Managing the trunk

After seven years of working on my writing, I have a good sized trunk, meaning collection of unpublished works, that is always making the rounds. On days when I don't find enough time to sit and write my 1000 words, one alternate activity I can do is to revise a trunk story and get it back into the market. Right now my entire trunk is out, which is ideal. This doesn't mean every story I ever wrote and didn't sell is making the rounds. There are a ton that were just too poor quality and had to be retired, but everything I still care to have my name on is out. And I'm a couple thousand words and a couple of scenes into my sf short story, a project to exercise my sf muscles again.

Done with the typeset

Things are rolling right along with the publication of Time and Eternity. I got to see the typeset pages and they're beautiful. Not only were they thoroughly reviewed and painstakingly edited (I found 3 typos, I think? I find more than that in published books all the time, so this is no small feat) Covenant also picked this very cool swirly font for the chapter headings. (Okay, so I'm really jazzed about swirly font. It looks cool!)

My editor worked overtime, helping me get the last changes in on Monday. I'm really quite amazed at the number of hours she's put in. I've got sample chapters to post on my E.M. Tippetts site, but first I need to make a few final tweaks and changes to it.

Why do you do it?

My dance teacher once said, "This is a field where you have to be able to do it all. If a choreographer wants you to run across the stage full tilt, then stop on a dime and drop face first onto the floor, you have to figure out how to do it. If you don't you'll lose your part to the dancers that did." I don't know if that is actually true. I wasn't ever good enough at dance to have to worry about it. In my high school art class, I remember my art teacher showing me some exercises from an art college. One required a student to copy a black and white picture by choosing one color, painting duplicate of the picture all in shades of that color, and then converting it to grayscale via xerox machine. It's harder than it sounds, for me, at least. I can't see color intensity with enough precision to do this.

Usually when people ask why I write, a frustrating conversation ensues. Most people seem to assume that any form of artistic expression is about breaking free. Riding a surge of crative energy that comes from this wild and untameable maelstrom of emotion.

The freedom isn't what interests me. It's the boundaries. LDS fiction has been a very satisfying exercise for me. This market has limits. I can't write excessive violence or graphic sex. I can't overtly criticise the Church and its leadership. My readers are from a very different background than I am, and I lack 90% of their life experiences. I've never had kids. I've never watched a sibling get baptized. I can't cook a casserole to save my life. (I had to look up how to spell casserole just now.) Many see a list of "can'ts" coupled with a chasm between writer and audience and think it must suffocate artistic expression. I feel that they miss the point entirely.

This is my way of doing the excercises that I could never master as a dancer or visual artist. I love having tools removed from my toolbox and an audience with whom I often can't have a simple conversation ("please don't call my parents 'brother' and 'sister', people"), and then be required to figure out how to convey a story with range and emotional authenticity. It's the hardest thing I've ever had to do, and yet the work is its own reward.

Typeset pages

I got the typeset pages for my novel today and have sent them on to Char and another of Char's good friends in Utah. I have no idea where all of these wonderful people come from, who are willing to do such thankless tasks, like reading galleys for typos and other typesetting errors. That's what my job will be for the next couple of days, and Char and her friend, Emily, will send me whatever they find and I'll compile it all and send it to my editor.

So far, so good. The manuscript is pretty clean. Reading it sends me into a panic as I mull over all the skills I lack as a writer. By page 2 I'd reached the point that I thought I'd be lucky to sell ten copies of the thing, but then I reminded myself that I have more than ten family members who're charitably inclined.

The pub date is June 6.