Hemingway’s Notebook – Another Genesis

Here’s how my time travel romance, Hemingway’s Notebook, came about.

I saw this book called With Hemingway: A Year in Key West. It tells of a young man who hopped aboard a train (without a ticket) in the year 1934 because he wanted to meet Ernest Hemingway. Ernest was so taken with the young man that the young man (Arnold Samuelson) hung out with Papa for about a year.

I was taken with the idea by the story at both ends, that Arnold wanted to visit Hemingway That Much, and that Hemingway was totes okay with having a guest for that long. You currently cannot buy this book for love or money, that is, everywhere it costs at least $99.99. And that’s okay because the ideas in the book would not ever match the ideas in my head!

And, believe it or not, the plot for Hemingway’s Notebook was the original time travel story I came up with. That is, I had thought to write a historical set in 1932 with an overly complicated plotline involving missed train connections, town bullies, rainy weather, a notebook belonging to a certain American author, and an involved set up for a meeting at Johnson’s Corner (which is a well-known old timey diner style eatery in Colorado).

Some time went by while I developed and wrote Heroes for Ghosts and Honey From the Lion…and then it occurred to me that I could make Hemingway’s Notebook a time travel story. There would still be a misplaced notebook, but the hotel setting would allow me to have a reason to visit the hotel (yeah!), and also it would give one of my MCs (Jake) some starry eyed adoration for an author he’d been studying.

I very much looked forward to writing the meeting between Jake and Papa, I can tell you. But then I got caught up in my little series within a series as I wrote Wild as the West Texas Wind and Ride the Whirlwind.

Hemingway’s Notebook bided its time until i was ready for it. And, wouldn’t you know it, rather than writing a simple romance, I got sucked into the rabbit hold of history, in this case the Great Depression and the year 1932.

I researched radio programs (down to the exact date and time of each program) and major advertisers of the time. I researched grocery stores and the price of overalls and shoes. I researched how much a man might make harvesting pumpkins in October, and railroad time tables, including sleeper cars and food available on the train. I researched coal chutes and footware, diners and automats. I researched where the local movie theater was in Cody, and what movies would be playing, and how much they would cost.

I researched the Olympic games and Babe Ruth’s Called Shot. (He did call it, he did! Pops and I agree on that!) I even researched the path and distance from the 1932 train depot to the Chamberlin Inn. I even, even researched who worked there and what their names were. (Some of my readers, I’m sure, are not surprised at all of this.)

I also did a ton of research on where exactly Hemingway was at the time.

He did stay at The Chamberlin Inn and he did stay at The Irma, which are hotels still in existence in Cody, WY today. He checked into The Chamberlin on Sunday, October 16th and checked out several days later.

In-between those hotel stays, he reportedly went fishing along the Wyoming/Idaho border. He also got into a little car accident, and got sewn up by a doctor in Cody. I gleaned every factoid I could and then realized that I’d have to throw half of that out on account of this was a Romance and not a story about what Hemingway ate, saw, and caught in the river.

I made up the meeting between Jake and Sebby and Papa at the Irma Hotel, and his opinions about homosexuality are my own, though I did enjoy having him say “love is love” in that gruff voice of his.

Part of what I discovered as I wrote Hemingway’s Notebook was how sad life was in 1932. Everybody suffered and struggled. What affected me most – and almost stopped me from finishing this project – was the fact that Jake (as a time traveller from the future) would know about all the sad events of 1933, and all that was to follow (WWII and the death of Anne Frank, just for starters).

I wanted to go down a path where Jake would try to save Anne, but he would fail, and that made the story so much sadder, and again, was not fitting for a romance novel. Alas, alas.

If you’re keen, I’ve got a Pintrest Board for this book, and there are so many images I’ve collected, it kind of shows you how my mind was working. (Overtime!) Please let me know if you have any questions.