Gaining Perspective Through Setting

Recently, I spent a couple days in good old LA, which is my dad's tongue-in-cheek name for Lower Altavista, Virginia. He grew up in Altavista, a small little town about twenty minutes south of Lynchburg on highway 29. My grandmother still lives in the house my dad grew up in. They moved in the year Kennedy was shot.

I spent a lot of my childhood there discovering the same places my dad had frequented as a child. Often, when I write, those memories come back to me. I think finding something true to write about helps yield your work an authenticity that can be otherwise hard to find. I began a new Work In Progress (WIP) this summer, and the setting of the story is based on Altavista. I needed a small town, one that almost seems lost in time. You drive into town and step into a world where the world moves a little more slowly, where folks wave when you drive by, and everyone knows your last name.

My grandmother, Dodie, was a wonderful resource, acting as my official tour guide and Altavista's historian. I learned about Altavista's beginnings and how it has grown into the town it is today.

I hit a roadblock in my writing earlier, so I decided to take the trip to inspire myself with the setting. I was able to sit out on my grandmother's back porch and listen to the train whistle through town, a sound I will forever associate with Altavista. Without music or internet or anything to distract me, I watched the fireflies come out at dusk. I heard the soft crunching of something moving through the woods which begin at the end of the back yard and trail down into a ravine where the old football practice field is slowly being overgrown by vegetation. Sometimes as a writer, I feel you have to take the time to immerse yourself in your setting. You have to live it, breathe it, feel it.

A Watchful Summer (my working title) is going to be a personal novel, hopefully one where I can capture that feeling of magic and curiosity that so pervaded my childhood. In a way, this novel is for me to come full circle. When I was thirteen, I discovered a manual Royal typewriter in my grandmother's closet. We dusted it off, had the ink bands replaced, and I took it home with me where I was able for the first time to truly shut the door and write on my own time (this was before laptops - I didn't get a personal computer until I moved to college.) In fact, it's that typewriter that I found in Altavista that inspired the name of this blog.

Here's a couple of pictures to get you in the mood: 

The Avoca House (technically the back)

The front of the Avoca House  

Lovely Victorian staircase

Bedford Avenue 

 

Woods near the house  

Staunton River 

Railroad tracks 

Cemetery where my grandfather is buried. 

-E

Querying Makes Me An Anxious Bitch

So I won't sugarcoat it; I know I've been terrible these last few months about posting anything. The sad truth is that after I finish a big writing project, I don't even want to write my name, let alone a blog post once or twice a week.

But I'm beginning to feel more refreshed and reinvigorated with my writing so hopefully, you'll be seeing me here more often, writing like I'm supposed to.

Since finishing the revision for Momentum, I spent some time dillydallying about the next step in the publishing process: querying literary agents.

Back in the day, you used to be able to send your Great American Novel as an unsolicited manuscript to the major publishing houses in hopes of hitting pay-dirt. Alas, this is no longer the way. Manuscripts ended up in the "slush" pile and were forgotten.

Nowadays, literary agents act as the "gate keepers" to the publishing world. They decide what is publishable and what is not, deciding which writers they'd like to take on. Agents maintain relationships with publishers and editors; they know the market. They're also the ones who pitch your novel and negotiate your contract once you've been offered a book deal. Basically, they're the author's advocate.

Landing an agent is my next task on the road to being published. It's not as easy as emailing someone and claiming you've written the next bestseller. It's becoming harder and harder to get noticed by agents. They receive hundreds of query emails (your book's "cover letter," like something that would be written on the back cover) a week and often are picky about what genres they're looking for and which books they'd like to take on.

I spent a week or so researching agents I hope will be interested in my book. I wrote my query letter, got together my sample chapters, and sent out my proposals.

Basically now, it's best to forget about it. Agents take several weeks to respond to queries, and more often than not, they only respond if they're interested in requesting a full or partial. Otherwise, expect radio silence. I still have a mini panic attack every time I check my email, but I'm learning to move on and if I hear from someone, then I'll celebrate. It's best not to get my hopes and take whatever response I get as a small victory.

Now I'm focusing on a new project! That's right: I have started another manuscript.

I'm actually expanding a short story I wrote last semester for one of my classes. It was well-received but during my revision, I knew the story wasn't finished. I saw the characters and the plot on a bigger scale than the 9,000 words I had already written. After finishing Momentum, it became clear to me that the story needed more.

It's always a wonderful feeling when I get The Next Idea. It is an exhilarating, singing sensation where I know - this is a Book Idea, not a short story, but a Book.

So for the time being I'm working on this new project, but I'll definitely be keeping you posted on any responses I get from my querying efforts.

Thanks for sticking with me.

-E