Erin Blakemore's Blog

To say I’ve gotten intimate with my literary heroines is…a bit of an understatement. They’ve inhabited my bed and the insides of my eyelids. They are counted among my closest friends.

All of which is to say it’s kind of weird that I didn’t really visit many heroic home sites until I began writing The Heroine’s Bookshelf.

Since that crazy odyssey began, I’ve stood on the prairie where Pa Ingalls planted cottonwood trees for each of his girls. I’ve climbed the wonky stairs in Orchard House, which Louisa May Alcott affectionately called Apple Slump. I’ve peered into the bay window at a house Edith Wharton used to inhabit and sipped on cocktails at the Algonquin Hotel, Dorothy Parker style.

And yesterday, I bought a ticket. This August, I’ll be returning to Germany for the first time in 15 years (that’s probably another blog post altogether), and I’ve also committed that I will take the train to Amsterdam and the Anne Frank House. The thought of standing in the tiny Secret Annex makes my skin prickle. I wish I could have seen the chestnut tree, now dead and gone, but I will stand there, and I will have a moment with another one of my personal heroines.

Are there other literary pilgrimages on my list? Oh, you bet. I can’t talk about them quite yet, but my fingers are crossed that I’ll soon get to make them.

How about you? Have you ever made a literary pilgrimage?

Photo courtesy of http://lisagouletdesign.blogspot.com

So…the thing people tell you that you never, ever believe about the world of publishing is “prepare to wait.” Because…well, everyone else has to wait, right? Your query letter is the one that will get plucked from the pile and immediately noticed.  Your story is the one that will sell the instant it goes to editors.  Etc.

Yeah.

For a few minutes Anne, drifting slowly down, enjoyed the romance of her situation to the full.

Maybe it’s my natural impatience (a character defect that continually smacks me in the face), but I seriously underestimated the time every publishing activity ever would take.

Publishing is one of those weird industries that simultaneously moves at the speed of light and the speed of a snail. The “hurry up and wait” phenomenon is in full force here. DEADLINE FRENZY is followed by the lull of the dead. And August?! Forget about it. Nothing happens in publishing in August! Nothing!

Things I’ve waited for in the world of publishing:

Answers to my queries
Reaction to my proposal (which got lost in the mail the first time ’round – God help me)
The first book idea to sell (it didn’t)
The second book idea to sell (okay, that happened relatively quickly, but a lifetime LIFETIME longer than I imagined)
Edits and initial reviews
Royalty statements
A sense of unstoppable confidence
A new book idea
Critiques from every human whose opinion I admire (and those I most fear)
My ship to come in
Etc.

Waiting is a mixed bag, I suppose. In its masochistic way, it has taught me to trust myself and to just sit with my ideas, my hopes, and dreams that threaten to engulf me and others and the whole world. And one of my biggest pieces of publishing advice is still “prepare to wait.” What about you?

BIG DISCLAIMER:  This isn’t directed at anyone personally, so don’t worry.

157 years ago today, Charlotte Brontë died in an agony of nausea thought to be caused by hyperemesis gravidarum, or severe morning sickness.

During the course of her short life (she died at 39), she was a teacher, governess, and author. She was a not-so-patient daughter, a discontented lover, and a rebellious sister. Though surrounded by Gothic myths and legends since the publication of Jane Eyre, she was surprisingly fun-loving, wry, and witty.

A moment of silence for Charlotte, who has saved, changed, challenged so many of our lives. This year, for the first time, her date of death will serve as Hyperemesis Gravidarum Awareness Day.

"Dirty" books. "Trashy" novels. "Fluffy" ways to spend your time. The more I get into this crazy world of being an author (and an author with a loudly-announced love of classic books), the more book shame I see all around me.

There seems to be a barely-articulated expectation that as a published author I decry all books that can't be classified as Serious Novels (notwithstanding the fact that lots of women's fiction is not seen as "serious" in their eyes). Even worse, there seems to be an expectation from both genders that women should be ashamed of their reading. Add a drop of 50 Shades of Gray and a dose of secretive Kindle reading, and I think we've got an epidemic on our hands!

Lest you think I'm above knocking my own reading habits, consider this:  The other day, I was looking for a piece of light reading while waiting for an appointment and decided on a popular, made-into-a-movie-perhaps-starring-Meryl-Streep-as-an-Anna-Wintour-esque-harpy-boss bestseller…and found myself shielding the Kindle from passers-by. What, I ask, is up with that?

I'm sure it would be best if we all spent all of our precious reading hours elevating ourselves with amazing prose and brilliant erudition, but sometimes a girl just wants to read…whatever she feels like reading. To me, the choice of a book is as personal as any other choice (and mine alone to make). When we decry our reading in front of others, we teach them to question their own impulses and choices and plant the seeds of shame in our daughters and friends.

I'm bringing this up because it's coming up in various parts of my reading and writing life. I'm doing some work right now that reminds me how dramatic and incredible the opportunity to freely read truly is (how's that for grammar?!). Women's reading and writing were nothing short of revolutionary for a long time, given constraints on subjects considered appropriate for ladies. It makes me feel ornery and a bit mad at myself. And so I ask you to talk to me about shame and reading.

Are you ashamed of your reading habits? If so, why?  Help me figure this out.

So…why write, again?

Last weekend, I had the honor of giving a book talk and participating in an author panel hosted by Pikes Peak Writers, and the question came up over and over again as we shared the difficulties of things like getting noticed, figuring out royalty statements, dealing with change in the industry, and all that waiting. It was one of the more honest discussions on the pitfalls of the business I've heard in a while, and probably raised the hair of the aspiring authors in the audience (sorry, guys).

This is not how I look while writing.

After the event, I headed back to my hotel, a splurge intended to give me the chance to write uninterrupted and in relative luxury for a weekend in a desperate attempt to Get The Damned Book Proposal Turned In. I opened up my document only to find that it sucked. Everything was wrong. The chronology was off, it was boring and pompous, and I was reminded how much of a longshot it is that anyone will ever want to buy a piece of anyone's writing, let alone mine. I was reminded of my fellow panelists and all of the stress and hardship of the industry and the fact that Writing is Hard. So hard.

I indulged this feeling for a little bit, contemplating the certain destruction of my career and my lonely, withered and unloved death. Then I did the only thing I really know how to do—I leaned into it. I shuffled my notes around. I acquired snacks, and ate them. I audibly groaned at times. I chewed on my pen. I listened to the same music on repeat. Soon I was rearranging the chronology, slashing words and putting others in their places, feeling out how to stitch that little piece of narrative together.

I finished the proposal and hit send.

This incident reminded me of why I love writing and why it's so worth it. To me, writing is more than a contract or my name on the front of a book, though I will not lessen the significance or excitement of either of those things. It's the annoying exhilaration of figuring it out so that I can talk to all of you. I finished the weekend kind of exhausted and bleary-eyed, but closer to triumphant than I've been for a while. Getting that draft done was the personal equivalent of hitting a personal record on a run or scoring some kind of work victory. Best of all? I get to do that again, and again, and again.

So…yeah, it's worth it.

I find I am in good company.

I shall let #hackattack2012 pass without mention.

More exciting: The Heroine's Bookshelf is a Bookperk featured deal! For a limited time, you can get the book in an exclusive package along with Jane Eyre and The Flight of Gemma Hardy for just $15. Check it out, and tell a friend—I couldn't be in better company.

One of the coolest parts of the publication journey has been meeting other writers. We get along quite well, other writers and I. We like to complain and kvetch and giggle and support, and we're bound by a mutual love of reading and books and a mutual compulsion to produce words. Occasionally it strikes me that I really am the luckiest author ever. I live in a great place for supportive writers, and I know a huge number of them.  And in recent weeks, a few dear ones have had amazing and well-deserved successes.

To wit: Eleanor Brown, the most fun lunch companion, well, ever, just hit the New York Times and IndieNext paperback bestseller lists with the paperback of The Weird Sisters, a book that amazed me and is likely to delight the many book clubs who have been chomping at the bit for a paperback edition. 

And Stephanie Burgis! Stephanie is a real dear, and not just because she turned me on to Georgette Heyer. She writes the best kinds of books: middle-grade fantasies with a strong dash of Regency, and her debut novel, Kat Incorrigible, was just included on VOYA's Top Shelf List for Favorite Middle-Grade Fiction of 2011.

And the very wonderful Sandra Hume is deep in preparations for Laurapalooza 2012 in Mankato (won't you join us?).

And Ellen F. Brown, whose Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind made my must-read list for 2011, just published an amazing article in Bloomberg on why book publishing will survive the digital age.

And Liz Michalski is hard at work on her next novel, and Daniel Hernandez keeps blowing my mind with his reporting from Mexico City (check out his Down & Delirious in Mexico City, you won't regret it), and Kyla Calvert is working on an exceptional series on homeless youth in San Diego County, and Kj Swanson just was accepted to St. Andrews in Scotland, where she will dissertate about the Brontës.

What about you? What are your latest accomplishments?

Work it!

Even though I'm regularly asked to speak on my perspectives on writing and literature, I never really feel qualified to do so. As is evidenced by ten blogs in a row about my writing process, it's a tenuous and delicate and scary thing, so how could I ever master it? Luckily, I doubt I really need to. I just need to keep getting back to work, back to myself.

Rather than depressing me, a workmanlike (workwomanlike?) attitude toward writing keeps me going. It reminds me that I can improve with practice, that I need to plug away. Treating writing like work is not the most glamorous choice in the world (pro tip: neither is any aspect of writing, at least for me), but it results in writing that gets done with the minimum of fuss and emotional trauma. This is not to say that there is not emotional trauma galore in the process…how can you really get to readers if you don't strip naked and wander around every once in a while? But for me, it always comes back to the work.

Luckily, I am a person who loves to work. I am a hard worker. This could be due to insecurity or incompetence or some other word that starts with "I". I'm sure it's safer for me to keep my identity as a worker instead of as an artist, but it works for now.

Might this change as I mature? I guess we'll see. For now, there's a big pile of work awaiting me—the work of finding myself and others on pages I create and the work of showing up for my work. That sounds like a lot of work, doesn't it? And yet I relish the rolling up of the sleeves. Who's with me?

 

 

You know the big, huge, terrifying amount of time, energy and love you pour into your writing? You know the dreams you wrap up in every word? It will all be for naught if you don't show up to protect it.

I don't mean go out and buy a gun, or go out and get all obsessed with the remote possibility of someone stealing your precious ideas, unless that's your thing. I mean that letting your desire for publication trump your common sense and your sense of self-protection is somewhat ludicrous. So is allowing people to divert you from your higher purpose or giving away your self-respect to someone who seems to offer "something for your career" in exchange for your firstborn child, or something. Find the right people to bitch to and trust. Find a sense of unwavering something that lets you shut the door a few moments a week to write those words, or stand up on behalf of the draft you can't get out of your head, or murder the character you love too much for your own good.

I won't go into specifics, but I have had to learn all this the hard way. Ultimately, I must show up on my own behalf and on behalf of my work.

That's what I like about you.

Look, the publishing industry is changing fast. Things are buzzy and kind of terrifying. There's always something to compare yourself to—a stellar success that is just enough like you to make you really jealous, or a flameout that is just close enough to home to make you wince.

It might sound cliche, but the only way I know to combat this weirdness is to look for the book only I can write.

When I got close to my first book deal (spoiler alert: it didn't happen), I really didn't get this. I didn't get that an editorial committee, or an editor, or a reviewer, or a librarian, or a reader would take a look at the cover of a book with my name on it and say something to the effect of "So? Why should I care?" And that's okay. It really is. Because when I'm doing my job right, I'm writing the book only I can write, the book I was born to bring to all of you. This doesn't mean that the book will change the world, but in order to succeed I have to bring my uniqueness and my voice and courage to the work.  It might be scary, or confusing, or really hard to get down to that essence, but I kind of feel like that's my calling as a writer.

It's also the hardest thing in the world to go for, because in order to pursue the book that only you can write, you have to figure out what "you" means at any given moment. That's the really tricky part.