Book sale Abigail and the great literary circle of life

Sideways view of Book Sale Abigail

I am addicted to used book stores, sales, and stalls. I haunt the stores, frequent the sales, and scour the stalls. I don't often buy much but I love nothing better than to make my way, slowly and quietly, through a collection of used books.


Sure, I come up with the odd find from time to time -- a first edition Ian Fleming, for example, or an autographed Robertson Davies -- but the fun, for me, is simply in the looking, in the feeling that, as a writer of middling success, I might just be permitted to consider myself part of that great, multi-generational community of writers with books out there in the great wide world.


From time to time, I've even permitted myself to wonder what it would be like to find one of my own books amid the stacks and rows. I've known other authors who have found that particular experience to be upsetting and disappointing -- thinking bitterly, "someone didn't like my book well enough to want to keep it".


I always hoped that, upon my own discovery of one of my books in a used book sale, I would be much more positive about the experience.


Well, now I know -- and I'm glad to say, I was and continue to be much more positive.


As is my wont, I visited the local public library's standing book sale in its front lobby on my lunch hour today. I started scanning the collection on offer and felt a quick inhale of breath. That's my first Abigail Massey at McAdam Station book, isn't it? I thought to myself.


Indeed it was. A pristine copy of the first volume of stories, with my own autograph on the title page, dated December 2012. No inscription, just the signature. The date suggests that this copy comes from the original print run of 500 copies (or perhaps the second print run of 250 that was ordered within days of the book's release and rapid sell out).


My honest reaction was excitement -- excitement at seeing my own book out there in the world, among all the other books on sale, fitting in so nicely, yet prettier in its presentation (in my humble opinion).


My second thought was: should I buy it and give it as a gift (or even re-sell it to raise more funds for the Station)? or should I leave it so that (hopefully) someone else will come along and decide to buy it for themselves (or their child) at such a reduced price?


I think the picture at the top of this blog entry probably answers the question for you. I bought it. I put down my dollar and took it with me, feeling quite delighted to have found such a deal!


And now I know. It's a great feeling (at least for me) to think of myself as an author whose work has made its way from the sales table, to the living room table, to the book shelf, then to the used sale shelf at my local library. I am part of the great literary circle of life!

On first lines and writer's block

OK, so now comes the hard part. The first line.

I've jotted down a synopsis, built a chapter-by-chapter outline, received hugely helpful feedback on both from a very wise reader and now I'm ready to start writing.

But that means I have to surmount what is often the most challenging barrier for my writing projects: composing the first line.

I put a lot of pressure on that first line. I have convinced myself that a great first line is the key to selling a book to an agent, convincing a publisher to take you on, and eventually attracting readers in a bookstore.

I place so much importance on that first line that I often create an artificial case of writer's block for myself, even if I have the rest of the book completely and convincingly laid out in my head. I write and rewrite, devise and revise that line over and over again in my mind and can't force myself to move on to the rest of the story without getting that first line absolutely perfect.

So, right now, I'm playing with something like the following: "The first bolt of lightning struck about five miles away." or "Lightning struck. The building shook." or "..."

And now, when I type them out, I think: "No, those suck..." And all my confidence drains away.

Writing colleagues have advised me simply to hammer down a first line, the best I can come up with under the circumstances, and then keep on writing. By the time I get a substantial portion of the story written, I'll have a better idea of how to craft the first line.

At least that's the theory.

And then I wonder whether or not my problems with creating the first line of my book are not simply a psychological construct to permit me to delay actually engaging in the long-term writing process.

Ahhh, first lines....

Pondering the next set of writing projects

As the end of November starts to slide into view and the sales process for the new Christmas novella swings into the automatic phase of appearance after appearance after appearance, I start to turn my mind to the next writing project.

As anyone who has read my earlier posts on this blog will know, I have been considering a number of different possibilities for 2015: a comic novel, a more serious novel that seems to be developing to of the comic novel, another collection of Abigail Massey historical stories for children, perhaps another Abigail Massey novel, and even a play project that would be developed out of A McAdam Station Christmas.

That's a long list, I know. And it may just end up that I actually pursue two, three, even four of them in the new year.

I have written about 15 pretty good pages of the comic/serious novel and I find myself continuously developing it as I wonder through my life.

I had a nice coffee with a friend the other day, a friend who has been strongly involved in the Abigail project over the past two years, and she has expressed an interest in creating a writers' group specifically to work on new Abigail children's stories. The idea would be that we find two more strong writers, toss around stories ideas together, then each of us go away and write a story for the others to review.

There are a lot of real advantages to this kind of approach, including the fact that it would become less a work project and more a social project and the fact that having four writers involved in the project would mean that we had four people helping to promote the new book once it is published.

The possibility of a new Abigail novel, meanwhile, got a jump start when, in response to a very simple story suggestion sent to me by a friend, I pumped out a fully developed plot proposal of more than 500 words for a possible novel. It surprised me that it came so easily: clearly I have been considering the possibility, at least in my subconscious, for some time.

And the play idea... well, that one might actually be the first on the list. A friend at work has earned a degree in screen-writing and is very interested in working with me on a play. And I think that, if we can write a decent stage play out of the Christmas novella, we could have it performed next Christmas at the McAdam Station or perhaps at a local theatre. That would provide a boost not just to the Station but to the sale of the Abigail books themselves.

These are interesting times... with lots of decisions to be made and lots of writing work to be done.

Rankin myself among the big names

In 2007, Orion Books published a 20th anniversary edition of Ian Rankin’s original Rebus novel, Knots & Crosses. I tell you this because I just picked up a copy at the local library book sale.

What attracted me to the book was the fact that, inside both the front and back covers, Orion included facsimiles of what appeared to be Rankin’s original notes and drafts for this life-changing novel.

As a wannabe writer myself, I am always interested in reading about how the most successful of my colleagues (yeah, right, I can include the likes of Ian Rankin, Dick Francis or Joanne Rowling as “colleagues”… that’s rich) got their start.

Rankin kindly includes a brief introduction in this edition in which he explains how this novel came into being. It’s an interesting bit of reading, as much for the information it provides about his inspiration and process as for the insights it gives into how he, 20 years later, looks back on his first Rebus novel with at least a small degree of embarrassment.

“I was a young man in love with language,” he writes of his 1987 self, “striving for a voice and sometimes overreaching.”

I read that and found myself nodding. Yeah, I know that feeling. I can’t look back at some of my earliest literary efforts without feeling a bit of a blush come over me. Did I really write that? Was I really that caught up in Joyce/Dickens/Woolf/Eliot that I would try to write just like them?

But I was also struck by Rankin’s description of the process by which Knots & Crosses came to be. “[L]ooking back,” he says in 2007, “what amazes me is that the idea of the book came so quickly and fluently, and that even those first few hand-written pages of text show few changes from the version that would see eventual publication.”

It’s at that point that the differences between Rankin and me as writers shine with such startling clarity: I struggle to find plots and have to work hard to establish layers of depth for my characters; exceptionally vivid characters flow naturally from him and evocative, effective lots seem to develop fluently for him.

Does that mean I can’t ever be successful? Of course not. Does it mean I will envy Ian Rankin and his natural brilliance? Maybe just a little bit.

Public appearances bring excitement... and fear

Public appearances can be both a blessing and a curse for a writer, especially one of minor to middling success.

First, it is a huge honour just to be invited to come out, meet the public and sign some books. Yes, you recognize that the people who invite you to appear in their venue hope to benefit as much from the event as you will but, still, just the idea that your presence in their building might actually attract customers is a pretty nice compliment.

And, let's face it, it is a huge ego boost to sit at a table and have people actually come out to meet you, talk to you and maybe buy a book or two. When you aren't published by a big publisher and you have no publicist and you're never reviewed in papers and on websites, public book signings like these are often the only time you get any real feedback on your work.

That's the blessing.

The curse is the almost immediate clenching of your gut when the thought occurs to you that, well, it's possible no one will actually come out to your book signing.

We've all seen those poor writers, sitting in our local book store behind a table stacked with copies of their latest novel, all alone and lonely. You feel so badly for them when you see them there, a look of hope mingled with despair on their faces, that you either go up and buy a book you would never in a million years have thought of buying, just to give them a bit of a boost, or you go out of your way to avoid having to interact with them at all.

The stomach clench when you receive the invitation is the recognition that, this time, that poor sap might actually be you.

In some ways, I'm lucky on that count. The books I'm promoting were written as fund-raisers for a local historical landmark and the book signings are planned to coincide with other, larger events at the landmark so I'm pretty much guaranteed at least a little bit of traffic at my table.

But, and I hate to admit this, I know that, when the day comes, I will find myself keeping a watch out for that person who sees the table and immediately turns away, or gazes at me with pity in their eyes.