 So welcome to idea from idea to book and We're trying to we're offering these I don't know every semester every couple of semesters and and Michael did one I believe it was last in the summer all right, and so that to really Give you a sense of process since That's what we're working in here during your four semesters and I think it's really Useful for you to get a more detailed sort of inside look into the process that A writer's gone through in producing a book And each book is really different. I'll tell you that Even for in my case the process of writing each one of my books was different And and then my process of course would be very different from Michaels or from bills or ratios or or any of your process So so that's why it's good to hear this kind of thing from more than one person and hear about more than one book There's a lot that that you can learn So I'm going to be talking to you about centerville and And I'm going to start off with kind of the conception I'm going to talk about the you know the actual writing of it and and I did some research which I'll talk about too and And I'm also going to talk about I did a little reflecting on this I'm also going to talk about some of the obstacles that I ran up against and some of the difficulties that I had and then I'll talk about the Publication process which was sort of interesting because I worked with a couple different editors on it as it ended up at very different houses And and then I'll talk for a while and then I'll Will do a I'll ask if there any questions that I'm happy to do a Q&A or I'm happy to answer any questions that you have So this is a book that started off quite differently it was then my other novels and In that it it's based on something that Actually happened even though it's very fictionalized and so I tend to write about things that are completely different than than what I experience in my own life, so that's how it was really different for me and our departure and When so I'll tell you what the incident was first and then how I ended up writing about it So the incident occurred when I was about 10 years old and we had just moved to this We had left this island that I had grown up on and we had moved to this little town in Ohio All right, so we just moved this little town in Ohio and I had this girl that I became friends with Quickly and her father was as it turned out was a pharmacist in this little drug store And so that's where everybody would go like if you were a kid that age you go and her father We'd get free sodas if we went there. She's at the soda fountain, which was this big deal and and so this was in the late 1960s and It's 69 so anyway, what ended up happening was We were going it was a really hot day in the summer and we were going down there We walked downtown and we walked up to the drug door of the drug store and similar to The Sandy in my novel. This is the there are a couple things in there that are based on my memory and that's one of them I Put my hand on this door and backed away from it and I had no clue I had done that but I just knew I wasn't going in that store And so and she was kind of mad at me because I wasn't going in the store and instead we went down the Street to this bowling alley where a bunch of kids were hanging out including our brothers and some other friends about Five minutes after walking in there, maybe ten minutes. There was this big boom that sounded like thunder and we walked out and the drug store was a five-story building and it was completely in flames and Both her father and and her brother was in there, too So her she and her brother both went running into these flames and the flames just really quickly engulfed the couple of buildings That were next to it. So it was these enormous fire and the And the town did not have the resources to put it out right away and so it spread and spread very quickly and It there was a paint store near it and it hit a paint store and that exploded And so it was this enormous fire that lasted the rest of the day started it You know right around lunchtime and it went on went into the dark and And so just as a kid I was just running through this fire I mean I was in this yeah running through the fire trying to find her and there weren't any it was just kind of chaos so there wasn't You know there weren't So then my mother didn't know My mother knew that I was down. She thought it was in the drug store My brother was but anyway, and they didn't my parents didn't find us for a long time till like a thing in the evening So this is this long day and so this happened and it's not like as a kid I was young enough that it wasn't like it was real. I don't remember it like being like I remember it being like Scary and all that are kind of overwhelming, but I don't remember it being like really traumatic or anything like that It's not something that I thought about a lot as I grew up like oh, I had this trauma All right, you know I didn't I just kind of put it out of my mind Which I think is kind of a kid's reaction often, you know, I didn't really understand it So I just sort of stopped thinking about it. Maybe I don't know anyway I hadn't thought about it in years as an adult But I will say that as an adult what happened and this was sort of the trigger for the book is that Once I had kids I started having this dream every now and then and the dream was always that I was in that I was walking through this fire And there were these little bits of fire everywhere, you know these piece puddles of fire and In the dream. I was always looking for my kids. It was like one of my kids is in this fire I have to find them and it wasn't a nightmare really, but I remember sometimes waking up and thinking Oh, it's like I've been to hell, you know, it's like I was walking around in hell or something like what is this and So I had this dream once and you know how sometimes like you're having a dream and then the dream starts talking to you So like how like I'm having this dream and a dream is like saying You're the one in the fire Like it's a big message and so I woke up and I went. Oh, yeah I was the one in the fire like like I was the kid who got lost in the fire and So I at that I got up and I was going to write I was working on something different at the time But I got up and just off the top of my head I wrote out the scene of me being in the font of me being in the drug store Because it kind of came back in a flash like oh, I was almost in that drug store And so I wrote out the scene as if I was in the drug store And so that's the prologue that in the book and I wrote that out pretty much verbatim of how it is in the Book, I mean it made some where it doesn't isn't like I did revise it But I didn't make any huge changes after I wrote it and I wrote it in kind of a burst of In of imagery I had the images in my head so I just wrote it all and you know, I wrote it like in an hour or something and And and it's certainly in just a short morning and then I put it away And I because I didn't know what I didn't know if I was going to do anything with it I couldn't think it didn't occur to me that it could be a novel or that I don't know what it was and Then I didn't think about it really just kind of put it aside Didn't really look at it for about six months or maybe even closer to a year And then I happened to be and my parents I was helping them go through with stuff in the attic and I came across this box that had all this stuff in it from when I was a kid and It was all my stuff and it had this little journal is like my first little diary You know, so I'm opening that up and reading it and all the page entries are really short Like I have these entries like we got a puppy You know, it's like three pages later. They're completely blank where I wrote nothing in it And they don't be like I went to the pool today So I'm reading that I was not real a real big writer or anything in that age I guess and then all of a sudden I come to this entry for the date When the fire had occurred and it's like I've got six pages my bad handwriting that I filled and Then what was interesting to me was then the next day after that what I did in my diary is I wrote out this list of questions that I had about that fire and It was this interesting list of questions to me because I Realized reading it as an adult that I still have those same questions You know like one of them was why would somebody do this? Yes, a question that you would still ask as an adult like oh, I still have no clue I said when would do that? And how does something like you know, why does that happen and and and how come I didn't walk in that store and How come so-and-so did walk in the store and so I had these questions and You know, I was trying to say last night like often. I'm motivated in my writing by questions so I started then to Write more all of a sudden what I could see then it just kind of came to me like a flash I could see that there would be these four characters and that they would be You know kind of circling this fire and that they wouldn't that somehow or another my questions would be You know that I still had would be generating this this action And so So the book came out of initially those questions and in particular in as I say one of those questions was like who would do this So I kept in the real story. So in fact, I talked to my mom, you know my parents Oh, yeah, the guy who blew up the drugstore. He ended up getting killed in the fire. That was the real story But I decided I was gonna leave him alive so that he I could answer my question, right? I was gonna get to the bottom of this guy That's my idea and And so and so I wrote the whole first 225 pages probably Pretty quickly. I want to say for me pretty quickly like in a few months I wrote that and then I had the major pieces in place of all that and a lot of the stuff kind of came to me really Kind of in a flash after reading those questions like I could see Elizabeth And I could and I knew that she was gonna make this I guess I'm really fascinated with hobbies and the way in which her hobby can come it become an obsession And so I don't know if that's why that came to me that way But the building of that mosaic on the wall how that kind of gets out of control That was something that that I saw sort of immediately with her and The character of the policeman was probably the most problematic initially because you know anytime I think you have a type, you know, he's then that's you you want to it's hard hard to make them individual You know, so it's not this don't become a caricature or stereotype at all So I think I maybe initially I remember He was a little bit evasive, but at any rate I wrote these first 125 pages pretty quickly and the thing that generated it I think for me and made it easy for me to write is that I had this they were all moving around the fire You know so I had the fire in the center and then all these characters are circling the fire and to me the energy of that felt Sort of like this war techs or spiral and I could just it just gave me a lot of momentum So then I got to the end of that and And I was talking to my agent at the time and she said oh Yeah, send it to me. You know, even though it's not there send it to me So I send it to her And we have this conversation afterwards and the first thing she says to me is like she says wow This is really good. I really really great material. She goes, but what are you going to do now? And I was kind of like yeah So like that's the place where I got really stuck because I didn't have something that was a center anymore And I had these multiple points of view so I have these four different points of view So I needed something to be the center of this story to keep moving it forward if that makes any sense At least that's how it felt to me and I didn't know what that was and so, you know, I Sometimes call that like the whole middle of the book the soggy middle But like I was like caught in that for a long time and I couldn't figure out how to generate The plot or where it ought to be going and I had this George and I knew it had Valor I knew it had something to do with him and so so it was just It was just a lot of starts and stops and a lot of dead scenes and so sometimes I'd write a scene and And then I'd go back and look at it and it wouldn't be alive at all So when that happens with me often, I know that I've got the wrong thing Like it's I have to rethink the event or I have to rethink where that where it's going or where I'm trying to go with it so So that was that was the I was one of the hard parts another hard part was that I So when I finished it then when I got a draft a draft of it I gave it to my agent and I went down and we had this conversation And she read it had read it and the one of the first things she says to me Oh, yeah, it's all really great and it's not quite ready to be sent up and almost and she goes. You know what? The the church needs to blow it needs to explode the church needs to blow up And I said really And you know, it's my my response really and so she's yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it needs to You know, there needs to be this that needs to be the climax You know, you've got it set up. This is perfect opportunity. You need to blow up the church. So I So, okay, so she's a really good reader and I love my agent I'd had her for a long time. So I Thought okay, I'm gonna go work on this. I'm gonna I'm gonna blow up this church So or George Vifauer was going to And of course, I didn't want to do it for every reason you're thinking I didn't want to do it cuz like Oh my god, really would be totally melodramatic and to expect but anyway, I went home and I wrote this it's been a long time on this And I will say that I think that that scene of when I blew up that church when I finally got that scene I think it's one of the best scenes. I've ever written in my whole life And it was just so great when I got it and it was the way in which the minister went inside and found this officer and the imagery and the It just was so powerful and yet So so anyway, it was in there and yet what in ended up happening of course is that I realized I Couldn't blow up the church And then it didn't fit with something that George Fowler would do with what my character would do Because that he would that was not something he was interested because I hadn't really Understood my main character my character my killer because that's a question. I started with right Why is somebody who would do this? so I still didn't know who he was is what I realized and and The more I got to know him the more I realized that what he wanted was some sort of easy redemption and not to go blow up something else and So that's why I couldn't use it even though I liked the scene. I had to take it out and and and the other thing that was hard so two other things that I'll share with you that were hard and and one is that I Really struggled with those scenes in which that George Fowler is in where he's with the minister like I rewrote that dialogue over and over again because again I was having trouble with that character and Initially that character had actual chapters like that that character had a bigger voice in the book and Even up at the last minute this was like sort of right before it was sort of going into some final edits and all that and then taken and By a publisher. I just wasn't comfortable with way. I with that character and I just kept thinking I don't really understand this character and my and you know like agents and stuff will say to you things like well At least mind it was say like they're into psychology So they're like why would he do that like it's not clear like the motives aren't clear So I was trying to get it. Oh, what are his motives? I still didn't know what his motives were So I sort of in my mind just sort of driving myself crazy with all these questions And then the neat thing was is I was on the train ride going back from Ender So I had been here for a residency, right? And so I don't know something about being you're all thinking about you know You know how it is after the residency and your brain is kind of buzzing and you're thinking about all this stuff and So I'm riding back on a train and my brain was really going and I'm thinking all of a sudden I thought Wow, I just had this real breakthrough like the thing was I wasn't supposed to understand this character like this was the Character who was supposed to be completely who was supposed to be elusive like that's reality, right? And in my mind all of a sudden I realized like you can't know somebody like that Who would do something like blow up a store and kill a lot of people which he did kill a lot of people so I am So I reflect it I mean and one of the things I thought of when I was thinking of all this was you know story or you know Different novels or stories where this had happened and including like Flannery O'Connor's famous story You know good men is hard to find with a misfit and how like there is the misfit and you know you you you don't really You really don't She doesn't explain him at all. We don't know what his motives are you know Anyway, I related to that that that he that my killer had to be elusive in the same way So that what I ended up doing then was that's how I got all those little there's a lot of little elliptical passages that are Just italicized about the killer and so that's the only voice that you get of his and so I intentionally Made him I Realized that that he was not somebody who could be in should or should be explained at all and so I was happier with that and Then the other thing that was hard was predictably maybe is Sandy's When she puts her hand on the door and I think it's partly because that was my experience You know I always say this to students who are writing I've always said this to students who are writing if they're writing from something that's actually true Happened I always say change something really big change something at least one thing But if you only change one thing have to be something substantial something that matters Because otherwise then I think you get it's too easy to get stuck inside of trying to be true to something And then your imagination doesn't enter into play So I changed a lot of things you know and I changed with Sandy I didn't want her to be too close to me So I gave her a very different personality than mine and I made her and I made her a little older But still that scene which is something I had experienced and hadn't understood was very hard to write about so So I that's another scene that I rewrote over and over again It was really hard for me to get the The language and the action right and etc. I did a lot of research while I was working on it I tend to research everything. I read Martin Luther King sermons Which were wonderful. They're beautifully written. I recommend them I figured that my minister would have read read some of those so I read them and I I initially in a draft of the up and held towards the end I had some lines from his sermons in there and I can't remember why those were taken out now. I Think it might have been the rights or something anyway I had ended up taking those out but there's still the influence is still there because He has this amazing passage about evil in one of his sermons and In which he says it just really startled me He has this it's it's a couple of paragraphs. I can't remember the exact quote, but it's kind of along the lines of evils real Which is something I never believed You know, I don't believe I didn't believe evil is real until I read that and it really made me think about it And it's kind of like mate, you know have no question about it You know if you have a question about that, you're really naive. It's out there. It's real recognize it And if you don't you know, you're not it's kind of like you weren't accepting responsibility or seeing clearly And so I think that had a real influence on How I saw George Fowler and Have a minister What the minister was grappling with? The other things I used for research I read I Used the collection of life magazines from that period was partly how I decided on the weeks And so I wanted a place did after just just after those riots occurred in Detroit and Newark and there were lots of great pictures of those I Recommend the life magazines if you can get them I mean Mount Holyoke was wonderful because they had them bound and I could sit and actually look at the magazines rather than Microfisher something but the other thing that you'll get if you look at the at the magazines is you're going to get the all the You know the products people were using then and the types of cars that they were driving and All of that stuff. So that's so that's that's really useful Let's see. What other kind of research did I do? Oh, I did a lot of small-town research Drug stores small-town drug stores and the other thing that I did was I I did this online And you would be amazed how much you can find I had to research explosives, right? So how does one build a bomb and it's amazing. It's you can find it all out on mine All right, well, I know well, it's funny because my husband came home one night and I said oh I said this is really incredible. You would not believe you can go online and find out how to build all these bombs These ties about I've been doing this all day, you know, and he's like, but yeah, oh great. Are you telling me? You know FBI is going to be in our door tomorrow But nothing ever happened because of it. I guess they didn't catch me But yeah, I researched that so Okay, so I guess I guess I'll just talk a little bit about the publication and then I'll see if you have any questions Are we doing for time? So this was a really This book went through a lot of strange detours Some of which some of you know Some of them So I had this agent I had two different agents and two different editors during the course of trying to publish this book And I had this agent that I had had for all of my books I had her for a long time I had her since patchwork and I really I do still really love her She's this wonderful woman. She's an incredible reader a great agent, but what was happening was that? There were a lot of things a few things one I think she and she told me this she had kept me with the same editor for the first three books Which probably was not wise especially because this editor increasingly was not doing anything with books to you know Make sure that they it wasn't just me. I guess it was other authors To make sure that they got sales or she wasn't getting behind the books So there was that and then the other thing was is that she was very less available or less It wasn't sending out stuff as much and she wasn't and it wasn't me just me it was her She was struggling. I think she was getting close You know feeling like maybe she wanted to retire and then and then I didn't know about this at the time I found out about it later, but she had this huge personal thing that happened And so she I had just finished this novel and she was not in a position to be able to do anything with it And so I was just gonna wait on all that So I hadn't thought about leaving and then I happened to talk to her communicate with somebody who's a really well-known author And who is with William Morris, which is a really big agency and she said Let me see the novel so I emailed it to her and Then she or I mailed it to her and then she contacted me and said I love this I really want my agent to see it But you have to be ready to switch agents So it was really kind of a hard thing I don't know if I made right decisions, but I'm not a very I feel like I've not been I'm not great with the You know, I found that hard the whole figuring out that end of the career, you know the agent editor marketing all that I think it's it's hard landscape to probably to navigate for anyone Because it's changing so much and it's you know hard to know how to make decisions But at any rate I had a discussion with her on the phone a couple of them and she convinced me that What I needed was she said what you need is you need somebody who's well positioned and You need somebody who's gonna really do something because you know not enough has happened with your earlier books All right, so I decided I would do that and I switched over this agent other agent She was great in a way She Had me do some revision visions of the book which worked with me closely on that which I do think This is a benefit. I think if an agent will do that with you I think because you know it used to be that editors did that kind of work. They don't need more some more agents are and And and so that was very helpful and then she did send it out a lot I'm not sure about the I kind of found I kind of got the sense that it was a little bit I don't know if this is typical of bigger agencies, but it was sort of a little bit She had tons of contacts, but maybe they weren't it wasn't as carefully being placed because my old agent Would just do it one at a time and she kind of did it in bigger groups but at any rate and at any rate She did eventually sell it right and so she she got sold it to this editor at Found an editor who wanted it to acquire it and this editor was was with Broadway, which is a division of Random House and I had been with William Maro of Harper Collins before so it was a new publisher for me and in a new editor and I liked the editor a lot and she was a She was fairly new Well, she was new to that position, but she'd been in editing for years and I could tell she was really smart and she really got my book So it's all excited and So I worked with her on that book You know how like so then when the editor took it she wanted this this is as typical I think she wanted me to make a bunch of changes so this there was this like nine-month period where I'm making working on revisions and One of the things that she really wanted and this other person who had sent me to William Morris It said the same thing. I'm not sure about the ending So she wanted me to do this ending where She thought that all all everything had to be concluded. That's the only way I can describe it and So she wanted me to write we talked a lot about it. It was like, okay, I'll write an epilogue, you know, 20 30 years later and It was show how everything works out And so I had kind of mixed feelings about that but I wrote it and it's been a long time on it was long and animated some other changes to the end in addition and And I have it that's in the same the minister's giving in his last sermon and Sandy goes back to see it and And there's a scene between them and so you get a sense of how things have been resolved She wanted everything resolved sort of that sort of ending Oh, and the other thing was she felt very strongly about this. We have to see that Elizabeth and Jack get married And so I was kind of like what she first said that I was like you do and I because I thought well Maybe they wouldn't but I don't know but anyway, all right So I wrote that and I actually really liked ended up really liking a lot of that I have this scene between the two of them and they're older So I'd finished all that and the book was ready to I don't know There was a meeting on the book and the final stages of things and in the morning of that meeting It was I guess it happened at 8 o'clock The editor later told me this whole story they came in and And they fired out all of the fiction editors and one fell swoot and she was the Second she was the second I Forget what you call an editor and she for whatever of that division so she and then the person right above her and then all the fiction editors under them were let go and They had to just be out of there like they had to pick up that get up their stuff together and leave and And then they dropped the all the books including minds who dropped them I guess and I don't know quite it. I never quite anyway. It was it was they were able to do it legally as it turned out so And so my agent I didn't really I wasn't really I don't know I didn't feel like my agent handled that real great like in terms of how she communicated with me about it But she did eventually communicate with me about I had a hard time reaching her at first She said that she basically what she told me is She kind of conveyed to me that now my book was like a hot potato that nobody would want to touch Even though it had been dropped for reasons that had nothing to do with the book So I was kind of like okay, and so she said well show me your next novel. That was her Take on it eventually and so I Meanwhile the editor who had I'd been working with contacted me and she had gone back to her old job Our job. She had once had and she was editor-in-chief acquiring editor at women's day Wait a minute. What's what's the other one that's connected to women's day? ladies home journal and so So unfortunately what that meant for me is that she wasn't going to another house Because she was saying off is going to another house. I take the book, but she couldn't so she said oh That's outrageous that she won't shut. She's not even good at doing And so she's emailing me all this eventually she calls me She was upset about it and then she said this book is done It was you know you it needs to come out just send it to some small presses and So she kept on me about that. I probably wouldn't have done it She hadn't said kept saying that to me But anyway, that's why I sent it out myself to some small presses my agent. I asked my agent She never even responded in an email. I said, you know, you want to send it to some smaller presses to me And she didn't email me back so So I'm going to be trying to get a new age But if I can I think I'll go for one It's a smaller agency and that's kind of the other thing that Lorraine who's the editor said to me and one of her email She said, you know just a little bit of advice. I think you might be better off not having a big agent You know like like yeah, if you're really famous, it's great to have a big agency But maybe I was getting a little lost in all that So anyway, yeah, I I sent it. I only sent it out to a few places I think three places because it was hard work You have time did you have to write a letter and I Don't know I just didn't have time to send it out that much And I think I also wasn't sure how that would work or if it would work But I'll say that she was right and this I just want to give this to you as like So you can remember this it's if you if you need it at some point That if the book is good and the book is ready, it'll find a place like she told me that and I was like, oh sure But she was right like they you know the This press took it and and one of the places was a contest. It's I think it's called DZ ANC or something don't It's a mid It's a Mid-career Writers of fiction novelist prize. So you have to have written I think you have to have written three or four Maybe it's four books in order to apply for it So I had sent it into that has to be one that's not published that you send in So I'd send it in for that and I was a finalist for that and there were a lot of like really, you know Really great. I mean some names I recognized on the list with so I don't know I felt good about it and then they contacted me and said oh Well, we'll find a help you find a publisher, you know We can probably help you find a publisher if you need for it But I had already found that already heard from this place University of West Virginia I can't remember why I sent it to them. I think somebody I Did do some I did use do a trope a little bit, but I quite frankly I didn't have that much time and I I Think I found one place on that Another press and and coincidentally right after I took this I emailed them and said, you know, I've already Take gone signed on with a small other small press and they said oh We were just about to send you a letter saying we wanted to acquire it So I don't know I guess that I just I guess that's just a long story to say that they're that it was confirmation That what this editor Lorraine had been telling me was true And it was and I was kind of feeling really jaded I think about the whole book industry So it made me feel good that there are legitimate Avenues out there for all of us and that you know when your books ready you'll be able to find a place for it The other thing I'll say about this is that it was very different Working with these two different editors so then here I am at this house that is You know by their own description of what what are they what is this house? Oh, they're very They're they're literary they're they're more interested in publishing some of these literary So, you know, I'm not quite clear what they mean by that Everybody seems to have their own definition, but anyway, I start talking to this editor Oh, first of all what was different about the small press I don't know if this is the same for all of them But I have a couple other writers that I know are publishing with small presses and it was the same it's the same for them So it might be common so I'll mention it might be helpful to know this The way in which a small the small press work that was different than what I was used to is when I was with the major houses All the feedback comes from this one editor, right? Well at the small house It was the main editor you gives you her feedback, but then they give it to Some readers outside readers and this is through the University of West Virginia and they have a pretty big MFA program I think they're so they live they have an MFA program and so I think it went a couple of the faculty on there So anyway, I got these long letters from them, you know, like four-page single-space letters of feedback and I'd never experienced that before so now I've got like three different things and then I had to My job was and I only had like two days to do this or something I had to take all three of those things and respond to what I was going to do with them and which things I was going to change and which things I wasn't in terms of a revision and One of the letters was just pretty much this this woman just right here person just wrote everything was great And you know and why and there were just this little thing She wanted me to change but then the other letter had all this stuff, you know so I had to really think about it and So that was kind of interesting to get all this feedback and then the other thing that was really interesting was So I'm talking to the editor about it after getting all this feedback and she's like this ending has got to go You know like okay, like I mean what you know, what is this Jack and Elizabeth are getting married You know it was just so funny because she was like the exact opposite and in the middle of this where I'm like Taking all this feedback going. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I can get rid of this I Get this email from my first editor Lorraine who I'm still emailing back and forth with and She's so happy that I found this publisher and she's saying, you know, I'll do whatever I can ladies home journal Which she did she was great women's day, you know, I'll I'll I'll support the book, you know I'll whatever I can do and you have to keep me informed. I can't wait to see what you do with it And then she emails me The subject line PS, you know, I read the whatever you do Don't drop that ending Don't change a word of that ending, you know So it's like hard. So anyway, I ended up with the ending that the other press That was the other press the other thing that was kind of a nice surprise is that the I you know, you have all these different copy editors I really appreciate a good copy editor and I had the best copy editor through the small press and You know what the it was a graduate student who was doing an internship and she's going on to be an editor I still get I still get emails from her and she was fabulous and not just on the line of the Because I even appreciate a good copy editor just talking about syntax and punctuation and somebody who understands style but she was great in terms of compression of the language if any place wasn't quite clear for a reason or a word choice was Slightly off. She had tons of stuff She did she did so much work on that book and and she was so great to work with and The editing process was really quick because they acquired the book in January was when I had to write those letters and Then I had to be done with all the edits by May beginning of May So usually I think typically it's more like a year, but this was was on it was like six months. So, um, I Don't know if I have anything else that I've got down here. Do you have any questions you want to ask me? Yeah Oh, thank you Oh, thank you well, you know and I was saying This in my workshop this time because everybody in there had these sort of complicated Plots and points of view and stuff, but I and you know a lot of people working on Novels that had a few different storylines But I think if you have a few different storylines or a few different points of view in your book You know one of the things you need to do is Increasingly those stories need to those lines need to cross you need to find ways for them to intersect and You can find this in any Any any book that does that well examine it. It's interesting. You'll find the places where they cross are often You know have the potential for this great dramatic energy. And so that was one of my first early attempts to make those Storylines cross in some sort of a meaningful way and these two characters who hadn't known each other and Yeah, the mosaic thing I think that that partly come I might have a sister who's an artist She's an art therapist, but also an artist and she works a lot with she does work with mosaics and You know on as much smaller Level like you know doing like small pieces around fireplaces or something like that So that was like I think you know where that image came from and then again the idea of has always really appealed to me of Somebody who has a hobby that and then it then it becomes an obsession Yeah Now does a drugstore? I Didn't go back after we didn't live there very long and I don't know if I went back We live there a few years for a long time. It didn't went that during the for probably even I think might have been even up to ten years. It really was nothing. They didn't build anything there And you know, that's a good question. What is it now? I resisted going back I thought about because I was kind of traveling near there at one point and I thought oh I should just drive back past circle through through this place, but I just I didn't because I Don't know there was something that kind of I Just felt like it might mess me up or something Because I had that I had the town of my imagination You know No, it's funny I have no I have not had the dream so maybe I never really thought about it if I got a resolution I mean, I just realized like like I was saying the other night your questions never can be answered I was one of mine. I was kind of mad that my first realize and I could be able to answer this question But I think that ultimately Yeah, there must be some sort of resolution even though I didn't ever feel like I had Understood it really any better or much better That was hard, I mean we wrote those sections a lot I mean, I think that I Think that it would it took me a long time to get both of those characters and what they would say minister was hard too because you know I didn't want him to be to be predictable And there was that whole question of does the minister with the minister like turn him in right away or whatever I Went back and forth in my mind on that But I what I did with that dialogue. I know that made a difference For me was I I sometimes do this I split it up into monologues so I wrote them each out as their monologues and Because because that allows you in a in a dialogue like that where the two voices are really really different You have to do a few things right you have to have these two very different voices That might be on the same page or in that case their case weren't on the same page a lot of the time and then the other thing that you have to have is you have to have the You know the conflict that somehow or another is playing out between them and These were two characters. I think the reason I did it I'm just trying to think why did I do it that way? but I think the reason I did it that way was probably because That was an instance where these were two characters who weren't always communicating with each other So it wasn't like, you know, they were hearing one another and then responding So I think it was useful for me to really get to hear their voices to sort of write them out as a Ran and then write the other one out and then try to put it together and work out the responses so that there are places in The dialogue where the two of them are kind of going at it head-on with each other But then like you said there are these other places where George just says something sort of out of left field that doesn't relate to what the minister has said Yeah, thanks for asking about that scene though because those scenes were You mean give up on trying to publish it I mean Did I give up I can't remember I I think I've wiped it from my memory. I Fortunately, I don't remember that It's hard to it's hard to do that. You're right. And you know, of course, it's devastating to get that news. I Think it really helped me. I Think it always helps to have people that you're talking to about it It really helped me to talk to the editor Because she was like I think about her. I mean she's just they just all got fired right off of you know, they had out of nowhere and So it kind of put it in perspective for me that mine was just one book This was her life, you know, and then and then it was so so that was the first conversation I had with her that sort of like put it in perspective getting the story from her and then she was very generous and you know Communicating with me and wanting to kind of keep keep she kept pushing You know, she was she would just email me again and say have you done anything yet with it? And so I think that that helped me a lot was to have somebody because I could sense in her emails and in her When she called me the couple times she called me how much she believed in it and I think that that made it a little more possible for me to Believe it, but yeah, when I sent it out myself to those small presses. I thought I really didn't think anything would I think that's probably why I only sent out to a few places because I didn't expect it to go Anywhere I was kind of just doing it because she she thought I should Yeah I revised it a number of times since my agent he tried to auction it didn't didn't go finally random house bought it and The editor there they are like your situation really like it and then she took a job as a senior editor at Harper Collins So she tried to bring the book. Well, it's just at that time. Harper Collins was cutting a hundred fifty titles Oh, why cut down and I came into that, you know that vortex Three years and random house didn't want to publish the book because there's no there's nobody there who want it was a supporter of it Okay, who was gonna be the person ushering if you have a fatherless? Yeah, book at a place. It's it's spells a death. So for three years. It just happened I went on to write my next book. Yeah, and the meantime I got myself a lawyer The lawyer looked at all that this is back in the early days email But mostly was paper trail. Give me the paper trail. So I sent him a little paper truck My argument was it's gonna hurt my career. They promised they already paid me a lot And he sent a letter to Harper Collins later. We said your book will be out in October And and I knew that they were gonna just publish it and then wash your hands And and so I did all sorts of stuff and I really got behind it I read interviews of people who published self-published their books are published in a small press or even published in a large press And I for the year I did everything imaginable and that book went into eight editions and first first in her back and three editions And paperback at one all sorts of awards and yeah, I think they wanted me for the next book And give me two more country, but that was the first thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yes for three years I was in a funk, but I had to move on and write the next book Okay, and sometimes it happens and it's happened with short stories of mine. It had you know, yeah I thought it was I thought it was the only off of this ever happened to And you find out it's very common and what you have to do is you have to go on to the next book Okay, you have to make sure that first book is good and and at some point if nothing ever happened to it I knew that first book was good. I would have sent it somewhere else on my own I would have done exactly what you did. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know, I think that In some ways Small press was just as you because nowadays, you know a lot of these bigger presses The sort of Lorraine was telling me this and I think this is probably true a lot of the bigger presses aren't doing that much publicity You know, you're not getting as much marketing or publicity as you used to get I mean my first two books, especially my second book. They sent me all over the country on tour I mean, they don't do that anymore, you know I remember it didn't happen with my third book and that was where my editor didn't get behind it at all And then, you know, the sales were were not I mean it did come out in paperback and everything and it got some very good Very good reviews, but the sales weren't great and so you know, I think that The small press what I was impressed with is that they really did and I was talking to Al about this Actually this morning because he was saying his press does the same thing They really did a good job of sending it out to get Reviewed like to a lot of places. They didn't kind of keep on them as much as they could have I'm in a very I was in a very good position about with this because I in terms of publicity because I have there's a woman that I went to college with and She was an English major or she became a publicist and She worked she's done a lot of things, but she was for a while She was with one of the bigger Publishing houses as a publicist and she got kind of sick of how they were doing things. So she So she went out on her own and and she's able to just freelance and But she's had all these really big clients like she was the main publicist for a number of years She got tired of doing that too. I think with the beat for the Bezos family, you know, they own Amazon and so she's she is really good and She You know, she's just so nice and she loves my books and she was like, you know, she wouldn't even I mean I took her So he's ridiculous. I took her out to dinner a few times. I mean she wouldn't let me give her any money for it She just did all this extra work So she sent out for me also so that she the publicist at the at the small house She was the thing that was good about it was that this was a young woman and she was Instead of being territorial about it, which my friend was afraid she might run into she said yeah I don't know much. I'll be able to use some as publicist territorial. This woman was not at all She was like she was new to it. She was like, oh, I really want to learn from you So they would do things like split lists and anyway I think the book got sent out to a few more newspapers and stuff that way She sent it out to some awards and and I did get that independent publishing award for fiction that year Which was great And and that resulted in I forgot to bring the stickers with me But anyway, there are all these stickers that supposedly I didn't maybe they don't seem to be putting them on the books They're supposed to be putting the stickers on the books. Oh, you've got one. Yeah Yeah, so they put these little gold stickers on that's supposed to help help sales But I went to I did a lot of readings. I Was in Virginia as a writer-in-residence Right after it came out so I also did a lot of readings in the south and in that kind of Midwest area and I did I Did some at universities universities and colleges are very good places to read because you have a bigger often get a bigger audience than you would in a bookstore and I did Virginia Festival the book which is a really great book festival and They put you on a panel you have to apply for it. So you have to send your book in and apply and then it's really fun to these writers and and And you're there you're on a panel and then they and then people buy your book after that and then and then what was great About that was that through that for junior festival the book somebody who a writer down there who? Who works with one of the bookstores who runs a big book group is a large book group like I don't know 40 people or something and She read my book And then contacted me and said if she used it with her book group would I talk with them? Which of course I would So then that was a great opportunity that I think it was like I did the panel one day and then the next day I did that Did that book group? so So yeah, I tried to do everything I could you do have to You know, I think especially now you really have to a lot of this comes down to Maybe with the bigger houses too, but certainly with a small house you sort of there They were very willing to help me with the logistics getting the books there Helping to set up the readings, but I had to make the initial moves So I had to say oh, you know, I'm gonna be so-and-so Wonder if there's a bookstore. Could you could you email this bookstore? See if so I had to kind of take the initiative and I've never had to do that before I mean always in the past the publicist has just set it up and they send you this schedule and then you go do it But I had to come up with my own events and my own schedules and stuff Yeah, so any other questions? All right. Well, thank you