Red Bird: Here's my long and sometimes rambling response to your post. Thanks for your interest. I'm always looking for guidance and suggestions. Everybody else is also free to make suggestions or comments.
(Red Bird has suggested that I rework my too-long family epic into two or three books, rather than one. I had mentioned that Jennifer Lauck did that with Blackbird and Still Water, and she reminded me that Mary Karr did something like that, too, in Liar's Club, Cherry, and Lit.)
I've been working on a two-book split for the past couple of months, but keep coming back to the feeling that the first book is my mother's story, not mine. I think that's because it's the story of a family, as an entity, and as individuals, and I was so young, she was the star of that show.
I never started out to write a memoir. I was happily working on a mystery when my family finally prodded me into writing a family history. Being a writer, I wasn't interested in geneology. I was interested in the characters, the stories, the way of life. So I used all the fiction tools at my disposal to write a story, complete with photos, letters, the works.
It cost me $35 per copy for printing and shipping, so I was stunned when I kept getting requests for the book from people outside the family and having to reorder. And the people who read it kept telling me, "You've got to publish this book."
But how do you publish the story--a true story--of an entire family? True, it's my family, but does that make it memoir, when I'm telling their stories? When each of them take their turns at center stage?
My financial adviser called this week. She asked if I was working on publishing the book. I told her that agents and publishers don't want a book like mine--it doesn't fit any genre and there are too many things I'd have to fix. She told me, "I'm a reader, but a slow one. But when I started your book, I stayed up until 2 AM reading. I got up the next morning and read until I'd finished it, all 125,000 words. I just kept turning pages because I couldn't stop. I can't understand why a publisher would not want a book like that!"
This is pretty much the response I've had from everybody who has read it, so I know I have something. But I don't know how to shape it into something commercial. I've written something that doesn't "follow the rules" and I don't know what to call it!
Some people have suggested I write it as fiction, but I've worked so hard to stay true to the story, I have thus far resisted that suggestion. If it is as compelling as people tell me it is, I think the fact that it's a true story makes it even more so.
Lisa See published On Gold Mountain, a hundred-year history of her family, but she was already an established writer. Kao Kalia Yang's Latehomecomer may be the closest thing to what I've done, and it's published as "a Hmong Family Memoir" but it is much more "narrative nonfiction" than my novel-like story.
Maybe I'm just in Procrastinationville again, reluctant to actually test the waters with Book 1, which is almost ready to send out.
Thanks again for your interest, Red Bird. I've taken a break for the time being. Too much trauma in my life these last few months. I thought if I took a break, it might clear out some cobwebs. So far, it doesn't seem to be working!
(Red Bird has suggested that I rework my too-long family epic into two or three books, rather than one. I had mentioned that Jennifer Lauck did that with Blackbird and Still Water, and she reminded me that Mary Karr did something like that, too, in Liar's Club, Cherry, and Lit.)
I've been working on a two-book split for the past couple of months, but keep coming back to the feeling that the first book is my mother's story, not mine. I think that's because it's the story of a family, as an entity, and as individuals, and I was so young, she was the star of that show.
I never started out to write a memoir. I was happily working on a mystery when my family finally prodded me into writing a family history. Being a writer, I wasn't interested in geneology. I was interested in the characters, the stories, the way of life. So I used all the fiction tools at my disposal to write a story, complete with photos, letters, the works.
It cost me $35 per copy for printing and shipping, so I was stunned when I kept getting requests for the book from people outside the family and having to reorder. And the people who read it kept telling me, "You've got to publish this book."
But how do you publish the story--a true story--of an entire family? True, it's my family, but does that make it memoir, when I'm telling their stories? When each of them take their turns at center stage?
My financial adviser called this week. She asked if I was working on publishing the book. I told her that agents and publishers don't want a book like mine--it doesn't fit any genre and there are too many things I'd have to fix. She told me, "I'm a reader, but a slow one. But when I started your book, I stayed up until 2 AM reading. I got up the next morning and read until I'd finished it, all 125,000 words. I just kept turning pages because I couldn't stop. I can't understand why a publisher would not want a book like that!"
This is pretty much the response I've had from everybody who has read it, so I know I have something. But I don't know how to shape it into something commercial. I've written something that doesn't "follow the rules" and I don't know what to call it!
Some people have suggested I write it as fiction, but I've worked so hard to stay true to the story, I have thus far resisted that suggestion. If it is as compelling as people tell me it is, I think the fact that it's a true story makes it even more so.
Lisa See published On Gold Mountain, a hundred-year history of her family, but she was already an established writer. Kao Kalia Yang's Latehomecomer may be the closest thing to what I've done, and it's published as "a Hmong Family Memoir" but it is much more "narrative nonfiction" than my novel-like story.
Maybe I'm just in Procrastinationville again, reluctant to actually test the waters with Book 1, which is almost ready to send out.
Thanks again for your interest, Red Bird. I've taken a break for the time being. Too much trauma in my life these last few months. I thought if I took a break, it might clear out some cobwebs. So far, it doesn't seem to be working!
