It's come and gone. The babies in this collective group have all been born and we've sent them on their way. A few of those books already have little siblings out in the world, and all the proud parents here at Book Pregnant are keeping newborn hours while still trying to make sure that the toddler is getting the attention it needs.
To that end, something's gotta go. In real life that might mean yoga classes or one less night at the local watering hole. In writer's life that means the smaller projects take a dip, the little things that we took on and thought, "Yeah. I can do that. Sure."
All the little things add up. Our personal blogs, Twitter accounts and Facebook pages are taking their toll and a lot of us are currently gestating a thing or two for 2015 and 2016. Yes, our families are filling out and demanding that we pay attention to them.
And we must. So we're somewhat sadly closing down the Book Pregnant blog, although it will remain up. We hope that it can continue to provide guidance to other authors out there waiting to drop their firstborn. We know that it was a wonderful outlet for us as we ventured out on our debut journeys.
Thank you from all of us here at Book Pregnant!
David Abrams Anne Clinard Barnhill Nancy Bilyeau
Wiley Cash Erin Cashman Barbara Claypool-White
Amy Franklin Willis Sere Prince Halverson Anita Hughes
Jessica Keener Julie Kibler Robert Lewis
Mindy McGinnis Amy Sue Nathan Lydia Netzer
Sophie Perinot Brenda Remmes Priscille Sibley
Sam Thomas Melanie Thorne Ellen Marie Wiseman
Thursday, January 9, 2014
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Not Not-Writing
By David Abrams
Last Wednesday night, I stood in front of thirty high school English teachers at a restaurant in Bozeman, Montana, ready to deliver my prepared talk, "How to Tell a War Story."
Before I began, I held up my cell phone. "You'll excuse me if I check my email one last time before I begin," I said. "I'm waiting to hear whether or not the government shutdown is officially over."
I, along with the rest of the country, was holding my breath, shifting uncomfortably on a bed of pins and needles, as the inane, insane, and utterly needless staredown contest in Washington, DC wound to a close until one player finally, FINALLY blinked. [Yes, as a Writer-With-a-Day-Job, I am also a government employee--the public affairs specialist for the Western Montana District of the Bureau of Land Management (part of the Department of the Interior); I, along with all the other employees in my district, save one (our law enforcement ranger), were furloughed on October 1.]
By the time I'd finished talking to the English teachers, the deal had finally cleared Congress and was headed for President Obama's desk. I was both relieved and a little melancholy. I was happy to once again be getting a paycheck, but I was also ruing the days I'd spent during the past two weeks Not-Writing.
You'd think I would have spent all that "free time" putting pen to paper, productively working on all the writing projects which were clanging like fire alarms in my head: the novella, the short stories, the one-act play, even the epic revisions I should be doing to my second novel about the midget Hollywood stuntman. But no. Apart from a few false starts at sentences here and there, I spent my furlough Not-Writing.
I should have been more productive during those first weeks in October. I had such high hopes, but I only ended up disappointing myself. I'd be lying if I said that as I watched the evening news on September 30, with the clock ticking down to the fiscal year deadline, I wasn't already forming plans to get a lot of writing done during the shutdown. We writers always envision these kind of gifts of long stretches of time spread before us like a Hawaiian luau buffet. Shipwrecks on deserted islands (with a typewriter and reams of paper), prison sentences, even stay-at-home recoveries from broken arms--these are our fantasies which we decorate with ambition and determination.
I am, however, the worst--the absolute WORST--at self-discipline. I cave so easily to distraction and surrender with a white flag before idle temptations have even fired their first shot.
And so, I spent my available writing time in early October not writing. I didn't do nothing, of course. In all other regards, I was productive. I helped my wife organize her vintage furniture shop, I read books, I fixed our home theater system in the basement, I picked up sticks and leaves from our front yard, I attended a couple of book festivals, I gave a couple of interviews to blogs and C-SPAN's Book-TV. I kept busy to the point of distraction...and a thin layer of dust built up on my laptop's keyboard.
In her brilliant, beautiful new book Still Writing, Dani Shapiro urges me to block out interferences like the Internet, email, laundry, baking, sorting files, filling out insurance claims, or whatever pulls me away from the writing task at hand:
Here's the thing: the more I don't write, the more I don't write. The longer I go without pulling fresh words from my head and putting them on the page, the more I wallow in self-pity and depression. Not-Writing begets Not-Writing.
Until finally, one day, I hit a wall of self-loathing and try to pole-vault over this wall to whatever waits on the other side. Which, hopefully, is Writing.
I do all sorts of self-motivation exercises. I read Dani Shapiro's inspirational Still Writing. I write a poem about the trees outside my office window. I Tweet things like "When I punch myself for not-writing, I remember @JoyceCarolOates is somewhere writing her 3rd short story of the day & I'm refueled w/ fire." Whatever it takes to convince myself that I'll never "find the time to write." Instead, I must make the time to write.
Ironically, now that I'm back to work at the government job, I'm once again rising at 3:30 a.m. and getting some writing done. Maybe I need that squeeze of deadline, that ever-narrowing window of time in order to get motivated. Whatever it takes, I suppose.
Here's a shot of my home-office desk--my second-story lair where I do my early-morning writing. This was taken two days after I went back to work:
That Moleskine notebook contains the first draft of what I've tentatively called "FOB Sorrow." These past few days, I've made some nice progress on that novella about soldiers hiking on foot from one end of Baghdad to the other in order to attend their sergeant's memorial service:
David Abrams is the author of Fobbit (Grove/Atlantic, 2012), a comedy about the Iraq War which Publishers Weekly called “an instant classic” and named a Top 10 Pick for Literary Fiction in Fall 2012. It was also a New York Times Notable Book of 2012, an Indie Next pick, and a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection. His short stories have appeared in Fire and Forget (Da Capo Press, 2013) and Home of the Brave: Somewhere in the Sand (Press 53), anthologies of short fiction about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. His blog, The Quivering Pen, can be found at: www.davidabramsbooks.blogspot.com
Last Wednesday night, I stood in front of thirty high school English teachers at a restaurant in Bozeman, Montana, ready to deliver my prepared talk, "How to Tell a War Story."
Before I began, I held up my cell phone. "You'll excuse me if I check my email one last time before I begin," I said. "I'm waiting to hear whether or not the government shutdown is officially over."
I, along with the rest of the country, was holding my breath, shifting uncomfortably on a bed of pins and needles, as the inane, insane, and utterly needless staredown contest in Washington, DC wound to a close until one player finally, FINALLY blinked. [Yes, as a Writer-With-a-Day-Job, I am also a government employee--the public affairs specialist for the Western Montana District of the Bureau of Land Management (part of the Department of the Interior); I, along with all the other employees in my district, save one (our law enforcement ranger), were furloughed on October 1.]
By the time I'd finished talking to the English teachers, the deal had finally cleared Congress and was headed for President Obama's desk. I was both relieved and a little melancholy. I was happy to once again be getting a paycheck, but I was also ruing the days I'd spent during the past two weeks Not-Writing.
You'd think I would have spent all that "free time" putting pen to paper, productively working on all the writing projects which were clanging like fire alarms in my head: the novella, the short stories, the one-act play, even the epic revisions I should be doing to my second novel about the midget Hollywood stuntman. But no. Apart from a few false starts at sentences here and there, I spent my furlough Not-Writing.
I should have been more productive during those first weeks in October. I had such high hopes, but I only ended up disappointing myself. I'd be lying if I said that as I watched the evening news on September 30, with the clock ticking down to the fiscal year deadline, I wasn't already forming plans to get a lot of writing done during the shutdown. We writers always envision these kind of gifts of long stretches of time spread before us like a Hawaiian luau buffet. Shipwrecks on deserted islands (with a typewriter and reams of paper), prison sentences, even stay-at-home recoveries from broken arms--these are our fantasies which we decorate with ambition and determination.
I am, however, the worst--the absolute WORST--at self-discipline. I cave so easily to distraction and surrender with a white flag before idle temptations have even fired their first shot.
And so, I spent my available writing time in early October not writing. I didn't do nothing, of course. In all other regards, I was productive. I helped my wife organize her vintage furniture shop, I read books, I fixed our home theater system in the basement, I picked up sticks and leaves from our front yard, I attended a couple of book festivals, I gave a couple of interviews to blogs and C-SPAN's Book-TV. I kept busy to the point of distraction...and a thin layer of dust built up on my laptop's keyboard.
In her brilliant, beautiful new book Still Writing, Dani Shapiro urges me to block out interferences like the Internet, email, laundry, baking, sorting files, filling out insurance claims, or whatever pulls me away from the writing task at hand:
Sit down. Stay there. It's hard--I know just how hard--and I hate to tell you this, but it doesn't get easier. Ever. Get used to the discomfort. Make some kind of peace with it....When I sit down to meditate, I feel much the same way I do when I sit down to write: resistant, fidgety, anxious, eager, cranky, despairing, hopeful, my mind jammed so full of ideas, my heart so full of feelings that it seems impossible to contain them. And yet...if I do just sit there without checking the clock, without answering the ringing phone, without jumping up to make a note of an all-important task, then slowly the random thoughts pinging around my mind begin to settle. If I allow myself, I begin to see more clearly what's going on. Like a snow globe, that flurry of white floats down.I love Dani's book and for the past two months, I've been using it as a motivator, a propellant to push me to my desk and get my ass in the chair. I begin each morning by cracking open Still Writing like it was my scripture reading from Our Daily Bread. But for all of Dani's wisdom and gut-honest accounts of her own writing life, I still felt myself go limp with inertia these past few weeks, while at the same time self-distractions raged like a blizzard in my snow-globe head.
Here's the thing: the more I don't write, the more I don't write. The longer I go without pulling fresh words from my head and putting them on the page, the more I wallow in self-pity and depression. Not-Writing begets Not-Writing.
Until finally, one day, I hit a wall of self-loathing and try to pole-vault over this wall to whatever waits on the other side. Which, hopefully, is Writing.
I do all sorts of self-motivation exercises. I read Dani Shapiro's inspirational Still Writing. I write a poem about the trees outside my office window. I Tweet things like "When I punch myself for not-writing, I remember @JoyceCarolOates is somewhere writing her 3rd short story of the day & I'm refueled w/ fire." Whatever it takes to convince myself that I'll never "find the time to write." Instead, I must make the time to write.
Ironically, now that I'm back to work at the government job, I'm once again rising at 3:30 a.m. and getting some writing done. Maybe I need that squeeze of deadline, that ever-narrowing window of time in order to get motivated. Whatever it takes, I suppose.
Here's a shot of my home-office desk--my second-story lair where I do my early-morning writing. This was taken two days after I went back to work:
 |
| Notice the copy of Still Writing which is close at hand |
We keep walking—through the dust, through the thirst, through the rising heat, and now, through the growing crowd of Iraqis who are starting to fill the marketplace with their goats, their dishdashas, their cooking smoke.When I type paragraphs like that, I feel rejuvenated, envigoured, shot full of determination. In fact, if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to my soldiers in that Baghdad neighborhood. I have words to pull from my head. My hands are on the pole vault.
We are hungry.
None of us had time to grab chow this morning before we stole the Humvee and none of us thought to grab an MRE from the back seat after it broke down barely two miles outside the Entry Control Point. And now our stomachs think our throats have been cut.
We round a corner and push forward into the marketplace. Skinned goats hang on ropes. Pyramids of pomegranates, figs, neon-yellow mangoes. Two men crouch over a grated fire, turning puddle-shaped slabs of naan with their bare hands. We can smell the sweet yeast and it drives us crazy.
David Abrams is the author of Fobbit (Grove/Atlantic, 2012), a comedy about the Iraq War which Publishers Weekly called “an instant classic” and named a Top 10 Pick for Literary Fiction in Fall 2012. It was also a New York Times Notable Book of 2012, an Indie Next pick, and a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection. His short stories have appeared in Fire and Forget (Da Capo Press, 2013) and Home of the Brave: Somewhere in the Sand (Press 53), anthologies of short fiction about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. His blog, The Quivering Pen, can be found at: www.davidabramsbooks.blogspot.com
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
TEN STEPS TO BECOMING A NOVELIST
By Erin Cashman
Since
my debut novel, THE EXCEPTIONALS, was published, the question I get asked the
most is how I became a writer. What I’ve discovered is that most people don’t
want to hear about how I used to sit up in a tree and write stories when I was
in elementary school. They want to know how I wrote a book and saw it through
to publication. Each author has his or her own process. This is what works for
me:
1. Write
a novel. This seems obvious, but it is actually quite harder than it seems! It
takes countless hours and fierce determination to see it through. At times you
will have inspiration, other times you will trudge through the muck. You will be
brilliant, you will be cliché. The important thing is that when you are done,
you will have finished a first draft of a novel. If you are like me, when you
write the words The End you will be
incredibly proud and fairly certain that your manuscript is amazing and will
require little revision. YOU WILL BE WRONG.
2. Put
your novel away. DO NOT LOOK AT. Leave it for at least two weeks, preferably a
month. Then, read it again. If you are like me, you will be fairly certain that
it is the worst piece of crap that anyone has ever written. I try to take a
first pass without revising, but just marking where the story drags, which
characters are really just there to move the plot, and places that don’t work.
3. Now
comes the real work – revising. Revise, revise, revise.
4. At
this point, I interview my main characters. I ask the same questions all the
time, such as: What is your deepest fear?
What is your darkest secret? If you could meet one person in history who would
it be? I always discover that I don’t know my characters as well as I
thought. You will be surprised by what you learn.
5. Take
your new found insight and go back and revise again, focusing on fleshing out
the characters as much as possible.
6. Now
you have poured your heart and soul into the manuscript, and you feel that it
is pretty damn good. Read the whole thing out loud. You will know immediately
when the dialogue is flat or artificial sounding. You will not only pick up on
errors, but phrasing that might be grammatically correct, but off for some
reason.
7. You
may think you are done – but you’re not. You need a fresh set of eyes on your
novel. And by that, I don’t mean your family or friends. Find a writing group
or critique partner. I just did this recently, and I wish I had done it years
ago. It makes a huge difference. It is not easy to sit in your writing group
and listen to people pull apart your baby. You will have the urge to defend
your boring or one dimensional characters, who, by now, are very real to you,
and explain your convoluted plot. Bite your tongue. Take notes. LISTEN. You don’t need to take
all of their advice, but pay attention to the big picture items. If your
partner or group doesn’t really care about your main character, you need to fix
it. Spend a day mulling over their advice.
8. Revise,
revise, revise.
9. When
you feel like your novel is the best that you can make it, put it away for at
least a week, and read it out loud again, from start to finish with as few interruptions
as possible. I usually start on a Saturday morning and finish it by Sunday
sometime. Are you crying during sad parts? Swooning during the romance scenes?
Is your heart racing during suspenseful parts? If so, you are done.
Congratulations! You finished!
10. Rejoice!
As Tom Clancy said, “Success is a finished book, a stack of pages each of which
is filled with words. If you reach that point, you have won a victory over
yourself no less impressive than sailing single-handed around the world.” Whatever
happens now, whether you send out queries letter in hopes of publication, submit
your manuscript to your agent or editor, self publish, or simply share your
masterpiece with your family and friends, celebrate your accomplishment. You
are a novelist.
____________________________________________________________
Erin Cashman is a YA author. Her debut fantasy novel, THE EXCEPTIONALS, was published by Holiday House in 2012 and named a Bank Street College of Education Best Book of the Year. You can find her at the group blogs The Enchanted Inkpot, BookPregnant Blog, and on Twitter,Facebook, and her Website
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Defining Success for the Debut Novelist
By Barbara Claypole White
Debut authors are a neurotic bunch—with a long list of
expectations and a longer list of fears. The learning curve can continue to torture
months after publication, especially when it comes to defining success.
Over at Book Pregnant, some of us are about to launch novel
two; some of us are steaming ahead on novels three and four; some of us have
won incredible acclaim while others have faced crushing rejection. But most of
us have shared one thing: a belief that our debuts have underperformed.
One size does not fit all in publishing; you cannot compare
your success to that of other authors. Think about the volume of books
published every day. Not all of those can be Amazon Spotlight Books of the
Month. Your novel might not be the belle of the ball, it might not be chosen for
a single dance, but that doesn’t make it a failure.
My debut novel, THE UNFINISHED GARDEN, wasn’t an Indie Next List pick, a Target Book Club Pick or
a New York Times bestseller. I didn’t
sell movie rights, or audio rights, or even large print rights. (And my mother
is still bemoaning the fact that TUG is not available in English bookstores.)
Three months out from my release date, I was despondent over
what I interpreted as low sales figures—even though my editor wasn’t. I invested
in an Author Buzz promotion, viewing it as the final step before issuing last
rites. While planning the promotion, I asked M J Rose whether I was merely
wasting time and money trying to promote a book at such a late stage. I will
never forget her response: “Any book is
a new book to someone who’s never heard of it.”
Realizing that was a turning point for me. I stopped worrying
about how to gauge whether the novel was performing as it should in those vital
first months, and I kept up with the business of being an author. I did guest
blogs and giveaways when I was invited, continued to network—even forced myself
onto Twitter—and threw myself into writing novel two.
And while I wasn’t paying attention, TUG kept bobbing along,
quietly doing its own thing. I continued to receive requests from book clubs, and
a number of lovely reviews popped up on my Google Alerts. (As I type this, I’m
trying to negotiate between two book clubs that want to host me on the same day.
At the same time.)
Even more amazing, TUG earned out. When my first royalty
check arrived in the mail, I was convinced it was a mistake; it took a second
royalty check for me to realize it wasn’t.
Earlier this week, Harlequin MIRA sent me to the New England
Independent Booksellers Association annual conference. My publisher invested a
chunk of money in getting me there—and keeping me housed, watered, and fed—so that
I could spend one hour signing ARCs for THE IN-BETWEEN HOUR, my second novel. I took that to be a huge marker of Harlequin’s
belief in my success. Finally, I got the message: My debut had not been a
failure.
Thirteen months out, I have four book clubs coming up, and TUG
is a finalist in the 2013 Golden Leaf Contest and the 2013 Book Buyers Best Contest
(both to be announced later this month). And just the other day, I found a new
review on Amazon that may be my favorite E-V-E-R.
My point is this—your novel doesn’t have to hit the world as
a hare. Tortoises can still complete the track in good time. And the notion
that debut novels have six weeks to sink or swim is, in my mind, a myth. Certainly
my publisher is interested in career building, which can be a slow burn. On
that happy note…
Dear Debut Novelists,
Keep writing, keep smiling, keep networking. And ignore the
instinct to obsess over Amazon rankings (which will only drive you to gin).
Happy writing, young Padawans!
Lots of love,
Barbara x
Barbara Claypole White writes love stories about damaged
people. THE UNFINISHED GARDEN (Harlequin MIRA, 2012) won the 2013 Golden Quill
for Best First Book. Her second novel, THE IN-BETWEEN HOUR, has a release date of December 31, 2013. Connect with her on Facebook or Twitter
Thursday, October 3, 2013
Debut Support Is Not A Training Bra
by Mindy McGinnis
It's done. I did it. And I survived.
My debut novel, NOT A DROP TO DRINK is out in the world as of last Tuesday. Release week was doubly insane, as I was going on a national tour (Dark Days) with a group of Harper YA authors. Life was hectic, my laundry was out of control - but of course no clean underwear - I was eating takeout and pizza and not washing my hair enough.
I also had revisions for my 2014 release due before I left.
And I was about to be in the spotlight.
Every day I was answering two to three requests for interviews, then tweeting or promoting them. Somehow I managed to keep my own blog running, finish my revisions, work 40 hours a week, get a pedicure, and pack to leave for a whirlwind four-cities-in-four-days tour with a group of veteran writers, two of whom had hit the NYT on the release weeks just a month earlier.
Honestly, it was wonderful. I've always said I thrive on chaos, and I guess Fate decided to make me prove it. But what got me through wasn't necessarily my own chutzpah, or the Emergen-C I started guzzling at the first signs of a head cold.
It was the support of groups like this one, along with the Class of 2k13, Friday the Thirteeners, my fellow debut authors who crossed this bridge earlier in 2013 than me, and also the veteran authors who I'm lucky enough to know in person and are cool with me asking the hard questions.
Publishing is a small industry - really small. Everyone knows everyone, and they'll know you soon too. First impressions are important, and I'd like to think I made a pretty good one, with the support of everyone around who knows me than I do, and doesn't mind sharing.
So thanks, everyone who talks to me, answers questions, and basically gives a shit that I'm here.
You're awesome.
____________________________________________
Mindy McGinnis is a YA author and librarian. Her debut, NOT A DROP TO DRINK, is a post-apocalyptic survival tale set in a world where freshwater is almost non-existent, available from Katherine Tegen / Harper Collins September 24, 2013. She blogs at Writer, Writer Pants on Fire and contributes to the group blogs Book Pregnant, Friday the Thirteeners, From the Write Angle, The Class of 2k13, The Lucky 13s & The League of Extraordinary Writers. You can also find her on Twitter, Tumblr & Facebook.
It's done. I did it. And I survived.
My debut novel, NOT A DROP TO DRINK is out in the world as of last Tuesday. Release week was doubly insane, as I was going on a national tour (Dark Days) with a group of Harper YA authors. Life was hectic, my laundry was out of control - but of course no clean underwear - I was eating takeout and pizza and not washing my hair enough.
I also had revisions for my 2014 release due before I left.
And I was about to be in the spotlight.
Every day I was answering two to three requests for interviews, then tweeting or promoting them. Somehow I managed to keep my own blog running, finish my revisions, work 40 hours a week, get a pedicure, and pack to leave for a whirlwind four-cities-in-four-days tour with a group of veteran writers, two of whom had hit the NYT on the release weeks just a month earlier.
Honestly, it was wonderful. I've always said I thrive on chaos, and I guess Fate decided to make me prove it. But what got me through wasn't necessarily my own chutzpah, or the Emergen-C I started guzzling at the first signs of a head cold.
It was the support of groups like this one, along with the Class of 2k13, Friday the Thirteeners, my fellow debut authors who crossed this bridge earlier in 2013 than me, and also the veteran authors who I'm lucky enough to know in person and are cool with me asking the hard questions.
Publishing is a small industry - really small. Everyone knows everyone, and they'll know you soon too. First impressions are important, and I'd like to think I made a pretty good one, with the support of everyone around who knows me than I do, and doesn't mind sharing.
So thanks, everyone who talks to me, answers questions, and basically gives a shit that I'm here.
You're awesome.
____________________________________________
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