And the Beat Goes On . . .

Hello again after a three-week hiatus. During that time, I’ve busied myself with visiting the websites of literary agencies to determine which agents represent historical fiction. As I look at what each agency represents, I’m also interested in the following genres: memoirs, fantasy, and inspirational gift books.

         Why? Because these are the categories on which I’ve been working the past few years. Let’s begin with the memoir.

         My other blog is an online memoir. I hope one day to take the postings and shape them into one or two memoirs—depending on length.

         Back in the early nineties, after the publication of Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt, memoirs really came to the fore in publishing. Rick Bragg’s All Over But the Shoutin’ and James McBride’s The Color of Water, both published a few years later, cemented the premier place of memoirs in the publishing world.

         But so many memoirs have been published since then that the genre is not as popular with publishers as it once was. So some agents no longer represent this genre while other agents will say in their listings that they do not want “misery memoirs.”  

         I’m not sure what my memoir will have going for it. Nor am I sure what thread could hold the memoir together. Perhaps I will simply concentrate on the convent years, but I admit to wanting also to share the story of my mother’s influence on my life. I would also like to share some of the post-convent stories, especially those that have to do with peace and justice issues.

         For the fantasy genre, I now have ready the first book in a trilogy. Judy King, who illustrated A Cat’s Life: Dulcy’s Story, has done stunning pen and ink drawings for Book One. I’m nearing completion of the other two books in the trilogy.  

         The manuscript for the inspirational gift book A Celebration of Angels is also near completion. Recently, several friends read it and responded enthusiastically to varied aspects of the manuscript.

         When I worked for Winston Press in Minneapolis in the 1970s and 1980s, all I knew of publishing was the developing, writing, and editing of curriculum for grade and high schools.          

         Today I know almost nothing about what’s happening in publishing: What are agents looking for? What kind of stories do editors want from agents? What are the developing trends today?

         From a fairly thorough reading of the websites of many literary agencies, however, I have learned that some agents represent just nonfiction, while others represent only certain subgroups of fiction.

         For example, many do not represent fantasy, sci-fi, poetry, Westerns, children’s pictures books, and juvenile books. Some agencies represent only “commercial fiction” or “literary fiction.” What do those two terms mean? I’m just not sure.

         I do understand that agents are effective only if they know a wide group of editors at publishing houses. They must know what those editors are looking for with regard to manuscripts. If an agent doesn’t know many—or even one—editor who is looking for a historical novel, then she/he won’t be interested in A Reluctant Spy. The agent will look upon the novel as a dead end.         

         Many editors who retire or leave publishing become successful literary agents. Having worked in a publishing house, they know enough people to approach with a proposed manuscript.

         That’s another thing I’ve been investigating on those web sites for literary agents: their professional background.

         Lots to do. I’ll report more when I get a nibble or two. Peace.

Cat Photograph from Wikipedia

Agents, Here I Come!

Hello on this Sunday morning here in Missouri—a morning that reminds me of autumn in Minnesota. The hot-tempered weather has cooled off: a good day for writing.

         Many of you wished me abundant sales at the fair last Sunday. So you may be as disappointed as I was to have sold only two books. But that fact has a flip side: I met several vendors who gave me ideas for other local fairs, like those held in hospitals and schools. So now I have some research to do.

         In 2011, the trade paperback publisher of A Cat’s Life: Dulcy’s Story sent me the final 600 copies of the out-of-print book for the price of shipping. I still have 400 copies in the garage. That’s a lot of fairs, folks!

         Now to the present.

         I spent the past week critiquing a manuscript for a first-time novelist. Back in July, I’d done the same. After that reading I encouraged her “to situate” her scenes by providing details so that readers could visualize where something was happening. I also recommended the use of detail when writing dialogue so that “talking heads” would not confuse readers.

         The author sent the manuscript back to me for review in early September. As often happens, in an attempt to show facial expressions and body language, she had added too many details. Moreover, the timeline was confusing, and in at least one crucial scene she missed the opportunity to create drama.

         I completed my reading, critiquing, and slight copyediting on Thursday. The next day, she and I went through the manuscript on the phone for 3 ½ hours. I explained what still needed to be done—most of which could be accomplished by the deletion of words and the condensing of some scenes. Having words to cut is always easier than having to add words.

         Because this is a young adult novel, it is supposed to be only about 75,000 words. The present manuscript has over 100,000. So the author welcomed the cutting I suggested.

         As we’ve worked together in July and again this month, I’ve come to admire her dedication and maturity as a writer. She’s committed, open to advice, and professional enough to take those recommendations that work for her and to discard the rest.

         She also has a reserve of fortitude and tenacity—necessary virtues when seeking publication. In recent weeks, she’s persevered and sent out eighty-five query letters to agents. Yes—85. Two have asked to see her manuscript.

         I don’t know how you are responding to that ratio, but I’m impressed. Getting an agent is so difficult today and two of those eighty-five intermediaries between author and editor have asked to see her completed novel. That’s great news.

         She plans to do the cutting and have the manuscript ready to send out by early October. I’m so hoping that one of those two agents will want to represent her writing.

         Having completed that project, I’m now going to return to my own query letters to agents. The book 2013 Guide to Literary Agents lists 104 agents who represent historical novels. I have my query letter ready; I’ve visited agent websites; I’ve selected the first few to whom to send a query. Now the journey begins.

         This week I hope to contact several agents to seek their representation of The Reluctant Spy. Start visualizing!

         Peace. 

Fairs and Writers

I’m writing this posting on Saturday afternoon, but it will appear on my blog tomorrow. Here’s the thing, today I did my walk, then baked a chocolate zucchini cake for the family picnic, and then drove over to St. Mark’s Catholic Church on Lee’s Summit Road to set up my display for tomorrow’s fair.

         When I got back home, I caught up with reading and commenting on blogs—finally got through my list of 70 for the week and learned so much about the wonderful bloggers whose writing takes me away from this desk and into other states and countries and times. In a few minutes, I’ll take a shower, get dressed, put the cake in the car, and drive to the picnic where I’ll probably go way over the 26 points I get a day on Weight Watchers.

         Now what does all this have to do with a writing blog?

         Selling.

         Selling.

         Selling.

         Tomorrow—Sunday—from 8 am to 2 pm I’m going to be sitting behind a table at St. Mark’s Church selling copies of A Cat’s Life: Dulcy’s Story and A Cat’s Legacy: Dulcy’s Companion Book. Also I’ll be selling two books by E. C. Stilson, The Golden Sky, a memoir, and The Sword of Senack, a fantasy.

         When Dulcy’s first book was published I did this fairly often, but that was twenty years ago and I’ve neglected to attend fairs since moving here to Missouri. So this is a first for me in my new home state. I want Dulcy’s stories to reach many readers and for that to happen, I have to do my part. All writers do.

         The rental of the booth space at the fair was $50. In moving from Minnesota to Missouri four years ago, I misplaced the small easels that I’ve always used to display books. So in August, I meandered over to Hobby Lobby, a craft store, found them on sale, and bought six for $18. 

         Thus, I have $68 invested in the fair. I’m hoping that I’ll recoup that money with Dulcy’s two books. I’m selling the books for $10 apiece or two for $17.

         If four people bought both books, I’ll have the $68. Any more sales would be gravy! And if seven people bought just one book apiece, I’d make $2 beyond what I spent. Hip! Hip! Hooray!

         Of course, I’m hoping I’ll sell more books than that but I saw the other booths being set up today and there are some interesting and lovely things to buy. We all have only so much discretionary money, and I don’t know whether the attendees will be readers who love cats. We’ll see.

         So wish me luck . . . and an abundance of sales!        

         Peace.

The Belief Behind a Query

Hello again on this rainy Sunday morning. I can almost feel the pores of the hard-packed earth absorbing the moisture, yielding to gentleness. The rain gentles both the ground and us today. And so I’m thinking again of how the word fascinating gentled my own held-fast inflexibility with regard to my opinion of all I wrote.

         All that is except for Dulcy’s first book—A Cat’s Life: Dulcy’s Story. In 1989, Dulcy gave me our story; I simply edited her words. Because she, not I, wrote it, I believed in that book from the beginning.

         In fact, two days after she began to channel it through me, I stood in the doorway to my Stillwater office and said, out loud, “This book is going to be published. And it’s going to be published by Crown. And it’s going to touch the lives of many people.”

         I just knew, deep down where Oneness and certainty dwell, that Dulcy’s book was a gift not only to me but also to the Universe. For almost two years I never doubted. Never that is until rejection letters from editors piled up. Then doubt crept in. Believing that I’d failed Dulcy, I felt guilt over my inadequacies.         

         In April 1991, a letter from the editor Jane Meara arrived. Fifteen months later Crown published the manuscript. It touched many people’s lives and continues to do so.

         But that was Dulcy’s book, not mine. And as the years passed, publishing changed. An agent became a necessity and the rejection letters once again piled up as I sought representation for my writing. Any certainty I’d ever had fled.

         During this past week, I’ve considered that one word—fascination. I know it’s the view I now have of my writing. But I think it’s also affecting how I’m crafting my query letter for The Reluctant Spy.

         Slowly I’m realizing that my lack of confidence may have tinged with doubt any query letter I sent out during the past twenty years. Perhaps the words I chose or the tone of the letter indicated that my manuscript was somehow lacking in something essential for representation and publication.

         A long-time friend once said to me, “What you send out into the Universe, Dee, is what returns to you.” Perhaps in those letters I sent out doubt, and the agents turned down representation because they doubted that my manuscripts were well done or would have an audience. I’ve sent out doubt and doubt has returned to me.

         In her comment on last Sunday’s posting, Inger wrote,

I sense your self-confidence here. A bit different from the past and, yes, fascinating. I believe that a strong belief in your novel, in that it is not only good, but also fascinating, will find its way into your letters to these agents. And they may start to worry if they don't respond, maybe someone else will, and they will lose out on a major novel. Dee, I have no idea where all the above came from, but came it did, so I will leave it there.

To which I responded . . .

Dear Inger, I am so grateful to receive these words of yours—wherever they came from. Just this morning I said to a Minnesota friend that I thought the query letter I was crafting was different from those I've written in the past. Why? Because I'm different: I believe now that I can write and I believe in my writing. And so my attitude has changed. I'm hoping this newly discovered confidence will be apparent in the query I send out. You've just delighted me with your comment. Thank you, Inger. Peace.

So there you have it—how one word can seep, gently, into the pores of a person’s life and bring change. Once again I thank Fran for that word. And I thank all of you for sticking with me through this process. I’m still working on my query letter while compiling a list of agent names to whom I’ll send it. I’ll keep you in the loop! Peace.

Free at Last!

Last week I bemoaned my inability to decide if the manuscript for The Reluctant Spy was ready for publication despite the email from a friend who’d read the story and found it “fascinating.”

         This week, while tracing the arc of my writing life, I’ve pondered that word. In 7^th grade I won first place in the Kansas City diocesan essay contest. I can remember Mom’s broad smile as I returned from the podium with my prize—a prayer book.

         In college I was one of twenty finalists in the prestigious 1958 Atlantic Monthly essay contest. At the time, my writing mentor, Sister Scholastica, tried to impress on me that in this nationwide contest I’d excelled among thousands of entries. But I, preparing to enter the convent, had little time for such foolishness.

         During the next twenty-seven years I became a nun, taught, and found a new life after leaving the monastery. Then, in 1985, I became a freelance editor, copyeditor, and curriculum developer. Suddenly writing became important again.  

         Four years later, the cat I’d loved for nearly two decades died. Dulcy immediately began to channel through me the story of our life together.

         Late that summer, I told a friend about this strange phenomenon. “Well, it’ll all be trash,” she said with surety. “You’ll just have to throw it away.” Her words stunned me.

         A few weeks later another friend, a published writer, read the first draft of Dulcy’s story. “Put this in a safety deposit box,” he recommended, “and don’t look at it for five years. Then maybe you’ll find something worth keeping.”

         His wife’s take on the book? “Bor-ing! Bor-ing!”

         When I expressed doubts about my writing ability to an acquaintance, she said, “Well, Dee, maybe you can’t write. Maybe you just don’t have the gift.”

         With that, my thoughts jelled: I wasn’t a writer. I couldn’t write well. I was a hack. Dulcy’s book being published made no difference. After all, she wrote the book; I simply edited it.

         I knew two things: I could edit; I couldn’t write.

         The years passed with me crafting sentences, seeking to find the cadence of words. Because no agent was interested in representing my writing, the belief that I was a word-dabbler rooted deeper and deeper into my psyche.

         Then in 2011, I began to blog. Several readers commented that my writing was good and so I’ve come to believe that I can write a 600-word story. Yet that realization hasn’t expunged my belief that I’m a rank amateur with regard to writing longer stories that demand well-drawn characters and extended suspense.  

         Recently a psychic told me that in this life I was meant “to let go.” Not of specific things—like the convent or a dysfunctional relationship with a couple who’d been friends for years or a home in Stillwater. No. She meant the mega things—those beliefs that arc my life from beginning to now. During this past week I’ve examined the belief that I’m a charlatan.  

       

         Now here we are today. I’ve mulled the past, recognized the belief, and read that wonderful word fascinating. It has broken through the bars of my conviction that I can’t write a novel.

         Fran’s word has, literally, freed me from a way of thinking about myself that has shackled me for years. Today I want to thank her for helping me let go of that old belief about myself and my writing. I can write. I can write a novel that will, perhaps, be published. But whatever happens, I will be grateful to this friend for freeing me.

         Peace. And Hallelujah!

Synopsis of One Writer's Life

Warning: This is a long posting. You may want to bypass it until you have a cup of tea and a scone in hand for leisurely reading!!!

         After leaving the convent on Christmas Eve 1966 at age 30, I collapsed in my parents’ home and simply stared into space. The next year, because of a friend’s graciousness, I was offered work as an editor at a Dayton, Ohio, publishing house that produced Catholic weekly readers called “messengers.” I worked as the religion editor for My Little Messenger, a publication for first and second graders.         

         For the next seventeen years I taught briefly in Dayton and in Claremont, New Hampshire, and studied for a master’s degree. The rest of the time I worked as an editor and writer, first for Pflaum in Dayton and then for Winston Press in Minneapolis.

         Beginning in 1973, I worked myself up from editor, to co-director of the Winston trade department, to director of its curriculum department. By 1984, I was working fourteen hour days: eight at the office and six each evening at home. Exhaustion finally took its toll, and in mid-July of 1984, I resigned from my position to become a freelance line editor, copy editor, and curriculum developer.

         I freelanced until my retirement in 2001. During those seventeen years, I completed projects for a number of Catholic publishers as well as small presses throughout the United States. I also began teaching professional editing in evening and Saturday classes at the University of Minnesota, the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, and Metropolitan University.

         During those seventeen freelance years, I set an hour aside each morning for my own creative writing. I’d begun writing, as all of us probably do, in grade school. The Sisters of Mercy taught me the basics and I became enamored of words and their power to paint pictures.

         In college, my mentor became Sister Scholastica—a Benedictine. She encouraged me to let my imagination soar, and I wrote short stories, fantasies, essays, and poetry before entering the convent in June 1958. However, for the next eight and a half years, the convent offered no time for writing and I lost any interest I had in expressing myself with words.

         That continued until I became a freelancer in 1984—so for twenty-six years I did no writing of my own stories. Then, when I became a freelancer, I suddenly got the idea for a romance. As I’ve posted before, I wrote two romances and they were “duds.” But when Dulcy, the cat with whom I’d lived for seventeen and a half years, died in 1989, she gave me the story of our life together and I began to write again. 

Dulcy and me. 

         For the past twenty-nine years, I began one thing after another, but that demon of perfectionism has kept me from completing much of anything—the words just never seemed to be anything more than mundane.

         And yet, as I sit here today I realize that I have finished a few things and I’m eager to work on others. Here’s what I’ve complete in final draft—edited and polished. The first three listings have been published.

·      A Cat’s Life (Dulcy’s memoir)

·      A Cat’s Legacy (Dulcy’s gift of twelve habits of highly successful cats)

·      Twenty children’s books for Capstone Press under the name Dee Ready and the pseudonym Anna O’Mara.

·      The Gift of Bastet Net (Book 1 of the Great God of Cats fantasy series)

·      The Reluctant Spy (a novel that takes place in first-century Palestine)

·      A Multitude of Angels (the text for a series of photographs by Judy King who did the art for Dulcy’s memoir and who is doing the art for The Gift of Bastet Net)

One of the sketches for The Gift of Bastet Net.

And here is the additional writing I’ve done, but not completed, during the past twenty-four years:

·      A first draft for the novel Winter Tapestry, about four ex-nuns.

·      A first draft of Three Roads Diverged. This is Book 1 of a trilogy I plan that takes place in Bronze-Age Greece.

·      Half of Book 2 of the Great God of Cats fantasy series—Warriors of Bastet-Net.

·      Half of Book 3 of the Great God of Cats fantasy series—Prayers to Bastet-Net.

·      Drafts for two picture books for children.

·      Several chapters for a memoir by the four cats with whom I lived after Dulcy died.

·      Two romances.

·      More than 200 postings that will become part of a single memoir or of a trilogy of memoires: early life, convent, post convent.

         So, on this day, when I woke up and felt a little down. A little blue. A little annoyed with myself for being so lazy and for getting so little done. On this day . . . I’m realizing that I have been true to the longing I have to write. Thank you for all the encouragement you’ve given me through the past months. No one could ask for better and more helpful support. Peace.

PS: Mount Saint Scholastica, the convent I joined, is celebrating its sesquicentennial this year. The nuns there have invited all of us who left the convent to come back for a celebration this coming weekend. I’m eager to go and to meet friends I haven’t seen in 47 years. Given this, I won’t be posting here next Sunday.

         

A Novel, Cat Fantasy, and Letter

Hello All, on this rainy Sunday here in the Midwest. The two-year drought has ended with waterlogged soil. Forecasters predict two sunny days this week, so while farmers plow, I’ll weed the shrub garden. Before doing that, however, I’d like to share three things about my writing life.

         In March, I read the draft of the Bronze-Age Greece manuscript Three Roads Diverged, which I began to write back in 1994 after a three-week trip to Greece, financed by my earning from A Cat’s Life: Dulcy’s Story. This draft used up nearly 70, 000 words and yet represented only a third of the story.  Given that, a completed first draft might comprise 210,000 words. That’s twice as long as most presses want to publish for a first-time novelist.            

        Considering that, I’ve decided to write three shorter books. By this time next year, I hope to have completed the ending to Book 1 and to have edited, rewritten, and polished it.  

A 1996 photograph of my cousin Mary Ann (right)

and myself by the flower garden

behind my home in Stillwater, Minnesota.

Note the T-shirt I’m wearing.

I’ve completed Book 1 of a cat-fantasy trilogy and have half of both Book 2 and Book 3 done. Fortunately, Judy King—the gifted artist who captured Dulcy’s sweetness in A Cat’s Life—had the time to do the art for Book 1. Each of the seventeen pencil sketches she sent me yesterday displays her creative wit. And the cover she’s designed is as inviting as the one she did for A Cat’s Life.

Last week, Judy Healey, the twice-published historical novelist and friend who is reading The Reluctant Spy, sent me an e-mail that made my day. As I’ve explained before, I started the Palestine novel thirteen years ago and Judy read an early draft. After reading the first few chapters of the present draft, here’s what she had to say:

Dee:

 At long last I'm reading your book...about 40 pages in.

          It is very engaging and I'm hooked. It is slow going because I am making notes on pages . . . all pretty minor stuff. But the writing is very good and I think the book has improved 100% from an earlier version I read some years ago.

          I'm going to do the first 100 pages and mail them to you. At the end I'll also have a short memo on overview stuff. . . . It will be into next week when I mail the first set. But congratulations.

          We can talk publishing strategies later. Love, Judy

You can appreciate why I’m pleased. Judy is an accomplished historical novelist. If she sees some worth to this draft then I’m content that I’m growing as a writer. That doesn’t mean of course that any agent will want to represent it or any publisher publish it. However, the fact that Judy praises it helps me know that my writing does have some merit.

For most of my adult life, I’ve considered myself a hack. My writing seemed so prosaic next to the writers I read. To my surprise, many of you have complimented my writing as seen in my on-line memoir blog. So because of you, I’ve stopped comparing myself to the fine writers I read and simply accepted that I am a storyteller and that my stories speak to others. I thank you all for this gift you’ve given me. Peace.