Tag Archives: Vanished in Hiawatha

Stepping Out, Part Two

It’s Easy to Find Inviting Paths

As I said in my last post, writers find it easy to either get sidetracked by unproductive projects, or refuse to try anything new because they’re tired of not seeing results for their efforts. I offered several questions to ask yourself in deciding whether or not to bother. The one I didn’t discuss is: How did this project come to my attention?

If someone called you up and asked you to do it, if someone recommended you for the job, or if you seemingly have no hurdles to overcome to get it, then go for it. Maybe it won’t ultimately work out, but if the opportunity came to you rather than you having to search it out (the more typical route), it’s probably worth trying.

Unfortunately, there’s still room for failure. That’s what happened to me when a producer asked me to write a screenplay based on my book, Vanished in Hiawatha: The Untold Story of the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians. I was intrigued by the possibility, but had never written a screenplay before. The man convinced me that with screenwriting software, I could manage, so I gave it a shot.

He was right, in a way. The software made some of the most frustrating aspects of just getting the story down much easier. However, no one should expect their first effort at a new genre to be wonderful, and mine wasn’t. The screenplay was given to a director who very kindly gave me a fairly detailed critique, and I realized I could be going through umpteen iterations before I got the story down in a way that would satisfy any underwriters. I wanted to pursue it, but because I’d already given quite a bit of time to it and didn’t have any kind of guarantee, I decided to let it go.

My takeaway? I took advantage of an exciting opportunity, I learned a new skill, and I looked at my story in a whole new way. I’m better off for having tried screenwriting, I think, even if nothing came of it. And who knows, letting my story percolate in a different way may pay off yet. We’ll see.

Obscure Information

Archival Center in Boston

On the website I maintain to support my book, Vanished in Hiawatha, someone wrote to me and asked me to help them find information about an ancestor who had been a patient in a New England insane asylum. Of course I don’t do research of that sort, but I do like to answer anyone who has taken the trouble to write. Other people may have similar questions, and I know it can sometimes be like trying to grope through a maze to get at a speck of information you need.

The first thing I have to say is that unfortunately, information sometimes just isn’t there. Documents of all kinds are destroyed over time for legitimate reasons–sometimes just because there’s not enough room to keep storing them. This may not be a problem in the electronic age, but it has certainly been one prior to it.

If your particular record still exists, one of the starting points for you to look for it would be within the institution that originally housed it. By that, I mean that if you’re looking for records on a patient who was in an insane asylum, try to research the original institution to see if it has changed its name (or moved) over the years. If the place still exists and is now a hospital of some sort, for instance, its administrators may have stored these original records somewhere. In the worst case scenario, the administrators will probably still be able to tell you what happened to them.

If records are not readily available at the institution, the next most likely place to look would be in a local, and then state, archive. Again, either of these places may be able to tell you where the records are if they don’t have them. If they were destroyed, you’re probably out of luck so far as detail is concerned, but you can still go to a library (at the original location) to see what they have. A library probably wouldn’t have actual patient records, but many libraries have town/county/family histories which may mention your relative’s name.

Each place you look may lead to another, so don’t automatically give up just because a record isn’t readily accessible.

What Next?

Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum

Writers need to keep busy with writing projects, even though there’s a lot out there to distract us. I’ve been wanting to write a book about insane asylums in general for a long time, and after Vanished In Hiawatha was published, got busy with an outline and some thoughts on how to present the information.

Next came a round of reading and researching, and then the re-immersion into the writing process. It can be a real chore to write again once you take a break from it, but I find that I always enjoy it once I make myself sit down and get started. I finished a couple of chapters and wrote a proposal, hoping to send it out with a quick turnaround–approved, of course!

That hasn’t happened yet, so I am staying busy with an e-book on insane asylums. This will be quite different from the history that I have in mind for a hardback, but it will still give readers a lot of interesting information. I’ve been writing a blog about the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians for several years, and I’ve included many snippets of information about insane asylums in general, their history, and some of the practices and routines followed by many alienists (early psychiatrists). I hope that many readers will gamble on exploring a new topic or diving more deeply into one they’re already interested in with this e-book, since this format is so inexpensive.

Here’s hoping!

Ups and Downs

Museum of the American Indian, courtesy Smithsonian Institution

Writers know that working on a book can be both exhilarating and frustrating, but at least at this point, most of the outcome you desire depends on you. Once the book has been published, though, much of the control leaves your hands and seems to fly out into an indifferent world. This can also be exhilarating and frustrating.

There are several wonderful things that happen when a book launches: You get a box of books in the mail or via UPS that contain “x” number of copies of your masterpiece, which you are then free to inscribe and distribute to your nearest and dearest. Everyone you know is interested in the book and promises to help you publicize it. You know your publisher/publicist/mother–whoever–is trying to get reviews for you. You may or may not be waiting anxiously to read those, but the world is pretty exciting at that point.

After awhile, though, your publisher moves on to other things, and no one seems to be that interested in helping you get the word out. That’s when you have to take delight in the things that do happen. My husband and I took a trip to Washington, DC and visited the Smithsonian’s Museum of the American Indian. I wanted to give the bookstore manager a copy of my publisher’s flyer if the store wasn’t carrying the book. When my husband spotted Vanished in Hiawatha on the bookshelf already, my face probably lit up enough to illuminate the store! I, instead, went over and thanked the manager for carrying it.

Not too many exciting things have happened since then, but I make sure that I remember that moment. Nothing is too small to enjoy or be grateful for, and I’m grateful for the moments I’ve had.

Birth of a Book

Front-View-of-Canton-Asylum-courtesy-National-Institutes-of-Health

The Front View of the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians, Canton, South Dakota, U.S.

A new book is exciting, even after you’ve read your manuscript a hundred times, proofed it over and over, and scrutinized it for errors and typos until you feel you could recite entire chapters in your sleep! Vanished in Hiawatha: The Story of the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians was published June 1, 2016, after literally years of research and writing.

In 2008 I was in writing limbo–I had finished a short biography for teens and wasn’t sure about my next topic. I knew I wanted to write historical material, but what? I began toying with the idea of a young adult novel that involved insane asylums . . . perhaps the main character’s father had been sent to one so his evil relatives could gain control of his fortune . . . perhaps the main character would be sent to one . . . the possibilities were intriguing. For some reason, I had associated insane asylums with England, but my beginning research showed that they had also been well-represented in the United States. Just as I began to get excited about fictional situations, I ran across a reference to the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians.

What!? An asylum just for Indians? Could this be real? I almost thought it wasn’t, until I dug around enough to understand that this institution had really existed. After that, I couldn’t get the place out of my mind and I began to put out feelers for additional information. Soon, I was digging deeper and starting to shape a book that would keep me interested and amazed for the next eight years.