JAVS Spring 2022

To get into the mind of a string player, I also read the novel Sight Reading by Daphne Kalotay. It tells the story of a violinist rather than a violist, but it helped me tap into my old musician self as well as into string-specific vocabulary and issues. I have pages of bullet point notes, many of which, whether quotes or general impressions, come from the book itself. (“Perfect control, even at the bottom of the stroke”, “the electricity that results when we overcome fright”, “importance of vibrato not being too tense or too tight”). Others of those points come from around the internet, like Pinterest, where I found a lot of interesting links. Most of those notes never made it into the first draft, but they all helped inform my general understanding of the mindset of a violist. I also posted questions on my personal Facebook, asking for input from friends I have who play the viola. (It turns out I had more of them than I realised.) While drafting the novel, and many times over the long editing processes, I asked them technical questions. At the beginning, I asked them what drew them and others they knew to the viola. They cited the rich, mellow tones of the viola and practical considerations like how much easier it is to transport than a cello, or that their school happened to have a viola they could borrow, or that a teacher needed a viola in orchestra. It was a great reminder of the many things that influence our choices as humans and as musicians—yes, there’s the sense of “calling”, but there are also a lot of logistical considerations that can set us down a particular route and determine the trajectory of our lives. I also asked them for their favourite pieces and for those that it would make sense for Clara to be playing as she prepared for a LACHSA audition. Many of those pieces—along with set exam pieces for the UK’s Grades Seven and Eight—went onto my viola playlist, including the Glazunov Elegie , which is the piece that made Clara want to play the viola. Each novel I write has its own playlist, which helps signal to my body and my mind that it’s time to go into creative mode and enter the world of the book I’m writing. For Girl, Unstrung , I had two: the first is focussed on teenage years and first crushes, and I would listen to it while making coffee and getting ready to write, to access the angst and big feelings of teenage years. It’s early-Taylor Swift heavy, and I must have listened to the song Fifteen a

thousand times over the course of writing and editing this novel. But when it was time to write, I often listened to the viola playlist. Listening to viola music helped me connect on a visceral level with Clara and her love for her instrument. It’s hard to put into words exactly how that happened—just as it’s hard to explain the alchemy of words on a page appearing from, seemingly, nowhere. And there lies another challenge: describing music and the deep emotions it inspires using words. Had Clara been another kind of character, I could perhaps have used colours, or poetry, or lofty quotes. But she is logical and—she thinks—level headed, with no patience for orchestra teachers who use imagery to get the students to play in tune. I listened carefully to stretches of music and thought about how to represent them using words in descriptive ways without too many metaphors. Clara also needed to explain a lot of the terminology— and many readers, who may not be musicians themselves, need that, too. Where it made sense within the flow of the writing without sounding too didactic, I did so in the text. In the Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging series of books, for a similar age of reader, the British character has a glossary for her American readers. I took inspiration from that and wrote a reference section at the back, in Clara’s voice, so that more information would be there for those who wanted it, without interrupting the flow of the narrative. My aim is that this will make the novel more accessible for non-musicians, as well as for any readers whose interest is piqued by my novel and who want to learn more. It would be wonderful if, in future years, I were to hear of young musicians who were inspired by my book to take up the viola. It has been a real pleasure and privilege to be welcomed so open-heartedly by the viola community as my book Girl, Unstrung , has made its way into the world. I hope that, thanks to my book, young violists can feel validated and valued, and perhaps strike up important discussions with their parents and teachers about their own ambitions, musical struggles, and love for their instrument.

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Journal of the American Viola Society / Vol. 38, No. 1, Spring 2022