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| Photo: Morgan Sessions |
In the Beginning...
Long, long ago, in a
galaxy not so far away, I was a young mother with children who adored reading:
picture books, board books, treasured classics on high shelves that kids with sticky
hands ought not chew on. Nestled in my lap or leaning against my side on the
sofa, in waiting rooms, and on beanbags at the library, these kids and I would
read. A lot. They loved beautifully illustrated stories, but they also liked me
to tell them tales on lengthy car trips that had all of us goofy with laughter
as the ridiculous turns "Elvis & JoJo" took as I tried
concentrating on the road and keeping the threads of the characters' adventures
straight.
Like many writers, I
claim to have always "written" and while this is true, the more honest answer is that I wrote
abstractly and sporadically since I was a child. My favorite and most memorable
grammar school activity was when our class wrote and made a real book: the
binding was cardboard and the cover: wallpaper. We stitched it all together like
pros with thick string. It was magic.
My AP English teacher in
high school accused me of being too analytic, but looking back, I appreciate
how she pushed me toward unleashing my creativity. College was a hodgepodge of
misguided living, but I distinctly recall a creative writing class wherein I stared
at a blank page and thought to myself, I can
do this then proceeded to fill it. It was somewhere in the soup of those years when I forced my way
through the challenge of transferring thoughts to the keyboard, instead of pen
and paper. It felt strange, almost unnatural, but now I thank my fleet fingers
for getting the words down much more quickly than I can write. Plus, my
penmanship is rubbish.
And then...
It was around the
frenzied time of toddlerdom, that I bought a trusty "good spiral" and
started jotting down fragments of story ideas, mostly delightful picture book
type silliness. Then when I was emerging from those diapered, gonzo, cheddar goldfish
and cheerios everywhere years, I deluded myself into thinking I'd be a
screenwriter. I learned the form and wrote a couple rom-coms. I can't speak to
their quality because I haven't looked at them in over five years and I imagine
it will stay that way.
Enter Twilight. No, not
an opaline sunset, vanishing behind majestic hills, the vampire-werewolf story.
One of my besties kinda insisted I read it. Actually, it may have been New Moon,
but it was like, read this or we're not
friends anymore. Kidding. But I took the book recommendation on good
authority and started at the beginning.
I didn't make it through
the first chapter before I was at my desktop, sketching a story that involved a
girl who accidentally invoked mythic characters to life. It was about falling
in love and overcoming the sometimes small perceptions we have of ourselves. It
started with a lot of telling, was all over the place with dialog breaks, and generally
didn't stand a chance. But I put on my rose-colored sunglasses, my whirl-a-gig
hat, and queried it.
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| Photo: Blair Fraser |
Crickets. If crickets were
playing the song, no.
The ms was called The
Spark and I was in love. With writing. Not the book. It's tucked away, shelved,
only the cat knows where it is. But my father enjoyed it and that's something. He
also bought me a word processing program and that was a big help.
Nevertheless, I had the
bug. I read whatever I could get my hands on by Natalie Goldberg and Anne
Lamott, along with the rest of the Twilight series. Sorry not sorry.
It was around this time
that I'd taken up surfing, which on the northern Atlantic, supports a short
season. Actually, unless you're a right whale, it's a really short season. To satisfy
my longing for salt, I wrote a book called To the Sea. Then a little heart breaker called Sugar. The seed of the story came about during a health crisis that ultimately
forced me to ask the question what if… What
if I became an active participant in my mental and physical health. Then that morphed into more inquiry like, what would
happen if we obsessed about the things we love about ourselves instead of our
perceived failings, shortcomings, and the rejoinder, my butt looks too big in these pants. Things really
got cooking as I poured words onto the page, creating a patchwork of
chapters and scenes. I gave a voice to Sugar's relationship with food and the
difficulties, as well as the triumphs that she faces.
It was around this time I
started blogging regularly, with a group of friends, mostly about women's
health and parenting. In addition to a related
resource guide—a journal of sorts for women's health. Eventually... leading me to create this blog.
And I kept querying The
Spark, To the Sea, and Sugar. Remember the girl with the rose-colored
sunglasses, thinking I was going to burst into the publishing world singing a Broadway
show tune about my arrival? I've done it!
I'm here, guys! Read my beautiful words! When in reality it was more like
the Impossible Dream from Man from la Mancha.
Wah, wah.
But I didn't let the
chorus of nos coming from agents and
publishers stop me. Nuh uh!
I kept writing.
I delved into fantasy
with a couple romances about a boy falling in love with a mermaid, a
pre-dystopian world where I girl is drafted into a camp where legions of
children are taught combat, and back to contemporary with a novel about a young
girl breaking the cycle of addiction. Actually, I may have this all out of
order, there were so many words I've lost track of which came first and next.
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| Photo: Jeremy Ricketts |
Summon Shiva & the ever-helpful Parvati and/or the sword of Gryffindor. (Made strong by taking in that which is otherwise soul crushing and transforming it into an opportunity for growth.)
There were a couple times* when I walked into the brick wall of "Sorry, this
doesn't fit our list," and "Thank you for your submission, but it's a
pass," and "Best wishes in your writing career, but this doesn't work
for us" ad nauseam, causing my eyes got a little misty. Along with the refrain
from my peers, SHOW DON'T TELL! None of it made me bitter or want to quit or throw my computer and every stupid thing I'd ever written out the window.
Okay, maybe once. *I've logged hundreds (if we're rounding, we'd go to 1,000) queries over the years. There were requests, hope, but they all ended up being no. The brick wall I refer to was when I took the nos personally.
But there was a lesson
in all of this, aside from simply writing more and better. It was patience.
Patience.
Patience.
Patience.
Do you get the idea?
No?
Patience.
Patience.
Patience.
Going Indie...
But I wasn't
particularly patient. Maybe a little on the third Wednesday of the month and on Sundays, also when I was at the beach. Instead, I decided to delve into the world
of indie publishing with my new adult novel To the Sea. Whoopie! That was me, jumping
off the side of a cliff into the roiling water below, sans life raft. Good thing I know how to surf.
After researching
layout, format, publishing options, and promotion, in February 2014 To the Sea
went live for Kindle and in paperback. It flopped. But I'd published a book that I believed
in, that I could read, along with some supportive friends and members of my
family. And…some amazing folks I met on Twitter who were doing the same thing.
It gave me momentum.
I dove in deep writing over the course of the year putting
out a novella follow up to To the Sea. I'd been seeing that one
of the keys to indie success was volume, but I wasn't willing to sacrifice
quality either. I wanted my stories to stay true to my voice and intentions so I
conceived the theme: Follow your Bliss and created two more full-length novels
and two complementary novellas, releasing them over the course of the year. I
also wrote a novelette that acted as both a prequel to the series and a sequel
involving all the Follow your Bliss characters providing a richer reading
experience of the series.
In the midst of that,
I'd continued to sporadically query agents who popped up on my radar and I also wrote:
a middle grade book and a young adult fantasy reimagining of the goddess Kali.
I also entered a few contests, promoted the Follow your Bliss series, and maintained
my presence on social media….and then I received an email.
THE EMAIL that
changed everything...
The editorial leader of
Skyscape Publishing inquired as to whether I'd be interested in pursuing traditional
publishing with my novel Sugar.
Yes, yes I would because
that story in particular was written from a brave place in my heart and if given the opportunity to share it wide and far, then yes please, sign me up!
Thereafter I embarked
upon a wonderful journey with the team at Skyscape, instantly feeling like a
member of the publishing family from the way my editor clearly understood my
vision and worked with me to give Sugar wings.
The editing process taught me
that while writing is a solo endeavor, everything afterward is a partnership,
a collaborative process; one I'm thankful I've been incredibly supported in. My
editors offered insights, helped me excavate the gems, and polish them to
shining.
There was a lot of
sending the manuscript back and forth, tinkering with the words and getting
them what my editor called, "Deirdre perfect."
Then we started with the
cover design process and golly gee what fun! Three initial concepts were drafted
and each one was beautiful, but the stunner, the one you see here stopped me.
There was another close contender, but the sugar dissolving into the water, the
ripples, the sparkles, that cover spoke tension, change, poignancy.
There were more edits (not changes to the manuscript at that point, but little grammar corrections here and there.) I think I read Sugar a total of twelve times and with each one, I cried a bit. That's the kind of book it is.
After this, we moved
into the marketing and promo phase. Yeehaw! It started to feel more real,
especially when I received the batch of advance reader copies, created
bookmarks, and brainstormed swag. I was also asked to reflect on Sugar, why I wrote
it, and what the story means to me, which brought me back to why I write to
begin with.
On writing...
I could write an entire essay on why I write, but the simplest
answer is to connect.
I write to connect the
dots between my heart and my mind.
I write to connect with
worlds real and imagined.
I write to connect with readers,
people.
I write to connect innocence
and vulnerability, courage and doubt, friendship and independence.
I write to connect to wonder,
the power of an awe-inspiring "first time" experience.
I write to connect to
possibility.
I write to connect to
freedom.
I write to connect to words,
stories, to shared human experience.
Then this happened...
Then Sugar launched as a
Kindle First book, rocking the #1 spot for books> teens > romance >
contemporary list on Amazon.
Whoa.
I did not see that
coming. Seriously.
I'm so grateful. And now I'm crying. I'm thankful because
for all the reasons listed why I connect through writing, the best feeling is
knowing that readers connect with the story I wrote. It's a reminder that us humans, we're all linked by invisible thread, we can relate and commune and I think that's spectacularly special.
And...
In the meantime, I've
written three more young adult novels.
Writers write, yo. That's what we do.
I'm
pleased to share that Pearl, formerly known as Girl on the Edge, one of the manuscripts
I mentioned writing above is slated for release in March 2016 from Skyscape.
That was mostly the tale of my writing and publishing journey. Thank you for joining me. And now what? Now, I write.
