finish writing my book

Here’s part of a thank-you e-mail I got from a member of my creative group, after she & her husband Bill came to a group dinner at our home last Saturday. During our “salon” after the meal, I read a couple of my poems—that’s the writing Bill is referring to:

It was a great evening and Bill has talked so much about what a great writer you are. He’s so funny. He said “she should be a writer!”. I said “honey, she IS a writer! Who do you think wrote that stuff?”

It’s hilarious how people unconsciously separate writing from “being a writer”!

When I complete the two illustrations for my picture book, put together the submission & actually mail it to a publisher, I’m going to return to work on THIS book: read over what I have so far & decide again whether to write/revise some more or to submit it to the next publisher on my list.

I’ll do it for Bill.

This is the sort of thing I’d love to take into print and might have the leverage to gamble on if XXXX were making money hand over fist. But it’s a tough marketplace in general right now, and we don’t have that leverage.

Why would my book be hard to sell? I think it’s wonderful! :-)

I printed out eight chapters, the query letter, the summary table of contents, & a short bio & sent them off to the editor at the end of the day today. He should get it tomorrow or Friday, since he lives nearby.

He had said he would have time to look at it early in August, so I may be getting some response pretty quickly. Scary/exciting!!

I got in a toot tonight & got involved in finishing the revisions, which I had worked on a couple of times since talking with my editor friend last month. I’m sure it’s partly a way to put off doing housework, but at least it’s productive! Thing is, I’ll be spending Thursday with family, & Friday we drive to St. Louis; we’ll be there all weekend for my son’s wedding. So tonight was the only time to write if I want to have a good batch of essays ready to send off early next week.

I have eight chapters (the first five, a middle one, & the last two) & the cover letter & annotated table of contents ready to send. That should be plenty to give the book’s flavor.

My editor friend is up for talking with me about the book. Right now we’re playing phone tag, but I do expect to talk to him at some point this afternoon. So exciting!!! —

And he called right after I first posted this entry. He does think the book might fit into his company’s publishing program, so he’d like to take a look at the chapters I’ve revised. His next month will be very busy, so I’ll keep working on revisions & then send him everything that’s ready by early August.

It makes all the difference to have a deadline. I went past the deadline I had posted here, but the fact that I had posted it kept it in my mind. Now I have a reminder on my iCal for August 2!

This afternoon/evening I revised the fifth chapter & made small tweaks to the earlier ones. I decided to add one essay (as yet unwritten) & delete another proposed chapter from the plan of the book.

That means the book will have 13 chapters, of which 5 are written & fully revised, 6 are written but need some revision, & just 2 remain unwritten. I also intend to include an annotated list of resources, & that is yet to be compiled. It is SO exciting to be this close!

The other progress I made tonight was to write an e-mail to the editorial director I know, to ask for his work phone number so I can call to talk to him about the book. I went ahead & prepared a cover letter in hopes that he’ll respond positively. If he does, I’ll have everything ready to print out & send him immediately.

Wish me luck!

Most of the book is written. The outline and several chapters were submitted to one publisher last summer, but the editor who was interested left the company &, as sometimes happens, it appears that no one else there is going to pick up the ball.

So there are two parts to this Thing:

1. Finish revising the chapters that need it, & actually write the few remaining essays.

2. Submit to another publisher. I have done a little research & found three possibilities that could be promising.

The question is which to do first. Publishers don’t require a complete manuscript to be submitted; usually they ask for just one to three chapters. And some revision/rewriting will probably be requested even if they offer a contract. If they say yes before I’ve completed the writing, it might mean less revision down the road.

OK. I’m going to put together a submission for the publisher whose editorial director I know. Deadline: May 31. Then once I send it off, I’ll plunge into writing the essays that remain.

This is a great Parker Palmer quote I just read:

“Vocation does not come from willfulness. It comes from listening. I must listen to my life and try to understand what it is truly about—quite apart from what I would like it to be about—or my life will never represent anything real in the world, no matter how earnest my intentions. That insight is hidden in the word vocation itself, which is rooted in the Latin for ‘voice.’ Vocation does not mean a goal that I pursue. It means a calling that I hear.”