Phoenix Rising

I suppose it’s about time to tell you all I got another book deal.

I know, huh?

Three weeks ago, I received an e-mail from an acquisitions editor at a press back east. He’d been searching for someone to write a travel guidebook about Oregon for one of their series. He came across my bio on the Willamette Writer’s website. Then he “followed me around the internet.” He read various essays and articles posted on my website, my Travel Oregon blog postings, and this blog. He thought I’d be perfect. He thought I was funny. He’d like to talk to me about offering me a contract.

I sat there in front of the screen for a long, stunned, surreal moment. Then I forwarded the e-mail to Capt. Daddy, adding a few excitable expletives. Capt. responded instantly and wisely—“call him.”

A week later I traded my signature on a contract for an advance. Now I have to write the book by Nov. 15. Not even kidding. But never mind about that. I’ve been writing professionally for ten years. Surely I can churn out 65,000 words in eight weeks. No problem.

The amazing part is that for years all I’ve been told is that to get a book deal, writers have to burn up the keyboard relentlessly pitching agents, chase after editors with finely-tuned elevator pitch in pocket, be willing to offer publishers one’s first-born child and grandma’s gold coins. I did all of that. For years. It didn’t work. (I even sacrificed the first-born child—ha, and ouch). But something must have worked. Because ten years into this little song-and-dance, two publishers in a year came to me.

Because of the tight turnaround on the travel book, both it and my memoir (about growing up in Oregon—how coincidental) will be out at the same time—next spring.

Far out.

This photo is of a painting my dear friend and fellow writer Suzanne Burns made for me three years ago, after I set fire to my first memoir and pretty much figured my dreams of publishing a book were dead. It’s been hanging in my office since, guiding me to places I couldn’t see coming. Suzanne saw what I couldn’t yet—with work and faith, something new would come along.

Someone suggested that with two books coming out, I should change the name of my blog. Nah. Lots more blooming to do. I might have to update my bio again, though. That book fire really is starting to feel like it harbored the Phoenix instead of defeat.

Happy New You Part IV

Long overdue for an update to my blog profile. I've been confusing people with the whole book burning thing.

So here's me, modestly refreshed:

Me: mother, wife and writer watching 40 climb the front steps like a peddler pushing time and me with nowhere to hide. The writer part used to come first, the 40 used to be a 30, and marriage and motherhood were abstract activities I thought I’d try someday. Ah, growing up. If only it was the thrill promised when we were six.

I started this blog to chronicle my quest to publish a book. I’ve published all sorts of other things—articles, essays, even poetry. I wrote a first book. Then I set it on fire. I am now neck-deep in edits on a second book, and have a publisher interested. But as my mother says, “It ain’t over ‘til the fat lady sings.”

So the question remains—will I bloom, eventually? Or will I ditch the whole writing thing, adopt a xanax habit, abandon my own identity and live the rest of my life vicariously through my children? Hmm, let’s find out.

Happy Blogoversary To Me

Today is the one-year anniversary of this blog! Bust out the champagne!

Oh. It's 6 am. Well. Coffee will do. Slip a little something in it, if you must.

Here’s a Blooming Year One redux.

First post: Popcorn

Blog Inspiration: Late Bloomers

Hero's Challenge, Act I: Consult

Foreshadowing: Free the French Fries

Plot Twist: Plot Twist

Hero's Challenge, Act II: A Bloodcurdling Halloween Horror Story

Audience favorites:

The Lost Weekend

We’re Going to Potty Like It’s 2009

The Farm Share Blues

Torn Between Two Lovers

The Perspective Express

Roots and Flowers

Post That Best Describes My Glamorous Life: Baby You’re a Star

Post I Should Reread When I Get Bat-Shit Crazy: Onward Intrepid Writer

Blog words written: 31, 400

Visitors: 2533

Personal Take-Home: It’s been one heck of a year

Hero's Challenges, Act III: to come

With that, I’m out for ten days. Santa delivered (Santa Brings The Heat)—I board a plane for Hawaii tomorrow.

PS We’re dropping Chester off on the way. I'll take pictures.

PPS It might be time to change my bio blurb to the left. Book burning? What book burning?






Aloha!

We Interrupt this Blog to Indulge in a Little Meta-Analysis

I read a discussion online recently about how before signing a client, an agent will read his or her author blog. Naturally. For a writer, one major reason to blog is to create a body of work online for anyone to peruse, especially, should you be so lucky, a publishing professional. The point of the piece was that some agents say they won’t take on clients who write about certain things, including how hard writing is. (I can’t remember where I read this. My bad.)

About the same time, I read elsewhere that there are something like 18,000 writer blogs in blog-land. Most of them are pleasant and well-written. One commenter suggested that to stand out, one should create something a bit edgier. (Think that was here: Pimp My Novel)

These two topics are related to each other as well as to a question that applies to more than blogging: What representation of “me” do I want to present to the world? Nice or sharp-tongued? Smooth or edgy? Charming or honest? “Real” me or “Polished” me? You can’t be everything, at least not all of the time.

As for my thoughts on the first issue, I will say this: oh, please. Writing is hard. The life of a writer means facing tough odds, buckling down to lonely, self-directed work and getting your self-esteem cremated regularly. No, of course it’s not as hard as many other paths in life, like being a teenaged slave or dying of cancer. But it’s challenging enough that a little good-natured commiseration with other writers can really take the edge off. I understand that no agent would want to read a constant whine, but I can’t believe all agents want to represent Pollyanna, either. What is a story without a protagonist who faces challenge?

As for the second matter: Edgy or charming, polished or real—pick your poison. The important part is that you pick.

Voice is a basic question for writers: not just finding it, but owning it.
What do you want to project to the world? Are you going to craft a voice or simply be your voice? What voice is just enough out-of-the-box to be interesting but not so much so to become alienating? What is totally you, yet burdened only with consequences you can live with?

Once you figure that out and make it yours, stop worrying about what anyone will think and just jump in the damn water.

At least that’s what I keep telling myself.

R.I.P.

“Blogs are dead.”

This statement of doom was uttered by one of my writing-group cohorts at a recent meeting, roughly two seconds after I announced that I had started one.

Naturally, blogs are dead. This is the story of my life—the thing I finally catch on to has already passed the cool kids by. By the time I’ve hyper-analyzed some new craze enough to decide that the novelty/challenge of it won’t kill me, that novelty is cold in the ground.

There is a reason I named this blog what I did.

Ah, well. So I will be the one to persist with dead trends. They can put this on my gravestone; “the fact that she'd missed the bus never stopped her from running determinedly after it”.