This past Monday I took one giant leap closer to releasing Murphy’s Troubles on Amazon.  I had a telephone conference with my design team at Create Space.  I panicked when my manuscript file was converted to a book format came in at 501 pages.  I attempted to change the formatting and physical dimensions of the book (called trim size) to reduce the page count.  It became clear that I had stumbled into the realm of graphic design experts and I was lost.

For a $349 I purchased the Create Space interior design package.  They sent me a document with recommendations for:  trim size, body copy font, accent font and fleuron (that squiggly thing separating major paragraph breaks within a chapter).  Before purchasing the package I was asked three times if I would like to try to do the interior design myself.  I appreciated not having a hard sell but I knew I needed help.

My graphic designer, Anna, led me through a series of questions to make the decisions that will shape the physical book.  I didn’t hesitate to ask for recommendations.  First choice – trim size.  Originally I chose 8.5 x 5.5.  Anna recommended 8 x 5 because it was more common for my genre.  She was able to tell me that size would result in a 330 page book, perfect.  I reviewed the various font options with my cover designer because I trust his judgment in the visual appearance of the book.  We chose Mercury for the body copy font (interior paragraph font); Charlemagne for the accent font (chapter headings) and a simple fleuron.  Next I was asked if I wanted the right page chapters.  That means each new chapter would always begin on a right hand page.  At first I thought that was a good idea.  However, Anna pointed out that could add 30 pages to the total page count.  I didn’t want to do that and she explained that most fiction books don’t have right page chapters.

Finally, we reviewed the image size of my book cover.  When I uploaded the cover file several months ago we guessed at the trim size.  We downsized the book so now the image needs to be adjusted.  I notified my cover designer and will have a properly sized image in about a week.

With all these decisions behind me the book seems much more real because it’s taking on physical shape in the real world.  I’ll be sent an electronic proof on 10/28 but I asked to be sent a physical proof which should arrive in early November.        

In February I terminated my contract with Mischievous Muse Press to begin the journey to self-publication.  Since then the book cover has been completely redesigned and the back of the book blurb tossed and re-written.

The first edit the manuscript had was a substantive edit by my friend and mentor Marshall Cook.  As a result I added two chapters and re-wrote the last chapter, dramatically changing the ending of the book.  Marshall convinced me that making the last paragraph of the book a cliff hanger just wasn’t fair to the reader.  Of course, he’s right.

Next, my website:   www.rexowens.us had a complete make-over.  I actually hired a pro to provide me with an analysis and make specific recommendations for change.  I accepted all the recommendations and in a single month saw a 25% jump in hits.

It took quite a while for me to find a compatible copyeditor/proofreader.  In August I found Christine Keleny of www.ckbookspublishing.com, who lives in a small town right here in Dane County, Wisconsin. Christine provided both insightful copyediting and line proofreading.  It has taken me about a month to review Christine’s recommendations and incorporate about 98% of them (Christine would prefer I write out all numerals).  In September I also took a one day brush- up course on grammar and punctuation because my experience with Christine was proof it would be beneficial for me.

I am now on the brink of publication.  First, I will be doing technical editing on formatting and consistency in the manuscript.  Then will come the day that I upload the manuscript to Create Space.  Recently, Create Space is offering more options on what is called interior design.  I want to take my time to get the “look” that I want for the book.  Create Space will also send me a hard copy galley to review and make final changes.  Then, the hour will arrive in October when MURPHY’S TROUBLES is published.

I want to choose a date for publication that coincides with a significant event in the history of the Provisional Irish Republican Army.  Right now I’m leaning toward 27 October (1980) the day the first Hunger Strike began.    

  

For my parents’ generation it was December 7, 1941.  For my generation it will always be September 11, 2001.  That year it was on a Tuesday.  This year it’s a Wednesday, time marches on.  Like most of us I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing.

The tragedy of so many innocent lives lost in a single day remains incredulous.  For us survivors it has been the twelve years past that weigh on us.  As recently as the last two years, NYC firefighters had to fight in Congress to receive benefits they deserve for health care.  My brother-in-law works for FEMA and he spent months at ground zero.  To this day he can’t, he won’t talk about his experience.

That day we all became hostages to terrorism.  We have fought a twelve year war against an enemy that isn’t a state but a movement.  Killing Bin Laden didn’t have the emotional satisfaction we all anticipated.  When President Obama announced Bin Laden’s death there were impromptu demonstrations in streets with cheering, flag waving, and singing. The jubilation faded as quickly as it began. 

 For several weeks CNN and other news media flooded us with the details of the seal team’s mission.  Yet, it wasn’t satisfying.  We all knew the war goes on.  Try flying anywhere and you’re reminded that we continue to live under the anvil of terrorism.

Terrorism is based on fear, the unexpected and continuous danger.  The Provisional Irish Republication Army invented modern day terrorism.  The Provisional IRA was the first officially internationally designated terrorist organization for their unique form of warfare from 1968-1998 called The Troubles.

I don’t know if either the national psyche or our individual psyche will recover from terrorism’s threat in my lifetime.

I like quotes that inspire, provide perspective, get me in touch with myself and express a truth in simple words.  All around my office I have little pieces of paper with quotes hanging with scotch tape on bookcases, walls, etc.  I thought I would share some of my favorite.

“Do or do not.  There is no try.”  Jedi Master Yoda

“The individual human spirit is nourished by a sense of connectedness to the whole of human awareness.” I Ching

“Don’t want to be a writer.  Be writing.”  William Faulkner

“Be careful who you let read your work.   I’m a big believer in writing programs and workshops, but you can’t listen to everybody’s voice.  You have to decide who you’re going to trust.  First yourself.”  Alice Hoffman

“To dream anything that you want to dream, that is the beauty of the human mind.  To do anything that you want to do, that is the strength of the human will.  To trust yourself, to test the limits, that is the courage to succeed.”  Bernard Edmonds

This isn’t the whole collection, but I’m sure you get the flavor.  Send me your favorite quote and I’ll write a blog on quotes that folks send in.

  

I like LinkedIn because it’s professional and has allowed me to participate in a number (read +10) discussion groups for authors.  On several occasions I have posted questions to discussion groups on a writing topic and each time received very useful, direct answers.

One hazard of belong to online discussion groups is that you become a known person.  Recently I was invited to belong to a new professional social network for writers based in Australia.  The international connection intrigued me.  It was a Beta site and I had been selected to participate in the site’s beta test.   At the time I thought it was a distinction.

Soon after I joined I was asked to add a profile and I provided the minimal information.  Then there was an avalanche of messages.  There were messages from strangers asking me to be “friends”.  There were messages from “groups” asking me to join their group.  I figured out how to respond to the invitations to groups.  The groups I joined included ‘serious writers’; ‘novelists’ and others of that type.  That of course led to a barrage of posts.  I began receiving 30-40 posts a day from this one site.

Wanting to have online etiquette, I wanted to respond to those who had asked to be friends.  I couldn’t figure it out.  Not to be outdone, I simply sent a post out asking how to respond to a “friend request.”  No friends responded.  Next, I used the contact form on the site to ask how to respond to a “friend request”.  I waited 4 days without a response.

Joining the Beta site has been too much of a good thing.  Now, I’m stuck.  I don’t know how to ‘unjoin’ the beta site and I’m swamped with too much e-mail.  I’ve paid the price.  

At least once a week I check this blog just in case someone leaves a comment.  This week I glanced at the first sentence and was horrified to read the wrong word “below” instead of “belong”.  As we all know from experience, spell check doesn’t catch this type of anomaly.  It’s sad really.  With today’s programming geniuses you would think someone could develop a program that would also check context and suggest corrections to these types of mistakes.

Making that type of mistake embarrassing, my only solace is that nearly every writer has had that happen.  With a mistake in the lead sentence I thought I should re-read the entire post.  Guess what?  Another error, I wrote “authors experience” instead of “authors’ experience” and this error was in the second sentence!  This was a classic proofreading error.

To say the least, I am humbled by my own fallibility.  I apologize to readers for not being more careful.  I’ll strive to do better in the future.  

We are fortunate in Madison to have several independent bookstores and bookstores for used books.  One of the best is A Room of One’s Own on the corner of Gorham and State Street, lodged snugly between the State Capitol and the UW-Madison campus.

The bookstore has a long and strong record of supporting independent authors, local authors and Wisconsin authors.   At their website: www.roomofonesown.com on the left margin they list the author book readings they sponsor every month.  Generally, they host 4-6 authors.

Authors are often depicted as solitary souls and my experience for attending readings and writer’s conferences for more than 15 years it that this is a myth.  Authors like to meet readers, respond to questions and have their work heard by reading it out loud themselves.  Publishers would like us to believe the primary purpose of author book readings is to sell books.  I don’t believe it is, although, hopefully for the author it does result in at least modest book sales.  The purpose for the author is to connect with readers.  How dismal it is to spend years producing a book and then not have any contact with your readers.  It is certainly a form of purgatory if not hell itself.

Last week I attended a reading by Ben Miller of his first published work, RIVER BEND CHRONICLE.  He greeted my wife and me with a warm handshake and an introduction to his wife and several other family members.  Sadly for Ben, the crowd included only Lynette, me and the Miller family members.  Not daunted in the least Ben gave a spirited reading from a scene in his book about growing up in urban (yes, urban) Iowa; Davenport, Iowa to be specific.  He also took questions and the entire event was about an hour.

From his reading I learned Ben is an excellent writer and his prose are dense and thought provoking.  Of course I had to buy the book and have him sign it.  Ben was thrilled to have me buy his book – not because it was a sale that would blossom his income – because he met a reader – his reader.  My wife was amazed at how Ben bubbled over me and was sincerely appreciative of our attendance.  I won’t forget Ben Miller and I’ve dived head first into his book.

Please, go to an author reading whenever you get a chance.  Lonely authors need the human connection as much as anyone – maybe more.

Please take the time to comment and share your author reading experiences on my blog. 

Reading a good literary work does the heart and soul good.  With our recent celebration of Blooms Day on June 16th (a coincidence with Father’s Day this year) I thought it fitting to dive into a recently published literary novel and found John Banville’s ANCIENT LIGHT, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2012.  The story is told by first person narrator, Alexander Cleave.  Alex toggles back and forth between the story of his affair with his best friend’s mother at age 15 and his transition to movie acting and the loss of his daughter in later years.

Banville language is nothing short of elegant and single sentences can be a paragraph long.  Yet, there is a rhythm and cadence to the writing that makes it a very easy read.  In some ways it’s also an “anti-novel” by modern standards because there is no plot, nothing the protagonist must have to live, and no conflict in the Donald Maass – WRITING THE BREAKOUT NOVEL model.

Alex simply tells his story of his life from vantage of old age reflecting on what happened and not always sure if it actually happened or it’s make believe.  For a sample of the language Banville commands, here is a description Alex has of his co-star in the movie:

“She is impossibly thin, as they all have to be these days – “Oh, but I don’t eat,” she told me, with a tinkly laugh, when we broke for lunch, and I gallantly offered to fetch her a sandwich – especially on the inner sides of her upper arms I notice, which are positively concave, with sinews unpleasantly on display under the pallid skin that makes me think, I am sorry to say, of a plucked chicken.”

We know exactly what his co-star looks like through his eyes and also have his perspective woven into the description.

So, for your summer read – try a literary novel, it will do you a world of good and be a good reprise from the host of formulaic novels available anywhere.   

What is your favorite literary novel?

Several years ago at a Writer’s Institute Conference I was convinced of the wisdom of having one or more beta readers for my novel.  The first person that had the job I didn’t know.  It was a relative of a friend I met at the conference who swore by his sister-in-laws skills at reading and commenting on fiction.

Several weeks after submitting my manuscript to her she sent me a three page, scathing e-mail that ripped my manuscript and me apart.  It was very personal and disturbing.  She closed her written critique by stating she hated historical fiction and felt she had wasted her time in reading my manuscript.  My friend was embarrassed and I felt I wasted my time in letting a stranger serve as a beta reader.  Lesson learned – ask someone you know and trust to be your beta reader.

I asked my friend Rob for his help.  He was thorough and insightful and helped me with theme and timeline but he insisted on telling me what the title of the book should be.  In fact, he obsessed about the title and would even call me for weeks with his latest rendition of what the title should be.  That should have been a warning to me but I didn’t heed it.

After getting a galley back from the publisher I parted ways with in February I asked Rob to serve as my beta reader again.  Again, he took about three weeks to give it a good read and took copious notes and made many notes in the manuscript.   I also gave him a copy of my latest version of the back of the book blurb.  When he called me to arrange a time to meet to review his comments he proudly announced that he had re-written my back of the book blub.  What?  

Making comments, suggestions, having a discussion is fine.  But re-writing just isn’t acceptable, it crosses the line.  My friend is a song writer and we discuss his songs, I make comments and suggestions but I’ NEVER re-written the music or lyrics to one of his songs.

He also claimed I had a number of misspellings.  One he constantly corrected was Midleton (one d) a city in Ireland east of Cork and the location of the distillery making Ireland’s finest single malt whiskey.  He corrected everyone to Middleton (two d’s).  He didn’t take the time to ask me about the spelling or research it himself, he was arrogant enough to correct me.

So, as you might imagine, I’m searching for a new beta reader.  Anyone interested in being a beta reader to help a writer? 

What 20th century author would you have dinner with, if you could choose anyone living or deceased?  For me it would be Ray Bradbury who died last June at the age of 91.  Bradbury had a unique creative genius and a gift for storytelling that sucked you into a story and then lead you to believe the most incredible, surrealistic things.   I suspect that most boys, at some point, have an obsession with Bradbury, mine started in high school and lasted until my mid 30’s.

At dinner I would ask Ray how he imagined stories such as Fahrenheit 451 and the Martian Chronicles.  Although Bradbury’s reputation rested on science fiction and dystopia societies, I like the “down home” books like:   Something Wicked This Way Comes, Dandelion Wine and I Sing the Body Electric.

Bradbury was a self-made writer, didn’t attend college and didn’t attend writer’s conferences or have an MFA.  Bradbury took Faulkner’s advice, “Don’t be a writer.  Be writing.”

Who would you have dinner with?