writing – Julie Liddell Whitehead

In the Writing Trenches

I have been letting my work-in-progress, Looking for Home, absolutely kick my fanny the past two months. I started off with a good bit of material that I had pulled out of the older manuscript, and I had one chapter where I could see it absolutely play out like a movie with some filling in.

Then I decided to write the opening chapter and I froze up solid for the better part of a month and a half. I couldn’t figure out how to start it and get in the backstory needed and get into the action, too. I wrote five pages that I knew shouldn’t be the beginning, but I couldn’t think of how else to do it. It had Carlton with his family making the road trip moving from Pass Christian, Mississippi to Counce, Tennesse. After I finished the trip, I cut those first pages and started with the ending scene and wrote 13 new pages to get to an existing three-page scene I already had.

I think those were the hardest 16 pages of my life to date. I was working in the consciousness of a sixteen-year-old boy who’d lost his mama a few months before, and that was foreign territory, to say the least. Trying to get him settled into the world he’d been thrown into and him not doing such a very good job with it. I’m doing one thing a little differently; I’ll have scenes that come in my head, and I know they need to be in the story. But I have no idea where they’ll go. That’s the fun part of it all I suppose.

So that’s why you haven’t been hearing much about the work-in-progress–It’s been absoluely refusing to cooperate. Until now. Maybe I can get the next chapter wrestled to the ground. Until next time . . .

Events and More

I am starting to have a few events start to shape up around my book launch! I have an interview for a podcast coming up–I’m so far supposed to do the interview this weekend, then it will be edited and released whenever the host has a spot to insert it. Hopefully I can post the audio link to the Tombigbee Tales podcast here on my site.

Right around launch I have a signing at my local independent bookstore, Lemuria Books in Jackson. I had filled out a form and left a review copy at the store a few weeks ago, and they contacted me back for Saturday, August 24, at noon. It’s only a few days after launch but before football season really gets in gear. So that was a wonderful feeling to have getting this one set up.

The next week I am going to try to give back to my community back home in Ackerman with a reading and signing event at Ackerman Library, a place that was a home-away-from home for me. If mom needed to run errands or grocery shop or go to the bank, she’d drop me off there–and I was in heaven. No one ever bothered me, and I never bothered anyone else with so many books around me to read! I feel like that will be a real full-circle event for me. It is currently set for September 5 at 6 p.m. (again working round the football games!)

The final event that’s fallen into place recently is being part of a forum on Hurricane Katrina literature in observance of the twentieth anniversary of the storm. So that will be all the way off into next year with an event in conjunction with Prince George County’s Office of Human Rights in Virginia.

Of course, I am aiming to schedule more–the goal is to have at least one event/speaking opportunity a month for the first year the book is out. So this feels like a really good start! Three-and-a-half months before it’s out in stores. I wonder when the reality kicks in. I still feel like this is all some kind of dream. But it’s a good one. If it’s a dream, it’s one of the best.

Moving Along

I finished a good twelve-page chunk of my work-in-progress done this week! Now I need to map what happens in the next few sections so I’ll have more to work from.

I go to a local writing retreat next weekend and hopefully learn a little about marketing my work. I will be armed with my bookmarks for Hurricane Baby to pass around if anyone is interested. I’m looking forward to hearing from the other speakers as well.

Otherwise I have had a rough week, and I don’t really want to get into it.

Next week I’ll have a little more to talk about that’s good. Watch this space!

News From My Publisher

My book has been live with a pre-order button on Amazon less than a week. On Friday, my publisher sent me this screenshot of my Amazon sales rankings, out of all the books published to the site.

To say I was gobsmacked would be an understatement. I don’t know how the algorithms on Amazon work. But my publisher indicated that these numbers mean the books are getting A LOT of attention from somewhere. Pre-orders aren’t tracked by Amazon until the book is released. And the rankings change hourly. But for a debut author with a small press to be able to be discovered enough to generate these numbers? Bizarre.

I am hoping, hoping, hoping to get back into my work-in-progress tomorrow. I have a lot of angst to work out, and I think this new book is the place to do it. Thanks, as always, for reading!

Housekeeping Details

Just heard from my publisher–my full book cover is final, and I have a QR code I can slap on all my marketing materials so people can order just by pointing their phones at it! I just ordered VistaPrint bookmarks that I plan to hand out at events.

I have one event coming up–Hurricane Baby the play is having a staged reading coming up. I’ve got everything ready to go to it all lined up–hotel room, ride, etc. I’m looking forward to that. More details will be available closer to time. But I’m looking forward to it.

My new writing has been on hold lately. We have had a lot going on in my family and in my work life, and I’ve honestly been too exhausted to concentrate on my work-in-progress. I hope to be able to change that soon.

And my publisher has said pre-orders are already coming in. So that made me feel good!

Whew. Will ride already. Wish me well with further info and events to come soon! See code below to order Hurricane Baby: Stories for delivery August 2024!

Not Quite Ready

Reading proof pages hopefully for the last time. So that has been the work this weekend.

I’ve also been busy on my work-in-progress Looking For Home. I’ve got the last third as far as I can take it without having the other parts written. And knowing me, I’ll do something in the other two sections that will necessitate more changes in that last third section. So I am pushing along!

It’s been a little difficult doing the switch because that old talk in my head about wasting my time is still there! I was hoping that having a published book would quell that voice forever. But apparently in my mind, I’m still not allowed to write just because I enjoy it and I’m good at it.

I have to remind myself that I don’t have competing priorities anymore. I work for an employer and that’s important. I do some housework and cook meals at night. But otherwise, my free time is for me to work on what I feel led to do. My writing is one way I feel that I can reach out to people and make them think about things they might would rather not. And that’s important. No matter what else needs doing–my writing is important, and I can spend time on it without guilt.

Back to proofreading! Onward!

Single-Digit Fidget

My publishing company keeps saying we go to print six months before publication.

You know what?

That’s this week on February 20!

So I am nervously anticipating that I get to put up pre-order links and my new website page this week as well!

I have been reading about all the emotional whiplash that happens to new authors with an eye to moderating my expectations and all that. I like being prepared. Because I don’t want this whole wonderful accomplishment to throw me off emotionally. Because my stability is worth a lot to me.

But it’s up to me to manage that–so I am trying to keep my expectations in line with the fact that I’m a new author, I don’t have a big pre-made audience to sell to, and I have to understand all that I can control is my reaction to events. I can’t control what others do or say. I can’t control what kind of reviews i get or anything like that. I can just put it out and do what I can to move the needle–and leave the rest up to God.

Like I said when I prayed that day to give my pledge to the church. It’s all up to him. I’m just to give him the glory that is his. I gave the book my best shot for success revising and sending it out. I plan to keep doing that with events and publicity where I can get them. I’m going to start to introduce the book the first weekend of March at the Mississippi Philological Association at my alma mater, the Mississippi University for Women.

I’ll be reading what I can of Still Waters, the first story in the collection, at a panel of other creative writers. I’ll attend other panels while I’m there, probably just the creative writing ones. It’s kind of a full-circle moment for me–when I was in my last year of grad school at Mississippi State University, I read a paper I had written on James Thurber, the great American comic writer, at the MPA Conference that year–also at the W. So I will mention that before I start reading.

(My parents were at that conference since it was only a few miles away from their house. My daddy later asked me was my paper supposed to be funny? I said yes sir, it was. He was scared the audience was laughing at me in a mean way so he decided to check.)

So that’s what I’m preparing for this week. Wish me well!

Juggling The Work

Well, since I don’t have the final proofs for Hurricane Baby yet, I am working on my three-novella project Looking for Home. I only have two more scenes to write for this POV before I’m finished and can go back further into the past and write the first POV character, Carlton Dixon. Right now I’m working on the POV of Cassie Beck, the adopted teenager that comes to find Carlton, claiming to be his daughter by his teenage girlfriend, Merrilyn Beck. (Cassie’s POV is the part that sold for the novella anthology.) I’ve already outlined what I want to do for Carlton’s POV and Merrilyn’s POV, so that changed a few things that happened in Cassie’s POV. And I’m sure that when I’m finished with the first two parts, I will need to revise Cassie’s part again. But that’s OK.

I want to finish the new draft for this project before Hurricane Baby comes out in August. And I am chipping away, bit by bit, paragraph by paragraph. I am keeping up with my daily word count in a notebook so I can see when I write best and have the best production and figure out what goes well on those days. Is the outlining helping or hurting? Is it better to plan out what I’m writing beforehand or write without a net to catch me if it goes awry? That sort of thing. We will see.

Kicking around ideas of who to pitch publicity opportunities to for Hurricane Baby. I’m looking at book podcasts, regional magazines, radio shows, newspapers, festivals. Once I get to pre-orders, I’ll start sharing that link around. Just getting together my ideas and what all I want to do. I hope I can start getting the word out seriously by then. Wish me well!

Making Sure It’s Ready

I really pulled a rookie mistake last month.

I got enamored with the idea of trying to republish a novella, Looking For Home, that had appeared in a novella anthology, as a standalone book. I thought it would be a quick and easy way to get another book out–the book had already been edited well and didn’t need any more work on it, right?

And so in typical Julie fashion, I got ahead of myself. I sent it out to eight publishers that take novella submissions with a total list of about seventeen publishers I could find that would be interested in a short-form book.

What I didn’t anticipate was how enamored I would get with the story itself, thinking about how I could improve it. And that whole idea began to grow–of turning it back into a novel-length book like I originally wrote it after I completed Still Waters back in the mid-2000s.

So after much careful thought and cogitation (and talks with writer friends about the options), I have started revising the material I already have back into the novel form–but better organized and better written (I hope).

I wrote notes for the new parts I was going to have to create, pulled source material from the original manuscript (that I had to dig out of my computer archives), and did a little thinking over how that material would have to be restructured to have a character arc of its own, that would necessitate changes in the novella part as well.

The project started to feel like a giant snowball rolling uphill.

But I am interested in how I can make this work. Much more interested than I am in trying to revise my bipolar memoir.

So I’ve committed to that.

But I still have those eight premature novella submissions in my Submittable queue, grinning at me. Do I withdraw them, or just let the selection process run its course?

I think I am going to see what kind of progress I can have on my revisions throughout December, and if I can stick with the project and not give up on it, I think I am going to withdraw them after the first of the year.

What have I learned?

–Always get input on my project before submitting it. I may think it’s ready. But someone else might can look more objectively evaluate my ideas.

–Always think through the ramifications of what I am doing. Selling this story as a novel exponentially expands the number of publishers I can send it to. What I should have done was get all the list together so I would have realized that before I made any submissions.

–Remember nothing worth doing comes easily. I didn’t need an “easy” sale. And selling two books released too close together is not the smartest move I could make. I don’t need to make impulsive decisions on submissions.

So I am to continue working on this book, and if the motivation/passion for it is still there in the new year, i will cancel those submissions. Wish me writing favor as I embark on another writing journey!

COVER REVEAL COMING!

Hurricane Baby has a cover, ISBN number, and price. Keep watching this space, and you will see the cover after the New Year when the situation is totally finalized. YAY! Becoming more real by the day!

Kicking along with the new story as well. I’ve done a lot of thinking about what I want to write down, but eventually I need to start actually writing it down. Right now I’m keeping notes in my phone as they come to me.

I don’t know what this syndrome is where I can’t take myself seriously when I’m first starting out on a new project, but it needs a name. It’s not quite imposter syndrome–I know I’m fully capable of writing a good story. But I can’t look ahead to the future while I’m drafting, or I freeze up. I’ve spoken about this before–I have to keep my goals limited and my ego turned off. I’ve gone so far as to label a document Trash (before I knew about Dorothy Allison’s book) so I wouldn’t take what I was doing too seriously and just think about it as a throwaway project so my ego wouldn’t get involved. Anyone else out there ever feel this?

(I’m sure my ego will be kept in check when I actually start selling Hurricane Baby. I’m trying to keep my expectations reasonable there, as well.) 🙂

Anyway. I am going to take my time with this new project. I will have Hurricane Baby line edits coming my way soon, so that will a welcome development. Then it will go to print, and the book will be one more step closer to reality! Pre-order links will be available by March, so you will be able to order it then. Pre-orders are SO important–that helps the publisher know exactly how many books to print depending on what the demand is according to pre-orders. So you will hear me emphasizing that again once that time comes as well.

Thanks so much for all your support, and please wish me well as I begin to flesh out this new project as well. Thanks to all who read! Happy reading!