The myth of overnight success. Plus: a bumper crop of clients' books!

My Guatemala thriller comes out in May 2024 but I'm not the only one filling the bookstore shelves. Help me applaud three inspiring new Alaska memoirs about family plus a buzzy, queer debut!

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P.S. If you’ve received this email twice, apologies!

The “overnight success”* of a suspense-writer-in-training

Things move slowly in publishing. So slowly that when I wrote Part I of a Part II post last September about my transition into writing thrillers, I thought I’d be able to tell the story’s happy ending in October.

Fall came and went, and even though my book had been accepted by Soho Crime, in many other ways it wasn’t official. I wasn’t sure what I could disclose and what I couldn’t.

Here we are, another nine months later—a gestationally appropriate time. Now I can tell you everything about The Deepest Lake. It’s my sixth novel but the first that qualifies as a thriller. Set at a memoir workshop in Guatemala and involving a grieving mother’s search for answers about her daughter’s possible drowning, The Deepest Lake will be published in May 2024. That makes five years since this idea was just an itchy little mote—I mean twinkle—in my eye.

Publishers Weekly ran this announcement in May. (PW doesn’t run many announcements. Ack! So exciting!)

*Sarcasm. Am I the only who thinks everything takes longer in the book biz these days?

Since there’s no way you could remember my first post, here’s a quick summary.

PART I

May 2019: Stuck in an apartment I hated, in a nothing-special town, another book done but no inspiration for the next until…I took a day trip to a small local island, fell in love with the setting, and at the same time, devoured a Lisa Jewell paperback that made me say, “I want to write something like this.”

Summer 2019: I got down to business, reading and studying dozens of suspense novels and writing the first chapters of a thriller (not my Guatemala one) that had a lotta problems but was teaching me valuable lessons in what not to do.

Fall 2019: Described that first thriller idea to editor at a lunch meeting. She yawned smiled politely. Pitched her a second new idea (yes, the Guatemala one!) that benefitted from what I’d learned from my first attempt—like the importance of constraining a plot both geographically and chronologically, and organizing the premise around a disturbing recent experience I couldn’t let go.

Solid Structure + Passion/Obsession = You’re Learning, Kid.   

“Write that,” the editor said during our meeting, sitting up straighter, no longer as interested in her lunch. “How long will it take you? Can you do it in two months?”

Excited, I went home and wrote it in four months—not two. For me, that was still lightning-fast. It was the most fun I'd had in a long time, which I took as a sign that I'd made it to Easytown.

I hadn't.

PART II

The first draft was fast. The revisions and the submission process were not, though at least I was doing them in an inspiring place. My husband and I put that most-hated noisy/dark/soulless/suburban apartment behind us and took a risk, making an offer to buy a small house without seeing it in person (pandemic weirdness!) on our dream island. Hard as the pandemic was, we now had a safe and nurturing place in which to hunker down and where I could focus—and boy, did I need to focus. Because it turns out that this “finished” manuscript was far from finished.

July 2020: Several months after completing my suspense manuscript, I got a new agent who was so darn excited, she was already imagining who might play the mother and daughter roles in a movie version! Ah, the honeymoon period!

Then she had me revise more than I’ve ever revised in my life. The manuscript changed, with the help of notes from so many people that I felt like I wasn’t writing one book, I was writing two or three, all with different tones, for different audiences.

Friends and family took pity. “Another revision? Do you really have to? Are you sure it isn’t good enough already?”

I reassured them that I felt lucky to get this chance. I was learning. And of course, I was continuing to do all the other things I mentioned in my first post. Reading deeply. Analyzing dozens of suspense novels. Plus following my favorite authors on social media. Attending their book talks online. Paying attention.   

I hadn’t belonged to a writing group in years, but I stopped making excuses, like the fact that I was already a published author (albeit a lonely one). I found two new groups to join. I opened myself up to feedback. I met fascinating new people who had all kinds of smarts, and I learned from them, too.

In-between rounds of revision, I also started writing two other novels. No reason to wait around for one project to pan out. There’s always the next idea and the one after that.

If this all sounds like a ton of work, it was. Tiring, gratifying work, which—finally—did result, in 2022, in a publishing contract for the Central American thriller!

As the deal was being negotiated, I scrolled back through my photos and was reminded of where I’d been, three years earlier: on that rocky beach, reading Lisa Jewell, gazing across the silky blue water, wishing for a new home and a new life, dipping my toe into a new genre.

None of it would have happened without a plan, and that plan was not to become an overnight success but to learn via a series of baby steps—some as small as creating a new reading log, finding a new writing podcast, sending out a new query, or asking one more friend to do a beta-read. (You know who are you. Thank you thank you thank you.)

Each step brought me closer. If I’d known how many steps the whole process would take, I might have given up. Occasional bouts of naivete and amnesia are extremely helpful in this business.

May you enjoy your own journey to the next place you’d like your writing to take you.

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Four inspiring* new books that make me so damn proud: Mathews, Troll, Fritz, and Childs!

Writing and publishing my own books is two parts pleasure, one part pain. And I ain’t complaining! It’s a ratio I embrace.

Seeing my developmental editing clients publish their books, on the other hand, is one hundred percent undiluted joy.

You can imagine what a great early summer I’m having, watching three recent clients plus one former student celebrate their new and forthcoming books! Drumroll, please!

Beth Ann Mathews, Deep Waters (She Writes Press, May 2023)

*Inspiring because it’s about a family made stronger by a medical near-tragedy.

I called this book, “Urgent, informative, emotionally satisfying, and thought-provoking… Deep Waters opens with a harrowing medical mystery and rewards the reader with a loving account of an adventurous partnership made stronger by crisis.”

I interviewed Beth Ann Mathews for Northwest Book Lovers and asked her about risk analysis, community support, and how she handled the topic of sex with a medically challenged spouse in her book.

Side note if you’re a memoirist interested in hybrid publishing: check out She Writes Press and their many high-quality titles.

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Kate Troll, All in Due Time (Cirque Press, May 2023)

*Inspiring because this funny, bighearted family makes room for lots more members and the end result is an uplifting portrait of sibling love.

I blurbed this book too, but I’m going to use Alaska Writer Laureate Heather Lende’s blurb because she nailed it:

Kate Troll’s frank personal memoir proves that Tolstoy was wrong — All happy families are not alike. The six talented, close-knit Troll siblings shared a loving, fun-filled childhood and remain best of pals as adults. Turns out, there is something (or I should say someone?) missing. And that is only half of it. All in Due Time is full of surprises and puzzles, but mostly it made me wish I were a long-lost Troll.

I was fortunate to support an early draft of this book and admired how Kate Troll made her family part of this writing project. (Her brother Tim also painted the cover.) In an era of “paternity surprise” memoirs, this one has a bigger cast and more surprises than many. If you find most memoirs too depressing, this one demonstrates a sunnier approach.

Side note if you’re an Alaska writer: check out this title as an example of a recent Cirque Press book. They’re filling a big hole left by the shuttering of other small local and regional presses.

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Linda Fritz, Answering Alaska’s Call (forthcoming August 2023, Epicenter Press)

*Inspiring because Milo “Doc” Fritz, Alaska’s legendary surgeon and eye expert, was not only a healthcare pioneer but an adventurous bush pilot as well—part biography, part memoir, and essential for Alaska history buffs.

I loved learning about Alaska bush healthcare and having a behind-the-scenes preview of Linda Fritz’s project of a lifetime, chronicling her Uncle Milo’s story.

Side note if you’re a writer working on a book that includes your own personal reminiscences as one of several threads: Linda Fritz always knew that Milo was the main protagonist but she had her own story to tell as family member and researcher. Read Answering Alaska’s Call to see how she struck a balance between those elements.

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Lucian Childs, Dreaming Home (interlinked short stories, June 6, 2023, Biblioasis)

*Inspiring because Lucian is “making his publishing debut at the tender age of 74” (as reported in the Globe and Mail); it’s never too late, in other words, and I keep telling Lucian he needs to write a 49 Writers blogpost and tell us all what this rollercoaster ride has felt like.

Fellow Alaskan-turned-Canadian Lucian Childs is not a developmental editing client but he did start one of these stories in a 49 Writers class I taught on Point-of-View. (Choking up now. So happy!)

This book is getting lots of buzz as a Globe and Mail Best Spring Book and one of Lambda Literary Review's Most Anticipated LGBTQ+ Books of June 2023. “A queer coming-of-age, and coming-to-terms, and a poignant exploration of all the ways we search for home, Dreaming Home is the unforgettable story of the fragmenting of an American family.”

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ICYMI, especially for writers:

In Present Tense, the suspense Substack I co-edit with Caitlin Wahrer:

• Agatha Christie, Life Lesson #4. Going Pro: How Adversity and Dire Financial Need Turned Agatha from Dilettante into Steely Professional

• Reverse outlining lessons from an Edgar winner: PLEASE SEE US author Caitlin Mullen shares one of her essential craft tools for developing and revising suspense fiction

• Caitlin Wahrer shares Lessons from judging a lit award; do you DNF?

  

  Yes, you should subscribe.

ALSO:

• A helpful Counter Craft newsletter post on “earning out.”

• The big trade reviews, who writes them, who reads them. (This is an older Slate piece but it answers questions a lot of my I clients ask.)

• Oh darn that funny Julie Vick. I share a lot of her stuff but if you’re a mom or dad you may really really need this post right now! Tips on Getting Writing Done While Parenting (Notes apps, coffee, and noise-canceling headphones).

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Contact me at aromanolax@gmail.com if you’d like more information about my editing services, including full manuscript developmental editing of novels and memoirs. Coaching is selective. Mention this Substack for 10 percent off if you book in advance for late summer or fall 2023.

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And now, let me go pull those Crest White Strips off my teeth. I need a new author photo and it is not an easy process. I’ll spare you the first attempts. Talk next month!