A Writer's Reality 101: The Stories behind the Stories.

Two weeks ago, I had the absolute pleasure of meeting Liz Kales, author of Destiny’s Weave, silver haired vixen (that's Alberta-speak for foxy lady) extraordinaire, live and in person. I met Liz through the 2010 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards on the World Wide Web, but, as it turns out, she’s my neighbour. Or nearly so. She lives 15 minutes away from me. Although I think we were both somewhat nervous about meeting face to face for the first time, our anxiety quickly faded, and we had a great time conversing. Liz is a sweetheart, a most gracious host and a fascinating woman.

Lisa: Liz, I’d read or heard somewhere that you used to do some travel writing?

Liz: Yes, well, I wasn’t a real one per se, but I was in the travel business for over twenty-five years, so I wrote many articles about things I did. I actually got paid for quite a few of them. Some were published in the Richmond Review and in the Canadian Travel Trade Journals. (As you can see already, Liz is humble as well. She wrote, got published and paid, numerous times. I’d call that a travel writer.)

Lisa: So you traveled quite a bit.

Liz: Yes, we did quite a lot. Not as much as I would have liked to, but we did travel to lots of places and saw many things. I especially enjoyed travelling by ship. I still love it; love cruising, that’s my favourite.

Lisa: How long has writing been a part of your life?

Liz: I was thinking about when I first wrote anything worthwhile, and I was in grade 7, so I was 12 years old. I wrote a funny play about a henpecked husband who was always saying ‘yes dear.’ The principal of my school really liked it so he had it performed for the parent teacher association.

Lisa: Oh, neat! (I’m so intelligently expressive at times.)

Liz: Yes, it was fun. All through high school, I wrote for the school paper, and then when I graduated, I went to work for the Telegraph Office because I had to make some money. That was more important than anything else at the time because my father was retiring and there were no government pensions in those days.

After I while, I got a job at CBC writing advertisements for TV and radio. I really hated writing the advertisements, really disliked it, and it turned me right off writing for a long time. Later when I got into travel, I wanted to write what I wanted to write. I didn’t like the idea of having to please fifty people or more which is what it’s like in the advertising industry. You have to please everyone.

What changed everything—what made me think I have to start the writing again, was when I went through this horrendous chemotherapy—for Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. That was 7 years ago now, and I lived. I made it through, and I thought, ‘well, I’ve got to do something with this extra time I’ve been given.’ I always wanted to write a novel and I knew a lot about my family history. (They say ‘write what you know’) I’d been researching my ancestry for 25 years and I’d learned about my Huguenot background. When I was going through the chemo, my husband, Allan said to me, “ if you live, I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.” I wanted to go to France. So we went and I just loved it there. We went to the little village where my ancestors originated, Exoudun, and I thought, ‘I have to write about these people.’ A lot of the book is based on real events.

Lisa: Can you give me a summary of the book? Just in case an agent or publisher happens across this interview. (Hey, if I can’t get mine published, I can at least promote my fellow authors!)

Liz: Destiny’s Weave is a saga set in the last two decades of the 17th century that tells the story of Pierre and Jacques Garneau – Huguenot cousins brought up together by their grandfather in small village in south western France. (In real life, they were brothers) In 1685, the Huguenots came under siege and their freedoms were taken away. They were told they must revert to the Catholic Church and if they didn’t, they were hung.

Hundreds of thousands of Huguenots were killed and hundreds of thousands more fled the country. My hero, Pierre, a staunch Calvinist, lives by the philosophy of predestination and feels that his fate is already sealed. He does not want to revert to Catholicism to save himself as Jacques has chosen to do. Jacques, on the other hand, believes what William Shakespeare once wrote. "It is not in the stars to hold our destiny, but in ourselves..."

Lisa: How long did it take you to write the book?

Liz: I didn’t know a thing about writing a novel when I started, I didn’t have a clue, so I went on- line and learned about the Writers Workshop Online classes and I started taking them. That’s where I learned to write a novel. I began writing the novel around the end of 2005. Early in 2006, I started the courses and took them for two years altogether. For my lessons, I would do my scenes. It took me a year to do my first draft, what with the lessons. In 2007, I entered it the way it was in the Amazon contest, and surprisingly, it made it into the semi-finals, and I received a nice review. Then I thought I’d better go back and take a couple of advanced courses to get it into the shape it is in now. It’s been a four or five year process, so I can’t just give up on it.

Lisa: Have you submitted to any publishers?

Liz: I have. I’ve sent it out about 20 times. I received one really nice rejection letter from an agent. He loved it, and he thought the themes were beautiful, but he didn’t think it was going to sell in New York, so I have to look for someone else.

Lisa: It sounds like a combination of historical fiction and adventure. Is there romance in it?

Liz: It has some romance. It’s not romance in the sense of historical romances. However, there is a love story and there’s adventure and history about the time, and some inspiration.

Lisa: What is your favourite part of the novel?

Liz: My favourite part of the novel is when one of the main characters, Mark, is in China. He goes with his father because they are traveling merchants. There’s a whole segment about him learning to be a tea merchant. This was at the time when England was beginning to get interested in tea. While there, he gets involved with a courtesan, so it was interesting to write.

Lisa: It sounds like you did tons of research for this book.

Liz: Yes, because it was 1700th century China and France, but I loved doing it. I love history.

Lisa: Are you working on anything else now?

Liz: Yes, I’m working on a prequel. It will be set all in France and it goes back to 1628, in La Rochelle with King Louis the 13th. He led a siege on the city of La Rochelle, and pretty much starved the people. It takes place around the same time as “The Three Musketeers.”

Lisa: How much are you into the Prequel?

Liz: About five chapters.

Lisa: Do you plan on continuing to submit to publishers?

Liz: Yes, I’m looking for specific agents that handle this kind of thing. I found a website where you can submit directly to the publisher and they like inspirational history so it may be a good fit for them.

Lisa: When is your favourite time to write?

Liz: I’m not a morning person, so I write from 9:00p.m. to 11:00p.m. or midnight. When I was first going through the chemo I would wake up in the middle of the night, go to the computer, and write; that was a good time for me. I always felt sicker during the day.

Lisa: Do you still have your blog?

Liz: I let it go for a while, because I was so busy, but I’m back at it and I put a blog post up the other day. http://albetkales.blogspot.com/

Lisa: If you were to give advice to someone who is thinking about writing what would you say?

Liz: Start early. Don’t wait until you are 60 something. Just write, write, write. Take some lessons if you don’t know much about it. Then you get the basics and rules and once you know them you can break them.

Lisa: Any possibility that you might self-publish?

Liz: I would. I think I’ll give it another six months and then I will.

Lisa: Is there anything else you want me to let people know, Liz?

Liz: You can tell them my age. I’m 73. I’m more or less doing this to keep myself alive. It’s my motivation. The cancer could come back, but I believe as long as I stay happy and motivated and do fun things and say nice things, I can stay alive.

Lisa: Ah…The secrets to a long life…

Liz: Lots of vitamins! A glass of red wine a day. And I have a great husband. We’ve been married for 47 years. It was our anniversary yesterday. Every year since I lived through the chemo, he brings me red roses. I think our relationship is good because he had a heart attack and I nearly lost him, and then he nearly lost me, and you really begin to appreciate each other.

There's a new interview coming with a new author. Git your pants out of their twist, and make yourself presentable.

I'm interviewing authors who are 'yet to be discovered,' getting into the grit and the everyday reality of those of us who are working our way toward publication.
Welcome to an undiscovered world. If you like Indie films, you'll be blown away by the world of Indie Publishing.

Query Letters I Haven't Sent

I'm still working away at perfecting the query letter that will actually get an agent to ask for my work. Life would have been easier if I had written a less complex novel, something I need to remember for my next work. In between all my struggling and hair pulling and tantrums, I've entertained myself with writing queries that I don't actually send. If nothing else, they reveal my twisted sense of humor, might give someone a laugh, and show little bits about the book.

*Wanted*
One half-whacked literary agent with a slightly off kilter, crazed but humorous sensibility who is enamoured with the stupidly inane to represent my charmingly doltish, uniquely quirky, off-centered and heretofore leaning to the right social commentary disguised as a fluffy fur ball manuscript. If this description doesn't fit you, don't bother applying for the position to represent me, as we'll obviously be a match made in Hades. Applications only accepted from those agents with a track record of publishing bestsellers. Due to the overwhelming amount of applications I am receiving don't expect a reply until at least since months after Armageddon has past, and if my bad mood continues, possibly never. Then again, if you really bug me, I may just have to send you an email telling you I deleted your application from my inbox-just for the fun of it. Respectfully yours, Lisa

Dear Agent,
I read 'The Confederacy of Dunces' which was actually a really good book. It's really too bad though that the author had to off himself to get it published, and frankly, if this is the trend of the future, I may have to change my mind about wanting to become an author. I kind of like myself. Somedays. When I'm not trying to get people like you to notice me. Oh, and just to let you know, this may be your last chance to look at my ms for free. See, with all the work we authors have been putting in, we've decided that from now on, for any agent or publisher to look at our work, they have to pay a fee- but we've put it on a sliding scale- a former bestselling author's work- $10,000.00 bucks for a looky-loo. Previously published but not bestselling-$1000.00. Starving author- $5.00. Choose wisely. PS. For every dollar you spend, we'll match you with a penny to be sent to the Fictionally Oppressed Authors Fund. Have a nice day. Respectfully yours, Lisa

Dear Agent,
I've written a really funny book about death, personal devastation, and abandonment. If you think that is a hard thing to do, try your hand at writing a query letter that says that this without actually saying it. I could tell you more about it, but what would be the point since you aren't going to read the darn thing anyway? Respectfully yours, Lisa

The Morning After

Well, it's the morning after the first cut in the 2010 Amazon Breakthough Novel Contest. And . . . I was slashed. Luckily, no major arteries were severed; I have survived, which means my writing will continue, along with my nightmares about pitch and query writing.

The good news is that I was cut soley on my pitch. No one got to read a word of the book. The bad news is that if I'm ever going to get an agent or a publisher to read my book, I have to have a good pitch/query/scandal to get my foot in the door.

Despite being out of the contest so early in the game, I'm really glad I entered it. There's a great group of people involved in the contest, and for a new writer looking to learn things, hanging out on the discussion boards is an easy way to get some help and assistance that can only benefit them on their journey. Writers were willing to help other writers with their pitches, their grammar, their blogs, their contacts, their editing, their knowledge of writing websites, and even with assistance for getting out of bad publishing contracts. The generosity of spirit and atmosphere of kindness and assistance was truly amazing. And there's nothing like the camraderie of being with like minded souls are are all struggling along the same twisted, windy, hilly, frustrating road as oneself.

I want to wish good luck and happy travels to all those who made it to the second round. I'll be keeping my eyes on your journey. In the meantime, it's time for me to re-work my pitch once again, re-edit my manuscript with a sharpened eye, and to move past page 2 of my second book. I'm so glad I'm in the place I've found. It's up and down, crazy, stressful, and heart-breaking at times, but now that I've finally come home, I wouldn't trade it for the world.

Random Musings from a Former Bathroom Inmate

The last time I posted on this blog was January 7. It was shortly thereafter that I began painting our upstairs bathroom. Out with the dark dreary old paint and in with the funky bright spring colors. A great project to deflect my brain while I waited for a friend of mine to finish reading and editing my manuscript. Or so I thought. At first. But then after hours and hours and hours of painting and several small breakdowns later my husband and son kindly pointed out that the green I'd chosen clashed with the fuschia, and it all looked rather stupid with the floor. A new paint color was chosen, a darker burgundy/purple...which somehow translated long days painting later to a crap red brown in the bathroom light. ARGH. The bathroom is now a light green and white, having been repainted by my husband who could no longer stand to be around me, and who knew that after all that hard work and disappointment, the only place in the house he wouldn't have to encounter me would be in that bathroom.

The lesson in all this? I can be one unhappy camper when I put a lot of hard work into something, sacrifice other things, and come out of it all with an end product that is crap. I mean, I sacrificed my social life for that bathroom, I sacrificed my exercise time. I sacrificed time devoted to my manuscript, family time, and I put up with chaotic surroundings, all to get something that isn't remotely like anything I wanted. My time spent in the outhouse feels like time I just lost. I made those same sacrifices last summer when I wrote the manuscript for No One In Particular. The good news is, I love the end product and that made all those sacrifices seem worth it. Over the weekend, I completed draft number 3, cleaning and polishing the manuscript with the assistance of a friend's notes. I now have another believer in the manuscript and he's passing it on to people he knows, trying to help me on the journey toward publication. I have the support of everyone who has read the manuscript fully, which has been great, because self-doubt has a way of creeping in when you're dealing with the publishing industry.

I'm still debating whether to post chapters on this blog, or on another site www.authonomy.com . Then there's the possibility of self-publishing, and publishing on Kindle on Amazon. We'll see. It's kinda like my manuscript is stuck in that upstairs bathroom. It wants to see the light of day, wants to enter into people's lives and create relationships with them, wants to make people laugh and feel good, but it's trapped...stuck because it's author is an unknown, trapped because maybe so far it's creator just hasn't found the right match for it, or hasn't written the query letter that sends agents and publishers into spasms of delight. I'm working on getting it out again now, my friends are working on getting it out. I will persevere. This baby deserves to see the light of day.

An Interview with Myself

Q. So why are you interviewing yourself?
A. Because I’m not famous enough to be interviewed by anyone else at the moment, although my dog would be happy to interview me, but she only speaks Chewbacca and most people don’t understand that language fully. Also, spending day after day at the computer writing is a lonely experience and I need someone to talk to. It seems less weird to do it on paper, rather than out loud.

Q. What’s Chewbacca?
A. Malamute speak-it consists of yelps, growls and a whole other assortment of weird noises. Apparently his own malamute what inspired George Lucas to create Chewie’s character on Star Wars. How is this relevant to anything?

Q. It’s not, but you brought it up. So how’s life in the land of trying to get published?
A. Frustrating, interesting, depressing, challenging, character building. Luckily for me, once I’ve set my mind to something, I’m not one to give up. This will happen. It’s just a question of when. I’ve just got to hit the right agent/publisher. Someone has to be willing to take a risk on a first time author and be open to reading the manuscript.

Q. You sound confident.
A. I waiver. I have bad days, but I believe in the foundation of what I’ve written. No One In Particular is a great story, it’s engaging, and it keeps you wondering what will happen next. The characters are appealing, and the ones that aren’t, well they’ll provoke some emotional responses as well. The book will provoke you emotionally. Mostly it will just make you laugh, but it will also make you uncomfortable, and it will make you think. Women from 25 onward will love this book. It’s not the kind of story you would read, put down and just say, “that was great.” You’ll have some sort of response to it. I love that about this book. It’s different. It’s not what you might initially expect, if you read any part of it, although I believe there are some very funny parts. It has to be taken in the whole.

Q. Can you expand more on the book being different?
A. Sure. It was written through stream of consciousness. I didn’t have the story planned out in my head at all. I just wrote. You can write a book and have everything planned out ahead of time, and a lot of us do this in our lives, we know where we’re going, where we want to be and we plan how to get there. Like me right now. I want to be published and I’m working and planning on how to get there. Sometimes in life, though, we are lost. We don’t know where we’re going; we’re not sure about our future, or something knocks us off track. Turns out the character in the book doesn’t know where she’s going and stream of consciousness writing worked perfectly, the story arose. I think that part of the writing will make some people uncomfortable-especially people who like to plan and feel in control. But they can’t know where the book is going, because the character doesn’t know-they’ll have a reaction to that though. Some will be bothered, some won’t. Some people are okay with an uncertain future, others, not so much.

Q. What else might someone who is going to read your book want to know?
A. It explores the whole concept of left field experiences. That’s never mentioned anywhere, and none of the manuscript readers were told that before they read it, but now, thinking about it, I wonder if knowing that ahead of time, people might be provided with a different depth of experience of the book.

Q. Explain. First, what is a left field experience?
A. Left field experience: a phenomenon in which a happening or event arises from an unexpected, bizarre or uncommon source or direction. The happening may range from being minor, such that one’s reaction to it entails only a brief surge in adrenaline and a fleeting sense of shock, to catastrophic, resulting in an intense personal reaction which precedes a transformation of consciousness and a change in the very core of one’s being or life direction. Basically, something unexpected occurs out of the blue that shocks one, and it provides an awakening of sorts, sometimes temporary, sometimes longer lasting. An example of a minor left field experience would be crossing the street when not paying attention and nearly getting clipped by a car. You’re shocked into paying more attention to life. Major left field experiences can be much harder to deal with and I think the challenge there is to awaken more into life, even though a person’s initial reaction can be to want to turn away or avoid.

Q. And there are left field experiences in the book?
A. There are. The main character, Danny, has a lot of them. She is also very good at giving them to other people. She’s busy trying to wake other people up at times, but she also needs to wake up.

Q. It sounds like the book has a few levels to it.
A. It does. And they are levels that can be missed. There’s the obvious and the not so obvious. On the surface it’s a funny read with some great characters. If you look deeper, there’s a whole lot of other stuff there. Try getting all of this down in a one page query letter to a publisher or an agent. There’s an exercise in frustration.

Q. And if they only read a chapter or two?
A. They’ll get parts, but they won’t get the whole, and they may very well miss all that there is.

Q. As a new author, you’re considered a bit of a risk to publish aren’t you?
A. Yes, but every writer out there was new at this at some point in time. I believe in this book and I believe it has mass appeal. I’m only too happy to work my butt off getting the word out about it. In the meantime, because I’m totally out there about what I’m doing, I just get to hang with the public humiliation of everyone knowing about my rejections, and I hate public embarrassment and humiliation, hate it. But getting this published is worth all that to me. And hey, I can be an inspiration to others for taking risks. It’s kinda cool actually. I’m presently facing one of my worst fears. And I’m surviving.

Q. Any ideas for marketing?
A. Lots. I’m an idea person. Sometimes I have to calm myself down though. I can get over the top sometimes.

Q. Future plans for writing?
A. More books. I’ve got an idea percolating. If it keeps doing so and starts a roiling boil then I’ll know I’m good to go. That’s what happened with this book. My top was ready to blow by the time I sat down to write it. I couldn’t ignore it. It had to be written.

Q. In the meantime?
A. Submit, wait, work on pre-marketing, hope, submit, write the blog, and pay attention to life.

Q. Thanks for the interview.
A. Thank you. It’s always nice to have someone to talk to. Even if it is only me.

Unadulterated Self Promotion

Top Ten Reasons No One In Particular should be published:

10. Given the choice, would you rather read about “Jenkins at the Majors” or “No One In Particular”?
9. There’s nothing like a great escape novel.
8. Everyone likes a revenge fantasy come true.
7. Happy endings are hard to come by these days.
6. It’s always fun to watch an unknown skyrocket to fame.
5. Funny books are better for the body and soul than anti-depressants…and cheaper too.
4. ‘Depends’ stocks are suffering, and you might need some if you read this book. Everyone should contribute to our failing economy in some way.
3. It provides a great excuse to ignore your husband and children.
2. You’ve been waiting forever to read something that is totally hilarious…and based in Maui. You can pretend you’re on vacation without leaving the couch.
**And the number 1 reason No One in Particular should be published is: **
1. Someone, somewhere, somehow, should be able to do something of note without having to have sex with some old dude. Uh… sorry Dave…it’s just my opinion….