Ep. 180: Melanie Abrams on Bringing the Conflict

Melanie Abrams is the author of the novels Playing and Meadowlark. She is an editor and photographer and currently teaches writing at the University of California, Berkeley. She lives in Oakland, California, with her husband, writer Vikram Chandra, and their children.

How Do You Write Podcast: Explore the processes of working writers with bestselling author Rachael Herron. Want tips on how to write the book you long to finish? Here you’ll gain insight from other writers on how to get in the chair, tricks to stay in it, and inspiration to get your own words flowing. 

Transcript

Rachael Herron: [00:00:00] Welcome to “How do you Write?” I’m your host, Rachael Herron. On this podcast, I talk to authors about how they write, what their process is, and how their lives fit together. I’ll keep each episode short so you can get back to writing.

Well, Hello writers! Welcome to episode #180 of “How do you Write?” I’m Rachael Herron.

[00:00:21] Thrilled that you’re here with me today, as I talked to Melanie Abrams on her book that came out today called Meadowlark. She’s a stunning writer and we’re going to be talking about bringing the conflict and you are really going to enjoy her. I know that. My apologies for getting this out a few hours late, better late than never, has some parts I just skipped, but I’m really trying to be a little bit more regular. But this week was thrown off a little bit by a massive migraine that knocked me out for a couple of days. And then yesterday, I don’t know if you could hear that, but my wife is howling of laughter in the kitchen. Don’t know why, what. Maybe she’ll come tell us. 

[00:01:03] So that threw some things off track, like getting my new 90 Day courses started, which is what I needed to do this morning, opening them. 90 Days to Done, 90 Day Revision, are open now and sadly the last two classes have closed. And I just have to say that teaching 90 Day Revision and 90 Days to Done, this last 3 months, for these last 90 days. Oh my God. The whole world changed. In 90 days, everything turned upside down, and I have to tell you, the writers that were working in those classes, moved to meet these new challenges with such beauty and such grace and I could not have been prouder of the work that they did. And they finished whole books. They finished whole revisions, in a time when I think people need to give themselves a big break. You know, like don’t try to, you know, everybody’s saying, don’t try to read your novel right now, they actually did. They actually did and I’m so proud of them. So yeah, that was really exciting. And the new classes start today, and this podcast is going on today, and then maybe I might get a couple of days off. I don’t know. I haven’t managed to do it yet. It isn’t my goal to do so. I’ve got so many goals, so many things I want to do, so many new things I want to write. I just put out a Patreon essay yesterday about how to pack light because I’m finding that as a traveling wanderer, who should be in Barcelona right now, this very minute. I need to keep travel dreams alive as part of mental health for me. I need to be rejiggering my packing list and thinking about not just travel, but who I am when I travel, and seeing how I can bring that person into where I sit at this desk today. So that’s what that essay was about. And that was really fun to write.

[00:03:02] Speaking of Patreon, you got the essay if you are a patron of mine, and I thank you deeply from the bottom of my heart. Thanks to new patron, Dee Deploy. I don’t know if I’m saying that right, but Dee Deploy, thank you. Thank you so much. Everyone else who wants to read those kinds of essays, you could do it for $1 for one month, read all 39 essays and then unsubscribe. You could do it $1 for like 200,000 words worth of work in there. So, um, there’s some good stuff in there. You can always find that over at patreon.com/rachael. And now let’s just jump right into the interview with Melanie and I hope that wherever you are, whatever you are doing, you are getting a little bit of work done. Come find me anywhere where I live online and tell me about it. I really love hearing from you all. Okay. Happy writing!

[00:05:09] Hey, do you want to do more writing on Zoom with a group of people that you like? Well, you should join Rachael Says Write. We write together on Tuesday mornings from 5:00 to 7:00 AM Pacific standard time, 8:00 to 10:00 AM Eastern standard time. This one works for you Europeans, and on Thursdays from 4:00 to 6:00 PM Pacific standard time, 7:00 to 9:00 Eastern standard time, New Zealand and Australia. This one’s for you, and for just $39 a month, you can write with us in Zoom, it’s like 16 hours for a month. It’s like $2 an hour to sit in a Zoom room with really cool people and spy on them while they’re writing and let them spy on you while you’re writing. They’ll get to see your true writers face and there is nothing more intimate than that. Honestly, you guys, it’s such a good time. Go to rachaelherron.com/write  or rachaelherron.com/rachaelsayswrite to find out more about joining.

Rachael Herron: [00:05:04] Well, I could not be more pleased to welcome to the show today, Melanie Abrams. Hello, Melanie. How are you? 

Melanie Abrams: [00:05:09] Hello! Enduring. 

Rachael Herron: [00:05:11] You’re enduring your sheltered in place. 

Melanie Abrams: [00:05:04] Yes

Rachael Herron: [00:05:15] So I am very glad to talk to you. I’ve had a couple people say, are we still on? And I’m like, hell yes we are! And it’s the best time to do it. Let’s talk about something else. So a little bio for you, is Melanie Abrams is the author of the novels Playing and Meadowlark. She is an editor and photographer and currently teaches writing at the University of California, Berkeley. She lives in Oakland with her husband, Vikram Chandra and their children. He’s also a writer. But you are the writer I’m talking to today and I couldn’t be more pleased to talk to you. We know each other through NaNo channels. Which are some of the best channels always to know people from, we met through Grant Faulkner, who’s been on this show, and we recently did a NaNoLitMo with you, which is our local reading series. And if anybody’s listening, please check out NaNoLitMo on Facebook and come to our next event, which might be never! You may have, you may have had the last event we’re going to do 

Melanie Abrams: [00:06:11] Just say it isn’t so. 

Rachael Herron: [00:06:13] No, it isn’t so, it isn’t so. But it’s very nice to have you in your, to be talking to you in your writing digs, ‘cause you have a, you have a home to write in. Is that right? 

Melanie Abrams: [00:06:23] I do. Right now, I’m writing from an abandoned house. Now I have a friend who actually has two houses and they have sheltered in place at one, and so I’ve escaped to their other to do some writing. 

Rachael Herron: [00:06:35] Truly ideal,

Melanie Abrams: [00:06:37] Absolutely

Rachael Herron: [00:06:37] And everybody right now is a tiny bit jealous. So, that’s always fun. Tell us about your writing process. That’s what this show is really about, is about how you get the work done, and one way is to have a friend with an empty house, which totally get behind, but how do you get it done with all the other things that you’re doing, you know, mothering and teaching and all of that. 

Melanie Abrams: [00:06:57] Yeah, no, it’s a great question. I mean, obviously, how I get the work done now, it looks very differently than how I get the work done on a normal basis. But we’re going to go with quote unquote normal and that is like for me, I usually am super, super lucky and that I teach at UC Berkeley and that’s, you know, classes there are only two days a week. So I try and get all my teaching stuff done in those two days. So that means, you know, meeting with students in office hours, grading, prepping for class, et cetera. And so I keep those two days for teaching. And the other three days I reserve for writing, which is obviously easier said than done with children, and you know, everything else that we have to do. But I really do kind of reserve those mornings usually it’s, you know, it usually ends up being like after drop-off until lunchtime to write. So those three days a week. But I also, in the past, and this has evolved a little bit over the years, but have given myself a word count that I have to meet each day. It started as 500 words, which I talked to my students about this, and they’re always shocked that it’s so little it’s funny because actually my husband also does this, but he writes even less, it’s 400 words a day. So I always talk about how, you know, it’s a marathon, not a sprint. 

Rachael Herron: [00:08:23] Yeah

Melanie Abrams: [00:09:24] And so the best thing to do is to set low, a low bar for yourself. But I think what’s interesting is that I actually, with this last novel was able to raise that to a thousand words a day. And which I had never been able to do before. So I don’t think other than maybe magic, I’m not sure why, you know, that that changed, but a thousand words felt very doable and manageable without feeling, oppressive.

Rachael Herron: [00:08:51] I don’t know if you’ve ever had this, but no matter what my word limit and what my word goal is, ‘cause I also work with word goals, but about the time I’m 300 or 400 words away from it, it seems impossible. 

Melanie Abrams: [00:09:01] Yeah

Rachael Herron: [00:09:02] Whether that’s 1000 or 3000 or 500 like if it’s 500 at 100 I start to think I can’t do this. You’re never going to get there. 

Melanie Abrams: [00:09:10] I’ve definitely had that too. I think that ti- having a certain amount of time in which you have to do it, like it ends up being that a lot of the words end up being in the last or however long you have left. 

Rachael Herron: [00:09:23] Yes. Yes, totally. So you mentioned that’s your, that’s your ideal way to do it, but what I do kind of want to talk about now, I guess like how-

Melanie Abrams: [00:09:32] Yeah

Rachael Herron: [00:09:33] How has that, how is that changing and are you able to focus on writing?

Melanie Abrams: [00:09:36] Yeah. That’s a good question. I mean, you know, it’s interesting. I’ve started a new novel and it started before the pandemic, so how the writing is going to go on that novel after the pandemic. Well, I’m not sure, but what was, so what was interesting about starting that novel is that I started writing it in a way in which I have never written before. I mean, I am one of those writers super dedicated to just, you know, putting your butt in the chair every, you know, whatever days you determined between this hour and this hour and just doing the work, like absolutely not an inspiration kind of writer, but this latest book has kind of taken me by surprise, in wa- because I feel- I’ve had the urge to write at night, which I have never had in my life. 

Rachael Herron: [00:10:21] If I had that happen, 

Melanie Abrams: [00:10:22] Yeah

Rachael Herron: [00:10:23] I would think I was having a brain tumor. Like, 

Melanie Abrams: [00:10:25] Honestly, I am so with you, it has been so shocking. I’m so glad that you can, you have this experience as well

Rachael Herron: [00:10:33] Yeah

Melanie Abrams: [00:10:34] Because it’s just so bizarre. So yeah, so writing at night and writing in spurts, which is like what every, you know, writer or every, I don’t know what I’m looking for, is that every mother is told, “Oh, find the time to write whenever you can just write in these little pockets of time when the baby is sleeping or your kids are at school.” And I’ve always been like, “yeah, what the hell ever.” That’s like, you know, completely un-useful advice for me. But that’s kind of a little bit what’s happened with this last novel. So we’ll see how it goes. I mean, you know, this is very beginning times. 

Rachael Herron: [00:11:05] Super exciting. 

Melanie Abrams: [00:11:06] Yeah. So, but as for like, writing in the middle of the pandemic, I definitely am writing very little fiction now. I have this book coming out, so there’s a lot, you know, everyone wants you to be doing all kinds of essay writing, so, in order to publicize the book. So that’s kind of what I’m doing right now and that definitely feels like work. Like I am not a nonfiction writer, at all. So, this definitely feels it’s, there’s not much pleasure involved in this kind of writing, so I feel like I can do it during the day or when I have to, you know, when it’s a quote unquote assignment.

Rachael Herron: [00:11:40] Yeah. Because it’s a put your butt in the chair kind of assignment. 

Melanie Abrams: [00:11:43] Yeah, exactly. 

Rachael Herron: [00:11:44] I have a book due in three weeks to my editor, and I just have this really strange feeling, and I think this is the first time I, I’ve verbalized it, but like, this book has nothing to do with pandemic. And then, so why is it therefore existing? Like I have people hugging in it and I’m thinking, Oh, they hug, you know.

Melanie Abrams: [00:12:02] Boldly. Somebody else said that they were watching TV and every time somebody touched, they got close, right?

Rachael Herron: [00:12:08] I felt that last night.

Melanie Abrams: [00:12:10] Yeah. Yeah, 

Rachael Herron: [00:12:11] Totally. 

Melanie Abrams: [00:12:12] I mean I’ve thought about that too. Like, what is my next book going to look like? You know, how do you not write about the pandemic, after the pandemic. But someone had a really good point. We’ll see, we’ll see what happens. But, also, you know, not all books are about 911, 

Rachael Herron: [00:12:28] Right and this is how we felt then. Yeah. 

Melanie Abrams: [00:12:29] Yeah. Exactly.

Rachael Herron: [00:12:30] That’s a very, very good point that actually makes me feel strangely better, 

Melanie Abrams: [00:12:32] Right. 

Rachael Herron: [00:12:33] In a terrible way. 

Melanie Abrams: [00:12:34] Yeah, 

Rachael Herron: [00:12:36] Exactly. What is your biggest challenge when it comes to writing? 

Melanie Abrams: [00:12:41] Definitely time. And childcare. I mean, I think you’re probably would hear this from any mother slash writer, you know, I applied, there’s, there’s some great grants out there like sustainable arts foundation, which is just for parents or even like yado or mucked out. The only reason I’m applying to any of those, ‘cause it buys you time. So that is exactly, I mean, that’s my biggest challenge is like the time piece of it. 

Rachael Herron: [00:13:07] Yeah. Yeah. What is your biggest joy when it comes to writing?

Melanie Abrams: [00:13:11] You know, it’s that kind of, you know, the, my, one of my favorite quotes is a Bob Haas quote, which is he says that, Writing is hell, not writing is hell. The only enjoyable part is having just written. 

Rachael Herron: [00:13:23] Yes

Melanie Abrams: [00:13:24] Yeah, right? So I’m kind of a big fan of that quote, but that’s so pessimistic. So I will say the optimistic part of that is that those few and far between moments where you’re almost in this kind of dis-associative state where you’re like part writer, part your character in a way, or inside your book slash outside of your book. And of course they only last for a limited period of time, but that’s that’s a pretty good one. 

Rachael Herron: [00:13:49] I wrote a bunch of words this morning before 7 because I had to, and I had that feeling and then it makes me think of that other Zadie Smith quote where she says, “The best time of writing is right after you sent it to your editor, and that only lasts for four and a half hours.”

Melanie Abrams: [00:14:04] Yeah, I agree. Every time someone sells a book, I’m like, enjoy it. This is the best time after you’ve sold it before you have to do any editing, that’s it. 

Rachael Herron: [00:14:12] Or right after you send it for that four and a half hour. 

Melanie Abrams: [00:14:14] Right, right.

Rachael Herron: [00:14:15] Exactly. Can you share a craft tip of any sort with us? 

Melanie Abrams: [00:14:20] Yeah. So I mean, my students, I think by now if they feel like they’re being hit over the head with me saying this all the time, but it is kind of my go to craft advice, which is that make just don’t neglect conflict. I usually use this Three D analogy, which is actually a Janet Borough analogy, but it’s desire plus danger equals drama. Like make sure your character wants something, put things in the way of them getting that thing and then if he can do that, then you’ve created drama, i.e.: Conflict. And just following that through your novel or short story. 

Rachael Herron: [00:14:53] I love that phrasing. Can you tell us the Three D’s again? 

Melanie Abrams: [00:14:56] Yes, so it’s Three D’s, these are Desire, plus Danger equals Drama. 

Rachael Herron: [00:15:01] That’s lovely. And yeah, that is something that everyone needs to remember. We don’t want to hurt our characters that we love so much. We don’t want to give them conflict. So, yeah. Perfect. Thank you. I think that your students are lucky that you hit them over the head with that. What thing in your life affects your writing in a surprising way? 

Melanie Abrams: [00:15:20] I think, I think music this is particularly accurate for my, the novel I’m working on now, but I have found myself as I’ve gotten older, more and more, not necessarily influenced by music, but kind of existing in a space with music and the way I exist with books. And having the music kind of influenced the writing, which I, which is kind of a new thing to me, but it’s been pretty powerful. 

Rachael Herron: [00:15:48] So can you explain that a little bit more? Are you, do you choose music for your books and then live in it, or do they come to you around the book or how does that work?

Melanie Abrams: [00:15:58] Such a good question. It’s, I think it’s kind of fluid. I definitely have found myself lists like making a playlist and listening to that playlist over and over and over again, because that playlist is informing the book in some way. And it’s hard to, like again, using this magical word, but like, it does seem a little bit like magic. Like I’m not sure exactly how one influences the other, but I’m definitely drawn to using music as a way into the book. Yeah. So feel free to ask clarifying questions – 

Rachael Herron: [00:16:31] How do you, how do you find the music?

Melanie Abrams: [00:16:34] Yeah. Some of it you know, some of it is people recommend this or that that’s happened a couple of times. Some of it is all I, Oh well here’s a really good one. So there’s this do you know about radio paradise? Do you know that station?

Rachael Herron: [00:17:46] No, I do not.

Melanie Abrams: [00:16:47] So, radio paradise is a streaming service that is a brand by this like older couple outside, inside Paradise, California where there all the fires were, 

Rachael Herron: [00:16:57] Yeah

Melanie Abrams: [00:16:58] And its 24-hour streaming and they curate these playlists, which are, I believe basically made for me and, but really it’s like a very, it’s not that you have to be gen X to appreciate and love it because there-

Rachael Herron: [00:17:09] Which I am, so…

Melanie Abrams: [00:17:10] Right, but it definitely has a gen X slant to it. So it’s like, you know, there’s some stuff that’s familiar, some stuff that’s less familiar, and that has been super, super fantastic for exposing me to either new music or music that I knew that I forgot or, you know, just finding things that weren’t necessarily in my, you know, head well before I started actively pursuing new music. 

Rachael Herron: [00:17:36] Yeah.

Melanie Abrams: [00:18:37] So I highly recommend 

Rachael Herron: [00:17:38] I have, I’ve been experimenting with music a lot more. For some reason, I had a couple of years where I wasn’t ready to music at all. And lately, I have been more pulled back to it. And I have found this way of, creating Spotify lists. 

Melanie Abrams: [00:17:50] Yeah

 Rachael Herron: [00:17:51] I am a Spotify person, so I’ll put on one of those like deep focus, John Hopkins, Moby kind of electronica stations. And then as soon as the music bothers me, I go back and replay the mu- the song that was right before it. Because I was obviously deep. And it didn’t bother me. And then if I love it, I move it over to a playlist for the book. But this is –

Melanie Abrams: [00:18:11] I love that

Rachael Herron: [00:18:12] Only occurred to me in the last two weeks. Like we’ve all been doing a lot of distraction focus work this year, 

Melanie Abrams: [00:18:18] Yeah

 Rachael Herron: [00:18:19] recently. So, but I love, I’m going to try radio paradise. That sounds fantastic. 

Melanie Abrams: [00:18:23] Yeah. And the other two things I would say is that, one is that if you like this kind of music book connection, I, if do you know about large hearted boy I website? 

Rachael Herron: [00:18:32] Yes, of course. Yeah. Yeah.

Melanie Abrams: [00:18:34] So they, you know, I just did for the new book a playlist for them, based on the characters, which is super fun.

Rachael Herron: [00:18:39] I haven’t been in that website on in so long. I literally forgot that it existed. That’s awesome. 

Melanie Abrams: [00:18:44] Yeah, I’d recommend that.

Rachael Herron: [00:18:47] Cool! Okay, and you’re gonna say the second thing too. 

Melanie Abrams: [00:18:49] Oh, and the only, the second thing is, is that it’s interesting that you said you’re writing to music, because I find that I have, I get inspired by this music, but very, pretty quickly I have to turn it off. Like within, you know, I don’t know, 20 minutes of writing, like I have a hard time writing to music. 

Rachael Herron: [00:19:04] For me, it has to, for the actual writing to music, it has to be without words. If there are words that I can understand, I can’t. Right now I’ve got like a, like a Gregorian chant. Like I was writing in the eighties right when I was, you know, 15, I’d put on Gregorian chants and write to. So maybe I’m going back to that,

Melanie Abrams: [00:19:20] That’s awesome.

Rachael Herron: [00:19:21] Yeah, but it’s all very strange. What is the best book that you read recently and why did you love it? 

Melanie Abrams: [00:19:26] Yeah. You know, I’m, I was thinking about this one, and I think I’m going to have to go with Three Women. Have you read that? 

Rachael Herron: [00:19:32] No

Melanie Abrams: [00:19:33] So it’s this nonfiction book that kind of blew me away. It’s about women’s desire and sexuality, and it’s traces the stories of these Three Women and it’s fascinating because it, I think it does an incredible job of really, nailing women’s desire and how they feel about sex and how they feel about their own sexuality and all those kinds of things. But as important to me was the way in which this, the author, it’s Lisa Taddeo, I think her name is? Is able to, write nonfiction in a way that feels as a. as compelling as fiction, and b. as voice-driven as fiction. And I think of that voice-driven piece of it was what I was just so amazingly impressed with.

Rachael Herron: [00:20:20] That sounds like everything that I want to read. 

Melanie Abrams: [00:20:22] Like, oh God, it’s so good.

Rachael Herron: [00:20:23] For me that my fa- my favorite kind of thing is to read nonfiction. Not always memoir, but something that is really, really voice-driven. Have you read Savage Appetite?

Melanie Abrams: [00:20:32] No, but I’m putting it on my list. 

Rachael Herron: [00:20:34] It is if you have any interest in true crime, 

Melanie Abrams: [00:20:36] Yes.

Rachael Herron: [00:20:37] Or even if you’re just mildly titillated by it, you’re going to love this. It’s nonfiction and it’s got the strongest voice ever. And she, she takes apart four women who have been in the true crime area and takes them apart, and also talks about her own fascination with true crime and women’s fa- fascination with true crime. So, oh, thank you for the excellent book swap, because I’m absolutely going to read that one next.

Melanie Abrams: [00:21:00] Awesome. 

Rachael Herron: [00:21:01] Speaking of wonderful books to read, would you tell us please about your latest book Meadowlark? 

Melanie Abrams: [00:21:06] Sure. So, Meadowlark is the, the backstory to the novel is that it’s there’s these two teenagers who grew up on a strict Eastern leaning spiritual compound. And they run away when they’re 15, and they lose touch. And they grow up in the, the present of the novel takes place, when they’re grown-ups. Simron, who is the, the girl who ran away is a photo journalist, and Arjun, who is the boy who ran away now has his own, is the head of his own kind of commune that believes in kind of allowing children to just be and discover their quote unquote special gifts. So it’s very opposite to what they grew up with. And there’s tensions between that commune, which is called Meadowlark and the police. And so he asks Simron, they reconnecting as Simron to come and photograph the commune. So to get their story out there, to kind of show that, you know, the normalcy of what they’re doing, which isn’t actually very normal at all. So she comes with her young daughter and ends up getting, caught in there as tensions between the police and the commune, heightened. So a little bit of a page journey thriller, a little bit of the literary kind of character driven thing. You know, we are all looking for.

Rachael Herron: [00:22:29] That’s a little prison of cult which we all, 

Melanie Abrams: [00:22:32] Right

Rachael Herron: [00:22:33] Oh, not we all but many of us, I don’t know why we’re so drawn to this. But I definitely am. I’ll read anything with that, and I haven’t read your book yet, but it’s at the top of my TPR pile. And I did read your book playing, which is just gorgeous and you’re such a beautiful writer. So I would really encourage people to go out and grab Meadowlark. You will not, not regret it. So, thank you so much. Oh, where can we find you online? Where, where are you? Where do you live? 

Melanie Abrams: [00:22:59] Yeah, Facebook, melanieabramswriter and Instagram, melanieabramswriter 

Rachael Herron: [00:23:04] Perfect. 

Melanie Abrams: [00:23:05] And obviously my website, melanieabrams.com 

Rachael Herron: [00:23:09] Yay! Thank you so much for being with me on this very weird, weird time. It’s incredibly nice to connect. 

Melanie Abrams: [00:23:16] Yes, absolutely. Thank you. 

Rachael Herron: [00:23:18] You’re welcome. And we will talk soon. Thanks so much for everything. 

Melanie Abrams: [00:23:21] Alright, bye. 

Thanks so much for joining me on this episode of “How do you Write?” You can reach me on Twitter, twitter.com/RachaelHerron, or at my website, www.rachaelherron.com, you can also support me on Patreon and get essays on living your creative life for as little as a buck an essay at www.patreon.com/rachael spelled R, A, C, H, A, E, L and do sign up for my free weekly newsletter of encouragement to writers rachaelherron.com/write/

Now, go to your desk and create your own process and get to writing my friends.