Member Spotlight: Wendy Blackburn

interviewed by Sukie Juhan

Wendy Blackburn’s debut novel, Beachglass, was recently published by St. Martin’s Press. It is exciting when a member of our community gets published; Wendy has been a Seattle Writergrrl for several years.

She responded to some questions about the process of writing and getting published.

What inspired you to write this novel?

I had been working with adolescents in an outpatient chemical dependency treatment center for about a year and had been in that field since 1992. I’ve been around AA and recovery for my whole adult life. In 1997 my older daughter was born and I took time off to be an at-home mom, and it was like I was possessed by writing. I had always dabbled, but this was … I can only guess it was hormones, the way it was coming out of me so powerfully. And what I wanted to write about was recovery; it’s what I know—the miracle part, the growth, the months and years after treatment. Most people have lots of inaccurate assumptions that I wanted to blow through. I wanted to show young people in recovery—successful, creative people, not the old men in rumpled suits in church basements drinking bad coffee and complaining about not drinking that most people envision when they hear "AA." I have never met a more dynamic, varied, and fascinating group of people. The whole thing just screamed, "Write about me!"

Writers who inspire: Janet Fitch, Jane Hamilton, Anne Lamott, Jeffrey Eugenides, Myla Goldberg, Mary Oliver.

Other inspiration: Music. I write best with music on; it helps with the stream-of-consciousness thing to be surrounded by brilliant combinations of words. I wrote most of this novel while listening to Radiohead, Elvis Costello, Paul Simon, and Ani DiFranco.

How long did it take to write it (from idea to completed draft)?

I started it in 1997, and like I said, I had a new baby at the time, so I wrote tiny pieces here and there during the day while she was asleep, or late at night when I should have been. Once she was in preschool, I was able to spend more time writing, and I had what I called a finished draft in 2001. Three years of revising and waiting ensued, and it went out to publishers late in 2004. After Diane Reverand—executive editor at St. Martin’s Press —got it, there were a few more very minor revisions, and the draft that is now the novel was completed early in 2005. I finished work on the final proof in September 2005, the night I went into labor with my younger daughter. Literally, I put the rubber bands around the manuscript at 10 p.m. and went into labor at 1 a.m., which was uncanny because I kept saying, "I’ve got to finish this before the baby is born." I’m sure there was some sort of inner buzzer that went off letting her know that the last page was done and she could come out. The analogies between birthing a baby and birthing a book are so right-on, and for me, they paralleled in time as well as theory.

How long did it take you to find your literary agent? How did you find her?

I sat down with Jeff Herman's Writer's Guide to Book Editors, Publishers and Literary Agents with a highlighter and sent cold-call query letters to 73 agents—anyone who listed "fiction" as a genre and whose entry I liked. Much time was spent waiting for responses, getting rejection letters, and checking the mailbox. There were a few "we’d like to see a sample"-type responses requesting a chapter or 10 or 50 pages or the whole manuscript … more trips to Kinko’s. It wasn’t until about seven months after starting this process that I received a letter from someone at the Charlotte Gusay Literary Agency requesting the first three chapters. Charlotte’s assistants fell in love with it and begged her to read it. She all but refused, as it was too long (503 pages—down from 688—but still too long for her standards). The assistants persisted, and Charlotte took a quick look and immediately called me to say that she did indeed think it was fabulous, and if I could get it down under 400 pages, she would definitely read the whole thing and consider representing me. I had already done some pretty substantial editing with a local freelance editor—Marti Kanna, who was amazing—so the idea of cutting another 100 pages was daunting. I did most of that on my own and with the help of various readers and friends, getting it down to a slim 387 pages. Charlotte read it and signed me.

Were you ever discouraged or did you remain determined?

One of the most difficult things for me was not the writing itself; it was the mental and emotional process of "keeping the faith" and not letting the waiting, the rejections, and what felt like an insurmountable amount of work bring me down. I was discouraged more often than not. My default setting is the pessimistic, Eeyore, things-will-never-work-out, glass-half-empty thing. My husband is the eternal optimist who was always bounding around telling me it was all going to work out while I eyed him from under my dark cloud. I was not one of those "shoot for the stars, your dreams will come true" writers. I grew up in LA, where everyone claims to have written something or starred in something or knows somebody, but it never amounted to anything real. So to even think quietly to myself that I could get published took a lot. I was discouraged for most of those years and never really thought anything would come of it. The flip side is that I am a very determined, stubborn, tenacious person, and when I get something in my crosshairs, I tend to not let it go. So there was this wonderful war going on inside of me where I didn’t really believe it would happen, but wasn’t willing to let go until it did.

Are you doing your own publicity, relying on the publisher, or doing a little of both? How important do you think it is to the success of your novel?

Mostly my own, but there is a publicist at St. Martin’s who has helped. I booked seven of my eight book signings and have been responsible for getting all of my newspaper, magazine, and radio interviews. My publicist sent out press releases, and she sends books and letters to various people and organizations from time to time, but for the most part, it’s me—having a Web site, mailing postcards, making bookmarks, e-mailing reviewers, etc. I know there have been jumps in sales after a reading or an interview, or when Beachglass made it onto the Seattle Times summer reading list or into Amazon.com’s editors’ picks, so I know it’s worth it to get a mention or to have any sort of increased visibility.

Probably one of the biggest mistakes a first-timer could make would be to sit back and expect the publisher to do the promotion. If you don’t want to do it yourself, hire a private PR firm. But it is vital to the success of the book to market it; word-of-mouth on its own isn’t going to generate the kind of sales most writers would like to see.

What was your biggest challenge and proudest moment in writing this novel?

Biggest challenge? Staying with it, not abandoning it even when I wanted to. Listening when I was told what to cut and what to add and not having a tantrum over it—trusting my agent and editors and readers that they could see a bigger picture than I could. Patience. Waiting. Not checking my e-mail every 25 seconds. Also challenging has been the readings and author events. I am not a podium person or attention seeker. I like writing for its quiet and solitude, so being—literally—"on stage" has been quite disarming.

My proudest moment was when I stopped by Island Books (on Mercer Island) the week it was to be published and saw it sitting on the front table. Making a total goof of myself, I turned to the bookseller, pointed at my book, and said (no doubt with a too-big smile on my face), "That one’s mine!" She had me sign them and put the "autographed copy" bookmark in them. It was more than a little surreal.

What advice do you have for aspiring novelists about the writing and re-writing process? Do you have any other advice / wisdom to share?

Keep writing. Find people you trust to give you feedback and then listen to them. Weed out the ones that give awful feedback and don’t listen to them. Hire a pro if you can afford one, and if you can’t, use the Writergrrls list, post requests for readers/editors at bookstores, and blog. There are lots of good people out there who will read your work and help you through the muck. Brace yourself for more rejection than you have ever imagined possible. Your ego will get bruised, your spirit will get spit on, and you will want to say never mind—don’t. And read. Read lots, read every day, read novels and magazines and newspapers and non-fiction and history and children’s books and the classics. Re-read books that inspired you the first time.

Be willing to revise, but be especially willing to delete; you’ll invariably have to let go of parts you love. The frustration of having agonized for hours or days between a semicolon and an em dash, just to have the whole paragraph wiped out … this will happen. Breathe. Be flexible; don’t cop an attitude with your editor. If you trust her and she says it has to go away, make it go away. If you don’t trust her, find someone you do trust.

What are the most valuable resources to your writing life (including books, Web sites, etc.)?

Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird I could not live without. A dictionary, a thesaurus, the Chicago Manual of Style. The Writergrrls list. My writing group, which sort of disbanded in 2001, was crucial; I was lucky to have found a group of very smart, well-read, honest, supportive, emotionally stable people who weren’t out to criticize others simply to pump up their own egos; nor did they tiptoe and praise and smile at anything shared the way a grandmother or best friend would. Other writers’ Web sites and blogs (Martha O’Connor is a favorite). Talking with other new writers. Life itself is a constant resource: dialogue, moments, language. I keep my eyes open; I jot things down on scrap paper; I ask questions. I Google like there’s no tomorrow.

What's next for you? Are you working on the next novel or letting this one percolate a little longer?

I have written a few paragraphs, maybe a few pages, but nothing that is catching fire and taking off the way this story did. I would love to write another one. But back to the "baby" analogy, the gestational period of writing was both difficult and wonderful, the labor of publication was both painful and glorious, and now to have a newborn novel out in the world where everyone can see it and touch it and share it is both incredible and crazy-making. I’m feeding it and caring for it, yet it’s no longer only mine. It’s an amazing journey—one of extremes, one of getting out of my comfort zone, one of risking and of using courage I didn’t even know I possessed. I love that it happened; it’s a dream come true, and yet the pain is still too fresh to think about having another one!

Sukie Juhan is currently the Facilitating Editor for Uncapped.