A Book of Vintage Postcards

A lot has happened since my last post. I signed a contract with Arcadia Publishing to write a book of vintage postcards called The Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. It will be a thrill to see my name as the author on the cover of a book!

The book will cover the mountains and foothills of North Carolina and the entire Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Doing the necessary research for the book has been educational for me. I have learned a lot about the mountains, but I have also learned that writing a vintage postcard book and writing a historical novel have more in common than one would think. Either book can only contain a small fraction of the details discovered during the research phase.

The text is completed for the book. Caption word counts have been checked and double-checked. Grammar has been examined against The Chicago Manual of Style. All that remains is assigning each postcard a number and cross-referencing those numbers.

Publication will be sometime in 2014. I’ll let you know when I have a publication date!

In search of an agent

I’ve been researching literary agencies and agents in search of a good match for me and The Spanish Coin. Two agents have risen to the top of the list, and I have prepared letters and other documentation to send to them. After some last minute tweaking, I’ll send them off. Then I’ll select another agent to write, then another one, and so forth until I find the right one.

This is a big step for me!

The Dry Grass of August

Today was great fun! I got to hear Anna Jean Mayhew, author of The Dry Grass of August, speak at the public library in Kannapolis, NC. The event was well attended and she answered questions until there were no more. She’s a very entertaining speaker.

Discussions of The Dry Grass of August generate interesting questions and conversations about the days before and during the Civil Rights Movement. Today’s audience was a cross-section of ages and people who grew up in various parts of the United States. Today’s program brought several perspectives to light.

The discussion about race relations combined with A.J.’s talking about her writing and life experiences made for a very enjoyable afternoon.

I love hearing authors speak!

I got to hear Mark de Castrique speak again last night. He’s not only a good writer, he’s an entertaining and informative speaker.

I mailed a query letter to StarDate magazine today. I would be very pleased if they publish my article about the 1849 “Monroe” meteorite that landed in Cabarrus County. Time will tell.

I continue to research literary agents.

Trying the magazine market again

I revisited my 2009 newspaper series about the 1849 Monroe Meteorite today and worked on turning those seven columns into a magazine article.

I’ll let you know if that goes anywhere. It’s not easy getting published.

An exercise in brevity

Today I’m faced with the challenge of summarizing my 98,000-word Spanish Coin manuscript in about 40 words and writing a cover letter that will convince a literary agent to read the first three chapters of my book.

This is possibly the most important letter I’ve ever written. No pressure there!

Back to my novel manuscript

I must stop letting life interfere with my writing! I’ve been so busy this summer making things to try to sell on Etsy in my online shop, Hickory Ridge Crafts, that I have neglected my writing. Dr. Kyle Hite’s sermon this morning at Rocky River Presbyterian prompted me to return to my Spanish Coin manuscript this afternoon. It was fun getting back to it and getting the synopsis polished.

I started writing The Spanish Coin in 2004. The manuscript has evolved from historical fiction into Christian historical fiction. This was a slow process as I tried to discern God’s will.

What’s next? Writing the dreaded query letter and seeking a literary agent.

More Tricks of the Trade

I am working my way through Chris Roerden’s book, Don’t Murder Your Mystery. Today I took his recommendation to find creative ways to describe characters. I was guilty of using driver’s license type details to paint pictures of my characters in The Spanish Coin manuscript, so I did some editing this afternoon to illustrate what those people are like instead of what they looked like. After all, habits and mannerisms make people more interesting than their height and eye color.

The learning experience continues, and I am really enjoying the process!

Interview your protagonist

I devoured the July/August 2013 issue of Writer’s Digest as soon as it hit my mailbox last week. It was packed with tips and ideas that I have already put into practice as I continue to polish my manuscript for The Spanish Coin.

One idea James Scott Bell shared in his article, “Vitamin C For Your Thriller,” was particularly helpful and enabled me to enrich my book’s ending. Mr. Bell made the following suggestion: “Go forward in time 20 years after your story ends…. You’re now a reporter and you track down the character and ask, ‘Looking back at everything that happened to you, why do you think you had to go through that? What life lesson did you learn that you can pass on to the rest of us?’…. Now use all your skills to demonstrate that lesson at the end of the story itself, without necessarily using words.”

I asked my protagonist those two questions, and her response filled two pages as fast as I could write. The process gave me a perspective that no other exercises had given me. My book has a more satisfying ending, thanks to Mr. Bell’s recommendations.

Deleting Unnecessary Words

Editing my Spanish Coin manuscript has taken most of my time since my last post. I’m happy to announce that I have trimmed the word count from 114,645 to 99,979.

After reading conflicting guidelines in books and online, I concluded that a manuscript for a first novel had a better chance of landing me a literary agent if if were under 100,000 words.

It was daunting to have to cut nearly 15,000 words from my book, but the process turned out to be enjoyable. Every word had to justify itself. Every scene had to prove its purpose.

I know I have a better manuscript to pitch to an agent now.