The Trial's Over, But the Book Has a Fresh Start

I meant to post yesterday and I didn't because I fell back into a slump yesterday - a PTSD of sorts - and while I knew what I wanted to say, I just didn't want to say it.

Let me back up.

For those of you who are new to the blog - or to my life- since last December, the short story is this: a very dear friend of mine from high school was killed, along with her son, in her home just a few miles from my own. She was shot by a 17 year old kid who came to steal less than $1000 of stuff from her six days before Christmas.

He was arrested only a day or two after the shootings, and has been sitting in jail awaiting trial until Monday. For a double murder trial which held nine other charges along with the two counts of capital murder, it was unbelievably short. Less than six hours long. And the verdict came the same day: guilty on nearly every account.

Charged as an adult, but unable to be given the death penalty because of his age at the time of the crime (federal law, I think), he still will spend the rest of his life in prison.

I went through a depression of sorts after the death of Jeanie. It came in waves that eventually grew further apart until I felt like I'd come back to some kind of even keel again.

Until I attended the trial. Before I even went in the courtroom, just sitting in the hall waiting, it was suddenly overwhelming again. The implications of someone walking into your house and shooting you... the loss of a friend who'd tremendously impacted my life... that moment... Do I need to tell you how many times I've closed my eyes to go to sleep and suddenly wondered what she thought at that moment, facing a gun, knowing her son was already dead? Do I need to say that everytime I let my mind go into that room, my heart is pounding, my eyes are swimming in tears.. I am terrified. And I am so incredibly lonely for a friend I'd only seen a few times in the last year.

And here is where my writing comes in.

Back in January I started a story that came out of my grief - a story that involved a murder, although the plot itself is not a crime or mystery book. It's mostly the story about unresolved issues and grief and forgiveness and loneliness. But I couldn't write. I had the story, but sitting to write that story, about that grief, was unbearable. I just couldn't choose to sit at the computer and face it every day, and so I put it away.

Until this summer, when my own emotions about Jeanie's death weren't deep waves anymore, and I felt like I could write it. It's been going good. Slow, but good. And I've been dancing around the harder scenes, like the murder and the immediate grief afterwards. I figured I'd do it eventually, but for now, the surrounding story needs to be told, too.

I chose to write in 3rd person. I think it gave it some distance from me, which helped.

But on Monday, sitting in the corridor waiting for the bailiff to open the doors and invite us in, I felt the loss of my friend overwhelmingly again, and I took out my notebook and started writing the scene I'd been dancing around. It poured out, faster than my pen could get it on paper, everything I was feeling through the eyes of my protagonist. And it came out through her eyes: first person, present tense.

I haven't wanted to stop writing since. Suddenly, allowing myself to be there, was exactly what the story needed - and I needed as well. It isn't even remotely autobiographical. The plot itself has nothing to do with high school friends, but it is about death, and about dealing with it - and sometimes not dealing with it. It's something that I might have written about before Jeanie's death, but not powerfully because I didn't really know it.

And now I do.

So the writing is going like a house-a-fire, traditional pen and paper, so I have no idea how many words, but going well, and easy. I haven't tried to go back and rewrite what I've already written and revise it to first person, but I don't think it will be that hard of work. The story has always been Kat's to tell, and even though I wrote in third person initially, it was always in her voice. But to give her full control of the story - I think she really wanted that, and I was just afraid to let her have it because who knows what she'll drag me through to tell it.

But I... well... I am a little melancholy again. Tears are closer to the surface than they've been the last few months. My heart hurts a little more distinctly. But this time it feels something more like a healing. At least that's what I'm hoping.

To be a motivated writer, all I needed was a thousand famous authors and a murder trial

Well, if you showed up here today hoping for a new look and a link to a shiny new website, my greatest apologies. I should know better than to post self-imposed deadlines that have to do with technology, because nothing is ever as simple as I think it's going to be.

I'd give you another deadline, but I'm a teensy bit wiser now. It will show up whenever it shows up. So now you have to keep coming back! :)

In lieu of that, I’ve decided to pepper this post liberally with pictures I took this weekend.

I spent this weekend at the 2009 National Book Festival in DC, which I described probably in too much depth in this posting at our 4 Corner’s group website. It was an amazing time, and just cemented how much I want to be a writer. Or at least a reader. I do really, really love books. And authors. Authors rock!!

So I took the Metro in, and one thing I love about the Metro is that the stop I get on at is the first, so there are usually not a lot of people around, and you can always get a seat. Or twenty if you need them.

I figured early on a Saturday it wouldn't be that crowded. I was wrong. Stop by stop it filled up until we were squeezed like sardines. Towards the book fest stop people on the platform couldn't even get into the train because there was just no room. When we got out, I'd never seen the platform so crowded. People couldn't even leave the train because so many people were there that the escalators couldn't keep up. This is the view from after I arrived at the top:

My first stop was the fiction tent for John Grisham. It was packed. This is about a third of the tent. I'd guess there were a couple thousand there.


I didn't get a seat, but I did get standing room slightly to the back and side of Grisham. Some people would have thought it was terrible, but I loved it! No one was in front of me, I had a perfect view of him the entire time, and if he had sneezed in my direction, I would have been close enough to give him a tissue!

He's a brilliant talker. And very humble. And funny as all get out.

I stayed there to see Jodi Picoult next. Same standing space, but the sign interpreter was in my way most of the time, so the best picture I got of her was when she left the stage and got into the golf cart right behind me. Classic!


The only other speaker I got a photo of was James Patterson. I've only read one of his books, and I've heard it's not very typical of most of his writing, but he was a fantastically entertaining speaker. I have a sense he is a bit ADD. He has 27 manuscripts going at any one time and a notebook this thick of ideas for more books. And he collaborates, he says, because he is too impatient to get to the next book to do good "style" on the ones he's written.


So that's the photos of Saturday.

On Sunday I was finishing up my website and the front welcome page troubled me. What does an author put on their home page when they don’t have a book cover to show off yet, nor a link to buy that coverless book, or even any great reviews from famous people who tell you that you must absolutely buy this terrific, coverless book?

The answer is: a book trailer.

Except I’ve been fighting that for a LONG time. Trailers are not easy to do well. I’ve spent hours and hours looking for music and trying to find the right words to use in it, and figuring out what pictures would be dramatic, and finally decided I just couldn’t do it.

Then this weekend I thought I’d give it another shot. So now I’m nearly done with that. It’s the last big piece to add into the website before it’s ready. Later this week I’ll post about the process – how I found the music, photos, etc, as well as maybe a sneak peak of it if it’s all spit and polished by then.

Tomorrow I’m hoping to write about my new book. It’s been an interesting and emotional journey that started back in January with an idea that came out of the death of my good friend Jeanie. It took a long while before I could actually go into that book and face it, and for weeks I’ve been skirting around a death scene I just couldn’t tackle emotionally. Today I spent the morning at the murder trial for her killer, and during one of the breaks I scribbled a good 1000 words of that scene in a notebook I’d brought with me. There was a huge therapeutic value in it, as well as a major breakthrough in my story.

So that’s this week. For now, I’m off to finish that trailer and do two more chapters of edits I’m supposed to have off to my editor tonight.

What's you're week looking like?

Friday Odds and Ends

I was going to write a post today about the marketing planning I've been doing, but I've been doing so much of it, I haven't had time to write about it. (Notice I said marketing planning, and not doing.)

Truthfully, I'm not the person to dole out marketing advice. There are lots of others out there who can give great, professional advice. I really have no idea what I'm doing. But I'm workign it out, and I thought I'd share at least my struggles and plans with you - you know... my journey.

But the one part I can share is this: I have a website!! Well, I'll have a website up and running by Monday. YAY! And since I will have a website, I'm redesigning the blog to better match it. (Hint: it's going to be green!) So once again (I know - again), things will be changing around here. For the better, I hope. And a little more permanently. (Well, I could hope.) But I will still be here, writing the same kind of stuff week after week. I hope you'll be here with me.

The only other marketing news I have to share is something I read yesterday.

If you are a writer, you HAVE to read this article from the Washington Post about how new authors, even those at major publishing houses, are having to do their own marketing. I've heard about this book and author featured in the article. I've had friends tell me I had to read it. But come to think of it - I don't think I've read any reviews or seen any ads for it. But where the publisher cut corners, the author stepped up.

And she has a bestseller.

They tell you how she did it. Mostly by herself. With supportive friends.

She can do it. You can do it. With any hope, I can do it, too.

Have an awesome weekend!

The Comments in the Margins

Have I mentioned that one of the things I love most about my editor is that she writes all kinds of good things in the margins as well as the things she wants me to change? It's amazing, really. It's like this constant reminder that even though it needs a little work here and there, on the whole, it's still good.

So today I received a new section of my book from my editor to revise, and this is the first comment in the margins:

Heidi, I have the darndest time editing your work. I get so caught up in the story (and why’s that? I’ve read it already!), and this marvelous character you’ve created, and I just slip into your world and right outta my editing one. Takes me 3 passes over your stuff before I’m sure I’ve stayed aware enough to do a proper job.

I don't think it gets any better than that for me.

Why do I always write better at the pool?

Today is Tuesday. (Okay - it's Wednesday. For you. For me, writing this, it's Tuesday)

Crud. I lost the momentum there. Let me start over.

Today is Tuesday. You know what Tuesday is in my house? It's skip-the-gym and stay at home and write a wicked-lot-of-words-on-my-new-book day. It's the day I ignore the increasingly small amount of milk and the dust on the piano and the dishes in the sink. It's the day I stop fiddling around with my new website (I'll let you know when it's ready). It's the day I try to forget I'm heading into a marketing blitz and waste countless hours trying to figure out how to get my name out there.

It's the one day of the week I ship my kids off to school and for five hours do nothing but write.

So at 8:40 the last of my kids climbed on the bus, and, already two and a half cups of coffee down, I refilled the coffee maker, turned on the computer, and sat to write.

Let's just say I did more sitting than writing.

At one point I got up from the chair and did some stomach crunches. I thought it would get the blood flowing a bit, with the added benefit of loosening my pants.

I reheated soup and critiqued a writing partner's query while I ate.

And I wrote a little.

About 900 words.

Seriously??? I've got five hours and that's all I can eek out?? You gotta be kidding me!! What the heck is wrong with me?? How many writers would kill for time like that to spend uninterrupted? How many (and I know who you are) could practically start-to-finish a book in time like that?

At 2:30 I finally put the computer away, sighing, and went to pick up the kids, one at one end of town and the others forty minutes later at the other end. We set off for swim lessons, and about half-way there, I thought: Troy should be there. In this scene. He would totally show up there.

So after getting my youngest changed into a swim suit and safely dumped into the pool, I scrounged around the car for a pad of paper and a pen and sat to write.

I wrote until my daughter suddenly was standing over me dripping chlorinated water all over my notebook and asking for her towel.

450 words in less than 20 minutes. And that's writing by hand. On practically post-it note sized paper.

I won't dare tell you how many adverbs might be in those pages. Probably more than in my entire last book. But they were necessary! And the scene was awesome!

So the lesson learned here is...?

Either I should be writing with pen and paper instead of on the computer.

Or Troy should be in every scene.

More agent questions

Someone asked me the question, "Why do you want an agent if you already have a publishing contract?"

I thought it was a great question, and though I answered it in the comment section of the post in which it was asked, I thought I'd post my answer here as well. I didn't answer the opposite questions some of you have asked: why did I decide not to get an agent. I think I've answered that in previous posts.

So this is why a writer might still want an agent, even if they have a contract:

One of the main reasons people will seek out an agent after they already have a publisher is to have an experienced eye look at the contract and make sure it's fair and competitive, and not sneaky or a rip-off. I actually had a lawyer look at mine, and it was very straight forward with no fine print to worry about.

For me it was more a long term thing to consider. Right now I have a book deal. That's attractive to an agent because they basically have very little work to do. If an agent would want me now because I have a book, that's someone on my side for the next book if I want to submit to the larger houses on a new book. The larger publishing houses could offer greater marketing and exposure, advances, stocking in bookstores, and more likelihood of foreign rights.

If I don't use this publishing contract to get an agent, and if my book doesn't have some significant sales, it will be much, much harder to get an agent in the future than if I hadn't published at all. It's a huge risk: to go with a small press unagented is to risk never breaking into a bigger market.

I decided before I signed with NorLights and looking at the options, that I'd take that risk. Not everyone will agree with my decision. Traditional publishing is entrenched in the agent system, so it's hard for many to imagine traversing it without an agent.

My big question is why an agent would want to take on a writer with a small press contract. There is basically no money in it for them, very little marketing money to help their client, and if the book doesn't sell widely, they will have a much harder time selling a new book to a larger publisher.

There really isn't a right or wrong way. There are different ways. Each author has to evaluate the pros and cons, and what they want out of the agent relationship and out of their own career, and make the decision that's best for them.