Making of Bones in the Wash, Part 2

by | Feb 28, 2014 | Bones in the Wash

First Draft to Publication

(Here’s Part 1: Ideas to Pages) 

I planned from the beginning to self-publish. For two reasons: One, I had already failed to get an agent and I feared that might happen again, but the main reason was that I could get to market faster and I had this idea, a delusion, really, that the book would be ready to publish and promote in time for the 2012 presidential campaign. 

I remember at a work retreat in January of 2011, we were in big circle introducing ourselves, and we were all supposed to share something most people didn’t know about us. I said I was writing a novel and I going to finish it by the end of 2011. 

And I did. I had my first complete, beginning-to-end manuscript. But it took almost two years from that time to rewrite it and rewrite it and edit it and proof it and so on. 

No Writer Is an Island: I had a lot of help. I am so grateful for the novel writing group that I have been part of since 2001. Going on 13 years now. They read it in segments over a long period of time, and multiple versions, and they did some tough love with me, and suggested a lot of major changes that I resisted at first, then took. 

The biggest one: I had three point of view characters, now I have two. You all know what I mean by point-of-view characters? 

One, Mayor Zamara, my protagonist. Two, his antagonist, Sierra León. The third, Sierra’s father, Lamar, who also, unbeknownst to Sierra, was also Tomas’ therapist. Lamar is still in the book, but for the first five years of the book, had his own story, his own chapters, his own point of view. Those are gone. Now he’s only seen through the two point-of-view characters. 

And the book is better. Not to mention shorter and tighter. 

My wife Nanette, who was my toughest critic, also helped me get rid of things I didn’t need. Sometimes I resisted, and sometimes she was wrong, but mostly she was right, and I’m pleased to say that most of the time, I listened to her. (Though she’d be the first to tell you I left in some things she would have liked me to cut.)

Starting Later, Ending Earlier: One valuable practice that helped make the book more of a page-turner is I went through my chapters, and wherever I could, I started them later and ended them earlier. 

Especially the end of chapters.

I knew the book needed to be shorter, and there are two main ways to do that. One is cut entire sections, chapters, plot lines. I eliminated about eight chapters by removing Lamar as a point-of-view character. The other is to shorten what’s already there, and I did a lot of that. 

Knowing what I know now, I would have cut the end of many of these chapters even if the book were just the right length. I can think of five or six chapters and scenes where I had another three, four paragraphs, and I just chopped them. Made the chapter endings more abrupt. Didn’t tie it up in a bow. Left the reader with some uncertainty. 

It helped create sense of racing toward the end. 

Reaching the FInish Line: I published the book through CreateSpace, owned by Amazon, and I did the print version first. My friend Bill Selby, from the novel writing group, a graphic designer as well as a writer, did the book cover, which I’ve received lots of compliments for. (I had lunch with him in January, gave him a copy of the trade paperback. He weighed it in his hand, said, “That looks good.”)

The photo on the back cover, balloons floating over the Rio Grande in Albuquerque, is by friend Jim, who went to the balloon festival a couple years ago and took some great photos. 

I formatted the inside in Microsoft Word, which took months, and was painstaking and tedious, though of course I was proofing and editing at the same time. Once I had uploaded the pdf for the trade paperback, I stripped out most of the formatting and did the ebook for Kindle. Took only a day or two. I plan to publish the ebook with Smashwords and other publishers than Amazon, but haven’t gotten to it yet.

Writing, editing, and publishing the book was quite an accomplishment. But now comes an even more daunting task — marketing. 

Making of Bones in the Wash, Part 1

by | Feb 28, 2014 | Bones in the Wash

Ideas to Pages

As I’ve been shamelessly promoting Bones in the Wash — did I mention you can read the first three chapters at bonesinthewash.com? — several people have asked me how it came to be. Here’s how:

New Mexico: Not Really New, Not Really Mexico: Without knowing it, I planted the seed when I drove with a friend from Berkeley to Albuquerque to visit his cousin. We hiked in the slot canyons in Bandelier National Monument, which became the setting for a pivotal flash flood scene, and I came home with two red chili ristras from Old Town Albuquerque.

Wisconsin 2004 — It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing: We vote for president in fifty states, but because of the Electoral College, only about a dozen matter. So in 2004, when I had the chance to work for John Kerry in Milwaukee, I jumped on it. The work was tedious — endless door-knocking and phone-banking — but I had committed to a colleague that I would write a blog every night, so I kept my eyes and ears open for interesting things to write about. I recall thinking that a presidential campaign would be a good setting for a novel. (Not necessarily Milwaukee.) 

Wasted + NaNoWriMo: In 2006, I finished my first novel, Wasted, a “green noir” murder mystery set in the gritty world of garbage and recycling in Berkeley. Many rewrites later, I contacted seventy agents. Eight nibbled. Two asked for the entire manuscript. One seemed on the verge of saying yes, but didn’t. 

As I collected rejection letters, I learned about National Novel Writing Month, and, in November 2007, wrote the “required” 50,000 words — the beginnings of Turquoise Trail, set in New Mexico during the 2004 presidential campaign. 

I wrote every day, without a clear idea of where I was going, and that first draft was closer to a soap opera than a political thriller. With the exception of one inspired scene, none of the prose from this 50,000-word “brain dump” ended up in Bones in the Wash. But five important characters did, as did several plot threads. I also knew what kind of book I wanted to write — fun, full of drama, and about real people facing real problems.  

The Year of Barack Obama: I become a hard-core political junkie in 2008, following the primary campaigns on DailyKos, Huffington Post, and elsewhere. I didn’t see it as research. I inhaled it. That fall, I went to Albuquerque — with two goals: help Obama win, and soak up enough local culture to write a credible novel set there. When I returned, I took my draft, set in 2004, moved it to 2008, and rewrote it five, ten, fifteen times. 

See Part 2: First Draft to Publication