Diaries as historical references

When I wrote Full Cicada Moon, a novel that takes place in Vermont, USA, in 1969, I wanted the cultural and historical references to be as accurate as possible. For example:

• current and recent past events
• popular music, movies, TV shows
• magazines and newspapers
• fashions (clothing, shoes, fragrances, hairstyles and makeup)
• appliances and gadgets

And because Mimi, the story’s narrator, is fascinated by the moon and the Apollo space program, including accurate moon phases and weather conditions was also critical.

I found much of the information I needed from the internet—which led me to the books, magazines, and “Top 100” lists I needed. For example, I bought several issues of LIFE, TIME, CO-ED, and Tiger Beat magazines from eBay, as well as a Sears catalog, watched several documentaries on the PBS and The History Channel websites, and purchases several books from Amazon. Popular songs, records, and movies were easy to find. And the phases of the moon linked to dates were also easily found.

But when it came to weather conditions, that information proved to be more elusive. I searched for the conditions recorded for the city nearest to my fictional town of Hillsborough, VT, but the daily conditions were, at best, spotty. After all, 1969 is now considered historical and meteorology tech wasn’t as highly developed as it is today.

This is where my great-gramma Clark’s diaries came in. Although she lived in central New Hampshire, I took artistic license to use her entries for the weather conditions in central Vermont. (After all, I figured, they’re on the same latitude.) On each day, at the top of the diary page she recorded the weather condition and often the temperature. Her entries also often detailed the weather, especially if it changed during the day. For instance, a hot, humid afternoon might quickly have turned into a stormy evening.

Because of Gramma Clark’s low-tech method of tracking the weather, I was able to complete the information I needed to write my book. Little would she have imagined that something as simple as writing “Cloudy, 62 degrees” at the top of a page would years later help her great-granddaughter, but where tech had failed me, her diary came through.

In this most unusual time in history, you might never imagine how jotting down your day’s events—family life, the weather, how your garden is growing, and other details of your daily life—might became useful to future historians.

Here's a portion of the outline I created for Full Cicada Moon, which—thanks to Gramma's diaries—includes the weather. 

Why I wrote Full Cicada Moon in poetry

I'm often asked why, when I could have written Full Cicada Moon in any number of forms, I decided to tell the story in free-verse poetry. 

The answer is pretty simple: it's the way the story came to me. And, once I began writing the story in free verse, I realized that what Mimi had to say flowed more easily that way.

Originally, I’d intended to finish the first draft in free verse and then rewrite subsequent versions in more traditional narrative prose. But when I got about a quarter way through the first draft, I realized that this form was the best way for Mimi to tell her story. Because: 

1. Poetry let me write from a deep place in Mimi's character. 
2. Poetry let me express Mimi's emotions not only by which words I used but by how I arranged them on the page. 
3. I could omit tedious stage directions (for example, "She walked to the other side of the room," etc.) and write only the essential information that conveyed the story. 
4. Poetry gives more space for the reader to fill in their story between the lines and in the unwritten words. 
5. Poetry is fun to write.

Happy writing!

Speaking (Again) of Diaries

In previous posts I’ve written about diaries—the benefits of keeping one and how to write in one each day. Though these posts were written a long time ago, again I’m writing about diaries. Clearly, I’m obsessed.

Let’s review the benefits of keeping a daily diary:

1. Diaries are a keepsake for your descendants and other family members. 
2. Diaries serve as a historical record.
3. Diaries capture what happened when it happened, while details are still fresh in memory and not blurred by the passing of time.
4. Diaries will help your children and future generations feel connected to you.
5. Diaries serve as a witness to the lives of your children and grandchildren when they’re too young to be able to remember the events or put them in context.

My great-grandmother kept a diary every day of most of her life, and she lived to the age of 83. She had no idea that I’d consult her diaries again and again to confirm or disprove family lore, learn about my parents’ courtship, discover that she and her family contracted the H1N1 influenza pandemic of 1918, and so much more. When my second daughter was five months old, I decided to follow Gramma’s example and began keeping a daily diary. That was 24 years ago, and writing one page in my diary at the end of each day is now an unbreakable habit.

In future posts, I’m going to talk more about diaries, how they’ve been useful, how I’ve used them. And I’ll share some entries from our pages.

If you’ve been thinking of keeping a daily diary—say, starting on Jan 1, 2021—now would be a great time to choose one to write in. 

Happy writing!