September Ends: A Beautiful Little Story About a Novel Collaboration

Today, I'm very happy to have as a Guest Blogger one of the inaugural members of EditingGenius, Hunter S. Jones, the author of September Ends. She writes today about writing through struggle. Hers is a fascinating story. 

Thank you very much for having me as your guest this week. Like most people, my story is mainly the story of finding and making your way. I have been involved in corporate America for years building a very busy and successful sales career. When you are that busy reading becomes a luxury because you are constantly dealing with contracts and paperwork. Pity isn’t it? To get so caught up in the world that your own passions are pushed aside. Writing was something that only happened when I traveled or attended an event. Oftentimes, someone would want to publish a quick story about fashion or the global interest in the US, from a native Southerners perspective.

One Saturday my entire life changed. It’s true what you hear – your life can change in a heartbeat.  In the middle of running errands and doing everyday things, I decided to take a short break and sit down. Next thing you know, the phone is ringing. I’m off the sofa at my usual pace of 0-60 in 1.3 seconds. Only this time, it didn’t happen. Somehow the back of my foot was caught underneath the tiny opening between the sofa and the floor. My Achilles tendon was completely severed. Ruptured to the point of needing surgical repair. 

In that millisecond, I went from being an extroverted, outgoing active person to being an exile in my own home. I even required assistance to return to the doctor’s office. 

So, what to do? Sit around, get depressed and drink beer? No, that’s just not me. I decided to write. I could turn on the computer and connect via social media to anywhere on earth. My always vivid imagination could run full tilt, even if I could not. And write I have. I became involved with an online writer’s group called ASMSG. From there, I have become involved with some of the hottest indie authors on the market. Somehow, Dean Walker, the creator of ExpatsPost.com, and I connected. (Funny thing, he is originally from Atlanta and now resides in California.) I have connected with wonderful, creative people from around the globe, only this time it’s from a computer not face to face. Time can change all that. We’ll see what happens on this journey as it unfolds.

Another person I stumbled across, pun intended, is the anonymous English poet who aided and co-wrote September Ends. Here is the beautiful backstory of our novel collaboration, which began with an email sent from Peachtree Street, in the heart of Atlanta —

HE: You’ll need a creative project to get you through the next few months. Why don’t you write another novella?

ME: Why don’t you write one with me? What do you think about this? What if you write the poems and I write the prose?

With those emails a novel was born. September Ends is contemporary fiction, with romance, erotic and  by poetry. It reveals the intricate web of passion and desire entangling Liz Snow, Pete Hendrix and Jack O. Savage. The story is told through Liz Snow’s diary, Jack O. Savage’s poetry, and letters sent across the Atlantic. It is a novel with a message.

supernatural elements, bound

The novel is a collaboration between an anonymous English poet, a “Northerner” as the English call them, now living in London, and me, a native Tennessean, now happily entrenched in Atlanta on Peachtree Street. We met through an online writers’ group and found that, not only did we share an enthusiasm for the new wave of indie authors and publications, but we also share a passion for English and American Literature. We both feel very strongly that words can be an art form.

His email came the day I learned that my mother was terminally ill with cancer. My response led to two months of back and forth emails and negotiation. I guess you could call it negotiations. He says now that he didn’t want to collaborate. I thought ‘no’ was merely a delay tactic until he found out more about how the novel would develop.

He wanted to know who the main character would be. That was around 9:00pm Eastern Time. By the time he checked his email the next morning in London, I had a four-page character analysis of Elizabeth October Snow of Atlanta, Georgia, originally from LaFayette, Georgia. What about the other characters? I developed Peter William Hendrix III of Chattanooga, Tennessee. What if they meet through a famous poet? An Englishman? What if…how about…Jack O. Savage, he said? I didn’t even need to think about developing his character because by that point The Story had found us.

My collaborator had never visited the American Southeast. How could he understand the lushness of our countryside in the summer? The sound of the bugs and crickets at night? The lull of interstate traffic that is a constant background hum? I recorded them for him! At night I stood outside capturing the sound of crickets and tree frogs from the farm in Tennessee. After a rainstorm, I visited my family’s cave and recorded the rush of the waterfall capped off with the lone cry of a mourning dove, which the Cherokees called a Rain Crow. I recorded the birds singing in the rain and I took pictures of our trees, flowers…anything that would assist him in the experience of the Southeast.

Three main personalities presented themselves to us and these characters began to tell us the story. We developed the synopsis. It’s funny how the original storyline is almost nothing like the novel we plotted! My collaborator wrote the poetry as the ‘spine’ of September Ends. From there, I started writing the words to weave the characters around the plot. 

I visited the Margaret Mitchell house in Atlanta and literally begged her spirit, if it was still there, to give me some type of guidance, something unique that would be as different and of ‘the now’ as the poetry/prose collaboration. The question was also the answer. To make the novel a bit of today’s world, the story is told in the different methods in which we communicate as well as having a message which is relevant to today’s world. Diary entries, blogs, and emails comprise a great part of September Ends, although most of the story is told in a traditional novel format.

I wrote Part-1 with each chapter as a short story, in case my collaborator wished to remove one. That way we wouldn’t have to re-write an entire section. By Part-2, we were both sharing ideas. By the time we reached Part-3, we were writing practically the same thing. The Muse found us in a major way. Now I understand how musicians or actors feel when they receive a buzz of the creative. In our case, we received a story.

Sadly, my mother lost her battle with cancer and died before she could see the success for September Ends. She knew about the book because I wrote it on our farm in Tennessee while I took care of her as her disease progressed. She called September Ends my lifeboat during her turbulent seas. The poet and I dedicated the book to her and her courageous battle. She did live long enough to know that the book had been published. For that, I am very thankful. 

Me? I’m back on my feet. Shaken and stirred. But, for the first time in my life, I can create and experience A Tale of Two Cities, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” 

the life of an artist. As Dickens said in

With that, I will close. Thank you again for having me as your guest. Thank you to everyone who supports me by reading and recommending my work and even those who do not, because you took the time to try. Life is bittersweet. The art is in discovering the beauty to be found in the pain. May we all see brighter days and dream bigger dreams.

~~ Hunter S. Jones