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Read-Through
So today I sent my book to be printed at Office Depot. I ordered two copies–one to document this iteration of the book, and one to mark up as an editor.
And boy, does it need an editor.
Still some periods that should be commas and backwards quotation marks–stuff you have a hard time seeing on screen that’s easier to pick up in a print.
And I’ve found one minor and one major continuity errors. I will need to do a lot of work to straighten up the second. But that’s why you keep making pass after pass through it–to catch that stuff before it goes to print and you embarrass yourself.
So that’s been today. I was hoping to get the read-through done today, but I guess I’ll have to finish tomorrow then start marking the text up and input the changes each night.
Good work ahead–can’t wait!
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Hurricane Baby The Play Update!
So when I signed my book contract, I made sure to keep the rights to Hurricane Baby, the play. And the Mississippi Repertory Theatre (which has gone through a lot of drama in the past few months) sent me a message yesterday that it plans to go ahead with a staged reading in Oxford, Mississippi soon, dates about to be determined!
So knowing what I know now, I said I wanted to work on it a bit and give them a clean script tomorrow. So that is my job today.
The artistic director said they were looking at doing a new plays festival in Oxford in 2025 with a full production. I told him about the book release, and he said something to the effect that he’d like to tie the play to the book’s release. So a lot of things have to happen for that to occur; so I need to see what develops in the future.
It seems that I’m going to be my own publicist, so I need to make a list of what all needs to be done between here and the book’s release. I know I want to go toa few bookstores in Mississippi and Louisiana, I hope to do the Louisiana Book Festival and the Mississippi Book Festival and the Welty Symposium, so I need to work on those avenues closer to the book’s release. Any other publicity needs to start about four months before the book’s release date.
So that is where that project is at. Can you tell I am still excited? Happy all the way through.
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To God be the Glory!
I. SOLD. HURRICANE. BABY!
Deets: We had come home from church on last Sunday and I was checking my email when I saw Madville Publishing’s message. I had sent the book to them August 15, and they said it would be a few weeks before I heard back from them.
I was bracing for a rejection.
Instead, Kimberly Davis, the publisher, told me their reader had loved the book, and they wanted to make an offer on it and publish it in August 2024 and told me the terms of their standard contract.
I thought. Twenty publishers still had the book, most of whom I had submitted it for contest consideration. But there were still a few where I had simply answered open calls. So I asked for time to contact some other publishers to see if they wanted to counteroffer. I asked if I could wait until Wednesday to decide. I got the okay for that.
Both publishers I contacted said they were not in a position to counteroffer. So I accepted the offer and got a contract to sign. I asked to retain the rights to Hurricane Baby the play. She said that was fine.
I asked a publishing friend to look at the offer to see if it was fair. We discussed it, and he mentioned some of the finer points to look into, and I took his advice. The contract was modified, and I signed it on Thursday afternoon right before dinner.
The first person I told was my husband, Bob, the day they made the offer. I also told my parents after I drove up to see them that same day. My dad just about fell out of his chair. Then I sent the news out to people who had already agreed to blurb it and sent the book when they said they were still willing to do so. Over the week, I shared with other people who were important to me and knew the story of how long I had been involved in this project and supported me through it.
To say I have been stunned at how quickly it has happened is an understatement.
But really, it came right when it was supposed to. I am free to travel on weekends to promote the book. My kids are out of school and more or less on their own. I am in such a better mental headspace than I was when I first started trying to market it.
You all reading have been a part of their journey also. Thanks for reading and for your support. In my intent to demystify the writing process and the journey, I will continue posting here about writing, the craft, the business, and the ups and downs of selling a debut.
And lastly, I welcome God’s intervention in my life to accomplish this. I am going to follow through on my pledge to the church. And I will give him praise whenever possible for this miracle I had just about given up on ever receiving. Thanks for reading!
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Watch This Space!
Stay tuned!
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The Triumph of Hope Over Experience
The above is part of a quote often attributed to Oscar Wilde about second marriages. I like to think it applies to writers trying to get their work published as well. We get rejection after rejection, but we keep pressing on, hoping to find that one fit, that place where our words are welcomed and shared with the world.
That leads into my latest update about Hurricane Baby:
Queries sent–69
Rejections-49
Places still considering–20
Places left to send to-2
I got three rejections in a row this week. Dampened my spirits a bit. But not as much as usual.
It’s been on submission now for a year. I will send it to another press on September 30 and yet another on October 1. Then I am going to stop. I will have sent to 71 publishers by then.
I don’t know how many people I will have heard back from by October 1. Not all of them, I’m sure. And I will just wait on the rest.
In the meantime, I will continue sending Missing and Mentally Ill in Mississippi’s proposal to agents. So far, I have sent to twelve agents and heard back from four, with the waiting period having passed on one other. That’s seven agents still considering it.
I’m not sure I will keep sending it out as long as I have Hurricane Baby. I am sending queries out weekly for it so far and plan to continue until at least the end of the year.
Hope is less fragile that it seems. It’s less a soap bubble and more a spiderweb in my heart at this point. I will continue persisting. And that’s a good thing at this point.
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Wishful Thinking? Or Divine Instruction?
I did something this morning that I’m sure most of you will find incredibly silly or misguided or stupid. But I did it, and now I feel like I should share it.
Scripture tells the faithful to put the Lord to the test in our finances–commit to big things in his name, and he will meet us in that commitment and provide.
My church is doing a fundraising campaign. The particulars aren’t important. But today was the pledge day for it. And as clear as day, before the preacher even started talking, I heard God telling me to write on the pledge card that I would give my first book advance to the church.
This thought had never occurred to me before. I didn’t even know it was a pledge day until I got there in the sanctuary and saw the pledge cards.
Not a dollar amount, not a certain percentage of the money I already have, but something that I’ve questioned very much recently if I will ever receive.
I really wrestled with this throughout the service. Was I trying to manipulate God into doing something that wasn’t in his will for me? Was I selfishly asking him to bless my efforts at publication but dressing it up in religious language? Was I looking for glory for myself rather than for him?
Because God looks at the heart. Was I was asking for a miracle to quell my feelings of failure and inadequacy? Was I asking God to do something I wanted badly and just tacking on that I would give the money to the church in an effort to deceive myself about my own motives? Was I evading giving anything at all by hinging my pledge on something so farfetched?
I didn’t get that question answered during service. I just obeyed by writing that on the card and dropping it in the box they asked us to put our cards in.
I caught myself thinking that I’m sure whoever read the card would have a good laugh about what I said. Maybe even tell everyone on staff.
But then I thought: What a testimony it would be if it came true! A testimony not to my work or talent, because that surely hasn’t gotten me very far at this point. But a testimony to God’s power that anything is possible if it brings glory to him.
That’s how I need to think–how can I bring glory to his name. And so that’s what I’m going to do. You read it here first.
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Mississippi Book Festival
I went to one of the most uplifting events I know of in Mississippi–the Mississippi Book Festival in Jackson, Mississippi–this weekend. Mississippi has produced a lot of writers over the years, and we’ve devised a way to bring them all back in the heat of August to do panels, talks, and book signings at our state’s New Capitol building for a day dedicated to the written word.
This year was the ninth year of the festival–it was held virtually during the height of the pandemic and last year was the first year they had it in person, with over 7,000 people attending Festival events. We haven’t heard yet what this weekend’s attendance was, but every panel I have heard anyone mention has been packed full of people.
I went this year in my capacity as an employee of the University Press of Mississippi and still saw a lot of people: Lauren Rhoades, who will publish her memoir Split the Baby in 2025; CT Salazar, who has won numerous Mississippi awards for his poetry; Ellen Ann Fentress, who released her memoir The Steps We Take, with us this month; Exodus Brownlow, my MFA mate who has a fiction chapbook and an essay collection out this year; and many other of our authors and many of my friends from around the book world.
An event like this gives me something to shoot for. A new resolve to be In the Room Where It Happens. I have new hope for my books and that one day I can be a panelist and talk to people of home, my place, where I grew up, about my work in a culture–small that it is–that loves stories and words. Just you wait. . .
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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 gotI 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!
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Much Encouragement in Writing
I got a lovely note from a contest the other day about Hurricane Baby:
Dear Julie Whitehead,
Thank you for submitting your manuscript to fiction,OSU’s 2023 Non/Fiction Collection Prize. We were gratified by the number and quality of submissions, all of which were read anonymously and with care, and hope you will be glad to hear that although your collection was not ultimately selected as the winning entry, it was among a group of distinguished semifinalists for the prize. We want to acknowledge the time and effort you put into your work and wish you great luck with it elsewhere. You are of course welcome to try us again in 2024.
OSU being The Ohio State University Press.
So that was wonderfully encouraging.
I finished my light rewrite of Hurricane Baby and have it almost ready to send to the newest batch of reading periods and contests that open up in August and September. I’m going to read it through and make sure it’s what I want to send out, then send it first to the guy that asked me directly to resubmit Hurricane Baby to his press. I hope that bodes well. It’s a nice outlet and I certainly hope his words might be a harbinger of success for it there.
Keep going. Persist. Don’t give up. Those are my watchwords for August 2023.
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Writing Retreat
Last weekend I went to a writing retreat sponsored by Mississippi Christian Living, a magazine I used to write for way back in the 2000s. It was a lot of fun!
I got to meet Susan Cushman, an author whose career I’ve been keeping up with for a long time–she was the keynote speaker. She published a book with University Press of MS about writing, which I have read, and I won one of her books today as a door prize so that was fun.
During lunch I had some time to talk to her and we turned out to know a lot of the same people, of course. We talked about what we were each working on and that was fun to hear about.
I got to talk to another one of the authors as well just as we were leaving but not for as long as Susan.
We did writing exercises, and some people were not really serious about writing. They wanted to talk about writing, but when it came time to write, they didn’t do it. Weird.
I’ve noticed there are a lot of people like this–they love to read, they love to talk about books, but then they start talking about how they would like to write a book and ask another writer for tips and pointers. Sometimes they even go to college and study creative writing and even get an MFA. But they just like to talk about their plans to write and what keeps them from writing–kids, a job, grandkids, other hobbies, husbands, etc.
I spent six of the most miserable years of my life working a job I hated and not writing after I finished grad school the first time. I didn’t want that to happen again this time. I have worked hard to integrate writing into my life again and even at the bleakest points, kept writing. Blogging was a big part of that. But working to focus, sit down, and write the thing is the best decision a writer can make. Success breeds success. And as Neil Gamian says, finished projects turn into published projects.
So to all those out there who keep talking about writing but don’t do it, i leave you with Toni Cade Bambara’s observation that writing is going to cost you something–that anything worth doing is going to have a cost. And there’s the advice from Gabino Iglesias: “Many people have a book in them, but it takes a special kind of freak to leave the Land of Laziness, cross the Plains of Procrastination and Insecurity Mountain, find the Blade of No One Made You Do This, and use it to cut your chest open and yank that book out.”
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Julie Liddell Whitehead 