Writing, Novels, Poetry & Raw Earth Ink

I’m thirty percent done with the second book of the Isles Quartet, my four book fantasy series. For those new to the blog, this is the fantasy books I talked myself into writing when I was trying to talk my daughter into writing a fantasy novel/series. My intention is to finish Along the Way this summer, then begin the third novel this fall. I also hope to write some poetry while I’m at it.

I continue to send the first book of the fantasy quartet to agents and it continues to be rejected, whether for the quality of my novel, my queries or both is hard to say. I did spend some time researching the writing of the perfect query letter and tried my hand at writing the perfect query letter. That got me nowhere. At this point, if someone were to tell me that I will never get an agent because my queries are terrible, I would believe them. I’ve quit trying. My query letters, nowadays, amount to: Hi. Hope all is well. Weather’s great. Here’s my book. Read it.

I do want to mention that my first novel—a novel that takes place in Vermont with elements of magical realism (depending on your point of view) and poetry—was published by the wonderful, independent publisher Tara Caribou of Raw Earth Ink. I have a great Raw Earth sticker that Tara sent me, but I still haven’t decided where to put it because I like it so much. Truly. Tara has been wonderfully supportive of me and my writing, so I don’t get to complain too much. She essentially designed the book cover, and I love it.

You can find this book and many other books at her website, including three collections of her own poetry Fallen Star Rising, four, Euphoria in Blue and the collection Sketches: Fables, Allegories, and Parables. You can also find samples of her writing there. As of writing this post, I’ve ordered all four books from Lulu.

I’ve also been reading the Elemental Logic fantasy novels by Laurie J Marks. I want to write a post on the first of those novels before long. In the meantime, I’m open to analyzing another poem of Emily Dickinson’s. If you have a request, mention it in the comment section. (My last several analyses of Dickinson have been requests.) Other than that, I hope all is well and the weather is great. Read my book.

& From the back cover of Tiny House, Big Mountain

With her ex-husband imprisoned for embezzlement, the pampered Virginia Fleetman relocates to an inherited mountainside property expecting to live in a newly-finished vacation home. Instead she finds a half-finished foundation with the builder Drew Tippet and her twelve-year-old daughter Cody living inside. Drew has been planning a new life too, but after the checks stopped coming, she is forced to make the basement a refuge.

When Virginia orders Drew and her daughter out, a cascade of life-altering events inextricably binds them together. Cody’s visions and premonitions, after nearly drowning, make her wonder if anyone, including her own mother, believes her. Drew, with a broken back and ankle–and a worsening dependence on pain medication–struggles to forgive herself. Above all, if they’re to have a home before winter, all three must work together to build a house atop the foundation.

Tiny House, Big Mountain is a coming-of-age novel set in the fictional town of Brookway, Vermont where magical realism is woven with betrayal, addiction, and recovery through the bonds of friendship, family, and community.

WistÞistle | Along the Way

I just started the second novel in my fantasy cycle, WistThistle (modern spelling), entitled WistÞistle | Along the Way. If you have a magnifying glass handy, you might see the little green pixel at 0.62%. That’s how much I’ve written. When I wrote WistÞistle: Under and Over the Bridge, I took the same screenshot. (The project always looks insurmountable at this point.) Then I procrastinated, put off posting the screenshot, and a couple months later the novel was finished!

So this time I’m posting it before I finish the novel. This is what the progress bar looks like after writing for one day. Sort of like the first step on the Long Trail. This doesn’t include work on my outline (in which I’ve actually written some scenes). I’ll think about a given scene all day, as though watching a movie, then have to write it down, complete and fully written so that I don’t forget anything.

I’ve been submitting WistThistle and Murder Most Monstrous to agents. Both are intended to be multi-story cycles. So far, no nibbles. It’ll be just my luck, though, if there’s sudden interest in both. Next I’ll be asked how soon I can write a sequel to each. I’m looking forward to the self-pity.

In the meantime, I’m happy to report that Tara Caribou, of Raw Earth Ink, who so beautifully published Tiny House, Big Mountain, is currently reading and considering North of Autumn—a stand alone novel that is also, loosely, a sequel to Tiny House. If you haven’t already read them, follow this link to read the poetry written for North of Autumn.

Available at Raw Earth Ink

Lastly, if anyone wants me to interpret another Dickinson poem—or at least make the attempt—I’ll take a request. It’s a nice distraction from writing novels and my own poetry.

When it rains, it pours…

Many of you have probably already seen photos out of Vermont. Our little brook, just a few feet from the back door, rose up into a pounding torrent that nearly flooded the house and almost overran the footbridge. The idea of moving to higher ground was not an idle thought. Hurricane Irene was supposed to have been a once in a lifetime event, but nature disagrees.

I’ve been struggling to establish a new routine. I just finished my last long poem, The Cat, while staying in Hamburg and completed my “witchy” YA detective novel Murder Most Monstrous, in the days before leaving, and it was like finishing up two long term carpentry projects. Now I arrive at an undeveloped lot and the house I had planned to build just isn’t inspiring me. My first novel, Tiny House, Big Mountain, has elements of “magical realism”—though I would dispute whether it’s really “magical realism”. It’s in part about a girl’s life-altering spiritual experience after her father has tried to murder her (and is partly based on my own life-altering spiritual experience as a child). My second novel, North of Autumn, is thoroughly grounded in the genre—there’s magic and inexplicable coincidence around every corner. Murder Most Monstrous makes two young women detectives, one a witch and one an antiwitch, in a world full of monsters and magical creatures.

I thought that North of Autumn would be appealing to agents. Magical Realism is popular and the novel is meant to playfully entertain—being full of poetry, stories, and touches of romance. But the latest response was this:

“Thank you for sending your query for NORTH OF AUTUMN. Unfortunately, despite the intriguing premise, the opening pages didn’t reveal this manuscript to be a good fit for me, so I’m going to pass.”

In other words: Great idea. Too bad the writing sucks.

Maybe the agent is right. I have a good sense for the worth of my poetry but not so much for my novels. But after three novels involving elements of magic and fantasy, I feel like I just want to write something at the speed of life, and I suspect that puts me at odds with the publishing industry and readers thirsting for ever more conflict and drama. It’s possible I’m over-generalizing, but based on sites like Manuscript Wish List, the pendulum has swung heavily toward plot-driven genre-fiction (Action/Adventure, Commercial, Crime, Domestic Thriller, General, Historical Horror, Horror, Mystery, Neo-Western, Psychological Thriller, Thriller) and away from relationship-driven stories (think of writers like Alice Munro, Steinbeck, Updike or Hemingway). That’s not to say that conflict isn’t at the heart of relationship-driven fiction, but that what drives the conflict are the relationships (at a human scale) not the cranked-volume requirements of genre-fiction. And my guess is that this is why one hears the ever more strident advice that a proper novel begins with conflict from the opening paragraph onward; and why the publishing industry is demanding their attention be riveted by the first ten pages or go home. That advice probably would have been considered borish and childish by any of our great early 20th century authors. They did not, demonstrably, apply that advice to their own writing.

I admit that I may be rationalizing my dozens of rejections.

That said, the examples above were taken straight from an agent’s wish list. Here’s another: “Commercial, Crime, Domestic Thriller, Historical, Historical Horror, Horror, LGBTQ, Mystery, Psychological Thriller, Romance, Thriller, Women’s Fiction“. I can’t help but think that the preponderance of genre-fiction has altered expectations as regards literary fiction, and I question whether a modern day Steinbeck or Alice Munro could ever be as successful (and not that my fiction compares to theirs, but theirs is the writing I admire).

Anyway, I’m now leaning toward a novel entirely focused on the every day relationship between a father, a single parent, and his young son. If I write it, there are going to be no earth-shattering conflicts. Just what it means to be a father and a boy growing up in the 21st century.

I have a short poem to finish and a longer one to begin. Hopefully, health and weather will cooperate.

upinVermont | July 15th 2023

Published: Tiny House, Big Mountain

My first novel is available. I took a picture of it on the steps of the cabin where I wrote large parts of it. You can find a much better picture of it here, along with links where the novel can be purchased. The book is published by Tara Caribou at Raw Earth Ink. She’s a small, Indie publisher and I couldn’t be happier with the results.

And here’s some description from the back cover:

With her ex-husband imprisoned for embezzlement, the pampered Virginia Fleetman relocates to an inherited mountainside property expecting to live in a newly-finished vacation home. Instead she finds a half-finished foundation with the builder Drew Tippet and her twelve-year-old daughter Cody living inside. Drew has been planning a new life too, but after the checks stopped coming, she is forced to make the basement a refuge.

When Virginia orders Drew and her daughter out, a cascade of life-altering events inextricably binds them together. Cody’s visions and premonitions, after nearly drowning, make her wonder if anyone, including her own mother, believes her. Drew, with a broken back and ankle–and a worsening dependence on pain medication–struggles to forgive herself. Above all, if they’re to have a home before winter, all three must work together to build a house atop the foundation.

Tiny House, Big Mountain is a coming-of-age novel set in the fictional town of Brookway, Vermont where magical realism is woven with betrayal, addiction, and recovery through the bonds of friendship, family, and community.

The novel includes my poetry, some of which may already may be familiar to you, and many of Cody's experiences—the main character—are drawn from my own, namely my Near-Death Experience. There's pain, anger, and betrayal, but also hope and kindness in new friendships and family. It's the first novel in a series of novels I hope to write—North of Autumn already having been completed—and it's a good and touching story. But read it and let me know what you think.

And a small passage from the opening of Chapter 7:

The rain was like a river that flowed above rivers, cloud-carried over the sea, fields and mountains; over-filling its banks, spilling billowing waters earthward. There was neither ebb nor increase, but a steady cascade. At first the cracked soil absorbed the deluge, then the congregating waters tilted seaward, finding out old channels, carrying new-fallen leaves, limbs and whole trees. Brooks and rivers, long abiding by their beds, re-authored themselves, trading old turns for new discourse. Livestock swam to higher ground in low-lying pasture. Weed and brush snarled in barbed wire fences, chasing the current that ran before them. The clear waters turned brown and incurious. Rocks and boulders were overturned under the surface and their knuckling and thumps were a thunderous shudder in the fields.

Rough Drafts | Zoē and Polyphemus

I’m nearing the half way mark through Stopping by Autumn. Zoē is the novel’s main character and moves through a world very different from that of the other characters. Unlike my first novel, which only has elements of magical realism, the second novel (taking place in the same fictional region of Vermont) glides whole-heartedly through the genre. The following passage takes place after Zoē wanders into a little village called Sled Island. The El Camino has broken down again and rather than wait with her father at the garage, she explores. (Tue 22nd — Being a rough draft, a just updated this with some minor changes, including the addition of Homeric Epithets.)

Further inside the store the shelves were full of books, souvenirs, toys, clothes, used books and handmade quilts. Some of the shelves were carved into the shapes of vines swollen with wooden grapes. The thick vines seemed to coil and stretch from one shelf to the next, growing thicker and hiding more of the shelves the further she went. 

Hidden among their coils were owls, hawks and gulls with gaping  beaks—all carved from the same dark wood. And if she looked twice the hawk might have vanished or the owl turned its gaze. Zoē walked quietly. An old woman with a cane across her lap was sleeping in a chair in the corner. There was a wisp of a beard trailing from her chin and her gap-toothed mouth hung open as she snored. Next to her was a room with sawdust and shavings spilling out. Zoē went to look and found a workshop. There were no windows, a workbench was in the middle, and broken toys were piled on the floor and spilled from open closets. A large man, as old as the woman, was hunched over the workbench. He wore a leather apron and peered through an elaborate jeweler’s monocle. The man had piled toys at one end of the workbench. One by one, as Zoē watched, he took them and with a small mallet broke them.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I’m makin’ spare parts,” the man gruffly answered.

“But you’re ruining new toys.”

The giant man looked up, still stooped over the workbench, slope-shouldered. “And you never know when a good toy’s gonna need fixin’. So you can’t have too many spare parts.”

Zoē glanced behind her. “You’re just taking them from the store.”

“That’s right.”

“But then there won’t be any good toys to buy,” Zoē answered factually.

“You’re a strange one,” said the man. He flipped up a lens and squinted through his monocle. “You’re a little off aren’t you? Not quite right in the head. Any other girl would have run off by now.” He let that sit, then said, “Come in here.”

Zoē went in and stood at the workbench, hands in her coat pockets. The man picked up a broom that had been leaning behind him and pushed the door shut behind her.

“Why did you do that?”

“What’s that you’ve got round your neck?”

“A necklace.”

“I see that,” answered the giant man, wiping his nose with the back of his hand, “but what’s that you’ve got hanging from the necklace.”

“My mother gave it to me.”

“Give it to me.”

“No,” said Zoē, “you’ll just break it.”

The slope-shouldered man didn’t answer at first. He rubbed his stubbled chin with the palm of his hand as though considering what next. “If you won’t give it to me then let me see it.” Zoē pinched the necklace and lifted the pendant so that he could see it. The giant man studied it and rapped the workbench with his knuckles. “What’s your name, girl?”

Zoē hesitated, then said, “Eudid.”

“Eudid?” asked the man. “Is that a Greek name?”

“Yes,” Zoē answered. “Do you want to see the pendant?”

“Yes!”

“Then let me look through your monocle. If you let me look through your monocle, I’ll let you look at my pendant.”

The giant man stood and took a deep breath. His broad chest expanded and his sloped shoulders rolled. Then he went to Zoē, towering over her. He took off his monocle and gave it to her. Zoē at once saw that he couldn’t see without it—or not very well. She slipped out from between him and the closet, and went to the other side of the workshop. The man tried to see where she went, squinting, but seemed unable to see her. “What are you doing?” he asked.

Zoē went to the workbench. She put down the monocle and picked up the mallet that he’d left on the workbench. “I’m making spare parts,” she answered.

“For what?” he answered.

“For your monocle.”

“How will you do that?” he asked.

“Like this.” She smashed the monocle with one blow. The lenses and tiny gears burst across the workbench and fell to the floor.

 “No!” cried the man. “He swept his arms ahead of him.”

Zoē held onto her necklace, hunched low and scurried along the opposite side of the workbench. The giant man turned, eyes fiercely squinting. When he went behind the workbench, Zoē hurried to the door, opened it and ran back into the store’s displays.

“Eudid!” the man cried.

“Good lord. What’s all the alarm?” The old woman had woken, and was as unable to see as the slope-shouldered man. She clumsily pushed herself upright and swung her cane back and forth.

“My monocle!” roared the man in the doorway.

“What about it?” asked the old woman.

“She broke it!”

“Who did?”

“Eudid!” he roared.

“I did not!” the old woman answered. “I had nothing to do with you or your precious monocle.”

“Eudid!” he roared again. “Eudid!”

Zoē crouched beneath the swinging cane, then ran to a door that was in the center of the store and under a staircase. “I hear the little beast!”

“Where?” answered the old woman, turning and swinging the cane in Zoē’s direction.

“Eudid!” snarled the giant man.

“I did not you old fool!” cried the woman.

Zoē quietly opened the door, stepped down to a little landing, then noiselessly closed the door behind her.

upinVermont | March 21st 2022

A Writer’s Life: Update & Next Novel

There’s no news to report. I’ve written two new short stories, one being a Sci-Fi short story, but haven’t posted them at the blog mainly because many periodicals/journals won’t accept work already published “online”. I’ve also started my next novel. It’s takes place in the same nook of Vermont as Tiny House, Big Mountain. The main characters are new but some of the old characters reappear.

I’ve still gotten no responses from any agents as concerns Tiny House, Big Mountain. Naturally, we’d all like to think our works are works of genius. I thought my novel would be snapped up for all the reasons I love it: it’s uniqueness, it’s upmarket literary ambitions and it’s subject matter; but maybe those are the very qualities that make it less appealing. It’s also possible that my writing isn’t nearly as good as I think it is.

But rejection was always my experience with poetry. Just a couple years ago, I submitted a number of my best poems to journals like New England Review, just to see if anything had changed, and they were all rejected. One of the blessings of blogs and the world wide web is the ability to publish according to ones own artistic standards, for better or worse.

All that said, my next novel is a Romance and will be around 80,000 words—written explicitly for the market’s word-length and subject-matter sweetspot. That’s my concession to popular demand and why not? I’ve stated elsewhere that artist’s produce their best work when they are forced to meet the public half way—and that applies to me too. Isolate writers from the consequences of poor writing and they produce literature nobody wants to read—pretty much the lion’s share of poetry from the latter 20th century.

So, a Romance it is.

As with Tiny House, Big Mountain, there will also be poems. That, at least, I won’t concede.

I’ve already written the opening paragraphs. Just 79000 words to go.

And my short stories? My Sci-Fi short story was just rejected by Azimov’s Science Fiction. That doesn’t surprise me so much. I submitted my other short story to the New Yorker. Go big or go home. I’m also working on another longer blank verse poem written in the spirit of Shakespeare—just because I love the way he thinks. There’s no way that poem is ever going to be published in any journal.

It’s simply too original for the generic free verse preferred by editors, he wrote. Trolling.

And as for Tiny House, Big Mountain, time to send it out to a half dozen more agents. I keep reading articles on best practices as regards submitting material to agents—how to format ones fiction, how to structure ones query letters, how to write synopses: as if there were some magic phrase or perfectly written paragraph that would secure an invitation. I don’t think that’s the case though. At some point one can only do so much. The rest probably comes down to ones query letter being on the right desk at the right time and not much else. It’s probably a bit like playing the lottery or gambling. There are some ground rules but the rest is luck. And you can’t win if you don’t play.

And for your contemplation:

My wife making her block prints. You can find more videos and block prints here.

upinVermont | August 23 2021

A Writer’s Life: Deafening Silence

Nothing to report this week. No agents have responded to my queries and I suppose I’ll send out another round this coming week. My queries, I think, continue to improve, even if my novel doesn’t. That said, in an effort to demonstrate that I’m not a prima donna who thinks his words are writ in gold on gold plate, I’ve been editing my novel and have already removed around a thousand words from the first four chapters.

I picked up The Poet’s & Writer’s Complete Guide to Being a Writer. The book is 480 pages printed on acid-drenched, grocery-bag paper but is nevertheless comprehensive and, I think, a worthwhile purchase (if one wants an overview of the many particulars to writing and publishing). This book and Before and After the Book Deal might be the only two guides one really needs (at the outset at least). Beyond that, I thought I might make a couple quick observations. Every source off- and online stresses the care, etiquette and consideration with which a prospective writer should approach an agent. In an effort to, as accurately as possible, illustrate the relationship between prospective writers, agents and publishing houses (a picture being worth a thousand words) I prepared the following meme:

If you have any questions as regards this diagram, feel free to query in the comment section. Additionally, all of the various sources that I’ve read go to great pains to emphasize the importance of clean, clear, typo free and grammatically correct prose (on paper preferably dipped in myrrh and frankincense) when addressing an agent. As an example of the kind of query/synopsis no agent would consider, the following can be found online:

You’ll notice that the author has egregiously misspelled astronomy as astonomy. No agent worth their salt would ever consider a book from an author who can’t be bothered to spellcheck their synopsis. And rightfully so. I’m not sure if this author’s book was ever published but clearly the author is an amateurish hack. Let this synposis be a lesson to any writer in search of an agent.

Also, agents and editors have years of experience in the publishing industry and if and when they’re willing to volunteer advice to aspiring writers, the writer should always carefully consider what they say. Given their years of experience in the book industry, they’ve no doubt developed a sense for the marketplace and what kinds of books readers are looking for. To wit:

This was for the Cuckoo’s Calling, a book by the little known author Robert Galbraith. One can only hope that Mr. Galbraith followed the publisher’s advice and successfully placed his work elsewhere. Every aspiring writer should carefully review what topics, themes and books any given agent, editor or publisher is looking for along with what books they’ve already published. They know what sells. Lastly, any aspiring writer would do well to read all of an agent’s/publisher’s books before submitting their own manuscripts.

And that’s all for today.