Bye Week

It’s bye week. No game. Time to rest up. Time to reflect. If I remember correctly, it’s still a few weeks until the beginning of deer season. If they’re smart, towns schedule their fall festivals during this off week. It’s Halloween, and it’s getting a little colder, and soon, Daylight Savings Time will end.
Last year, my team, the Alabama Crimson Tide, went 12-0 during the regular season, and was rated #1. The whole thing passed by in a blur. I didn’t even watch the games. It brought back too many memories of sharing that experience with my mother, who loved Alabama football. I am glad that so far this season, the Tide has been able to repeat the effort, and this year, I am watching and enjoying the games again, only a little sad sometimes. Mama would have loved this team, so tough on defense, with a good running back, like the Bear Bryant teams of years ago.
So I am a little nostalgic, maybe a little homesick. That makes me think of growing up, of my years at college, then the years I spent in Montgomery. Those memories lead me to think about my next project, a novel set in Montgomery during the decades leading up to the bus boycott.
But I am feeling that itch to begin writing the first draft. Have I done enough research yet? There are a couple of books still on my list to read, that I feel I really must have. But the urge is there, the need to put the first chapter on paper, to establish a clear tone, a base note that will stay in my ear and guide me through. I want to know what this new book will sound like. That is the dilemma, to contimue gathering facts around me like a huge pile of raked leaves, to toss them up in the air and see where thay land, or to cast off and begin fishing for that style and tone that will sustain me through the first draft.
Wow, did I just mix a bunch of metaphors, or what? That tells me that I really need to start writing, and soon.
The plan is to have the first draft completed by May, so that I can go to Montgomery and do some on the ground research, delve into archives, take photos, and just see with my own eyes the places I am writing about.
Read some more books, or begin to write?

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P Town and After

It is not often that authors from a publishing house get together. Women’s Week in Provincetown each year makes that possible for the writers at Bywater Books, as we join together for joint book signings and panel discussions. This was my first time, and I had so much fun, and it was so energizing to get to talk and eat and play with the other writers, all of whom impress me. It’s a good group, and we learned about upcoming releases, and shilled each other’s works, and the camaraderie was worth a host of seminars.

I had breakfast with editor and publisher Kelly Smith, and she couldn’t stop talking about Cynn Chadwick’s next book.

And coming out very soon, like the first week of November, is Jill Malone’s new book, Field Guide to Deception.

Then, there is Mari SanGiovanni’s next book, Liddy-Jean, Marketing Queen, which promises to be as hilarious as her first.

I also got to eavesdrop as Marcia Finical discussed her next book with publisher Marianne K. Martin, and with Kelly Smith, the FG.

I was so excited about all this news, that I barely thought about my own next book, What’s Best for Jane. The editing process will begin soon, and I’m not nervous about it at all.

Much. A little. I have complete confidence that What’s Best for Jane is brilliant.

Marianne Martin is working on her next book, a sequel of sorts to the wonderful Under the Witness Tree. It focuses on the character of Nessie Tinker.

A lot of big, important books are on the way. Bywater is establishing its reputation as a company that seeks out great new writers, and they have found some through their annual fiction contest. They are finding and publishing quality fiction. I am happy to be a part of that group, even if I am a tiny bit intimidated by all of my fellow Bywater authors. Not much. A little.

The plans are to have four of these major events each year for Bywater authors, with the new releases scheduled around them. If we have as much fun at all of them as we did in P Town, you can count me in.

Let's Put on a Show

lesficwritersguild
Mission Statement

The Lesfic Writers’ Guild is a professional association of writers of lesbian literature. Our goals are to advance work by, for and about lesbians; to advocate for the legal and artistic rights of our authors; and to collectively organize, advertise, promote, collaborate on and distribute the publications of our members. In our quest to promote the full spectrum of lesbian writing, we welcome authors, industry professionals and readers.

How cool is this? Every genre has a professional organization, from the Mystery Writers of America, the Romance Writers of America, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Horror Writers Association, you get the idea. There has never been a professional association for the writers of lesbian literature, a small niche, you might think, but I know how large it really is. It’s time the writers get organized and pool information and resources for marketing and promoting our work. Most of us are published by small independent presses with little or no budget for marketing, ads, certainly no money for book tours and the like. Mid list publishers are in the same boat. The economy has put virtually every publishing house, big and small, in the same boat, and some wonder if it is sinking, facing the monolithic amazon.com, which ofers huge discounts, cutting into publishers’ profits, crushing independent booksellers where our work lives, feminist and gay bookstores, with the rise of E Books, the used boook market that resides cheek-to-jowl on amazon’s site with new books, and the litany of woes and dire forecasts could go on. Shrinking dollars in every household budget, shrinking economy, the purchase of new, print books is a luxury.

So, we writers have decided to band together and pool our resources to help ourselves out. This is in the tartup stage, and for now, it exixts as a Yaho group:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lesficwritersguild/

So new, we haven’t built the web site yet. This has happened in the past few days. We have a domain name, a logo, a mission statement, and server space for the web site. It’s sort of like Judy and Andy Hardy, let’s all pitch in and make a show in the barn.

We’ll buy ads. We’ll do things together and share the costs. We’ll promote each other’s work, we’ll act collectively to market and sell, we’ll do joint appearances.

I get a feeling like they must have had in the sixties, when women formed groups and marched and sat on committees and did things together to advance civil rights, women’s rights, peace, so many things. The energy and excitement is contagious.

I’ll keep you updated about the web site, and as you can see from the mission statement, readers are invited, and indeed, essential to that mission. It’s you we are trying to reach, after all.

Now I have to pack and get ready for Women’s Week in P Town. If anyone who reads this will be there, please catch one of Bywater’s events and step up and introduce yourself. We’ll talk.