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Premature publication

Posted on by joanzumwalt

Yes, it’s embarrassing. It’s something I hoped would never happen to me, but I got so excited by being close to publishing my novella, Amigos, that I rushed it into publication. My second mistake was signing up for Kindle Direct, which meant that I couldn’t unpublish it for ninety days, even though I had an improved more attractive version. Finally today I accomplished the switch. For those who have already read it, don’t fret. Only the cover has changed and preliminary pages like title and dedication have been added.

And then it happened again with my memoir. I had hoped to have at least a proof copy to take to the family reunion over July 4, so instead of going slow and careful, again I rushed to completion, leaving me dissatisfied and embarrassed.

Another Lesson Learned.

My memoir —used?

Posted on by joanzumwalt

I just went to Amazon, peeked into the hardback of In pursuit of Dreams and found what they say is the e-book edition. There I found the paperback version for sale at multiple prices ranging from $15.70 new to $20 something — used! I’ve heard other authors complain that they saw their book for sale used even though they never knew a copy had sold nor had they been paid. My real question is: Why would anyone pay more for a “used” copy than the “new” price?

Back to “Lesson Learned” –yesterday I went with Mark to get work done on the RV and he asked me to wait a minute before leaving to be sure it was good to go. I had a copy of my memoir in the car, so I started reading. I got so engrossed that I didn’t see him leave and sat there reading at least ten minutes after he had gone.

Now before you think I’m one course short of a certificate (as we used to say at the community college), I wrote parts many years ago. But the lesson learned is that though I had gone through the manuscript so many times that I was sick of it, I wasn’t actually reading it. Mostly I was looking for little punctuation errors I tend not to see on screen, and I see some still in the finished book.

To repeat The Lesson: Get an editor. Get a reader. Get more than one reader. I was too proud and too confident of my ability to see errors. I wanted it to be read only when it was complete and in print. Really dumb!

Big booboo; lesson learned

Posted on by joanzumwalt

My daughter called to say how much she and her husband were enjoying my memoir, BUT she spotted an unfortunate error. Twice on one page I was writing about my first drug-addicted husband (long dead) and called him by my current husband’s name! My publisher, Archway, allowed 50 corrections free and a charge of $100 per 25 changes after that. I had assured them that I didn’t need to pay no $$ for editorial help.  i is a porfesional, i cun find me own erors!

Well, I did. Most of them, I hope. I have been advised and know from experience that it’s hard to spot your own errors. Looking for a possible market for the next novel I’m working on, one publisher demanded the name and address of my writing partner or editor.

I can imagine that I was writing late at night when Mark called, as usual, “Why don’t you knock it off and come watch TV with me.” And so I wrote his name instead of who I was writing about, and those aren’t the kind of errors I was looking for in the editing phase. Now the book is in print, so I will have to pay more for corrections.

Home Again

Posted on by joanzumwalt

After eight days of camping, the cleanup takes days! Will we do it again? Of course! It was great to visit with seldom-seen relatives – 32 of them the evening we (with daughter Janelle) cooked dinner for the group. I took copies of my novella, Amigos, and gave a copy to my sister-in-law Diane, who drew three illustrations after reading it probably 35 years ago and also gave copies to other interested folks. Per request I read a piece from Amigos around the campfire one night and a poem, “Brother” from my memoir another night.

A hint for your memoir writing or just for reference: I keep a little notebook divided into months with those little post-it strips and record whenever we take a trip like this one, have guests from out-of the area, etc.

Big Surprise

Posted on by joanzumwalt

Curious to see if the improved version of Amigos is available on Kindle, I went to Amazon.com > books and typed my name. There was Amigos, both e-book and paperback, PLUS my memoir, In Pursuit of Dreams, in paperback and hardback, PLUS my author photo and short bio and blogs from this site.

I had not been informed that the memoir was in print nor did I know that the other things would be on “my” page. I am concerned that the price is so high, which is partly because there are some photos. When I complained, Archway said that of course I (and retail buyers) pay a wholesale price. The e-book should be available soon, which I have priced at $3.99.

Memoir prompt

Posted on by joanzumwalt

I’ll be gone camping to the Columbia River in Washington with Zumwalt cousins until July 8. Meanwhile here’s another hint to get you started writing your own memoir or helping someone else write theirs.

Carry a small notebook so whenever a memory comes you can jot it down. Just a word or two will do for now. You might want to start by dividing the notebook with post-its or paper clips. Maybe “early”, “mid-life”, and “later” will do for now. Or before and after big events such as marriage, divorce, children, etc. My memoir was first divided into “Colorado”, “Mexico”, and “Arizona”, three places I’ve lived.

Use whatever divisions work for now, knowing they can be changed. Divisions serve simply to remind you that memoir doesn’t have to be composed chronologically. Think of one story at a time for now. Don’t be intimidated by the idea of writing an entire book.

Amigos in print

Posted on by joanzumwalt

Paperback copies of Amigos arrived recently. I’m pleased, though I’m not sure such a small book was worth all the time and aggravation. But hey– it was a learning experience. And come to think of it, The Old Man and the Sea and Johnathan Livingston Seagull were both novellas. Not that I’m comparing, just saying.

My memoir, In Pursuit of Dreams is “in production” at Archway Press, an off shoot of Simon and Schuster. It has been a much longer project, years in the making, in fact.

More about that later.

Writing a memoir

Posted on by joanzumwalt

For anyone who has urged a parent or other relative to record their memories before it’s too late, or who has considered writing their own memoir, I want to offer suggestions from my own experience.

Family members for years encouraged my parents to write or at least record details of living through the dust bowl days in eastern Colorado, struggling through poverty and hardship to achieve their dream of a ranch in the mountains and then Dad’s calling to be a minister. When Dad knew his time was limited, he started his life story over and over. He was using a word processor, but didn’t understand how to edit the same pages as much as necessary.

Before he died, Mother sent pages and notes, poems and scribbling, pinned together with straight pins, since she was constantly sewing. When I got it pieced together it covered only about the first 20 years of his long life, plus some later poems and a few other incidents.

My first hint would be not to worry about how to start. As I urged Dad, write one story at a time. Start with a vivid memory or a story you have often told.

More later–my own memoir, In Pursuit of Dreams, has just been sent for proofing.

Self-publishing trip

Posted on by joanzumwalt

What an experience the last month has been! First it was catching and correcting errors in Amigos for Kindle. Lesson: get a trusted reader (or two) to read a ms before you publish.

Then my dear sister-in-law who drew the illustrations and was widowed in December said she’d love to have a print copy. Simple, I thought. So I went to Createspace to format a paperback version. Easy peasy, right? Not for me. The first pages with Title, Dedication, etc. should be unnumbered or with Roman numerals. The body of the manuscript should start with page 2.

I decided to alternate headings, my name, title, my name, etc. Somehow that tended to mess up the page numbers. Once every other page was # 3. 2,3,4,3,6,3,etc. Another time every other page was 73! Tearing my hair out at one point, DH Mark manually numbered every other page. Which promptly disappeared when I made another formatting flub.

Not to bore with minute detail, just know that I spent hour after hour, day after day for weeks before getting it right. At one point I thought it was good enough to order a copy. Wrong! All kinds of problems, to my eyes, though my mother-in-law, a university English professor and avid reader, assured me that most readers would never notice. Back to work again. Finally, I think, it’s acceptable and I’ve ordered copies to take to a family reunion on the Columbia River July 4.

So now Amigos should be available for sale on Amazon and elsewhere.

How Amigos came to be

Posted on by joanzumwalt

AMIGOS, A NOVELLA ON AMAZON KINDLE

This little story nagged at me for years. I was living in Mexico nearly forty years ago, sitting one golden afternoon in a plaza in Guanajuato when I saw the man, incredibly old even against the backdrop of that ancient town. There was a strength under his frailty, a vitality under the wrinkled skin, a dignity transcending his rags that stirred me to record him for posterity.

Lacking a camera or artistic talent, I jotted a few words of description in my notebook. “Bent at the waist, upper body horizontal with the ground. Shuffling with the help of a strange-looking cane, each step an effort. Face deeply creased, eyes scarcely visible through the folds.”

He wasn’t happy with that. Didn’t do him justice. I had to agree. I dug a bit deeper, added detail, made complete sentences. I watched him circle the jardin several times that day and many more times in memory. Why did he keep on when merely moving was such an effort? Why didn’t he relax like the rest of us passing the summer afternoon there on the grassy square, on a bench, or on the steps of the band shell? What compelled him to continue around and around? Was it some inner path he wandered? A pilgrimage of penance? Perhaps he knew if he stopped he would never start again.

I put the old Mexican in a poem. He said, “Lady, you’re no poet,” and I had to agree.  I gave him a young boy to befriend and wrote a little story about the amigos. Still not good enough, he told me. So over time I expanded that little story, and many years later I added a troubled would-be writer who might right his world by getting to know the lonely boy and the old Mexican.

Thus my novella Amigos came to be.