Tag: writing fiction

Checklist Time

I am composing a list of revisions that need to be made in my manuscript, now titled Our Little Secret. Action items range from rewriting entire sections to a new point-of-view to perusing the menu of a local seafood restaurant and seeing what dishes the characters would order on their visit there. That list is what I plan to accomplish during the next month.

Committing it to paper is one way I make sure each item gets accomplished. I can check them off as completed. If needed, I can add new action items to the list.

I am a list-maker by nature. Helps me keep organized.

Wish me luck!

What Happens When You Try to Force Things to Happen

Back last year in the wake of getting a contract for Looking for Home (that was sadly cancelled), I decided to go ahead and start on Book #3. I wanted to revise another old manuscript, so I pulled it out and reread it.

While reading, I realized it was such a fundamentally different kind of book than Hurricane Baby and Looking for Home. Southern, yes, but only Southern because it was set in Mississippi. The theme of the book was very different from the other two; it was a very contemporary story as well. No deep, dark, past secrets to explore, etc.

So I wondered if I needed to work to make it more Southern, more gothic, and more spooky. I decided I did. I went to work on the POV, the setting, the chain of events. I introduced a supernatural aspect to the book; I changed the fundamental theme; I changed the struggles of the characters drastically.

And a voice in the back of my mind kept telling me that it wasn’t going to work this way.

But I ignored it. For months.

I probably wrote fifty pages of new material. I started a new document in my computer called RANT just to dump all the angst I was having doing this work–talking about what I wanted to do but talking about how much trouble I was having doing it, too. I thought I was just suffering from writers’ block again.

After not fooling with it for the past three months while I wondered what I was going to do with my creative life and after taking the initiative to cut about two-thirds of the material, I now realize I was just trying to force a new vision on a book out of fear. I had wondered if I built a fanbase on historical fiction if I could pull off a move to something more contemporary. Wondered if what I had tried to do then would work for the market now.

I finally realized I was just trying to make the story something it wasn’t.

Each story is its own creation. I was not the same writer I was back in the late 2000s, but that didn’t mean that every book I wrote had to do what I had done in revising Hurricane Baby, either. I was allowed to write whatever I wanted to write. And if I wanted to still do a story exploring those themes that were issues in the 2000s, that was fine. Did that mean I could do it differently to account for changes in society? Yes. But it did not mean I needed to chase a “brand” at this stage of my writing life.

If the story wants to be something different than what you normally write, let it. That’s how you grow as a writer. Challenging yourself to do something you haven’t done before.

Book #3 (which I’m currently calling Our Little Secret as a working title) is going to be different from the other two. And now that I’ve accepted that, I feel excited to work on it again. Don’t write scared. That’s the takeway.

Happy writing!

Stripping the Work Down to Basics

So I have actually been thinking about Book #3 quite a bit lately. (I know. I know. I said I wouldn’t work on anything until Looking for Home sold. I also reserved the right to change my mind.)

On Friday night while I was out of town, I remembered one of the guiding principles I used when revising Hurricane Baby–cut all the boring parts! For this rough draft, I figured out that meant to cut every part of the book where the two main characters weren’t directly interacting with each other.

Well.

I set to doing that this afternoon after we got back from the conference.

And that process cut the manuscript from 321 pages to 115.

Yikes.

While doing it, I realized that much of what I was cutting was extremely wordy setup for the next interactions between these two main characters. I was using a lot of words/dialogue/description/character thoughts to explain everything that was happening behind the scenes–then summarizing all that action in the next encounter between these two main characters.

So. What’s next?

I’m going to let it sit for a week or so–until April 1. Then I’m going to go back and re-read the stripped-down version, looking for what may need to be done to further develop their relationship. Because their relationship is where the heat is, the smoke. The action.

So we will see what happens.

Nervous!

This weekend, I go to the Mississippi Philogical Association meeting in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and I will be reading the first story from Looking for Home in public for the first time ever.

I remember the weekend at the end of February 2023 when I went to the MPA event in Columbus, MS, to read the first story in Hurricane Baby. I was so scared reading this one out loud for the first time, too. My hands were shaking as I held the pages and read them. I read too fast because of the nerves and the fear that I would take up too much time.

It went live for pre-sales that weekend. too–I got the email that night while I was answering messages after the last event. I remember sitting there in the hotel room, at turns both giddy and terrified that my book was really out in the world after so many years of wishing and striving and writing.

When I submitted this excerpt to MPA, I had hoped that the event would be the launch for Looking for Home to be out in the world, too. But alas. Hopefully it will make an impression on those listening at the session. I have another writer reading their work after me, and I’m looking forward to meeting them. And to seeing so many friendly faces of people I’ve gotten to meet over the past few years while traveling for Hurricane Baby.

And Monday I get to have my conference with Chuck Reese at Salvation South about my short story they are interested in. Onward and upward! Wish me well!

Decision Time

So since I hate indecision more than anything, I’m making the decision that feels the most right for me right now.

I’m not going to work on another longform fiction manuscript until Looking for Home sells or I exhaust all avenues to get it traditionally published.

I’ve been trying to work on What Lies Ahead in fits and starts ever since the beginning of January after I got word that my deal for Looking for Home was cancelled. And that has been really painful and stressful for me. I’m sure you can imagine the stress–the primary thought that goes through my head at this point is WHY BOTHER?

I know all the very good reasons to bother writing–I enjoy it, it’s fun for me, I can’t know if it will be good or not until I actually write it, etc., etc.

But I also need to take care of myself and my own mental health. And right now, writing a longform fiction manuscript is neither enjoyable nor fun. I need to be in a place where I can regain my perspective on why I write and where I know that I am not hurting myself with my process or my words.

This is the pattern I took once I finished Hurricane Baby: Stories and started shopping it. I did not begin work rewriting Looking for Home until I got the offer from Madville Publishing for that first book. Currently Looking for Home has 12 rejections and is still out to 19 publishers, with plans to send to 10 more presses.

So we will see what happens.

I will continue to post here weekly about different thoughts on writing, my adventures in book events, craft articles, what it’s like being a debut author still, etc. I also have my Substack I also plan to continue posting on once a week about what helped make me a writer in the first place.

So I’m not stopping writing altogether. Just stepping back a bit. Please continue to visit and drop a note in the comments when you feel led with encouragement, questions, or requests for information about my upcoming schedule or my availability for any event. Thanks for understanding!

2025 Numbers

GOOD NEWS!

I got my royalty statement for 2025 from Madville Publishing, and . . .

Hurricane Baby: Stories made some money last year, y’all!

I’m not going to get into exact numbers in this post, but sales were over what they were last year, and while I had returns, the number was lower than I expected. Miscellaneous sums for printing, etc. aside, I earned a chunk of change for the publisher, and my percentage of that was high enough that the publisher can actually cut me a check for it (which was not the case last year).

Do the royalties cover what’s been spent traveling to various events, publicizing said events, etc.? No. So as a total endeavor, I’m still not making any money. But the hole isn’t quite as big at this point.

But I still need to fulfill my pledge to the church to give them my first royalty check, since I didn’t get an advance for this book. I will gladly do that once I get the funds in my bank account.

A good day on the author front all around!

The 100 Men Hall in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi

I went and spoke at this venue this past Saturday–they have a writer-in-residence, Ellen Morris Prewitt, and a writers’ group that meets once a month there for three hours. So I talked about my publishing journey to Hurricane Baby, then we wrote for a while. After we did some reading of our writing, then I talked about setting a vision for writing, setting goals, making plans to meet those goals, and about how those words all mean slightly different processes that give us a roadmap for accomplishing what we want. Then we wrote more about that and wound up the session with sharing what we felt comfortable with about all of that.

I felt very good after the event. I had wondered if I would feel rusty after spending less time doing events after this past August. But I did my regular talks and read from the book for the first time in a while without any trouble. So that was a confidence-booster. And the organizers and writers were so kind and attentive and responsive. I appreciated that.

My next event is back on the Coast–I’m on a panel for Homegrown, the Mississippi Gulf Coast’s literary festival. I will be reading from Hurricane Baby and doing Q&A as far as I know right now. That’s on January 31 at the University of Southern Mississippi-Gulf Park campus. I’m looking forward to the energy of seeing so many folks I know for that event. I’m hanging in there. Hope you are, too. Happy writing!

News

I have an update after the holidays–my book deal for Looking for Home has fallen through. The press is shutting down, and the publisher wrote me a message saying that it certainly wasn’t anything about my book that caused it–she is just having to close up shop for personal reasons.

I don’t quite know how to feel. I’m disappointed, of course, but she has returned all the rights to me, so I am free to shop it around again. But I’m not sure when I will plan to do that. I’m not licking my wounds over it; I feel strangely optimistic that if it’s meant to sell, it will again. But I’m not in some big rush to make it so.

So we will see what happens. It doesn’t feel like a setback; it feels more like a chance to breathe. Does that make sense? I hope so.

Got Some Good News

Back in June of this year, I entered a chapbook contest. A chapbook is a very short work of prose or poetry, about 20-40 pages worth. I had put this chapbook together a while back, but when I saw this new contest, I revised my little five-story manuscript, retitled it, and sent it in.

Finally heard back last week–I’m not one of the finalists that was sent to the final judge, but I was in the group they selected the finalists from. That was encouraging!

So I think for the next little while I am going to make revising and submitting this chapbook around my next creative endeavor. I have a list of 12 outlets to send to, spaced out from now until September 2026. I can have something to work on while I try to sort out what I want to do next with my third book–do I want to continue to revise what I have, rewrite the whole thing from scratch, move on to another manuscript, or what. Give my overstimulated brain a little time to relax from creation.

Done with events this year, but I start right back up again in January 2026 with three speaking engagements. That’s good. Soon I’ll be getting cover designs for Looking for Home, and all of that excitement will be in motion. I feel good about this plan to submit while the planning for Looking for Home is going on.

Thanks to all of you for your continued support of my work and my stories!

Yesterday

You never know what’s going to happen at a signing.

Right as I got set up to sell and sign, a gentleman came up to me with that look on his face–the “do I know you from somewhere?” look. I said, “I recognize you from somewhere, too, but I’m not sure where.”

No matter–he picked up a book and said “I’ll buy it!”–no questions about it, no me giving a sales pitch, nothing. Then as I was inscribing it for a gift, he picked up another one as well for another gift. And I inscribed it and signed as well.

Then another lady bought two at a time as well–and just like I that I’d sold four within the first forty minutes. I was on a roll– that continued on throughout the afternoon.

The girl who told me she was in sixth grade during Hurricane Katrina and had been obsessed with the event ever since. She walked away with a copy.

The older man who became emotional when telling me about working on the Gulf Coast among hurricane victims. I did not begrudge him walking away without buying–he had been through enough.

The chubby little girl and boy who kept coming up to ask if they could have more complimentary candy out of my bowl. I smiled as I said yes.

The last one I sold was to a lady who’s mother was buying it for her for a Christmas present–that made ten sales on the day. I only had one left out of the books I had brought. I had sold all the books the store had bought so that felt good as well!

I thanked everyone for a good event and left out, ready to prepare for the next signing at Dixon Books in Natchez, MS on Saturday, December 13 with fellow Madville novelist RJ Lee. Hope to see you there!