From Rum To Roots
With only ten weeks before the novel From Rum to Roots is available for sale, I am restarting my blog to keep my readers abreast of the latest novel-related news. On August 31, 2010 I made a blog post that became my last here at RumtoRoots.com. The blog crashed and despite my having an audience that was following me, I decided to stop blogging and to concentrate my attention on the manuscript.
I spent three years working closely with an editor. Ricky Weisbroth was the best thing that happened to me in my writing career. She coached me on how to approach the character development, plot, and the various conflicts that I had to create. I learned through her that seizing the moment with words required an attention that was more technical than the awareness I had developed as a photojournalist. There is a sensation that accompanies the photojournalist that helps a writer to render a scene more forcefully. But the technical demands: sentence construction, spelling, grammar, and other language skills that demand a totally different style of attention.
When I started to write the book on May 7, 2007, I literally finished the manuscript in six months. I rewrote a few things and then went to the San Francisco Writers Conference with big dreams… I pitched the story to a few agents and received an enthusiastic response. Several asked me to send them the first 50 pages, and a few even asked me for three chapters.
Just a little brush up, I said to myself as I walked into Ricky’s studio…. This is going to take a couple weeks….
Four years passed. I was writing every day.
She forced me to work harder than I ever thought possible, and by submitting to relentless criticism I gradually learned how to write a novel by rewriting From Rum to Roots. In January 2011, after rewriting the book several times with my primary editor, Ricky Weisbroth, I brought a copy to Alan Rinzler.
Alan wasted no time bursting the bubble I came in on. He loved the idea, liked the writing, saying Ricky had done an outstanding job. But he hated the last third of the manuscript. He refused to edit it. “It’s not ready,” he said. “The ending sucks, I hate it.”
He laughed at me when I was foolish enough to ask him how he’d end the book.
“No idea how you end it,” came his answer. “It’s your story.”
I remembered Ricky suggesting that the plot could use more development but I chose not to listen. Four years had made me bullheaded. Chastened, I retired to my office in the Haight and started to read the manuscript. I began to play with ideas. Possibilities presented themselves. I started to write, tenatative at first, but as time passed my prose became bolder. A year later I returned to Rinzler who finally agreed to edit my book. I went home and spent another year revising and rewriting. Then my Mother-in-law read it … and LOVED it. Patricia Henigman proceeded to insist on proofreading it with her critical eye searching for spaces, typo’s and other annoying details that can get in the way of enjoying a book. I proceeded to go to New York.
That’s when I entered the world of “MARKETING.” More on that experience in the next post.
The final result will soon be in your hands, July 4, 2013. I plan to have a drink to celebrate.
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