The Chimpanzee Ate My Manuscript

My new author photo?

I’m having one of those crappy writing days. You know the ones…when you’re typing away, then you go back to read it and it seems like a chimpanzee had commandeered your keyboard…or maybe your cat walked across it? What is this senseless drivel streaming from my fingertips today???

This may be the problem - I am close to finishing my second memoir, What Doesn't Kill You. I’ve got 80,000 words, with only five chapters left to polish, and then it’s pretty much done.

I have worked on this sucker six hours a day, five days a week, for one year. Now that I’m close to finishing it, I should be elated, right? Well, I would be, if my internal Woody Allen wasn’t obsessing about what I’ll obsess over after I’m done obsessing over this book.

I’ll miss my love-hate torturous relationship with it. I’ll miss the ranting and moaning over it (though my husband surely won’t). I’ll miss the way its blank pages taunted me.

And of course, as always, there’s the fear of putting my whole self out there. I’ve already got a first Memoir (Only Good Things) sitting in a drawer. Only a handful of my close friends have read it. It took me eight damn years to write, but even against the protest of my writer friends, I couldn’t risk releasing it into the world- at least not yet- for the harm it may cause to others involved. It’s kind of explosive, and I am trying my best to live a kind and compassionate life.

In the interim, I’ve put my writerly self out in the world in drips and drabs- through essays and blogs and songs. But now it’s time to tell my whole story. This one will not be kept in a drawer. My agent has already given me the go sign and is awaiting it.

And that is the most likely reason that the chimpanzee has taken over the keyboard today.

But take heed, inner Chimpanzee- for you will be avenged!

How I Got Published (in a Totally Random Way)

When I got the phone call that Seal Press had bought our anthology Dancing at The Shame Prom, I was cautiously optimistic. When I got the email, I smiled…a little. When my agent sent the contract for review, I carefully read it over and asked the pertinent questions. And when my writing partner Amy called and said, in so many words, WHY AREN’T YOU OVER THE MOON? THIS IS GREAT NEWS! I, the girl who’s always waiting for the other shoe to drop said, “I’ll believe it when I have the signed contract in my hand.”

So…here it is. The signed contract. In my hand. And after I exhaled, I started to smile a little, then a lot, and finally decided to let myself celebrate this. My husband and I toasted, and I took this picture, wanting to remember the importance of the moment.

I lied in bed last night reflecting on the journey that led me here, and I realized that nothing happened as I had planned. It didn’t go the way the “How To” books said it would, nor the way I plotted it out in my head, and maybe that’s why I didn’t quite trust it. I wasn’t in control!

I had spent a grueling six years writing and rewriting my memoir Only Good Things, never intending to publish it. I wrote it because it was in me, and I was compelled to get it out. And then, for my birthday in 2009, I took an intensive writing workshop at the home of a writing hero, Joyce Maynard. A few weeks later she asked if she could share my work. I assumed she meant with future classes, and said of course.

Months later, I got an email from a literary agent in New York, saying she had read my work and wanted to read more. I ran around the house jumping and shouting, out of my mind with excitement. Never in a million years did I think anyone would be interested in reading what I wrote. It was just therapy for me. But now it looked as though my life was on the verge of a big change.

I took that as a cue: time for me to take the helm and chart out my course. I worked my butt off, writing every second my son was in preschool, never answering the phone, letting the dust bunnies take over the house. Back and forth the manuscript went for six months, and in the interim, I read all the "How To" books and queried a few other agents as well. But this agent, she was my DREAM agent. She was the one I had to have. She was part of my “plan”.

And then the plan….crashed.

I started this blog two years ago because of the crushing (but kind) rejection I finally got from that dream agent. (that blog is here:http://hollyedexter.blogspot.com/2010/02/crushed.html) She liked the writing, the story, but she said that ultimately, it was just too tough in today’s market to sell a memoir without a “platform” (think Snooki, Bristol Palin…) and she couldn’t take that risk.

I was overwhelmed with feelings of failure and had nowhere to go with them. So I blogged for the first time, and sent it out into cyberspace. And this amazing woman who I had just connected with on She Writes, commented on my blog. This is what she said:

HOLLYE: never ever ever give up! i am actual proof of two agents saying no to my book, one to my face, and that was hard ... and then i got a fabulous agent, and then i got an amazing publisher ... and now my memoir is out in the world and it's so frickin' liberating and scary and writing memoirs is scary scary scary...so DON'T GIVE UP. WRITE. be brilliant. be bold. fuck 'em. something amazing will happen. love, Amy Ferris

I was wowed by this new friend who barely knew me, being so supportive, and not competitive. And so I bought her book Marrying George Clooney, which I devoured. Her writing was so honest and accessible, reading it felt like having a chat with your best friend. I added Amy on facebook, and discovered that we had the same birthday. Long story short, Amy Ferris and I became the best of friends after that. We would have long talks about life, and love and disappointments and courage. We started to write a few essays and blogs together, never competing, always championing one another. And one thing we agreed on – as writers we were going to be bold, be brave, and always tell the absolute truth. We challenged each other to write truthful essays about things we had tried to hide in the past. We’d agree to put a scary, revealing blog out on the same day….and WOW- the responses we’d get were overwhelming. Mostly private messages, people would reveal their innermost secrets to us, and it became clear that everyone was carrying some degree of hidden shame, and thought they were the only one. Now we had a mission. It wasn’t about making money or getting published. We had to keep writing in this vein to let others see they weren’t alone. And as we wrote these revealing pieces, other outlets started picking up our blogs. Before you knew it I had essays published and online webzines asking me to write for them. (And all I had ever wanted to do was to blog about my rejection!)

I diligently edited and reworked my memoir all year long. Meanwhile the phone conversations and blogs with Amy continued until we realized, after seeing one public persona after the next fall on his sword with shame, this was not just a year-long phone conversation that two women were having. This was a conversation that the whole world needed to be having. It needed to be a book. We knew amazing writers who could write brilliantly on this subject. And so, together Amy and I wrote a proposal, and the agent loved it, and the first publisher we went to – the one we really wanted- bought it! (and by the way, everyone told us it was impossible to sell an anthology in this market.)

Suddenly the memoir I had just spent eight years obsessing over was not the centerpiece of my life. The “plan” I made was scrapped, and in its place, something else popped up and tapped me on the shoulder. A calling, I guess you could say.

So what is the moral of my publishing story? When I was fixated on the ONE way my writing career was supposed to go, I almost missed something that was right in front of me, or in our case, something that was always inside of us. Amy said in that first blog comment “Be bold, be brave, something amazing will happen.” And something amazing did happen. I found an amazing friend, we’re writing an amazing book, we’re surrounded by amazing writers, and I have a fucking contract in my hand!

Now that is AMAZING!

I haven’t abandoned my memoir. I still believe it will find it’s way into the world, but I also believe the timing wasn’t right, and I couldn’t push it no matter how I tried. It was a hard lesson in “Surrender 101” for me. I now understand that I can’t push a flower to bloom, and likewise, my life path unfolds at it’s own pace, in it’s own unique way. I learned to write only what was true for me, no matter what the industry, or the books, or “they” said. I learned to stay true to myself, to keep writing in the face of rejection, and to do what felt right instinctually. I still don’t have a “platform”. Let’s face it, I’m never gonna be Snooki…and that’s a good thing.

The Book-A-Saurus

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away….bookstores and little paper books roamed the Earth. Oh, wait…that was just last year.

On Monday I went with my friend Linda to the seminar “The Future of Publishing”, hosted by Independent Writers of Southern California. There was a panel of folks ranging from booksellers to agents to self-publishing companies and internet silicon valley techies selling “vooks” (interactive online books which contain videos). Although the speakers represented different ends of the spectrum, one thing they all agreed on was the inevitable death of bookstores, and I practically had to breathe into a paper bag.

Damn you, Kindle!

No, I’m not a fan. I do not own one, and I do not want one. Don’t even try to convince me how great it is and how much you love yours.

Publishing has been a pretty consistent industry for several hundred years, but since the introduction of the Kindle…it’s changed faster that anyone could have anticipated. Even the huge conglomerates can’t keep up. Borders bookstores, as of yesterday, stopped paying rent on their stores. Mom and Pop bookstores are falling like dominoes.

This is giving me great anxiety. When I was in college and used to have panic attacks, the only thing that calmed me was to sit in the aisle of the campus bookstore. Opening a book, the smell of fresh print, the feel of the cool crisp pages against my fingers soothed me. Being surrounded by all my favorite books on the shelves in my home calms me and gives me a good feeling. How could a Kindle make me feel that way?

My husband will tell you that when I’m stressed or blue, I don’t shop for shoes, I get myself lost in a bookstore for a few hours. It’s like swimming in a sea of brilliance, ideas, theories, imagination. I peruse, gather a huge stack of books that call to me, plop myself down on the floor in a quiet aisle and plunge in. When I am filled with inspiration and curiosity, I make my final choices and purchase my books, which I will read, and re-read and keep forever. I love my books!

There’s nothing better than walking into someone’s home and seeing a room full of books. I can’t help myself from reading all the spines (a person’s library tells a lot about them). And what about all the happy times spent with my children at the library, sitting in a comfy chair, reading stories together. What could ever replace that?

What will the future hold? Will libraries even exist? Will they just be a cold empty room filled with computers?

Are paper books going the way of the vinyl record? Will it one day be a hipster, kitschy thing to have paper books, like it is now to own vinyl albums and a turntable?

I’ll never own a Kindle. I don’t want to worry about getting sand in it when I’m lazing on the beach, or having it run out of battery at the most page-turning moment. Recently my friend Amy went to Mexico with her Kindle all loaded up, only to have it break down on the first day of vacation, leaving her nothing to read all week but catalogs. No thank you! I don’t want to read Catcher In The Rye on a Kindle! I want my faded copy from the 1960s with it’s dog-eared yellow pages, it’s cover well-worn from being toted around and loaned out to friends.

So here I am, having just written my first book, and the publishing world around me is in disarray. (Good timing Holls!) There are those telling me just to self-publish in digital form. That’s the future, that’s where the money is, they say. I can’t do this. I want my book to be real, to be loved, to be well worn, to have dog-eared pages and highlighted passages, to be passed around from friend to friend. If it isn’t then I’d rather not publish it at all.

Grumble…grumble…

I want my dinosaur bookstores back.

Crushed.

I took a crushing blow today.

And what really sucks is that it never even needed to happen. Here I was minding my own business, writing my heart out these last five years for no reason other than to maintain my sanity, and then … a month ago I get this email.

It’s an email address I don’t recognize but I open it anyway, and lo and behold, it is from a literary agent in New York City. I had never sent my work out to any agents or publishers before, but through a synchronistic series of events, she ended up with a few chapters of my book, read it, and loved it. She asked if I would send her 50 more pages.

Suddenly I was Charlie with the golden ticket. It is almost impossible to get your foot in the door of one of these agencies, but in this case it was as though all the planets aligned and the doors magically opened themselves. It was surely meant to be, right?

After I finished running around the house screaming, I got straight to work. I had to respond in just the right way. Not too familiar, not too formal. Act professional, but not too casual. Oh and choose your strongest fifty pages, edit like crazy, and get it sent over while you are still fresh on her mind.

It took me two days and sleepless nights of rewrites, hand-wringing, pacing, sending it out to friends a family and hounding them for feedback, until I finally sent it.

Then I waited. FOUR WEEKS I waited. It was torture. On the bright side, if there was one, it really gave me an opportunity to examine the depths of my neurosis and insecurity. I had extensive dialogue with my inner critic.

Inner Critic: You blew it. She’s gonna hate it.

Me: Her email said that she loved what she had read, and was compelled to write me. Compelled. That’s a strong word, right?

Inner critic: Ugh... She’ll hate it.

Me: But she said…..

Inner critic: You will die homeless and penniless as a result of your horrible writing.

You get the idea. I laid awake nights listening to that awful voice ranting. I got up in the morning and ran on the treadmill, trying to outrun that voice. It didn’t work. (I did lose a couple pounds though.)

This morning I opened my email account, and there it is, the agent’s email address bolded, shining and golden, waiting to be opened. The subject line read “Memoir”. I closed my eyes and said a prayer. Whatever happens, I accept it as being for my highest good. I took a deep breath, and clicked it open.

It was a lovely, compassionate rejection letter.

BUT- she did say she knew this was a rough draft and she'd be open to reading it when it was complete.

I tried not to get my hopes up too high. I really did. But come on…it was impossible. You wanna know the truth? Secretly I banked my whole future on this. My music career has dwindled away to almost nothing. For the past year I have struggled inwardly with how to reinvent myself and where to invest all my creative energy. I have always written since I was a kid. This was what I was supposed to be doing all my life.

When I broke the news to my family and close friends, I did my best to keep my chin up. Everything happens for a reason, I said. But the truth is, I am heartbroken. It’s not just my manuscript that she rejected, it is my life story. It is me. Oh and that Inner critic bitch? Boy oh boy is she having a great time rubbing my face in it.

So what now? Get back on the horse. Yeah, I know, I know….But I can’t stop asking myself why this happened? Why did that agent have to drop into my Universe, open the door, and then slam it shut? And why oh why does life have to slap you upside the head every time it wants to teach you something?

Ouch.