Category: new story

Revision Finished!

So last night I finished the last few issues I had discovered in Looking for Home at the first of January! I managed most of the revisions and took two sections out of the book–they were short scenes, and while I knew what I had meant to do when I first wrote them, when I came back around to them, the story was cleaner for me having taken those sections out. All done!

So now it’s the waiting game. I sent it out to six beta readers, which sounds like a lot. But I had many, many more people read Hurricane Baby through the years than that. And each person had expressed a desire to read it when I got finished. So there you go!

So what’s next?

Some papers for conferences are next in the writing queue. I’m thinking about trying to write a few craft articles, which I’ve never done, and shop them around a bit. I want to read more. Maybe think about the next book? Too soon? 🙂

I feel very satisfied with this draft as a draft–there are areas that need work, especially in the first section. So we will see what suggestions come across the transom! Have a great week!

MORE GOOD NEWS!

I found out this week that Hurricane Baby: Stories has been nominated for a Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters 2025 Fiction Award! I had heard of this award but didn’t know much about it; you can look up more information about it here.

I asked who the other nominees in my category were, and I was blown away. Only a few small press books were on the list–the rest were all with the big New York presses. Almost all of them I had heard of except two that were debut authors like me. To be included in such company with my first fiction work was astounding to me. It’s still blowing my mind.

So that was that.

In other news, I have podcasts, interviews, talks, and conferences to get going on in the rest of the month and in February. I need to write out my talks to present them, and that’s going to be interesting. One is a talk on how to go after your goals and dreams, and the other is how I figured out why I write and what I write. I have the basics of that one already typed out–it will just need a good bit of tweaking.

Aaaand I finished revising the first section of my work-in-progress, aaaand I realized I had too many fight scenes in it. Four one right after the other and one in the next to the last chapter. %$#@#$%. I don’t want the character in that many fights. So I’m definitely going to cut one scene and rearrange the others so it’s not one right after the other. I still can’t believe I did that.

So a really really high high, a middling low, and the rest business as usual. Except a year ago I could not imagine such a life for myself. Praise be!

Fallow Time

The old folks used to talk about letting a field lie fallow for a certain period of time–sometimes one or two growing seasons, sometimes longer. It would mean that the land wasn’t cultivated for that period of time; they didn’t grow crops on it. They might let cattle use it for pastureland, or they might leave it alone completely. The idea was to let the soil rest and replenish itself with the necessary elements, compounds, water, etc. so that after the fallow period, it might would bring a bumper crop when it was planted and cultivated again.

After I finished this draft of Looking for Home, I decided to just let it sit for a bit.

I did this because I know myself.

If I read it again too quickly after finishing it, I would still be in the glow of creating and finishing the work and would not be able to see the holes in it. I always, always think the writing’s great as it runs through my fingers to the page. What other way is there to say this? So I need to get some perspective on the document itself.

While I was writing each section, I bracketed some words like “redo”, “fill out”, “develop more”. Those are scattered throughout each section. I would put them in when I didn’t exactly know how to work out a narrative problem. My brain needs some time to work subconsciously on those problem areas.

The fallow period for a manuscript can last a short or a long time. I decided to rest mine over Christmas and take it up in January, the time of new beginnings, right after the solstice as the sun begins to stay longer in the sky here in the southeastern United States. I am really itching to get back to it when December is over. Whenever I have the urge to go ahead and start, I give my brain a narrative problem in it to chew on for a while. I’ve already done some preliminary planning for them from this practice, so that’s good.

Are you in a fallow time? Let me know in the comments!

MILESTONE UNLOCKED!

I finished this draft of my current fiction project Looking for Home on Thursday night!

I fought so hard to get to that last page. I realized halfway through the chapter that I was writing that I needed to scrap a planned final chapter on this section because where I was happened to be a perfectly serviceable ending in and of itself and heaping even more bad fortune on the character might seem excessive.

So I wrote over 2,100 words Thanksgiving night. So far the manuscript is just under 300 pages with 78,697 words total. And getting to the last page really was a fight–I knew exactly what image I wanted to leave the reader with; I just had to wade through some setup to get there. The characters were in no hurry to finish talking. I kept thinking, “Really? Another page? Do you really need another page?” and the answer was “Yes.” Until it finally wasn’t any more, and I was done.

I looked it up–I started on this project almost right at a year ago. I queried and shopped it at the HOMEGROWN conference on the Coast in February of this year and already have a press that may be interested based on that pitch alone. So that’s exciting to think about.

But I’m trying not to think too far ahead. I’m going to take out some time to rest through Christmas, then I’ll review it in the New Year and rewrite, then let some readers take a look at it.

In the meantime, I’m going to try to do a little reading, keep up with this blog, and keep hustling to get events set up where I might get more sales here and there. And keeping you folks up to date on all of that.

Off to relax until I start back to work tomorrow. Happy reading!

Of Two Minds

I am realizing that I might need to take a break from my work-in-progress, Looking for Home. I’m in the last third of the book, and I suddenly just dread sitting down, opening it, and writing. There’s a multitude of reasons why I could be stuck–the other two sections were more drafted, while this one is not. The events in this section are hard scenes to write. The character goes from a teenager to a battered wife and on and on. I don’t think I have a handle on the main character in this section.

What I do know is I feel bored with it. And if I’m bored writing it, you’d be bored reading.

But there’s a really good argument to be made for keeping on. I only have a few chapters left before I have a full draft. You can’t edit and refine what you haven’t written yet. The discipline is the key–if you keep showing up for yourself, eventually you’ll break through. Always finish projects, Neil Gaiman said. You have to keep your forward momentum going. I felt this way close to the end of Hurricane Baby and pushed through because I had something to prove.

And that’s all very true, too.

But I no longer have anything to prove right now.

I do know I’m about to go through a time with my book launch where my mind will be distracted. I want so much to enjoy this time upcoming. Maybe making working on LFH only a sometime thing after going through the whirlwind of events with my launch.

Ill have to think some more. Any advice, drop it in the comments!

Mood Music for Writing

When I was first writing Hurricane Baby in those days right after Hurricane Katrina, I listened to two CD’s obsessively. We were members of the BMG Music Club back then, and we had ordered INXS Greatest Hits and Duran Duran Greatest Hits in the weeks before the hurricane hit, and they were delivered to our mailbox once mail service was finally restored to our area, in the first batch of mail we got.

So those songs became part of the backdrop of those days following the disaster and were very closely associated in my mind with my emotional state after the hurricane–terrified of what we had become as a society, traumatized by the endless news feeds showing the horror wreaked on the entire state of Mississippi and the eastern half of Louisiana, and desperate for a return to sanity and normalcy in my spirit. And whenever I worked on the novel that my story was becoming–I put those CD’s on the stereo.

So whenever I returned to the manuscript to retool it, revise it, revisit it, I put those CD’s on to try to recreate the vibe of my emotional state when I first conceived and wrote the book. That included this latest set of revisions, the ones that finally got the book sold.

So now I am thinking about my new project, which I am currently calling When I Went Crazy. I decided that since playing mood music in the background worked so well for writing Hurricane Baby, I’d try it with this one as well!

I tried to remember the music I’d played while writing the thesis for my graduate program and just couldn’t come up with anything I had stuck with that inspired me to write. Then I realized that with me concentrating on the time period I was going to cut my thesis down to, it was going to be a lot darker than the thesis. The theme of my thesis had been hope, that there is life after receiving such a diagnosis. But I realized that to accurately convey my emotions during the time the book would cover, I was going to wander into some scary territory.

So I set about putting together a playlist on Spotify that would reflect the vibe I wanted to create in the new project. I started with my favorite songs from the two CD’s I had used to write Hurricane Baby–then I let the suggested songs I was given after each addition govern the other choices. I have songs from Robert Palmer, Simple Minds, Prince, and several other 80’s groups, because I will be doing some flashbacking to when I was a teenager and listening to those songs. Other songs from when I was even younger include some of Elvis Presley at his bluesiest best. Anything the suggestions list had on it with a harder edge to them that would capture that feeling of helplessness I had watching myself fall completely apart went on the list.

When I finished, I had two-and-a-half hours of music listed out. I never write for longer than that at a time nowadays with my job, so I felt like that was a perfect length. I labeled it “Writing Mix–When I Went Crazy” and stored it on my phone. I was pleased with myself. I will reserve it for when I am actively writing on anything related to the memoir. Off to the races!

Edit; Selling Hurricane Baby? That playlist was Hamilton the Original Cast Album. “I am not throwing away my shot!” But I’ll save that story for the book tour. . . 🙂

Break

I took a break from writing because I had outpatient surgery and didn’t want to write doped up. I’m going to start back on Missing and Mentally Ill in Mississippi tomorrow and have several goals for August:

–to complete chapter two
–to send out more query packages
–and to keep reading over and refining the chapters I’ve got

I keep on writing in the dark–I feel like I am going to write a book-length newspaper article. But I know it needs to be more than that. It needs to be a story–something to capture people’s hearts instead of just their minds. I feel like I can do this while keeping my head down and just plowing through, one short assignment at a time.

I am trying to push my own boundaries as a writer and get into people’s heads with the story itself, not with my fancy writing. I don’t think my nonfiction voice is fancy. I still have a very ‘just-the-facts-ma’am” voice. I need to push to come across as knowledgeable because I am. I need to push to create scenes as well as facts. Hopefully this book can teach me how to do that.

Onward!

DONE!

I. FINISHED. THE. PROPOSAL.

I am so excited! I finished my proposal for Missing and Mentally Ill in Mississippi last week in time for my mentor, Ellen Ann, to look at it and pronounce it good. I worked so hard to finish the last sample chapter. I need to get to work on the second chapter because some of the agents I want to send to require X number of first pages or chapters. So that will be tomorrow night’s writing sprint.

I sent it and a query letter to two agents this past Friday–I want to sell it on proposal so I am not investing my whole life into it only for no one to pick it up. So that is the plan right now.

I also plan to finish my light rewrite of Hurricane Baby this month as well. I know one big change I’m going to make to one of the upcoming stories in the list–I need to lose a scene that was in the original document but sadly has to go in this iteration from Tommy Hebert’s storyline. I hate it but that’s the way the cookie crumbles sometimes.

I feel so accomplished just making the major attempts I am making. Doing things I’ve never done before. Keeping on pushing myself to grow and learn and practice. We will see what happens!

Keep writing. Keep going. Keep dreaming. Keep on keeping on. You can do it!

Moving Right Along

I drafted a first chapter of Missing and Mentally Ill in Mississippi in my writing sprints this week, about 9,000 words. It needs maybe a few stats to fill it out, but I finally worked out the arrangement of the scenes and what order I wanted everything in. I had to figure out what I wanted to accomplish, which was introducing major characters and drawing parallels between us, then summing up what I wanted to do in the book. So I feel good about it.

Now I need another sample chapter and an introduction to my proposal. Then I’ll continue to draft more sections and see if I can get an agent on proposal only. I am selling it as true crime, so we will see how that stacks up with what agents are looking for.

My writing friend is really keeping me accountable. She reminds me it’s a writing day and that we start at 6:30 p.m. and write for an hour. Other times I remind her. But we check in at the beginning, then give a word count and what part of the story we wrote after we’re done. So it’s nice to know someone wants to hear about your writing when you finish.

Onward and upward!

Progress!

So far I have typed 3000 words on my current work-in-progress. I’ve done the writing sprints with my MFA buddy Shannon and am making progress past my initial fear about taking such a project on. When I start I just think, “It’s only for an hour.” And I just write!

The more I write the more excited I get and the more daunting it gets, but I’m not letting myself think it’s a book; I’m treating each chapter like a newspaper article. That’s helping, too.

I can’t wait to get back to it Monday night!