Recycle Day

Someone asked me the other day how the book was coming along. I always appreciate the interest. I told him it was finished and we were trying to find an agent through the query process. I also told him the rejection letters were piling up like old news papers in a recycling bin. My husband and I crack up at the average of two SASE letters in the mail every day! Every one of them says the same thing. I think they all went to the same How to Become an Agent school and took the same How to Word a Rejection Letter class.

In the mean time my test readers have assured me that another edit is required. I know this to be true but had hoped my doubting personality was creating obstacles. But, alas, I see flaws in the manuscript also.

Originally my father and I thought that the story was so good and such an imminent topic for our day and age that a publisher would surely pick it up and assign an editor to work with us to make it the best piece of writing on this subject. I’ve lost my faith with this vision for now. My father is still holding it.

I, on the other hand, have contacted one editor that I revere and felt that if she rejected my inquiry as to her willingness to edit the book I would just add the manuscript to the rejection letters and really put them out in the recycle bin.

She answered me, read the first twenty pages, and accepted the work – for a price, and one she deserves because she’s the cream of the crop. She doesn’t accept just anyone. She says she accepts advanced level writers who attend writing conferences, are devoted writers, have a well thought out story line, and have completed the project.

I met this lady at a writer’s conference and she’s all about getting the publishers to stand up and notice you. So a couple of questions come up for me. Do I invest big money in a book I don’t even know will sell? If it wasn’t for the money, would I hand over the book to her to edit? I’ll answer the second question first. She’d have the manuscript in her hands already if there wasn’t a question of cost. The answer to the first question is the same as the second.

Besides the budget impact this chunk of change would have on my household I have a partner to consider, my beloved father, who holds his story close to his heart. He doesn’t just turn it over for anyone to pick apart and to possibly threaten a change to his voice. His voice is wonderful. He’s a story teller from the generation of the spoken word. One of my favorite memories is of him sitting on the bar stool at a diner in Hope Valley, his fishing gear still wrapped around his waist in his well stocked fanny pack. The family, gathered around various wooden tables, eating the famous homemade pie (alamode) with rapt attention towards him engaging in a fish story. It was so rich in humor and detail and mildly stretched exaggeration that all of us listened to him like an Indian chief handing down the folk lore of our ancestors. It was a surreal moment the way the sun poured through the window showing the dust floating in the air, softening the atmosphere as if a movie camera was romanticizing the scene. His stories are rich. And they’re rich in the book. But being a story teller and a writer creates a bridge that needs to be crossed and an editor is the engineer to construct that bridge for the reader.

Then there is my side of the book with my sentimentality dripping throughout the pages in more melancholy than the average reader is going to bare. I can’t edit my own stuff. I’ve tried. What part of my story needs deleting? What part of me just isn’t that interesting? Well, I just don’t know how to make that call without cutting pieces of myself off. It’s a gruesome analogy but I think it makes my point.

In the mean time Dad is putting out query letters like a paper press printing and distributing. He’s a machine right now, an amazing energy to have in my life. And the proposal continues to grow with facts and details, requiring much more research than I have been willing to pursue. With both of us working on it we’ll begin to send it out soon, hopefully in emails. I do not want to keep feeding the recycling bin!

More to come - in the mean while save a tree, plant a tree, and write on!  

Kathy