Editing!
My novel has reached the editing stage, which should be good news, but is, in actuality, a frustrating exercise. Wouldn’t it be fun if a book sprang, fully formed, from the page? Granted, I’m a tough critic of my own work, but every novel goes through editing, often repetitive editing. Because I operate a one-woman enterprise, I can’t hire a professional editor, so I have to make hard decisions on my own. Should every scene I’ve written find its way into the finished product? Is this scene boring? What does this part even mean? I no longer remember what I was thinking when I wrote this. Oops, my timeline is off.
Writing a novel is the “fun” part. I came up with so many ideas for this story, it’s stuffed with them. Had I edited those ideas at the time, well, I’d only be about halfway through writing it. At least the story is “finished” ~ I’ve written the final scene. Now I’m in the hard slog phase. It’ll take a while, but stay tuned!
What I'm Working On ~ Leah's Story
Leah started singing young, and she was good at it. Her mother chauffeured her to regional competitions and booked her at county fairs, where the audiences loved her. Naturally, she fell into life as part of a band, and it was good for a while. But after years of playing at local clubs to increasingly jaded crowds, the band’s bookings began to dry up. Finally, amidst a particularly bad bout of band turmoil, she quit.
Leah never developed any marketable skills because she didn’t need any, but now after taking to the road in search of a new life, the realities of making a living with something besides her voice hit hard. Eventually through a new friend, she lands a server job at the only booming business in town, a country nightclub. Hard as she tries to escape her past, she constantly finds herself surrounded by music, and when circumstances find her onstage at the club, she surrenders to her life’s true calling.
It’s only a fluke that a record label’s A&R man is in the audience one night, and out of the blue, he offers Leah a recording contract. The truth is, she loves her new life: her new small town, her band members, her dear friends, especially; she doesn’t want a new identity as a Nashville recording artist. She did once, when she was younger, but she eventually gave up on the dream.
But after suffering a broken heart, Leah impulsively accepts the offer. That’s when things turn hard.
This novel-in-progress began as a short and sweet novella, but I realized there was so much more of Leah's life yet to explore.
If you like a winding saga with its share of quirky, lovable characters, you’ll enjoy this novel. It’s not just an emotional journey, but a literal one.
Oh, it’s not yet ready for publication. In fact, it’s not even finished, but I’m having a ball writing it.
I haven’t yet decided what to title it. I want to find one that’s completely new, rather than reuse the title of the novella that inspired it. I might even run a “title my novel” contest.
In the meantime, I’ll post a few snippets and (minor) spoilers here, as well as introduce you to a few of the supporting characters.
Stay tuned!
P.S. If you know of a cover designer, or are one, shoot me a message at april@apriltompkins dot net. I’m always on the lookout for visionary artists.
Why a Novel About the Music Business?
Even though music was my first creative pursuit, I’ve never written a novel in which the main character is a singer. Maybe that’s because I enjoy exploring unfamiliar worlds and learning about them as I go, but somewhere along the way I hit upon the idea of focusing on the music business ~ not the glamour that everyone imagines, but the hard slog of, first, a local band singer’s life, and later the tribulations of trying to make it in the big time. Nope, I never was “big time”, but I’ve been immersed in music my entire life and I’ve absorbed a lot of the realities of that lifestyle (and of course, since I’m writing fiction, I’m throwing in a bunch of imaginary scenarios, too ~ some kind of fun scenes, at least fun for me to write, in which things don’t go exactly as planned). Especially because Leah is new to that world and completely on her own, she’s treading a lot of precarious waters. And unlike 99% of singers who’d give their right arm for a break, she only landed her recording contract through a fluke. In fact, she’s not even sure she wants it.
What I can bring to this novel from my own experience is songwriting and recording. I wrote my first song in 2001, and that was only because my husband (who is an accomplished songwriter himself) kept nagging me to do it. When I learned that my best friend from childhood had died after a sudden illness, I picked up my guitar one night and a song came rushing out. It was by no means a great song, but it showed me I could do it. Since then I’ve written too many songs to keep track of, again, not all of them great, but there have been a couple! My husband and I are a recording band, not a performing one. We release our songs to the world (he’s the producer) and let them take wing or not. A few of them have! But singing is not my strong suit. Yes, I can generally sing on key, though it may require a few takes to eliminate the clinker notes, and I’ve been told I have a pleasing, smoky voice. What I do know is, which I’ve incorporated into this novel, recording is not like it’s portrayed in movies or on TV. It’s painstaking and not a barrel of fun. A take can go completely right, but if one tiny thing goes wrong, then it’s time for take two or twenty-two. Don’t worry; this novel isn’t getting into the nitty gritty of studio work, but it does incorporate elements that I’m familiar with, and hopefully this gives the novel its authenticity. Writing it has been a fun ride.
P.S. You can hear our music on Spotify.
Meet Paula Barnes
My yet-to-be-named novel features a couple of what I'll call "life coaches", two characters that my protagonist leans on for guidance, although she's often not cognizant of the wisdom they provide. One of those is Paula Barnes, a superstar in the music world, who rose up out of poverty and became a legend based on talent and fierce determination.
Paula is salty! If you're offended by salty language, stop here! This is the scene in which my main character meets Paula for the first time.
I knocked on the dressing room door and it squeaked open, a pixie-haired redhead’s eyes scanning my face. “Yes?”
“Hi,” I squeaked, “I’m Layah Branch and I just wanted to thank Ms. Barnes for lending me her band.”
“Hold on,” the pixie said and closed the door.
Paula Barnes herself pulled the door open wide. “Layah! Come the hell in!” Her hair was in hot rollers and her face was bare—the hour was too early for her to primp for her headline set. She ushered me to a thinly padded settee, where the latest issue of Us Weekly rested, which she scooped away to make room. “That Red Boots song—certified hit,” she said.
“You heard me?”
“Oh, honey, I can’t hear anything from back here. Your label sent me an advance copy. Like it! And I’m a tough motherfucker. Excuse my French.”
“I remember watching you when you were Bill Scanlon’s duet partner,” I said, then immediately kicked myself. I’d read that their partnership had ended badly, and now I was exhuming bodies that deserved to stay buried. “I mean—”
“That’s okay, darlin’. I learned a hell of a lot from Bill. Folks nowadays make fun of him, but he was a fuckin’ professional, lemme tell ya.”
Up close, Paula Barnes looked older than she appeared on TV. A row of tiny wrinkles aligned above her top lip and marionette lines sagged down from the corners of her mouth. A grey strand of her otherwise brassy red hair poked out of a roller and she unselfconsciously patted it down. “Suckers are hard to tame,” she said matter-of-factly. “Gotta maintain, though, you know? Course you don’t. How old are you—twenty-three?”
“Add ten more,” I said.
“Gonna be a tough road, honey, at your age. Most of those gals out there,” she gestured in the direction of the stage, “are half your age. Half your talent, too, but that don’t matter. They got ‘the look’. First time I came to Nashville I ‘bout wore out the soles of my only good pair of shoes, hoofin’ it from one end of Sixteenth Avenue to the other. Now they get discovered on TikTok. No wonder they break down in tears at the drop of a hat—no seasonin’.”
Paula Barnes was fascinating. My taut as a clothesline muscles relaxed just listening to her talk. I wished I could perch on her dressing room couch all night, but I was cognizant of my intrusion and stood up to excuse myself.
“Hold on! You gotta give me your number, Layah!”
The redheaded pixie swooped over and snatched Paula’s phone off the table, ready to punch in the digits ‘til the singer wrested it back. “Lord’s sake, Mimi, I know how to work my own phone!”
Meet Burt
Burt Brewster is from a time when courtliness reigned. That doesn’t mean he’s without a sense of humor. He enjoys teasing Leah when the situation calls for it, and she teases him right back. Whether Leah realizes it or not, Burt Brewster is her best friend.
Their friendship developed by accident. When Leah took to the road after dissolving her band, she stopped in at a truck stop late that same night, exhausted and road-blind. A friendly waitress told her that the town of Chance, just up the road, had a hotel, and Leah finally surrendered to her weariness and decided to check in for the night. That's where she met Burt. He's the manager of the old Luck Hotel, which is mostly a one-man operation, because the town doesn't get many visitors.
Burt is adept at getting Leah to do the things she needs to do, usually without her being aware that he's deftly prodding her in the right direction.
“A few years later an invitation to my high school reunion arrived in the mail. They used to mail them out in the olden days. When I saw the return address I almost tore it to pieces, unopened, but instead I left it on the desk, in full view. I left it there for days. Finally, I thought, the hell with it. I opened it and inside was one of those little RSVP cards. I still don’t know what got into me, but I checked yes and stuck it in the mail.”
I prayed this story wouldn’t have a sad ending.
“And despite my trepidation I showed up. In fact, I donned my best yellow sports coat—with a matching lemon vest over a black and white striped shirt. I was way before my time, little one. But once I got there, my legs started shaking and I almost darted out of the gym. All my former torturers stood around snickering at me. Then the disc jockey put on a record; I don’t know, something disco, which I didn’t recognize. Guess what I did.”
I didn’t realize I was holding my breath. “You started dancing? And then they all joined in?”
Burt chuckled. “I did start dancing. I strutted right out to the middle of the gymnasium and pulled out a few of my best moves. I didn’t actually have any moves, but I faked it with confidence. And all my classmates slowly backed away.”
Well, this had turned into a sad story. I reached out and laid my hand on his. Then I noticed he was smiling.
“I danced to that one number, then I sauntered out the door, got in my car and slowly meandered back to Chance. Best night of my life.”
I Wrote a Song for My Novel
I had to. The novel is all about music and the music business, and I knew that at some point that a song or two would need to show its face. While Leah, the main character is trying to make her mark as a singer, she also dabbles in songwriting, and her superstar mentor, Paula Barnes, is a fan. When Paula is getting ready to go into the studio to record a new album, she asks Leah to write some songs for it. One song in particular is quite personal and specific to Paula’s life, maybe too specific and personal, Leah worries. She convinces herself that the song has offended the star, which is why she’s gotten no callback regarding any of the songs she sent.
Eventually, the subject of that song arises, and while I’ve referenced its title a few times in the novel, it seemed unnatural not to at least provide a hint of it. Thus, I wrote a song. I’m fairly certain that no one has invented singing book pages yet, so it would be more correct to say that I wrote lyrics. (I did have a melody in my head, though, as I was writing them.) It’s literally been years since I’ve written a song, but I found that it came right back to me!
For a couple of reasons, an author is reluctant to use song lyrics in their novel. Number one, you can’t just grab some famous lyrics to use for your own purposes unless you either want to pay a hefty fee or be threatened with a lawsuit. So, actual songs are out. Just as important, though less financially fraught, even including the author’s own lyrics would fast become boring to a reader. That’s why the closest I’ve come before this scene to referencing a song was to make up a title or two. I only wrote a half-song this time because portraying it was important to the scene.
So, win-win for me, I guess! I got to dust off an old talent and put it to use!
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My Writing Process
None of my stories are planned. While I suppose the majority of authors outline their stories, I don't even start out with a plot! I have a character and a setting; that's it. Then I approach the story with, "What if?" What if the protagonist finds her dream job, only to learn that the job she applied for and the one she landed were two completely different positions? That's exactly what happened in Shadow Song. A lakeside resort was hiring for a lot of summer positions, and having an art degree, Ashley was a perfect fit for the sidewalk portrait artist job. It was only on her first day of work that she found out she'd been hired as a carnival ride operator. How this beginning ultimately led to Ashley finding a dead body in the woods is beyond me. It unfolded organically. One thing simply led to another.
I like surprises, and that includes surprising myself. If I already knew the beginning, middle and end of my story, I would have no reason to write it. My "discovery writing" has led to some wild places I could have never planned for. What did I know about the world of professional poker, for instance? Nothing. But once I led myself there, again in Shadow Song, I had to learn. (Carnival rides, too, for that matter.) The legal process? I knew only what I'd seen on TV procedurals, and who even knows if those scenes are realistic? Sometimes I kick myself for going down a particular road, but my stories are so much better for having done so.
So, if you read one of my books and you think, "I never saw that coming", you're not alone. I never saw it coming, either.
Inn Dreams is Now Available!
Writing my latest novella, Inn Dreams, turned out to be a
marathon! Authors maybe shouldn't reveal their behind-the-scenes struggles, but
there's a reason this book took so long to finish. Initially, I thought it was
done, but when I re-read it, I realized that it was too sparse and it didn't allow readers to immerse
themselves in the story. There was a side character who was only alluded to,
but never made an appearance, and I began thinking how much better the book
would be by including her. Well, this led to countless opportunities to expand
the story, and by the time I was finished I'd doubled my original word count.
Inn Dreams is by far the longest novella I've written; still too short to be considered a proper novel, but it's weighty by novella standards. I'm so proud of it and I can't wait to share it with you. (Click on the image to explore.)
Why Are My Stories Set in Small Towns?
I admit my writing is sort of a niche (is that good or bad?), in that I write mostly about small towns and the characters who inhabit them. While I live in a suburb of a big city, I grew up in farm country. That's what I know. After so many years I still find it odd that one can traverse a city (or a suburb) and never once run into anyone she knows. I used to joke to myself, in my former life, that I couldn't once go to the mall and not run into a person I either worked with or went to school with, or simply knew from years ago. Sometimes it was irritating having to stop, mid-errand, and exchange pleasantries, when all I wanted to do was pick up my Ibuprofen or my new CD and scoot home. But there was also comfort in knowing that if I ever needed assistance, lots of people had my back. So, I set my tales in small towns and I am thrilled to get to know the people in them. Yes, they're often quirky, they don't speak the King's English, but they're generally upright citizens, with a couple of scofflaws thrown in for spice. You know, the ones everybody gossips about, at least they do in a small town.
I also like to throw a newcomer into the mix and let her discover who she can and can't trust. Often the people she's initially wary of turn out to be friends for life. That's sort of how it goes in a small town-- certain people just take some getting used to.
No, small-town existence isn't perfect. The citizens are often cloistered, suspicious of newcomers. It might take a while to fit in, but once you do, they'll hug you and never let you go.
So I'm never going to write about a woman living in the big city. First of all, that bores me, and secondly, the tale would be devoid of the flavor I crave.
If you simply like the idea of a small town, or perhaps you grew up in one, stay tuned. I have much more to write.