Steve Cuden: On today’s StoryBeat…

Marcia Peck: There’s something about writing that… when you do a performance and you finish it and however elated you are and however wrapped up in the performance you are, it’s gone when you’re done. It’s not the same as the moment that you’re making it. So it’s given me enormous satisfaction to write and then have that last, have it be there to return to.

Announcer: This is StoryBeat with Steve Cuden, a podcast for the creative mind. StoryBeat explores how Masters of creativity develop and produce brilliant works that people everywhere love and admire. So join us as we discover how talented creators find success in the worlds of imagination and entertainment.

Here now is your host, Steve Cuden.

Steve Cuden: Thanks for joining us on StoryBeat. We’re coming to you from the Steel City, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. My guest today, Macia Peck, is an award-winning writer and accomplished musician celebrating over 50 years as a cellist with the Minnesota Orchestra. Inspired by the rhythms and sounds of music echoed in language, her debut novel, Water Music: A Cape Cod story combines all her passions, music writing, and Cape Cod. The book has received critical acclaim and numerous book awards, including Literary Titan Gold National Indie Excellence, new England Book Festival Regional Lit, and the Feathered Quill Reviewers Choice Awards. I’ve read water music and can tell you it’s a phenomenal exploration of the tribulations of a young girl on the verge of becoming a teenager, growing up in and around an emotionally challenging family, all while working to discover herself within that stressful mix.

Marcia’s many articles of appeared in a variety of magazines and her short story writing has received multiple awards from groups far and wide. A cellist with the Minnesota Orchestra for her entire musical career. She’s inspired by the rhythms and sounds of music echoed in language. So for all those reasons and many more, I’m honored to welcome the brilliant musician and writer, Marsha Peck to Story beat today.

Marcia, welcome to the show. 

Marcia Peck: Oh, thank you so much Steve. It’s my pleasure to be here. 

Steve Cuden: Well, the pleasure is truly mine. Thank you so much. So let’s go back in time a little bit. How old were you when you first became interested in music? 

Marcia Peck: Ah, well my parents were both musicians. 

Steve Cuden: Mm-hmm. 

Marcia Peck: They were both pianists and, um, so it was pretty for ordained that I would have to play an instrument at some point.

I started piano when I was about five, studying with my father. But everybody knows that doesn’t really usually work. Um, so I was about eight years old when he brought home a cello and a small one quarter size and, um, and said, well, you’ll have your first cello lesson tomorrow morning. 

Steve Cuden: Hmm. 

Marcia Peck: And I started studying with a, a man named Joseph Fury, who was just a delight and very kind to a beginner, to an 8-year-old.

So that was this beginning of my musical life. 

Steve Cuden: And so were you interested in words at the same time? Did that develop at the same time for you? 

Marcia Peck: Ah, that’s, that’s funny you should ask because when, um, I was going through my father’s things, his, um, filing cabinet, he had saved a poem that I apparently wrote when I was.

Five years old and it said mm-hmm. That I spoke when I was five years old and it, it went, be gay, be gay. It’s Thanksgiving day. Be glad, be glad and don’t be sad. So not a lot of promise there, but my parents always read to me, so I was interested in reading, but that’s the only thing I can think of that I wrote besides, um.

Steve Cuden: So you were a reader early on then? 

Marcia Peck: Yes, yes. I loved, I loved reading. 

Steve Cuden: That was a fascination with words at that point, but not as a writer yet. True that, that’s exactly right. Okay. So at what point, obviously you started to play cello well enough that eventually you wind up in an orchestra. Did you go to school for it?

Marcia Peck: Yes, yes. The rule in my house was that I had to practice an hour a day. Um, and that was, that was the law. Mm-hmm. Uh, but I got to out of doing dishes or other things by, if I just did my hour a day on the cello, and by the time I was in high school, I began to think, well, that’s the thing that I’m, I sort of am good at.

And after high school I. I, uh, went to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Uh, so I was lucky. Very lucky to get in there. 

Steve Cuden: Well, that’s a very fine school. 

Marcia Peck: Not everybody knows it because it’s so small, but it is. It’s, 

Steve Cuden: it’s actually a well-known name, but yes, it’s a smaller school. 

Marcia Peck: Yes. I’m glad to hear.

Yeah. 

Steve Cuden: So do you now think of yourself, obviously you’ve been writing for some time, this is not a new thing for you. The novel is a new thing, but writing is something you’ve been doing for a while. When did you start writing? 

Marcia Peck: I started writing about the time my daughter was born. I was, I was already working here in the orchestra.

I was reading a lot by then, and I, I think it started because I, I wanted to keep a diary, uh, a journal after when my, uh, when my daughter was born, and then pretty soon having a child, a, a little daughter. Made me remember my own, uh, childhood and things I wanted to remember and maybe, um, I don’t know. So I, I started to keep that journal and that led me to start, uh, to write a couple of short stories that were not based on my life, but.

Based on things I knew. Mm-hmm. I didn’t wanna write, I, I was, didn’t think I could write fantasy or make things entirely up. 

Steve Cuden: Well, the classic, uh, cliche is write what you know. 

Marcia Peck: Oh. 

Steve Cuden: And even people who write fantasy are actually writing about what they know. They’re not. Even though they’re making up certain worlds or characters, right, they’re still writing about emotions that they understand.

So true. So true. So do you now think of yourself after all these years of doing both in the creative world of both music and writing, do you think of yourself more as a musician or a writer, or do you think of yourself in some other way? 

Marcia Peck: Ah, I think of myself as both, but as I’m getting older, I think I’m, it’s harder and harder to keep those fingers in shape on the cello.

It’s, uh, 

Steve Cuden: mm-hmm. 

Marcia Peck: As I look back, I have more experience to draw from. I think, uh, writing is taking the front burner. 

Steve Cuden: Well, it’s interesting, and correct me if I’m wrong, please, as a musician in an orchestra, you are an interpreter of someone else’s creation. 

Announcer: Yes. 

Steve Cuden: Or you’re part of an interpretation with a whole bunch of other people to interpret somebody else’s creation.

IE, the music, 

Marcia Peck: yes. 

Steve Cuden: But as the writer, you are the creator. 

Marcia Peck: Yes. That’s, that’s such an important distinction. I, I love that you said that because a performance, although. I feel so lucky that I’ve lived my life with these great works of art, these symphonies by, you know, Mahler and Beethoven and Shastakovich.

Steve Cuden: Just a, just a couple of guys. Yes. 

Marcia Peck: Yes. That, and they always have something to teach me no matter how many times I play them. There’s something about writing that when you do a performance. You finish it and however elated you are and however wrapped up in the performance you are, it’s gone. When, when you’re done.

Even the ones that are recorded and, and, and saved, it’s not the same. They’re as the moment that you’re making it. Right. So it’s given me enormous satisfaction to write and then have that last, have it, have it be there to, to return to. 

Steve Cuden: Well, there’s some kind of energy. I’ve been in the theater for my entire career, uh, theater and film and movies and so on.

There’s something about that energy with a live performance that you cannot duplicate with a recording of it. True. 

Marcia Peck: Yes, exactly. Exactly. 

Steve Cuden: And so that interconnection between the audience and the performers, there’s something special about that. Very special. You can’t recreate that. 

Marcia Peck: Very special. 

Steve Cuden: Yeah. So even if you sit and listen to the recording of it, it’s not the same as being there at all.

Marcia Peck: No. No. 

Steve Cuden: Do you think of music as a form of storytelling? 

Marcia Peck: Oh. Y Yes, for sure. Even music that we think of as pure music, like Bach, that doesn’t have a storyline. Even there, there’s, there’s something that carries us from beginning through to the end. There’s, maybe it’s the form, maybe it’s the, I don’t know, his intention.

And then of course there are these, these wonderful stories like nobody, nobody could capture. Uh, the Soviet Union better andto under Stalin than, than Shastakovich. I mean, he, his, his symphonies tell the, tell the whole tale better than anything I’ve ever encountered. 

Steve Cuden: And you’ve, and you’ve got Tchaikovsky in there as well.

He’s pretty good at telling a story with music. Yes. Uh, I mean, he wrote a piece called the 1812 Overture. That’s pretty indicative of a story. And then you have musicians. From the classical world, who also are known for writing operas, which are true stories being told with music and lyrics. 

Marcia Peck: Yeah. Yeah. 

Steve Cuden: Do you think of opera as pure music or is it something different for you?

Marcia Peck: Oh, I haven’t, gosh, that’s what a great question. I adore opera. Don’t play it every, you know, I’m not in an opera orchestra, but I’ve, over the years I’ve played, I’ve played many operas and fall in love with every single one of them. 

Steve Cuden: Yes, sure. 

Marcia Peck: Yes, they’re all based on a libretto, right? They all have a story to tell.

Uh, I’m always knocked out with how opera composers, how the, how they’re able to capture the story in their. In their writing. I’m, and I’m saying that very well, but Well, 

Steve Cuden: you’re, what you’re, what you’re saying is it’s, you have to be able to take the music and make it part of the storytelling, and that the words are then a part of the storytelling as well, and the music and the lyrics have to.

Joint Right. Uh, joint up perfectly. Exactly. 

Marcia Peck: Yeah. 

Steve Cuden: So, so I’ve worked on musicals quite a bit in my life, and, and that’s the issue is how do you take the words, translate it into something musical so that it all meshes and becomes one 

Marcia Peck: Yes. 

Steve Cuden: Which is a little bit different than playing pure symphony music, though I’m, I’m always fascinated when I go to the symphony at how everybody sitting on that stage works together.

So it sounds like one thing I’m boggled by. 

Marcia Peck: That’s the goal. 

Steve Cuden: I’m sure it doesn’t always work out perfectly like that, does it? 

Marcia Peck: Yeah. I, it, it always amazes me too, that when you’re in it, when you’re sitting there in the middle of that a hundred people, that, and everyone’s responding to everything else and to what they’re hearing, that it does feel like one organism.

It doesn’t feel like a hundred, a hundred voices. 

Steve Cuden: No, and nor should it. And and it’s amazing when that works out perfectly like that. It’s, it’s just like I say, I sit there and go, how does that happen? Yeah, it’s almost a miracle and it happens all the time, but it’s really amazing when it happens really well.

Um, so let’s talk about writing for a little bit. Um, did you train as a writer in school anywhere? 

Marcia Peck: No, no, I didn’t. I I had a wonderful English teacher in high school who, he, he was, uh, so we read, we read good things in high school. He was best at debate. He, he could get a class just fighting over, over some issue, having a knockdown, drag out debate.

No. And then when I got to Music Conservatory, uh, there was a time when I, I wasn’t reading, I wasn’t writing. And 

Steve Cuden: that’s ’cause you were working to become a musician and it’s hard 

Marcia Peck: Yeah. In the practice room a lot. And then fellow that I was dating, he said, you know, you should really read these books. And he gave me the Lord of the Rings.

Oh, okay. And I devoured them. I thought, what have I been missing? And then one of my teachers gave, uh, said, uh. You know, TS Elliot, you would like this poem. And he gave me the love song of j Alfred Perak. And somehow that started my reading again. And um, and then when I got my job here in Minneapolis, I. I began to read, I would read, I would take some author like Henry James and I would just, or Wallace Stegner.

And I just decided I’m gonna read everything that he wrote and then mm-hmm. And then I would find somebody like Mary Reno. I, I’m, I’m not sure I pronounce her name right. Mary Renault, Mary Renault, it’s 

Steve Cuden: probably Renault, but yes, who wrote 

Marcia Peck: those wonderful Greek novels based on the Greek myths, and I just carried them in my head.

I just loved that. And then, um, yes, then, then gradually when my daughter was born, uh, as I said, then I. I felt like there were things that I had to say that I wanted to put to paper. 

Steve Cuden: So the, you, you know, you went through school and you had an English teacher and you went through classes as to how word structure works and sentence structure and paragraph structure and all that.

But I. You are more or less self-trained in terms of being an actual writer? Yes. 

Marcia Peck: In the beginning, yes. For sure. And I’ve never had formal training, but, um, Minneapolis and Minnesota has been a good place to try to learn to be a writer. Mm-hmm. There’s a lot of support here with literary centers. Um, and so I’ve taken the odd class here and there and there are some wonderful writers here.

Uh, so I have at least two. Solid writing groups, uh, who give great feedback. And then over the years, of course, there’s this seminar you can take or that seminar. So is it, that’s not self-taught, is it? It’s kind of self-directed. 

Steve Cuden: YY it’s self-directed or, you know, I use the term self-taught because nobody’s sitting over you teaching you.

Right. Um, and so you’re teaching yourself or you’re learning on your own. That way. But the, there’s no substitute. Uh, I’m sure you’ll agree with this. There’s no substitute for just writing and learning to write by writing. 

Marcia Peck: Yes, yes. 

Steve Cuden: And that’s what you did, obviously. 

Marcia Peck: Yes. And reading. And reading. Uh, sure. 

Steve Cuden: You, you have to read.

If you’re gonna be a writer, you have to read 

Marcia Peck: Right. I was, I’ve been lucky that I haven’t had, um, I haven’t had to hurry. I, I haven’t had deadlines. I could really work and rework and rework and 

Steve Cuden: Well, and you also weren’t needing it to become your profession. You didn’t need to earn a living from it. 

Marcia Peck: True.

Yes. 

Steve Cuden: And that makes a big difference for people if you don’t have that pressure of what do I do with this? 

Marcia Peck: Absolutely. Yeah. 

Steve Cuden: And so at what point did you then get your first publishing of your work? Um, and that you, that must have given you some confidence that, yeah, I guess I can do this a little bit.

When did that happen for you? 

Marcia Peck: Well, funny story, the very first thing that was published, I, I wrote a short story and it was a story about an orchestra musician, uh, as, as one might expect. 

Steve Cuden: Mm-hmm. 

Marcia Peck: And I entered it in a very small local. Competition from a small local magazine, and, and it won. It won the first prize and it was published in this, this small local magazine with very little distribution.

But I was so proud and I got an extra copy and I. Mailed it off to my father, just saying, haha, look at this. And he said, well, congratulations. And he sent it back to me and it was all marked up in red corrections that he had made ever the, ever the teacher that he was. Uh, and, but it didn’t, it didn’t discourage me, obviously.

Steve Cuden: Well, it didn’t bother whoever gave you the, the award that didn’t bother them. 

Marcia Peck: Right. My father was a stickler for certain things. 

Steve Cuden: But at that point, were you then encouraged to continue to write because of that experience? Yes, for sure. And and so that’s helpful for a writer because as you well know, you’re gonna play in an orchestra, you’re gonna join a whole lot of other people.

You’re gonna be around on a many hourly basis, but as a writer, you’re gonna work alone at home. 

Marcia Peck: Yes. 

Steve Cuden: Huge difference. I 

Marcia Peck: guess. Fortunately, I’m an introvert, so that helps. I don’t mind the time alone in a, my writing room. 

Steve Cuden: Yes, I 

Marcia Peck: do love being part of that a hundred people, an orchestra where you’re, you’re goals are the same and you’re working together and, and for an introvert, you don’t really have to talk a lot.

Well, 

Steve Cuden: you’re not, it, you would probably have a more difficult time if you were the conductor. 

Marcia Peck: Oh, yes, yes, for sure. No, I’m, I’m, I would not make a good conductor that I know that. But you 

Steve Cuden: could as the, as a cellist, you could blend into the whole 

Marcia Peck: Yes, 

Steve Cuden: yes. Have you ever had solos in the orchestra? 

Marcia Peck: Yes. 

Steve Cuden: Yes. And chamber music at that point, you have to no longer be an introvert at that moment.

Correct. 

Marcia Peck: You’re right. You are right. 

Steve Cuden: Yes. 

Marcia Peck: The pressure’s 

Steve Cuden: on when 

Marcia Peck: you’re a soloist, 

Steve Cuden: you’re in the spotlight. There’s no getting around it. Yeah. Everybody’s paying attention to you and only you. Yeah. So, yeah. Well, but as, but as a writer, that introvert. Character of yours is naturally able to sit for long periods and not worry about the fact that there, there’s no one else around you to, that you have to interact with.

You can actually be inside your own head, which by the way, is the way I think the majority of writers in the world are. 

Marcia Peck: Ah, oh, that’s comforting. Yeah. Uh, it’s. It’s certainly, uh, helpful to be able to sit with your thoughts and not feel, not feel hurried or pressured. 

Steve Cuden: So, as an introvert, do you think of yourself as a people watcher that you sit back and observe the world?

Marcia Peck: Ah, yeah. Yes, to an extent, but I think I, I plumb my own experience the most. In my writing. Well, 

Steve Cuden: we’re gonna talk about that right now because let’s talk about water music, which is this beautiful novel that you’ve written. Tell the listeners what water music is all about because the little bit that I talked about in the opening doesn’t really tell you all that much.

Explain what the story is about. 

Marcia Peck: Uh, the. There was an image that got me going on writing water music, and that was, well when I was a child. We spent our summers on Cape Cod and I absolutely fell in love with Cape Cod. It was my heart’s place. Even though I grew up in New Jersey, Cape Cod was. That was the, that was where my all my dreams took place.

Steve Cuden: It was magical for you. 

Marcia Peck: It was magical and at some point the image of that narrow, fragile piece of land that sticks way out into, into the Atlantic Ocean, the fact that it was connected to. The rest of the country, the mainland by two slender, thin, fragile bridges. Once the canal went in, just that image of it struck me that it was, it was a tether.

And so the image of the tether just, I don’t know, that got me going about how. How precarious our lives can be and how precarious our relationships can be and how we’re tethered to each other. And so anyway, that was, that was the start of the book for me. It it’s ki it came Correct 

Steve Cuden: My love. Uh, correct me if I’m wrong, the story came from your own experiences in your life.

Yes. 

Marcia Peck: You know, the characters are loosely based on people that I know. 

Steve Cuden: But it’s not an autobiography. 

Marcia Peck: It’s not an auto, no, it is not a memoir. It’s, it’s based on feelings and relationships. But not literally. Why did you settle 

Steve Cuden: on a 12-year-old girl? Why that age? 

Marcia Peck: I really wanted a, someone who was in an innocent, who’s trying to make sense of the world around her.

And she’s pretty, she gets a lot right, and she gets a lot wrong, and I, I loved that interaction where she, she’s old enough to have some grownup. Ideas about life or her family, but she’s also, she’s an innocent who’s trying to make sense of it all. And 

Steve Cuden: she’s somewhat naive. 

Marcia Peck: Yeah, that’s a good word. That’s a good word.

Uh, but she has some, some, uh, observations that she’s not wrong about either. So I, I liked, I liked having a curious open, but on the cusp of, uh, growing up herself. Narrator, 

Steve Cuden: that that’s what appealed to you was the notion that she’s on the verge of something, uh, bigger than what she’s experienced prior to 

Marcia Peck: Exactly, yes.

Steve Cuden: It, it feels like she’s ready to, she feels like a butterfly who’s coming from, uh, the chrysalis of being a caterpillar. Oh, I know. That’s what it feels like in the book. 

Marcia Peck: Oh, I love that. Thank, that’s great image. Wonderful 

Steve Cuden: image. Well, that’s what, um, that, that’s, you can steal that all you like. 

Marcia Peck: I’m gonna carry that 

Steve Cuden: with me.

And her name is Lily and she Yes. Also plays the cello like you. 

Marcia Peck: Yes. 

Steve Cuden: And so, um, and the music in her life is important to both of her parents and to her. Cousins. 

Marcia Peck: Yeah. 

Steve Cuden: Uh, and her relatives. And so music is a big component in the story. Is that where the title comes from? Water music. 

Marcia Peck: Uh, water music. I, it’s a title that meant a lot to me.

Uh, not only because of obviously the, the musical handle piece that we all know, but for me, and, and it was a problem, uh, for the publisher because what, there are other books that are. With that title, uh, water music. So they, the publisher did want a, uh, subtitle, but I was lucky that when you’re with a small publisher, you have a lot, you have a better chance at having with the title you want.

Right. And I loved the idea of. Water being the, the landscape around Lily as she’s growing up. Sure. The Cape Cod landscape and Music as her inner landscape, so that we have that because they’re playing off each other throughout the novel. She’s, she’s very. She’s very aware and of, of the pond she’s on. And the, and it’s also for me, uh, a little bit, this is hard to articulate, but they’re camped on a small salt pond, but the pond has an outlet that leads to the bigger bay and then eventually out to the ocean.

So that all, that was an image that also I held throughout writing that book of, she’s on her way from this. Small world. She’s on the verge of, uh, moving into the larger world of the open ocean. If, 

Steve Cuden: and I’m not gonna spoil anything, but she actually has a massive experience in that inlet going out into the ocean.

She does. And, uh, and it’s very impactful on her life and the lives of everyone else as well. 

Marcia Peck: Yes. You, you’ve, yes. 

Steve Cuden: Well, you know, I, it was fascinating to read and. Do you feel like the, that she sees the world through music? 

Marcia Peck: Ah, I hadn’t thought in exactly those terms. Um, music seems to be her connection to her, to her parents, especially the connection that she’s seeking to her mother.

Mm-hmm. To her very distracted mother. So music is. 

Steve Cuden: Well, it seems like, it seems to me all of the adults in her life are distracted. Ah, everyone’s distracted and very, very self-possessed. They’re all about what’s going on in their own world. Good point. And so she’s trying to live through it and that’s what this expansion out through the.

And when that happens, this big part of the story, it’s like leaving the, the hive so to speak. 

Marcia Peck: Yes. Yeah, exactly. 

Steve Cuden: And how much of the family drama, ’cause it’s a a very deeply family oriented drama, how much of that actually comes from real stuff in your life and how much is completely made up? Is it mostly made up?

Marcia Peck: I, I would say the actual events are made up, but the passions and the conflicts and the, um, and the central conflict between Lily’s parents, um, have to do with something, something that’s going on with the extended family on the other side of the pond, that, that kind of engine that drives. That drives things.

Mm-hmm. There’s one character that I. I had written early into the, into the story and my writers groups and here and there, anyone that was, you know, a, a reader for, for an early reader for the book said, you know, I just don’t know what this character is here for. It’s, it’s not, it’s not a character who’s necessary and, and I couldn’t.

I, I couldn’t get rid of her for some reason. And so I, I spent, I don’t know, probably six months just asking myself every day, this character is here because, and this character is here because, and I couldn’t finish that sentence for, for months and months. And finally I was on my way to a rehearsal one morning in the car.

And I said, this character is here. Oh my God. That’s why, that’s why this character is here. And, and, and that was the key to kind of finding my way to the finish the book. 

Steve Cuden: Isn’t it amazing how that happens? Sometimes you as the writer are so deep in it, you can’t see the forest for the trees and somebody else asks a simple question and it triggers everything.

Marcia Peck: Exactly. Yes. Wow. So 

Steve Cuden: true. So 

Marcia Peck: true. 

Steve Cuden: It, it’s fascinating how that works and that’s why, uh, frequently it’s good to have beta testers that that read the work ahead of time and they can give you thoughts and inspirations that you otherwise sitting alone could not figure out ’cause you can’t see it. Why did you settle on the 1950s?

This is set in the 1950s. Is that because that’s your experience? 

Marcia Peck: Well, it, I like, I like yes, in, in some ways. And I, and I liked Cape Cod before 1960, right? When Kennedy became president and formed the National Seashore. Cape Cod was a different place than it is today. It was a bit of a backwater. Um, people went to.

She, she, long Island or 

Steve Cuden: mm-hmm. 

Marcia Peck: Wealthy Newport or the Jersey Shore. But Cape Cod was not, um, on everybody’s radar. Not in the fifties. Yeah. And, and I. 

Steve Cuden: Now, now it’s a destination place. Yes. 

Marcia Peck: Yes, yes. And I, uh, I remember from my own life when the Andrea Doria went down and what a, what a tragedy that was and how, how romantic, if you can.

Call a shipwreck romantic. I don’t know. But the boat, the ship was romantic. She was young and she was beautiful and so, so that was something that just colored, colored my mind about it. The other thing was that the fifties, it was not that long after World War ii and when I think back true, um. Two, when I was, when I was in high school or college, um, world War II seemed ancient history to me, even though it wasn’t in that in years that long ago.

Um, I. And so there was something about that, uh, hanging over the, the fact that, uh, there’s a, an, um, there are just little remnants of World War ii. There’s a literate liberty ship from World War II that’s scuttled off the coast, and there are still Air Force planes that fly over and do target practice once in a while.

Just little tidbits from that era that, um, were. Just present in that, in, in that time. So I was, I, it was a romantic time for me. I, uh, in retrospect. 

Steve Cuden: And so the fifties, because of that romantic notion felt right to you for those 

Marcia Peck: Yes. 

Steve Cuden: Characters in that moment. 

Marcia Peck: Yes. Yes. That 

Steve Cuden: makes a lot of sense. It makes a lot of sense.

It would be very different if you said it today. It would be a totally different story. 

Marcia Peck: Yeah. Yeah. And because the family is so isolated, I, I think that doesn’t happen so much today with, we have media and we have phones and we have connections. Um, but back then they, they, in the, in the book, they really are just isolated.

In their little pond. 

Steve Cuden: Yeah. That, that makes a lot of sense too. And that’s true in the book. There’s no, uh, they have no real way to contact the outside world. Mm-hmm. Well, outside world, I mean, you know, down the road, but, uh, it’s not like they’re in outer space somewhere. They can drive to another place.

What would you say were the biggest challenges for you as you were conceiving and then building out the story? What were the big challenges? 

Marcia Peck: Early on, uh, I, I did not intend to write a novel. I wasn’t thinking of undertaking anything as big as a novel. I thought I was writing a short story based on some odd, some random memories.

And then, and then the, I kind kind of one story sort of pieced together and then I thought, well. No, I, I started to write, well, I think this will be maybe two, two short stories. Hmm. And then, uh, then, then I thought, oh no, maybe it’s going to be kind of a collection of short stories. And then I had to face at some point, you know, this really wants to be a coherent.

Novel 

Steve Cuden: and and how long in the process of deciding that did it take before you realized it was gonna be a novel? Was it fairly short or did it take a long time? I. 

Marcia Peck: I was writing, I, I had a full-time job, so I was writing, so it’s not as though I could write every day, every morning. And so I would say that’s, that was a, a full-time job can be both a pleasure and a pain, right?

I mean, it’s 

Steve Cuden: absolutely right. 

Marcia Peck: So the good part was that I didn’t have to. Hurry. I had time, I had a job I that I loved and, and I could take my time. The bad part is that when it starts to grow and become you, you’ve got something that’s 250 pages. Then you can’t just put it aside for a month and come back and, and say, oh, I think I’ll just.

Work, you know, fix a couple things in this chapter. No, the whole thing has to be in your mind because you have, you have these little motifs, just like a, a Beethoven symphony. You have these little motifs that come here and there and, and repeat and, and hopefully they’re subtle enough that they’re.

Readers don’t notice them, but 

Steve Cuden: Absolutely. 

Marcia Peck: But they help the whole thing cohere. So I would have to read the whole thing again and if I set it aside for a while, so I really did take my time. I would say I spent about 10 years on this book. 

Steve Cuden: Oh, 10 years. That’s quite a long time. 

Marcia Peck: Yep. 

Steve Cuden: You know, it’s very difficult when you have a full-time job.

’cause I’ve done writing while working on other things as well. Yeah. So I understand the issue. It’s very hard to get in what, into what I call the zone. Where you have enough time to kind of Yes. Get in there and not have it be, I’ve only got 30 minutes. No, I need several hours to kind of get in that rhythm.

That’s right. 

Marcia Peck: That’s right. Especially when you are dealing with a, a musical or theater or when you need the voice to, we, we need the it to cohere the language, the. The rhythms, the tone, the it, 

Steve Cuden: it’s hard to feel your way into it without some time. Mm-hmm. You need that time element, and if you’re working full time at some of some other job, even if you love the other job, it’s still an interference in your creative process and that’s what it sounds like it was for you.

Marcia Peck: Entirely true. Yes. 

Steve Cuden: Yes. What did you focus on mostly when you were developing the story? Was it the characters, the plot, something else? Did you, did you, how did you work your way through it? 

Marcia Peck: I, for me, it was character driven. Readers have told me now that the book is out, that, that a lot of the chapters seem to have their own, they, they work as a, they’re not as, it’s not a collection of short stories, but the, but each chapter has a, a beginning, middle, and an end.

Steve Cuden: Um, so there’s not, they’re, they’re not completely self-contained, but you could take it out and still understand what’s going on. 

Marcia Peck: That’s right. That’s right. So, so I would say I wasn’t so plot driven as character driven. Where, where, where are the conflicts coming in and, and how do they get resolved or not resolved as the story moves along, I.

Steve Cuden: Well, that, that’s evident when in the reading of the book, that there’s much more emphasis on this interaction between the various characters than there is on a storyline. But you clearly have a storyline throughout it, and you clearly have a beginning, middle, and end, and it’s. Abundantly evident that, uh, that there is stuff going on that’s beyond the characters.

There’s a lot of stuff going on, in fact, ’cause you have quite a few characters in the book and you’re weaving all of them throughout the whole, and that’s a trick by itself, isn’t it? 

Marcia Peck: Yes. One of the characters that I absolutely love, um, is the cello teacher, Al Metcalf. Sure. Um, he was about. I had a cello teacher when I was growing up, uh, who was about a hundred years old, and he was very much like this character is totally based on, on, on my experience.

He was about a hundred years old and he was just a. Delightful man. And, um, and he, at the end of every lesson, he would do a trick for me. Um, I, you know, I was just eight, nine or nine years old and, and the trick might be nothing more than he would do a bird call or a something, but it made me look forward to my lessons.

Uh, every week. 

Steve Cuden: There was some little treat for you in the lesson? 

Marcia Peck: Yes. Yeah. 

Steve Cuden: Did you work from an outline? Did you, did you figure that out or? 

Marcia Peck: No, and I still don’t. Um, I, my, my next book is close to Duck finished and no, I, the, my next book, I just sat down one morning and the first chapter, the first, I won’t say the first chapter, but the first page, just pour it out onto the page and they, they’re not.

They didn’t stay that way, but, but, uh, I’ve revised and revised and revised, but that was, uh, but that was the impetus for getting, so, I don’t know. I don’t, um, work from an outline. I know many writers who have a lot of success doing that, but I, I, I need to just follow what, what seems to come next. 

Steve Cuden: You are letting the book dictate to you where it wants to go.

Marcia Peck: Well said, thank you. 

Steve Cuden: That that’s what happens sometimes. I, I am an outliner, I’m a ferocious outliner. Oh. And I don’t know how to get into the meat of the whole thing, the, the, the finished piece. Unless I know exactly where it is, I’m going. That’s just me. But there are lots of writers that do what you do where they just let the.

Let the story go wherever it goes and then worry about it later. Are you then a very, you said that you did, you did lots of revisions. Was this book full, fully revised many times? 

Marcia Peck: Oh, yes. Yes. I, I don’t, I don’t even, I know some people keep track of which revision this is and that they’re dated and numbered.

Mm-hmm. Uh, and I didn’t do that. Uh, I and I. Wish I had because sometimes the revisions would, wouldn’t work as a, in a linear whole, uh, the start at the beginning and go through to the end. So a lot of the revision was. I don’t know. 

Steve Cuden: Piecemeal you would do bits and pieces. Yeah. 

Marcia Peck: Yeah. 

Steve Cuden: Well, that’s okay too.

It’s, you know, at the end of the day, the, the reader has no idea what you’ve done 

Marcia Peck: Right. 

Steve Cuden: Or how you did it. They’re just, they’re just reading. Right. Uh, and I’m 

Marcia Peck: sure it took me longer 

Steve Cuden: to do it that way, but, well, it may very well might have. Um, but that’s your process. That’s why we’re having the conversation about is how do you do this so that hopefully others that are hearing this show.

Who are in the middle of their own battle to get something finished, because that’s how I think of it. It’s a little bit of a war to get it finished. Uh, that, that they can be encouraged that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Mm-hmm. You obviously spent a long time on this mm-hmm. But you now have a published book that’s out in the world that people are reading and enjoying and, and actually winning awards.

So that’s a. That’s a big deal. What mistakes do you think you made along the way that you know that you will not repeat? 

Marcia Peck: Oh, I think, uh, one mistake was to take too, too much to heart. Every little criticism that readers gave me as I was writing, 

Steve Cuden: that you have to have a thick skin, Marcia. 

Marcia Peck: Yeah. Yes, but I mean it, by that I mean that not every cri criticism, it should be actionable, right?

I mean, sometimes it just shows us that something isn’t working, but, but the, the criticism that came may not be the right criticism for fixing what isn’t working. Does that make sense? 

Steve Cuden: Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Well, I’ve been, you know, writing a long time and I’ve also taught writing for a long time, and one of the things that I have taught and I believe in myself is this notion of notes.

Other people give you notes. Yes. You you had many notes. Correct. People gave you thoughts. Yes. Right. And so, so for, for some of those notes you were, it sounds like you were typically. Typical of a writer, you were, um, you couldn’t figure out how to make that work. You weren’t sure whether you should make it work, you, it, it absolutely went against what you were initially trying to do and so on.

So the question is, is how do you take, receive and use notes? And, um, my philosophy is, and I don’t think I’m alone in this, you take all the notes, you use that, which is helpful to you, and you discard the rest. 

Marcia Peck: Yes. Yes. And, 

Steve Cuden: and sometimes that means you’re gonna discard all the notes. And sometimes it means you’re gonna take all the notes.

You’re gonna use all the notes, right? But you know, it’s every, every timeout is different. It’s always unique, and each reader is gonna read it in a unique way. Isn’t that true? 

Marcia Peck: So 

Steve Cuden: true. 

Marcia Peck: And their notion of how to, how to fix something might not be the right fix. It might point out that something isn’t, isn’t quite there yet.

Mm-hmm. But need to think, just think it through again. 

Steve Cuden: Well, that’s the other thing that, that I’ve taught forever, which is there sometimes, especially ’cause I spent a long time in Hollywood, you get notes from people in Hollywood. Oh. That literally don’t know what they’re doing, but they’re giving you notes anyway.

And so sometimes those notes, when you hear them, the knee-jerk reaction to those notes is, that’s the dumbest note I’ve ever heard in my life. This person didn’t read it. They don’t know what the intentions are, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But sometimes if you sit back and at least listen to the note that it doesn’t mean you’re going to actually act on that note, but it might trigger something else if you’ve paid attention to it.

Marcia Peck: Yes, thank you. 

Steve Cuden: So as opposed to just discarding it? 

Marcia Peck: Yes. 

Steve Cuden: You actually pay attention to it to see if maybe something better comes from From that note. 

Marcia Peck: Yes. 

Steve Cuden: That’s what you’re talking about, I think. 

Marcia Peck: Yes. And of course we always get contradictory notes too, right? 

Steve Cuden: Of course you do, because people, 

Marcia Peck: you, you need an epilogue.

No. End it here. No. 

Steve Cuden: You can write the thing as the, the best that you know how to write it, and everybody’s gonna read it differently than what you intended. 

Marcia Peck: Yeah. 

Steve Cuden: You know, everybody’s seeing the story in their mind’s eye differently than what you think that you’ve written on the page. Right? You’re seeing it one way and other people are seeing it a different way.

That’s the beauty of it. Once you have written that book and it goes out into the world, it basically is no longer yours. It belongs to the readers. It becomes their world that they’re, they’re seeing in their mind’s eye. Yeah. Um, if you were starting out as a writer today. After all these years of being a short story writer and now a novelist in your, in your second novel, if, would you do things differently to try and get published?

Is there something that you think that you did in the publication of this first book that you learned and you go, oh, okay. That’s a smart way to proceed in the publication of any book? 

Marcia Peck: You know, I have stumbled along, uh, and um. I, I wish I knew what, what was, what works. I, 

Steve Cuden: it’s still a mystery to you, which is a fine thing.

Marcia Peck: Yeah. I, there’s the quest for an agent and for a, a big publishing house. There are advantages to being with a small indie press, I found because the book is, will be in print for a long time. Mm-hmm. Um, and they did a beautiful job of producing the book. And I, a friend did the cover and I love the cover, so I don’t know.

There’s, there’s advantages and disadvantages. 

Steve Cuden: Well, that’s why so many people today are now self-publishing because a book will sit there for Yes, as long as you want it to sit there, could sit there for dozens of years. Mm-hmm. Uh, and the, as opposed to many publishing houses, they put your book out. If it doesn’t sell huge, it’s there for a little while and then it becomes remaindered and mm-hmm.

You can’t get it out in the world again. Your book sounds like it’s gonna be around a while because of your, your, uh, association with the publisher. 

Marcia Peck: I think so. And I, and I, I hope that it, it, I remember there were a couple, there are a couple of Cape Cod books that just are evergreen. They just, um, last forever of house at Naset Marsh as one, and, and I hope, I hope that this will be a a, a Cape Cod book that people return to.

Steve Cuden: It, it wouldn’t surprise me. I’m sure there are many rentals out there that people have this book on the shelf in their rental for visitors to read. 

Marcia Peck: Oh, what a great idea. 

Steve Cuden: Well, well that, that’s how it works, you know? So do you have any advice for people about pitching? How did you pitch this to the publisher?

How did it work? 

Marcia Peck: I had been through a bunch of, early on a bunch of queries to. Agents mm-hmm. And had gotten nibbles and almost, um, but didn’t, wasn’t able to place it with an agent. And I, I think in the long run, this is pleased with, uh, with, uh, how it worked out in the end that I have a. I have a publisher who cares about the book and mm-hmm.

Uh, cares about what I think it, it just came out in audio. The audio. 

Steve Cuden: Oh, very nice. 

Marcia Peck: Yeah. And that was a, that was a revelation because, you know, you have it in your, in your e in your own ear, what, what the prose sounds like. Mm-hmm. And so, and it’s in this audio, um, book, it’s read, read by an actress Emma Love.

And it’s so interesting to me to hear someone else. Read it and it sh, it teaches me that e every reader will read it individ as an individual. 

Steve Cuden: So you say that you’re inspired by the rhythms and sounds of music echoed in language? 

Marcia Peck: Yes. 

Steve Cuden: Do you hear your words musically? Do you, do they come formed as a musical sensibility to you?

Marcia Peck: Definitely, definitely. And I, as I’m writing, I read aloud a lot when I’ve ever had, whenever I have a, a week to go at for a retreat and just spend a week writing or two weeks writing, I, the first thing I do is read the whole thing out loud, um, so that I hear. Not just the sentences and the paragraphs, but then I can hear the whole arc of the thing where, where it revs up and where it wants to slow down and, um.

Does that make sense? 

Steve Cuden: Absolutely makes sense. And especially coming from a longtime musician. 

Marcia Peck: Yeah. So it’s not just on the sentence level, but it’s, it’s paragraphs and chapters and whether they have, whether they have a rhythm or a, or a, a musical arc. You know, kind of a crescendo and a diminuendo. 

Steve Cuden: Forgive me, but you’ve written Lily’s Symphony.

Marcia Peck: Oh, I love that. 

Steve Cuden: Thank you. Well, that’s what it fells. That’s what you can hear the rhythms in your, in the voice of your writing, which is a very positive thing for a writer to do. 

Marcia Peck: Thank you, and I hope that it’s, and I, and I try to make it not, um, no, too noticeable, you know what I mean? That I, I’m not trying to use big words or anything.

I’m just looking for something that feels like it supports the emotions. Well, 

Steve Cuden: you would not want to put big highfalutin words into the mouth of a 12. No, it it, she’s very smart. Your character is not stupid. She’s very smart, but she’s not worldly yet. Yeah. And so you need to keep it somewhat on a more simple level Yeah.

Than on a highfalutin. 

Announcer: Yeah. 

Steve Cuden: You know, over verbose language level. Yes. And, but the key for you, correct me if I’m wrong, was not just the language, but the rhythm of the language. 

Marcia Peck: That’s right. And how Yes. How it um, how it’s, how it supports the charact, each character. 

Steve Cuden: Well, that’s what it has to do. 

Marcia Peck: Yeah. 

Steve Cuden: And did you hear each character.

In its own distinct rhythm, each character had a distinct rhythm. 

Marcia Peck: Huh? That’s a good question. I, I think each character, yeah. Well, yes. I, I think that’s true. Uh, each character, the mo, the difference between the mother and the father and the father and his brother, they’re definitely colored differently. If you were an artist, you would paint them in different colors.

Steve Cuden: Sure. That’s what I mean. And that’s where you were thinking that through as you were writing. I assume that these are different characters and needed to be presented in different ways. 

Marcia Peck: Yes, for sure. 

Steve Cuden: Well, th that’s makes a lot of sense. It’s like different pieces of music. I keep going back to this because that’s who I’m talking to.

I’m talking to someone who’s both a professional musician and a professional writer. So you are, you’re gonna. Color, different segments of the book. Like you would color different segments of a symphony. 

Marcia Peck: Exactly, exactly.

Steve Cuden: I have been having a, just a marvelous conversation about writing and music and life for almost an hour now. With Marsha Peck, the the author of Water Music, and we’re gonna wind the show down just a little bit now, and I’m just wondering, in all of your experiences, whether in the world of music or in your publishing world, can you share with us a story that’s either weird, quirky, offbeat strange, or just plain funny?

Marcia Peck: You know, I, I did write a, a flash fiction piece once based on, this is based on, uh, my own experience. My mother died quite young, and, and so let me say in the, like the. Seventies and the eighties there were, I had a lot of friends who were into, oh, past life regressions and psychics and all this woo woo stuff.

And, and they used to say that, that a child when it’s born is very close to that other world that we come from, and that those, the me, their memory of that world fades very quickly when they get older. So, uh, when my daughter was born, I, I had this. Sense that totally un unfounded that she was the reincarnation of my mother.

Okay? And, and so I asked her one day she was getting ready for nursery school. She was about three years old, and I asked her, where were you before you were born? She said to me, just matter of factly, she said, I was in your grandma’s tummy out of the blue. And I mean, we never revisited that. It just kind of, she said it and it was gone.

And who, I mean, I don’t think she’s the reincarnation of my mother anymore, but wherever did that come from? Did it, did it give you chills at that moment? It did. Absolutely. I remember it. 

Steve Cuden: She’s, she’s a grown woman now, and I remember it well. There are, there are people over time that have told stories just like that, where a young child blurts something out that they couldn’t possibly know, but, but there it is, just like that.

But 

Marcia Peck: yeah. 

Steve Cuden: Yeah, that’s, that’s wild. Weird. Alright, Marshall, last question for you today. You’ve given us huge amounts of advice throughout this whole show, um, in how to do things and how you do things. And I’m just wondering, do you have a single solid piece of advice or a tip that you like to give to those who are just starting out in the business, either in the music business or as a writers, um, or maybe those who are in a little bit trying to get to the next level?

Marcia Peck: I don’t have anything that’s very smart. It’s just to start and then to persist. Just, just begin and then keep at it. We’re we all ha, we all have the ability to do much more than we ever imagined, right? 

Steve Cuden: I would call that extremely smart because it’s a little bit of that, you know, if you get the ball rolling down the hill.

The ball will eventually pick up some speed. That’s right. And uh, sometimes it’s just getting off the couch and doing something different. That’s right. You know, it’s sometimes that simple. I don’t think that’s anything but smart. 

Marcia Peck: You are so right. 

Steve Cuden: Marcia Peck, this has been a terrific hour on Story Beat today, and I can’t thank you enough for your time, your energy, and your wisdom, and I’m appreciative of your.

Writing and everyone should check out water music. If you can find it, well, you can find it on in, in any of the major places to find books, you know, Amazon or wherever. Marcia Peck, thank you so much for being on the show with me today. 

Marcia Peck: Thank you so much. I have loved the hour with you. 

Steve Cuden: And so we’ve come to the end of today’s StoryBeat.

If you like this episode, won’t you please take a moment to give us a comment, rating, or review on whatever app or platform you are listening to. Your support helps us bring more great story beat episodes to you. StoryBeat is available on all major podcast apps and platforms, including Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Tune in and many others.

Until next time, I’m Steve Cuden and may all your stories be unforgettable.