Tag: Looking For Home

Busy, Busy

Last night I answered questions from the design team for Looking for Home about my book, key scenes, setting, suggested cover images, and characters to inform the design of the book. That was fun! Hopefully some designs come in later in the week and I can pick from them.

The designer said she liked to try to pull the theme out of the book and into the cover to attract the reader. I have no idea how that might work–I know what I’ve always envisioned for the cover, but I don’t have a graphics design degree, so I truly have no idea what may be coming. But I look forward to finding out!

In other news, I have another two events this coming month for Hurricane Baby: Stories! I go back to Barnes and Noble Booksellers in Flowood, MS on Saturday, December 6 from noon to three p.m., signing and selling books for Christmas. Then the next weekend on Saturday, December 13, from three to five p.m. I sign and sell books alongside Natchez native RJ Lee at Dixon Books in Natchez, MS for their Christmas sales. So we will see how those events go.

Things seem to be moving fast this holiday season–before you know it, it’ll be Christmas, then New Year’s. If you want to buy a book by an indie author, debut author, and Mississippi author all in one, click on “Hurricane Baby: Stories” in the left-hand menu, then look for the order buttons to the right on the book page. I think you’ll be glad you did!

THE GOOD NEWS!

Last month, on September 23, the day after I had a very good birthday celebration, our home phone rang during dinner. We constantly get phone solicitor calls at our house, and I assumed this would be one of those. My husband Bob picked it up and said hello.

After a second, he said, “May I ask who’s calling?”

Another few seconds, and he handed the phone to me. “Amy Wilson from something press.”

I wondered what this was about. I took the phone. “Hello?”

The woman introduced herself to me as well and then said, “You know, some information I just think ought not be in an email—the phone can be more personal. I read your book, Looking for Home, and I love it! Would you like to publish it with me?”

I sat back in my chair, absolutely floored. It had taken a solid year to sell Hurricane Baby: Stories. I’d been querying Looking for Home for not quite two months—and here was an offer! Was she serious?!

So I started thinking aloud—I asked what the terms were, how was the contract set up, etc. She gave me some information about that. I asked if I could have the rest of the week to check with other publishers who still had the book to see if they wanted to counteroffer, and she agreed to that. She said she would get a hard-copy contract drawn up, sent to me, I could look over it, and then if it was satisfactory, I could sign it and send it back.

During the whole time we were talking, my mind was yammering away in the background, “You sold your second book. You sold your second book. YOU SOLD YOUR SECOND BOOK!”

After we finished talking, I looked over at Bob, who was looking at me with an expectant look on his face. I said, “Well, I just sold Looking for Home.”

I told him what she had said about the contract. So we waited.

She emailed me on Thursday, October 2, that she’d mailed the contract in a priority envelope. I received it the next Monday, looked it over, and then sent it back with my signature.

So we’ve been exchanging emails with questions and answers and details ever since.

Looking for Home is now under contract with Red Dirt Press of Oklahoma with a tentative release date of October 2026!

Thanks to all of you who have been so supportive of my work as I embark on this new author journey! Come on along for the ride!

First Nibble!

This morning, I got my first bite on my queries—a press sent me an email to submit my entire manuscript of Looking for Home. It’s a group in Oklahoma specializing in Southern literature. So mine may be right up their alley. Or not. We will have to see.

I sent three more queries around the first of the month–another press opens on September 15, and another one does on September 30. Then three more in October and four in November. The path just keeps rolling forward!

In other news, my last events went off without a hitch. Each one was fun and informative, and I tried to make the best case for the book I could in each interview. But the best marketing effort for the month was definitely me talking about networking helping my author journey on Jane Friedman’s site. Drove a lot of traffic to my blog and a lot of orders to my publisher. So that was amazing.

I’ve gone ahead and started my third book manuscript, with a working title of What Lies Ahead. I’m reworking yet another old manuscript from when I was writing back in the late 2000s. I’m moving very slowly writing the new first chapter that will hopefully set the tone for the entire rest of the book. I’m looking forward to feeling like I have a handle on the material. Because right now I don’t. 🙂

Oh well. We will see how it goes. Happy reading and writing everyone!

NEW ADVENTURE!

I finished my first draft of Looking for Home at some point between Thanksgiving and December 1, 2024 (I went back and looked), After January 1, I reread it and did a revision. In February 2025 I sent to beta readers, then a line editor worked it over, and then I swapped work with another professional writer, and she made some very good notes.

All of that feedback needed to be factored in and folded into the narrative, straightening out the chronology and cleaning up finer plot points. As well as cutting the wordcount down a bit. And today I restyled the first few paragraphs to clean up the last of those wordcount cuts, and I am DONE with Looking for Home, and I think it’s ready to query!

It has been quite the journey. I was not as driven writing this book, and it took twice as long to complete. I froze up on the regular, wondering how I could pull such a feat off again. I fought through the grief of losing my mom and quitting my job. And these last couple of weeks, the revisions just seemed too overwhelming to take on.

My writing buddy Shannon told me, “Just work on one page. That’s all. Then try to revise another page tomorrow.”

That did the trick. I got my confidence back, and it was off to the races. I just finished writing the last revised paragraph a few hours ago.

Next is drawing up the first list of publishers to query and seeing what happens!

But that will be tomorrow. Today I will celebrate that Carlton and Merrilyn and Cassie got their happy ending. As they should have. Stay tuned!

I Need Gas in the Tank

My creative imagination for Looking for Home is just about exhausted.

I have line-edits to work through still. And another reader I hope to hear from by the end of July. So I’m waiting on the edits (which I can probably knock out in a day or so) until I hear from her.

I’m already moving my thoughts to the query materials and compiling a list of who to send it to. I’m going to follow a similar procedure to make those decisions that I used with Hurricane Baby–presses that are interested in Southern stories. I don’t think I’m going to send to university presses this time, though. This book, while historical, isn’t about a real historical event like Hurricane Baby was. So i’m not sure what would be the angle for a university press. I may send to those in Tennessee, where the book is set. But I’m going to have to think about that.

Ten days and I head into my very busy month for Hurricane Baby. I’m looking forward to everything, especially my trip upstate to Starkville and Columbus for a signing and for the Possumtown Book Fest, now in its second year. Hopefully I get to meet some people in person that I only know by reputation as well as catch up with friends and colleagues from MUW.

Going to continue thinking ahead and try to organize myself for all of this. Hope some of you can make the events and enjoy yourselves!

Looking Ahead; Looking Back

So my activities are slowing down at this point. I have one event left in June and only one Zoom event scheduled for all of July. I am hoping to get my latest manuscript back from my other two readers by mid-July and plan to take that open time of no events to do whatever other edits need doing on it. I know I want to look very carefully at the word count, at the pacing of the actual beginning pages, and at making sure the continuities are right. We will see if anything else comes up.

August will be important for three reasons: the book will be a year old, the twentieth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina is that month, and to that end, I have a lot of events scheduled. the first is an online “Talk To Me Day” on Mastodon on August 3, then there’s a Book Mart signing in Starkville on August 15 and the Possumtown Book Fest in Columbus the next day, August 16. Then another shot at a signing at B&N on August 23, another Zoom event on August 26, and finally a podcast recording with fellow author Rod Davis and my friend Shannon Evans on August 29, the actual date the storm hit Mississippi in 2005.

I am making such a big push because first-year sales are so important to the life of a book. I am probably going to stop hustling for events, press, etc. once the first year is over. The good news is I already have several possibilities for events in the next year; I just have to wait and see how those possibilities pan out. And anything else I am invited to I will need to be very judicious about whether to attend or not.

But I could never have anticipated what all has happened for my book this year–the reception by readers, the accolades from various quarters, the support from other authors, the support I’ve gotten from my publisher, my family, and my work–all amazing and humbling for the little book that could.

Rest

Rest. That’s what I tried doing this week after I finished this third draft. I mostly succeeded.

I read. Some nights I went to bed early. Other nights I participated in chats with friends.

One night I wrote out a very basic note on the plot of the chapter that I’m adding to the middle section. I plan to start on that tomorrow night and hopefully finish a good draft within a week.

But I can tell I’m getting close to done with the writing of this book.

How do I know? I’m not thinking about the characters all the time. The impetus to rush to the computer and type on the draft has lessened. I’m starting to turn my mind to what comes next–another go-around of edits, perfecting a few more places I already know need work, making sure all the little details get cleaned up in preparation for going out to the wide world of querying.

Hopefully I can have a few days to sit with the manuscript at the end of July and marvel that I managed to do it again. A whole other book. YAY!

Better Late Than Never!

And except for some scraps of dialogue here and there, my next revision is in the books. I do have one more scene I am tinkering with including–but it’s not a make-or-break thing if it doesn’t get in–I think the story would be better with it, but it’s fine without it, too.

It’s long. Like 345 pages long–much longer than Hurricane Baby. I may concentrate in the next revision on slimming it back down to 80,000 words. I can ask my next readers to look at repetitious passages, etc. We will see how it goes.

I still feel really accomplished. I want to be able to start shopping it in August 2025, and it looks like I’m on track to hit that goal. I have put a lot of words down on paper in this story. And these characters have really stuck with me for a long time. I just hope I keep doing the story justice.

In other news, I was at a lovely event in a small town in Alabama this past Saturday; I signed books and was in a good Q&A with the Friends of the Library organization there. I made a comment on how sometimes you can work on a project if you remind yourself that they characters aren’t real people and that it’s okay to kill them off. The moderator told me that for many of us, the characters become real people in our minds, and we get really upset when you kill one off. So lots of opinions were had and a lively discussion ensued.

So tonight I’m going to clean up loose threads and put this version of Looking for Home to bed. Wishing you all the best!

An Interesting Problem

One of my favorite writers is Alexandra Stoddard, who writes a great deal about home decoration, the art of living, architecture, beauty, and philosophy. She was mentored in the interior design business by Eleanor McMillen Brown, owner of a very fashionable decorating house in Manhattan, New York. In one of her books, Stoddard quotes Mrs. Brown as telling her, “If you change one thing, you will have to rethink and change everything.”

Such words not only apply to interior design, but for this manuscript, I’m discovering they apply to my writing journey at the moment as well.

I thought when I started editing based on the feedback I got that I would drop a new “chapter” in each section and make various other editing changes throughout, mostly deepening character motivations for minor characters.

So I wrote one of those new parts and dropped it into the first section that’s from Carlton’s point of view. And immediately realized that I needed to add several new pages to the ending of Carlton’s narration because of this new scene. It raised the stakes exponentially in that particular situation.

I’m starting to draft the new section for Cassie’s narration, and I’ve already figured out how it’s going to cause a huge ripple effect that will reverberate through the ending not only of Cassie’s section but of all the other characters’ narrative arcs.

And I haven’t given enough thought to the third new section I’m going to write, but I can imagine that Merrilyn’s narration will be altered as well.

But this is the best part–all of these changes are improving the story immeasurably. And I am having the time of my life drafting them and making the puzzle pieces fit to make it look like the story has always existed in this form and events could not happen in any other way.

So remember changing just one thing has the power to change everything. What change have you been afraid of making in your work-in-progress? What are you afraid of? Overcome the fear and make the change–and surprise yourself!