Photo: This is Cupid, reminding me, during this particularly crazy week, to stop and smell (or in his case, eat) the roses. Cupid’s a Philippine carabao (water buffalo) who is a zombie-fighting sidekick in my upcoming novel GHOST MOON NIGHT.
It’s been a fun, wonderful, exciting, amazing week. It’s also been a stressful, crazy, insane, and exhausting week. And it’s only Wednesday. Welcome to my journalist-author-ghostwriter world! (In my next life, I will also be a car salesperson, restaurateur, and horse party planner. Boy, that would make a strange tagline.)
A couple of weeks ago, I pitched a story to the Salt Lake-based Deseret News, not really expecting them to bite. When they did, I asked for two weeks to complete it, feeling guilty I even asked, but now I’m glad I did. It was a fun story to write and I didn’t have a ton of interviews, but I did spend pretty much all of Monday until I pushed the send button around midnight.
Having taken a leave of absence from the Tooele Transcript Bulletin, I’d missed writing articles. I also felt a little rusty. My confidence was shaky as I started with a blank page. Could I do this again? But, like other deadline-driven times, I typed in my byline, and threw down the words like clay on a pottery wheel, shaped and molded them, shaped and molded them some more, threw out a chunk, put it back in, threw out more chunks, until I was satisfied. Even after I hit send and the editor complimented me on a “terrific and well-written story,” the perfectionist in me came up with a couple more ways to switch the paragraphs around.
I thought about that today, when I spoke to a talented and awesome writer-friend about my manuscript Ghost Moon Night, which I plan to give to my formatter as soon as the edits are done. (Picture Mel Gibson in Braveheart declaring, “It WILL be done!”) She advised me to make sure all the edits I want to do on the manuscript were done before sending it off. I only get one chance at a first impression.
Which is true. And terrifying to say the least. This whole, “putting my work out there for the masses to enjoy or revile.” Well, so maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration. I’m not exactly Ann Coulter, writing a political diss-fest though at some point earlier this year, I felt like her (long story). But I anticipate people are either going to like my book or not. (Yes, I know, very insightful.)
Anyway. I told her that I plan to do just that. But, at a certain point, I need to let go of the work and release it into the open skies like a bird (or a langbuan. What’s that? you say. Well, you’ll just have to read Ghost Moon Night, now, won’t you, to find out.)
Maybe I have the mentality of a journalist and memoir publisher, but sometimes, your work isn’t the best it can be no matter how much you’ve edited it. I’ve submitted pieces before where I flubbed majorly on details, or left out information, and, guess what? Life still goes on. You will always find something wrong with your story, or have a better way of phrasing.
I’m not saying I shouldn’t get GHOST MOON NIGHT to the best shape it can possibly be. And novels do have a bit more shelf life than a news article. But, there has to be a balance. As a memoir publisher, I have clients that change this and that in their book until our eyes bleed, and eventually, I just have to gently pry their fingers from the file and convince them that it’s time to send it off to the printer. It helps to tell them they can always put out a Part 2 or a second edition. It’s just nice, emotionally, to know you have that safety net.
Maybe if I had gobs more time and not trying to be a good mom, a successful small business owner, send off my 19-year-old daughter on a church mission in November, spend quality time with her, and getting some sleep somewhere in between, I could devote a bit more time to this process. But I don’t. So I will do my best to get this book in the best shape it can be and get it out, then move on to the next novel. (What? my husband would say. You want to put us through this? Again?)
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