I’m keeping a blog just about my Paris experience, about my research for my new book, The Appassionata. Here’s the address: http://parisonmymind.blogspot.com/, please go check it out. I arrived in Paris yesterday.

I just paid for most of my trip to Paris this morning, plane ticket, everything. I’m a little shell-shocked, realizing what I’ve done. I now have an apartment and a plan. I’m getting on a plane in less than two months. Geeze!  I’ve been reading Richard Holmes. He wrote the definitive biography of Percy Bysshe Shelley and is a huge name in Romantic studies. His book is about living in Paris and hunting down some of characters that are hovering in the wings of my book. I’ve been focused on the musicians, but Georges Sand is big and of course, she’s part of the literary scene. That’s where Holmes is focused and I feel myself being tugged in his direction. In fact, in some ways, my book is more up in the air than ever.

I’m a little ahead of the curve here, but I did turn in the opening of my manuscript to our local writers conference fiction contest.  It took second place. Of course, I’m pleased to take second place, but my response to the fact that it didn’t take first, has been to look at the opening with a very critical eye. I really think it needs to be so good it does take first, before I say it’s “right.”  It’s actually more than the second place. The other concern is a structural thing, down the road a bit. I can’t figure out an elegant way to include two events that I really want in the book. The idea that I would “flash back” to capture them is distasteful because the whole book is really a flashback, so it would be a kind of flashback inside a flashback, which strikes me as confusing and inelegant.

For awhile I’ve just thought I would lose the pieces I couldn’t figure out how to include, but the 2nd place, got me thinking that maybe I haven’t started the book the way I actually should… yet. So I’ve begun a new version of chapter one, which is actually six months earlier in time to the one I had. This allows me to have both of the pieces I wanted without flashbacks, as they both took place in those six months. The book, instead of opening in the midst of the July 1830 revolution, with its street violence, is now starting on opening night of Victor Hugo’s, Hernani, which is a play that many say was the most important theatrical event of the nineteenth century and marks the opening of the Romantic epoch in Paris. How can I not include that in my book?

But, now, instead of a four-year-old Tori with her mother, I’ve got the guys… the men (and they were almost entirely men) who were part of Hugo’s circle and who were responsible for the historic nature of Hernani’s opening in Paris. They were all dressed as hippies and acting out as wildly as any San Francisco hippie of my day ever did. In fact, it’s almost shocking to me to realize that everything I thought we “invented” had been done in Paris a century and more before… the clothes, the hair, the communal living, the utopian politics in general, and, of course, the preoccupation with art, being an artist, and with philosophy.

Amazing—and part of the story I want to tell. So, it seems to me part of what’s happening is I’m rethinking the thrust of my book. It had to come, but it’s a bit overwhelming. I wanted it to be simple and unfold in an orderly manner. Don’t think that’s the case, exactly, though it still feels more straight forward than Requiem for the Author of Frankenstein, which was, you know, a fifteen year project. God help me if The Appassionata takes even half that long.

I don’t believe I’ve become so blasé about these things that I failed to celebrate Requiem’s first place Gold in New York at the Book Expo America. The Book of the Year Award for an independently published work of Historical Fiction. A great accomplishment that I should not fail to celebrate here and elsewhere. Requiem has won first place twice in the Historical Fiction category and was nominated for the Northern California Book of the Year Award in Fiction. Can’t over that. It has been recognized for merit 6 times now. Not bad for my first novel. I need to realize that, to believe in it. To trust the future.

Okay. I’ve rented an apartment. Totally blows my mind, but there you have it. I’ve rented an apartment in Paris for three months. Just writing it down gives me the shivers. I’ve finally moved to excitement. I’m still really afraid of myself, but such is life. What I mean is, I’m just blown away that I actually have made this thing happen. I’ve sent off the first half of September’s rent. I mean, I’m financially invested. That’s part of what’s frightening.  But it’s all frightening, flying, speaking French, living in a big, sophisticated European city….. and finishing my novel. (That’s the easiest part, actually.)

My apartmemt is in the 9th arrondissement, just south of Montmatre, in an area people call “the new Left Bank.” My street is described thusly: “The Avenue Trudaine is wide and stately, as beautiful as any of the grand streets of Paris, but it’s only three blocks long, a boulevard to nowhere…. It runs into the trendy Rue des Martyrs, easily one of the hippest shopping streets in Paris and one that is always packed. But the Avenue Trudaine is mostly empty, and some mornings I take one of the shaded sidewalk tables in front of Sole Caffe and join the expats reading the Guardian.” An expat cafe just down the street? That feels good.

Anyway. I’m taking little steps, and in fact, big steps. I’ve joined a program. I’ll be studying art history and French Culture along with a couple days of French and I’ll be researching the locations in my novel. I’ve got this thought that I’d like to have a completed manuscript before I go, but that’s a reach. In any event, I’m going, going, going…..  how amazing. That’s all I can say.

My apartment is also walking distance from two of the major locations in my novel, the home of Georges Sand and the home of Ary Scheffer, a dutch painter and the host of many salons, including one that’s in my book. Scheffer’s home is now a museum dedicated to Romanticism in Paris and has a lot of Georges Sand’s effects on display. I’m also not that far, perhaps a long walk, from the home of young Franz Liszt and of the original Conservatory of Music, another important location in my book.  In fact, the streets in the area are part of my book, so obviously, I’m going be walking my neighborhood, looking for evidence of life 150 years ago.

In fact, here’s what that same article says about “my” neighborhood’s history: “This was the great Bohemia from the Restoration to Haussmannization.… It was built from about 1815 to 1840, and in the 1820s and 1830s this was the most modern part of Paris, where all the new money was.”  This is my time frame, The Appassionata opens in 1830 and moves very quickly to this neighborhood, where Franz Liszt and the Farrenc family live and where the Conservatoire of Musique plies its trade.

There is, for example, a fountain that I wrote about, a kind of landmark for Tori (my main character, Victorine Farrenc) and a street that I’ve described several times. Now I have to find something that is its equivalent and adjust my description to fit some version of the facts. That’s one of my plans. Another is to describe the Square d’Orleans, where Georges Sand lived. The buildings aren’t open, but the square is, and there’s action in my book that takes place outside Sand’s home, on the street and in that square. That’s the kind of research I have in mind. But I’ve also learned where Louise Farrenc’s original manuscripts (Tori’s mother was a composer) are housed, and where Chopin’s original manuscripts are—in fact there’s a museum called Salon de Chopin that I’ll be visiting. There’s also a museum dedicated to Delacroix and one of Victor Hugo’s homes is a museum.

Hugo was living in this particular home in 1848, the next major stopping point in my novel, the part I’m about to write. I’ve started thinking that I’m going to brave the obvious, and include Hugo. I’ve been intimidated by the idea because he’s such a huge character, but now I’m thinking that my girl, Tori, is going to find her way to his home… I’m working over the logical progression that will lead to this in my mind even now. I’ve wanted to include a 1830 piece of theatre that Hugo wrote and produced, called Hernani, one of the most significant milestones, marking the “beginning” of Romanticism in Paris. It parallels Hair in the 1960s in many ways, including the wild, “hippie” dress of Hugo’s fans. So, it seems important to get it into the story. I haven’t know how, and I still don’t, but I feel it brewing.

So. Enough for now. I’m planning to keep a running commentary of my Parisian experience going on my blog. So stay tuned for more.

Hello out there. I’ve been totally neglecting my blog for so long that it’s probably pointless to begin using it again. But in fact, there’s so much going on, that I want to. So here I am.

In the good news column: The first nice piece of news is that my new novel, The Appassionata, which is just a little over halfway there, has garnered its first recognition out in the world. I entered the opening pages in a Ficiton Contest at the Mendocino Coast Writers Conference and I just learned this morning that my manuscript took 2nd place. I’m very pleased. This means I’ll get to read at the conference and get the piece published in the Todd Point Review. That’s great news and goes with the thrust of my emotional energy these days, which is really full-on engaged in the new story I’m telling.

Second piece of good news: I’ve been invited to be a presenter/facilitator at the Big Sur Writers Conference next March.

Third piece of good news: I’ve been invited to give a reading and a workshop for “Soundings,” a Mendocino Coast Writers Conference bi-yearly event. This is also for next March. Fortunately, there wasn’t a conflict in dates, so I get to do both, almost back-to-back.

Further good news: I’ve been teaching writing and really enjoying it. I have an ongoing class at the Gallery Bookstore in Mendocino, which we’re about halfway through. It’s a critique group and really a very good class. I’m enjoying it immensely. I also taught a daylong workshop on historical fiction in Ukiah a few weeks back and that was a great success too. My students gave me a standing ovation at the end. I loved teaching it.

I’ve picked up work editing as well. I have two authors right now who have entrusted me with their fiction manuscripts and I just got asked to serve on a very interesting dissertation committee at my old alma mater, California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. I’m very pleased about that, it gives me the status of adjunct faculty at CIIS and helps, I think, with the energies I’m directing toward getting to teach a class there.

There’s a TON of stuff to say about Paris. I’m leaving Sept. 12 for a three month stay. I’ll write about in my next entry.

Just got a Google Alert letting me know that I am among “the Bay Area’s best and the brightest.” How sweet it is!  The article is from the San Jose Mercury News, talking about the Awards Ceremony next weekend and my nomination for the 2009 Northern California Fiction Award.

“If there were ever a shred of doubt that the Bay Area is a veritable wellspring of literary talent, one would need only to drop in on the gathering the Northern California Book Awards hosts every year to honor local authors and present six of them with prizes for the best-published works of the previous year. Next Sunday’s ceremony, at 1 p.m. in the Koret Auditorium of the San Francisco Public Library, is no exception.”

Story Stalking: Historical Fiction Writing Workshop with novelist Molly Dwyer is set for 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. on June 20, 2009 at Mariposa Center, a rural retreat in an oak-filled canyon ten minutes from Ukiah in Mendocino County. The $75 workshop fee includes a copy of her award-winning novel, “Requiem for the Author of Frankenstein” and a box lunch. Molly will use guided and free writing exercises, conversation, and presentation to explore four aspects of writing historical fiction:

• RESEARCH: Including linear approaches (such as the internet, primary sources, and period literature) and intuitive methods (such as travel, location scouting, dreaming, and synchronicity).

• FRAMING: How to shape fact into fiction and develop a strong sense of time and place with special attention to the sensibilities of characters living in another period or culture.

• STRUCTURE: How to organize a complex body of work to facilitate movement between research and writing, and how to coordinate between background, foreground and back-story material.

• ETHICS: How to stretch the facts to fit the fiction and transform fiction to fit the facts, and how to strike a balance between the two.

“GLOWING! Molly Dwyer gave one of the best, most articulate presentations about writing I have ever experienced, at any venue. I highly recommend her. Molly’s perspective is grounding, informative, inspiring, and current. Write on!”—Cindy Pavlinac, Vice President, California Writers Club Marin Branch

Molly has been a transformational educator for twenty years. She earned an MA from SSU and a PhD from the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. She studied creative writing with Irish poet, Seamus Heaney, studied fiction writing at Galway University in Ireland, novel writing with England’s prestigious Arvon Project and literature in an Oxford University summer program. Her debut novel, “Requiem for the Author of Frankenstein” was just nominated for the Northern California Book Award in Fiction as one of the best works by a northern California author published in 2008.

So. My name made it into the San Francisco Chronicle in an article about the awards. That is something I find exciting. Here’s the article. A friend gave me a copy, which appeared in the weekend Book Section and another friend said, “laminate it!” And you know, I might just do that!

WOW!! That’s all I can say, just wow!!

I just learned this afternoon that Requiem for the Author of Frankenstein, has been nominated for the Northern California Book Award in Fiction as one of the best works by a northern California author published in 2008.

It’s my second award nomination in two weeks. Last week Requiem was nominated for the 2008 Book of the Year Award for Historical Fiction by Forewords Magazine, a national award that’s being presented at the Book Expo America in New York City at the end of May.

The Bay Area award will be presented at 28th Annual Northern California Book Awards on Sunday, April 19, at Koret Auditorium, San Francisco Main Library, 100 Larkin at Grove, at 1:00 p.m. It’s followed by a reception and book signing. The ceremony and reception are free and open to the public. They’ve told me all nominee will be honored on stage. I’m planning to attend. I’m giddy!

The Mendocino Book Company in Ukiah is hosting a National Women’s History event. I’ve been invited to be part of it, as has my publisher, Cynthia Frank. The evening starts at 6 pm. Hope to see you there. I’ll be talking about my writing, Mary Shelley, and probably about George Sand, since she’s one of the voices in my new novel, The Appassionata. I’ll also be talking about Louise Farrenc, a 19th century French composer and her daughter, Victorine Farrenc, a pianist and the main character in The Appassionata. I’m about halfway through with writing The Appassionata, which is very exciting. I’m hoping to go to Paris in the fall to do finishing work—on the set, setting and cultural ambiance. I don’t know the set-up for Thursday night, but if I have a chance, I’ll read from my work.

I’m happy to announce one more piece of good news. I’ve joined the The Story Circle Network as one of their online editors. The editing arm is a new program so the information isn’t even up yet, but the Story Circle Network is out of Austin. It’s a national not-for-profit membership organization made up of women who want to document their lives and explore their personal stories through journaling, memoir, autobiography, personal essays, poetry, drama, and mixed-media. I’m very excited about being asked onto their staff. I’ll keep you posted as things develop.

Seems like all of a sudden Requiem for the Author of Frankenstein is back in the news. How good is that! Here’s a new review, calling Requiem “strange and fascinating” from Raven’s Range. The reviewer, Linda Moore, says she “found it very difficult to put the book down.” I’ve heard that before. I mean, really. There’s an audience out there that can’t stop reading once they start—people who shut themselves in their room until they finish it. I love hearing that. It amazes me. Of course, I couldn’t put it down either, which may be part of the reason it took me so long to write it: I didn’t want to stop being part of that world. That has really come home to me now that Mary Shelley has made an appearance in The Appassionata (book two of La Belle Quartet). It’s a much older Mary Shelley, she’s in her forties, but still she fascinates, especially in the company of George Sand.

The ‘award’ (discussed below) is my nomination for the 2008 Book of the Year Award from ForeWords Magazine. Requiem is a finalist for the Historical Fiction category and in the running for their Editor’s Choice Prize and Book of the Year Award. Winners will announced May 29th at Book Expo America in New York. Cross your fingers and wish me luck, but it’s wonderful being a finalist. We made the short list. Yeah! for Requiem for the Author of Frankenstein.

Well, hello out there.

I’ve been utterly silent for the last, what, four months. But today I received news that necessitates me blogging. Requiem for the Author of Frankenstein is a finalist for the 2008 Book of the Year Award for Historical Fiction. The award is sponsored by ForeWords Magazine and, according their PR, the finalists “represent some of the best work coming from today’s independent press community.”

The winners will be announced at BookExpo America in New York City on May 29. So, it’s not over yet. Requiem for the Author of Frankenstein could win a Gold, Silver or Bronze. There’s even a cash award. Very exciting. Worth writing about, yes?

I do have more news: I’ll be talking about Requiem and Mary Shelley in Ukiah at the Mendocino Book Company next Thursday evening. It’s a celebration of National Women’s month and starts at 6 pm. I’ll also be at the Gallery Book Store in Mendocino on March 29th. It’s a day-long event featuring local authors. I’ll be there at 1 pm.

A couple of weeks ago I was in Washington State for the Whidbey Island Writers Conference. It was great fun and very rewarding. I taught two workshops and gave a “fireside chat” presentation on researching historical fiction, so I they kept me busy. I truly enjoyed myself. My morning workshop was on Dialogue, the other, in the evening was called “Apprenticing the Masters.” It was a fifteen hour drive up there and another one back. Fortunately, for me, a writer friend, who is in my writing group was going up to the conference as a participant and he not only ‘gave me a ride,’ he did all the driving. What a gift! Thank you Doug Fortier.

So, here I am. I’ve broken the ice. I actually have even more news. I’ve just been hired as an editor by Story Circle Network. That’s a new online site that’s being put together by Matilda Butler and Kendra Bonnett. I’ll have more on that in the next week or so.

On top of all that, and in some ways, best of all, I’ve been writing a lot lately. I’m about half way through the original draft of my second novel, The Appassionata. My last entry, last fall was actually about The Appassionata. I’ll have more to say about that, but the big news is that Mary Shelley and Claire Claremont (her step-sister) made it onto the page and once they arrived, the book just opened up in front of me. It’s been very exciting.

A bit about my next novel:
The Appassionata (named for Beethoven’s Sonata in F minor, op. 57) is set in mid 19th century Paris and traces the life and death of concert pianist Victorine Farrenc (1826-1859), the daughter of classical composer and pianist Louise Farrenc. Both were contemporaries of Chopin, Liszt and Berlioz, who figure largely in the story. Victorine, like Chopin, died of consumption. She was only 32, and like many of the young women of her generation, Tori fell in love with Franz Liszt.

Set against the backdrop of revolutionary times, The Appassionata explores Tori’s passion for Liszt and for the rebellious Romanticism he embraced. Equally important, it is a study of death and dying. The Appassionata is filled with legendary characters: writers George Sand and Victor Hugo; painter Delacroix; opera singer Pauline Viardot (another of Liszt’s unrequited); and a host of others cameos, including the little known poet Elisa Mercoeur, and novelist Mary Shelley whose Frankenstein was popular on the Paris stage.

Though each book stands alone, The Appassionata is the second in a literary quartet, La Belle Quartet, about the Romantic Movement, and especially its women. La Belle Quartet traces the history of Romanticism, culminating in the counterculture of the Sixties. All four are also secretly (or perhaps not so secretly) studies of the nature of consciousness, dreams and reality. Requiem for the Author of Frankenstein, about Mary Shelley and her circle, is the first of the series.

I’m going to be on Canadian radio Sunday night!

I’ll be talking about Requiem for the Author of Frankenstein on KIXX-FM 106.9 London, Ontario, Canada. “Well-known Londoner, Bill Paul” interviewed me for his show, Straight Talk, which has been “entertaining and informing listening audience for over 25 years.” It’s community radio originating from Fanshawe College, Ontario, and deals with “a wide variety of issues and concerns, designed to entertain and inform.” Straight Talk airs live at 2pm PST (5 pm EST) and you can catch it online by streaming it here. (Click on the link at the bottom of the page that says “Listen Live.”) But keep in mind this is live radio so you have to stream it at 2 pm on Sunday in order to hear it. Got it? Good!

The interview was taped when I was in Portland, and as I remember, we talked a lot about Frankenstein and what inspired Mary Shelley to write it. It runs a half hour.

106.9 fm, London, Ontario Canada
Straight Talk, with Host Bill Paul
A discussion of Requiem for the Author of Frankenstein
2 pm PST, 5 pm EST
Stream online here