The Secret
Although I haven't been given the official go-ahead, I'm going to let you all in on this 'little secret' I've kept for the past month and a half. This entry will still be friends locked, just because I don't want my butt chewed out.
In mid-to-late June of 2008, my very first book will be published and distributed.
There are several different writing sites on the web that aspiring authors/poets/what-have-yous can share their work, get feedback and read other people's work -- it's a really nice way to build a support system of fellow writers who encourage and inspire each other to push onward in this extremely tough business. Since I discovered the internet and how it was a great tool for me to get my work out there I've been a part of several like booksie.com and DeviantArt. Internet communities are especially great for intensely shy, introverted, bashful people like me who don't very much like reading their work aloud in workshops of six or seven people I've never previously met. Anyway, in late February I discovered a relatively new writing site called www.writingroom.com and became a member a couple days later after I checked out the place and got an idea of how it was run. Over the next eight or nine days I proceeded to post nearly all the pieces I currently have in Word documents, mostly things I wrote in my early teen years and in my last years of high school, along with more recent stories like "Chasing The Dragon" and "The Broken Ones". Not to sound horrendously conceited but I began to receive a lot of high praise from many people on the site, and one person who commented most frequently was the creator of WritingRoom.
Lindsay Preston is a young woman in her early 20s from Chagrin Falls, Ohio. She is a ghostwriter and has written screenplays that have gone on to win awards in many independent and student film festivals. Over the past few years she has aided up-and-coming writers to self-publish their debut novels. Then a year ago she decided that she herself wanted to find ways to help young, aspiring writers foster their passion and talent as well as help jump start their professional careers. WR was one avenue she chose to pursue her dream, and not long after she devised a contest which she held on the site to find the next big thriller writer. Still not satisfied, Lindsay along with her team who helped in the creation of the site began shopping around for publishing houses to partner with in order to begin her own company, PublishingRoom. Finally, she linked up with Author Solutions in association with iUniverse and WordClay. Since then she has been working to iron out all the details for the summer 2008 launch of her publishing house.
As I said when I joined and posted my work she contacted me several times regarding different pieces, she would express how much she enjoyed my work and how talented she thought I was. Once she told me that I was by far her favorite writer on the entire site and one of the most talented young writers she's encountered period, even though she tries to read all the daily submissions she made it a point to read everything I put up. She said that she believed I have a tremendous amount of potential, she can see a very bright future in fiction and poetry ahead of me. Flabbergasted, I thanked her profusely but assumed that would be the end of it. I'm going to sound horribly self-centered, but a lot of people have told me they think I'm a talented writer. No big deal, she was just a very nice girl who wanted to offer her encouragement to a new, floundering writer that is just beginning to get her feet wet. End of story. But then a few weeks later, I find an email from Lindsay waiting for me in my inbox. She wanted to know if I would be interested in getting published. I was incredibly perplexed at this point, I answered that yes, it's my ultimate dream to become a published writer. But, I asked, how? She gave me her phone number and I called her later that evening.
During our conversation she expressed to me once again what an astoundingly great writer she thinks I am, then begins to tell me about the company she is starting. She told me she wants me to be the first writer to be published under her company, a 100-page (or 50,000 words) compilation of my short stories, poetry, lyrics and other writings. She explained that it would be purely to gain publicity on their part, they want no publishing expenses, up-front money, or the copyrights to my work. I won't have to pay a cent for anything whatsoever. Absolutely one hundred percent of whatever the book sells will go directly to me. It will be sold at Barnes & Nobel as well as on amazon.com. Her publicist is Eileen Koch who does PR for models and cool famous people, and they are coming up with ideas to promote the book. They've already written press releases to be distributed, three nationally in magazines, newspapers, radio, etc. and some locally as well. I may be on a local morning news show like Good Day Oregon. There will be a book signing at Barnes & Nobel shortly after the book is released, and I will be toted around to do all kinds of promotion. They have it all planned out and the whole thing will be set in motion as soon as I've finished. The only catch in the deal was that I only had six weeks to do it all in.
Let me tell you right now that getting all your writing together, editing and polishing to get everything perfect before you send it in plus everything else like a bio and synopsis, cover art, etc. is not as easy as you may think. First I was like, "Okay, I have enough material to supply me with at least half of the required pages. No problem." Then all of a sudden, there didn't seem to be as many pieces in my folder as I originally expected, and they weren't long enough. Then I had to start thinking about writing new pieces, which is a very daunting task for me because my ideas don't come at the drop of a hat. Usually a thought will be born in my head, a simple little central idea for something that I think could possibly develop. But I don't write it at the moment I get it, because it needs a little time for me to mull and ponder the details and turn it over in my head until I think I know virtually everything there is to know about the character, the subject, the place and time. Workshops have always been particularly difficult for me because of this leisurely pace I work at, because usually you are given a prompt or main idea and then given fifteen minutes to flesh it out. But now there is virtually no time for my normal process, I need to churn it out as fast as I can because there's a deadline and an entire newborn publishing house riding on my shoulders. Basically, there's no time for me to mess around.
So, my lovelies, I know I have been neglecting you for the past six weeks but writing this book has basically eaten up every free moment of my life. At the end of last week Lindsay sent me the first batch of redlines (edits) from her editor for the pieces I've already sent. At the moment I'm having some problems with the edits done to my story "The Broken Ones", minor little disagreements that I need to go over with Lindsay but will have to wait until Monday when she gets home from The Book Expo in California. She's cooking up some exciting things with PublishingRoom for next fall and is meeting up with a bunch of big-time authors and industry people. In the meantime I have two more pieces in the process, plus one story worth over 1,000 words has just been eliminated, so I need to make up the difference. A week before last I made the art for the cover -- a concept of Joshua's to rip out pages from my ridiculous mounds of notebooks that contain all my writing and put them together like a collage. The book will be called "The Butterfly Paperweight" so it was the perfect idea and it turned out really neat, but unfortunately with my very limited photography skills and less-than-spectacular digital camera it was nearly impossible to capture it in a picture, so I sent it off to Lindsay so that her professional photographer friend can do it for me. I also had an idea that it could have a paperweight in the middle of the collage, but that's sketchy right now because the photographer/graphic designer think it would make the cover look too busy when the title and my name is added. She's going to email me the photographs either over the weekend or early next week so I can look at it. I'm going to have her send me a publishing agreement contract and give it to my lawyer to look over. Sometime in the future when the weather is nice Joshua and I are going to go down to either Mary S. Young park or the Willamette River so he can take some pictures of me for the back of the book. It's crazy how time flies -- sometimes it feels like there's no end in sight with all the work that still needs to be done, then when I think of just how quickly it is to completion I'm totally blown away. Obviously I want it done, but the perfectionist in me wishes I had more time to make sure everything is right.
So there it is, my secret life as a soon-to-be published writer. It's been a rollercoaster of emotion -- there's an ever-present overwhelming fear of inadequacy and the anxiety that I will not living up to people's expectations, not to mention worry of how it will be received by everyone when it finally does come out. There's disbelief that someone actually thinks so highly of my work that she would extend such an offer to me of all people. Let's face it, good things like this don't happen to people like me. They just don't, I'm not a fairytale princess in a fantasy world. And there's shock that I'm only nineteen and beginning a career in an industry that it can take a person's lifetime to even get a foot in the door. There's excitement, happiness, worry -- everything you can imagine. Most of all, there's hope that it will open new doors to a future of happiness for me. I haven't had a lot of hope in the past few years, it's a strange feeling. Wonderfully strange.
As the deadline grows closer I'm sure I will be writing here a lot more and I will probably need you guys to help me from spinning totally out of control with all my worry and stress, but for right now I'm going to focus on the task at hand and get things done. There will be enough time for my overly-analytical brain and dramatic emotions when the work is done.
Love to you all. Lots and lots of love, always.
I woke up this morning
With this feeling inside me that I can't explain
Like a weight that I've carried
Been carried away, away
But I know something is coming
I don't know what it is
But I know it's amazing, you save me
My time is coming
And I'll find my way out of this longest drought
In mid-to-late June of 2008, my very first book will be published and distributed.
There are several different writing sites on the web that aspiring authors/poets/what-have-yous can share their work, get feedback and read other people's work -- it's a really nice way to build a support system of fellow writers who encourage and inspire each other to push onward in this extremely tough business. Since I discovered the internet and how it was a great tool for me to get my work out there I've been a part of several like booksie.com and DeviantArt. Internet communities are especially great for intensely shy, introverted, bashful people like me who don't very much like reading their work aloud in workshops of six or seven people I've never previously met. Anyway, in late February I discovered a relatively new writing site called www.writingroom.com and became a member a couple days later after I checked out the place and got an idea of how it was run. Over the next eight or nine days I proceeded to post nearly all the pieces I currently have in Word documents, mostly things I wrote in my early teen years and in my last years of high school, along with more recent stories like "Chasing The Dragon" and "The Broken Ones". Not to sound horrendously conceited but I began to receive a lot of high praise from many people on the site, and one person who commented most frequently was the creator of WritingRoom.
Lindsay Preston is a young woman in her early 20s from Chagrin Falls, Ohio. She is a ghostwriter and has written screenplays that have gone on to win awards in many independent and student film festivals. Over the past few years she has aided up-and-coming writers to self-publish their debut novels. Then a year ago she decided that she herself wanted to find ways to help young, aspiring writers foster their passion and talent as well as help jump start their professional careers. WR was one avenue she chose to pursue her dream, and not long after she devised a contest which she held on the site to find the next big thriller writer. Still not satisfied, Lindsay along with her team who helped in the creation of the site began shopping around for publishing houses to partner with in order to begin her own company, PublishingRoom. Finally, she linked up with Author Solutions in association with iUniverse and WordClay. Since then she has been working to iron out all the details for the summer 2008 launch of her publishing house.
As I said when I joined and posted my work she contacted me several times regarding different pieces, she would express how much she enjoyed my work and how talented she thought I was. Once she told me that I was by far her favorite writer on the entire site and one of the most talented young writers she's encountered period, even though she tries to read all the daily submissions she made it a point to read everything I put up. She said that she believed I have a tremendous amount of potential, she can see a very bright future in fiction and poetry ahead of me. Flabbergasted, I thanked her profusely but assumed that would be the end of it. I'm going to sound horribly self-centered, but a lot of people have told me they think I'm a talented writer. No big deal, she was just a very nice girl who wanted to offer her encouragement to a new, floundering writer that is just beginning to get her feet wet. End of story. But then a few weeks later, I find an email from Lindsay waiting for me in my inbox. She wanted to know if I would be interested in getting published. I was incredibly perplexed at this point, I answered that yes, it's my ultimate dream to become a published writer. But, I asked, how? She gave me her phone number and I called her later that evening.
During our conversation she expressed to me once again what an astoundingly great writer she thinks I am, then begins to tell me about the company she is starting. She told me she wants me to be the first writer to be published under her company, a 100-page (or 50,000 words) compilation of my short stories, poetry, lyrics and other writings. She explained that it would be purely to gain publicity on their part, they want no publishing expenses, up-front money, or the copyrights to my work. I won't have to pay a cent for anything whatsoever. Absolutely one hundred percent of whatever the book sells will go directly to me. It will be sold at Barnes & Nobel as well as on amazon.com. Her publicist is Eileen Koch who does PR for models and cool famous people, and they are coming up with ideas to promote the book. They've already written press releases to be distributed, three nationally in magazines, newspapers, radio, etc. and some locally as well. I may be on a local morning news show like Good Day Oregon. There will be a book signing at Barnes & Nobel shortly after the book is released, and I will be toted around to do all kinds of promotion. They have it all planned out and the whole thing will be set in motion as soon as I've finished. The only catch in the deal was that I only had six weeks to do it all in.
Let me tell you right now that getting all your writing together, editing and polishing to get everything perfect before you send it in plus everything else like a bio and synopsis, cover art, etc. is not as easy as you may think. First I was like, "Okay, I have enough material to supply me with at least half of the required pages. No problem." Then all of a sudden, there didn't seem to be as many pieces in my folder as I originally expected, and they weren't long enough. Then I had to start thinking about writing new pieces, which is a very daunting task for me because my ideas don't come at the drop of a hat. Usually a thought will be born in my head, a simple little central idea for something that I think could possibly develop. But I don't write it at the moment I get it, because it needs a little time for me to mull and ponder the details and turn it over in my head until I think I know virtually everything there is to know about the character, the subject, the place and time. Workshops have always been particularly difficult for me because of this leisurely pace I work at, because usually you are given a prompt or main idea and then given fifteen minutes to flesh it out. But now there is virtually no time for my normal process, I need to churn it out as fast as I can because there's a deadline and an entire newborn publishing house riding on my shoulders. Basically, there's no time for me to mess around.
So, my lovelies, I know I have been neglecting you for the past six weeks but writing this book has basically eaten up every free moment of my life. At the end of last week Lindsay sent me the first batch of redlines (edits) from her editor for the pieces I've already sent. At the moment I'm having some problems with the edits done to my story "The Broken Ones", minor little disagreements that I need to go over with Lindsay but will have to wait until Monday when she gets home from The Book Expo in California. She's cooking up some exciting things with PublishingRoom for next fall and is meeting up with a bunch of big-time authors and industry people. In the meantime I have two more pieces in the process, plus one story worth over 1,000 words has just been eliminated, so I need to make up the difference. A week before last I made the art for the cover -- a concept of Joshua's to rip out pages from my ridiculous mounds of notebooks that contain all my writing and put them together like a collage. The book will be called "The Butterfly Paperweight" so it was the perfect idea and it turned out really neat, but unfortunately with my very limited photography skills and less-than-spectacular digital camera it was nearly impossible to capture it in a picture, so I sent it off to Lindsay so that her professional photographer friend can do it for me. I also had an idea that it could have a paperweight in the middle of the collage, but that's sketchy right now because the photographer/graphic designer think it would make the cover look too busy when the title and my name is added. She's going to email me the photographs either over the weekend or early next week so I can look at it. I'm going to have her send me a publishing agreement contract and give it to my lawyer to look over. Sometime in the future when the weather is nice Joshua and I are going to go down to either Mary S. Young park or the Willamette River so he can take some pictures of me for the back of the book. It's crazy how time flies -- sometimes it feels like there's no end in sight with all the work that still needs to be done, then when I think of just how quickly it is to completion I'm totally blown away. Obviously I want it done, but the perfectionist in me wishes I had more time to make sure everything is right.
So there it is, my secret life as a soon-to-be published writer. It's been a rollercoaster of emotion -- there's an ever-present overwhelming fear of inadequacy and the anxiety that I will not living up to people's expectations, not to mention worry of how it will be received by everyone when it finally does come out. There's disbelief that someone actually thinks so highly of my work that she would extend such an offer to me of all people. Let's face it, good things like this don't happen to people like me. They just don't, I'm not a fairytale princess in a fantasy world. And there's shock that I'm only nineteen and beginning a career in an industry that it can take a person's lifetime to even get a foot in the door. There's excitement, happiness, worry -- everything you can imagine. Most of all, there's hope that it will open new doors to a future of happiness for me. I haven't had a lot of hope in the past few years, it's a strange feeling. Wonderfully strange.
As the deadline grows closer I'm sure I will be writing here a lot more and I will probably need you guys to help me from spinning totally out of control with all my worry and stress, but for right now I'm going to focus on the task at hand and get things done. There will be enough time for my overly-analytical brain and dramatic emotions when the work is done.
Love to you all. Lots and lots of love, always.
I woke up this morning
With this feeling inside me that I can't explain
Like a weight that I've carried
Been carried away, away
But I know something is coming
I don't know what it is
But I know it's amazing, you save me
My time is coming
And I'll find my way out of this longest drought