On The Brink Of The Profound Novel

I just went to Office Hours with my Japanese Civilizations professor (the one that reminds me of me ^_^), Professor Copeland (heh, note the song I chose for my music, completely by accident! Lol . . . ). I'm glad I went-- I'm REALLY glad I went. There's something different (better) about talking to them one-on-one, and about a subject vaguely related to the classroom material but not TOTALLY classroom material, so there's the benefit of passion at play and a knowledge that it's not about the grades (I'm sure she gets plenty of people just being like, "I don't want this grade," or "I don't understand this concept"-- which is what she's there for-- but that must get old and seems more self-serving rather than information-serving).

So I asked her about possible resources to finding out backstory/history for Issei Japanese parents whose Nisei offspring would be born in America and be in their early teens upon the start of the war. That's one major thing I've been lacking-- Megumi's parents' backstory, which would play a lot into her experience in the family, which is fundamentally important. I told her why, of course; she sounded interested in my novel. She asked if I wanted to be a writer, told me that her sisters both were, and one on the topic of history/world-- though as a non-fiction writer-- and encouraged me (not even as a writing professor-- as a Literature and East Asian Studies professor) to take a fiction course if I could and be sure to keep writing, though, she knew, for sure, as I do, that when one is a writer one will always write whether with reason or not. One does not need a degree to be a writer.

She gave me two books: Issei, Nisei, War Bride: Three Generations of Japanese Women in Domestic Service by Evelyn Nakano Glenn and Through Harsh Winters: The Life of a Japanese Immigrant Woman by Akemi Kikumura. They're both female in focus, but one cannot have one side without the other. Plus, from Megumi's perspective, it's probably better to know her mother's story-- and, chauvinistic as it my sound, telling it from the man's side almost always makes it exclusively male, more so than telling it only from the woman's side. Anyway.

She ALSO gave me the names of two Japanese-Americans in St. Louis, both of whom would have been teenagers (one even 13 in 1941, just as Megumi was/is, exactly) in WWII. She says their phone numbers can be found in the phone book (or she could help me find them), and I could call up and ask perhaps for an interview.

. . . which means telephones-- BUT, if I am really serious about this novel, they are the best resources I have. They lived THROUGH it. They experienced it. I will wait until the time is right, however (and I have time); I will compile all my questions (and doubts, and expectations, and so on, and so on . . . ) and assemble them into one interview and see what comes out. I will have more written so that I can confer with them about specific passages to their truth or to their relevance.

I will probably have to wait until Spring Semester, but, so be it . . .

Somehow, with this bit of help, and with the semi-successful-ish-so-far writing of novel NaNoWriMo, my far-off goal of writing this novel, lingering in the background (and yet in the foreground of my mind) for five years now, just doesn't seem that much farther off . . .

On The Brink Of The Profound Novel

I just went to Office Hours with my Japanese Civilizations professor (the one that reminds me of me ^_^), Professor Copeland (heh, note the song I chose for my music, completely by accident! Lol . . . ). I'm glad I went-- I'm REALLY glad I went. There's something different (better) about talking to them one-on-one, and about a subject vaguely related to the classroom material but not TOTALLY classroom material, so there's the benefit of passion at play and a knowledge that it's not about the grades (I'm sure she gets plenty of people just being like, "I don't want this grade," or "I don't understand this concept"-- which is what she's there for-- but that must get old and seems more self-serving rather than information-serving).

So I asked her about possible resources to finding out backstory/history for Issei Japanese parents whose Nisei offspring would be born in America and be in their early teens upon the start of the war. That's one major thing I've been lacking-- Megumi's parents' backstory, which would play a lot into her experience in the family, which is fundamentally important. I told her why, of course; she sounded interested in my novel. She asked if I wanted to be a writer, told me that her sisters both were, and one on the topic of history/world-- though as a non-fiction writer-- and encouraged me (not even as a writing professor-- as a Literature and East Asian Studies professor) to take a fiction course if I could and be sure to keep writing, though, she knew, for sure, as I do, that when one is a writer one will always write whether with reason or not. One does not need a degree to be a writer.

She gave me two books: Issei, Nisei, War Bride: Three Generations of Japanese Women in Domestic Service by Evelyn Nakano Glenn and Through Harsh Winters: The Life of a Japanese Immigrant Woman by Akemi Kikumura. They're both female in focus, but one cannot have one side without the other. Plus, from Megumi's perspective, it's probably better to know her mother's story-- and, chauvinistic as it my sound, telling it from the man's side almost always makes it exclusively male, more so than telling it only from the woman's side. Anyway.

She ALSO gave me the names of two Japanese-Americans in St. Louis, both of whom would have been teenagers (one even 13 in 1941, just as Megumi was/is, exactly) in WWII. She says their phone numbers can be found in the phone book (or she could help me find them), and I could call up and ask perhaps for an interview.

. . . which means telephones-- BUT, if I am really serious about this novel, they are the best resources I have. They lived THROUGH it. They experienced it. I will wait until the time is right, however (and I have time); I will compile all my questions (and doubts, and expectations, and so on, and so on . . . ) and assemble them into one interview and see what comes out. I will have more written so that I can confer with them about specific passages to their truth or to their relevance.

I will probably have to wait until Spring Semester, but, so be it . . .

Somehow, with this bit of help, and with the semi-successful-ish-so-far writing of novel NaNoWriMo, my far-off goal of writing this novel, lingering in the background (and yet in the foreground of my mind) for five years now, just doesn't seem that much farther off . . .