A dash to the deadline

Exactly one month from today, on Aug. 13, my book’s manuscript is due to the editor.

This is NOT an editor hired by a publishing house; we didn’t get a book deal for Kiss and Tell. It’s an editor Dr. Whelihan and I hired privately, although she also works for all the big New York publishing houses. I mentioned her in an earlier blog, and was impressed with the sample edit she did on the intro to my chapter on the 80s Ladies. (Plus I met her in Austin when I was in Texas for two weeks enjoying an annual girls’ weekend and celebrating my mom’s 84th birthday. Her name is Tiffany Yates Martin; she’s 6 feet tall, gorgeous and extraordinarily charismatic. Yes, you’re detecting a bit of a girl crush.)

Kiss and Tell‘s book proposal has now been officially turned down by seven publishers. It’s a little bit discouraging, sure. But the reason they are saying no to the book still strikes Dr. Mo and I as just being off. They seem to think readers will only care about the sexuality of women their own age; that our focus is too broad and no one’s interested in the passion of women in other age groups.

I realize everyone is super savvy up there in New York, of course, but I think the suits in the city maybe don’t know as much as they think they do about women’s sexuality. I mean, did they completely miss the uproar over Fifty Shades of Grey? Why don’t they see that women—of ALL ages—who read about desire in the form of fiction will also read about it in non-fiction form?

And believe me, the book is going to be erotic.

I know this because our agent told me after reading the sample chapters that I needed to mention the material’s steaminess in the proposal. “You’re missing the turn-on factor,” she said. I hadn’t really planned that effect, but I was quick to follow through on her suggestion.

And it makes sense that when women talk about what stimulates their desire, and those scenarios are faithfully transferred to words—reading them might indeed stimulate desire.

I digress!

The breaking news to share here is that I have committed to finishing the book’s first draft in one month. I was terrified into paralysis at first. I spent two days assuring myself this was impossible. For so long I’ve been saying, “I’m writing a book.” I still can’t quite grasp what it will mean to say, “I’ve written a book,” since the process itself has defined me for so long.

But then the soldier mentality took over, and I just started marching. I’m digging in every day; I figure it’s a six-day-a-week proposition from now till the deadline. I have to read every single word I’ve written so far and try to drag them all under the umbrella of one voice. As the project unfolded, the narrative shifted, and now it’s time to solidify the chapters under a unifying voice.

I’m also having to finish up certain chapters, which I left undone purposely, waiting for closure on other decades in order to come back and wrap up earlier chapters with more expertise and authority. The overview chapter, which explains what trends we found and sets the stage for the whole book, is proving to be a gigantic time suck. I’m wrestling with whether or not to break it into several chapters, because some of the (juicy) stories that accompany the overarching trends are lengthy.

But big picture problems like that aren’t enough. I’m also doing meticulous copy editing as I go, since there’s no point in ignoring it as I do a final read. Tiffany was kind enough to provide me with some style tips, which is a good thing since it turns out that journalism’s AP style isn’t at all what book editors are looking for. Oh joy. Live and learn.

This final push toward the deadline is a microcosm of what the entire book process has been. If I look up and survey the landscape of what still has to be completed, I become overwhelmed and frightened. If I keep my head down, and put one foot in front of the other, one paragraph after another, I can hold on to the hope of finishing.

Here goes!

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A little help here, please

The solitariness required to write a book is a given, and I’ve learned to be content with the alone time necessary to make that happen. But as I embark on the final chapter, I find myself looking forward to a point in the near future when I can begin working with an editor to make this exciting book the best it can be.

I’m eager to dig into the structure, find the flaws, rearrange whole chunks of content if need be, polish the prose, make my voice consistent. I have both specific questions and more general concerns I’m ready to discuss with an editor, someone who’s really passionate about this material like Dr. Mo and I are. Someone I trust.

I actually have someone in mind and I’ll of course name her if our relationship becomes official. Meantime, you might be wondering why we’re looking to hire our own editor instead of waiting for a publishing house to assign one. If you read about the process of signing with an agent, you know we contracted with someone in New York who’s been sending out the ‘Kiss and Tell’ proposal for a couple of months now.

But we’ve had a snag and a bit of disinterest, so rather than stewing in any disappointment, we’ve decided to push ahead on a couple of self-publishing fronts, in case that turns out to be the path we take. So at last week’s work meeting, (after which I polished off the health chapter!!) we split up tasks to accomplish in the next couple of weeks. Dr. Mo is researching a loan to cover the cost of self-publishing while I gather exact estimates for what those costs will be.

Fortunately, I know people who’ve written books, and early on I got a recommendation for a very experienced editor who has worked with both fiction and non-fiction. I like her flexibility because, although the book is non-fiction, it’s written in story fashion and utilizes many fiction-like touches to increase its appeal.

I emailed the editor and she got back to me quickly (despite being out of her office), which I took as a good sign. She had heard about ‘Kiss and Tell’ from a mutual friend and finds the concept intriguing. Woo hoo! First hurdle overcome; no prudes need apply.

Like some others I saw online, this editor offers a free edit of 1,000 words of your book, so you can see how she works and whether you’re a good fit. I think this is an excellent practice, because anyone will tell you that finding a person who gets what you want to do and helps you say it in the best possible way is a writer’s dream. Serious writers all long for the partnership of a caring editor.

I perused my decades chapters and decided to submit the first 1,000 words of my chapter on the 80s Ladies. Remember them? I adored those gals and also felt they brought out some of my best writing, so I’m curious to see how much this editor wants to change up what I’ve done. Good editors don’t rewrite everything a writer creates in a bid to insert their own voice; instead they make the writer’s voice truer and stronger.

That’s what I’m holding out for.

Naturally we wouldn’t move definitively to hire an editor until we formally sever ties with our agent. And it may not come to that. In the world of publishing, something unexpected can always happen.

We’re just trying to stay smart, stay flexible and make the best decisions possible for ‘Kiss and Tell’s’ success. Fingers and toes crossed!

Another one bites the dust

My ability to meet a monthly deadline prevailed once more, and the 80s Ladies chapter is complete. To finish it, I wrote for about 8 hours the day before my Sunday meeting with Dr. Mo, a painful mistake I won’t make again. (Hello, Repetitive Stress Injury!)

I feel like this with every decade of the women I interview, but right now, the 80somethings are totally my faves. They were so dear, so revealing, so completely captivating as they shared the secrets and details of their sexuality. I feel such a responsibility to honor their candor in a respectful way.

“I can’t talk openly with people,” Catherine, 84, told me. “But it’s OK with you.” It was so OK that she even told me about her first orgasm, which she experienced at age 82 with the man who’s now her second husband. Her decades-long marriage to an alcoholic womanizer had failed to create passion, but she says she loved him despite his weaknesses. When he died from cirrhosis of the liver, she remained a widow for almost 20 years before meeting her second love. Today, Catherine says, “I feel free and I feel whole.”

Does she curse the fates that kept her from sexual passion for most of her life? Not a bit. She expresses only happiness and gratitude for her current good fortune. How many of us would be as philosophical?

For a few of the 80somethings, sex was behind them. Emma, a precocious woman with a strong libido who began having intercourse at 16 (and enjoyed perhaps 20 lovers over her lifetime), said her sex desire had died out around age 70. And Jane, a widow of nine years, said medications prevented her from having a sex drive — and besides, she’d never been interested in anyone except her husband.

But if you think 80-year-old women are sexless, you’re wrong. One 85-year-old widow, who enjoyed a tremendously satisfying sex life with her husband for 55 years, met a man down the hall in her seniors’ community and began having sex with him. She expresses some understandable disappointment, mentioning that he was very skinny and his bones were sharp when he climbed on top of her.

Within a few months, her lover was moved to a different building, one for assisted living, and though he’d like our widow to come visit, she can’t quite forget those sharp bones. “And he’s still losing weight,” she worries. For now, she’s keeping to her own room.

Honestly, I could go on and on about these women. In fact, their chapter is my longest one yet — 18 pages. But Dr. Mo said not to trim it. She read it and said even though she’s familiar with the subject matter, the stories still fascinated and entertained her.

Am I happy about that? You bet.

And now. On to the 20somethings. Can they top the 80s Ladies?

Booking it

Earlier this month, right on schedule, I completed the chapter on teenagers. And by right on schedule, I mean less than one hour before my book partner showed up for our monthly work session. Cutting it uncomfortably close, I know, but rather than letting this dismay me, I took it as refreshing proof that deadlines can still motivate the journalist that lurks within.

Now I’m deep into my 80s Ladies, which is how I quickly began to refer to the women who are the focus of the third chapter in the all-important “decades” chapters. (Obviously, I’m not proceeding in order.) Of the six women in their 80s we selected to interview (of 52 respondents), I’ve seen four, scheduled an interview with a fifth and am stalking the sixth. The elusive sixth candidate has some leg pain, you see, and she needed to consult a doctor and we’ve been chatting about it … several times, but as of yet, she’s been unwilling to set a time to let me come talk with her. I remain optimistic.

Anyway, four interviews done, two to go and chapter deadline is mid-April. I like seesawing back and forth between the older and younger survey respondents, because of the fascinating diversity in their life stories. The teenagers I spoke with can’t even visualize coming into their sexually active years in the type of society women in their 80s and 90s experienced. Two of the teens had double-digit partners, one had seven, another eight. In the two oldest decades, it’s a rare woman who counts more than one lover in her entire life. And I found the teens to be talking and, yes, gossiping about sex openly with friends of both sexes, even as the older generation struggles with some of the more direct questions on our survey.

Which is not to say older women don’t have fabulous sex lives. Au contraire. Most of the teens I interviewed would be jealous of an 82-year-old I met this week. Though her husband’s prostate cancer has curtailed their lovemaking the past two years, prior to that, the couple was quite active — as in every day.

“So … even in, say, your 60s?”, I ventured to ask, ever the skeptical reporter. “Well, probably only four times a week then,” she conceded — and “always on Saturdays and Sundays!”

That’s some serious enthusiasm. Count me impressed, especially as the details of their routine were revealed. (You’ll have to buy the book!) Needless to say, our interview ran overtime, and I was an hour late dropping my car off to get a new radiator. Real life always finds a way to intrude, doesn’t it?

Speaking of real life, my springtime Florida existence is getting close-up inspections from two of my favorite Texans. One visitor just left and next up is Mom, arriving a week from tomorrow. Which means I need to continue being efficient in order to warrant a bit of time off with my company.

Of course, if I know Mom, she’ll be encouraging me to write, write write — even while she’s here.

If only I had the work ethic she dreams of for me. This book would be a wrap!