Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Waiting to edit a book is a scary proposition.  Waiting to edit a first book is more terrifying still.  And here we are, Judy and Julie, in this precarious position.  As for our part, we have dotted every i and crossed every t, and we're not very good at criticism, yet here we wait for the other shoe to fall.  What if no one picks up the shoe?  (the book)  Would anyone want to read it? Can the lives of two ordinary women catch the fancy of other ordinary women?  Wait, no one is ordinary. 

There is no murder in this book,  but plenty of deaths, no mayhem, but many left turns, no mystery, but wait.  Perhaps there is.

Can you wait until next March?

20 comments:

  1. I can't wait until next March! Let's get it published today! You mean I must exercise patience? Oh, well.

    The Judy half of Judy and Julie

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  2. We should choose a title pretty soon, don't you think? Would Letter Scribblers work?

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  5. Hey, Julie
    I just found this quote that I love and it seems meant for us! From The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion: "He had finished a novel, Nothing Lost, which was caught in the predictable limbo of a prolonged period between delivery and publication, and he was undergoing an equally predictable crisis of confidence about the book he was then beginning..."

    Isn't it comforting to know our feelings are NORMAL?

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  6. It is comforting. And I have been reading an old novel by Michener, titled "The Novel." He talks about his crisis of confidence as well as his year-long editing process, prodded on by his editor. Our editing process will be a test, I think, of our own ability to handle criticism. I'm hoping we can take a deep breath and then shake it off as a duck shakes off water while working to make the manuscript the best we can.

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    1. I've never been good at criticism, so I'll work at getting on my armor. Sticks and stones, you know.

      Just picked more chokecherries out in the backyard. Hope this jelly jells as well as the Mirabelle plum jam did!

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  7. Sounds Interesting. I can't wait to pick up a copy. It must be pretty exciting to be getting published for your first time. What's the title of the book?

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  8. How about "A Journey of Letters?" Little girls first, then teenagers, then young starry-eyed married women, then mothers. Where did all this grey hair come from?

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  9. Julie, I love the blog title and I had no problem getting here. I think you're there. Or at least half-way there?

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    1. Hey, Julie

      I can't believe as old as we are we're now blogging and facebooking. Don't tell me we'll soon be twittering! I guess it just shows you're never too old to learn! The grandkids are calling...gotta go!

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  10. Hi Judy and Julie,
    So excited for you two wonderful ladies. How amazing you are to actually accomplish the awesome task of publishing a book. I hear people talk about writing a book, but they never get past the title. You, on the other hand, collaborated, putting in the hard work necessary to achieve your goal. I look forward to reading your book.

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  11. This blog suffers from loneliness, inattention, and disuse. It is like a somnolent fly dozing in the hot sun, confined by the small space between the window glass and the screen, shut in and seemingly forgotten. Think of the blog pining away, forgetting its purpose, enticing no one to new thoughts or happy chuckles. The cause: I once remember reading that Cecil Rhodes of South African fame once said, firmly believed, that peoples living in the hottest latitudes of the earth (look on your map and think of the broiling relentless sun) simply are not able to function well. They invent nothing, they explore nothing, they think hardly at all. Contrast this with people of the “north,” who invented moon rockets, the car, the plane, the computer (though some might claim that last an unhappy accident).

    I now believe that maxim. At present we are wading through an extremely hot summer; over fifty days of over 90 degrees. Every afternoon I experience blankness of mind and energy, and sit half dozing, thinking nothing is worth thinking about, just like that fly. On the rare afternoon when the temperature is below 90 I begin to remember who I am and sense some long-forgotten excitement about life.

    I am hoping, when I can think at all (right now is an exception…I am doing it…but it is also 6:42 AM)…that like the fly and like me, this blog will wake up some morning in the last week of August and begin to produce words, ideas, enervating thoughts full of laughter and promise and certain presence of mind.

    My theory about the heat, and indeed Rhodes’ premise, needs testing. Would anyone like to weigh in, or slither in, albeit with sweat pouring from every pore, eyes glazed with heat mirage, fingers threatening to drown the computer keys?

    All this scurries around in my mind (on cool days only) while awaiting book editing in October.

    Julie

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    1. Oh dear, I'm never going to feel the same about flies! I used to swat them or whisk them outside. Now I'll think of your book!!! But I DO like your title. It's perfect. And I can't wait to have the book in hand! I'm excited for you two authors!

      One "fly" question: can a fly really "wake up some morning and produce words, ideas, enervating thoughts full of laughter...?"

      Sarah

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  12. Hey, Julie!
    How's it going at the farm? Smoke from the fires nearby? Picking beans? Canning? Even though today is 20 degrees cooler than yesterday and the lethargic fly in the window seems almost dead, so does my brain. The summer of heat, beloved out-of-town guests and one too many games of Monopoly with my volatile 9 1/2 year old 'teenage' grandson have finally gotten to me. I'm almost catatonic as I ponder the future of this upcoming editing. It has been only two months since that we pressed the SEND key with total relief and happiness and now only two weeks until the initial editing phase begins. I can only repeat in my head Doris Day's song...whatever will be will be!

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  13. Today I am thinking about long ago writers; the ones who wrote with their pen or pencil. How about Jane Austen or Dickens or Thackeray or Tolkien or Joyce, to name a token few. How did they do it? If I write more than a few lines, my hands ache. My patience evaporates. I can't wait to get to a computer. I'm a wimp, a slacker, a weakling.

    And yet, the magic of words draws me. A few sentences well-written (and mine are mighty few) make me feel as if I've discovered something unique. Somehow I enter a new "tessera," a different sphere, a splendid colorful dimension, and I'd like to think I won't be the same, ever again.

    And given the presence of modern technology, I will take advantage of that laptop. Not to use it would be just as silly as using tin cans and string to call my sons in North Carolina or California or Colorado, when I could phone or skype. (Except for the occasional sit-down with my perfect pen and a hand drawn or painted card; those are experiences, not just notes.)

    Are my metaphors too mixed?

    Julie

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    1. The magic of words indeed! It's so easy to get lost when writing, but like you, my thoughts come slowly and my sentences seem few. I'm always one thought ahead, yet five thoughts behind, and my words sometimes evaporate before I even write them down.

      Prolific writers ARE amazing. How did they write that many words in one short lifetime? When we were in North Carolina last spring, Scott and I went to a museum that had one full wing devoted to Outsider Art. Did you ever hear of that? Fascinated, I stared at the simple, folk type images and knew the feeling of those untrained artists and their intense desire to create and share their stories. Look them up...Howard Finster, Jimmy Lee Sudduth, Mose Toliver, among many others. I thought, well, maybe I'm an Outsider Writer. (I wanted to coin the phrase, but found others had done it before me!)

      I'm also inspired by Grandma Moses and Helen Hooven Santmyer, ladies that found ways to express their stories when they were even older than we are!

      Judy

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