The Long and Winding Road to publishing
- Hightway 1 Northern California
Friday June 19, 2015
Stephen Myers
Its hard to believe its been a little over four years since I attended the Christian Adult Book Fair at Rush Creek Disciples of Christ Church in Arlington Texas and spent a quarter hour with each of the two dozen writers who attended the event. In 2011 I was literally at the end of a rope. A decade earlier I had graduated with high expectations from the University of Texas at El Paso with a Graduate degree of Interdisciplinary Communication Studies on top of a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism completed in 1994. Both pursuits in the 1990s were to retool my resume and background to re-enter Broadcast Communications either in Radio, Television or Corporate Communications where I had served in the late 1970s, 1980s and late 1990s respectively. I thought I had arrived at each point with the BA in ’94 and then the Master’s in ’01 to the place God had called me… but I was wrong. Either I had not heard God correctly or the plans He gave me were ‘thwarted.’
I was blessed if not luckier than many to have interned in radio and television broadcast stations in my years of high school before entering that industry in 1977. My first job was in Top 40 Radio of KRIG ‘The Rig 14’ AM station of Odessa Texas that led me to Album Rock KPAS FM 94 in 1978, that led to KSET Disco 95 a few months later when FM94 was sold and changed formats. Then in 1979 I survived Disco to work for a Progressive Country FM station K102 before loosing that job to the program directors new girlfriend and going to work for KROD AM 600 in 1980. Like the WKRP IN CINCINNATI Theme song I had been ‘town to town, up and down the dial. Briefly looking into Medicine I moved back to Odessa Junior College for a semester of Radiology before the KOCV FM college station and its Television Department pulled me back to the media as it transitioned into the new decade. I was blessed to land an evening full time job at KQIP FM where a few months later I was promoted to the lunch hour day shift and served as a Music Director for over 5 years. In the last two years I was also freelancing with the NBC Television Affiliate as a copywriter, staff announcer and on-camera advertising talent so it should come as no surprise I was offered a full time job there in 1986. By then I had seen the last decade of live music radio that in economic challenging times became affiliated with satellite delivered services and the rise of talk radio. I knew that was not for me.
In Television I had a great nearly two years before my station fell into bank receivership. Tough day loosing 50% of those I worked with being pink slipped and all of my top management in tears leaving the building. I worked for the best under them and the worst who followed. Still, I persevered in 1988 going to work for an AM/FM and TV company combining the best of radio doing afternoon drive for the top Country station of the market KNFM 92.3 and producing television commercials by day for TV Cable. But it was after interviewing in Dallas with KXAS NBC 5 in 1990 followed by the same position with its sister station KXAN NBC 36 in Austin that I made it through all the rounds of interviews to the top two candidates… and lost both to someone of equal experience where a college degree separated us both. That is how I trusted God could take me back home to El Paso and College to in less than 4 years be a top candidate in the positions I desired. I did achieve the position of Creative Services Director and Production Manager in 1996 for television and newspaper group owner Lee Enterprises at KZIA UPN 48 but it lasted less than two years as they like many other groups did not want to invest $10-$12 million per station to become High Definition at the turn of the millennium.
God was good however and led me across the street to a small business administration Defense Contractor where I earned top salaries and benefits in Corporate Communications as a Senior Producer. Three years later in 1999 I had saved enough to start my own company that ran successfully for two more years. As I neared 2001 and the completion of my Graduate Degree I set my sights on Dallas Fort Worth to make the triumphal return to broadcast media at best and corporate communications at the least when September 11th transpired and everything in my world (and many others) shifted radically away. Offers were retracted, some had hiring freezes while others mothballed production studios, outsourced to freelancers and eventually, completely, went away. I reopened my production company but to fewer and fewer paying clients as the economic bubbles came one after the other in banking, business, and real estate. Like Tevye in Fiddler On The Roof I often talked to God asking a lot of ‘why’ questions and ‘if not here then where?’ The answers were not always clear.
In the process I did a lot of things I thought I’d never do. For one I substitute taught elementary, junior and high school; I worked for a handful of bookseller retailers including Lifeway, Family Christian, and Mardels; I worked for retailers like The Great Indoors in Home Theater Systems and a few summer seasons at Six Flags Over Texas. At the same time I also looked after my health challenged parents in the last decade of my artist father’s life ending in 2007 and then after my retired teacher mother for whom I still share a house and look after her health care into her mid 80s.
Throughout the 2000s I kept hearing or sensing God suggesting I should ‘write.’ I did write. I wrote several novels. As far back as 1992 I had written a full length novel after reading Frank Peretti’s twin Darkness series. I wrote ‘Shadows Over Olson’ based on a 1981 Murder Mystery in Odessa when I was in both radio and was a moonlighter in the Urban Cowboy DJ yuppie nightclub scene. That book nearly wrote itself over a two week spring break from College on a borrowed friend’s 286 laptop computer. I shopped it in the late 1990s to an editor but highly critical of my work she suggested sticking to broadcasting. Sadly, I did. But by 2004 after another odd experience in a mega church and among both tele-evangelists and those wannabes in that merky world I wrote another novel series ‘Heir’s To The Throne.’ Other than being a hobbyist or amateur writer I had no inkling about pursuing it for a living. It wasn’t until 2011 and a good three years working in retail for Costco that my brother, sister-in-law, mother and three nephews suggested I attend a book event at their small little Disciples of Christ Church – and that was the fork from the winding road I thought might lead towards publishing. More below in Part II
THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD PART II
The Christian Adult book fair was a great entrance ramp from the winding to the straight and narrow road. In some ways it was the narrow gate I had been looking for but unable to find on my own. Dress in a suit and tie with my laptop case, computer and small program guide I spent anywhere from ten to twenty minutes with each of the authors including: Janet Lee Barton, Terry Burns, Vanetta Chapman, Lena Nelson-Dooley, Leeann Harris, Arlene James, Ronie Kendig, Jackie King-Scott, Beth Shriver, and Lynette Sowell. I also thanked my family’s pastor Chris Wilson for sponsoring the event.
The road to publishing came as all the published writers pointed me towards the American Christian Fiction Writers Organization and its local writing chapter to both join and attend. In many ways it was an answer to decades of prayers. The first to befriend me in the ACFW online private loops, one of the member’s benefits, was Stephanie Grace Whitson and Margaret Daley. The day I received e-mail from Colleen Coble was amazing. It felt as if F. Scott Fitzgerald or Frank Peretti had written me since I was such an admirer of her Lonestar Series of books. They’re counsel was simple: Write, perfect the craft, and submit to either agents, publishers or editors. Everyone pointed me to attend the national conference held in 2012 at the DFW Airport, which I gladly did with what savings I had amassed by then. It was tough but I attended as a commuter and it paid huge dividends from contacts and directions I would pursue.
The highlights of that conference was meeting Harlequin Senior Editor Melissa Endlich. She, through Margaret Daley, pointed me towards the publisher as a great place for a new writer. I had a sample chapter, edited in long hand and with several one-sheet photo pages of promotion. Melissa was very kind and suggested it might be just a matter of time until I was writing for their Love Inspired lines. Fortunately, I knew of some deficiencies in my writing and smartly hired a paid editor post the conference to find both mentoring and tutorial assistance.
My first editor was Joy Avery Melville. She patiently worked through my first chapters and identified five key problem areas: POV, Head-hopping, Tell vs Show, a need for more Description and some essential formatting issues to address. Formatting was the easiest to fix, while I studied books by James Scott Bell, Jeff Gerke, and Gail Gaymer Martin on the other specifics. It took nearly a year into early 2014 but it was worth my effort to get as much as possible to the standards the publishers required.
At several points in this long and winding road I lost confidence I could drive it. I became what a close agent friend suggested was ‘paralysis by over-analysis.’ I came to it honestly. I would enjoy a day of writing only to retire and read one of my favorite authors both for relaxation and encouragement. I was reading Colleen Coble’s work when all the confidence of my day went down the drain reading the brilliance of Coble. I wrote Colleen and she was quick with humor and support that her original work may have resembled more of my own on a first draft because the completed text in my hands of her novels went through so many editing session processes. That was a major relief.
The second major relief came from several other published writers I’d like to acknowledge but agreed not to mention them by name. They let me behind the veil or curtain of ‘editing’ with their editors and described the process I was otherwise fishing in the dark to perfect. I learned there was a Macro Edit which is the first pass by a publisher’s editor. The major themes, characters, and story. What works. What doesn’t. And directed notes how to fix what they want. the Second edit was a line edit. That too the publisher’s editor would work with me hand in hand to fix. But what I dreaded was the grammatical edit. I actually wasted a year trying to restudy what at best for me was a C to B level of grades in English grammar. I was relieved to learn the publishers editor would handle all the grammatical and punctuation editing. On that count alone I thought I might otherwise never become published. And I learned most writers are not grammatical editors and how most grammatical editors could not write a story to save their souls. Its specialized work from each and a partnership that works best with the two sides of the same coin. The final edit is the proof edit and is a writers last chance to fix anything they don’t like. If I got to that place I guarantee I would follow the publisher’s editor’s counsel to hopefully turn a good book – better. I thought I’d for certain be able to go the distance and write a submittable manuscript. Except I was wrong.
THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD PART III
This blog is really divided into three Acts. Now into the third-act is where we literally find as the Beatles lyrics revealed is the road ‘that leads to your door.’ Its good that the photo above shows the road through a late winter to early foggy spring. I once again sought a reputable agent’s counsel and was led to the next level of writing editor. The feedback I received for the first three chapters of my novel were exciting. I had a third party objective opinion where the novel should start, what should go, and what needed to be included. It was worth the funds to find guided direction.
So the book should write itself? Right?
Wrong. I started to freeze up even more.
I know the story and characters in my head. I have the synopsis start to finish, the chapters outlined and template casting of photos to my characters names and events. So what was the problem? Its the Beatles once again in the words of the late John Lennon. “Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans.” A lot of life happened. I had health issues to address in myself and my family. Once they were off my mind the writing resumed… slowly.
I went back and re-cast some of my characters with different actors and actresses. I think and write cinematic-ally. That means on my Scrivener cork board I have photos of actors in roles or in life under character names with traits and information. I also has some scenes, props and locations to cast as well with research and data. And now I have a deadline: The last week of July 2015. That is when my full MS is due to my paid editor for a pass to put it in shape to either submit to my publisher of choice in August and/or take in person to the 2015 ACFW Conference once again in Dallas-Fort Worth Texas.
With all in line I purchased some back up flash drives, paper, ink, and reread another authors similar Love Inspired Historical Book just to make sure I was planned out with the word count per chapter, with the right number of chapters and the balance of dialogue to action ratio. I am not painting by numbers but I am referring to a published work to make sure my work in in line with what needs to be submitted.
So, this long and winding road either is leading to my publisher’s door and my desired editor or I’ve got to go back, retrain, study or work through the bumps to find my way to my or hopefully God’s destination. And in reality its only taken 4.5 years to get there.
Is that the average? Some writers says its more like eight to ten years while others come out of the gate in one or two. Some fewer than that. But I hope I’m on track for the road I’m traveling and that there will be no more surprises or bumps along the way. In the process I have some readers lined up for feedback, the paid editor and at least know what to expect from the publisher should the option to purchase it. I also have some sequels or other titles in the series to develop. I just hope I can ramp it up to be possible to write 3-4 a year for the foreseeable future. Time and results will tell. And I’ll keep you my readers, friends and colleagues in the loop.
God Bless you all for reading about the journey and do keep me in prayer as we all move forward on the long and winding roads we all must travel.
Stephen
