I'm so happy to be writing right now, I could kiss someone. Now, in one sense, the "writing" I'm talking about is that I'm under contract for more books...in this economy. Trust me, I'm counting my blessings. But (and there's always a but, isn't there?) I have a deadline in a couple of months and honestly, with summer here, the kids at home, work calling, I've no clue how I'm going to get this done. But then again, I have to remind myself that I ALWAYS feel this way about each new book and each new deadline. And, I have to remember I'm not alone.
The "writing" I'm happiest about is the actual sitting-down-at-the-computer, feeling the keys beneath my fingertips, forgetting there's a blank page in front of me, just letting it flow kind of writing--like I experienced yesterday, sitting on the front porch, watching my children play. In those moments, I am consumed by my characters. I'm in their heads. I care what happens to them, what they say to one another, what they did in their pasts, what motivates them. In those moments I am completely oblivious to the fact that I'm under deadline or that writing books is even a business at all. Because I don't know about you, but I didn't get into the book business for the "business" part of that equation. I did it because I love this process of "writing."
Oh, how hard it is to remain in that ephemeral place where I once lived for months through the writing of my first novel. All I felt was love for my main character, Essie Mae Laveau Jenkins. I just wrote what she told me to. I had no thoughts of publication, no thoughts of market, no fears of failure or rejection or 'what if this doesn't sell-out'? Back then, I was just a creative person who had a very different definition of the word "sell-out." Have things changed so much since I began this journey? Well, yes and no. I still love the books. The business I realize, although difficult at times, is necessary and worth it at the end of the day. I'm just finding that with each and every new book I write, I know more about writing and more about the business. Sometimes knowledge is a wonderful thing...it aids in survival. But sometimes, knowledge can turn a passionate faith into a technical, nay saying science. And I'm more of a whole-hearted faith kind of a gal.
When I feel too much knowledge nipping at my brain, the kind that zaps all creative thought, I back away. I back away and ask for Essie Mae and Honor and Alice and John Porter and Ernest and all my other beautiful characters who have carried me courageously and valiantly over the threshold of my deadlines, to pick me up once again. They've done it before. Like that tiny red ant my daughter just showed me in the driveway that is carrying another red ant three times its size--by the grace of God, our characters can carry us anywhere if we'll just erase ourselves, forget all we know, and play dead for a little while. That's when we really see what the little boogers are made of. That's when our characters truly come to life.
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Nicole Seitz is the author and cover artist of three novels. Her second book, TROUBLE THE WATER, was named one of the BEST BOOKS OF 2008 by Library Journal. Her next novel, SAVING CICADAS, will go on sale December 1. Nicole makes her home in the lowcountry of South Carolina with her husband, two children, a cat, a dog, a hamster, and two frogs.
I miss Elliot Hull -- the messy, irrepressible, old college fling who returns, and makes his way back into the life of this novel – THE PRETEND WIFE – and the life of my narrator, Gwen Merchant. She’s married now, but conflicted about the idea of marriage, and she’s always opted for love in manageable portions – not the kind of love that Elliot Hull used to throw at her … love like an ocean.
This is my new novel. In fact, it’s official pub date is June 9th, and it’s always a strange thing, going public with a new novel. I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to it. There the book is, all dressed up in a jacket, sitting on a bookshelf on display. I feel like saying, “Do I know you?” It’s like seeing your daughter on stage at her graduation. It’s a beginning and an end.
I rarely go back through my books. Inside the jacket when the words line up on the page, they still seem foreign to me – some other font, the strange fixed feeling to it all, the words glued down, nothing I can do for them now.
But every once in a while, I’ll pick one up just to torture myself or because I find myself in a writerly bind that feels familiar. I did this yesterday with an early copy of THE PRETEND WIFE. I’m in the throes of writing a new novel and I wanted to see how I’d managed some time shifts. I’d spent the day running up against some strong currents. And so I read the second chapter of the book – the flashback chapter when Gwen and Elliot meet at a mandatory college icebreaker. I can’t explain it, but at the end of that chapter I was choked up. It’s not a sad chapter -- wistful, yes, a little poignant, sure. But not sad. Still, there was a pang of love for the characters themselves – who they were then, who they become. The chapter is nostalgic, a little lonesome, and I was nostalgic and lonesome, missing these people I’d come to love.
Last week, a grad student of mine asked me if I’d ever felt depressed when finishing a novel. He’d expected to feel triumphant, elated, and wasn’t.
“Always,” I said.
But, of course, the characters’ lives are just revving up. They’re heading out into the world, and you have to have faith that they’ll do what you meant them to – in this case, take root in other people’s hearts and minds where they will live lives all their own, unknown to me. Little dispatches will be sent back – reviews and such – but, for the most part, my job now is to let them go, wish them well.
-- THE PRETEND WIFE (Random House, Bantam Dell) comes out this week, written under Julianna Baggott's pen name, Bridget Asher.
I'm a ball of clay. That's what I am. Of course, I imagine it could be argued, from a religious standpoint, that I am less a ball of clay than the product of some dirt, and a rather inventive deity. But as a writer, as the individual responsible for placing words to page in an orderly and conceptual way, I am nothing more than what I have been molded to be. From a lumpy little mass, I have been given shape, and I suppose, to some degree, I have been given a form from which to mold others. Does that make me a cookie cutter? Or do I just pee on snow angels until someone comes about and says, "Say, that's some mighty fine peeing. What say you teach me your artistic ways?"
Never mind.
Where was I? Oh, yes, clay. So, there's two sides to this whole shaping out of clay thing. There's the obvious, and then there's person or persons behind the curtain making subtle additions and suggestions to the mold, in order to better assist it into a serviceable shape.
My writing is comical, it is satirical, it is blatantly chock full of sarcasm (I told you I could make money being sarcastic mom!), and it is, above all, absurd. These traits, to a larger degree, I come by honestly, and are nothing more than a representation of who I am, on a daily basis. But I would be remiss to look beyond the two writers who have most influenced my literary insanity: Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett. One is globally known, and the other is only now finding a foothold--sadly as his mind fades, and Alzheimer's takes the best of his heart. But these are obvious to me, and to many who have read my work. Influence of this magnitude is as visible as the angst of a wild donkey in the Nevada desert (look, seriously, it sounds off-hand and bizarre, but the donkeys in Nevada are frightening...just have a go with one and see how you fare), and almost seems a bit trivial in discussion. You could probably count in the thousands of published writers who have been influenced by Adams. You might not want to converse with them, but hey, that's a different matter, isn't it?
No, I want to speak of influence from the other side of the page.
David L. Robbins is a monster of a man. No, really. He's 6 feet, 6 inches tall, and weighs in well above 250 pounds of mostly muscle. I'd pit him against the Nevada donkeys, if that tells you anything. But aside from that, he's a monster of a writer. A perfectionist. A man willing to spend a day on a sentence, if that's what it takes, in order to get it just right. He uses only the words that are necessary to tell his tale, and no more. And I do believe that his next work, Broken Jewel (Simon & Schuster, Nov 2009) will blast him into the stratosphere. I have had the honor of studying under his tutelage for nearly eight years now. He's brutal. He will tear your work apart, but still find three things he loves for every one he doesn't. He expects you to learn, or he won't waste his time. He's a bear, in that same way I have always believed Hemingway probably was.
I have always known, should I have concerns over my work or if I were to wonder where it was in terms of quality, that I could go to David and let him rip it apart. I, and in turn my work, is better off for it. It never leaves a session without improvement. I have never failed to understand writing, from a deeper level, after talking it through with David. He is a true mentor, and through his dedication to molding my lumpy bit of clay I call, 'writing', he has become a great friend. And David is pretty much all over the place with it. He helped form the James River Writers, in Richmond to better serve both the local and regional community of writers he longed to help, has taught writing at both Virginia Commonwealth and William & Mary.
It's like I have a man-crush, isn't it? Jeez.
Anyway, I would not be where I am without him. Sure, I could have learned from someone, from somewhere, some day, but I would have lost a great deal of knowledge, and ultimately, skill. Behind every writer, there is another writer. It's up to the writer who gains to pass it on.
This may be the greatest motivational poster of all time. Ironically, “Keep Calm and Carry On” was never seen in its day because it was designed for the worst possible scenario—a successful invasion of Great Britain by Germany during World War II. In 1939 the British Ministry of Information commissioned three propaganda posters to be pasted up all over the walls of England once war with the Nazis broke out. They were meant to reassure and motivate the British people during a time of fear and hardship you and I can hardly comprehend. Two of the three posters were displayed everywhere; “Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution Will Bring Us Victory” and “Freedom is In Peril.” “Keep Calm and Carry On” was never needed, thank goodness. No one knows the name of its designer, and it was forgotten until the year 2000, when a copy was found in Barter Books, a used bookstore in Almwick, Northumberland. The bookshop owners, Stuart and Mary Manley, reprinted it and quickly sold over 40,000 copies. It’s become a symbol of resolve in Britain, quickly adopted during our age of terrorism and recession. The poster’s been spotted at 10 Downing Street, Buckingham Palace, and the U.S. Embassy in Belgium. I’ve got one hanging on my office wall. So what is it about this image that’s so appealing? Well, the hot red color is striking, the crown of George VI reminds us of the strength of our system of government, and the words are stoically and reassuringly British. Those attributes alone don’t seem to explain its impact. I have a couple of thoughts about the popularity of the “Keep Calm” poster. It reminds us that times could be worse, much, much worse! So our 401Ks have dropped a bit. At least we’re not watching the horizon for the Luftwaffe! And surely we can postpone buying that flat-screen television for a while longer. Thousands of our fellow citizens have lost their jobs, but our governments know more about the economics of recession these days, and aggressive steps are being taken to recover prosperity. So far no one has suggested rationing meat and milk! And in my entire life I have never heard an air raid siren that sent me rushing to my basement to spend the night. Our 24-hour news cycle depends on dire predictions of the future, I call it “awfulizing,” assuming the worst case scenario is inevitable. Most of the time these predictions peter out into nothing. What is that old saying? If you see ten troubles coming down the road, nine of them will run off into the ditch before they arrive, and you don’t know which one will reach you. So 90% of the energy you spend worrying is wasted, better used for baking bread or walking the dog or reading a good book. Speaking of books, we’ve been hearing a lot of dire predictions about the book business recently. Kindles, the demise of newspaper book sections, corporate bean counters ruining perfectly good publishing houses, independent bookstores closing, thousands of self-published and unedited books flooding the market, used bookstores siphoning off royalties, all seen as threatening the very existence of books as we know them. I’m not saying this isn’t scary, really scary, for writers trying to get a good book published and pay the rent at the same time. We honestly don’t know what’s ahead for our beloved book industry. Who knows, the Kindle may bring us millions of new readers and publishers might give up on ghostwritten celebrity books that don’t earn out. What we can be sure of is that readers will keep reading and writers will continue writing. What else is there to do, except keep calm and carry on?
Note: The “Keep Calm” poster is in the public domain. If you want one for yourself, the place to go is http://www.keepcalmandcarryon.com.
January 18, 2000, I opened the first Hair Salon/Bookstore, Beauty and the Book!After I was downsized from my book publishing rep job I just pulled myself up by the bootstraps and took my two passions, talking books and doing hair, and made it into a business.Made sense to me!That is what I have been doing my whole life so why not get paid for it!
March 2000, I started a book club the way I thought a book club should be run.Not literary and pretentious, not homework, but a book club that’s sole mission was to promote literacy, get the world reading, and have some BIG TIME FUN while we were at it!I had no idea that after my first meeting the second Tuesday of the month, that six total strangers and I would go on to run the largest “meeting and discussing” book club in the world, The Pulpwood Queens, “where tiaras are mandatory and reading good books is the RULE!”
We went on to being featured shortly thereafter on Oprah Winfrey’s OXYGEN NETWORK, featured in fact with a little unknown singing group called “Destiny’s Child”. So Beyonce” and I got started together, ha ha ha! Then on to Good Morning America, helping Diane Sawyer and Charlie Gibson kick off their “READ THIS” Book Club.From there we got featured in everything from the Los Angeles Times, three full pages in the Sunday Calendar section called “The Tastemakers” to features in The Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, and then a centerfold in Newsweek.Then back with Oprah for a brief feature on The Oprah Winfrey Show that tied in with Queen Latifah’s debut film “Beauty Shop”.The news media has continued ever since and we welcome them with open arms as they are helping us get the word out in a big way that reading is important!
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Then I got a book deal with Grand Central Publishing, formerly Warner Books, to write, “The Pulpwood Queens’ Tiara Wearing, Book Sharing Guide to Life”, my life story of how books saved me, how I am on a mission to tell everyone from the mountain tops that all of this has only happened because I am a reader.I thank God for my literary agent, Marly Rusoff for making that happen.I may not have made any bestseller’s list but everyday I get a letter or two from someone whose life has been enriched by reading my book.For that I thank God and am thankful, he has given me a gift for gab when it comes to promoting authors, books, and beauty!And I am considerably thankful for my family, friends, and authors who have supported me big time through the years.No one gets to the top of the mountain alone and if they do, how lonely is that!I take all of them with me in all I do if not physically then in my heart and soul!
I have been blessed but it has not been without hardships, hard work, and determination that one person could make a difference.Yes, one person can make a difference and I have seen these with my own eyes.
Has this changed me?Oh, I am sure it has but as always, I hope for the better.For one thing, I am no longer that shy, small town Kansas raised girl anymore.I am have found my life’s mission and it has been here in East Texas.Well, you know that everything done is bigger and better in Texas!
But one thing that has not changed is my belief that we are all created equal in this world regardless of race, color, religion, economic background or the fact that we have had cosmetic enhancements or color treated hair.God made each and everyone of us with a purpose.I know that for me that purpose is to promote literacy and I would rather do that with a REAL book.
Now I am writing to you today because I do not like what I am reading of this world, war, poverty, hard economic times, and at our big book convention I read a story that everything regarding books is going digital. Enough, I shout.I have decided to create my own book loving world and let me tell you this begins with my adopting Dolly Parton as our leader for this new kingdom.
You see I admire Dolly Parton to pieces.First of all, she did everything she did her own way.She stayed true to herself and after hearing her commencement speech sent to me by my friend, author, and adopted brother, (I never had a brother so I adopted him as he’s perfect), Michael Morris, I knew she was the real deal!
Check out her commencement speech to the University of Tennessee graduates at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuOm2lLIOoU and listen to every word of it as she said oh so better than I ever could, “DREAM MORE, WISH MORE, TRY MORE, and CARE MORE!”
And if that is not enough, check out Dolly’s pre-school literacy initiative at www.imaginationlibrary.com.For years, I have been trying to get this started here in Marian County, Texas.It was not until I became President of the Rotary Club of Jefferson and the fact that Rotary International has now endorsed this reading program that I was able to do so but not without the help of some literacy promoting friends, individuals, and civic organizations with Jefferson Rotary initiating the program.I would like to encourage everybody to endorse this program because if you can teach a child to read and read well, they will have the whole word in their hands.They may not have grown up with proper parenting, food or shelter but they will then have the tools to educate themselves and help make this world a better more peaceful kingdom.
In the Dolly Parton Imagination Library program, they send out each month a REAL book to a child from the time it is born until the time they start Kindergarten. Imagine that, sixty books, a REAL library for every child before they start school. All we have to do is help fund this program and it only costs about $30 per child per year. We can do that, we can do that!
And if that is not enough, check out this link to a documentary made on Dolly, The Book Lady also sent to me by Michael Morris:
The Book Lady, a half-hour Canadian documentary film about Dolly’s campaign for children’s literacy, has been invited to screen at the 40th Nashville Film Festival (April 16 to 23, 2009)...
Now I learned along time ago there was no need to reinvent the wheel since I am creating this NEW book loving world!I am looking for those individuals who always think positive, work hard at what they do, and promote reading of REAL books.I have over 200 individuals, now Head Pulpwood Queens and Timber Guys who have stepped forward to run chapters of the Pulpwood Queens and Timber Guys from Florida to Alaska, from Virginia to California and now we have individuals joined up in eight foreign countries.Miss America may state she wants, “WORLD PEACE”!My belief is that comes from being a nation, a world of readers!
We have even started book clubs, for me, The Pulpwood Queens and Timber Guys of Newgate Mission, a homeless shelter in Longview, Texas where I teach a life writing class. We read REAL books. I just got back from visiting the Hiland Meadows Women's Correctional Facility where Queen Mary of The Pulpwood Queens of Anchorage, Alaska have started a book club using REAL books. Then there is Queen Kay of The Pulpwood Queens of Southwest Louisiana who have provided REAL textbooks for a whole school in Nicaragua. These are just a few of my literacy leaders who are making a REAL difference using REAL books!
I also am a firm believer in the power of holding and reading a world of art, yes, I call it a book!A REAL book with ink printed pages, one to hold, smell, read, and educate and enlighten my soul.Thus, I will be carrying REAL books in my Hair Salon/Book Store!Ones that may not be on the bestseller’s list but deserve to be so as it is also my mission to help the yet undiscovered author get discovered in a BIG WAY!All books may become antiques in the future so my guess is I will become one of the dozens of antique stores in my historic town, Jefferson, Texas.
You may call my move BOLD, doomed for failure, in this digital age but I call my move one profound in the belief that yes, one person can make a difference only if you are reading REAL books!
I welcome your comments.I hope you will come and grace my doors.I have found that what began with six complete strangers can change the world, one author, one book, one person, one book club chapter at a time.Welcome to the Wonderful NEW Book Loving World of The Pulpwood Queens and yes, Timber Guys Book Clubs where reading RULES and if it’s not FUN we aren’t doing it! But do note, we are only reading REAL books!
Tiara wearing and Book sharing,
Kathy L. Patrick
Founder of the Pulpwood Queens and Timber Guys Book Clubs
Beauty and the Book
608 North Polk Street
Jefferson, Texas75657
www.beautyandthebook.com and click on Pulpwood Queens to learn how to become a member of this NEW World Order!
P.P.S. For more on my darling adopted brother and author, Michael Morris who’s also a big Dolly Parton fan and a lover of REAL books, go to www.michaelmorrisbooks.com.
Sixteen years ago a friend and I were at the beach with our young daughters. Earlier that morning I'd made the prosciutto and mozzarella sandwiches and potato salad with capers and Dijon mustard. That was the kind of thing I did back then, spending hours, searching for the right recipes and ingredients to make memorable meals. I call that period in my life, my Martha Stewart Wanna-Be Era. If I'd just listened to my gut back then, I would have known that I was living the wrong life.
I had just unwrapped the sandwiches when my friend announced she was going to write a novel one day. A knot formed in my throat as I watched our daughters stand in the sand and wait for the foamy waves to reach their toes. That had been my dream. Now the time I'd taken to create the special meal seemed like a frivolous investment. Like the waves before me, returning to the sea, I had let my dream of writing slip away.
I didn't share my thoughts with my friend, but six months later I was sitting on my screen porch with a pen in my hand. It was June 15, 1994. There were a few false starts on yellow pads, but eventually the voice of Tiger Ann Parker came to me and I began the book I was meant to write. Anytime a writing class was offered nearby I enrolled. I listened to everyone who had anything to say about my story. Many times I took other people's advice and ignored my own gut.
When I had invested seven drafts in my book, I decided to send out the first part of the manuscript to five potential publishers. In my gut, I knew it wasn't ready. Something about the story didn't feel right, but I was impatient and slipped the envelopes in the mail anyway.
Two weeks later, I received a phone call from an editor. "Kimberly, we received your manuscript in our office," she said, "but we don't publish this kind of story."
"Oh, okay. I'm sorry." I was embarrassed about not thoroughly researching potential publishers.
"Do you have the rest of the manuscript?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"We have a house that publishes that kind of story. I've already talked to an editor there and she's interested in reading it. If you overnight it to me, I'll walk it through for you. I'm going to give you her phone number. If you don't hear from her in a month, go ahead and call her ."
I thanked the editor. Then I hung up the phone, thinking, "Wow, that was easy. You send out your manuscript and if it arrives at the wrong place, they let you know and walk it through to the right place."
Of course, it wasn't that easy. A few months later, after a couple of phone calls, the publishing house rejected it. I kept revising and I continued to have close calls, but ultimately the story was always rejected. The entire time I knew in my gut that the second half wasn't working. I tinkered with the sentences, but the changes never measured up to an offer. Meanwhile I attended a writer's conference and obtained the name of an agent who represented children's literature.
By then I'd been rejected by a lot of agents, but this time the agent responded to my query letter by saying, "Yes, I'm interested in reading your manuscript." A couple of months later she was representing me. Now I had someone else to open my rejection letters first. And there were plenty--seventeen.
One day, an editor rejected the story, commenting, "I like her writing, but the second half seems like a soap opera."
He was confirming what I already knew, what my gut had told me all along. Now I was finally ready to listen. I called my agent and asked her not to send out the manuscript again until I'd revised it. I told her. "I don't know how to fix it yet, but I know what's wrong."
Ironically, the next week, the story sold anyway. Six months later, my editor's letter arrived. The first paragraph mentioned all the things that she admired about the story. Then the next six pages talked about what I needed to improve in the manuscript. "I don't believe the second half of your book works as it now stands."
Finding the second half of my story wasn't easy. It meant revisiting the setting, researching more, and opening my mind to new possibilities for the plot. Through hard work and a lot more revision, I discovered the second half. And when it happened, I had an added benefit. I had learned to trust my own gut.
Kimberly Willis Holt writes stories for young people because she hasn't quite gotten over being twelve. But she has continued to trust her own gut and she is still known to have her Martha Stewart Wanna-Be moments.
Visit Kimberly's blog at http://apenandanest.blogspot.com/ where she explores how her sixty's ranch house provides comfort, inspiration and sometimes havoc for her writing.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Maverick philosopher Karl Kraus said, “There are two kinds of writers, those who are and those who aren't.” I like to call the first kind—the lucky ones and the second kind—the rest of us.
The lucky ones came from interesting, important families. They wrote their first novel at age six and their proud parents had it professionally printed and bound then gave signed copies away for Hanukkah bearing the note, With love from Our Little Writer. The lucky ones received subscriptions to The New Yorker and Macbooks for birthday gifts. They did well in English classes and wrote poetry when the family dog died, unlike the rest of us who got subscriptions to People magazine, went to English class stoned and stepped over the dead dog for hours, refusing to believe our best friend was gone.
The lucky ones? They went to colleges their parents paid for and got MFA’s. They published stories and essays in collegiate journals and chained themselves to library carrels to protest censorship. They traveled in the summer to desolate places where they wrote thousand page manuscripts they later burned because they felt too indulgent. They studied with Pulitzer Prize winners who invited them to weekend long cocktail parties in the Hamptons, parties peppered with literati elite.
The rest of us went to cheesy junior colleges in Upstate New York, where we lived in houses we couldn’t afford to heat and took the easy courses so we could party most nights and still keep a job, because how else were you going to pay for Lambrusco and that case of ramen noodles? We bought legal pads and pencils and two hundred and fifty dollar cars because the best bars were across town and buses didn’t run after midnight.
The lucky ones got jobs in publication right away, or took posts teaching at real schools with credentials, or maybe spent a year in Prague then returned to a full ride at Breadloaf, after turning down Yaddo. The rest of us ended up managing shoe stores or moving to California with our stripper boyfriends who drove Land Cruisers and kept giant pythons in glass cages.
The lucky ones wrote their novel in a single year, showed it to mentors who happened to be best-selling authors with high profile literary agents on their speed dial. They sent a query letter drafted over real Italian cappuccino then took a nap, only to be awakened by a phone call from Ms. Perfect Agent offering representation and the world, on a silver platter. During this call, words were dropped like magical, heart wrenching, masterpiece and poised for success. Before any papers were signed, word leaked out and a secret copy of the manuscript found its way to the desk of a renown NY literary critic who was so enveloped by the story that her i-phone went untouched for a record seventeen minutes. Within twenty-four hours, the lucky ones sold their debut novel for seven figures at auction, sealing the deal with both agent, editor and Steven Spielberg over champagne at Elaine’s.
The rest of us? After two babies, twelve moves, six jobs, and ten arduous years of work, after three novels, hundreds of agent queries, seven conferences, four pitch sessions, and three near misses, the rest of us might finally have found someone who gets it. Someone who sees what we see, someone who believes in our story, in our work, in us. Someone we might have stalked for years via the internet—it’s much less creepy that way—or in person under large hats and sunglasses at that conference in Florida, but never followed them into the restroom (on purpose). That agent may have been someone we were led to after an expensive visit with a Scottish psychic cat whisperer, a visit we would write off as research if we weren’t already in trouble with the IRS, an agent that actually followed through and sent an email asking to call. And the next day, when the phone rang and you spit your coffee across the desk, you felt the pitter patter of your heart as he asked if the manuscript was still available, as he asked if you’d like to work with him, as he said that he thinks your manuscript has the potential to be a “big honking book” until you’re slapping the desk and screaming, “Yes! Yes! Yes!” not unlike your favorite Meg Ryan scene from When Harry Met Sally, except you’re not so sure you’re faking it. And later, after we have pinched ourselves and hugged our dogs and posted updates on Twitter and Facebook and our blogs. After that? The rest of us will finally call ourselves one of the lucky ones.
Linda Sands recently signed with Josh Getzler of Writers House to represent her novel, We’re Not Waving, We’re Drowning, a work that’s been called The Hours in Savannah.
I'm so happy to be writing right now, I could kiss someone. Now, in one sense, the "writing" I'm talking about is that I'm under contract for more books...in this economy. Trust me, I'm counting my blessings. But (and there's always a but, isn't there?) I have a deadline in a couple of months and honestly, with summer here, the kids at home, work calling, I've no clue how I'm going to get this done. But then again, I have to remind myself that I ALWAYS feel this way about each new book and each new deadline. And, I have to remember I'm not alone.
