Peg Kehret Blog

One night when my good friends, Larry and Myra Karp, came to dinner, Larry asked me, “How do you spell kidnapped?”  I replied, “k-i-d-n-a-p-p-e-d.”

He explained the reason for his question. He had been proof-reading galleys of his next book, King of Ragtime, and the spell-check system on his Word Perfect software had highlighted kidnapped. It gave the correct spelling as kidnaped. That looked wrong to Larry so he did what any good writer would do. He got out his Webster’s Dictionary and looked it up. To his surprise, it said that both versions are correct but the preferred spelling is kidnaped. One P. He changed the spelling throughout his book, but it continued to bother him.

We decided to see what happened with Word, which I used on my computer. I typed in kidnapped, ran the spell check, and it was okay. When I wrote kidnaped, the spell check said it was incorrect. Next we got out my Webster’s Dictionary. In my edition, both versions are correct but the preferred spelling is kidnapped.

Larry and I also looked up Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic book which, as we both thought, is Kidnapped, with two Ps. We found many other books with kidnapped in the title and none were spelled with only one P.

This incident made me realize once again how difficult it can be for a writer to get the details right. Larry and I care deeply about using proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation. In this case, his sources disagreed with mine. While kidnapped and kidnaped are both correct spellings, kidnapped is more commonly used. It would be my preference because if I came to the word kidnaped in a book, it would stop me. I would think about the spelling, rather than the story.  Larry agreed and changed every kidnaped in his book back to kidnapped.

I finished the first draft and printed it. Next I read through it and decided where the chapter breaks should go. Then I revised by hand and I’m now typing those revisions into the manuscript.

 The printing revealed some formatting problems. With this book, I’m switching from Word Perfect, which I have used ever since I got a computer, to Word.  I love Word Perfect but all of the editorial offices that I work with use Word and it had become a problem to always have to convert my manuscripts. It hasn’t been easy to use a different program but I’m getting there.  My daughter-in-law, who teaches computer classes at a high school, was here last weekend and she helped me fix the things I hadn’t been able to figure out.

My oldest granddaughter, Brett, graduated from high school on Monday. It’s been an exciting week. I attended her Senior Awards Night and a graduation party. I volunteered to bake cookies for the party, which led to a baking binge. I love to bake cookies! I made chocolate chip, snickerdoodles, lemon bars, oatmeal, and a butter cookie with coconut that my mother used to make. The graduation itself was wonderful. Brett wore a gold cord that signified “with highest honors.” She will be attending Whitman College in the fall.  

The three fawns are thriving. They usually graze here at least twice every day.  I bought a different kind of bird seed and the first time I filled the feeder with it I had a bird that I hadn’t seen before. How do they know?

A downy woodpecker decided he would like to make a hole in my front door. He tapped, Lucy barked, I thought someone was knocking but when I looked out the window, nobody was there. Then he tapped some more. I shooed him away; he came back and started in again. I finally had to tape a piece of glittery pink ribbon to my door. That persuaded him to go elsewhere. 

I’ve had several letters this week from readers who want to write fiction. They all say basically the same thing: they get an idea, write a beginning, and then can’t figure out what to do next. The story bogs down in the middle so they give up and start something else. “How do you do it?” they ask. “How do you write a whole book?”

It isn’t easy. Not for me, at any rate. I know of a few writers whose first drafts flow from their fingers to the keyboard with no hesitation, but I am not one of them. First drafts are difficult for me and I sometimes resort to small motivational tricks to keep myself going.

I am currently writing a middle grade novel called HOW I WONDER. That may not be the final title but I have to call it something while I’m writing it. As often happens, I had the book about half finished when it seemed to be dragging. The fast action ended and I didn’t know what should happen next. I like the book and didn’t want to give up on it so I set a goal to write 1,000 words per day on HOW I WONDER.

A word count showed that I had 24,736 words at that point. I wrote the date, May 25, on a piece of paper, with the number of words beside it. Then I got to work. I told myself I didn’t have to keep what I wrote. If it was awful, I could always delete it later but I had to get 1000 words down. At the end of that day, my count was 25,753.  Since then I’ve kept track of how much I write each day.

I was up to 33,832 words when my editor called to ask if I was working on a new book. She’d just come from an editorial meeting and hoped I might have something new for her soon. Because I was immersed in the plot, I was able to tell her exactly what HOW I WONDER is about and also how close I am to being finished. She asked for a formal proposal so for the next two days instead of writing 1000 words a day on the manuscript, I wrote a synopsis, revised the first chapter, and chose a representative section from the middle of the book. Those three items went off to my agent, who will read them and send them on (assuming she doesn’t see a problem) to the editor. Then I returned to the book itself, which is currently at 36,223 words.

Having a positive editorial reaction to the basic premise of HOW I WONDER gave me fresh energy to finish the book, but it was the day-after-day act of writing 1000 words that prepared me to respond enthusiastically when asked if I was working on a new manuscript. If I had not made myself be productive, I would not have been able to explain the book so well or to be specific about when I could deliver a final manuscript. I did not know this editor was going to call, but because I had been working regularly, I was ready for the call when it came.

Many people, myself included, want to have written a book. There is only one way to make that happen.  One at a time, you have to put the words on paper.