Michelle Answers Questions From Readers!
Truly I am living a magical experience right now! Just the sheer volume of people I meet on a daily basis, whether in person or on social media, is making me feel truly blessed. Often times when I meet people they have questions they want to ask me. More often then not they are questions about the book and that’s good because I love talking about the book!! Sometimes I’m asked questions by other aspiring authors, or my personal favorites, young children that are aspiring authors! A couple of the most asked questions I have turned into previous blog posts. Like the question on whether I think the ghost of Nelly Butler was real or have I seen ghosts myself. But this week I thought I would answer some of the other questions I’m asked a lot but that aren’t related to my book The Gathering Room.
When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer? I don’t think I ever imagined myself as a writer as much as I have always wanted to write. What I really wanted to be when I grew up was a Librarian! Specifically one that lived alone in a big Victorian house with cats and rooms full of books! None of which came true and I’ve learned the valuable lesson of always having a Plan B to fall back on. But as a child I never set out to be a writer. In grammar school I wrote assignments as given in class, only one sticks out in my mind, it was in 2nd grade and the teacher gave us photos and we had to write what we thought was happening in the photo. My photo was a little blonde haired girl with her hands on her cheeks and sheer excitement on her face. I wrote that she had just gotten a puppy at her birthday party. I remember this because the teacher brought it to my mother’s attention at Parent/Teacher Conferences and told my mother I wrote very well. I was sitting right there and it was a moment I have remembered for over 50 years! In high school I wrote as a calming mechanism, not that I remember my adolescence as being particularly traumatic, just normal teenage things, but I think I wrote to try to escape the swings of life as a teenager. It was then that I developed my habit of listening to music while I write. A lot of the things I wrote in high school are stories based off the lyrics of the songs I was listening to. Specifically I remember “Don’t Stop Believing” by Journey. I wrote a whole story about those two star crossed teenagers who meet on the midnight train. I often think now how ironic the title of that song has become given where my life is now! Don’t stop believing in your dreams people!
How long does it take you to write a book? This question always makes me laugh! If I had a life where all I did was write and I had a publisher pushing me to a deadline, I probably could write books pretty quickly! The Gathering Room took me six years to research and write, but you have to remember I was writing that for my own entertainment, there was no pressure to complete it. Similar to my habits in high school, I wrote that story as my own personal escape into history. I was also juggling a full time job, volunteering in Lions Club International, and my helping my husband run his business, Time to write was often found only on the beach in Jamaica during our annual vacation! The Prequel, which I am writing now is a bit different. Thanks to my husband’s urging I no longer work so I have more time to write, in theory! I also have the excitement that all of you have for the next book pushing me to get one out for you! But I’m also still promoting The Gathering Room, which on some weeks eats up 5-7 days of a week! Even with all of that I have managed to get half of the next book written and hope to have it out to you by next summer, fall at the latest. That would mean I wrote the Prequel in about 18 months.
What is your schedule when you do write? I have met some authors who write every day from 10 am to 2 pm, or some other time that is set aside specifically dedicated to writing. That’s not my style. Despite the fact that in my “real” life I am the most organized, over scheduled, master of making lists, kind of person. When it comes to my writing I am the exact opposite. As I’ve stated several times I don’t have an outline, a list of characters or anything resembling a well thought out plan! I have a general idea of what I want the story to look like and then I just sit down and let it unfold in front of me! It’s the same with my writing schedule. I will block off days on my calendar for writing and hope that my life allows for me to write that day! When it comes to how much time I spend writing I can’t sit down and write for just a few hours and then get up and walk away from it until the next day. I have to have huge blocks of time because when I write I will write for 10-12 hours straight. Just as you tell me that you can’t put the book down to go to sleep, eat or do household chores. Know that I too can’t stop these stories when they start and I will literally sit in the same position for hours absolutely enthralled with the story that appears on the computer screen in front of me. Often forgetting I am the one actually writing it!! The weirdest part, is that after a marathon session like that, I can go weeks or even months not writing, only to return to where I left off and pick up the story without so much as a glance back at what I wrote previously. It’s like the story is right there in my mind just waiting until I can stop being to busy to get back to it. Totally creeps me out!
What would you say is your most interesting writing quirk? Definitely my music!! I can’t write unless I am listening to music. I’m listening to music right now! For some reason music seems to be the portal to which I can slip from this world to the land of the muses! I have noise canceling headphones and the music is loud, very loud! If you ever meet me in person and I struggle to hear you as we speak, you now know why! As I start a writing project I will just listen to music in general, different types and genres, until I find songs that match the intensity of the energy I am feeling from the story as I write it. Each one of these songs gets added to a playlist and eventually I find myself turning to this “writing playlist” when I write. It’s like I have to narrow down the messages from the Universe to what I need to be listening to in order to create the magic. Currently the playlist for the Prequel only has five songs on it. That’s roughly twenty minutes of music, that I will listen to over and over and over for ten hours straight! A fellow author, who admitted she had to write in total silence, recently said she would be very interested to know what my playlist was. As she said that all I could think was she writes in total silence and I write with music blaring as loud as I can get my headphones to go! She’s probably never going to understand from what realm I write or what the playlist does for me!
How do books get published? When I was growing up there was really only one way to get a book published, the traditional way, through an agent who represented your book to a large publishing house. We’ve all heard the stories of Dr. Seuss having Cat In The Hat rejected 27 times! Today, with the advent of on demand printing, just about anyone can get a book printed and make it available for sale. For myself I went with a self publishing hybrid, Maine Authors Publishing located in Thomaston Maine. They require a vetting process, meaning I had to submit my manuscript to them for approval before they agreed to take me on as a client. And a Client I am as I have paid for every piece of the book from production to printing to the promotion of the book that you hold in your hand. Maine Authors Publishing does a fantastic job of connecting an author with an editor, graphic artists, illustrators, and then when the final product is ready they contract with printers to get your book printed. I own the rights to my book one hundred percent, but I also own one hundred percent of the financial responsibilities as well! My advice to anyone wanting to publish a book is to research your options, as there are many, both traditional and self published, and then choose the one that meets the goals you have for your experience. Everyone’s author journey looks different and as I have learned over the past year, even that journey can take you in a direction that you need to shift and adjust to quickly! So do your research into what’s out there, plan your financial commitment ahead of time, and be willing to change direction!
Where do you get your story ideas from? Recently I had lunch with a woman who asked me, after I finish the Prequel what was I writing next? Oh I got so excited because the next book is right there in my heart and soul just waiting to get out! When I think about it, the emotions, the energy, the drama, I can’t sit still in my chair! In fact I’ve already started the research on it, and it has absolutely nothing to do with The Gathering Room or the Prequel. Totally different direction. The reality is all of my storylines come from history. There is so much history out there that is absolutely fascinating and most of it is unknown. It’s like a vast vault I can return to over and over to find my next project. With a lifetime of research experience as well as reading mostly historical non fiction all my life, I am most comfortable with history and will return to that well over and over for inspiration.
When did you write your first book and how old were you? The Gathering Room is not my first book, it’s actually my fourth! However The Gathering Room is my first work of fiction, surprisingly a genre that I don’t much read myself, except for occasionally. My very first book was published in 2002, when I was 36 years old, by Picton Press, a now dissolved publsher out of Rockport Maine. This was followed by my second book, also done by Picton, in 2003. Vital Records of Bangor Maine, Vol 1 Births and Vol 2 Deaths were my first foray into the world of becoming published. These books are actually at the Library of Congress in Washington DC. I’ve been there and seen them for myself, I cried, I’m a book nerd! As you can see from the photo above they are research books filled with the births and deaths recorded in Bangor Maine from 1750-1891. In the early part of this century, before we all used the internet for everything, the fact that I sat for hours in front of a microfilm machine reading ancient handwriting and transcribing it into a word document (on those old square disks no less!) was a valuable piece of work. To have all of that information in a book, with an index, that someone could just open and look for the name of the person they were researching, was fantastic at the time! Seems rather archaic now as typing the same name into the internet would reveal multiple sources of documents in a matter of seconds. But at the time, it was important. As noted above there are multiple paths to becoming a published author, such was the case with Picton Press. Twenty years ago I presented them with the disks containing everything I had compiled and they handed me a $250 credit to their bookstore. I used the credit to purchase other research books that I donated to the Family History Research Center in Bangor. Both of these books are now out of print and Picton Press is no longer in business. I have seen these books show up on auction or used book sites online from time to time. Please don’t try and buy one, unless you have a need for early birth and death records from Bangor Maine. These books are full of just straight up data, lists of names and dates, they are not curl up by the fire type of books like The Gathering Room. Trust me you would be sorely disappointed if you tried to read one! My third book was one that I did as a volunteer project for The Gray Family Reunion Committee out of the Blue Hill area of Maine. Done in 2004 I compiled, from multiple sources of previously published work, family history records on one specific family in Maine. This book, titled The Descendants of Joshua Gray, was a fundraising product for the Gray Family Committee and their annual scholarship fund. I took two previously published books, one from the 1950’s and one from the 1980’s and combined them with current research to bring the family records up to date, as of 2004. I have often said that what I did, picking up the phone and just calling people asking for their personal information, was the last time in history that something like could have been done. Twenty years ago we were just on the cusp of identity theft and mistrusting everyone we met. If someone called me today and said they were writing a book and wanted the names and birthdates of all of my children, I’d hang up immediately! But in 2004 I managed to do just that believe it or not! The Descendants of Joshua Gray was printed by Downeast Printers under the direction of The Gray Family Reunion Committee. To save cost on printing they chose not to include a complete index, instead only printing an index of males with the surname Gray. At the time I was a little disappointed with that, as there are literally thousands of other people in that book, but it was not my project to control. I did it solely because I love history and love researching “dead people”. This book too is out of print, but again not a great read!
What do you like to do when you are not writing? Well when I’m not writing, I’m usually promoting The Gathering Room, helping my husband run his business or helping my son with running his new campground. We work a lot around here! But in those rare moments when I do have time to do what I want to do, it should surprise no one that I spend my time researching! I am constantly seeking knowledge of some kind or another. I have a thirst for knowledge that I don’t think will ever be satisfied. Whether it’s a historical fact that I end up chasing down a rabbit hole for hours, or someone’s obituary that caught my eye and now I’m six hours in on Ancestry.com tracing the family of someone I have no idea who they are but I’ve mapped out 7 generations of their family and I know them all and their stories like we met just yesterday! These are the weird things I do for fun!
Oh and I write a blog every week …. for fun! Because in the end that’s what I do….I write!