I probably haven’t walked “the long road” long enough to earn the right to even talk about it. I’m referring to the long road of publishing. Others have travelled further than me, and over rougher terrain. Many don’t reach their destination.

As for me, I don’t know if there is an end. Perhaps I’ll find only endless curves leading to more curves. A never-ending series of false hopes. There are plenty of places to stop, pause, or exit altogether if the road runs too hard. I hear plenty of inner voices and feel the pull of a dozen alternative activities that offer respite from self-imposed work. Why and how do I resist? Sometimes I don’t, after all, it’s easy to give in. Deciding now’s the perfect time to eat a bowl of cereal is the simplest out there is. But there’s something inside me that fights against that, and if it doesn’t get me back in the computer chair, at the very least it makes me feel guilty for neglecting this second job.

Perhaps this is the universal journey of authors.

Why Has It Been So Long, Friend?

My last blog post appeared almost three years ago. I’m not sure if I can fully explain why it’s been so long. Partly I think I’d been writing so many blog posts while neglecting to write stories, almost as if the blog was one of those temporary escapes. The loss of focus on what I really wanted to do ate at me. For a variety of reasons, from the time I started the blog I was trying to publish every week (which then became every two weeks, and then every month, and then…nothing). Authors in similar positions as me said having a blog was the only way to sell books once they’re published. I believed them. Since then, I have come to two realizations. First, I don’t think it’s true. Second, I don’t have any books published.

Allegedly, publishing companies don’t market books they print (true or not? I don’t know), and it’s left to authors. Those who have an online following—for example a successful blog—are more likely to sell books. If you don’t have the followers, you don’t sell. This is the line people feed each other, and at the time I thought it was good advice. So I blogged.

Please don’t misunderstand, I like writing blogs. I can’t say why, since I’m not usually inclined to share my thoughts in person, but the blog feels different. It might be because I can type and delete and retype, and in the end say everything the way I want to. Talking is hard after all. Either way, for the past three years I’ve focused on writing the stories I want to write instead of the blog. The novel I posted about in November 2019 ended up being rejected by all the agents I sent it to (maybe 50 or more). And in the end I stopped sending it out, because it obviously needs more work.

Then I started a new book. I’m halfway done with what might be the “almost done” draft. That’s part of the reason this post has come to be. I’m stuck on Chapter 13, and I need an outlet to clear my head.

Writing is a long road.

Where Am I Going?

I wish I knew how to answer this question. A vision has enticed me for a long time:  published author, books signings, reviews, and so on. Seeing the book on the bookshelf at Barnes and Noble would be the achievement that tells me “I’m there”. But writing solely for the purpose of getting to that point has been less than fulfilling. On the other hand, writing only the stuff that pleases me and doesn’t interest anyone else might be mentally relaxing, but it doesn’t eat up the figurative miles. Doing that resembles more of a figurative spinout or something (whatever analogy makes sense for you).

I’m straddling a line that is narrower than I first anticipated. I’m trying to stay true to my course, that is producing the kind of writing that’s authentic to me. At the same time, the book I’m writing needs to be something marketable, or else the Barnes and Noble dream evaporates.

It would be silly to think I’m the only person who’s ever gone through this. I’m sure it’s common to almost everyone trying to do anything in any art. The marketing is part of the job, but the creation is why we got into it in the first place. I think deep down, we all sort of feel like it isn’t a job, but the economics of wanting to eventually sell force job-like characteristics into the process.

That’s kind of annoying, especially for stubborn people like me.

So the question of where I’m going is answered. The long road ahead means balancing salability and self-fulfillment. I need to do both, because the vision is Barnes and Noble, but I won’t ever get there if I don’t enjoy the trip. In the end, I want to retain the excitement I had when I wrote this post back when I hadn’t yet hit any potholes or speedbumps or gravel patches. If I don’t do that, there’s no way I’ll make it to the end.

The long road of writing might be marked by a multitude of exits (and excuses for each), but for now, I only see one destination for me. It’s the continued steps forward.

My Road Trip

From here, I intend to update the blog but only at a frequency of once every few months or so. I don’t want to wait too long between updates, because I like doing it. Besides, it takes forever to remember how to format photos for the website and I’m out of practice. In contrast, I don’t want to feel the pressure to write a clever post every week like I used to (not that anyone but me was pressuring me, and not that they were terribly clever, although I still think the title of my lone movie review post “Rey of Hope” was sort of clever).

But the road I’m on is an author road. So my focus will be primarily there. If I were you, I wouldn’t set a watch by my blog posts. I’m likely to miss a few.

I would say this blog is my rest stop for today as I continue down the long road. When I become unmotivated or writing feels like a chore that I want to quit, this less demanding form will hopefully help re-energize me. At least, I’m going to give it a shot. The Barnes and Noble book-on-the-shelf destination is still my goal. Road trips can sometimes end up at places we don’t intend. Although I don’t know what will happen as I continue on the long road, I’m hopeful I’ll end at a bookstore near me.

Thanks for walking with me for a bit.

 

 

 

 

Also, you might like to read my post entitled All the Light.

 

Image Credits
James Wheeler on VisualHunt
Pasi Mammela on VisualHunt.com
Chris Hunkeler on VisualHunt.com
TimOve on VisualHunt

I sent out query letters about a week ago. I’d describe querying as jumping off a cliff in the dark. You don’t know what’s out in the gloom, where the bottom is, how long it takes to get there, or how much the landing is going to hurt.

If you’re an author, you already know what querying means, and you know it’s stressful. Sending out query letters is how authors find agents. Agents sell books to publishers. Trying to write a query is the perfect way to ruin an introvert’s day.

The good news is, my book is finished (I think). The bad news is, I don’t know if it’s really good enough or not. Only an agent can decide that.

Rejection

I’ve already heard back from three of the eleven agents I sent queries to. All rejections (of course, or else this post would be written in all caps and probably would have no grammar or punctuation whatsoever, way more exuberant than this was). If you’ve spent anytime reading about famous authors, you already know rejection is part of the job.

J.K. Rowling was rejected many times before Harry Potter ended up on bookshelves.

Even knowing that, it still stings.

The agents who rejected me were extremely polite, and I appreciate that. I hope that at least one of the remaining eight (I’m not counting…of course I am) will give me a shot.

Trust me, you’ll hear about it if it happens.

Getting to a Query

Writing is mostly a solitary endeavor. Mostly. I’ve been working on the book I hope to get published since fourth grade. But I’ve only REALLY been working on it (diligently) since 2017. I posted a little about it back then. In January of 2019 I thought I was done.

I was not.

I sent the book to two very reliable and honest people who kindly read it and gave me some feedback. Very good and helpful feedback. Some of it, I didn’t want to hear. But I’m glad they said what they did.

Since this book might never get published, I might never get to write that little acknowledgement paragraph at the end of it where I thank all the wonderful people who helped me out. So I’m going to do it here, just in case.

Jeremy and Kaatje read the rawest and worst version of my story. Fortunately for all of us, it will never be that bad again. They both gave me essential feedback, for which I honestly will be forever grateful.

Jeremy convinced me to “speed up” the beginning, which I really struggled to do, probably didn’t do enough, but I tried my best. Kaatje really helped me improve on some character development and to lose some boring middle stuff. She also helped (prodded) me to put in a little romance (way out of my comfort zone), which I think has added an incredibly important and wonderful dimension to the story.

More Help

Writing is solitary, but editing and revision needs teamwork. I had a wonderful group of beta readers. In all the writing speak blogs I’ve read, as well as words from many authors, Jeremy and Kaatje would be called “first readers.” The next group is called “beta” readers, not second readers. I don’t make the rules.

My beta readers don’t know it, but they should be so grateful to my first readers who saved them from some very horrible reading material.

For four month after my first readers gave me feedback, I went back and edited and revised and edited. I got to the point where reading any of my own chapters really made me angry. I hated everything I had written. But by June of 2019, I was sure I was done.

I was wrong again.

Beta readers take whatever it is the author thinks is ready to publish, and then they say why it isn’t. I appreciated their catching typos, which were many, and plot holes, and out-of-character dialogue, and many more things. I had all of that.

Even more useful were the ideas they had to improve, to refine, and to modify. My beta readers were Caleb, Colleen, Emily, Jeannine, Julie, Ralph, and Scott. I can’t list all the things they helped with, but it was a lot.

I had to write about five new chapters, changed the title three times (not as big a deal as you think), rearranged or cut a lot of things, and revised almost everything (literally). It was all important and to be honest, crucial. I understand my own story much better because of them and the product is better.

It’s impossible to describe how much I owe them for spending their time reading my book.

Agents

I suppose you could call agents “third readers”, but I’m not sure what the code word is. First readers, beta readers, so maybe tertiary readers? I don’t know. I guess an editor might be in there somewhere too. It’s too much trouble to figure that out. I heard from my last beta reader in August or September and spent the next two months working on new edits to prepare to query.

I thought I was ready.

Agents decide if a book gets considered for publishing, the first ones to decide anyway. They reject things quickly, like if there’s a typo in your query letter. They have to be merciless because of the number of submissions they receive daily. That’s only one reason why it’s stressful for me: what if I make a mistake?

But more than that, much more, is that the agent also decides if my writing’s any good. I think it is. And a few other people said they did too. But the agents hold the keys to the door to the publisher. I’ve had nine great people review and give me feedback. But that won’t matter if the agent says no.

Makes it hard to sleep at night.

In the end, if they reject it, hopefully they’ll also include some feedback as to what I can do better, and then I can try again.

 

 

 

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Sweet and honorable is sleep for him who dies for his country. But what if he lives? Shrink is the story of a soldier who lived.

I’ve written a lot of stories, finished some of them. Shrink is one that I wrote a long time ago, almost 20 years ago now. It was originally titled “The GI” (as in the general infantryman…not gastrointestinal), and had its roots in a novel that I wrote half of back in 2001. Although that novel is still only half done, Shrink is completely finished.

Shrink, the Paragraph: a Summary of a Short Story

Even though the story is a little longer than the original, the premise, plot and characters are still mostly the same. The GI was only a few pages, and that wasn’t long enough for what I wanted. Also, as I re-read it, I realized it was pretty skeletal in terms of a story. I had left the soldier’s secret unrevealed and left most of the characters’ personalities to the imagination. All of this seemed good at the time I wrote it, but leaves the reader feeling pretty unfulfilled.

To fix some of those issues, I added in a lot of detail about what really happened to the soldier. Originally I had left all of this out because it’s a spoiler for the novel I was writing back in 2001. But since that novel is not (and might not ever be) finished, it didn’t seem to make much sense to preserve any of its mystery. Rather than sacrifice the quality of this story, I went ahead an spoiled that other story, which you might never read.

The story is written in first person, which let’s the reader share in the mystery faced by the narrator. The main character has to piece together a mystery with no witnesses, which is one of the things I like best about this story.  I say I like this, but only in a story setting. Ironically, I hate it when I’m dealing with real life, especially my kids…and you might be surprised how often stuff happens without witnesses around my house.

Seriously, though, the search for “what really happened” fits in with the overall theme of Thread and Other Stories, which is about challenging reality and our perception of it.

Reviews (please…)

If you’ve been following all these recent posts I’ve been writing about my short story releases, then I offer my heartfelt thanks. I really am grateful for people reading what I write, even when it’s about me. Also if you’ve been reading these, you’ll notice a plea for reviews in all of them. Reviews help authors immensely, it’s one of the things most readers look at on Amazon before making a purchase. I don’t think many people buy a book cold without some kind of endorsement by another reader.

So, if you have a minute, please write a quick review and post it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Goodreads, wherever you like to buy books. I would be so thankful!

If you’ve read thread, you could post a review on all four of my books (Thread and Other Stories, Conflict, Deception, and now Shrink). Other things you can do to help are add my stories to Goodreads lists, recommend to a friend, or share my blog. All of these help.

The Cover

You might also note that I’ve been focusing on the cover design art in each of these posts. First, that’s because people actually do judge books by their covers. And I’m really pleased with how the covers look on each of my books. Second, I hope the cover designers find some more business this way. MatYan (also designer for Deception) did Shrink, and I think it is perfect.