Last Friday I sat down with my agent and signed a book contract to write about the 2006 trip across the North Atlantic. It took all of five minutes; just a few signatures and some initialing as we conversed at her local coffee shop close to Leschi Beach here in Seattle culminated the first two years of a writing project. With it came the mandate to write. Anne, my book agent, might chastise me slightly, insisting that I should have had this before. However, the nature of how non-fiction is contracted for publication is different from fiction and makes it difficult to write the entire book before submission. Fiction is submitted as a completed manuscript and considered on a whole. Non-fiction is submitted as a book proposal, essentially a marketing plan with sample chapters and is chosen based on what it could be. What publisher, agent and writer are all looking for is a voice true to the writer, and also one that will sell. It’s a back and forth process that makes it hard to commit to creating a whole book knowing that you might be on the wrong path and have to rewrite the entire thing. It’s much easier to rewrite a few chapters until the right voice is found. Voice found it becomes easier to recreate it throughout the story.My writing process thus far has not only included the actual chapters of narrative and proposal but also learning the ins and outs of securing a book deal. Fortunate for me, in addition to being my agent, Anne also happens to be a wonderfully patent editor and person who has guided me through submissions, rejections, multiple rewrites, acceptance and a contract. Now I have a deadline, May, and I have reached the starting line. I could not be happier.
Throughout it all I have had a wonderfully supportive parents and friends in addition to Anne who have read, read and re-read my work thus far and whose input and continued support has thus far been invaluable. It has humbling to see the amount of work that goes into a book, even before the contract is signed.
Reading was something I had a hard time learning. Fortunately my parents read me many books long before I figured out how to do it on my own and fostered enough love in books to overwhelm the frustration of learning to read. I think this made me want to write one of my own for a long time in hopes that I would have the chance to write words that might move someone as they moved me. It’s a tall order for a little adventure story for I feel I’ve read a lot of great books and been moved mightily by what was in them. I hope I’m up for it. I believe I am, but I got my work cut out for me.