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

On Agenting--Professional Spotlight

I'm really pleased to welcome agent Stacia Decker. I've known Stacia a long time--as the saying goes, we grew up together in publishing together, starting out as Editorial Assistants way back when at prestigious Farrar Straus & Giroux, a place I like to think of as the last bastion of old guard publishing and what seems like publishing nostalgia now--receiving manuscripts in boxes in the actual mail, having publishing icon Roger Straus greet you in your office in the morning wearing a mega watt smile and a silk ascot and learning this trade at the side of editors who'd begun the careers of the likes of Tom Wolfe. I remember always feeling quite awestruck whenever I entered the building and I remember having conversations with Stacia about the future--when we were not the assistants or junior editors, but the editors and publishers and the people making the decisions that could create such a storied legacy. And all these years later, it's been remarkable to watch Stacia create her own storied legacy first as an editor and now as an agent. Her accomplishments are enviable and her publishing knowledge and savvy incredible. She is a stalwart advocate for her clients and bar-none one of the best agents working in the industry today. So without further ado...

So in my long-winded intro I did kind of answer this one for you, but for the record, how did you begin your publishing career?

I started as an unpaid intern at Farrar Straus & Giroux. My first paid job was as an editorial assistant at FSG.

So you didn't come into the industry thinking you'd become an agent. How has the transition been for you?

I started in editorial and really resisted the idea of becoming an agent—I didn’t see myself as a salesperson. But it turns out the skillset is much the same, and the transition has felt very natural.

How does your past Editorial career influence your work as an agent? Sometimes agents are asked whether or not they are an Editorial Agent. Would you consider yourself an Editorial Agent? What's the value in having an Editorial Agent? 

My past as an editor influences how I approach a manuscript and how I approach an editor with that manuscript. I bring the same editorial sensibility and work to the manuscript that I would as an editor, and I try to give the editor the materials and positioning she needs both to see the book on her list and to pitch it in-house to her editorial board. That past also influences, to some degree, my strategy as I manage a sale and the advice I give a client during the submission and publishing processes. So I’m very much an editorial agent, and I think that’s valuable both in terms of developing manuscripts and as another layer of experience I bring to the whole process.

What has surprised you about your list?

I initially expected to cast a much wider net and then very quickly decided to focus on fiction, and a relatively narrow range at that. I certainly did not expect to rep YA—and I now have seven clients (all originally signed for adult projects) writing YA. I also didn’t expect to rep sci fi fantasy—and I now have books under contract with Angry Robot, Gollancz, Titan, and Tor.

What has surprised you about the market and publishing in general?

The market is a perpetual mystery, explainable only in retrospect (she says, joking but not joking). I think I was initially surprised by how old-fashioned many aspects of publishing are, and how many decisions are made based on intuition and experience rather than hard numbers. But I tend to think those are often good things.

What are some books of yours we should look out for?

In 2014:

The mind-bending literary novel THE GUILD OF ST. COOPER by Shya Scanlon.

In thrillers: KILL FEE by Owen Laukkanen, the third in the critically acclaimed Stevens & Windermere series, and ROTTEN AT THE HEART, featuring Shakespeare as a reluctant shamus, written by Bartholomew Daniels.

For country noir fans: A SWOLLEN RED SUN by Matthew McBride, and THE GOOD LIFE by Frank Wheeler, Jr.

In SFF: the utterly crazy KOKO TAKES A HOLIDAY by Kieran Shea; Chuck Wendig’s CORMORANT, the third in the Miriam Black series, and THE BLOODY BRIDE, the second in the Mookie Pearl series; THE BURNING DARK, a haunted space opera, and HANG WIRE, both by Adam Christopher; and THE INCORRUPTIBLES, the first in John Hornor Jacobs alternate-Roman-history-western-fantasy-demonpunk.

In YA: HOW TO WIN AT HIGH SCHOOL by Owen Matthews; THE WIZARD'S PROMISE, the first in a new duology by Cassandra Rose Clarke; BLIGHTBORN, the second in Chuck Wendig's Heartland trilogy; INDEPENDENT STUDY and GRADUATION DAY, the second and third in Joelle Charbonneau’s bestselling The Testing trilogy, and THE SHIBBOLETH, the second in John Hornor Jacobs’s Twelve-Fingered Boy trilogy.

What haven't you tried your hand at yet, but want to?

Not much! I am already involved, to some degree or another, in agenting, editing, contracts, accounting, publicity, marketing, sales, social media, career planning, event planning, and so on. I speak on panels, do interviews, attend conferences, conventions, trade shows, and awards ceremonies, travel for client events, etc. I have a lot more to learn about all of it before I’ll be tempted to try something new.   

What are your publishing goals for 2014?

Sell some books. Then sell some more.

What's the best advice you can give writers? 

Just keep writing.

Stacia Decker joined the Donald Maass Literary Agency in 2009. A former editor at Harcourt and Otto Penzler Books, she began her career at Farrar, Straus & Giroux after earning an MFA in nonfiction writing at Columbia University. She represents noir, crime fiction, thrillers, literary fiction, literary suspense, and cross-genre fiction with speculative elements. Among her clients are Frank Bill, Joelle Charbonneau, Adam Christopher, Cassandra Rose Clarke, John Hornor Jacobs, Owen Laukkanen, Fiona Maazel, Matthew McBride, Jon McGoran, Dan O’Shea, Todd Robinson, Shya Scanlon, Kieran Shea, Jeff Shelby, Jay Stringer, Steve Weddle, Chuck Wendig, and Frank Wheeler, Jr.

Job One When Writing for Children

I've had two lives in publishing since I began my career a decade + ago. The majority of my career to start was spent in adult publishing. I published memoirs, biographies, literary fiction, thrillers, romance and mysteries. I had a lot of fun and learned a great deal from my authors. But I began my professional life out of college as a teacher, and it's my teaching career that actually led me to publishing. I wanted to be publish books the kids I taught would love and would spark their love of reading.  As a high school English teacher, I knew first hand that while I was wild for Of Mice and Men my sixteen-year-old students weren't so much. They were reading and loving The Coldest Winter Ever and a lot of "street" lit and adult romance. They weren't really reading books actually published for their age range. Some of it was that kids naturally read up, but most of the issue was that they weren't aware of YA lit because, at least in the schools in which I taught, the focus was all on curriculum reading, so there wasn't anyone specific, a librarian or teacher, specifically recommending YA lit to them.

Long a closeted YA/kid lit reader, I then took it upon myself to recommend books I liked to my kids. Books by authors like Jacqueline Woodson,  Walter Dean Myers, Virginia Euwer Wolff, Terry Trueman and Laurie Halse Anderson. I wanted to provide them with some variety in content and perspectives, something different from what they were regularly reading outside the classroom if they were reading outside the classroom at all. I watched them (even my "reluctant" readers) devour the books and develop a different way to engage and talk about literature (as if what they read in the pages of these books was really personally relevant to them and the way they lived their lives) that they then brought to our classroom conversations about everything from James Baldwin to William Shakespeare. It was an exciting time for me as a teacher--to have my students compare character motivations in The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien to character motivations in Monster by Walter Dean Myers. But as they continued reading and investigating books specifically for their age range on their own, they started to bemoan the lack of books that featured characters that looked like them (I taught in school districts whose student populations were largely African American, Latino and even Cape Verdean when I taught in Boston). I agreed.

During my last years of teaching, I was already back in grad school pursuing my MFA. And right around the
time my students at that time were noticing the lack of diversity in teen books, I discovered publishing in a random book publishing course I took as part of prerequisites for my fiction workshops. Prior to taking this publishing course I'd truly believed books were gifts from god placed on bookstore shelves especially for me. I never dreamed there was a whole industry responsible for the care and making of books. I caught the publishing bug immediately, and I knew what I was going to do. I was going to publish those books my students deemed missing.

And I'm happy to have done a lot of that in my career and will hopefully do lots more. But it wasn't until I switched fully to the children's books side of the industry that I was able to make what initially led me to publishing my primary focus. Because of my adult publishing life, I still have lots of "adult" friends and contacts: agents, writers, other editors. And when I switched to the children's market, I thought in many ways I was saying goodbye to the adult side of the industry and the many people I'd met and worked with because of how separate the adult and children's divisions are. I could not have predicted the turn in the market wherein YA now dominates and children's books is making, in many cases, much more money than adult books.

What this means in practical terms is that people associated with the adult part of the industry have now very suddenly and very seriously turned their attention to children's books. Agents who had previously only represented adult books are now sending YA and other children's submissions my way. Authors who had previously only written adult books are now turning to the children's market to revive or extend their audience. There is a great deal of interesting interest in what I do day-to-day in the children's book world from people who previously never gave children's books a second thought. I think it's wonderful.

But the question I get from my adult colleagues who are wading into the kiddie pool, is what is safe to write about for the children's market. This is a tricky question to answer, especially with the bad rap teen books often get for being too dark, but ultimately, after giving these colleagues a long list of suggested reading to catch up, my answer is there is nothing that's not safe to write about for children as long as it's honest. On my own list, I have published a middle grade novel about albino killings in Tanzania, which on the face of it doesn't seem like middle grade fair, but it's honestly written and from the perspective of a thirteen-year-old boy. This is an issue that affects children in Tanzania just as well as adults. Why wouldn't or shouldn't a child have a perspective on a hard issue? I have also published books where children have lost parents, suffered abuse and had sex. Again, all written honestly and from a genuine child or teen perspective. Whenever you start thinking in order to write children's books that you have to water it down, you're not writing honestly and you're not writing anything they'd be interested in reading. So if you're interested in writing for children, go out and read and then read some more. And when you do finally put pen to paper, don't dwell on the age you're writing for, but instead dwell on how honest whatever you are writing is. Readers are readers no matter their age. We're all looking for something honest. That's what moves us.

On Craft--Synesthesia

Synesthesia by PeaceMakerGirl

As a creative person Synesthesia is my absolute favorite thing ever. I knew I loved literature and writing when I first learned about metaphor and simile, but those joys felt like child's play when I first read The House on Mango Street and discovered the nirvana that is Synesthesia. It excited me no end to think a color could feel or a feeling could see or a scent could have a color. The possibilities seemed endless and Synesthesia struck me as a device that should be used all the time. But this is how all creatives feel when they discover a new literary toy. Of course, all things are better in moderation, but Synesthesia did reveal to me how much richer writing could be, how much more nuanced descriptions could be, how much more imaginative and vividly spectacular the worlds that writers created could be.

Synesthesia became a clear way to make one's writing special and memorable and a tool of craft I find now in my professional life that is too often completely overlooked and/or underutilized by beginning writers and even veteran writers.

For some writers, the use of a device like Synesthesia is instinctive, so much so that they may not even realize what they're doing has a name. These are the writers that most often break through, especially if they're writing literary fiction. They have that innate ability. And while I do believe a lot about writing is innate,  I do also think a lot can be learned. Many of the manuscripts I get on submission and pass on, I pass on for one simple reason: the writing doesn't strike me as very special. And to overcome writing that isn't particularly special, the story would have to be amazingly well-executed--fast paced with edge of your seat thrills and chills. More often than not, however, the story cannot overwhelm writing that is just average, not in today's very crowded market. The two have to work together. There are submissions I pass on where the story has lots of potential and if the writing had been special, I might have pursued for publication. But if the writing is special enough even if the story needs work, I find I will always want to pursue because special writing just doesn't come along every day. Finding writing that stands out, that moves you as a reader just isn't easy. But the use of a simple device like Synesthesia, used with just the right touch, is something that can make a difference, bring spark to otherwise very straight forward writing, and allow a narrative to stand out.

So here are three definitions of Synesthesia from the Free Dictionary:

 syn·es·the·sia also syn·aes·the·sia  (sns-thzh)

n.

1. A condition in which one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another, as when the hearing of a sound produces the visualization of a color.

2. A sensation felt in one part of the body as a result of stimulus applied to another, as in referred pain.

3. The description of one kind of sense impression by using words that normally describe another.

(You can also check out more on Synesthesia at Wikepedia here.) 

For the purposes of this blog, we're using the third definition: the description of one kind of sense impression by using words that normally describe another. In layman's terms, as I alluded to above, this basically means one sense being able to respond in a way typically reserved by another sense. The House on Mango Street is a perfect book to show this literary device in action and consequently when you Google Synesthesia and/or The House on Mango Street, you'll inevitably stumble upon one or the other. If you haven't yet read Sandra Cisnero's astounding narrative, I suggest you do. It's an extraordinarily well-executed novel and can be used for craft studies on the most effective execution of many literary devices you haven't thought of since the seventh grade aside from Synesthesia like Anaphora, Symbolism, Idiom and more. And these aren't just lessons for kids or writers starting out. These are wonderful reminders even if you've been at this for awhile. When editing, I often return to the classics to find ways to help and inspire my writers trying to reinvent the wheel in a way that is dynamic and distinct. Synesthesia is my favorite thing because it helps keep one's writing fresh and a joy to read, and also positions a book to become a classic in its own right. But as a first step, Synesthesia is a great way to effectively implement the writers' first credo, "Show Don't Tell." So if you're looking for a way to enhance your writing and make it special, investigate Synesthesia and allow your sounds to see and your colors to hear or feel. I bet you'll have fun. 

I'll leave you with three examples of Synesthesia that I like:

“Yellow cocktail music.” (The Great Gatsby)

“It's like all of a sudden he let go a million moths all over the dusty furniture and swan-neck shadows in our bones” to describe the sound of an old music box. (The House on Mango Street)

Dante is driven “back to the region where the sun is silent.” (The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, in the first canto of “Inferno”)

In the News--Into That Good Night?

It seems loneliness is a theme this week at The Editing Life. But this time, I'm not talking about my loneliness, but the loneliness of the book reader. You see, in Sunday's NYT, Colin Robinson, co-publisher of OR Books, wrote an interesting opinion piece, titled "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Reader". Much of the piece summarized the general state of affairs in publishing: the lot of the mid-list writer, budgets being slashed, advances being slashed, indie bookstores disappearing, chains disappearing too and/or hiring virtually illiterate part-timers who might as well be working at McDonald's (my words, not his), the general problem of Amazon and price-cutting, the disappearance of the librarian and the book reviewer. The disappearance of so many produces, it seems, the lonely reader. Except, that the reader still has the writer, which is quite a lovely thought.

Robinson writes: "On the desolate beach that is the lot of the contemporary book reader, the footprints of one companion can still be found. They belong to the writer, who needs the reader not just to pay her or his wages but also to give meaning to their words. As John Cheever put it: 'I can’t write without a reader. It’s precisely like a kiss — you can’t do it alone.'"

Lovely, right? Not so fast...Robinson also writes: 

"The troubling thought occurs, however, that this last remaining cohabitant may also be about to depart the island. With falling advances, writing is evermore dominated by people who don’t need it to earn a living: Tenured academics and celebrities spring to mind. For these groups, burnishing a résumé or marketing a brand is often as important as satisfying the reader.

And then there are the hobbyists, those for whom writing is primarily an act of self-expression. This past November, National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo) encouraged more than 300,000 participants to produce a novel in 30 days. It would be churlish to gainsay the right of the legions taking up “noveling,” as Nanowrimo describes it, to exercise their creative selves. But such endeavors are not much helping readers. Indeed, to the extent that they expand the mind-boggling proliferation of new titles being published (more than 300,000 in 2012), they are adding to the problem."

While I'm usually more than happy to join the cynic's bandwagon, I'm reluctant to do so here.  I'm just one acquisitions editor and I receive roughly 200-300 submissions a year if not more; I'm literally drowning in submissions. Drowning. And while I've certainly had my hand in publishing celebrities and perhaps authors who aren't what you'd call literary purists, I don't often receive submissions from writers who are not sincerely trying to connect with readers or are doing this merely as a hobby. Writing simply doesn't work that way. Whether or not I am taken by the quality or premise of a submission, the writer's passion, ambition and drive to tell a story that matters to a readership is never in doubt. It is a brave act to write 300 pages, whether it took 30 days or not, and I respect it. Readers respect it.

And really if the reader were lonely, I'd be caught up on all my work and not awake reading at 4am. Yes, lots of things and people in publishing are disappearing, but the writer? Nah. For every bookstore that closes, for every review section of a major newspaper that is halved, and for every chain store employee who has never heard of A Moveable Feast and can't help me find a replacement for the copy I lent to a now ex-boyfriend (true story), another writer or two or two hundred is born. And they are not hobbyists or simply choosing not to write and publish because advances are falling and they have to attend to a "real" job. No. Writers write. That's how it works. Writers write at 4am if they have to and that thought is a comfort to me when at 4am I am reading.

Yes, as Robinson points out, and we also learned from Jill Watts' post, "There is as Much Dignity in Writing a Poem as in Tilling a Field", would-be humanities majors are maybe finding other more lucrative areas in which to concentrate their studies, but that doesn't make them not writers and that doesn't mean they won't write or seek publication or seek to connect with readers in a meaningful way. Writers are not abandoning their readers. I don't believe it. The obstacles seem to make writers more determined than ever, which is good, because I like my job. And if the writer disappears, so do I.

Robinson leaves the readers of his opinion piece with this:

"Faced with a dizzying array of choices and receiving little by way of expert help in making selections, book buyers today are deciding to play it safe, opting to join either the ever-larger audiences for blockbusters or the minuscule readerships of a vast range of specialist titles. In this bifurcation, the mid-list, publishing’s experimental laboratory, is being abandoned."

Hmm...nope. It's not in me to jump on this particular brand of publishing cynicism. My heart just isn't in it and everything in my day-to-day experience tells me this just isn't true. Perhaps, I'm being naive, but I don't think so. Into that good night, does not go the writer. Or the reader. Or me.

Sunday Inspiration--Only the Lonely

What they don't tell you about starting a new business is that it's very lonely. I discovered that this past month the hard way. Asking for help is something that isn't always easy for anyone, especially someone like me who is big on ALWAYS being able to do it all by myself. (Yeah, control/perfectionist/type A issues). But I'm determined to make this work, so I bit the bullet and I asked. It was interesting to see who showed up and who didn't. And as it is in life, it's never quite how you play it in your head. Some of those who I thought would indeed show up and gladly were scarcely interested or available, and those who I didn't expect to show up in any meaningful way and certainly weren't obligated to through friendship or kinship or any kind of ship at all showed up in amazing ways asking, "What can I do to help?" and then really, truly helped, all because I did some obscure thing for them years ago that turned out to really matter to them or just because they like me or because they believe in the idea or because simply like most humans on the planet they are truly generous, kind people. That generosity and kindness has been almost completely emotionally overwhelming by the way, and makes me break out into fresh tears every time I get a new email or phone call offering suggestions or asking, "What can I do to help?"

And then there are the perfect strangers who showed up just because...why not? Offering feedback on the site and bearing with me as I made adjustments and sticking with it until all was running smoothly.

Wow!

Starting a new business is a learning experience to say the least. But I'm going to take the advice of a friend who did show up in a magnificent way for me and kept the emotional boat afloat when I was ready to give up; I'm going to stay the course and stop bemoaning the people in my life who did not show up. As this friend said: You're doing something they haven't done--following your dreams and stepping out on a limb...that [their not showing up] would be faith for me.

And in thinking about these words it occurred to me that this feeling of loneliness that comes with starting a new business isn't just limited to starting a new business. It's a feeling that comes when starting any new endeavor, which got me to thinking about my brave writers. So I share this as, hopefully, inspiration for them. A reminder that we are not alone. In this week's Newsletter to EditingGenius members, I shared this Neil Gaiman quote:

"I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're DOING SOMETHING."

If we are doing something that is worth it, there may be moments of doubt, moments when we feel discouraged and like we are possibly spinning our wheels and when those we count on for honest feedback and support are no where to be found or simply don't have any answers for us. I actually hope that for the members at EditingGenius, that when those moments of self-doubt and loneliness creep in, that EditingGenius can be a place to turn, and a source of encouragement and strength, which leads me to this note from another friend that is everything to me:

"So have been sitting with the EditingGenius throughout evening and thoroughly impressed and in awe. I'm taken aback by the depth and breadth of information presented for a site that's still in its opening stages, and I particularly loved the blog pieces by copy editor Chandra (she sounds awesome, and dug her perspective on things) and your piece on keeping holiday publishing trends in perspective. I don't fully have the words yet but I hope you're taking the time to really sit down and appreciate what you've created. It's very emotional to witness."

So after a month of working my ass off and toying with the idea for no less than 15 yeyars, I am also taking this friend's advice and sitting down to really appreciate what I've created. A writing community. Not just a small business, but a writing community. And it truly is an emotional thing. People are talking to each other in the Discussion Forums and reading the Curated Industry News and reading and commenting on this blog and registering for classes. People have even liked EditingGenius on Facebook and follwed us on Twitter. And Members are submitting Guest Blog Posts and really digging in to make this community their own. There are still plenty of rough edges and things are progressing slowly, but they are progressing and it's a thing, it exists and I'm hopeful. And while not everyone who I thought would come to the table has come, many have and many like what I'm doing and  today, I don't feel like I've made a huge mistake or that what I've done isn't somehow good enough. Today, I'm sitting down to appreciate what I've created, taking strength and encouragement from it. Today, I'm inspired. And I hope you will be too.

Oh and new business plug:

Join us at EditingGenius.com

Happy Sunday!