Unexpected

I really didn’t know what to expect when my novel was published in mid-May.

I know what I could have expected way back when I had the nightmare that inspired the novel.  If I could have convinced an agent to represent an older but unpublished author of a book that’s a little hard to label and that agent had been able to convince a publisher to buy it, I would have received a small advance, and the book would have been released with a certain amount of ceremony. The publisher would have sent copies to reviewers and might have arranged interviews and a book tour.

Through the years, I wrote off and on, juggling my hobby with grandchildren and stressful jobs, while the world changed. Finally I retired and picked up the stack of pages I had stuffed into a file cabinet in the spare bedroom. And I realized I was no longer dependent on the agent or even the publisher. While I’d been involved in a different kind of writing career, both had been rendered optional by technology and culture.

Still, I decided I’d try to get an agent while I worked on rewrites. If I didn’t find one by the time I finished, I’d submit to one of the small companies sometimes called independent publishers because they aren’t one of the large corporations, which had by then shrunk to “the big six.” Although self-publishing was another viable option, I decided I wanted the validation of having my book professionally published.

I didn’t find an agent, so I sent a query letter to my small publisher of choice. They responded that they wouldn’t even look at any urban fantasy novel more than 70,000 words long.

THAT was unexpected. When I finished the first draft, books were supposed to be at least 120,000 words—and that’s almost exactly what I had written.

So I started editing. And I cut 40,000 words. Without damaging the plot or character development.

It was the best education I could have gotten in editing. But I still had 80,000 words, and I felt that while I could cut maybe another 5,000, I simply couldn’t reach the required 70,000 without ruining the book.

I sent a query to another publisher, one who had a sterling reputation and had recently won a prestigious prize.. They loved it. Send it, they said.

They lost it.

Twice.

But I had an alternate plan. My daughter, author Katriena Knights, had told me about Etopia Press, a new company that was growing rapidly and liked books in all genres including those that were hard to peg. I queried them, and two weeks later was assigned an editor. She gave me the second-best education I could have gotten in editing, including asking me to add back in 5,000 words, much of which I still had in the original copy I had saved on my computer.

No advance. No review copies sent out. No interviews. No author tour. Par for the course for small independent publishers. (Some give small advances to selected authors. I wasn’t selected.)

I had business cards printed with the cover of my novel on them and started passing them out to everyone I could get to take them. I mentioned my novel on Facebook and Twitter. I got a review in the local newspaper. I pulled out attendee lists from every tour I’d ever gone on and every workshop and convention I’d ever attended and started sending e-mails. Haven't figured out how to do a book tour for an e-book yet, but I have post cards with the cover to autograph just in case anyone asks. 

As well as I can tell, Amazon must have more than a million Kindle books listed. Of course, I’m sure they don’t have that many ranks, because many books would tie. But “When the Moon Is Gibbous and Waxing” was ranked at 50,000 several days and has bounced between the 100,000s and 200,000s ever since. I have no idea how that translates into sales, but I think it might be OK.

I can’t say that’s completely unexpected. : - )

Two Days Ago--I Canoed the Amazon (Not)

If I had known the subject for this week’s blog was going to be “two days ago,” I would have tried to do something interesting.

But then the question is whether I’m supposed to report on something I did two days before the subject was announced, or two days before I wrote this blog. If it’s two days before I wrote the blog, then I had time to prepare. So I set out Thursday morning to hack my way through a hundred of miles of Amazon rainforest and make contact with a hitherto unknown tribe of aborigines. It was exciting.

OK, I didn’t do that. You guessed it, didn’t you? So I’ll tell the truth.

Two days before the subject was announced, I awoke with a sore throat after a restless night and spent most of the afternoon napping. Went to bed early in spite of having slept all day, and woke up Saturday feeling much better.

Oh. That’s too dull? You want me to tell you what I did two days ago from today?

I printed most of my accumulated receipts off the Mac and filed them neatly away in case I make so much money from my novel I need them for tax deductions, knowing full well that odds are I’ve just wasted my time.

But in between those “two days ago” periods, I did a few things that kept me from curling up and dying of boredom. A week ago last Thursday, I met a complete stranger at Panera and left with a new friend. I interviewed Diana Manning, an artist from a nearby village, about her memory montages for a story to appear in “Thrive,” a local entertainment magazine. Sunday after church, I wrote the story and sent it off to the editor. Friday I made a hotel reservation for me, my daughter, and my granddaughter. We’re going up to Chicago Monday for my granddaughter’s orientation at Columbia College. Other than that--cooking dinner, promoting my book on Twitter and Goodreads, and sewing lace on "The Dress." (Another story.)

And there you have it. Most people lead very quiet lives taking care of those things that must be taken care of to make their days and the days of their families run smoothly. I’m no exception.

Except that I can’t stay in this peaceful and predictable place. I lead another life in an alternate universe. “When the Moon Is Gibbous and Waxing” is finished and published, but Michael and Natalie are just beginning their lives together as husband and werewolf. They are insisting that I write down all their adventures exactly as they happen, from discovering the body of a U of I football player drained of blood and lying on the sidewalk near the lab to searching for a professor at the University of Glasgow who disappears after discovering a drug that could cure leukemia. I have a feeling it’s going to be another exciting year in my head, if not in my life. How about yours?

High School--Eggheads and Dreams

They called us eggheads back then.

Egghead, dork, nerd, geek—pretty much the same except for the generation—someone who doesn’t fit in, whose interests are different from the norm.

I was a pretty good student in spite of being half asleep from taking antihistamines from July until some time in October, when we finally had a good, hard frost in Southern Illinois. In addition to always having a stuffy nose, I had a bad complexion, dishwater blond hair that hung in scraggly curls instead of a smooth pageboy, and I wore glasses.

Needless to say, I wasn’t part of the “in” group. I wasn’t part of any group; I just kind of hung suspended in social mid-air, a loner except for one or two friends who thought I was kind of weird, but were willing to hang around with me anyway. (Many years later, one of them generously introduced me to her sister as “the most avant garde of my high school friends.”) Escaping into books and the security of family protected me from the psychological damage some young misfits can suffer. (Although some might argue that bit about psychological damage.)

Having recently given up my plans to become a world-famous artist, I started high school wanting to be a physicist. I was interested in the electro-magnetic spectrum. Not even sure where I got that—maybe from a Robert Heinlein novel. But I had a little trouble with algebra that year—it just wasn’t easy for me. Then I had more trouble with plane geometry in my sophomore year, and then back to a little trouble with advanced algebra in my junior year. I also took chemistry that year, and though I loved it, I had a little trouble with it, also.

About mid-year, I was walking down the hall between classes, lost in my own little world as usual, and it came to me that having a little trouble with a lot of classes added up to a lot of trouble, and I began to second guess my career choice. A career, I decided, should be based on what you’re best at and what you love to do. So what was I best at? Well, I could always count on A’s in English and social studies. And what did I most enjoy doing? Reading. I read everything from the encyclopedia to classic novels to pulp science fiction. And it didn’t just come to me—it came to me like a voice from the heavens: “Idiot! You want to be a writer.”

I’m sure I stopped and gasped. I don’t know why I took so long to understand that very vital fact about myself. But once I did, I quit seeing myself as a mediocre science major and started seeing myself as an excellent English major who was taking science classes for research. And I went ahead and signed up to take physics my senior year with a changed attitude. You know—research.

Although I majored in journalism in college and worked as a journalist for many years, I never let go of my high school dream of writing novels like the science fiction and fantasy I loved so much. Recently, my urban fantasy novel, “When the Moon Is Gibbous and Waxing,” was published by Etopia Press.

Sometimes high school dreams come true.

Redux for Debut: When the Moon Is Gibbous and Waxing

The opportunity to repeat a past post couldn't have come at a better time. I just got line edits for my novel, and the publisher wants them returned this week, so I don't have time to write a brand new post. (Yes, I'm a slow writer. You probably suspected that, since my posts usually come in barely under the wire.) So what better post to repeat than the first page of said novel? 

When Natalie recorded the final reading for the blood she had drawn from her guinea pigs that afternoon and looked up from her meticulous notes, she realized how quiet the lab was. No wonder. The clock over the door read 11:30. Once again she’d lost herself in her research so completely she’d stayed far past the building’s official closing time. She sighed. If she didn’t leave soon, the janitors would be knocking on the door to chase her out. They got a little testy when students interfered with their work.

She quickly gathered all the slides she had prepared and cataloged them for later study in case she found something she wanted to revisit. When she slipped into her denim jacket and walked out of the lab into the dim, silent hall, the hands on the clock were nearly touching twelve.

As Natalie stepped out of the building, the moist south wind clutched at her jeans and the long braid of her hair, making her struggle for balance. Dead leaves skittered around her feet, then escaped into the darkness across the parking lot. She glanced up and shivered. The full moon always made her anxious. When she was a child, her grandmother sometimes sat up with her until she finally drifted off to sleep—often well after midnight.

            Natalie's eyes misted over. Grammy had died six months ago, and Natalie felt foolish still getting weepy at every thought of her. But Grammy had been Natalie’s only family, and her sudden death left Natalie feeling very alone.

            The feeling of aloneness hovered over Natalie as she walked toward the ‘78 Omni at the far end of the back parking lot. The ten-year-old Plymouth was the only car left. Back here, the full moon's silver light was lost in blacktop, leaving only swarthy ponds created by lights in widely spaced medians.

            Then the feeling of aloneness was gone, replaced by an eerie presence of evil behind her and to the right near a clump of trees. Fear tightened her stomach.

            Natalie walked faster. She glanced back over her shoulder. You're being silly. It’s just the full moon. But her heart continued to pound, and gooseflesh crawled up her thighs. Absorbed in her fear, she stumbled over a pile of damp leaves. The musty smell nearly made her gag. Light glinted off little patches of moisture on the blacktop. She glanced back again.

            Two men had stepped out of the trees and were following her across the parking lot. She gasped and started to run. Get to the car. Just a few seconds. That’s all I need. But now they, too, were running. She could hear their breathing as they drew closer. She reached for the door handle.

            The car was locked. Frantically she tried to open it, but the keys slipped from her shaking hand. As the crash of their fall reverberated in her skull, she smelled the men's excitement and knew they were reaching for her. She sobbed.           

            Then her fear grew cold, and colder, until it became anger and turned to heat that ran through her body like fire, and she realized she had nothing to fear as she turned to meet her attackers.

When the Moon Is Gibbous and Waxing by Angela Parson Myers is scheduled to be electronically published about the middle of next month by Etopia Press.