Guest Blogger Shelley Blanton-Stroud on Fact and Truth, Fiction and Nonfiction

Shelley Blanton-Stroud grew up in California’s Central Valley, the daughter of Dust Bowl immigrants. She teaches college writing in Northern California, consults with writers in the energy industry, co-directs Stories on Stage Sacramento, and serves on the advisory board of 916 Ink, an arts-based creative writing nonprofit for children. Copy Boy is her first novel. She also writes and publishes flash fiction and nonfiction, including pieces at Brevity and Cleaver.

Please welcome Shelley Blanton-Stroud.

It took me quite a while to figure out what my book, Copy Boy, would be, my trouble mostly arising from the gap between fact and truth. Facts are verifiable things. Truth is the meaning an individual makes of the facts we choose to consider.

I first began to write ten years ago by focusing on my own family’s history of moving west to California from Texas and Oklahoma in the Dust Bowl exodus of Okies looking for work in the Great Depression. I was thinking about a memoir because I had access to the facts. My father, especially, had dramatic stories to tell, one of which now sets my book in motion. But it soon became obvious that the “facts” changed in his every retelling—how old he was, exactly where the incident took place. And the facts really changed when my father’s siblings shared their versions of the family story. That’s what happens with memory and with storytelling. Though I knew my father was telling his truth, I was unsure of what the facts really were. I didn’t think I could get a memoir right.

So, I decided to turn to traditional historical references—books and newspapers about the Dust Bowl/Great Depression period in California—for a more-complete context on my family’s life. But there was often so much missing in these sources—the feel of the time.

I turned to more subjective, artistic, personal work from the period—the photographs and biography of WPA photographer Dorothea Lange, the essays of the iconic columnist Herb Caen, the biographies of folk roots musician Woody Guthrie and SF Chronicle editor in chief, Paul C. Smith. There was a lot in these sources to use.

I decided. I was going to write a historical novel. 

But I soon learned the problem with doing so is the way fact and truth conflict, every scene requiring a negotiation between the two. Could I use the names of real-life people in my fiction? Many authors do this, to great effect. And I have done so, on the periphery—most notably, letting J. R. Oppenheimer wax philosophic and bed an important character. But I didn’t feel I could do so with the major characters. I couldn’t take the risk of getting their lives wrong, factually, in order to create what was my truth about these lives. I couldn’t limit the story to what “really happened.”

Yet, even though a person might think authors of straight historical nonfiction would have an absolute obligation to only rely on facts, many such authors turn to fictive techniques—creating composite characters, recreating conversations the writer never heard or read, creating interior thought based on speculation.

At any rate, for me, it doesn’t make sense to expect a big fat line between fact and fiction; because scholars have by now established that all memory is a kind of fiction. We never remember things objectively. Such nonfiction is less like fact than it is like what we call “truth”—a mix of verifiable facts and one person’s impressions and reflections about those facts, arrived at via memory.

Even when the nonfiction historical writer has zero intention to use fictive strategies, if they collect ten facts but use only nine, the elimination of that ninth fact, the choice of the writer to focus here, but not there, in favor of their sense of the truth, introduces the potential for inaccuracy. When you collect verified facts and then choose which of those you will write about, you are subjectively creating a particular truth the reader will perceive, and perhaps believe.

This is a moral weight that historical novelists must bear.

In Copy Boy, I found early inspiration for my protagonist in the life of iconic San Francisco columnist, Herb Caen. I never considered using his name (even when my protagonist was a boy, before I turned him into a cross-dressing girl), not just because it would be too hard to get everything “right” but because I wanted the freedom to make my protagonist behave very badly. I wanted to let her run to the edges of what the real-life writer might have been tempted to do. I wanted the freedom of letting her do awful things, without the guilt of attaching a real person’s name to that behavior.

This was doubly important to me about my father’s stories, which inspired so much in the book. But those scenes in the novel are not the same as his stories. The facts aren’t the same. And my truth in using those stories is different than his truth in telling them in the first place.

Still, I breathed in relief at his comment after he read my final version of the first chapter based on his story—Good job. That’s not what really happened.

Connect with Shelley via her website, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Find all links to purchase Copy Boy here, including major online retailers as well as independent bookstores. Join her online for the book’s launch. Register at Crowdcast.

All images courtesy Shelly Blanton-Stroud

Guest Blogger Michelle Cameron on: Launching a Book in the Time of COVID-19: A Personal View

 A little more than seven years ago, I began teaching with The Writers Circle, a regional New Jersey writing community, in large part because of Michelle Cameron, an historical fiction novelist and poet. Since then, we’ve become colleagues in so many ways, and friends.

Please welcome Michelle Cameron, whose newest novel launches today.

I’ve been here before. Sort of.

My first novel, The Fruit of Her Hands, was published by Simon & Schuster’s Pocket Books, during the recession of 2009. My beloved editor was let go three days before my launch, meaning I was then – using the term for authors who experience this phenomenon all too often – orphaned.

No editor means no advocate in the publishing house, so while I had the foresight to hire a publicist who knew the Jewish reading market (my novel was a Jewish historical) and who scheduled many events locally and further afield, I was largely on my own.

The book – a $25 hardcover – was a tough sell. People were hesitant to spend any extra money in a recession, and even those who showed up to events and seemed like the ideal appreciative audience, told me they’d wait for the paperback. But the publisher decided my numbers weren’t strong enough for a paperback.

Fast forward eleven years.

In that time, I’d written three novels. The first, based on the Babylonian Exile, was completed during the long wait for Fruit to be published. I loved the book; I still love the book. My agent did not. After a lukewarm attempt to place it, it went back in my drawer. The second, based on Jewish emancipation during the French Revolution, never really gelled. When I finally, reluctantly, realized the story wasn’t strong enough, I put it aside.

The third novel launches today.                           

                                                          

Beyond the Ghetto Gates, a historical novel set during Napoleon’s first Italian campaign when he liberated the Jews from their restrictive ghettos, had a long slog to publication – an initially enthusiastic agent who tried hard, some nice rejections from publishing houses looking exclusively for the now-pervasive WWII novel. (The trend was for “contemporary historicals,” a phrase that still makes me shake my head in disbelief.)

Finally, I approached the hybrid publisher She Writes Press. And I loved what they did with the book – the beautiful cover, the care and attention to production values. After years of writing, revising, and trying to get published, I wanted to give the novel the best possible chance to find its audience.

From the start, my promotional strategy was to secure synagogue events close to my New Jersey home – hoping that by the time I reached the Jewish Book Council’s presentation to Jewish organizations nationwide, there’d be enough buzz that I’d be one of the lucky authors to be invited to present my novel further afield. (JBC covers airfare and lodging for those authors.)  I hired two publicists – one who worked the media side and a second who by February was doing a brilliant job, booking me for more than two dozen events during April, May, and June.

I was set. I was excited.

Then, COVID-19 struck. And everything unraveled.

Now, I know my problem is tiny in the face of this deadly pandemic. I’m home and my family is healthy. I can continue to teach and work virtually. There’s enough stored food in the house for weeks. I can walk outside without undue fear. I have so much to be thankful for.

Still – this stinks. I’ve postponed or canceled most events. Some may be rescheduled when things return to normal. But I’m not naïve – I know some simply won’t. People move on. Newer books always seem shinier, more appealing.

And I realize this is what publishers have always worried about – sudden catastrophes no one can anticipate or prevent that steal the spotlight from new books. Julia Alvarez’s first novel in 14 years, Afterlife, is pubbing today too. Just imagine how the folks at her publishers, Algonquin, must feel!

But here’s where my bleak story turns positive. Through the generosity of fellow authors and organizations, I’ve pivoted energetically toward social media, accepting offers of video placement, podcasts, blog posts, interviews and live book events on Zoom.

I was featured in a recent virtual reading presented by Murphy Writing of Stockton University and my first chapter will soon be read aloud online (see link below). My publisher is dramatically boosting one book a day for all April releases – my day is April 8. 

The friends I’d tapped for my Street Team are making tremendous efforts on my behalf – re-posting my teaser passages and blurbs, talking up the novel. I’m grateful to them all.

Of course, the essential question remains: will all this virtual activity turn into book sales? For now, I’ve decided only that it certainly can’t hurt. Maybe I’ll reach readers that I never would have before. I truly hope my novel can provide a much-needed escape from this nightmare we’re all living – that my words can touch someone who would never have heard of the book otherwise. May it indeed be so.

Note from Lisa: Connect with Michelle on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and at her website.

You can catch part of Michelle’s Social Media Tour at the following. (More being added daily. See the Events page on her website.)

April 7 – Readers Coffeehouse

April 8 – She Writes Press KEEP CALM AND READ ON Spring Virtual Book Tour with Girly Book Club

April 15, 7:00 pm (Eastern) – She Writes authors Eileen Sanchez and Michelle Cameron in conversation about Beyond the Ghetto Gates via Zoom; click here to register  

April 23 – The Book of Life BOOKS IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS podcast 

April 26 – First Chapter Fun on Hannah Mary McKinnon’s website and on her Instagram Live

Guest Blogger Rebecca Entel on the Tricks that Helped Her Finish Writing a Full Novel

Rebecca Entel’s first novel is Fingerprints of Previous Owners (Unnamed Press, 2017). Her short stories and essays have appeared in Guernica, Joyland Magazine, Literary Hub, Electric Literature, Cleaver Magazine, The Madison Review, and elsewhere. Rebecca is an Associate Professor at Cornell College, where she teaches multicultural American literature, Caribbean literature, creative writing, and the literature of social justice. She holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Wisconsin and a BA in English from the University of Pennsylvania. Rebecca grew up in Cleveland and currently lives in Iowa City.

Please welcome Rebecca Entel.

Maybe it’s part of my process to imagine having better writing days than I actually have. In my mind’s eye, there I am at my desk or on the couch or at a table in the library, fingers flying as I produce and produce and produce. It’s much harder to be inside that body I’m imagining watching from afar – to be the one staring at the screen, resisting the click-away temptation of the internet, believing in what could come next.

I had been writing and teaching writing for many years before publishing Fingerprints of Previous Owners. Part of my process in writing that first novel was seeing if I could, in fact, even finish one. I got to travel many times for this project, which takes place at a Caribbean resort built over the ruins of a slave plantation. I even learned how to use a machete to reach those ruins for my research. But most of my time was spent staring at the screen, feeling frustrated. I’d spend too much time trying to get the conditions right for becoming the writer that existed in my mind, and then when I actually sat down to write, I’d feel fundamentally not up to the task. Those images of watching myself writing prolifically had become one more weight getting in my way.

The only way I seemed to get anything done was when I tricked myself into writing, by using all the tricks I’d counseled my students to use when they were feeling stuck. Two of these tricks had a major impact on the development of the book.

What’s something you know about that your readers may not?

A grad professor of mine once recommended we think about this question, finding something unique to describe that might inject some energy. Posing it to myself, I thought back to learning how to use that machete. I’d been taught it was a tool of gravity, not of force. No matter how strong you were, hacking away wouldn’t do much good. You need a sharp blade and the right angle, then let gravity do its job. I began free-writing about this and discovered a voice that belonged to Myrna, the book’s main character, who was secretly excavating the ruins. The machete became thematically important, too, since Myrna didn’t have much power, physical or otherwise; she had to be sharp and find the right angle to get where she wanted to go.

What will you learn if you free-write from a minor character’s perspective?

I advise my students to find multiple ways to jump away from the main thrust of their stories. This particular exercise isn’t necessarily about writing material to be included in the text; it’s about the writer discovering new information.

On the days I felt most stuck, I let myself write short narratives from the perspectives of minor characters in my protagonist’s community. I learned a ton about the island’s history, more than my narrator could know, and much of it allowed me to add texture to the fictional island I was creating, where what does not get talked about fuels Myrna’s machete adventures. That secretive aspect of the book hedged me in because I couldn’t reveal anything beyond Myrna’s perspective, which, combined with the typical limitation of the first-person narrator, and her intense focus on her excavations, isolated her character from friends and family.

Some of these free-writing exercises eventually became parts of the book in which I let other characters speak. These characters never would have come to life if I hadn’t let myself experiment with their voices. In talking to readers, I’ve learned how important these side stories were to their reading experience. They needed these breaks from Myrna’s perspective. So perhaps my feelings of being mired in the writing was actually a clue into what my readers might feel, too.

I wouldn’t have finished Fingerprints if I hadn’t relied on these tricks to help me stop thinking about the to-be-finished Fingerprints. I hadn’t thought of the various exercises I offer students as necessarily related before, but I came to see that many of them focused on relieving writers of the pressure of writing a book –  distracting writers from that larger aim so they could write something.

In speaking with other writers, particularly students, I’ve also been reminded how helpful it is to hear writers speak honestly and practically about what their processes were before their books were ever books.

Connect with Rebecca at her website, on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

She is teaching an online novel writing workshop for Catapult beginning in June.

Guest Blogger, Novelist Anca L. Szilágyi on Whatever Works: Looking at Visual Art to Write Inspired Prose

 I guess in the past debut authors talked in person about the trajectory hurling them toward launch day—and the rolling emotions and endless details that accompany that journey. Today, we find one another in specialized Facebook groups and exchange intel. That’s how I got to know Anca Szilágyi.

Anca is the author of the newly published novel, Daughters of the Air, which Shelf Awareness called “a striking debut from a writer to watch.” Her writing appears in Salon, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Lilith Magazine, and she will be teaching Writing Contemporary Fairy Tales at Portland (Oregon’s) Literary Arts and with StoryStudio Chicago while on book tour. She received the inaugural Artist Trust/Gar LaSalle Storyteller Award, and earned grants and fellowships from Vermont Studio Center, 4Culture, Made at Hugo House, and the Jack Straw Cultural Center. Originally from Brooklyn, she currently lives in Seattle.

Please welcome Anca L. Szilágyi.

            When I was just starting to write seriously, I fetishized notebooks—and, like an eight-year-old—stickers.  I preferred black, hard-backed notebooks with graph paper that forced my writing into small, neat boxes.  My favorite treat was popping into a stationary store in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, to buy a cheap book of Dover Art Stickers depicting famous paintings by Michelangelo, Kahlo, Goya, and the like. I was trying to write the first draft of my first novel, Daughters of the Air, using Hemingway’s supposed model of 300 words a day, no more, no less, stopping mid-sentence and all that jazz. The mid-sentence idea was cool; there’s always something to come back to. (And if you didn’t remember what you were coming back to, maybe it wasn’t all that good to begin with.)

            Aside from the word count, I didn’t have a very language-oriented approach to writing, which, come to think of it, is kind of strange. I don’t like complicated writing prompts. (Write a dialogue between a mother and a cat. The mother should be in a sour mood saying sweet things, and the cat should be doing something that is both like and unlike a cat. Include the words mousse, temperament, and proclivity.)  In addition, the blank page was your typical blank-page nightmare, even with all those calming blue gridlines. So, in came the art. I would shuffle the stack of sticker books with my eyes closed, randomly open one and choose a sticker. Then came joy, disappointment, or bafflement at my selection. The tiny reproduction took up a square of space on the page, and then I had to write. Whatever came to mind. Hopefully related to the book. Sometimes not.

            The really famous painters oozed their egos all over the page. I had little to say about Michelangelo. Kahlo demanded I only write about Kahlo. Which is fine, because I love Kahlo, but my novel has nothing to do with her. It was the lesser known painters, to me at least, that gave me an opening. Sad, dark flowers by Nolde. Chagall’s gold-hued and green warmth. Modigliani’s eyeless women. Kandinsky’s colorful abstractions, suggesting messy, unarticulated internal conflicts.

            Over time, Nolde faded away, but Chagall fueled the father in my novel, Modigliani the mother, and Kandinsky their daughter, Pluta. Through all this groping in the dark with my shuffling, I learned to return to these three artists in particular. (Goya dropped in sometimes.)  In retrospect, I can see how these painters shaped the novel’s characters in personality and to some lesser extent, their biographies.

The father in my novel is warm and is an Ashkenazi Jew. Modigliani didn’t paint eyes as he felt they were too intimate, and the mother in my novel is cold and distant. And, like Modigliani, a Sephardic Jew. (These two demographic tidbits also aligned with the Jewish cultures of Buenos Aires I had been researching.)  Writing from Kandinsky’s works was a special challenge (no gestures, no objects), but somehow, they suggested a path for my protagonist, Pluta, in her emotional and actual journey: messy, indirect, all scribbled up.

            When I finished the first draft, this ekphrastic process gradually fell away. The raw material was before me, and it was time to make sense of it. A couple of reviews have called my book surprising (in a good way, thank goodness), and I think in part the surprising quality came from the experiment of engaging with art in this way.

It was hardly the most efficient way of writing a novel. That first draft took several years, and then I went to graduate school and rewrote the book. But I’m not sure efficiency is something we should necessarily value in art. It’s art, after all—not paint-by-numbers. Even as it is painful to grope around in the dark looking for the shape of a story and its meaning, even as it could take longer—much longer—than you would expect—if it wasn’t a surprising process with surprising results why would I even write?

You can find Anca at her website or on Twitter. Her book tour is taking her to Bainbridge Island, Spokane, Portland, Boston, New York, Chicago, and Tampa (for AWP) this winter, with additional spring and summer West Coast events, all listed here.

Guest Blogger Judy Mollen Walters on Creating Fictional Worlds From What We Know

I shared a meal at the AWP conference last month with four other writers. We're all part of the same Facebook group of women writers, and when discussing where we each live, they assumed I already knew their mutual friend Judy Mollen Walters, who lives less than an hour from me in New Jersey. Well, I didn't then, but I do now. Judy is a novelist and also writes occasional essays, with work in The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, SheKnows, Spring St. Scary Mommy, Kveller, and other places. Looks like I met Judy just in time to learn about her fifth novel, A Million Ordinary Days, published this month—and invite her to write this guest post.

Please welcome Judy Mollen Walters.

You know what writers I admire the most? Historical fiction writers, who are able to catapult themselves—and their readers—into a completely different time, whether it be back to the ancient days of the Romans, the time of twentieth century World War I or WWII heroes and survivors, or when the Declaration of Independence was signed. Even those who write about the 1960s and 70s, when flower power and bell bottom jeans were in full fashion, impress me.

Historical novelists can go back and visit a completely different space and time, and literally plunk their readers right there beside them. They need to conduct hours and hours, and days and days, and months and months of research—online and in person research, talking to historians, librarians, and experts, taking countless notes, and reading countless books about their subjects. And that’s all before they start writing. And, as they go along, drafting, revising, rewriting.

I hate research. I always have. I can remember when I was in middle school, trying to learn the techniques of research, annoyed and bored out of my mind. As soon as I got to the library, I didn’t scurry to the encyclopedias to look up my topic. I went to the fiction section to find a new novel to read. Research was painstakingly agonizing for me, looking up articles, trying to find good, interesting information, and then just as painful to try to flesh it all out into a solid paper. I just didn’t care. I only wanted to go back into worlds I knew along with authors like Judy Blume, worlds I was familiar with. I loved realistic fiction about girls my own age, then.

Now as a writer, I have the same tastes. I am the opposite of the go-into-other-worlds, spend-a-lot-of-time-researching historical fiction writer. I’m in the solid write-what-you-know camp. For me, that’s contemporary women’s fiction. I write about families and mothers and wives. Many of my characters have some sort of affliction or illness or struggle that I’ve either gone through personally or can identify with because I know someone who has experienced it. 

Subjects I’ve explored in my novels include a Jewish family struggling with adoption (I am Jewish and know many adopted people); autism (My best friend’s son is an adult autistic man.); infertility (I went through it myself twice!); a best friendship that ends with a shock and a secret (With one of the women discovering a shocking truth about her ex-best friend, which happened to me, too.)

Yet the characters in my novels are not me, nor are they my children, husband, or family. (My sister kept trying to find herself in my books, so finally I created a character who was a middle school math teacher, like she is, so she would stop bugging me about it.)

My latest novel, A Million Ordinary Days, is about a mother like me, at the prime of her life with two daughters, battling a chronic illness. While I have Crohn’s Disease, my character has multiple sclerosis (MS). I have several friends with MS, and I reached out to them in order to make sure I was telling an accurate story. Okay, so maybe I do some casual research after all!

These friends were so supportive—and excited about—a novel about MS. They wanted a character like them to rule a novel. So they were happy to read my drafts, offering suggestions to make my character more “real.”  They also suggested blogs by writers living with MS that helped me get an accurate picture of living with the disease.

But to create my protagonists, I do not have to pursue pure research. I simply watch the lives of those around me, listen, and am able to reproduce what I observe well enough to, I think, build a credible story. My fictional worlds have everything in common with the current-day world my readers and I all live in.

If I was trying to replicate historical times, I would be miserable. There’s so much to get right: language and dress, food and lifestyle, politics and environmental conditions.  Even if I wanted to write a coming of age novel set in the 1970s and 80s when I was growing up myself, I still think I would have a hard time. I don’t remember all the fads, music, movies and TV from then!

Of course, with the Internet, research isn’t nearly as difficult now as it was back when I was in school. But that doesn’t make it any more appealing to me. I still love to write about the lives I see unfolding around me now. Mothers. Wives. Friendships. An illness or condition that's familiar. That’s how I’m most successful.

My hat's off to all the historical fiction writers out there. And the science fiction writers. And the biographers. Writers who really dare to take us into worlds so different than we could ever imagine. I admire them. But for me, I’m still sticking to the old adage: write what you know.

                                                                                                                

Note from Lisa: You can connect with Judy at her website,  Facebook, or Twitter. Find a review of her newest novel at Books is Wonderful, and order the book here.

Guest Blogger Susan Breen on Prepping for a Pitch Conference

Perhaps this is true for every writer active online: there are some authors who you warm to and enjoy interacting with immediately—and believe you would get along with in real life, if your paths were to cross. That's how it was with Susan Breen when I discovered her online, about seven or so years ago. I'm delighted she's on the blog today.

Susan’s new mystery, Maggie Dove, was published by Random House’s digital Alibi imprint in June, and the next in the series, Maggie Dove’s Detective Agency, will be out in November. Breen teaches for Gotham Writers Workshops and is on the staff of the New York Writers Workshop. She sold her first novel, The Fiction Class, at a pitch conference.

Please welcome Susan Breen

            For nine years, I’ve been a workshop leader at the New York Pitch Conference in Manhattan, where I help participants write pitches for their novels and memoirs. Then I sit with them as they recite those pitches to editors from the big New York publishing houses. Figuring 18 people to a group, meeting four editors each session, four times a year—that means I’ve heard a lot of pitches.

From my unique perch, I’ve witnessed what goes on when an editor listens to a writer’s pitch. I’ve seen their doodles. (Always a bad sign when they begin crossing off your name.) I’ve seen writers sabotage themselves (begging and crying, for example). I’ve also seen editors light up when they hear something that excites them. (At the last conference an editor looked at me and said, “I want this book now!)

So, what can you do to improve your chances at a pitch conference?

1.      Make them want to read your book. This seems obvious, yet often writers get swept up in the rules of pitch writing, or worrying that they accurately convey all the information about the book, that their pitches become brittle. Yes, follow the rules. The pitch shouldn’t be too long. End with a cliff hanger. But the most important thing? Be interesting. It may matter for the plot that the main character gets her teeth cleaned in chapter 3, but does the editor have to know that right now?

2.      Remember, editors judge a book by its pitch. If the pitch rambles, the book probably rambles. If the pitch is unfocused, the book probably is. If the pitch is funny, if the pitch is boring, if the pitch makes no sense… My boss at the pitch conference, Michael Neff, says a pitch is a diagnostic tool, and I agree. When I’m working on one of my own novels, I always write a pitch halfway through. If I have trouble writing the pitch, it usually means there’s trouble in the book.

3.      Setting is an important part of a good pitch. Editors like to know if the book takes place in Paris or Long Island or wherever. Sometimes writers insist that the story can take place anywhere, but that’s not actually a selling point. You want your book to be set somewhere specific, which does not mean it has to be glamorous. Yes, it’s fun to read about Paris, but Long Island can also be intriguing.

4.      Establish an interesting and active protagonist. This is frustrating to a lot of writers, who can cite many classic novels that do not have active protagonists. This is undoubtedly true, and if Proust shows up at one of my conferences, we can debate the point. But I don’t think Proust was going for the commercial market. If your character’s not active, make sure he’s funny or in a lot of trouble.

5.      Credentials help. I’ve had people who’ve won Emmy awards. That helps a lot. But I’ve also had people with stories published in magazines with a circulation of 500. That helps too. It shows the editor that you’re a part of the literary world. You’re serious. Try to build up credentials before the pitch conference. See if you can spin off a chapter as a story. Take a writing class. Join a writers’ organization. Everything helps.

6.      When you are talking to an older editor, do not refer to your work set in the 1960s as “historical fiction.”

7.      Even the best pitches are not successful with every editor. Over the course of the pitch conference, a participant meets with four or five editors. Sometimes every editor will request a manuscript. Other times only one editor will request it. Sometimes that pitch will be a little odd. Or the writer will be odd. And yet, that one editor really connects with it. It’s like falling in love. You don’t need everyone in the world to fall in love with you. You just need one person.

8.      Word count matters. Most editors want books between 65,000 to 100,000 words. If the concept is strong enough, they may ask to see something with a longer word count, but it definitely creates an obstacle.  Publishing is hard enough without adding obstacles. I also work as an editor and I can assure you that I’ve never read a novel that couldn’t be shortened.

9.      Know the comparable titles in your genre and category ("comps"). My agent pitched my new mystery as "Agatha Christie meets Anne Tyler". That gives an immediate sense of the tone. When a writer has no idea of what’s comparable to her book, I feel alarmed, because that makes me think she hasn’t read anything. Sometimes people will say, “I’m writing a romance because I want to sell it, but I don’t actually read this junk.” That’s not an inducement. If you publish a romance, you’ll be meeting a lot of romance writers who will not be happy to discover you think they are idiots. Write the book you want to write, and read other books like it.

10.  Don't argue with an editor. If the editor hears your pitch and says, this would be better if the protagonist were a woman, or this sounds like a YA novel, just say thank you. They might be right or they might be wrong. No one is going to force you to change your book, but it’s worth absorbing the input and thinking about it afterwards. Keep in mind that part of what they’re trying to do is figure out if you’re someone they want to work with. So if you immediately resist or argue back about every suggestion, that’s not a good sign.

11.  If no one at a pitch conference warms to your book, it doesn’t mean you’re a bad writer, a bad person, or a failure. It just means that the handful of editors you met with, didn’t want your book. There are many other editors. There are many other books to write. My first two books didn’t sell. My third did. My fourth one didn’t. My fifth did. Hopefully, I’ve figured it all out now, but if I had quit after one, I’d be nowhere.

12.  Finally, try and enjoy the pitch conference. Yes, it’s stressful, but you are getting the chance to meet face to face with the people who run this crazy business we’re in. That’s exciting.

Learn more about Susan at her website, or by connecting on Facebook or Twitter.  

Images: Stack of Journals, Jon Betts and Talk Bubbles, Raiznext, both FlickerCreativeCommons. Others, courtesy Susan Breen.

Author Interview: Linda Sienkiewicz on her Debut Novel and the Twisty Road That Got Her There

At one of the on-site residencies during my MFA program, a visiting writer told us students that the people in that room were going to be the foundation of our future writing community, regardless of geographic location, writing style or genre, age, or any other factor that might, on the surface, seem to separate us. Lucky for me, she was right.

Linda Sienkiewicz was one of the people in the room at that time, and eight years later, she's a valued part of my personal writing community. Linda has contributed posts here in the past (not once, but twice), and I've been a guest at her blog too. I'm extremely pleased now to offer this interview with her, as she steps out with her debut novel, In the Context of Love (Buddhapuss Ink), released just last week.

Please welcome Linda Sienkiewicz.

Q: Linda, I understand it was a twisty road from initial draft to publication by Buddhapuss Ink LLC this month. How long did it take from that first manuscript to that publishing contract? Did it surprise you that it didn't happen sooner?

A. I finished the manuscript shortly after graduation from the MFA program in 2009. It was incredibly frustrating to have long spells where seemingly nothing happened. In retrospect, if not for that time, the manuscript would never have reached its potential. That surprised me. I had an agent in 2010, but I’m glad she didn’t sell it. In the Context of Love is a much different novel than it was back then.

Q. Can you tell us about some stops and starts along the way? I believe you rewrote the entire novel in a different POV? What other major changes did you tackle in revision and why?

A. The manuscript was originally in first person—second person address, where the narrator is telling her story to a lost love, addressing him as “you.” Early in my agent search, I worried that might be a problem (I was so unsure of myself) so I rewrote it as a traditional first-person “I” narrative. I queried 83 agents before I got two offers of representation.

Then, when my agent sent the novel out to publishers, initial feedback showed editors thought it was YA because it began with the narrator as a teen. My agent had me rewrite the story so it starts when she’s an adult and then looks back to when she first falls in love and learns the family secret that alters her life.

The manuscript didn’t sell. Editors praised it, but apparently it wasn’t what they wanted. Incredibly frustrating, but my agent was encouraging. She suggested I work on something new, but writing became a struggle. I have to admit I was crushed.

Q. In addition to writing/revision challenges and publishing industry vagaries, you had a daunting trauma in your personal life. Would you mind discussing how the family tragedy affected you as a writer?

A. Shortly after that blow of rejection, my eldest child at age 32 took his own life. Let me tell you, there’s nothing that prepares you for such a tragedy. My goals and dreams of publication fell to the wayside. Nothing mattered. I couldn’t write. I didn’t feel like a writer anymore; I felt like an utter failure. It took two years before I gave myself permission to have goals again. Two years before I even turned on my computer. It was daunting, but I had to know if I would ever write again. I wasn’t ready for a new project yet; I couldn’t give up on In the Context of Love.

Q. At one point I think you hired an editor. What role do you think that played in moving the manuscript toward publication?

A. First I decided to change the story back to the way I had originally conceived it, using the second person address. Then I sought the advice of an author/editor. She absolutely loved the story, but she saw a few issues, too. She suggested I start the book at a low point in the narrator’s life — when she takes her two young children to visit their father in jail for the first time. That made a huge difference. She also advised me to speed up the narrative in some scenes, and pump up others. Her ideas, with the point of view change, were instrumental. The manuscript was a whole new animal! I was so excited!

I contacted my agent only to learn she had left the business. Not a happy moment. But in reality, she’d shopped it all around the larger publishers, so there wasn’t much more she could have done. I researched small presses and queried them myself.

Q. When you began submitting to small presses, what did you have in mind as the ideal offer and publisher?

A. I knew small presses don't have money to pay advances, but they see potential in stories that big houses ignore. I didn’t want to pay for publishing, I wanted standard royalties from book sales, and maybe some extra attention that a large publishing house doesn’t have time for.

 

Q. How close did you get to that?

A.    I got what I was looking for and more in the sense that my publisher is truly invested in my novel.

Q. If you don't mind saying, how many submissions did you make, and what kinds of responses did you get?

A. I queried six small presses. I got the standard “not right for us,” and “I'm sure you understand that small presses are creatures of their editors' individual tastes, an idiosyncratic but unavoidable standard.” Ha. The response that really had me scratching my head was “It has potential, with interesting situations and characters, but the prose style is slack and the narrative structure awkward.” I thought that was funny. By then, I had already signed a contract with Buddhapuss.

Q. Were there any surprises – pleasant or otherwise—in working with a boutique independent (though traditional) publisher? We know you're not jetting off on a nationwide book tour on their dime, but that's also true of most authors published these days by the biggest houses.

A. I had to laugh when someone asked me if I was going on tour. Does anyone do that anymore? But, it’s been great. I certainly didn’t expect to consider my publisher a friend. It’s a business relationship, true, but it’s really nice. I also appreciated having input on the cover and the inside layout. That was important to me, having an art background. I had input on just about everything every step of the way.

Q. We hear about how much work even a traditionally-published author has to do to help with (in some cases, to spur any) marketing and publicity efforts. I know you produced your own lovely book trailer over the summer. What else are you doing, what is your publisher doing, and are you exhausted?

A. Buddhapuss put together an amazing media kit for new releases and bloggers. They sent advance copies to long lead reviewers and entered the book in contests. They did a pre-release giveaway on Goodreads. They've sent me business cards, postcards, book markers, author cards and posters. They are a cheering squad.

Six months before the book launch, I revamped my website I’ve worked on creating a buzz using graphics and excerpts for Twitter, Pinterest and Facebook. Twitter is great for networking, Facebook is pretty good, Pinterest not so much. I’m entering the book in other contests and trying to schedule appearances now, but I feel tapped out. I’m glad I hired an outside publicist to handle blogs, press releases and news articles (I hear even authors from large houses have resorted to hiring publicists).

Q. Before you wrote the novel, you published a good deal of poetry, earning a Chapbook Award and Pushcart Prize nomination. Had you always been writing fiction?

A. A few years before Stonecoast, I had success with publishing short stories, and even had an early novel and agent, which was kind of a fluke, really. Let’s not go there. But I wanted to write a good, solid novel. I entered the MFA program in fiction with a rough draft of In the Context of Love, eager to learn all I could. I was a sponge.

Q. Besides all the time and energy going into the book launch, are you finding any time to work on new writing?

A. Um… I have an outline and a few chapters. I’m anxious to get back to serious writing.

Q. What's your favorite piece of advice for writers who are now seeking publication for a book-length work?

A. Think of your chapters as publishable excerpts and submit them to literary journals and contests. It’s a good way to gauge how marketable your work is, and it helps establish credibility. Write a synopsis. No one likes writing them, but you’ll be surprised at how it helps you see the big picture. You’ll need one to query agents or publishers, anyway. And don’t ever give up. It’s hard work, and it gets discouraging, but don’t quit.

Note from Lisa: Linda would like to send one of this blog's readers a signed copy of her novel. Simply leave a comment here by the end of the day, Sunday, September 27, or tweet a link to this post, making sure to tag @LisaRomeo, to be entered. Must have a US postal address.