John Ramsey Miller

Just to get everybody up to speed, I’m going through my process as I rewrite and move to publish my latest novel. At this point I am thinking I will probably self-publish as an eBook. That said, I won’t rule out a paperback deal if my agent wants to shop it and a publisher wants to put it out.

So two weeks ago I said I hired an editor who’d left a major house to go with her husband and kids to Ohio. I’ve finally read through her notes, and frankly she has nailed the weaknesses I painstakingly installed in BURNING BRIDGES from its inception. I can see it all clearly now. And (as always) I’m embarrassed for my agent who sent this to the editors, and for myself because my name is on the MS. What was I not thinking? I know that if I can’t fix all of the flaws, I can certainly make different ones to replace them. This is the point in the process where I feel like I’m at my desk in a classroom wearing BVDs.

DEAR GOD, NOW THEY ALL KNOW I CAN’T WRITE!

Editors always start editorial letters with something like, “I really enjoyed my read of (Name of the novel goes here). There’s a lot to like in the book as well some things I have trouble with.” Translation: Holy Mother of God, what is this steaming pile of crap you sent me?”

Okay, that’s the old insecurity shining through like the warming rays of a neutron bomb.

The editor I am utilizing is as good as any editor I’ve ever worked with and I have worked with the best. Another plus is that her sense of humor is pitch perfect. An example of editorial humor would be a circled sentence with this penciled into the margin… “Please read this over carefully and tell me that this is in English.”

My process is akin to what a blind and starving wolverine that’s been thrown into a henhouse might go through in those first few moments when the wolverine senses the meat, and the chickens become aware of their situation and reach critical mass freak out in a confined space.

I must also say that I am not gifted with organization skills beyond lining up Skittles in neat lines by color and eating them one hue at a time.

First I read the ten-page editorial letter several times to get a general picture of the depth of the stacked-word catastrophe. Next I cleared off my dining table and placed on it my laptop, laser printer, index cards, legal pads, ink and roller ball pens, sharpened Black Warrior pencils, red erasable pen, stick-on notes in yellow, those peel off arrows in six colors, Snickers bars, and roll in my Herman Miller Aeron in Author Black that I bought years back.

The next day my table was a huge disaster, and I was juggling the edited MS, a blank document for rewriting, killing, or combining chapters, and creating new ones from scratch. And there’s the construction document where I will assemble the refined mess. Then I will print that and go back and edit myself before having the editor hit it again to see if I was successful. All of this will take a month to six weeks. And each day when I sit down I have no idea what the session will bring to the pages.

I think initial confusion and wading through the piles is how a pretty good effort sometimes goes on to become a very, very good book. That is what keeps me going at this point. More to follow…

It has been a happy and sorrowful week. Annalisa, my younger daughter, celebrated her fourteenth birthday. Anna, the stray cat we took in…well, she took us over, actually…died on the same day. Anna would spend her nights outside by (her) choice during the summer; in the morning I would open the front door and tell her, “Welcome to Egypt! Where cats are worshipped!” and she would saunter in, looking for breakfast, which, of course, was quick in coming. Anna would venture outside in the winter for a few moments, then appear at the rear sliding glass door, screaming the feline equivalent of “It’s cold and I have no pants!”

An aside: Anna’s death continues a pattern. Birthdays at casa de Hartlaub are viewed with simultaneous anticipation and trepidation. Bad things can happen. My mother died ten years ago on Annalisa’s birthday (I wanted to ask Annalisa, upon Anna’s death, “Who do you think will die on your twenty-fourth birthday?” but I didn’t, since I will be seventy by then, and, uh, well, it might be me!). My grandfather passed on my cousin’s special day; my grandmother went beyond on my father’s birthday, who in turn, died on the same day as another cat of ours, and of the same cause. My birthday, of course, is on September 11. No explanation necessary.

We spoil our pets around here; Anna, as a result, has chosen not to leave just yet, despite being buried in our backyard pet cemetery. She follows the example of Madrigal and Rebel, our other deceased cats, who choose to dart across our paths occasionally in different parts of the house at all hours of the day and night. Madrigal, a Siamese who loved me like no other creature ever has, has tripped me a few times in the middle of the night when I have gotten up from bed to do what old men do in the middle of the night. The first time it happened was startling; now, if she doesn’t do it once a month, I wonder where she is. Cats are not the only spirits who visit us. Someone/thing at irregular intervals walks slowly across the upstairs floor. This occurs, when it does occur at approximately three pm or seven pm. It may not happen for months, but then will occur every day for three weeks. Annalisa, when she was much younger, told us that it was an angel, and that she saw it several times at the top of the stairs, surrounded by light, looking down at her. She didn’t consider it to be frightening; it was just there. She stopped seeing it when she was about four years old. Whatever it is continues to make itself known when it so chooses.

I’m not necessarily given over to haunts and the like, but I know what I see and I see what I know. I’ve only discussed so far the strange things in our house which I am able to explain. The cats all belong here. The angel, or whatever it is, seems to have come with the house. There is one thing that occurred, however, which I am at a loss to understand, and which accordingly comes closest to that state we call “frightening.” I got up one night about three am (that old man thing again) and when I came back to bed my wife Lisa was moaning in her sleep. While I was debating whether 1) she was having a nightmare and 2) I should wake her up or 3) just let her sleep, I heard a voice in my head, the voice of a young woman, asking “Are you okay?” Lisa, still asleep, answered “um hmmm” with a lilt, as if in affirmative answer. She remembered nothing about it the next morning; I will never forget it.

Not all houses are so benevolent, particularly in fiction. Hopefully you have been watching the stylishly gory AMERICAN HORROR STORY, which has something that will offend and titillate nearly everyone. It is a psychological thriller dressed in ghoul’s weeds, centering around a family who has moved from the east to the west coast in hopes that a change of scenery will salvage their relationship. Of course, the house that they move into is loaded with ghosts. It is the family, however, that is truly and fatefully haunted, and as they continue to make the mistakes that caused them to leave Boston the viewer slowly comes to realize that they can’t get away from themselves. It’s just the thing to watch as the spirits of dead pets sit and sleep in the corners, waiting to trip the unwary in the middle of the night.

By John Gilstrap

Earlier this week, I got to type my two favorite words: “the” and “end.”  Truthfully, neither of the words does much for me individually, but taken in context (and in order) at bottom of a 415-page manuscript, they bear a sweet message.  It means that Damage Control, the fourth book in the Jonathan Grave series, is finally finished–at least until such time as my editor sends me the Dreaded Letter.  In the meantime, I need to submit an outline and first chapter for my next book, which I’m currently calling Untitled Grave Five. Yeah, I know, the title needs work, but I need to deliver that finished manuscript to my publisher next September 15, after which I will need to deliver an outline and first chapter for Untitled Grave Six by next October 15.

Somehow, between now and November 15, I also need to write a short story for an anthology while traveling pretty much nonstop for my Big Boy job.  It will all get done.  I’m not entirely sure how, but it will all get done.  I know this because somehow it always gets done.

Here’s the thing, though: Unlike the consensus reached after Nancy Cohen’s post the other day that most of my Killzone colleagues think continually about their writing, I find not-writing to be the easiest thing in the world to do.  I consider myself to be an observer of people and something of a dialogue sponge when folks say interesting things, but it’s rare that I think that something in life would make a good story, or that fascinating surroundings would make a good scene.  At least I never think it real-time.

Generally, I think about writing when I sit down to write.  Take this blog post, for example–take most of my blog posts, in fact.  It’s Thursday night, which means it’s time to write something.  This is what occurred to me.  Next week, I’m pretty sure that’s how it will happen again.

The short story I owe will be based on a photograph.  I chose the photo because it’s strange, and as of this moment, I have no idea what narrative I’m going to tie to it.  Next weekend, though–which is the start date I’ve assigned to myself for the short story–I have every confidence that when I sit down to write, the story will be there waiting for me.  I’ll employ no tricks or gimmicks or exercises; I’ll just start to write.  Three, four, or ten drafts later, it will be done.  I just don’t know how.

The lack of predictability in my creative process scares the bejeebers out of me.  Unlike so many other authors I speak to, I don’t have a file of potential ideas, or biographical sketches of future characters.  I wish I did, and I admire those who do.  Nine books into my career, with #11 and #12 under contract, none of this ever gets easier for me, even though I tell myself that I’m getting better at it.

One thing that has changed, though, is that I’ve learned to accept my process for what it is.  It’s my way, it works for me.  I think that my ability to turn the fiction spigot on and off is what allows be to have both a book deadline and a stressful Big Boy job.  Certainly, it helps.  One thing I know for sure, though, is that the more I try to make it easier on myself, the harder it all becomes. 

So what about you?  Are you content with your creative process, or are you fighting to change things?