When I finished writing, rewriting, and re-rewriting Dead End Files about two years ago and happily placed it in the hands of a renowned literary agent, I felt my work on that book was complete and it was time to move ahead with book #2. Since attending the Algonkian Pitch Conference in NYC in September where I pitched book #2, I have cultivated a promising rapport with an agent who was my group leader at the conference. She required me to make many revisions to that second book, Beyond the Boathouse. I have since completed all of her required revisions and have returned it to her. My continuing mantra since the day of resubmission has been Please Lord…Please Lord…Please Lord.
About halfway through writing Boathouse, my agent for Dead End Files, was besieged with one health calamity after another. Given the gentleman’s age, I could predict what was going to happen. Finally my premonition came to pass when I received his long letter telling me that he was leaving the business under doctor’s orders. I was too far along with Boathouse to stop and get reinvigorated with an agent hunt for Dead End Files so my first baby went unattended. My thinking now is that if the agent who is interested in Boathouse becomes really excited after reading the revised manuscript, she will naturally want to see the other finished and ready-to-go book.
The rest of this epistle is dedicated to that notion of something I haven’t touched in two years being ready-to-go. It’s not! Barely into my re-read I launched into a foray of changes. I changed the title, and the names of nearly every character in the story. Suddenly I didn’t like the old ones. I re-wrote the opening chapters, and am now examining every sentence, every word actually, all the way through.
Now that I’ve been on that case for nearly a month, I can honestly say that I am back into the feel of the story, the temperature and the texture. I’m comfortable again with how my two main characters think, and how they respond to the problems they face, and to each other as a love interest between them grows. It’s all been great fun to be back in that book, but I feel like I’m limited on what I can do in this revision cycle because I’m pulling all of this new life and new potential out of my memory.
The bulk of the story takes place in central Vermont, mainly in Brattleboro, Putney, Grafton and Manchester. I know these places like I know my own sock drawer, but still, it’s just been my remembering how something looks like outside a particular window, rather than writing what I actually see outside that very window.
My friend and fellow Algonkian Pitch Conference alum, Robert Markowitz, is a musician, in addition to being a gifted writer. The term he uses to describe that wonderful sensation a writer enjoys when everything is coming together — like plot ideas, character quirks, word choices, spicy bits of conflict — is the sense of being in the groove. That’s a musician’s term, but I think it works perfectly for writers. I used to call that sensation being in the zone. Zone is okay, but it’s a little too heavy on isolation, suggesting a writer is unapproachable while he or she is deeply involved in writing or editing. I’ll confess to being a bit preoccupied, but I’d like to think I’m not a complete zombie.
In the week ahead I will return to Vermont and visit the actual haunts of Dave McGuire and Amy Sinclair. I’ll see the frozen river where Chris Carter was murdered and the town hall in Putney where the whole case is exploded for everyone to see. I haven’t even packed for the trip, but already I feel like I’m close to being in the groove because now I expect to bump into Dave, Amy, Chris and all of the other characters I love so well, on the streets, in the restaurants, and along the road as I drive from town to town. That’s the groove, and I can’t wait!
Till later,
Ken
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