Category Archives: Writing Life

Release Date

14 Wednesday Aug 2019

Posted by in Debut Novel, Writing Life

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On Tuesday, September 10th my debut novel, The Confessions of Adam, will be released. The optimal day to release a book, per industry wisdom, is Tuesday. A late summer, early fall release is also good, as readers are settling back into their routines and are often looking for their next book. And of course Christmas is coming. There is time for a reader to finish the book ahead of the holiday season and then purchase a copy as a gift.

It’s marketing.

On Tuesday, September 10th my debut novel, The Confessions of Adam, will be released. I have spent more than a decade with this story. I started writing it in the winter of 2005. I finished the final full draft the summer of 2016. I carried this project close and spoke of it with intimate friends and in small groups. Started on one laptop, finished on another—it required hundreds of revisions, dozens of notes on the biblical text, an outline that morphed alongside each draft, selections for workshops, and phone calls with my agent and publisher. It was incremental progress and Divine intervention—still Divine intervention.

Indeed, it’s marketing. But first it was personal.

The Last Read

31 Wednesday Jul 2019

Posted by in Creative Process/Craft, Debut Novel, Role of the Writer, Writing Life

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This week I finished reading, for the fourth time in six months, my debut novel The Confessions of Adam. This was my last reading. With an advance reader copy in hand, it was the last opportunity to edit the text. I finished the novel.

Three thoughts come to mind at this milestone:

  1. It is strange to be so familiar with a text. A sort of blindness sets in, an inability to process any further what text is doing. Instead of learning more about the intent of the story with each pass or draft, I now learn what the story is about from readers, from engaging with readers in conversation about the novel. 
  2. I’ll not do it again. The temptation is to say to oneself, ‘I must do this again. I must write another novel like this one.’ But the fact is I won’t. I won’t do this again. The next novel will be different in more ways than it is similar. The next novel will have its own challenges and personality. Each book is a unique, a custom effort.
  3. You never finish a book, you just stop. Leading up to this reading, there had been dozens of beta readers and editors, including Cyndi and I. Yet we still identified around 35 edits. I am convinced that I could read this novel every month for the next year and find changes I want to make. It is time to stop, to go to press. I’ve done all I can.

So long, Adam of Eden and Oren of Susa. It has been a pleasure working with you.

First Copies

17 Wednesday Jul 2019

Posted by in Contract with the Reader, Debut Novel, Role of the Writer, Writing Life

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At a conference last week my publisher had a book table and sold the first pre-release copies of my debut novel, The Confessions of Adam. About a dozen copies went home with readers from various locations across the US. 

It is surreal to think that at any given time a stranger somewhere could be reading your novel. I have moved the work from that silent and solitary place of daily writing, through months of maneuvering a manuscript toward publication, to this new and foreign stage of observing from afar unknown readers as they react to a book with my name on it.

I am reminded of the axiom ‘the story must stand on its own.’ I’m not sitting next to each reader giving them a synopsis of the novel or telling them how I came to write the story. They’ve never seen my name before. I’m an unknown. I’ve nothing to do with the reader’s experience. The book is now theirs to complete, to read and to imagine.

The story must stand on its own—while I write the next one.

[Title Here]

03 Wednesday Jul 2019

Posted by in Writing Discipline, Writing Life

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I am having a very hard time titling what I hope will be my second novel.

There are two outcomes of each title I write: 1) it stinks, and I know it right away or 2) I am utterly enamored with it as soon as it hits the page, only to find after a day or two it grows soft, gray, and flat.

I tend to start with low concept titles, over-wrought and abstract ones that give the reader no idea, no clue what they are getting themselves into. These titles are artsy, literary, and pleasing to only one reader—me. Slowly, painfully, I find my way to the high concept titles, those that draw the reader in. Those simple titles that tell the reader something central about what they are getting themselves into when they pick up my prose. 

The only way I’ve found of getting to these better titles is via a list, getting all the low concept titles out, onto the page, so that they can be forgotten and I can get to the ones that have potential. The tenable titles come at least ten titles into the list, more in most cases. 

Finally, the chosen title must always be set out to rest. It must still be the title of choice days and weeks later.

And this is how titles are made.

Sunday Word Choice

19 Wednesday Jun 2019

Posted by in Qualities of Good Fiction, Writing Life

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Early Sunday morning, while working through edits to The Confessions of Adam, I came across a passage where one of the central characters uses the word ‘sewage.’

I stopped reading. The right word for the situation. The wrong word for the story. Too modern.

So began the search.

I didn’t want a reader pulled from the dream by the wrong word. 

With a dictionary in one hand and a thesaurus in the other, I went to work. I spent an hour reading and looking at synonyms, their definitions, their origins. Hundreds of words all revolving around refuse, waste, discharge, and other distasteful aspects of human leavings. 

It turns out that the word ‘sewage’ carries a lot of weight.

After finding my morning mood and stomach soured, I consulted a writerly friend. I texted him the challenge. Per his suggestion I went with the word ‘stagnant.’

And this is how it works. The word you’re looking for may not be an equivalent. It may be a change, a tweak, a subtle shift in tone, color, or perspective.

And this is the pursuit of story.

Next

08 Wednesday May 2019

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I am well into the throes of writing my second novel. I’ve heard that many writers don’t get the first novel they write published. The first one is often practice, the novel they learned on. The one that sits forever in the desk drawer. I recently heard the non-fiction writer Eula Biss state that a friend’s debut novel—at age 52—was the fifth he’d written. This hasn’t been my experience. In my case, the first one done is the first one out the door.

But none of this matters—which novel, how many, when.

What matters is that there is a next. A now. A work-in-progress. The writing is the thing. In the writing is where the work begins and ends. There is a current project that has captured me. If it is fit for readers at some point then so be it. If not, another next awaits.

What matters is the writing.

Ending

24 Wednesday Apr 2019

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It’s been said that no one finishes a novel, they just stop working on it. If there is anything that is true about the craft of creating fiction, it is this. There is no ending for the writer, only a stop.  A surrender of the text to the editor. The writer’s temptation is to keep working and working on a manuscript. To tweak, adjust, straighten, repeat. I’ve heard authors in readings alter the published text – edit their work for a reading. This is how strong the desire is to continue. To avoid ending. To fix, affix, and reaffix. But you must stop. You must cease your effort. You must stand down. Beginnings demand endings. One day you finish, whether you like it or not.

The story is in the possession of the reader now.

And you move on to the new, the next. 

I Can Do This

27 Wednesday Mar 2019

Posted by in Creative Process/Craft, Starting a Novel, Writing Life

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I remember the moment. I am standing in my study at my bookshelf. It is 1988 or 1989. I am in college, a sophomore. I have just pulled down a Hemingway novel – I don’t remember which one – and am leafing through it, reading a line here, a line there. And then I pause, look up and think to my naive experience-lacking self, “I can do this. I can write a novel. It can’t be that hard.”

Blink. 

Thirty years later I have a graduate degree in writing and my debut novel is about to be released.

I look back and I was right, I can write a novel.

I look back and I was wrong, it can and is hard.

But, this is how it always starts, with an unfounded idea. Whether it’s writing a novel, starting a business, or running a marathon, it always starts with simply pointing your nose in a specific direction. And it always starts with untethered, joyful ignorance of the difficulty ahead.

Along the way you will need to say again, a thousand times, that you can (still) do this. There may not be another living soul who has bought into your shenanigans. That’s fine. What you’re doing is personal. It’s yours alone.  And it will remain that way for a long time to come.

Until. 

Blink. 

Some years later when it’s no longer personal, it’s being turned out, into the wild, to fend for itself.

It’s Like Starting a Business

13 Wednesday Mar 2019

Posted by in Debut Novel, Role of the Writer, Writing Life

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On the morning of February 25th, I had a conference call with my publisher, Karen Porter at Bold Vision Books. She and I discussed social media, manuscript edits, cover art, publicity, release prep, and endorsements. I left the call with a couple dozen action items – from compiling edits on the manuscript to ordering business cards to installing plugins on my website.

With the success of a publishing deal for your debut novel comes the requirement to not only ensure the quality of the product, but to also establish the structures of public commerce. 

I’m just getting started on this journey. Here is my first lesson learned:

Engage with the collaborative team that is forming around you.

This product that I have worked solo on for so long has now become a significant concern for other skilled and creative people. I need to now view these as my team, my colleagues, and fellow creatives. I am the founder of a co-op that is rising and forming. This has nothing to do with writing. This is about being a conscientious team member and ensuring that I engage my colleagues around the table.

So to my agent Joelle Delbourgo, my publisher Karen Porter, my photographer Connie Phillips, my social media consultant Scott Carter, and the other team members whose names I’ve yet to learn – my cover artist, my editor – welcome and thank you for all you’ve done and are doing to make The Confessions of Adam a successful debut. I’m thankful for the opportunity to be part of your team.

The Other Folder*

27 Wednesday Feb 2019

Posted by in Writing Life

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In preparation for my mother’s visitation and memorial service this week, my sister gave my daughter two folders of my mom’s writings to put together in an album.

I knew that my mom had written many short inspirational pieces for religious publications in decades long past. As my daughter emptied the first folder these were there, in their published form.

But my daughter began to empty the other folder and read to us from those pieces. General short stories. Autobiography. Poetry. Character-driven fiction. More poetry. Some appeared to be final drafts while others were overlaid with her hand-written edits. Mixed into these drafts were typewritten submission copies, and at least one rejection letter.

I thought that my work was pushing well beyond where she had gone, but as it turns out she was exploring much further afield than I realized.

In a culture that idolizes individuality, it is easy to see ourselves – our passions and positions – as a result of self-designed, self-made outcomes. But this is rarely the case. We are often navigating pan-generational trajectories. It is valuable to proactively identify these so that we can knowingly add to a legacy or, conversely, take intentional steps to break free of destructive ruts.

In my case, I’ll continue to write. 

But with a greater sense of the forces that drive me to practice my craft.

*In memory of Marlene Joyce Schaiper Marsh Crump | 1937-2019