Tag: writing

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!

Liminal Space

So now I am in the liminal space between querying my book and publishing my book. I’ve done what I’m supposed to do (get the manuscript in the best shape I can, look over sample covers, get leads on publicity avenues) and now I’m waiting for the edits and the ironing out of final details before we go to print in February 2024. Suddenly February 2024 doesn’t seem that far into the future as it did in September when I signed the deal.

I am working on When I Went Crazy–I’ve finished the first chapter and am looking at the next. I will likely start on it tomorrow night when I write. I’m also researching places to try to publish my novella Looking For Home as a standalone book. So far I think I’ve sent it six places (I don’t have my list in front of me so don’t. hold me to that.) Not many publishers do novellas, so there aren’t many places to send to. But I’m going to give the ones I can find a shot and see what happens.

I love that I’m finally able to think about a future in writing and publishing my work. I had resolved to myself that if Hurricane Baby didn’t publish by 2025 (the twentieth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina) that I would just give up on writing fiction altogether and just stick to my bipolar work and labor for a better world for the mentally ill in my little corner of advocacy and education. But now I feel like I have a chance to do more, be more, get more visibility for the issues surrounding mental illness. And that’s a good feeling.

My Final Copy

I turned in my final copy of the manuscript on November 1, early last week. Now it’s time for the editors to get going on it and find what I might have missed. I really worked hard to do all the corrections and typos and continuity errors, and I thought of one this afternoon I probably left uncorrected–in one particuIar spot, I called Tommy Hebert’s truck a diesel truck–and it’s not. So I need to at least correct that as soon as possible once I get the edited manuscript back. I’m hoping that’s the only glaring thing that’s there. I imagine there may be stylistic discussions, etc. as well. Which I do not mind getting into. If something needs changing to make more sense, etc., by all means, fix it.

I don’t know when those are going to come across–I figure after the new year with the way people usually work during the holidays. It needs to go to print February 1 or thereabouts. I just want the editing process to be smooth and not rushed. So I hope I hear back sometime in December while I am off for the holidays. We will see.

I am starting to turn my mind to my next project, and I think it may be my memoir project rather than any more work on Missing and Mentally Ill in Mississippi. I haven’t gotten any replies on it from the batches I sent out in August and September, and I was too sick to send many queries during October. And most of New York publishing shuts down during the holidays until the second week of January. I have the proposal, and it is still solid.

But I think I am going to invest in rewriting the story of those 24 months between when I told Bob I was pregnant with my youngest daughter and when I was actually diagnosed bipolar. And I can have my stats (if any!) from sales of Hurricane Baby to bolster my case for getting another publishing deal. Not sure exactly when I will get started, but maybe soon, maybe after the new year, maybe after i finish edits for Hurricane Baby. I’m going to start by reading that part of my thesis manuscript again and see what (if anything) I can incorporate from that manuscript to the new one.

Wish me well! Happy writing to you all!

Self-Publishing vs. Traditional Publishing

So if you’ve been on social media for the past couple of days, you’ve probably seen the kerfuffle on this topic. A Famous Author spoke disparagingly recently about those who self-publish rather than get an agent and a Big Five deal. She called self-publishing the “easy way”.

Now, I understand this line of thought. Back in the 2000s, self-publishing was synonymous with vanity presses, those you paid to simply print your book for you (often at great expense) and left you to your own devices to sell a few copies and be able to say you wrote a book. Often, they were riddled with grammatical errors and looked very unprofessional to the savvy readers’ eye.

However, that’s no longer the case with the current generation of writers. Many act as their own publisher, hiring editors, book designers, publicists, printers, and other professionals to aid them–or taking the initiative to do all of these jobs themselves and–most importantly–keep all their profits from sales.

I knew I didn’t have the expertise or desire to incorporate and run my own publishing business. So I opted to pursue a small press or university press deal, where I wouldn’t be too busy doing all the technical work to publish a book to be able to write the next one.

Self-publishing is also democratizing and diversifying the publishing trade. The Big Five have a problem common to multinational corporations–appealing to the lowest common denominator to make a quick buck or billion. But very little of that money goes to the author–most is eaten in taxes, agent commissions, and other expenses of the publisher.

I was blessed to find a regional press that published what I was selling–a book of Southern literature, a short story collection, a book set in recent past. They take care of the technical details, and I set my own publicity schedule, going where my book is likely to find an audience. As far as I am concerned, it’s a win-win.

Writing a book is a big accomplishment. Finding an agent and a publisher is darn near impossible for someone just starting out. The main thing for an author to watch out for is someone who wants to draw you into spending a lot of money and have very little to show for it afterwards–agents who charge upfront fees, publishers who hoodwink you into a ironclad contract then take you to the cleaners for expenses, editors who want to turn your book into something other than what you meant to write.

But making the choice to self-publish, with your eyes open to the demands that path entails, is often a case of getting a book out into the world that is everything you wanted it to be. And that’s not as “easy” as some might think.

Working Through Setbacks

(I wound up in the hospital ER last Sunday afternoon so that was why I did not post.)

But once I got home, I started back working through my printed manuscript. I am working through my big continuity problem–I had aged Mike and Dinah Seabrook, up to where they were in their early fifties. Guess what I forgot to do?

Age their kids.

I had them with a two-year-old boy and two elementary-age girls.

So now I stepped Mike and Dinah down to in their mid-forties and put all three of the kids in middle school. I remember how stupid I felt once I realized what I had done! I guess I was just very very lucky it wasn’t caught by this publisher’s reader and rejected. (That may have been the trouble all along!)

So I am editing the old-fashioned way–notes in the margins, etc. Once I finish this once-over today, I’ll have plenty of time after I get this health issue straightened out to make the changes in the final manuscript and be done with this stage.

Of course, there’s no telling what’s going to happen once a project editor gets hold of it. I am just trying to get it in the best shape I know how, then take their edits and make it even better!

Next week: talking about cover images! Can’t wait!

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.

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!