From Idea to Publication: Creating a cleaning lady novel
People ask writers: Where do you get your ideas? How did you conceive an entire novel?
The truth is that we all create in a unique way. I asked myself: How did you write your cleaning lady novel? This is the story of my long and winding road to publication, which included the spark of an idea, the structure of the novel, the deep dark secret, and the stretch of time it took to find a publisher.
From Idea to Publication: The spark
Your cleaning lady Penelope* rearranges your fake flowers every time she cleans. You move them back to your preferred arrangement during the two weeks before Penelope comes again. This goes on for years. Life is a whirlwind when you have a job, husband, school-aged kids, and are trying to write a novel. Penelope doesn’t mess with your other stuff. She must think the flowers look better staggered instead of straight. Is your decorating style that bad?
Every time, Penelope moves them. You move them back. Like checkers. Is this a game? Well, it’s not a game to you. But is it a game to her? Hahahaha!!! That’s hilarious. You shout to your husband, “I think Penelope is trying to fuck with me!” You are laughing too hard to speak. Your husband doesn’t ask what on earth is going on. As long as you’re laughing, things are probably fine.
Later, you tell him: “I’m going to write a novel about a cleaning lady who likes to mess with people’s stuff.” You manage to say it without cracking up. Your husband nods, smiles. This is validation. He’s never once stood in the way of you trying to be a novelist. It will be your fourth attempt at a novel. Writing is hard business.
“Imagine all the weird stuff a cleaning lady sees over the course of a week,” you say. “She’ll do such a great job cleaning that no one will say anything about how she moves their stuff,” you add. That bubble of hilarity is back, and you swallow it fast and retreat into your imagination.
The fictional cleaning lady will create a home-grown cleaning concoction to save money. It works so well she calls it Magic. It will be her best kept secret.
From Idea to Publication: The structure
The name of your fictitious cleaning lady is Dawn. You think about how to structure your cleaning lady novel. Also, about place. One of the best parts of writing is imagining a character’s surroundings. Let’s say Dawn lives in a shabby trailer park, with second-hand furniture and mismatched dishes, but the place is spotless.
It’s all up to you, the writer.
You wonder what Dawn will think about as she cleans. She’ll pay attention to all the details: the spaghetti explosion inside the microwave, a giant burn melted into the linoleum on the kitchen floor.
A cleaning lady sees everything, you realize. And, not only will Dawn have access to an entire house full of stuff, cleaning ladies clean a different house every day of the week. Five households, people with shame and secrets, homes to unpack. You wonder if this is one of those subconscious writerly moments: when you realize the funny book idea about a cleaning lady actually aligns with your obsession about the meaning behind the items we keep. And what is shame, after all, if not an intensely personal emotion that is useless when you think about it? Our shame is our own creation.
But, god, what if someone else could see our lives? You wonder about Penelope, your real-life cleaning lady, and what conclusions she’s drawn about you. Dawn will know the best of her customer’s secrets. After all, isn’t fiction really about the secrets no one will talk about in real life?
That’s what this book could be about. Dawn’s life as a cleaning lady, yes, but also the lives of the people whose houses she cleans. Seen through Dawn’s eyes. What she discovers will tell a story on its own. How fun.
But it doesn’t really sound like a novel, yet… unless there’s a throughline.
From Idea to Publication: The secret
You decide: Dawn’s secret cleaning concoction can’t be her best kept secret. She needs an actual secret. You’re not sure what it is before you start writing.
There’s got to be a reason she takes pleasure in messing with her customers’ stuff. She can’t be that kind of person for no good reason. You write that Dawn is recovering from a motorcycle accident that skinned her elbows to the bone. It’s hard to make good choices when her life has taken such an unexpected turn. She was engaged and her fiancé died in the crash.
Thankfully, she has a friend like Matthew, a male friend she can tell anything to. She agrees to pose for Matthew’s provocative photography project—in the houses she cleans. That ought to make things interesting. That will really allow Dawn to show the reader exactly who these people are. And there will always be this worry that she and Matthew will get caught. Somehow, even though the cleaning lady novel gets really, really messy, it all gets cleaned up by the end.
From Idea to Publication: The stretch
You finish drafting the cleaning lady novel. You literally send 99 queries before landing an agent. You work like hell over the next three years to fine-tune, adjust scenes and scenarios, and keep trying.
The cleaning lady novel doesn’t sell. You and your agent break up.
You write two new novels, but keep going back to the cleaning lady book. A generous editor offers extensive revisions. You take several more years to make them. Dawn’s backstory becomes rooted in her relationship with her dead fiancé’s mother. Between the five houses she cleans and the way Dawn comes to terms with grief, you feel good about the project. You decide to pitch some small presses and, as god as my witness, it is acquired by Regal House Publishing.
Your kids are grown by now, Penelope is long retired, and you sold your house in Michigan and moved to Chicago. The cleaning lady you found in Chicago is so good you don’t dare tell her you wrote a book about one who spies and snoops. You cry when you see your name on the actual cover. If only your dad had lived long enough to see it.
You stand by your decision to include an F-bomb in the first sentence. Dawn is Dawn. What, young people don’t swear? You wonder if readers will love Dawn the way you do, considering she’s kind of a hot mess. You decide that you love her and that’s what matters. You believe in your book. You’ve published a cleaning lady novel!
Remember: A writer’s stretch could take longer than expected. Your spark might be less subtle or the structure might be outlined from start to finish before you write a word. Maybe you begin with the secret and build the novel from there. Whatever your creative process, keep writing. That’s the best way to finish a novel.
*Not her real name.
BETH UZNIS JOHNSON has published fiction and creative nonfiction in Massachusetts Review, Story Quarterly, Mississippi Review, Best American Essays 2018, and elsewhere. She received the 2017 McGinnis-Ritchie Award from Southwest Review and writes from Chicago. Her novel, Coming Clean, is available from Regal House Publishing. Visit: bethujohnson.com or @buzjohn