Falling in Love Again by Martha Hart

Conceived in the heat of a lightning-flash of inspiration, my favorite child has been doted on, ignored, left to wander, and abandoned more than once. But I’m always welcomed back, and each time I affirm my commitment, then fail with another betrayal.

This child o’ mine—my second fourth book—started from a passionate notion of interviews + photographs and instantly grew into a far-more-complex project than the first had been. I gave it full-time attention for 18 months, and was on a roll... until life got in the way. More than a downward turn, it was a perfect storm—finances, divorce, health, job, yadda ya—that brought to a standstill my work, my daily life, certainly this book. In half-hearted attempts to be practical, I tried more than once to walk away from it. I lost motivation. I told myself the stories gathered in interviews were no longer relevant. I’d trick my mind into thinking it might work; tried the it-was-the-path-not-the-destination approach. No luck.

Now after almost 14 years, I’ve re-recommitted to this project and am diving in. My work is always, in some way, about the creative process itself, so I ask: What’s different, and why? is it worth doing? and how will I make it happen?

What is it? The book is a blue-collar look at tenors in opera and has always had its own drive and energy, demanding all my attention. How apropos, I thought, given my subjects.

What’s different? Two Three things. When I lost my access to an opera company, I thought it invalidated my perspective. Half a world away, a friend waved her anthropology degree at me and bluntly pointed out that every researcher goes into the field, immerses herself, and gets to a point when she must leave or risk going native. “You owe it to your audience to come back and report what you found, to describe, to interpret,” she emailed from Wellington. “So your not being on the inside anymore is part of the process.”

Got it. Said I was process-centric, didn’t I? In my forced-backward steps I had gained a great deal of objectivity, much needed. Not entirely objective—too sterile, too boring that way. But looking at the project with a mental wide-angle lens, I took a step back, not so consumed by details. No longer on the inside of the opera world? That became an advantage instead of an excuse.

The book was never about how-to-sing or gossip, so it’s still about tenors, their art and craft, what inspires them, what it takes to do the work. But my own journey in pursuing 120+ interviews has become part of the story, too. Clearly I need a balance between writing a tale that's all about me instead of the singers, but now I’m the guide for the reader, who gets to discover what I learned by following in my steps. (Some days, that statement makes perfect sense; others, I wonder what I was thinking!)

Understanding came slowly, and it came from peer-reader feedback. I sent (what I thought was going to be) the introduction to a small group of readers. First mistake was writing the introduction before I’d written the book. Second mistake was (typically) cramming in everything I know. (A workshop leader once gave me the best advice ever when he said “Stop showing off. Your intellect is getting in the way of telling the story.”)

All my readers but one said Oh lovely, very nice, you go girl. The other wrote me: “Though these are all fascinating characters, the one I really want to keep reading about is you.” Nonsense! I said. Not me! The singers are compelling, larger than life… It took a long time to accept that the narrator must take a prominent role in this story.

Each interview brought new insights, but the big picture is changing from sharing cool stories and somehow tying them all together … to evolving into a through-line. Not a history book, but the personal connections from teacher to singer, a craft that stays alive in this way, handed down from one generation to another.

Why? Fast-forward through a few years of almost no activity on the book. I started a full-time career, returned to school and assumed the sole caretaking role for my mother. Busy? Sure. But I researched and wrote another complex book, dimly understanding that I was working out some of the organizational problems that were blocking me on the tenor book. I also decided to face down my fear of success (not of failure, but that’s another story) and laugh it away. Time to finally let go… or just do it.

How? Taking the lessons from that between book, I got serious, got organized, and got real.

1. Eliminated my primary excuse. Only half the interview tapes are transcribed… I whined. So I dipped into savings and hired a freelancer to finish the transcriptions.


2. Sorted through electronic, paper and photo files to analyze what gaps I need to fill.


3. Created a production calendar. Started in Word then adapted it to Outlook, but could have used Excel or anything that worked. Building an outline, I listed broad categories, assigned colors to them because I understand things in a visual way, then got specific. (I didn’t just say “review existing transcripts” but said: add keywords to spreadsheet, identify great stories in each, extract anecdotes for sidebars.) Then I assigned quasi-arbitrary start and end dates to each task. Now my weekly calendar view shows me my focus.


4. Reconnected with contacts who can help.


5. Ramped up social media involvement and yes, I will get that website up this summer.

Is it worth doing? In more than a decade, every time I’d review photographs, read transcripts, hear from one of my interviewees, I’d feel the thrill of the chase. I never lost the passion for my original story idea, useless if locked away inside tape recorders and laptop. I’m still busy, stressed, struggling with wearing many hats. But my way is clear and my step is lighter. I’m in love again!

[lightning image from NASA]