"Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you."
~ Anne Lamott
 
I unplugged in Costa Rica for five days in August. The lure of a Yoga and Writing Retreat, even if it meant traveling at the height of summer to a place even hotter than Wisconsin, was irresistible. The retreat was everything I hoped for and more. I met wonderful writers, made new friends, and basked in a tropical paradise with the sound of the ocean lulling me to sleep each night. I received thoughtful and generous critiques and excellent suggestions for several of my chapters. Best of all, I finished writing the final chapter of my new novel!

I understand how a person can put their finished manuscript into a drawer and leave it there forever. So much of the pleasure in writing a novel comes from telling the story. But once it’s told, there are few surprises left. Instead, what comes next is a lot of hard work. Writers are advised to take a break once they have typed “The End” on that last page, and that’s exactly what I am doing.

Now comes a beautiful period of repose when my 65,000 words get a break. When I return to them hopefully, I’ll be able to recognize the flaws, and smooth out rough edges and awkward transitions. Reading the second draft aloud, I’ll do my best to harmonize the narrative. The story will remain essentially the same, but some sections will be fleshed out with added paragraphs, while others will be chopped. I’m aiming for a final 80,000 words.

And what happens then? I’ve lined up four wonderful “beta readers” to read the novel from beginning to end and give me their honest assessment. Beta readers are at the core of a good novel. They take a step back and consider the story as a whole, highlighting weaknesses and inconsistencies in the narrative. With feedback from these generous souls, I’ll go back to the beginning once again, aiming for the very best novel I can write.
~ Mary

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“No tears in the writer; no tears in the reader.”
Robert Frost
 
Summer Solstice 2025
 
Killing your characters is never easy. You’ve spent so much time with them, they’ve become close friends. They are a cryptic companion throughout most of your waking hours, at times demanding to be heard. You know their backstory, their innermost thoughts, their idiosyncrasies, how they dress, what gives them pleasure, what they regret. In fact, you know them as well as you know yourself. So, when the storyline demands they leave the page, it hurts. Recently I found myself procrastinating writing a death scene — it was just too painful. I thought about it for days, then decided I’d write about what the man was thinking just before his sudden heart attack — that moment when he was full of life, full of purpose, and on his way to do something responsible and good. Then I killed him.

I’ve described the novel I am working on in previous posts — a multi-generational family saga set in a mansion on the shore of Lake Mendota near Madison, Wisconsin. Research for the novel, which opens in Norway in 1867 and then moves to Madison from 1921 to 2003, continues to be tremendous fun. This past month I spent hours hunched over a microfilm reader at the State Historical Society looking through the local newspaper during the Vietnam war period. Even more illuminating was the student newspaper, the Daily Cardinal, a far more radical publication than the Wisconsin State Journal. One of my characters is a first-year student at UW-Madison in 1969, so I was looking for the zeitgeist of the era. Thinking about her life sent me down a rabbit hole of memories because I was a student in Dublin at the same time, and about the same age as my protagonist. Amazingly, I came across the diary I kept in 1969. What an experience — to look back at oneself after 56 years.
​
This is one of the pleasures of writing. It takes me not just to imagined places, but real ones too. The next chapter in the novel will be set in 1982 which is four years after I came to Madison. Not only do I have my diary from that year, but also some of the letters I wrote to my parents in Ireland. I don’t have an outline for the chapter yet, just some thoughts about which members of the family are living in the mansion. I wonder what’s going to happen to them? This is going to be fun!

“They were people whom, having invented them, I rather liked.”
 
Wallace Stegner, Crossing to Safety
 
 
On this Spring Equinox last year I launched my second novel, Finding Isobel. Ah, the joy of completing a writing project! In the months following I had fun attending book-related events with my novel and enjoyed lots of positive feedback. Now I’m working on a new story, my first attempt at writing historical fiction.
 
I’ve been absorbed in the period 1941-1945 in Madison, Wisconsin. There’s a slew of novels set in and around those World War II years and it’s easy to go down the rabbit hole of research — far easier than actually writing! One of the more interesting discoveries was a collection of interviews with women in Wisconsin about their experiences during the war. The interviews took place in the early 1990s, and each one began with the question: where were you when you learned about the attack on Pearl Harbor? These interviews are archived by the Wisconsin Historical Society and are a treasure trove of information about day-to-day life both during and after the war. Here’s the link if you are interested.
 
https://whs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/233
 
Listening to these women, what struck me was their positive attitude. Victory gardens, food rationing, working long hours in essential factories, raising children alone, queueing endlessly…it wasn’t an easy existence. But in every interview, the sense of community and shared purpose amongst these women came across forcefully. In contrast, men were reluctant to talk about their experiences during the war. In the chapter I’m currently working on, I try to imagine how a couple might resuscitate their relationship or marriage after spending three years apart. It makes you think.
 
If you are ever looking for book recommendations, you’ll find suggestions from both me and my sister on our shared website. We are both in book clubs and we read widely.
 
Mary: https://www.mvbehan.com/what-i-am-reading1.html
Val: https://www.mvbehan.com/what-i-am-reading.html
 
Time to get back to writing!
 
 
 

“But words are things, and a small drop of ink falling like dew upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.”
- Lord Byron
 
One of the strangest things a writer can experience is being host to a cast of characters day and night! I suppose it serves me right for embarking on a multi-generational saga that starts in Norway in 1867 and ends in Madison in 2020. There’s bound to be a lot of people. But I don’t welcome them into my bed at 4 in the morning. I wake and my brain is filled with faces, conversations, dramas — all fighting for my attention while I desperately try to shoo them away and get back to sleep. I toss and turn, do yoga body scans, and enumerate the cranial and spinal nerves (remember, I used to teach neuroanatomy!). Sometimes I leave my warm bed and climb into the chilly one in the guest bedroom, firmly closing both doors. But the characters always manage to find me. Some writers find gems in these waking hours, scribbling on a bedside pad for recollection and elaboration the following day. Not me. If the stories are compelling enough, surely they will resurface in the morning. Then the characters are welcome to crowd onto the page, and we can have a proper party!
 
Recently someone asked me to describe the shape of my new novel. Usually people ask about theme, so I was flummoxed. After some consideration, I’ve settled on a Maypole. The pole is set deep in the ground and represents a 14-year-old boy who fetches up in Wisconsin in 1867 after a harrowing voyage from Norway. This boy is at the heart of my story and his journey to the New World is written in the form of a novella. Throughout his life he dreamed of building a mansion, and finally in 1920 he succeeds. The mansion is the above ground part of my Maypole. Now, imagine 10 ribbons hanging from the tip of the pole. Each ribbon represents a stand-alone short story, one per decade from 1920 to 2020. But just like the ribbons, the stories are linked. In sum, I’m writing a novella and ten chapters. If the walls of this mansion could only talk…
 
I best get back to writing!
 

September, 2024

“Think of this — that the writer wrote alone, and the reader read alone, and they were alone with each other.”
A.S. Byatt


I’m not a disciplined writer. I don’t devote several hours each day to making progress. Rather, I write whenever the mood strikes me, and when it does, I might get 1,500 words down. Putting that in context, a novel is usually between 65,000 and 80,000 words, so it’s not much of an achievement.

Even though I might not feel like working on my novel, the urge to write is amazingly strong. Fortunately, I have an outlet that gives me enormous satisfaction — writing letters. I’ve always written letters. When I went to boarding school at age eleven, I had to write a letter to my parents every week, so I got into the habit. That weekly letter home ritual lasted for another 40+ years. And it wasn’t just letters to my parents back in Ireland. I didn’t want to lose contact with friends, so I wrote to them too.
I much prefer writing a letter to making a telephone call. I can imagine the person sitting with me, perhaps sharing a cup of tea or a glass of wine, and I write as if we were having a conversation. The best part is that I get to do all the talking! These letters used to be hand-written, but I type faster than cursive nowadays, so I type a Word document, then paste it into an e-mail. Sometimes I print the document and mail it as I still get a thrill from seeing a hand-addressed envelope in my mailbox, and I expect that many of my friends do too.
Another way to avoid feeling guilty at not working on my novel is to read about how to write. There are a million books out there with advice on craft. I have several on my bookshelf (Save The Cat, Letters To A Young Writer, How to Write Dazzling Dialogue, Story Genius). The one I am reading now is called What About the Baby? Some thoughts on the Art of fiction by Alice McDermott.

Last May, I attended a week-long writing workshop in Connemara on the west coast of Ireland led by Alice. Although I wasn’t familiar with her work, I trusted that as a National Book Award recipient who has taught Creative Writing at Johns Hopkins University for 30 years, it would be a good experience. It was fantastic! Reading What About the Baby, I can see Alice in our classroom at the Renvyle House Hotel, hear her voice, and I want to pay attention to the advice she gives. She is a genius at seeing through a mess of words and finding the gems.
Enough of this. I need to get back to writing!
~ Mary

PS. Because my next newsletter will arrive in your e-mail on the Winter Solstice, I want to add a plug here for giving the gift of a book (or two) to friends and family at Christmas. A Measured Thread and the sequel/companion novel, Finding Isobel would make a lovely present. If your friends/family just want a short read, the stories in Kernels will take them from New York to New Orleans, from Ireland to Norway, from Guyana to… well, Wisconsin. These and the memoir I wrote with my sister, Abbey Girls, are all available by clicking on www.mvbehan.com/books. Finally, if you order through your local bookstore they will be forever grateful to you! 
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June, 2024

Even though I know this Solstice marks the shortening of daylight, there’s so much of summer left to enjoy!

My book launch was wonderful. About 60 friends, almost all from within a 15-mile radius, came to enjoy wine and cheese and chat on a not-too-chilly Spring Equinox at my local coffee shop, Crossroads in Cross Plains. All I had to do was sign books and bask in smiles!

After an event like that you feel so accomplished ‘cos you’ve just completed a (four year) project successfully. Phew! You know your friends and family are going to read the book. Most will enjoy it, for it’s a good story with a satisfying ending. Some might even wonder if there’s going to be a sequel to Finding Isobel too. But as for me, I have left these characters behind and am itching to get going on my new idea.
Unfortunately, my job right now is to market this novel. It’s a challenge because inside me is another story begging to be told. Besides, I know nothing about marketing. Having said that, marketing is a great excuse to avoid the hard work of creating a new story. So, I tend to push it aside, and instead organize book events at local bookstores, libraries, and book festivals. Fortunately, I have someone to help me with that, the wonderful Valerie Biel of Lost Lake Press.
After the book launch, the first of these marketing events was an interview with Doug Moe, a local legend in the literary scene in Madison, at a favorite bookstore, Mystery To Me. Half the audience were old friends, many of whom had worked with me at the School of Veterinary Medicine. That evening was the ultimate high, and I will treasure it forever. 
A couple of weeks later I drove to Viroqua, a town an hour or so northwest of Madison (fabled for its organic food) to attend a weekend book fair. I was at the very last table of book sellers, close to the toilets and the coffee station, neither of which were much of a lure. It was a very quiet place, interrupted only by parents with small children needing to relieve themselves. By the end of the day I had sold the grand total of four books! Still, I met some lovely people. Maybe that’s what it’s all about – meeting like-minded writers who do this for love, joy, anguish, necessity, relief… and any other emotion you care to imagine. This is my tribe.
The next day, the following two e-mails popped up.  
“From the first pages to the last, I was attached to Maggie, Isobel, Vic, and of course Oliver. The language, setting, and storyline were magnetic, thought provoking, and real. I can’t wait for the sequel to Finding Isobel as I know there is so much more to her life in the cabin.”
“I've just completed Finding Isobel. It was wonderful. And every time the story had the chance to take a cheesy or a Hallmark turn, it didn't. I truly loved that. It was so interesting to read a book written by someone whom I know. You were writing about your house and our lovely south-central Wisconsin.  I could see your prairie areas, the long driveway, the bookshelves that Vic helped move out of the guest house, your kitchen…”
Comments like these are what sustains writers. The knowledge that someone enjoyed my story, my characters, my creation...it’s an amazing feeling.
I’m attaching a link to the interview I mentioned above with Doug Moe. Doug’s thoughtful questions allowed me to talk about how I started to write, and then to write more seriously. He finished the interview by asking about my next book. So, if you are interested in hearing what I am currently working on, click on this link.
Finally, if you read Finding Isobel and enjoyed it, I’d really appreciate it if you would leave a review on Amazon. You don’t need to buy anything from them, or even write a sentence — clicking on stars is sufficient. Getting multiple reviews on Amazon helps enormously when it comes to selling a book by an “unknown” author.
With gratitude,
~ Mary

March, 2024


“Fiction is the great lie that tells the truth about how the world lives!”
~ Abraham Verghese,
The Covenant of Water


Verghese’s quote is a perfect epigraph for any work of fiction. The moment I read the sentence, I knew I wanted to have it at the beginning of Finding Isobel.

I love the feeling of a physical book. All the same, when Kindle readers came along, I was seduced by their convenience. The same with books on tape and CD, which were a godsend on long road trips. Since retiring I no longer have a commute, and as a result don’t listen to many books as opposed to reading them. But many people do — far more than I would ever have thought. That fact persuaded me to record an audiobook of Abbey Girls, the memoir I wrote with my sister Val. The book is an exchange of letters, each of us describing how we saw our childhood days at boarding school in Ireland. Even though we wrote those letters sixty years later, the exchange is authentic, with both of us disagreeing on many of those “truths”. We had so much fun narrating the book!
My first novel, A Measured Thread, is about an elderly Irish immigrant living in Wisconsin, so it wasn’t such a stretch for me to be the narrator. I remember enjoying the experience, perhaps because it took place during Covid when I had all the time in the world. Additionally, the recording studio was an isolated space, with little possibility of my catching anything. When I had finished writing my new novel, Finding Isobel, I thought long and hard about whether I should be the one to narrate it. After all, it’s about a young woman who grew up in Canada, travels to New Zealand, and later finds herself in Bosnia. My voice doesn’t sound young, and I cannot do any of the accents involved. Still, I recognize that an author brings something to the table that a professional, no matter how good they are, cannot. The author has a deep understanding of every character in the story, together with the underlying emotions of every scene. Ownership brings a level of authenticity to the narration that’s hard to match.

Recently I listened to Abraham Verghese read his new novel, The Covenant of Water. I had the physical book by my side, but listening to his voice for over 30 hours brought an extra dimension to his story. It was mesmerizing. Later when I re-read the text, I could hear his voice in my head and it sang to me. After that experience, I arranged to spend a week in February in the recording studio in Madison.
The experience was far more demanding this time — mentally, physically and emotionally. I stood in front of my computer in the studio with headphones on, and read each chapter as if I were living every scene. Sometimes I misspoke and corrected myself. Sometimes Jake, the recording engineer, interrupted and asked me to repeat a sentence. At the end of each chapter (there are 42), I’d sit down and take a sip of water, glad of the short respite while Jake did some edits. Then, standing up and taking another deep breath, I’d continue with the story — for up to 4 hours each day, by which time I was utterly drained. Still, at the end of the week I felt elated, not just that I had finished, but that I had done justice to Isobel’s story. I’m so glad that it’s my voice you’ll hear. 

Finding Isobel is being published today, the Spring Equinox! The paperback and e-book are available immediately. You’ll find a link to purchase information on my website, mvbehan.com.  As always, I encourage you to support your local bookstore and order from them. And if you are one of those people who prefers to listen, the audiobook should be available in the next month or so. As soon as it’s ready I’ll post something on Facebook (Mary Behan Writer) and Instagram (@marybehanwrites).

And now, back to writing!
~ Mary

December, 2023
My husband gave me this framed quote from Gustav Flaubert for my birthday. It sums up perfectly what writers experience — on the good days!

“It is a delicious thing to write, to be no longer yourself but to move in an entire universe of your own creating. Today, for instance, as man and woman, both lover and mistress, I rode in a forest on an autumn afternoon under the yellow leaves, and I was also the horses, the leaves, the wind, the words my people uttered, even the red sun that made them almost close their love-drowned eyes.”

Telling people about my latest writing project reassures me that the writing life brings far more joy than angst. Having said that, in these past couple of months I’ve had my share of self-doubt.

Most books you pick up these days have flattering quotes either on the cover, or inside under the heading “Praise for…” But how do you get these endorsements? As I don’t know anyone on the New York Times Bestseller list, and Oprah doesn’t live next door, it means some considerable leg work. I watched a great webinar from the Women’s Fiction Writers Association on the topic and went to work. I tried a few “cold calls” — requests to well-known writers whose books I enjoy, via their websites. This met with zero success. I wasn’t too surprised, as someone like Ann Patchett must get thousands of such requests.


The next tranche of email requests went out to friends who have written and published books. These are people I met at a writing conferences and events at my local bookstores and libraries. Others I met at a writing class (how I miss the Write-By-The-Lake retreat that used to be held on the UW-Madison campus each summer), and in a critique group (a shout out to Wisconsin Writers Association for making these available.) They all understand what I need from them, but even so it’s a big ask. First of all, they have to read my book in a timely fashion, then write an authentic blurb that will engage potential readers. It’s far more difficult than you think, and I have nothing to offer them in return except my undying gratitude.  
In addition to requests for endorsements/blurbs, it is recommended that you choose a few professional review organizations (Kirkus Reviews for example) and pay for one of their staff to read your manuscript and write an in-depth review. After a lifetime of publishing scientific papers, I’m accustomed to soliciting arms-length reviews. But this is far more daunting when it’s your creative endeavor that you are opening up to scrutiny, as opposed to your latest experimental findings.

Towards the end of October, the first professional review for Finding Isobel arrived. This reviewer did not like Isobel one bit and wasn’t shy about telling me! I was stunned. Over the course of several years, I’ve come to know my protagonist intimately and I like her more and more as I watch her cope with what life throws at her. It’s a bit like watching a graduate student over the course of their PhD program. By the end you know and understand them, and you want them to have every happiness as they leave your orbit.

Fortunately, two days later I got a glowing blurb from a writer I know, followed by four more in quick succession in a similar vein. I am rich in generous friends who write wonderful endorsements! Next, a five-star arms-length review came in giving my confidence another boost. There are still several requests for blurbs and reviews pending, but at least I know there will be something on the “Praise for Finding Isobel” page when the novel comes out on March 19th, just in time for the Spring Equinox!

~ Mary

When I was getting close to finishing my new novel Finding Isobel, I began to fret about the cover. If you put “cover design for a novel” into a Google search, an overwhelming number of sites, blogs, videos and advertisements pop up. Ever cautious, I emailed a few other writer friends asking what they do. One person uses a sort-of lottery design website where you describe your book’s theme and make some suggestions as to style. The query then goes out to artists all over the world, and any of them can submit a cover. If you like one, you fine tune the concept with that artist, for a fee of course. It’s a great idea, but I found it hard to come up with a concept that I could put into words. Another suggestion was to go to Amazon and look at covers for recent best sellers in my genre (contemporary fiction, literary fiction, women’s fiction). This is particularly helpful when you realize that most people will only see an image measuring 1x2 inches or even smaller on their computer or iPad. I liked the suggestion of going to a bookstore and checking out covers that caught my attention, perhaps even photographing them. Arcadia in Spring Green, Wisconsin is my go-to bookstore — a truly wonderful Independent local bookstore, plus they have great coffee and cookies! Sadly, I liked almost none of the covers I saw on display with the exception of a poetry collection which is definitely not my genre.

It was during one of those 3-hour sleep interruptions in the middle of the night that it dawned on me: What about the artist who did the cover for A Measured Thread? The moment I saw that painting hanging on the wall in our local coffee shop, Crossroads in Cross Plains, I knew it was perfect. Two years later when I was finishing A Measured Thread, I tracked down the artist, Gina Hecht, and purchased the painting and rights.

Gina’s website showed several beautiful abstract paintings, but most of them were listed as “sold” by the gallery in Chicago where she shows her work. Back to square one. I decided to reach out to Gina personally and see if she had anything in the works. Her response was immediate and encouraging; she had three pieces recently finished. All of them were lovely, but one in particular, a small abstract piece titled “Finding Joy”, lifted my heart.

Gina and I met over coffee in Waunakee which is near where both of us live, to conclude the transaction. We had the most wonderful conversation about painting vs. writing. She talked about what it felt like to shift from painting small to large pieces, as she did during Covid when demand for large landscapes was high. In contrast, during Covid I shifted to writing short stories (Kernels). It was only afterwards that I had the energy to begin writing another novel. I came away from our meeting with a precious box containing what I know will be the perfect cover for my new novel which will be released in March, 2024. I’ll keep you posted.