Christy English

Lunch with an Editor

Tuesday, November 11th, 2008 | Selling Your Work, The Writing Life | Comments Off

When my agent called and told me that the editor we were in negotiation with wanted to meet me to talk about the book, my first question was “Really? Why?” I had never heard of such a meeting, and when I asked my other writer and agent friends, they too had never heard of a writer sitting down with an editor who had not yet bought their book. Or even then. Editors are busy. They have multiple projects coming in at once, many of them late. In spite of the Carrie Bradshaw mythos, editors rarely meet with authors they are working with. Email and phone calls are the methods of communication. Two martini lunches are long gone, if they ever existed at all.

As it was, when we met, the editor had to run out after an hour and a half to go to a meeting at her publishing house. (We met at a restaurant near her office.) Of course, an hour and a half is a long time, especially with someone I had only just met, but as soon as I saw her, I knew that she was my kind of people. Just an instinct, a feeling, but one I always live by. My internal, instinctive watch dog, the one that judges every person I meet within the first seconds I meet them, did not bark, but welcomed her.

This feeling of certainty only got stronger as we ate, and we talked about my novel, not as if it was a manuscript in my computer, where it had been living for the last two and a half years, but as if it was a collaboration in progress, as if it was going to press in nine months and we had to hammer out the last details of the copy.

Of course, we were not discussing sentence structure or where a comma should go. We were talking about the larger issues: the shape of the conflict of the novel and my characters’ reactions to it. And at this meeting, the character who had come to me and knocked on my inner door, came and sat beside us. Eleanor of Aquitaine offered herself as the second protagonist of the novel, in addition to Alais, Princess of France. This editor and I had the same idea on the same day; two days before our meeting, we independently concluded that not only was Eleanor to be the second voice in the book, but that her experience directly mirrored Alais’. Combined, the stories of these two women would bring the novel to greater heights than I had ever before conceived.

At that point, I was relieved. I was certain that the editor and I would be able to agree finally on a direction for the novel, though she was careful to assure me that until she saw the first fifty pages and a new synopsis, she would not be able to even discuss making an offer. This was no surprise to me, but by then I had stopped thinking of offers and money, even of the future of my career. I hoped only to bring the novel as I was beginning to see it to life, and to then be able to lay it in this woman’s capable hands. She was a kindred spirit, a member of my greater tribe, a woman who knew at once who Mary Renault is, and who loves that writer’s work as much as I do. When I spoke of my favorite author, and the editor welcomed the sound of her name, I knew that we would be able to work together.

But it was up to me to take the notes I had made during our meeting, and the thoughts we both had concerning Alais and Eleanor, and write a synopsis that would convey the new scope of the novel, with all its intricacies and power plays, with its complex relationships filled with love and fury. So much for one book to do. Two such strong and different voices to convey to the reader. But sitting with that editor in a light-filled tavern in the West Village, I knew that I could do it.

Working With an Editor

Sunday, November 9th, 2008 | Selling Your Work, The Writing Life | Comments Off

In my last blog, I mentioned being conflicted about absorbing serious notes on my current novel. Never before was I faced with having to completely reconceive my work, to step back from it and see it as an almost different form. I have done so now, and I am glad I did.

Always before, I had a very vague notion of what an editor does. I have heard them speak at conferences; I have seen countless books dedicated to the editors who worked on them. But as a writer, I have never understood what an editor’s job actually entails. I probably still don’t, at least not completely. But I know more than I did two weeks ago.

An editor takes a novel, one that is fine as it is, but then she says, “This novel is fine, but it could be better.” Then she proceeds to tell the writer how this other novel, the one that only the editor can see, could be born. She does not give ultimatums, but she offers comments, ideas that take the writer down roads that she might never have traveled alone.

I was one of these writers, who was asked to absorb major changes in the conception of my novel. At first, I was horrified. How could I turn my back on the work I had done over the course of two years, and take another road? The answer: I did not turn my back on what already was. I had to absorb what I had already done, accept both its beauty and its limitations, and be willing to look at it again.

This sounds easier than it is. My problem was that I wanted to treat my novel as my child, and not a work of art. I wanted to say, “No, this child is perfect. I could not improve it if I tried.” Obviously, this statement is false. My book is not a child. It is a product of my mind, and my characters’ input. There is very little that can not be improved on.

So I sat with the editor’s comments, sent via email through my agent, and I thought. I did not try to work on the ideas, but let them seep into my brain. I sat still, and waited to see if a new conception of my novel would come to me.

And it did. A character I never would have thought to turn to, stepped forward and said, “Let me add my story to the one you are already telling.”

When I met with the editor, we had the same thoughts. The book, as I now believe it was always meant to be born, came to both of us separately. It only came to me after I sat still, put my original ideas aside, and let it come. I had to get out of my own way. I had to step back, to step aside, taking my ego with me, and allow the book as it can be, as it should be, come forth and speak. Only when I took the leap of saying, “I could be wrong. Let me consider this,” only then did the second character come forward, and volunteer to give me the other half of my novel, the half that makes my original concept whole.
I have lost nothing of the original concept. If anything, adding the point of view of the second character has only helped me to know Alais better. Of course, not any character would have done this. It takes a great woman to add to a novel that is already fully formed. Fortunately, the character who stepped forward, and offered her side of the story, is a character worth hearing from on any level, and under any circumstances: Eleanor of Aquitaine.

Siren Song

Friday, October 3rd, 2008 | Selling Your Work, The Writing Life, Uncategorized | Comments Off

 Last week I had the unusual experience of reading the comments an editor made while passing on my novel.  The Queen’s Pawn is being looked at by editors in nine houses in New York. Three of these houses have passed so far, which is to be expected. I have been at this awhile, so I am never surprised by rejection. I am, however surprised by compliments.

Last week’s pass was particularly surprising. The editor, a well respected woman at a house I have always hoped to work with, was so pleased with my style that she would read the same novel again with an eye toward buying it, if I were to make major changes.

I am still considering her comments. To hear anything complimentary in the subjective and often acidic business of publishing is rare. I will admit that I am tempted. Temptation is a new concept for me; this is the first time someone has asked me to modify my original vision to this extent.

The comments offered by the editor would add strength and dimension to the novel, would take it into different territory than I ever conceived for it. It would be a different book.

While this is not a bad thing, I hesitate. I have a pact with the protagonist to tell her story to the best of my ability. To make changes that might take the novel away from her would defeat the purpose of writing the book in the first place. (Alais, for those interested in historical fiction, is the young French princess who makes a small appearance in both the play and the film, The Lion in Winter.)

Like most women in history, Alais was silent during her lifetime. No one makes movies about her, or write books or plays in her honor, as they do for the people who surrounded her: Philippe Auguste of France, Henry II of England, Richard the Lionhearted, and Eleanor of Aquitaine. She lived and died in silence, her reputation forged in the fires of the actions of others.

In The Queen’s Pawn, I hope to give Alais some semblance of a voice. It is not possible to speak for the dead, but I hope to honor her.

But I digress. The question remains, to change the novel, or to leave it intact?

It is a question I will have to answer. But if I make changes to The Queen’s Pawn, the novel will remain Alais’ story. She and I have been partners in the work for two years. The story will remain hers, no matter what else is added to it.

Fear is My Friend

Saturday, December 15th, 2007 | Selling Your Work, The Writing Life, Uncategorized | No Comments

If anyone has glanced at my blog since February, they might have asked the question: Where did Christy go? The answer: I’ve been writing. The novel I was concerned about in February, the novel whose revision eluded me for months, finally came clear. Princess of France, now renamed Queen’s Pawn, has been revised both to my satisfaction and my agent’s, and is now out among the editors in New York. When will it be bought? Only the gods know. But I thank the Muse who feeds my soul. One way or another, I will get my novels into the wider world.

This blog is about the nuts and bolts of writing, the uses of going to conferences, the ways of finding an agent, the perils along the road to selling your work. But what about the writing itself? What of that moment when the first draft is finished, and I sit there, just me and my manuscript, alone in an empty room?

There is nothing quite like the first draft, before any of my first readers have read it, before I have even re-read it myself. Those pristine pages, the first blush of creation, is one of the most amazing moments of being a writer. That silent, scary time when what I’ve written could be good or bad, when only the Muse and I have seen it. The moment is full of uncertainty: I have only myself and my work, and the long silence that comes after a draft is finished. When I ask myself: What if it isn’t any good?

Well, good or not, I send it out, and my readers respond, both with praise and criticism, making the novel better as I begin the long, slow process of revision. But before I take a deep breath, and expose my work to others, and to my own inner editor’s voice, I take a moment to savor not only the pleasure in the finished work, but the fear.

Fear is my friend. It is with me at every turn in the road, at every new endeavor I undertake. It stands with me at the crossroads, when I enter into new country. Before I can see anything else, my fear is with me. It is a spur as well as a challenge. At every point in my life that leads to something larger, at every moment of choice that leads to something better in myself, my fear is always with me. My companion. Another Muse. Another friend. A harsh friend who goads me, who asks, “Can it really be done? Can you really do it?”

Without that friend to ask the question, I might never hear the answer.

“Yes, it can. And yes, I will.”

Nail Biting is part of the Process

Monday, October 9th, 2006 | Finding An Agent, Selling Your Work, Uncategorized | No Comments

  Needless to say, writing is hard. Not just the sitting in the chair and getting down what the Muse gives you, which is hard enough. (Though a joy, too. Please Muse, keep the work coming…)

   It’s also hard to sell the stuff. Once you get an agent, then you have to wait. You send the manuscript, finally revised and finished (for now) and it disappears into the hands of editors, who may take as long as six months or longer to pass on it. I haven’t sold anything yet, so I can’t tell you yet how long it takes to sell something.

    So you wait and you wonder. That is where I am now with my current chick lit manuscript. It is going into the hands of an excellent editor, and who knows how long it will take to hear anything, good or bad.

    But I am in this for the long haul. What else would I do? I find that writing is as necessary to me as breathing. That may change someday, and then I’ll do something else, but I hope not. Even if I end up 95 years old with a desk full of unpublished manuscripts and 15 cats, the journey is worth it. Even the wondering. Even the nail biting.

     Because I get to look into my character’s lives and live there for awhile. I get to hear their stories first. And that is a privilege, one that I can not see myself relinquishing.  An honor that I have no intention of laying down, whether I sell 100 books or none. I love my work, and that ultimately is why I do it.

    Love leads you to strange places, into the wilds, where no one else can go but you, where you have to walk alone. But I am glad to go there. Even when my nails are all bitten off. Who needs a good manicure anyway?