design folks at Simon & Schuster.

Check it out... when the cover is closed:

And when the cover is open:

Okay.  This is going to be a gush.  So bear with me.  The things I love about this cover...

• The use of vertical lines on the front.  I love the suggestion this gives of division, of a split, of a defining line.  I like how it divides my name (and the words "A Novel") as well as the title itself.  This plays so well with the theme of two-ness.
• To pair with this, the use of color in the name and title.  Again, things both run together and are separate.  So essential to the notion of self and identity that Deborah feels.
• The colors/stripes.  I like it for the flag motif, of course.  There is an immediate American theme.  But also for the way the horizontal meets the vertical.  The two intersect inevitably, but it is a merging we expect, given the flag.
• The stitching.  Deborah was a weaver. In the first version of the novel (and a few of the subsequent ones), the construction of her first male garments played a huge role.  In the final version, she stitches much of her uniform while at West Point (a point that is historically accurate, I believe) and so the sewing is part of the plot.  But this also relates to her story, how it is stitched and woven together, and in the novel, she often compares her life to fabric.  Alfred Young notes that Deborah was proud of her weaving: she was good at it.  In later life, when she no longer worked as a weaver, she still kept samples of her fabric at hand to show how tight her "lawn" (linen) was.  Not only is there stitching by the stripes have a fabric look.
• The rough edge on the left.  It looks almost unfinished, and I like that for the suggestion that things aren't neatly concluded.
• The division/unity of the figure on the cover.  She is clearly a woman with the jacket open.  She is clearly whole and in action. But with the cover closed, there is some ambiguity.  Not too much, but enough.  I think Deborah would have had to look more male than this, but the closed image is still very suggestive of how masculinizing a uniform and equipment can be.  Plus, with the cover closed, the idea of division is extended.  She is half there, half not.

Alright.  Clearly I'm a fan.  I just hope it's something that makes you want to pick it up and give it a try.

Part Three: the 2013 article

This section completes my reflections comparing two New Yorker articles on trans-identity, one from 1994 (before I came out; an article that lingered in my memory) and one from 2013.  I hope you enjoy.  As always, leave a comment -- I'd love to hear about other influential articles on this topic.

Okay.  Jump ahead to 2013.  (I know, I’m skipping over a lot.  Maybe, in my copious free time and if anyone expresses an interest in it, I will go ahead and find some articles from the middle years.)  Talbot’s article “About a Boy” also leads with a picture: a soft-colored, brushed-feeling, photo of a teen boy (think early Justin Beiber) looking away from the camera.

The shift in tone and terminology is incredible.  In one sentence, Talbot waves away the entire premise of the 1994 article saying that FtMs have “rarely sought surgery” in the past, then adding that Skylar, the subject of the article, has had top surgery.  In the following pages, surgery gets a few short mentions, a paragraph or two of description (no “pulsing hot dogs”), but is largely relegated to the margins as too expensive or impractical, with the subtext that it is regarded as unnecessary by many FtMs.

What is at the center of this 2013 article is that gender is wide-open.  The 1994 article had one line in which gender was described as a spectrum, as fluid (noting that this idea tended to make people uncomfortable).  The 2013 article celebrates this. Gone is the notion that transsexual means surgery or even a definitive moment of change.  Instead, the article is full of interviews and conversations celebrating gender as way of being and expressing, as a lived experience – it is not clinical, it is not fully biological.  Rather, it is about self and comfort and finding the right place to inhabit.

If the 1994 article alienated me (then and now), the 2013 article made feel old.  Talk of FtMs as wanting surgery and male genitalia produced the “not me!” response.  Talk of gender role exploration and puberty suppressors produced a “kids these days!” feeling.  As usual, I’m somewhere in between.  Hormones, yes; surgery, no.  The idea of being this or that… and only this or that, leaves me uncomfortable.  But so does the idea of being neither/nor.  Of course, I accept both.  I accept that gender has two end-points; I accept that gender is fluid spectrum; I accept that someone might find themselves anywhere; that that anywhere might change on a given day. 

Mostly, though, I am grateful that this discussion and exploration continues and that it is something that can be written and spoken about.  That 1994 article hit me hard: it was the first response from a universe that had, as I saw it, denied me a vocabulary.  Now, it is rare for me to use the word “transgender” and find someone unfamiliar with the term.  For all the common usage, though, I am no more certain of what it means for me, let alone for someone else.

Part Two: Revisiting an Article from 1994...

(This continues yesterday's post, in which I reflect on two New Yorker articles on trans-identity: one from 1994 and one from 2013.)

Having downloaded the 1994 article – The New Yorker’s online archives for subscribers are amazing! – I felt an immediate kinship.  There was the photograph.  Loren Cameron (back in 1997, I got him to come and speak at Harvard when I was a student there; I don’t know if I ever connected him with the article until now) and James Green, staring at themselves in the mirror.  It’s a strange picture.  It is black and white, and stark feeling.  Cameron’s side is to the camera; Green’s real (non-reflected) body isn’t visible, but their mirror images put their faces in view.  It’s oddly suggestive of not wanting to be seen, yet wanting to see oneself. 

I felt the same reaction now I felt nineteen years ago: they look like men.  And, smaller, that flip of jealousy: I want to look like that. 

But, reading through, I discovered I had largely forgotten the content of the article.  Indeed, all I remembered closely was the detailed and graphic description of a phalloplasty (including the phrase “pulsing hot dog” of flesh).  The article is so biological, so oriented on surgery, on sex as physical, as transsexual as a series of actions to complete a transformation. 

The start of the piece is the only place where gender is explored and where interviewed FtMs say things that I might have then (and do now) found resonant.  Things like the fact that they never felt comfortable with coming out as lesbian; that they had always felt misunderstood and unable to communicate exactly why.  But much of it, I think, distanced me back then from the idea of transsexual (the article doesn’t use the term transgender) identity.  In 1994, at 16, I think hormones and surgery seemed unrealistic, scary, a huge and unimaginable leap.  I liked that image at the start: the two men gazing at themselves, as if in awe of their own bodies, the realization that they had been women.  I just didn’t want to go through everything the article described.

Indeed, it wasn’t until I met transgender people who weren’t taking hormones and who hadn’t had surgery, yet were living as the other gender that I came out.  For me, it has always been about gender rather than about sex – a distinction buried by the 1994 article.  And that’s what I take away from this piece and the topic of terminology.  There it is: the term is transsexual.  Sex.  Body.  Biology.  The change.  That was the description and depiction of the identity back in the mid-90s.

Trans in Wyoming

I've added another piece to my nonfiction archive... this one's about a summer I spent in Wyoming (or at least the start of that summer).  It was, though the essay doesn't reveal this facet, a truly wonderful three months that I stayed out there.  Again, the essay concerns being transgender and especially wrestling with being closeted, being safe, and also being true to self.  Hope you enjoy... and, in the spirit of previous posts, I dug up this photo of me (later in the summer) in Wyoming.  Note: that is snow behind me, even though the picture was taken late June/early July.  Check out the essay (published originally in Conte in 2008) via the tab above.  Let me know what you think!

Elvis...In the Nonfiction Section

I've posted another essay published a while back (2008) and added some musing about transgender identity. To pique your interest, I dredged up some photos to share. First, here I am in the role I write about... Conrad Birdie!

That's me on the right -- I'm eleven.  You can read the essay by following the "Nonfiction" tab above.

And, just because I found it and thought it made good contrast, here I am on the same stage (the one not playing the upright bass, in case you're in doubt), about three years later.  Now, in which photo am I in drag?

Another Road Trip

I've just entered another section in my "Researching Revolutionary" section (see tab above)... this one on a road trip to Middleborough and Sharon Massachusetts, where Deborah lived before and after the war, respectively. There are photos of some notable sites, so enjoy! Next week I'll post the final installment in this section... but if you have any areas of research that you'd like me to expand on, please leave a comment and let me know.

Road Trip...

Continuing on with my entries on researching Revolutionary, I just added a section on a road trip I took up to spots in New York:  West Point, New Windsor, Newburgh, and other places where Deborah Sampson was stationed or fought.  There are lots of pictures as well as explanations for how these sites influenced my writing and revision.  Check it out via the tab above.  And... for those who aren't sure it's worth the tab click, here's a sample photo to entice you:  a shot of me at New Windsor, standing next to a reconstruction of one the cabins.  Now imagine you're a woman, disguised as a man, living in one of these (along with a dozen other soldiers) for an entire winter in 1782!

Perhaps you've checked out the tab above that concerns "what I'm reading now"?  Here's a picture of Magic reading Ethan Frome with me.  She's a huge Wharton fan, and she especially appreciates the presence of a cat in this novel (she's currently working on a critical piece examining feline normativity and American realism).

Also, I'm putting together a reading list on the topic of dystopian and utopian literature (just finished reading Herland) -- any suggestions?  High school age appropriate... need not feature cats (though that's always a plus).

Earlier, I posted some pictures of where I like to write... and it is true: I prefer to write standing up and I also like to write (to paraphrase Virginia Woolf) in a room of my own.  But I couldn't resist adding in this shot of one of our cats, Magic, "assisting" in the writing process.  (She's especially helpful with revision.)

Recent Road Trip...
So, in preparing to write about the research process, I went off on a road trip to Middleborough and Sharon Massachusetts, where Deborah lived before and after the term she served in the army.  (I'd been there prior to writing the novel, but hadn't taken pictures.)  Though I won't be writing this "blog entry" in the research section for another couple weeks (I have a schedule!  And an outline!), I couldn't resist sharing these pictures.  Consider them a teaser...

 This building is an outhouse dating from the 1700s... it was on the site of Sproat's Tavern, where Deborah worked before entering the service.  Kudos to the Middleborough Historical Society for preserving it.  I had to resist the temptation to put a sign in front:  Deborah Samson sat here!

 Here I am at my ancestor's street in Sharon Massachusetts. There are actually several Deborah Sampson streets around.

And this is Deborah's statue outside the Sharon Public Library.  She's wearing a dress, but has her regimental uniform jacket over her shoulder, a powder horn in one hand and her tricorn and musket in the other.  Can you see the family resemblance?

I've wrapped up a section of posting... check out the "About Me/About Revolutionary" link above or just click here.  You'll find a synopsis of the novel, a brief author biography, and a little bit about where/how I write.  Photos included!

Now, on to blogging about the process of researching and how I used that fact to create historical fiction.  Expect an update within a week.