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The First Thousand Words…Are on the Page

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The first thousand words have given birth to…no…

The first thousand words have been launched into…eh…

The first thousand words have…maybe…taken flight…total bleh…

The first thousand words…are on the page. There we go. That will suffice.

There are few experiences in life as daunting and exciting as beginning a new novel. I know this to be true because this is the beginning of Novel Number Four. (Five if you want to count an uncompleted half novel, which I don’t.) This little announcement will be succinct because I am driven and anxious to get back to the story. The characters are all alive, new ones being born every minute, and they are having conversations in my head so fast it is challenging to get the notes down, before they jump headlong and escape from the creative bowel of alphabet soup.

Many things will be different this go-round. First, I am twenty years older than I was since I began novel writing at thirty-five. A lot of Life happens in twenty years. Likewise, I have already made the hundreds of greenhorn mistakes that a writer simply has to make. There’s no short-cutting the the writing ropes, and I know this now. Finally, being older and wiser (and frankly, a much better writer) I will be pursing this venture with vastly different end goals in mind. Fame and Fortune are still distant sirens, but ones calling from near the bottom of the Lists of Things To Do.

And with that declaration, this indie writer will announce this to the world: it will be my focused and complete intention to submit this fourth novel for traditional publication upon completion of the polished manuscript. I have nothing to lose and everything to gain. I am writing because I love to write. And I will share it because I want to share.

So here we go. The first thousand words…are on the page.

A Plug of One’s Own

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While slurping my morning coffee, to my utter astonishment, I opened an email from Amazon asking me to give 1-5 stars for a list of books which somehow included both of my own. They’re kidding, right? Taking the bait, I proceeded to blow the daylights out of my own legendary horn.

And may I just say, that in addition to writing darn fine novels, I can toss off two quite excellent reviews as well? There is every reason to believe Amazon will never allow them to see the light of day, as authors aren’t really allowed to review their own work, but hey, if offered a plug of one’s own, (thanking you, Virginia Wolff) who would resist?

First of all, to a degree that is professionally intoxicating, my books have been mentioned in the same breath with writers such as Eudora Welty, Willa Cather, Fannie Flagg, Billie Letts, Mary Karr, Mollie Ivins and Erma Bombeck. To a degree this list is proof-positive that my work won’t fit into any known genre, well, it is also likely why I’ll never retire from my literary earnings. But that’s okay. Don’t vex me with genre. Pshsf…categories…who needs them?

So here are my reviews, my own plugs, if you will.

Regarding The Edge of the Grace Period,  2000, this is a raucous and poignant story about people living on the edge of everything: the edge of family function, the edge of forever friendships (and some not), the brink of industrial, southern sensibilities, the fringes of faith, the tipping edge of bravery to grab Life by the throat and swing…it was this first book that elicited the above author comparisons.

Regarding The Offshore Triumphs of Karla Jean, 2012, I spent seven years researching the offshore world (among other things) for this book. At the end of The Edge of the Grace Period, a story mostly about Darlene and her best friend, Karla…Karla goes off to work offshore. From that very moment I wanted to know how that happened and how that went. (I am personally a former merchant mariner; I went to sea in 1978 as one of about six total females sailing in the world.) Every last one of us gas up our cars easy as you please, without a second thought, never wondering how that sweet fuel gets from a hole in the ocean to our corner store. This is just one person’s story about who goes and fetches that fuel for us. It’s a unique story, from a unique perspective and that is seriously understating things.

Karla is a tall, skinny, gutsy, verbally-unfiltered 20-year-old who goes to work as a roustabout in 1980. (For the life of me, I always picture Sandra Bullock or Sara Gilbert.) She is hit with an onslaught of “you don’t belong here-isms” in what was and still remains an almost exclusively man’s world. She is a victim to every prank of the trade but after 26 years ends up as the boss. After hundreds of helicopter rides to rigs large and small, she is on her final trip home to begin a second career, one that is entirely out of her character. But on this last trip her helicopter goes down, and she is missing in the Gulf of Mexico. Her family and friends are gathered for a gigantic Welcome Home party; instead they await her fate.

Karla (Karla Jean to Dooley Wade, her whacked-out Vietnam chopper pilot and constant thorn) hasn’t cut her hair since childhood. Why not? She sports a braid so long is can double as a weapon. Find out how Karla gets pregnant, even though she is allergic to children, and it’s all her husband’s fault. So many twists and turns…and finally, find out what this new career is, because you won’t see it coming in a month of Sundays. Then there’s the whole “Is she dead or alive?” thing going also.

Don’t take my word for it. Go to Amazon (or Barnes & Noble) and read the reviews for yourself. I am happy to report there are more than just mine, which probably won’t show up anyway. Read them, enjoy them, share them.

And thanks for reading this…I not-so-humbly submit…a Plug of One’s Own.

Sue Grafton: H is for Hubris

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The indie-published crowd is in a deservedly righteous dither after Sue Grafton and John Green tossed the lot of us into the “isolated” and “lazy” slush heap of artists. This author will not even validate their positions with a rebuttal. My only response would be the following: Gertrude Stein, Walt Whitman, Virginia Wolff, Beatrix Potter, Edgar Allen Poe, Rudyard Kipling, Henry David Thoreau, Anais Nin, Deepak Chopra, Bernard Shaw, James Joyce, Zane Grey, William E. B. DuBois, Strunk and White, E.L James …self-published…every one. I could keep going but my indie-published, short-cutting fingers are tired. If this is the “lazy” and “isolated” conglomeration of authors of whom I am a part, well, I humbly accept my position within their indolent midst.

The publishing paradigm has shifted. To those on the “traditional” side, my sincerest good wishes and congratulations. But to those of us with the pluck and mettle, the tenacity and persistence, and the temerity to launch our best efforts into the hallowed realm of publication…kudos to you all, my thick-skinned brethren. Keep your chins up and your pens a’ penning.

Dorothy Hagan is the indie-published author of The Offshore Triumphs of Karla Jean, (2012) seven years in research, writing and publication. (Not a lot of books written about women working in the gritty, offshore world of men. Honest. Go try and find one.) Oh, yeah. And Lazy Hagan also published The Edge of the Grace Period in 2000, POD with IUniverse, before most “traditional” people had even heard of such a thing. Ms. Hagan’s books will never go out of print and will be entirely available when Oprah calls up for the Book Club.

The Baby Is Born and It’s in the Nursery

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The high hopes for a consistent blog were derailed in November but, alas, what I was building up to has come to fruition.

After twelve years away from publishing, my new novel is about to be released. The Offshore Triumphs of Karla Jean, Iuniverse, 2012, has gone live. It is in the rollout process, which I am finding quite interesting. It is currently available in softback and hardback at Iuniverse, Amazon and Barnes and Noble. It will be available on Kindle and Nook quite soon. Ebooks are the last format in the rollout. Amazon has a great page on the book’s behalf where you can look at the book, examine the covers and read quite a few pages for free.

This blog will be a website quite soon. The next part of this journey will be brand new for me, and I plan to blog about the whole indie experience, which includes this new phase of marketing. I do hope you will join me.