Book Club Meeting

I went to Ridgeland to a meeting for the What Would Cathy Read? Book Club at a nice restaurant in a mixed-use development, featuring shopping, hotels, offices, townhomes, and restaurants. My very good writing friend Marlo was a member of this club and host for the night, so everyone read Hurricane Baby, and I came to discuss it with them–eighteen people including me and Marlo.

I talked about how I wrote the book, then Marlo asked me to share how I got it published. Another lady asked if the stories were based off of real people I knew or read about. I get that question a lot, and I think it’s because I’ve tried to hew to the humanity of the characters and so readers feel like they have to be real people. I took another craft question, then since I had talked about my experience of Hurricane Katrina, everyone else felt safe to share theirs.

Then Marlo asked what I was working on now, and I talked a bit about Looking For Home, the book I’m still revising on. I didn’t give away many details about it, so that was good.

I think for my next book club event, I’m going to have people write questions and put them in a container, and I’ll draw from it and answer. I possibly do have another upcoming one that a childhood friend is a member of–they put all in titles in a hat and whichever one they draw is what they read. I look forward to possibly going to that one if it happens.

Really looking forward to the writing life this week–more podcasts, interviews, events, and writing. We will see how it all goes! Until next time!

Pontotoc County Library

(Picture above courtesy of Mary Jane Williams)

So my big event last week was going up to north Mississippi to Pontotoc and doing a reading, talk, and Q&A with almost thirty ladies that came out. I passed out my bookmarks and hope a few of them buy it. It was a very nice library, with books and seating and computer desks as well as a nice meeting room. The Garden Club arranged a lunch for the group with three delicious soups, cornbread muffins, and a tray of assorted cookies. So that was lovely.

I had typed notes to guide my talk into my note app on my phone, and that worked really well to keep me on track and keep me moving. Only a few of the ladies had already read it, and the library’s copy was checked out when I asked if I could take a picture of it. So that was fine. I talked about its publishing journey, I read part of the second story, and I opened the floor for questions. Mostly people wanted to ask about either Hurricane Katrina or how I wound up being published. So those were fine to talk about. I took up the whole hour, so I think it was a successful talk. My friend MJ took pictures that I need to get out of my phone and into my folder.

I was kind of stressed about it. All my other appearances had other authors involved, and this was really my first solo event. But I prepared well and think that paid off. We drove right back after it, trying to beat the snow home. But we did!

Thanks to all of you who read and support my website. I’m trying to be as candid as possible in writing these pieces, and I hope I’m succeeding. Seeing all of you reading the site makes me feel supported in this crazy journey called the writing life! Thanks again!

Tracking Progress

When New Years Day 2024 rolled around, I was about half-way through revising Cassie Beck’s story that ends Looking For Home–it was the most developed, so I began with it in November 2023. I decided to track my progress by writing my down what scene I had worked on and my word count for each day I wrote on it. I started on 1/3/24 with 1160 words. Very auspicious.

In February I hit a writing slump. All I could do was sit and stare at the computer. I was stuck on how to begin Carlton Dixon’s story and how to fill in the scenes I already had. Once the slump started in mid-February, I wrote one day from then to April–335 words on March 22. But I finally got my voice back on April 1 and wrote steadily from then until Thanksgiving 2024, when I finished Merrilyn Beck’s portion of the book.

So how am I going to track my progress with the revisions I already know need to be made?

Same notebook–I tallied up how many areas needed work in this revision. I came up with 22 spots. I highlighted the areas in yellow on the screen inside the document. So then I wrote down what needed to be done in each scene in a list in my notebook in list format. This January, I plan to go through the list, make the needed revision, then check it off my list in my notebook as I complete them.

Why am I doing this?

Because it helps me counter the lies that my critical mind tells itself of how I don’t know what I’m doing, how I’m not accomplishing anything, how there’s no point in even going on with the work. Each line of accomplishment in my notebook represents a promise I kept to myself to bring this story out and share it. Seeing the accumulation of progress spurs me on to continue. A simple system–but enough of a one for me.

How do you keep track of what you’re doing and how you are progressing? Drop a note in the comments!

Happy Surprise

We get together and exchange gifts with my husband’s mother, his sister, her husband, and their sons every Christmas Day. This year I was opening a small present from my sister-in-law’s family and saw that it looked like a Christmas ornament, a porcelain star. I pulled it out of the package and turned it over.

This was the inscription:

“The year I was published. Julie Whitehead 2024.”

I was so stunned. I never knew there was even such a thing in the world as a personalized commemorative ornament like that. I went and gave my sister-in-law a hug and told her I loved it.

And they are not bookish people. But they understood what Hurricane Baby meant to me and that was enough. (Picture above courtesy of Bob Whitehead.)

Hidden Costs for Authors

Some recent conversations have got me thinking. Most people do not understand the economics of a literary career. I’m going to talk about that for a bit.

First, let’s talk about the costs of shopping a book. Many debut authors get an in into the book world by being selected as the winner of a manuscript contest. Many presses hold these once or twice a year, where you send in a submission and your work is judged anonymously. But often there’s a catch–an entry fee. I entered many contests with Hurricane Baby and racked up a considerable amount of money since fees were typically $20 a pop. The press that bought Hurricane Baby was free to send to, as were many others.I could have made a principled decision to not participate in paid contests, but I knew that it could limit my options.

I got a traditionally published contract through a royalty-paying publisher. I did not get an advance against royalties and this house offered generous royalties. What I am having to keep in mind with my contract is that I don’t get any royalties until the cost to produce my books has been made. It’s not uncommon for that to be the case with a small press. University presses and larger publishers rarely make that stipulation. So I could sell a good many books without seeing any royalties (my percentage of the book’s price) at all.

Once the book came out in August, I started promoting it. I did not do paid promotions, like ads, etc. None of my media appearances cost me anything. Likewise, I never had to pay a fee to appear anywhere, although I have heard of authors being charged booth fees or table fees to appear at a festival. But I resolved not to do that. But with traveling, expenses can pile up–gas, lodging, food. My husband has said he’s not sure we can afford for me to get another book published. 🙂 But it is a consideration I have to keep in mind, as do many authors in the tier I’m publishing in.

Another fee I have decided to forgo is buying my own books at the wholesale price and selling them myself at library and other events. That route brings with it tax implications that I’m not prepared to handle. So I always ask if there’s going to be a bookseller at the event, If there isn’t, I just have to hope people there will remember me long enough to buy the book afterwards. I’ve also held a library event where guests came book-equipped and I signed them.

One expense I did go for was setting up an account with Vistaprint and buying promotional mailings for my events. My publisher had a social media person who designed the graphics for me, and I just downloaded it and printed postcards that I then mailed out for different events. Vistaprint helped design a bookmark that I’ve been able to hand out all over town, and Canva is another free resource to design your own graphics.

As you can see, I am currently operating a non-profitable outfit. But each sale brings with it a chance to improve my track record, which I can then use for the next deal. Hope springs eternal.

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!

ANNOUNCEMENT!

Last week, I was nominated for my first-ever literary prize!

The Pushcart Prize is one of the older literary prizes in America, and it’s reserved for small presses, publishers, magazines, and journals. Nominations can be short stories, essays, creative nonfiction, or poetry. Each nominating entity can make up to six nominations.

And Madville Publishing decided to nominate “Neighbors Helping Neighbors” from Hurricane Baby: Stories as one of their nominations. This particular short story follows Tommy Hebert of Metairie, Louisiana throughout the day after Hurricane Katrina hit the Mississippi and Louisiana Gulf Coasts. Tommy had spent the day before and part of the night out on his airboat rescuing people and moving them to higher and drier ground as a volunteer–his trade was fixing cars. He gets up the next day and gets an alert for someone who needs help in Mandeville. So he texts his buddy, who drives an ambulance for a Metairie hospital, and they go and meet up on their boats at Fountainebleu State Park. Then they’re taken with some other men with their saws to the rescue site.

Under the broken-down house are a young woman and her baby boy buried under the rubble of roof. They uncover them and take the baby Avery to the hospital, but Amy Thompson, the young woman, has had her legs crushed under a beam the men can’t move. The EMT gives her a shot to settle her down, then says that there’s nothing else to be done. Afterwards, Tommy and his buddy go eat, but something inside Tommy wants more. He winds up picking up a sixpack of beer for his buddy as a gift for after he helps clean Tommy’s place but alone in his house waiting on him to show back up, he starts drinking them himself to drown out the girl’s screams in his ears.

So I am just pleased s punch that my publisher saw fit to enter me into this contest, along with fellow Madville poets and authors. No idea when prizes are awarded, but it an honor to be nominated, and I don’t take that lightly.

Madville’s 2025 Pushcart Prize Nominations

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!

Life and Times of an Indie Author

So on Tuesday, I wrote my contact at the bookstore I went to yesterday and asked if he had my books in stock. He said no. I thought “OK. They’re stuck in shipping again.”

On Wednesday, he wrote and asked if I was bringing books, a common arrangement for independent authors. I said no. So what finally came out as we talked is that he thought I was bringing them, and I thought he was ordering them. Oopsie.

But he had a workaround–could I pick up stock from another store and bring them? He would work it out with the store to pay them for the books, and I would just deliver them. So I gave him the contact for the store we had here in town. I didn’t know how many they might have, but something was better than nothing at all.

Soon he messaged me back with the done deal. I brought fifteen books to the signing. We sold eight, the bookstore kept two for their stock, and the bookstore here got five books back. I didn’t think I would sell fifteen because I’m not really well known where I went, but I did come close!

It was really a great bookstore, too–a pair of bookstore dogs, a variety of beverages, lots of books, and very welcoming staff. They made me and Bob feel at home. So he enjoyed himself as well.

Two people I know came–my MFA mate Allison, and my lifelong friend, Lorie, who lives in a small town south of where I signed. We’ve talked a lot over Facebook over the years, but it had been a very long time since I’d seen her. To inscribe the name of my lifetime friend in a book that I wrote was a very cool moment.

Lesson: Always be clear on the details! And have an alternate plan in your back pocket if you’re not!

Happy reading, everyone!

Writing Differently

I have been doing something very interesting. I am writing differently than usual.

I started off writing Looking for Home in the same style I did Hurricane Baby. A lot of immediate action, twists, and turns. And it was working for me because I was writing the end of the story, and it needed a rush to the climactic moment, and it was told by an impetuous sixteen-year-old girl, Cassie Beck.

When I began writing the beginning of the book, incidents that had happened eighteen years earlier, I still avoided much narrative–Carlton Dixon was also sixteen years old, learning how to grow into being a man in Tennessee in the late 1960s. A lot of his story was pretty action-packed as well because he rarely had room to think before he had to handle a situation. But towards the end, it turned somewhat more contemplative–more narration, more time in Carlton’s head with his thoughts about what was happening to him.

Then to bridge the two stories together, I worked on telling Merrilyn Beck’s story. Right away I encountered trouble==she was a well-brought-up girl, trained to make some up-and-coming young businessman, lawyer, or planter a fine wife. Instead she had fallen for Carlton Dixon, was pregnant with his child, and Carlton had been drafted into the Army. Merrilyn had also been molested at the hands of her father–an open secret in the family.

Merrilyn turned my tendency towards action on its head; she was a planner and a thinker. She considered her words and chose them carefully before she said them, even as young as she was at sixteen. The abuse had made it where she didn’t live in her body but in her mind, so that’s where most of the action was in her story.

I fought this. I wanted the story to be the same as the others. But once I finally figured all this out about Merrilyn, writing her story became much easier. So today’s lesson is to listen to your characters when they tell you who they are. Sometimes there are surprises.

Next Saturday I will be in Hattiesburg, MS at the Author Shoppe in the downtown area from 2:00-3:30 pm. Wish me well!