Memoir, REUNIONS, Hello again

I haven't posted much about the book process lately only because there's been no new news to report. I continue to send out queries, which is my plan for this school year, and then we shall see.

My gut feeling tells me that the local publishing house, which contacted me back about two weeks ago, telling me to keep searching but if I found no one else in the meantime, they would be happy to review my whole manuscript in a year when they had more time to offer me, still might be the answer. I'm OK with a small publisher. They'll know you there.

Reasons to go with a small biz:

It's personalized for me.

Easy to learn names of colleagues and more about the biz in general.

Since they are local, and I wrote a story about living in the same town, they might be more enthusiastic readers and promoters.

Local connections. (but they are working on expanding this)

Support local business.

Being only locally "famous" may be all I really need or want.

As a first time book writer, this may be a good start to see if I would want to pursue the writer's path further in a professional way.

Some of the connecting with people and places outside my home town is going to have to come from me and my willingness to promote above and beyond. I know this. I can do it through blogs like this one, Blogger, FaceBook, Twitter and even my tutoring / teaching website, which could be modified to include more writing. I could invest in biz trips for book signings, especially in places where I have friends and family with whom I can stay. As just a substitute teacher, I do have a lot lore freedom to come and go.

Reasons to go with a larger pubbing company:

Bigger budget.

More nation-wide connections and exposure possibilities now.

Possibly faster results.

Reasons why it makes no difference which way, Local or Big City:

The Internet is everybody's "city".

As long as either place can put out e-books as well as actual books to reach all potential reading markets.

As long as some reputable publisher accepts my work as being worthy of publication, then I have the cred I need.

P.

Notes to self:

Next time I blog here, I should cover:

1- What would I tell people at a book signing talk and

2- What was my writing process for making this particular book

Memoir Book progress

Wow! It's been a while since my last update! I haven't forgotten you guys! Promise! Just been busy with all that back-to-school business with both my college and high school kid. A routine for living is coming back slowly.

The past week or so I have been submitting to more agencies. I tell ya, everybody wants something different. I have it all: queries, proposal, summary, synopsis....It's just gonna be a matter of finding the right agent for me and my book.

I still think, gut feeling, that one of our local publishing houses is going to be the lucky winner though. They are smaller here, but also will have the time to give me the attention I need and will be very accessible for meetings and phone calls. Working it with local business supports my community as well. Well, ya can't win the lotto unless you buy the tickets, so I am querying all over and going to do my dangdest to get this baby agent-repped and published. I even found one agent in my writing field who went to my undergrad college! (Florida State) Having something in common like that can go a long way sometimes.

P.

Visit to the Big City, lawyers and publishers,...Oh My!

My college kid has a summer internship job with City Beat Magazine, a local entertainment paper that comes out weekly. (Writers run in this family!) She and I were able to share a ride into town, which was nice. Somehow we arrived downtown early and had time to go into the Mediterranean restaurant for gyros. She ate, but I had them wrap up my falafel sandwich because I just didn't want to meet big time lawyers with gyro breath and greasy greek sandwich hands, ya know? I would eat after the meeting on my own.

Back to Downtown...

I had two hours to kill before my meeting when College Kid went off to her job site for her 4 hour gig. I hiked up to the Carew Tower, where the office was / is and looked in the shops down below. Boring...Really a sign of depressed times. The Tower Place Mall is so deserted. The food court and a TJ Maxx is all that is open and functioning, so I got the brilliant idea to go up in the Carew Tower to the top to look around. Carew Tower is our highest building. It's baby stuff compared to the Sears Tower or even the Empire State Building, but it's ours. Actually, looks wise, the CT is a baby Empire State...Same type of bricks or blocks, similar inside with all the art-deco trim and flooring. I love how it echos. The CT is 48 stories and only costs $2. I took some photos, which came off pretty nice from just a phone, hung out for about 15 minutes then went back down. My heels were rubbing raw, and my feet were dying. Not a good time to have a bad shoe day. Anyway, I grinned and made it fine through my meeting w the attorney and his associate. I had all 12 of my questions answered, and they gave me a booklet about legal issues for writers. The guys were totally impressed with how I was organized! haha!

(They should see my house...NOT!)

Most importantly, the legal eagles advised me to go with book publishing first. Try for at least a year. It's worth it if it's that good. They say the e / iBook market is growing, but it is such a small percentage of sales, and will be most likely 5-10 years before it's as common and as easy and affordable to all as iTunes did for our CD and record collections several years ago. It won't happen to books that fast, and I limit my market share to go electronic. This was the sweet music I wanted to hear from someone who knows the business better than I do.

Came back down the elevator after shaking hands and collecting business cards, intending to eat that sandwich, which had been marinading in a white sack inside my Vera Bradley purse all this time. I also pulled out the phone to check messages and found this:

Hello, Ms. Strickland,

Thank you for your submission. I'm intrigued by your story. However, since we're a VERY small publishing company, we already have our hands full with our newest release, "It Just Hasn't Happened Yet". This is the first book we've had with national exposure, and all of our efforts are going toward making that as successful as possible. We expect that to take up the better part of the next year. After that, we have another book by the same author slated to be released (either in 2011 or 2012, depending on how publicity and sales for the current book go).

However, since I think you have an interesting story (my oldest son was also premature and he still has a lot of issues developmentally) and a good starting point for the "tone" of the book, I would be willing to look at the whole manuscript again in the future. In the meantime, since I don't want you waiting on us, please continue to send it out to other publishing companies, too. With luck, a larger company will be interested in it, as I know they would have far greater resources for PR and marketing than we do. If you don't hear from any of them, please do contact me again in November 2011.

Thank you again for your interest and please do keep in touch.

Sincerely,____________

This editor is local. There are 4 local publishers in town here. I had asked the lawyers what they knew about any of them, and they only were aware of one. I had Googled four.

This publisher is indeed small...I like that...They get to know you there...and was started by a UC college prof who wanted to get textbooks he'd written published. It is growing to become more commercial.

Oh my goodness! What a boost to receive such a message. What a feeling it is to know that I touched somebody's life already with what I wrote in Chapter One. It is relatable and a reader CAN get hooked. I "intrigued" her!!!!!

College Kid is all thrilled. My mom is amazed and thrilled.

This is the taste of success.

It will ha

I just posted this at an Adoption Family website re my book:

[color=blue][/color][size=3][/size]

I would love to share my story so much, that I have done just that! I wrote a book! It's called REUNIONS, and it is about growing up as an adopted kid in the 1960's and 70's. I was the only adopted child in my circle of peers, family, neighbors and friends, and I tell ya...It was a VERY isolating feeling! Adoption articles and lists of famous athletes and movie stars who were adopted were not common, so it really did make me feel freakish back in the day. Being adopted was something I was hideously ashamed of. It was very taboo to discuss.

It literally took falling in love and knowing that the only way we could progress in our relationship honestly would be for me to tell the guy about my worst kept secret. He'd either be a complete moron about it or a decent guy.

I told and he was decent....Very cool, in fact. Cooler than cool could be. So after school / college, we got married!

In my adoption story, I share vignettes from my growing up experience with my adoptive family and how I embraced them as my roots, as they embraced me. However, they are a family...a very human family with flaws and rough spots, like all families. My story unfolds with me deciding as an independent adult to "come out" after living a 26 year lie to many friends and colleagues about my adoption, and at the same time, my adoptive parents are trudging through and learning to make their way with a damaged home life, due to other problems outside of my choice to search.

This is an exploration of family dynamics, a tale in child development from the adoptee's POV during an era when less was accepted, less information was available, but social norms were being challenged in the time of free love, rock and roll and political unrest. I tell the tale with honesty and humor, filled with pop culture and relatable stories and situations.

I hope this is a book that people here might want to read.

My manuscript is complete, and I am now shopping publishers / agents and trying to promote it myself on various websites.

I would love to know what you folks might think of this book concept.

My intention is NOT to totally promote the idea that adoption searches are all good and right. Clearly, they are not the best choice for all people, especially while underage. It's a very personal and individual thing at any time in life. It just happened to work for me, and I admit it: I got lucky.

A message I do want to share is that just because you are an adopted person, you are not a freak. You are OK. You are as "normal' as anyone else. Just because you are adopted doesn't mean you are too delicate or special to handle realities of life that non-adopted people deal with. Adopted parents and birth parents, be prepared. A search interest may or may not happen, but you never know. The adoptee is not disloyal or unappreciative if they want to find out more. Not all birth parents are "bad" people who live wrong and get in trouble. They are fine folks with feelings, ambitions and ideas just like everybody else.

I hope my "book baby" will one day be informative, entertaining and relatable for readers from many backgrounds and age groups: older teens through seniors, family interests / genealogy buffs, adoption triangle members, legal and social work professionals, teachers, psychs, and for sure readers familiar with my home town, (Cincinnati, Ohio) and who enjoy pop culture references from the 60's-80's.

P.

August 11, 2010 Of COurse it's the book again...What did you expect???

Recently I found two of my long-lost cousins on Facebook. I haven't seen these guys since they were maybe 17 and I was 10. I reference them and their dad, an uncle of mine, in my book because they were people who figured quite strongly in the first 10 or so years of my life. Then their dad died, and my dad saw less of that side of the family. I haven't yet told them about them being in my book, and I probably should at some point, but in just an initial FaceBook chat thingy, I felt it wasn't the time just yet.

What finding these two twin cousins from childhood has made me do though is go back over the first five or six chapters VERY CAREFULLY...more than I already have been doing. Now that I know these guys again, and they know me, we all have become real people to one another...Not just some memory figures from 40 years ago. If I hadn't approached them on FaceBook, they could one day very easily pick up my book via downloading on line or an actual store purchase and be very curious but not necessarily like what I had to say about that side of the family. Not that I said anything bad, but from their perspective, I don't want to share TMI or dredge up a lot of negative imagery. I am not sure how this sector of the family dealt with their father's too-young death from cancer. (He was only 48.) I only know my and my parents' side , which was a feeling of dread, intense grief, and for me personally, the whole experience brought about night terror type sleep issues for years....Till I was an adult. It was the first death I had to deal with, and it hit very hard.

I don't think an otherwise perfect stranger or non related to the family person would find anything I said objectionable. Most likely my twin cousin brothers won't either, but I probably need to address the topic with them at some point. These days, just because somebody dies, it's not an excuse to pull away completely from the family. With so many ways to keep in touch via email and social Internet sites, people can figure into life for as long as we want, and as closely or as distantly as we wish to make the relationship.

I am not sure how involved with these cousins I will become, but however it works out, I want positive feelings and good will in our families.
P.

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From Aug 5, 2010

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It's all about the Memoir book...

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It's my "baby" now...Kids are bigger, although I love to talk about them too...but this blog is one for my book...

One huge concern about writing about real people and events is that you want to tell the story, you want to tell it well and in a way that readers will want to read and listeners will want to listen, but....

There's that little-bitty part about real people and their feelings, etc.

I once saw / read an interview with the late Frank McCourt who wrote Angela's Ashes . His book was amazing, award-winning and inspiring, yet, he felt he could never go back to his other home country of Ireland again, and most of his family wasn't speaking to him. He made a huge profit from his work, had peer recognition, and took the risk. It paid off financially, but I am not sure about what it did to his personal life. He pissed off a lot of folks!

I don't want this. I want something to feel proud of. I want my neighbors, old classmates and friends to pick up my book, (or download it), and NOT think, 'Man, what a ludicrous load of white trash!'. I am working very hard to make sure that even if I have a sort of "negative" character in my story or one who has made some mistakes along the way, that they are not left that way in the end, especially if they are someone who is still living. Yeah...I have a few goof-balls and flakey people described in the book...

But, who doesn't have some sort of pervy but harmless kooky uncle, a meddling nosey neighbor, the delinquent neighborhood 'tween boy who blasts Ozzy Osbourne metal music and shoots bottle rockets at squirrels or that eccentric cousin nobody talks to in their clan?

None of these types are bad people....They're just characters...and they sure do make an otherwise ordinary tale a hellova lot more entertaining! Some of the kooks and fruits actually can become some of the most beloved folks who figure into the big story!

So I have included them to add pizzazz and local color. I am not writing for spite or revenge. I am not venting and blaming my parents. I am not looking to publicly shame anyone. In fact, for many people, I have made the effort to change names and avoid sur-names. I have made the artistic decision to include a few "bad guys" and off-beat rogues to round out the cast of people who figure(d) into my life because it makes great story-telling. Real people don't have all perfect habits, do they? In literature they would be considered to have character flaws, tragic flaws or be foils to another person in the book.

So I hope readers and especially my family and friends would understand that no malice is intended if I included a person in this book, and they are not someone of the highest moral standing on every page. Readers also need to understand that sometimes, real people change too...Someone who behave(d) in one way in 1970, for example, may be completely different by 1987, and I tried to show this in the book as my story moves along. If you aren't pleased as punch, just work with me, people; Keep with the reading program; See how it all works out....Then judge when you finish...
P.

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From Friday, Aug 13, 2010

..and I sure do hope the public / readers say yes to the book one day too!

I was on FaceBook chat w a former teacher of mine...Someone I took a creative writing course from about three years ago. I was sharing with her about how I got the green light from my mother for trying to promo this adoption memoir and that next I have a new dilemma: To electronically publish or try for the traditional route a while, but for how long?
Wendy B. is very old school and promotes traditional publishing more than Internet work. I get that. The traditional way provides jobs for actual humans and produces a tactile product that hands-on people get to hold and see in person.I told her that I still need to research finding legal advice for publishing about real life people and places, even if I do change the names, etc. SHe agrees about needing the legal consult, even if I publish on my own in some way, (which she hopes to G-d I don't do...)
She gave me the name of a lawyer acquaintance of hers, whom she has worked with, and he has agreed to meet with me downtown on Tuesday....FOR FREE!!! He wants me to being my query letter, synopsis / proposal and excerpts! Then he will see what my next step should be....
OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG.......

P.

The ways of publishing are changing, and it is probably mostly a good thing.

The "traditional" way is to find an agent who finds you a publisher, and the Powers That Be accept you / your work. Yeah...It's nice to be deemed acceptable by the cliques in power. I had enough of that in school, thank you very much. Still....If a writer can get that route to work, more power to them....Literally. I mean, the money will be huge, and their recognition and cred will be sky high.

However, a newer way to publish is opening up, and I, as well as other new writers, can now have the luxury of by-passing the red tape and chains of command involved with scoping out and being deemed worthy by a literary agent or publishing house. This may also be the only way to fly with such a tight economy that says that no matter how incredibly fabulous my work as a novelist is, no one can afford to represent me because no business has the money to pay me.

I can self pub...Basically make my own book, pay to have everything just the way I want...and then go market it myself. No commissions...but I would be paying for the books as they are printed and bound. It's more like being an independent contractor, I guess.

I can also e-pub...or is it i-pub? Either way, it's basically pubbing a downloadable book for people's Nooks, phones, iPads, Kindles or whatever electronic reading device.

How does an author sign one of those at a book signing?

Anyway, I have some choices to make about how I want my book to be born. I figure I will give it the traditional way till about October. I have sent it off to about 12 places. If I get rejections or no feedback at all, I may then consider the e-pub route by the Holidays.

Before I publish in any form, I do need to find out about legal issues in regard to writing about real folks...Even if I do change some names and or add in / modify or cut some characters. Some people will figure it out anyway. This is when an agent's expertise would be helpful...Sorta like if you sold your home on your own, (FSBO-style), vs. listing your property w a company that can cover your legal ass.

However I choose to go, I want to make good and safe decisions. I want to feel proud of my work yet not feel too hindered artistically and look obvious that I held back.

What do you think?

P.

When you write about your family, it isn't that simple to put 'em into one nook and be done with it...Not my family anyway.

I'm new to this site...Can you cross post to other categories? Or is it just one big post, and you hope people will figure it out? Anyway, Here I am, and this is my book: REUNIONS.

The posted photo is my proposed book cover design. My mom took this pic in 1962, when the social worker brought me to my parents' home for the initial placement. I wanted my mom to have a part in this book in some way, and she was "Super-Picture-Taker-Woman" in our family, so this was perfect. The photo even shows how it was all done back in the day. Adoptions were closed in Ohio. The families never met. The social worker was the liaison, and according to what my parents said, did not want her face in the photo because even that was too identifying.

This is my query letter for hopeful agents / publishers:

"I'm adopted". That is a notion that haunted the back of my mind and affected every relationship, activity and thought I experienced when I was young. I kept my adoption a shameful secret from everyone I met, from friends to colleagues. I was embarrassed and intensely afraid of being treated differently or harassed by peers.

In my completed, 138,776 word memoir, Reunions, I openly describe my adoptive family life and tell anecdotes from my youth with humor and honesty. I discuss events, which ultimately lead to my decision to research and find my birth family after twenty-six years of angst, curiosity and need for completion in my life.

I want adoptees to know that they are not alone in their feelings. I want birth relatives to find peace in that their decision to relinquish their child was OK. I want adoptive parents to be prepared for the day when their adopted child might want and need to know more about their past, no matter how much they love and respect their adoptive families.

Readers who would appreciate this memoir most will be teens, young adults, and professionals in education, social work, law and psychology, including members of the adoption triangle. Readers who enjoy imagery and pop culture from the 60's, 70's and 80's will find this book entertaining. Locals to the Cincinnati, Ohio and Sarasota, Florida areas will be most able to relate to the settings. This book also contains themes concerning alcoholism, genealogy and homosexuality.

I am an adoptee, who searched and successfully found a landslide of birth parents, siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles. I have been a teacher and tutor for twenty-five years. I am also the moderator for Cincinnati Tri State Writers. In 2006, I was e-published in Kings Island's season pass holders' newsletter. In 2009, our local Eastern Hills Journal published my article about house pets. In 2010, Xavier University's literary magazine, The Athenaeum, accepted and published three submissions of my creative writing.
I am looking forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Paige Adams Strickland

This is my synopsis. It's weird writing a synopsis about yourself. Kinda like talking Bob Dole-style, ya know? Guess there are conflicting schools of thought as to whether non-fic / memoir writers even need a synopsis as part of their proposal, but I have one, just in case...

Synopsis for the Memoir, Reunions:

Paige was a very typical child in the Midwestern United States, who became part of her family in a not so typical way in 1962. She was born and put up for adoption, which used to be much more taboo and secretive to discuss than it is in contemporary times. In fact, Paige's entire adoptive family, for the most part, although never dishonest, chose to not dwell on the adoption aspect and simply functioned as a regular family with a natural born child. Deep down, Paige knew that wasn't the case and felt like she was always living a lie, but it was a lie she chose to keep in order to avoid peer harassment and rejection as a school kid.

The memoir, Reunions, tells stories from Paige's point of view as a child and adolescent growing up with what she felt was a "secret defect". Through vignettes and other anecdotes, Paige relates her adoption situation to her feelings about forming and maintaining friendships, caring for pets, moving to a new house and losing loved ones.
As she grows up and discovers true love, she realizes that adoption cannot be kept a complete secret forever. She musters up the courage to discuss her mysterious start in life with the boy who wins her heart and eventually pursues finding more information about, "The Lady Who Had Her". Meanwhile, her adoptive family is undergoing some out of the ordinary changes as well, and all family members are forced to find new ways to cope with ensuing altercations and alterations in their lifestyles.

Paige eventually does find her birth relatives plus a few surprises along the way. She reunites with many family members and finds fulfillment, accomplishment and the key to managing her future.

And this, Folks, is the proposal / summary:

In 1961, adoption was still considered one of those "private" and "personal" topics. Not much information was provided for adoptive families or for birth parents. In Ohio, records were sealed forever. Adoptees were just supposed to be thankful for their adoptive family and never look back.

Then, through random chance watching a talk TV show in 1987, I learned that certain records were open, especially if you were born before 1964 in the state of Ohio, and my life would never be the same after that program. As a child and teenager, growing up adopted was like another Scarlet Letter "A" if anyone ever found out the truth. At least, that's the way I felt as I muddled my way through social situations and other interpersonal relations. I always loved my adoptive family, but realized I wanted not just more, but what other "regular born" people had: real roots, accurate health history and authentic family lore, not just a story on permanent loan.

So I searched, (pre-computer), and I found literally a mother lode of welcoming biological family members! Many of them only lived about twenty minutes away from me, and we never knew!

This is the story of how being adopted affected me growing up in the 1960's, 70's and early 80's. It is the saga of a family trying to cope with typical and not so typical life alterations during the decades of social revolution, free love and knowing that the only thing certain in life was change.

About the Author:

Paige Adams Strickland is an adoptee, who searched for and found her biological family in the 1980's. She is a licensed Spanish teacher with 25 years' experience in education. Her interests aside from writing include: family history, travel, pets and movies. She is the moderator for the Cincinnati Tri State Writers group and has had some local articles published as well as acceptance from Xavier University's literary magazine, The Athenaeum.

Competing and Related Titles:

I was inspired to write my story after reading Frank McCourt's ANGELA'S ASHES and TEACHER MAN, and Jeanette Walls' THE GLASS CASTLE. I was very impressed with the authors' abilities to represent their family members as such wonderful and colorful characters. However, their books are not about adoption, which makes mine different.

Special Marketing / and Promotional Opportunities:

I am currently working as a substitute teacher. This allows me plenty of flex time to help promote my book if the opportunity happens. As a teacher, it would be very easy for me to speak to students, (older students) about my story for school assemblies. I am affiliated with multiple school districts, which would be thrilled to know me as not only a substitute teacher in good standing but also as an author. My "sphere of influence" includes a large family, friends, peers / colleagues, neighbors, students and parents.

Status of my Project:

My book is a completely finished manuscript. I am happy to send you any pages / parts you wish. I have not submitted my project in full to anyone else, but I am making queries and hoping for feedback.

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