If Amelia Earhart was alive in 1980, ghosts and the rules thereof

Here's a question for you? Do ghosts in novels follow rules? And if so what are they? I just read a ghost story that received a lot of attention last year, The Little Stranger. I guessed the kicker halfway through the book, spoiler alert, it's the narrator who calls forth the ghost, it's his malevolent spirit destroying the family he supposedly adores. There's a great deal of discussion about what ghosts are, and what can cause supernatural occurrences, it's written in the style of a nineteenth century novel and works as such, with some nice modern touches.

My book bears no resemblance to this at all. Yet I have a ghost of sorts, someone who is in limbo, then alive. It has to make sense and I find myself caught in that, partly because I guess I'm the kind of person who hates to be too obvious, partly because I don't see what I'm doing till after it's done. And done with. . .

I know Amelia would want to make her last flight again, I know that she would want to experience everything that was new and different and wonderful, I also believe that she would reject what she rejected before. The question is how to make this work on the page, how to make her come to life in a way that the reader buys. It's quite a quandary.

Yet I think of how she got her first break, of going to New York to interview with Putnam, leaving behind Boston and social work, hoping to get a shot at doing something completely unnerving and spectacular, selling herself as the right woman for the job, managing that.

It strikes me that she began her journey in New York, that she left her life in Boston to do it, and that it would happen again. That she left her sister behind once and she would do it again . . .even though in my book it's Muriel who calls her back, it's Muriel who needs her.

Amelia gliding with snow, it's snowing here

Amelia Earhart needs to raise a little money

How is flying a plane round the world the same as publishing a novel? In this case, funding. There were a lot of theories about Amelia's marriage to G.P. Putnam, (yes, as in G.P. Putnam and sons, or as we call it now, Putnam which now specializes in best sellers). No one ever seemed to find the relationship romantic, most viewed it as a marriage of convenience. I see it more as a meeting of two very clever and driven minds.

To manage to achieve a goal that is both so difficult and so expensive, you have to have incredible focus. And you have to believe that whatever it costs is worth it. I mean that in every possible sense. You have to have a huge ego. And an endless supply of energy and enthusiasm. What you want, what you believe, what you intend, you have to have such confidence in it, such a deep seated belief in your own importance. You have to know that what you write is worth reading. And what you're attempting matters. More to the point, whatever it is, has to be worth the cost.

It's not solely financial after all. In order to soar Amelia refused the more traditional pleasures that her sister chose, hearth, husband, home. They felt constricting to her, as they do to many women of this generation. Still, I think about the way she raised money for each new adventure, how she sold herself and did it gladly, knowing that she'd get what she needed in return. If she had doubts, she hid them. She was a remarkably unself-conscious role model. Think of who girls look to and look up to now and the kind of artifice that's attached to these so-called heroines. Fame seems to be an end in itself. It's not what you do that brings you fame. It's you. Just you. Everything is image these days.

And so I think about being a writer, and what I've chosen to write about, nothing as brave or as daring as what Amelia did. But still, it's not solely me on the page. I write because I want to create something surely more fascinating than my own, unremarkable life. As for image? I have to admit, I find it hard to know how to construct one that's commercial. I know this is not time to be self-effacing, that it's a bad habit, still. So I think of Amelia and how she was willing to use her image in order to get what she wanted most. It was a means to an end, not an end in itself.

Amelia Earhart-as she was and as I imagine her

Who is Amelia? I have spent so much time thinking about her, but I find that writing a character means forgetting everything you know. You have to let them tell you who they are. Amelia is direct, forceful, opinionated, a bit of a know it all, she's also impulsive, selfish, stubborn, adventurous, and willing. When she comes back to a world she's never even dreamed might exist, she finds all of it compelling. Think about returning forty three years on. Think what it would be like for you? Can we even keep up with Facebook and Twitter? That's what, five years of our lives at most? She has to make sense of everything, and she has to decide whether to embrace it or fear it. Everything in her, everything that is her, tells her to embrace it. To inhale it. To be a part of this for as long as she can. To be amazed, and assert herself, and live.

I think what most fascinates me about her, of course in my version, is her desire to live. And to live fully. It's a lesson I hope to learn. But one my character has, then again she is Amelia.

the waiting is the hardest part

Apologies to Tom Petty. I have discovered that we have a scanner. Actually we've had one for some time but since I just sent the draft off to a friend to read I'm playing with it. On to the photo that I am about to upload, Amelia on the roof of the library at Columbia University. I just absolutely love the idea of her sitting up there watching the world go by. What nerve she had. Also I've been reading some of her letters again, and there's such enthusiasm there, especially when she was young.

I wonder if she was fully conscious of this, or if it just is apparent to those of us interested in looking back at her. I think about being young, I see my own children and try to remember, through the fine mists of time, what it was like to be seventeen, or twenty two. I do remember this feeling of possibility. But also a great deal of confusion. I expect she was confused as well, she certainly changed career paths enough. But she also found a passion.

The thing I admired most about my father was his passion for the law. He knew he was meant to do one thing and one thing only. I felt and feel the same way about writing, whatever the drawbacks are. Amelia felt as strongly about flying, but god what a choice she made. What an incredible, wonderful choice.

A look is worth a thousand words

eulogies and the power of forgiveness

I wonder what they did for Amelia, I wonder how you mourn someone when there's no consensus. I wonder this because with my father, there wasn't even an urn. He sent his body out to sea, there's no marker other than a bench my nephew bought and sealed his name to on Riverside Drive. He loved to walk there, so if we want we can go sit in the bench and remember. My father walked from home to work up until six months before his death. He walked with long strides, the steadiest sort of pace, he was hard to keep up with until the cancer took over. Even when he knew he was dying, he walked. We gave him a service, and hundreds came. I wrote a speech, one that differed considerably from the ones given by my brother, my sister, my nephew.

Two nights ago I woke and found myself writing a speech for my mother's funeral. She's not dead, but she'd dying. Dying in fits and starts, her mind almost gone, her body giving out on her. It will be so different from what I wrote for my father, you see I know who she is and was. I barely knew him. And I don't question her love for me, while with him . . .

I think of what was done for Amelia, her husband declared her lost on January 5,1939 (although a book I'm reading says January 6th, I'm going to dig into the research and see why this discrepancy). It was done so her will could be probated. By then some had given up, but others never did. So many theories have been proposed. In my novel I have a character point out that "everyone loves a mystery." Having written a few of my own, I know it's true. We like the puzzle, and we like the idea that there's a solution we might get to. But when someone dies, we also like to remember them and speak about them in ways that helps us mourn. I wonder if her family got to do that for her.

In my novel, I let Muriel get her shot. I let her talk about her sister, warts and all. I let her say what most of us never say when they can overhear. The best memorial services are the ones where you listen and think, "That's right!" You see them whole. You can't grieve for a saint. You can only admire them.