Autumn for me is connected to the school year and so I always think of new beginnings, even if my school days could be classified as “by-gone.” As per my habit, I have been turning over and over ideas for two novels that are percolating in my mind: one that I’ve been playing with for a while and the other that popped up without much warning during the summer. The first novel, however, has been on-hold because I have been stymied. I haven’t been able to figure out who my main character was deep down and what she was yearning for in her life. As Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Robert Olen Butler says, “Plot is yearning challenged and thwarted.” So, not knowing what my main character longed for/desired/lusted after could be described as a major problem. However, last Friday evening at the LA Phil, I had an “Ah-ha” moment.
At Disney Hall before the performances, there is a program called Upbeat Live. This is where a music scholar discusses the musical works the orchestra will perform, and these lectures greatly help to illuminate those works for the audience. I love these programs almost as much as the music performances because the information allows me to understand more clearly what it is I am listening to. On Friday evening, the host was Alan Chapman, who is a popular classical music radio host on KUSC-FM here in Los Angeles. He had as his guests the composer of a cello concerto that was having its world premiere that evening, as well as the cellist, for whom the piece had been written. Long story short, the cellist said something that allowed me to have an epiphany about my main character in my novel.
The cellist, who is a virtuoso and has performed all over the world, said that he admires all music as long as it has been written with care. He said that he loves jazz, folk music, etc. with the same passion as classical music; that there isn’t one “right” music for him, he basically appreciates them all. This struck a deep chord in me – and yes – pun intended because my main character is a 17-year-old girl coming from rural Arkansas. I had considered all sorts of passions for her: sewing, math, art, but I had never considered music. One of the reasons for this omission was because the music where this girl lives would be bluegrass, good ole country pickin’. I had already given her mother a great scene where she explains the merits of various country singer/songwriters to her daughter’s boyfriend, but I had not tied it to anything my character was doing. With the cellist’s words, I suddenly realized that this girl could come from a bluegrass background but yearn for a bigger musical life, a life that could even include aspirations to play with a major philharmonic orchestra.
I came home from that event and headed right for the computer so I could see what the music world was for youth in this area of Arkansas where the story is set. Lo and behold, there is an entire youth program – privately funded – in this town I am basing my fictional town on and there have been a few kids who have headed off from this tiny Ozark community to the famed Berklee College of Music in Boston.
“Wow! Hurray! Would you look at that!” I shouted. One of my students came about that time and found me positively glowing with happiness. I said to her, “This is one of those wonderful moments when the Universe just seems to be providing a connection across space and time.”
So, I am here to say that I am officially unstuck and ready to report back to duty on the first of these two novel ideas. I can now “see” my main character, know what she will be wearing, what favorite items are in her life, and where she hopes to go with this musical talent that she has long been nurturing. I am delighted.
And I owe it all to Upbeat Live, Alan Chapman and the Finnish cellist, Anssi Karttunen, whose abject love of all music helped me to see that art – in its different forms – bubbles up from the same creative spring and splashes over us all.
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