5 out of the 6 New York acquisitions editors my agent pitched have requested a full manuscript of "The Heart Of The Earth"
Trying to not get too excited yet, but very excited.
Trying to not get too excited yet, but very excited.
The Gridbook: Fiction, Art, Essays by John Whittemore |
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5 out of the 6 New York acquisitions editors my agent pitched have requested a full manuscript of "The Heart Of The Earth"
Trying to not get too excited yet, but very excited. The final edit of "The Heart Of The Earth" is complete, and now the book goes out into the wilds of the publishing world.
The final draft is currently being read by a literary agent and if she rejects it several other agents have requested it. Exciting news. Of course, the publishing world is a harsh landscape, so it may take a while for "The Heart Of The Earth" to find the right literary agent and publisher. On a side note, I attended the Atlanta Writers Conference this weekend. It is always a pleasure to get to know fine writers from the local literary community. The 2nd draft of "Heart Of The Earth" is done. My editor and I have hacked this book into a much tighter, more readable novel. All that remains in the freelance editing process is the "line edit" in which we polish every word till it shines. Then it will be ready to start sending to agents and publishers.
The editing and publishing world really isn't my thing, but I'm enjoying making this product of years of work and imagination into something others can access and enjoy. Tomorrow I'm flying to NYC to go to a "pitch conference" in which I will begin the long and often frustrating process of trying to convince the publishing industry to take up this book. I'm also meeting with my freelance editor in New York to sit down and pour through the 2nd Draft in greater detail. You can follow on Facebook or Twitter for updates. The first draft of "The Heart Of The Earth" is done and in the editing process. I am working with a professional editor to polish it till it shines. Then I jump into the shark-infested waters of the publishing industry.
*For more regular updates follow me on Twitter or Facebook. I have an editor for the novel!
I met an impressive freelance editor who has edited quite a few famous books. He read the first few chapters of the novel and really connected with them. (And this was before he had a clue I was considering employing him.) So I'm saving up to get the book edited when I'm done. It will be worth the expense to polish this thing until it gleams and then connect with the right people in the world of publishing to get it where it needs to go. I'm in the final stretch of the first draft and I'm getting a second wind. I really think this book is going to be good. Now, I have to finish it! Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel My rating: 3 of 5 stars A good author's failures can be almost as interesting as his successes. I don't think that Yann Martel would classify this book as a success, the disjointed plot revolves around two books that just don't work. In some ways this nakedly problematic structure is intentional: the point being that there is some suffering that just cannot be contained within words. It is particularly interesting considering that Yann Martel's earlier work "The Life of Pi" is one of the better books on suffering I have ever read. I wouldn't listen too much to the readers who were disappointed that this brutal novel doesn't have the same warm tone and happy ending as PI. Lots of readers seemed to have only absorbed the rosy tone of Pi's narrator without recognizing the profound despair and pessimism of the book. Pi is a much darker book than this one. But, it seems that Martell himself is dissatisfied with his masterpiece bestseller. His protagonist in the book is an author who is living off of a bestseller that people loved because it was about animals. He never praises his earlier work. He tries to write a second book about the horrific cruelty of the Holocaust and it just doesn't work. Martell may have wanted more people to see to see the darkness in Pi, because in Beatrice and Virgil he openly tells us at the onset that this cute story about animals is about the Holocaust. The darkness of Pi is a spiritual emptiness, but in Beatrice and Virgil he tries to shock us with straightforward violence. The subtlety of Pi is replaced with overt almost gratuitous cruelty. He wants us to know understand that human suffering is the point of his writing. He also constantly complains that he is failing to convey the anguish that is on his mind. The book ends with a howl. Beatrice and Virgil is a book that doesn't work about a book that doesn't work about cruelty that is unspeakable. Surprisingly though, it is a really good read. Martell's mastery of the written word and his impressive intelligence he displayed in Pi are still radiant in Beatrice and Virgil, making it a pleasure to read. If Martell is still unsatisfied and struggling with the heavy themes from Pi likely means we are to expect further brilliant work from this author. Beatrice and Virgil is not that brilliant work, but it none the less fascinating to observe the mind of this talented author continue to wrestle with his ongoing questioning of the universe. View all my reviews After all my New Years resolutions about getting out to Atlanta literary events and meeting some other local writers I had a change of plans. Apparently, I am an even worse ice skater than most Southerners. A bold attempt at learning a new skill ended badly with a big fracture requiring surgery. Oh, well. I got a few extra chapters written once I finally emerged from the fog of the pain meds. I'll try and make it to some of the local happenings once I return to walking without crutches. Okay, the site is starting to come together. All the Gridbook Fiction is up now, as well as a lot of photography. I plan to add drawings and paintings as soon as I can get them scanned.
I'm also going to have all the essays up soon too. I created the old Gridbook site years ago on Google pages--mostly as a way to organize and archive all of the essays from The Gridbook Blog. I added the fiction section as an afterthought to offer samples of my creative work.
Originally it was a decent site. Unfortunately Google pulled the plug on the old Pages app, and the Google Sites web application made the site ungainly and ugly. I mostly ignored it. I was too busy living and writing to worry about a website. Well it's 2011 and it was time to have a decent professional-looking site. So over the holidays I did some research and put some work into this new Gridbook site. I hope you enjoy it! Over the upcoming days I will bring all the content over from the old site and hopefully some new things too. Stay tuned. |