Jamie Seitz's Blog
August 20, 2024
Behind the Scenes with Jamie: Publishing is a tricky business
I knew this was a tough job. Or at least I thought I did.
I could be vulnerable. Putting myself and my words on paper for people to read, judge, and dissect isn't easy or comfortable, but I could take it. I was ready for the healthy amount of rejection an author encounters at every single stage of the publishing journey, from the initial agent query to the publisher submission process to getting your manuscript across the finish line to become a shiny new book in your very own hands. I'd been warned that publishing takes an eternity and would most likely be a winding road I might want to drive right off the edge of some days.
But I was sure it would happen. I was sure I would eventually have my book in my hands, even if all that was left by the end were bloody stumps because I had to claw my way through it.
Unfortunately, the universe did not get my memo about how I preferred my plan to unfold. Completely rude, I know.
The bummer of all bummers is that Jenny With a Why will not be published. After too many delays, issues, and red flags with the publisher to ignore, I made the tough choice to pull the book and shelve it. Maybe someday I'll pull it out, dust it off, rewrite it, and give it another shot. But for now, Jenny will just be the magical little story that helped to heal the heart of ten-year-old Jamie and gave me the confidence to continue on the path to becoming a published author. (I also got a hell of a playlist out of it.)
My other book The Weight of Water IS being published by Fire & Ice Publishing (a different publisher than Jenny With a Why) in October, and the process with them has been quite dreamy! Final edits were turned in last week, and the book cover reveal and release date will be announced soon. It's really happening, friends!
I can't wait for you to meet Quinn and her English mates, especially the adorable Oliver Wellington. It's been a minute since I've written a smoochy YA romance, and to say I had a delightful time writing it is an understatement.
THE WEIGHT OF WATER
The majority of Quinn Keaton’s life has been spent living in the shadow of her mother’s debilitating grief. After her brother Griffin's accidental drowning sixteen years ago, her mother retreated from the world with Quinn in tow. Water, strangers, heartache, and the unknown become possible threats to their small, safe life, so she created an insulated bubble where nothing could harm them. But now, Quinn isn't sure where her own insecurities and fears begin and where her mother's end. When an opportunity arises for Quinn to spend her senior year abroad at an English boarding school, her mother demands she turn it down and threatens to disown her if she goes. Quinn's first act of rebellion opens the door to what her life could be if she is brave enough to live it. As her world expands in England with new friends and a chance at love, Quinn wonders how she can ever go back to her previous life, even if it means letting her mother go.
Stay connected with me on Facebook and Instagram, and be sure to sign up for my email list to get all the essential book info first! Share with your friends and your friend's friends. If you're outside the Des Moines metro and you want to be able to pick up my book at your local independent bookstore, leave the name and location in the comments below, and I'll do my best to get it there.
Friends, I know I've said it before, but it bears repeating. Thank you for sticking with me and being patient. Thank you for asking about the status of my book and being kind when I give the ho-hum answer of "Who the hell actually knows what's happening with my book?" While you're waiting for the book to come out, pop on over to the The Weight of Water playlist and take a listen.
Happy Reading!
Behind the Scenes with Jamie: When are you going to write a funny story?
My mom often asks me when I'm going to write a funny book. This is probably because I like to share the funny things I notice in my life on social media most days or because I wrote a short story series called Nick & Amy, very loosely based on my own marriage, that was on purpose, over the top funny, or because in real life, a sense of humor is my favorite thing about a person, and making someone really laugh is like winning the lottery.
I like writing funny, but the truth is, it's actually really hard to write an entire book that way. Like really exhausting. Maybe it's because most funny things often start from a place of pain or trauma. Most funny people and comedians have a hard childhood or early trauma where humor can be the salve, but funny usually means really vulnerable, honest, and raw, and it takes a lot of effort to sit in that space for a chunk of time. Whatever the reason, it's hard work. My next project IS funny, and I promise you, it's been the hardest to finish to make it continually amusing all the way through. In fact, it's still not close to ready.
Personally, writing the tough stuff is like bonus therapy, and it's the reason I hang out here most often. It's a way to work through real-life emotions and situations you can't undo or redo. On the page, I can write it how I wish it had gone. I can make the adults in the book do what they should have done. I can play out the consequences of their actions in hopes that they resonate with a reader. Lots of authors make the joke, "Be careful, or I'll kill you off in my next book." That's not the genre I write, but I will absolutely give you a traumatic childhood or life event and help you heal from it while I heal something in myself, hopefully without being too preachy, so we can all learn something about ourselves together.
Last night, I got a message from someone who read Weight of Water. She said it was the exact book she needed right now to feel connected and seen as an adult who was learning to be brave and move on from a messy relationship with a parent who couldn't choose her.
And that's it, friends. It's the whole damn reason I wanted to be a writer in the first place. If I feel this, then maybe you do. Feeling it together has to be better than feeling it alone. And if I write it down on paper, share it, and heal a piece of myself along the way, it may connect with and change you, too. And the world spins madly on...
A funny book is coming, but in the meantime, Weight of Water will have to do. There are some smoochy parts mixed with the serious if that entices you. So, come meet Quinn and her friends.
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THE WEIGHT OF WATER
The majority of Quinn Keaton’s life has been spent living in the shadow of her mother’s debilitating grief. After her brother Griffin's accidental drowning sixteen years ago, her mother retreated from the world with Quinn in tow. Water, strangers, heartache, and the unknown become possible threats to their small, safe life, so she created an insulated bubble where nothing could harm them. But now, Quinn isn't sure where her own insecurities and fears begin and where her mother's end. When an opportunity arises for Quinn to spend her senior year abroad at an English boarding school, her mother demands she turn it down and threatens to disown her if she goes. Quinn's first act of rebellion opens the door to what her life could be if she is brave enough to live it. As her world expands in England with new friends and a chance at love, Quinn wonders how she can ever go back to her previous life, even if it means letting her mother go.
Stay connected with me on Facebook, Instagram, and BlueSky, and be sure to sign up for my email list to get all the essential book info first! Share with your friends and your friend's friends. If you're outside the Des Moines metro and you want to be able to pick up my book at your local independent bookstore, leave the name and location in the comments below, and I'll do my best to get it there.
Happy Reading!
January 12, 2024
Behind the Scenes with Jamie: The Evolution of Inspiration edition
This hilarious memory from 5 years ago popped up on my FB page today about the insanity of shoe shopping with my husband. That real-life incident became the inspiration for a short story, Nick and Amy Go Shoe Shopping and is a perfect example of how there are stories all around us just dying to be told. And if you're wondering...the pairs of shoes Scott bought that day are the ones he wears to this very day.
The questions I might ask myself when buying new shoes:
1. Are they cute?
2. Are they comfy?
3.Are they a reasonable price.
Done. Purchased. Don't think about it again.
The questions my hubby, who buys approximately one new pair of shoes every ten years under protest asks himself when buying shoes:
1. Are they comfortable?
2. How much?
3. Can I wear these with 99% of my dress clothes and/or a swimming suit?
4. Could they double as running shoes if I needed them to?
5. If a fire breaks out at work, will I be able to run out of the building without getting a blister from these loafers?
6. Am I sure I can't just patch my current shoes with the hole in the sole?
7. If I bend my foot in a weird way, will the shoe crease and become ruined before ten years are up?
8. Do I have shoe polish at home that will also match this shoe because that might be a deal breaker if I have to buy another color shoe polish?
9. Can I do a cartwheel in these shoes? Not that I do them, but could I if I so chose?
10. Is my wife dead in the corner from watching me try on shoes for an hour and/ or will she kill me dead if I don't make a decision soon?
Nick & Amy are my favorites. If you haven't guessed already, they are loosely based on another couple you might know who I won't name, but rhymes with Schmeitzes. Many of these stories stemmed from real-life incidents that happened to that couple you know and then I may have massaged, tweaked, and embellished just a wee bit to make it funnier. Except the Mexico story. That happened exactly as I wrote it. Exactly.
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Behind the Scenes with Jamie: The Interview edition
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Behind the Scenes with Jamie: How to Write a Book edition
Good news! I can help with that. To date, I've written six books and I've been in the publishing process for almost three years now, which makes me absolutely qualified to share these steps with you.
Step 1: Write a book.
Step 2: Put it away for a year.
Step 3: Revise the book so it's fairly readable and not a steaming garbage dump.
Step 4: Revise with your critique group a chapter at a time and cringe when they point out how often your characters sigh, grin, smile, hold the breath they didn't realize they had been holding.
Step 5: Realize you called a character one name for the first half of the book and then somehow changed it without remembering you changed it for the second half. Whoops. Also realize that you didn't catch that with the first revisions because Sam and David are basically the same, right? Double whoops.
Step 6: Now, put it away for two months and wish that it magically finishes itself while you are starting a new project.
Step 7: Get it out and do a happy dance because you don't hate it. Edit the book again, chapter by chapter, page by page. 274 pages/76k words = FOREVER AND EVER.
Step 8: Get super excited because you're finally finished and it's as good as you can make it by yourself.
Step 9: Remember that you're not actually done and you still have to send it to through an editor and there will most definitely be more changes.
Step 10: Cry a little bit because you are tired of looking at these same words all the time and maybe it is a garbage dump book again.
Step 11: Stop crying and schedule the massage you've been promising yourself when you finish the book and realize you finished just in time because your shoulders are now permanently stuck up by your ears because this is where you carry all your stress and anxiety while you are typing even though you do quite a bit of yoga and that's horseshit.
Step 12: Write a funny post so you can avoid the other project you started last fall.
In all honestly, this book is as done as I can make it by myself and that feels lovely. The Weight of Water is my fourth, completely written, revised, and finished book and I do really love her even though she's an absolute pain in my ass. She's flirty, adorable, and a little British, and I can't wait to see if my agent can sell this so you can all meet Quinn Keaton and her boarding school mates.
The Weight of Water will be published fall of 2024 by Fire & Ice Publishing. Be sure to subscribe to my newsletter and blog to stay up to date on all important book news!
Plus, a little gift for you.
Enjoy! Share the link with your friends! Share my author page! And share my upcoming book, The Weight of Water, out fall of 2024!
Feel free to leave a comment below and let me know what your faves are on the playlist! And please be sure to Subscribe to keep up to date on all updates on books, projects, and events.
Behind the Scenes with Jamie: Playlist edition
Before I start writing on any new project, I make a playlist of music to listen to while I'm writing. It might be music that one of the characters might listen to on the regular, or a mix of songs that puts me in a particular mood I want to be in to write that thing. Whatevs. It's what I do. In fact, I'm going to toot my own horn and say I'm pretty damn good at it. I was an excellent mixed tape maker in my teen years. Scott has an impressive collection of mixed CDs that he would get from me in his stocking every Christmas that I would personally curate from music that made me think of him all year long. And our family road trip playlists are some of the best around.
So, of course, there was a playlist for Jenny With A Why. But I wrote that book like 6 years ago, and my playlist was on Amazon music. But just for you guys...I've recreated it, song for song, on Spotify. Wasn't that lovely of me? What a gift, amiright? I've made it public so you can follow it, like it, and jam to it in your car while you get groceries, run errands, take your kids to school, scoop the loop, go cruising, etc.
Until this book had a title, it was titled 1989; the year I was 11 years old, and about how old Jenny is in the book. These are the songs that were some of my faves around that year and, honestly, take me right back to waiting patiently beside my boom box to tape some of these gems right off the radio. Thank God for Casey Kasem and American Top 40.
Here's my gift for you.
Enjoy! Share the link with your friends! Share my author page! And share my upcoming book, Jenny With a Why, out in 2024!
Feel free to leave a comment below and let me know what your faves are on the playlist! And please be sure to Subscribe to keep up to date on all updates on books, projects, and events.
January 11, 2024
Behind the Scenes with Jamie: The Writer's Life edition
We are a glamorous bunch. We write in our fanciest sweatpants and reheat our same cold cup of coffee a dozen times in the most high-tech of microwaves, or if we're feeling extra fancy and glamorous, we take our entire writer's set up (laptop and headphones) to the local coffee shop where we have to wear disguises because we are basically celebrities. And we do all this because the life of a writer is so fast paced and exciting, and we're cranking out publishing deals left and right. Oh, friends, I wish.
I am as un-fancy as it gets. I did wear earrings AND a cardigan that one time to the coffee shop, but usually it's just me...in my office...barefoot....in my yoga clothes...wondering if I could afford to hire a ghostwriter to finish this book. Not fancy.
Hilarious. Have I mentioned that patience is not a virtue I was given at birth? I think God himself punked me when I was sent down to Earth in the stork's bundle by sprinkling on a little extra creativity and fun wordplay and then erasing every last bit of the patience every baby gets in their lowest default setting as a funny little ha ha experiment because it had been a while since he'd set a bush on fire or sent a raging flood.
Anyhoo...as you can see by the timeline below, I first wrote Jenny With a Why more than FIVE years ago. That's five years of rewrites, edits, query letters, rejections, excitement, disappointment, starting over, elation, waiting, waiting, and more waiting.
In the meantime, I've written three new books, 27 In the Weeds columns, 15 short stories, a meal-planning cookbook website of sorts, and about 500+ articles, newsletters, social media posts, and more for clients.
But the wait is almost over! In just a few short months, we'll have done this and there will be books to buy and read and put in your libraries. JENNY WITH A WHY and THE WEIGHT OF WATER are almost here!
Feel free to leave a comment below! And please be sure to Subscribe to keep up to date on all updates on books, projects, and events.
