Category: bittersweet

This is part of the Bittersweet Book Launch case study, where Dan Blank and Miranda Beverly-Whittemore share the yearlong process of launching her novel. You can view all posts here.

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by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore

 

My mom and my sister and I have had a loose tradition for the past five years or so of coming up to Lake Champlain for a week of intense, creative retreat. Lest you think it is all nose to the grindstone, let it be shouted from the rooftops that last night we watched four episodes of Homeland. Wine and chocolate is consumed, and we watch amusing animal videos on our iphones (no internet here—I’m posting this from a café), but most of our days are spent digging into our work. On the drive up from Connecticut, we each talked about our goals for the week, our fears for our work, and our hopes for each other, which is very helpful and exciting. This week, my mom is working on her YA fantasy series, my sis is aligning her hard drives and working on animations for her autobiographical documentary, and I’m trying to figure out what the hell my next book is going to be about.

Well, it’s not quite as dire as that. Here’s the scoop: I thought I knew what my next book was going to be about, and I think it’s still going to be about that, but now that BITTERSWEET is actually forthcoming on the horizon, the powers that be have let me know that they think my next book isn’t exactly, 100% right, that maybe the vehicle by which its aboutness is delivered is off. It’s a funny thing, to go from writing in relative obscurity for years, to suddenly having people—professional people, like not my loving and supportive husband, for example—care what is coming next. A younger version of my self might have resisted such suggestions, but I’m older and wiser, and dammit, I want my publisher to be as in love with this next book as they are with BITTERSWEET, so I’m taking this week to reflect on the essence of this book, what feels absolutely necessary about it, and what I can dispense with in favor of making it more of a one-two punch follow-up to BITTERSWEET.

These are the challenges that come with good fortune—it simply hadn’t occurred to me that the book I’ve been dreaming about for the last six months wouldn’t have a zip and drive to those who are helping shape my career. It seems to have zip and drive for me, but GAH, now I’m a brand, which means I’ve got to be smart about delivering on that promise.

When I think about it that way, delivering on a promise to my readers, it feels actually quite doable and exciting and lovely. When I think about it they way I was thinking about it when I woke up this morning (HOLYSHITHOWTHEHELLAMIGOINGTOFIXTHISBOOK), it’s pretty much the opposite of that. Oh, also a word of advice if you’re trying to get a fix on your next book project: DON’T SPEND THE MORNING READING DONNA TARTT’S THE GOLDFINCH. Because you will pretty much convince yourself that there’s no point in writing anything about anything, because there’s just no way you’ll ever write anything half as good as she does.

But I took a shower, made and ate a delicious omelet, came into town, I’m in a gorgeous place with people and minds I love, there is no four-year-old whining at my door (butohmygodImissthatkiddosomethingawful), and you know what, there are worse things than getting to sit with your mom and sis in a beautiful house overlooking a lake freaking out about what your next book is going to be because you have set the bar high for yourself!

So I’m grinning and bearing it, folks. And believing that I’m going to find my way through the forest. In the meantime, I scribbled this mantra for myself and taped it up over my workspace:

-It’s an idea you love. But the vehicle isn’t quite right. So you can fix that!

And I’m believing myself.

And for today’s bonus material, check out the log that was across our path when we arrived in the rain two nights ago:

 

And my lumberjack sister’s handiwork the next morning:

 

She’s pretty great. For lots of reasons.

This is part of the Bittersweet Book Launch case study, where Dan Blank and Miranda Beverly-Whittemore share the yearlong process of launching her novel. You can view all posts here.

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by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore

Before heading out for Trick-or-Treating yesterday, I opened up a box from my British Publisher, Borough Press.

 

There are so few blatantly rewarding moments in this process, and getting a box like this is definitely one of them.

 

Not only was there a beautiful ARC of Bittersweet in my favorite Pantone color, but there were also pencils! Ohmygoshapencilwithmynameandtitleonit!

 

NOT TO MENTION A TOTE BAG:

 

(Check out my name, all the way at the bottom).

SQUEEEEEE!!!

This is part of the Bittersweet Book Launch case study, where Dan Blank and Miranda Beverly-Whittemore share the yearlong process of launching her novel. You can view all posts here.

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by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore

In our meeting today, Dan and I talked about a LOT of things. The next book I’m thinking of writing. FriendStories. My upcoming meeting with Crown’s publicity and marketing team. My personal website, which he’s helping me redesign. The copyedit of Bittersweet which is due next week. The work I’m thinking about generating and submitting/pitching to print and online journals in support of Bittersweet’s launch.

Before our meeting, Dan worried I’d feel overwhelmed. And sure, there were moments when he dropped some serious knowledge on me:

 

But contrary to his fears, talking to Dan always makes me feel invigorated, supported and far less alone.

So much of this author platform work is generated in one’s own home, by oneself, in a hypothetical vacuum (“Should I use this as my author photo, or does my left eye look funny?”), that just having someone to talk to about all the zillions of things I’m thinking about all the time makes me feel so much less frenetic.

I focus. I emerge with an assignment or two. And I also am reminded that this process is fun.

 

This is part of the Bittersweet Book Launch case study, where Dan Blank and Miranda Beverly-Whittemore share the yearlong process of launching her novel. You can view all posts here.

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I am prepping for my next conversation with Miranda, and this is the agenda:

• Discussing her next book (wait – what!? We are still months away from the release of this book. Always looking ahead…)
• Preparations for an upcoming meeting with her publisher, ensuring she has everything she needs for them, and if I can provide any resources for her.
• The redesign of her website, which still has a 2007 copyright at the bottom.
• Reviewing her 28 page Author Questionnaire
• Updates on the progress of FriendStories.com
• Discussing her book trailer(s)

On the surface – this seems like we are discussing an insanely wide range of topics. But really, I am focusing on small specific actions for each. And in my role, I am always trying to determine what is NOT on Miranda’s plate. EG: asking her a few key questions around the direction of her website so that I can take action, and she can COMPLETELY forget about it for awhile.

Most authors I speak to describe their mood as “overwhelmed,” and with the list above, I can’t say I blame them. But in the process of working with Miranda, so much of it is about prioritizing and asking key questions. Hopefully she doesn’t read this post before our meeting, she may freak out!
🙂
-Dan

This is part of the Bittersweet Book Launch case study, where Dan Blank and Miranda Beverly-Whittemore share the yearlong process of launching her novel. You can view all posts here.

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by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore

Shortly after I signed my book deal with Crown back in February, I received a long document of questions from my editor, running from the mundane (name, address) to the philosophical (“What is your book about?”) to everything in between. When I double-clicked, I was filled with the same dread I remembered feeling back in 2003 when I encountered my first Author Questionnaire, but for different reasons. Back then, I didn’t “know” anyone. I hadn’t gotten my MFA, and so I felt I had no “connections.” The internet was still, to some degree, a new frontier, and aside from knowing I wanted a website, I really had no idea how I’d be able to get the word out about myself. In other words, I felt I had no agency.

(Me then, at the beginning).

This time around, it felt as though I have too much. Too much memory, too much disappointment, too many clippings, too many fliers from too many readings. What I felt, as I began to think about the Questionnaire this time around, despite my joy at having sold Bittersweet, despite a renewed belief in my career, was deep shame. The bad sales of my second book, Set Me Free, especially, had been (and still was) such a heartbreak that I realized, as I started to dig up old files, that I didn’t even have any copies of the three reviews written about it (if Publisher’s Weekly counts as a “review”).

To clarify: I’m not ashamed of any the reviews I received, even if some of the them were less than stellar. And I’m so appreciative of the little bit of ink both of my books got. So I couldn’t figure out what my problem was! What I began to realize as my palms began to sweat every time I thought about filling the damned thing out, was that I’d internalized so much shame about how my books had performed, that I’d completely forgotten to be proud of the fact that I’d written and published two books in the first place.

Still, realizing that didn’t change much. A few weeks after getting this year’s Author Questionnaire, I answered a few of the questions I felt confident about (my name, and what Bittersweet was about, both seemed like firm terrain), and wrote some vague answers in the other areas that felt a little more shaky (“Please include any reviews you’ve received for previous books”). I emailed it back into my editor and told myself I’d revisit it “later on.”

Time moves on apace, and with my first meeting with my publicity and marketing team looming, I realized last week that now was that “later on.” It was time to bite the bullet.

I told myself the truth: that in order to embrace Bittersweet’s great future– and my future with it– I was going to have to take a good hard look at my past. So I dug up old files, and I scanned them and added them, and I dug up old contacts, and, through remembering all those amazing adventures my early publication life had brought me, I allowed myself to remember how much I love being a writer: doing readings, meeting readers, hearing the ways in which my books have (briefly) touched others lives.

And I realized that most of why I’d been feeling so much shame about the last time I did all this is that I love it so much that I was terrified I would never get to do it again. Until I sold Bittersweet, I had believed that my career was, in fact, over.

Twenty-seven pages later, I’ve written down all I can remember about who I was then, and all the adventures I went on, and also– much more important, I think– all that I believe, and hope, lies in front of me. Uncovering my fears made me feel brave to write down everything I dream for my future.

I just hope the folks at Crown don’t balk at the page count!