Friday, November 13, 2015 / November 29, 2015 by Kaitlyn Lamb

This morning, I received some book cover ideas from the Team’s designer. I was so excited, I showed them to several people in the office. I especially liked two of them. One shows a stormy sky and sea with frost around the edges of the frame. Another shows a silhouette of the Larchmont on a white background with an inverted silhouette of the ship underneath it, in stormy water.

Thinking about my book’s cover… I want it to be eye-catching, something that would make someone walk across a bookstore to pick it up and check it out. But I also want the cover to be a fair representation of what the book is about. I feel like the covers from NRP might be too much about the ship and the disaster and not enough about the four narrators of my novel. I’ll have to consider this for a few days before getting back to Meghan and the Team.

Thursday, November 12, 2015 / November 29, 2015 by Kaitlyn Lamb

At work today, I received an e-mail from Meghan requesting that we discuss the book edits by telephone, so I’m guessing that the Team didn’t agree with at least some of my editing comments. Meghan and I set up a time for her to call me this evening.

When she did call, I really enjoyed talking to her. I could tell that she and the rest of the editing team really do care about FV and want to help sculpt it into the best novel it can be. Pretty cool. They could consider the novel as just another school assignment but instead seem to recognize its larger scope and are putting extra effort into assuring the best possible end product. Thanks Team!

Meghan brought up the issue of the commas, saying she was a stickler for putting them in all of the technically “correct” locations. I explained that I’d recently been taught to eliminate as many commas as possible, since they inserted unnecessary pauses into the sentences and slowed down the pace of the writing. So, we agreed to a compromise, inserting commas only where absolutely necessary in order to assure the correct interpretation of the text.

As far as Anna Jensen and her Swedish phrases/translations, Meghan and Co. made a good point: she said that Anna probably thinks entirely in Swedish. Therefore, to have Swedish phrases stated and then translated within her interior dialogue sections is somewhat redundant. If I’m already translating all of her thoughts into English, why would these phrases be given in Swedish and then in English versus being just in English, to begin with? After a rather lengthy discussion, Meghan and I agreed that Anna’s thoughts would be strictly in English but that all of the Swedish phrases and their translations would remain in her exterior dialogue, even when speaking to her husband, John, and her daughter, Louise.

Meghan and I chatted for a long time about many other aspects of the novel and about writing, in general. Then we digressed into a discussion about our lives. She said that once she completes the Certificate in Editing Program at MSU Moorhead, she plans to go into book editing as a career. She also mentioned that she enjoys writing children’s books, too. What a delightful young woman!

Sunday, November 1, 2015 / November 29, 2015 by Kaitlyn Lamb

Meghan e-mailed me today to say that she sent one of the Larchmont photos to the book’s cover designer. He’s going to come up with some possible designs for us in the next week or so.

I am very excited about seeing ideas for the book’s cover. I feel like that will make the novel more concrete, more real, in my mind. I guess I’m still having difficulties believing FV will actually be published!

Thursday, October 29, 2015 / November 29, 2015 by Kaitlyn Lamb

I guess technically, it’s Friday, October 30, since it is now a few minutes after midnight. I just finished reading through FV and checking all of the edits—again. I wonder how many times I’ve read the entire novel now, beginning to end. Twenty times? Thirty? Anyhow, tonight I finished reviewing it, wrote a cover letter, and sent it off to Meghan and Co. I do hope my delay doesn’t mess up their course schedules.

In the cover letter, I told Meghan that I felt the Team had done a great job catching a lot of edits that I’d missed, especially eliminating the word “that.” I had no idea I used that word so much! I also mentioned I was concerned about the number of commas the Team wanted to add to FV. During my MFA program at Fairfield, we were told that commas were now considered passé and should be eliminated as often as possible. In reviewing the edits, I tried to keep the commas only where I felt they were absolutely necessary. I did my best to explain my thoughts on Anna and her Swedish phrases/translations, too. I’m curious to see what the Team says after they read my comments and review my edits.

Wednesday, October 28, 2015 / November 29, 2015 by Kaitlyn Lamb

Yesterday, after I finished entering my edits into Word, I turned off the Edit Tracker and read the novel, as it was. In the first five pages, I found nearly a dozen mistakes caused by the overlaps of edits (people correcting and then re-correcting the text). So, now I’m reading through the whole manuscript again with the Edit Tracker off and making final corrections. This will mean toggling back and forth from Edit Mode to Final Draft Mode and will—I imagine—take a long time. But there’s no way I can send the manuscript back to the Team with less than my best effort. I just hope I can complete it by Thursday, as promised.

Tuesday, October 27, 2015 / November 29, 2015 by Kaitlyn Lamb

I played hooky from work today. I was exhausted from dealing with the whole Dad situation and I really wanted to get through all of the Team’s edits for FV so I sat at my desk in my home office all day and worked.

I took my color-coded manuscript and used it to mark-up the Word document on the computer, the one I’d received from Meghan and Co. If I had color-coded the edit green, I left it the way the Team had it. If I’d marked it with pink, I changed the edit back to the original way I’d written it. If the edit was marked in yellow, I read it through several times, checked its grammar/spelling, and then made the edit, sometimes keeping what the Team had suggested, sometimes reverting to my original text, or occasionally writing something altogether different.

The Team asked me to rewrite one whole passage—about a half a chapter—converting it from one person’s point of view to another’s. I completely agree that the section works better as edited but I had to throw out some of my most poignant paragraphs about George McVay, another of my four narrators. In that section, I was trying to show his more human/loveable side through the eyes of his wife, Edith, but that was the only part of the book not written by one of my four narrators and the Team said they found that confusing. Chris made a similar comment when he read that section as well, so I definitely needed to rewrite it. In the revised version, Anna recounts a story Edith is telling about her husband at a party. I think it still conveys the message of George’s kinder/gentler side, but in a less-close perspective. However, weighing the pros and cons, I think this was the right decision to make.

I received my blurb from Karen Osborn. She wrote:

Lynne Heinzmann uses painstaking research and a gift for characterization to bring historical figures to life and recreate the tragic loss of the Larchmont. Carefully spun through the voices of those who survived and those who didn’t, this tale will draw you in and keep you in suspense until its final pages. Frozen Voices convincingly recreates the journey through both the icy waters of the Atlantic and the all too human heart.

I am so honored that Karen, Hollis, and Richard were so generous with their praise for FV.

Monday, October 26, 2015 / November 29, 2015 by Kaitlyn Lamb

So now Chris and I are on an airplane heading back to Rhode Island. I’ve been working on my edits for the Team the whole flight and have almost finished my first pass through them, color coding their suggestions with highlighter pens. If I agree with the suggestion, I highlight it in green. Pink means I disagree and yellow means I want to think about the suggestion and/or discuss it with the Team. Most edits I’ve marked with green, with the exception of many of the Anna Jensen sections of the novel.

Anna is one of my four narrators in Frozen Voices. Apparently the NRP Team didn’t like the way I had her use Swedish phrases and then immediately translate them into English. They especially didn’t like that she did that with her husband and daughter, John and Louise. I guess since John and Louise speak at least some Swedish, the Team felt like Anna wouldn’t translate for them and they wanted me to delete many of these phrases or to not have Anna supply the translations.

In my mind, Anna was proud of being Swedish. When she first came to the United States as a teenaged bride, she was looked down upon for being an immigrant. But then after she and John became successful business owners, she deliberately threw Swedish phrases into her speech to flaunt their ability to succeed despite their humble beginnings. She peppered her speech with common Swedish sayings and then immediately translated them for the listener.

I doubt that Louise, Anna’s daughter, spoke much Swedish. She wanted to be considered “American,” the wish of many first-generation immigrants. And as soon as John, Anna’s husband, arrived in the US, he refused to speak Swedish anymore. He, too, wanted to be considered an “American,” not an immigrant. So, since Anna had gotten into the habit of automatically translating her phrases for everyone, so did so for John and Louise, too.

Before completing my comments on the Team’s edits, I’ll have to think about some of them a bit more, especially those concerning the Anna Jensen sections. I want to accept as many of the Team’s edits as possible, since I know they are only trying to make FV a better novel. Yes, I wrote the book but they have fresh eyes that haven’t spent years working on this novel and so have a fresher perspective on it than I do.

Back to color-coding…

Sunday, October 25, 2015 / November 29, 2015 by Kaitlyn Lamb

I just sent Meghan an e-mail explaining that Chris and I were in Florida with Dad and that I wasn’t going to be able to complete my edits by tomorrow. I felt terrible not meeting my deadline, but it’s just not possible. I told her that Chris and I fly home tomorrow so I plan to get the edits done by Wednesday or Thursday. I hope my being late isn’t going to mess up Meghan and the other students working on the book. I’m sure they have class deadlines that they need to meet. Unfortunately, the delay was unavoidable. Dad really needed our help.

Friday, October 23, 2015 / November 29, 2015 by Kaitlyn Lamb

I sent the bio off to Meghan tonight. It wasn’t quite as polished as I’d have liked but things have been a little crazy here in Florida. Dad is not doing well and we’re having a difficult time dealing with the staff at his hospital. I’m not sure how I’ll possibly have time to review all of the edits for the Team by Monday. I did a dozen pages at the hospital today but have nearly three hundred still to go.

Thursday, October 22, 2015 / November 29, 2015 by Kaitlyn Lamb

So, Chris and I are on an airplane, flying to Florida, on our way to try to help Dad again. The reports from his hospital have not been encouraging so it sounds like he needs us.

In preparation for the trip, I printed out the edits from the NRP Team and hope to go over them while I’m in Florida. Right now, on the plane, I’m writing a copy of my biography for Meghan & Company. I’m trying to strike the right balance between “just the facts, ma’am,” and “human interest story.” I hope to have a rough draft done by the time we land this morning.

Tuesday, October 20, 2015 / November 29, 2015 by Kaitlyn Lamb

This weekend, Chris and I drove up to Rochester, NY, to pick up our younger daughter, Laura, and to bring her home after six months on the road, travelling around the country with her boyfriend. It will be great having her home again. I worried about her hitchhiking and sleeping in a tent.

But our trip to New York meant I didn’t get the chance to download the edits from the NRP Team, yet. I’m dying to find out what they said! And now it looks like later this week we’ll be travelling to Florida again to help care for Dad. Meghan and Company had requested my comments on their edits by the 26th. Eek! I’ll just have to bring my laptop with me on the Florida trip and find time to work while I’m there.

Tonight, I met with Kaitlyn Lamb, a family friend, about designing an author’s website/blog for me. She does graphic design for a major corporation headquartered in Providence, so crafting a website should be right up her alley. She seemed excited about the prospect and knew quite a lot about the whole process. Kaitlyn is leaving in December for a backpacking trip through Southeast Asia (how exotic!), but said she’d be able to complete the website before she leaves. I am excited to see what she’ll come up with.

Friday, October 16, 2015 / November 29, 2015 by Kaitlyn Lamb

Hollis Seamon sent me her blurb about FV! I was so excited to receive it that I read it to Chris off my little cellphone screen in the car on our way home from work.

Hollis wrote:

In her debut novel, Frozen Voices, Lynne Heinzmann has performed magic beyond even the skills of Harry Houdini, one of her most delightful characters. Heinzmann pulls off an astonishing feat of literary legerdemain, resurrecting real people who, in February 1907, were passengers on the steamship Larchmont, a vessel which sank off the coast of Rhode Island, taking 137 souls down with her: “drowned, frozen, or scalded to death.” In giving voice and vitality to a group of these passengers, Heinzmann combines meticulous historical research with a humane and generous imagination. Readers will live and breathe with the four narrators of the novel, as we see them before, during and—for some—after the disaster. Frozen Voices weaves the characters and events aboard this doomed ship into a complex and spellbinding tale. In the end, readers are left with exactly the reaction that should follow such an act of wondrous conjuration: we are amazed and deeply touched.

Wow! Hollis’s review seems so literary to me. I actually had to look up two words (legerdemain and conjuration) because I was unsure of their meanings. And she did a great job summarizing the novel, too, obviously putting a great deal of time and effort into writing her blurb. Thank you, Hollis!

I find it interesting that Hollis mentions Harry Houdini in her blurb, as did Richard Hoffman in his. Houdini is a relatively minor character in FV, but seems to have a memorable impact. I wonder if that’s because Houdini is so famous and people recognize his name or did I somehow paint his character in a more compelling way than I did other characters? One of my MFA friends even refers to FV as “the Houdini book,” so there must be something to it.

Tonight when I turned on my laptop, I found that Meghan had sent me the Team’s edits for the manuscript. I hope to download them and start going through them tomorrow. Meghan also requested a biography and an author photo. I’ll let her know about the photo and author’s questionnaire I sent to Nayt and then will also try to write an actual biography in the next few days.

Thursday, October 15, 2015 / November 29, 2015 by Kaitlyn Lamb

Today, I was happy to see that Jess sent me a copy of the essay she wrote about me. I found I was able to disconnect myself from the subject matter enough to enjoy reading the piece, as if it were written about someone else. I liked Jess’s style of writing, too. The piece read like she was just talking to a friend rather than writing a formal essay. I e-mailed back a note, letting her know that I enjoyed it.

Tuesday, October 13, 2015 / November 29, 2015 by Kaitlyn Lamb

Jess called me tonight for my interview. She said her essay is supposed to be about a New Rivers Press emerging author—me! We chatted a bit before we started the interview. I found out that she works at a hardware store while attending college full-time as an English major. She works at being a novelist, too, writing fanciful tales about woodland elves. Sounds like a very busy lady!

During the interview, Jess asked me many thought-provoking questions. One of them was, “What advice would you give another writer?” After thinking for a moment, I recounted to her what an FUMFA commencement speaker had said: Write every damn day. And then I told her advice I’d read in a craft book: Give yourself permission to write a shitty first draft. My final piece of advice was something an FUMFA faculty member told me once: Write your novel all the way to the end before you go back to start the editing process, because it is not until you reach the end of the narrative, that you’ll know what the story is about and what’s important to the telling of that story.

All total, Jess and I talked for well over an hour. I really enjoyed our conversation; she seems like a kind and interesting woman and I’m looking forward to reading her essay.

Friday, October 9, 2015 / November 29, 2015 by Kaitlyn Lamb

The student’s name is Jessica, but she asked me to call her Jess when she e-mailed a request for some biographical information. She said she’d call to interview me on Monday or Tuesday. I’m nervous. I’m afraid I’ll say something dumb or something I’ll regret later. Or, worse yet, maybe I won’t be able to think of anything interesting to say. One of the reasons I like being a writer is that it enables me to revise my thoughts and words many times before someone else hears/reads them. I’ve never been very good at “thinking on my feet.” Good thing I’m not a politician.

Wednesday, October 7, 2015 / November 29, 2015 by Kaitlyn Lamb

Nayt e-mailed me today, asking if I’d be willing to be interviewed by a MSUM student, who is taking a college class—journalism, I think. I feel so overwhelmed with other stuff to do (job, house, the girls, etc.) and then Dad’s not doing well in Florida. Chris and I already went down there in September to help him out and it looks like we’re going to have to go back again, soon. But it might be fun to be interviewed and it’d be nice to help out a student, if I can. So many people helped me when I was doing my MFA at Fairfield U. So, I’ll tell Nayt, “Yes.” Being interviewed—yet another new experience brought to me courtesy of the book prize.

Thursday, October 1, 2015 / November 29, 2015 by Kaitlyn Lamb

My signed author’s contract arrived today via an e-mail from Nayt. So, I guess it’s official—I’m going to be a published author. Yahoo!

Nayt apologized for taking so long to return the contract, saying he’d had a difficult time rounding up all the necessary signatures. Heck—I’ve waited my whole life to get a book published. What’s another couple of weeks! Actually, this is all just beginning to feel real to me.

I e-mailed Meghan to say that I’d watched the clip of her playing piano and that I thought she was talented. I also said that I was really looking forward to working with her and the rest of the editing/design Team. And I told her about the Larchmont photos that I purchased, suggesting that the Team might consider using one of them on the book’s cover. I am becoming more and more curious about what they will suggest as edits and ideas. After all, they are an integral part of making my dream a reality.

Wednesday, September 30, 2015 / November 29, 2015 by Kaitlyn Lamb

Today, I received an e-mail from Meghan Feir, my author’s liaison from my Minnesota State University Moorhead/New Rivers Press editing Team. In her note, she said that FV made her “shed more than a few tears.” I wonder what sections made her cry. Louise’s baby dying? Anna and Louise’s scene during the ship sinking?

Meghan invited me to “friend” her on Facebook so I looked her up and found a video of her playing a song she wrote on the piano. She’s very pretty and very talented. She introduced the rest of the editing team as being Sarah, Kyle, and Christy. I hope, at some point, I get to meet them. It feels odd to me to be working with people without meeting them face-to-face. Welcome to the Twenty-first Century, right? I wonder if they are all writers, if they are all from Minnesota, if they have brothers and sisters, if they’ve ever taken ballet lessons, or if they like the New England Patriots (probably not Patriots fans; so few are outside of New England).

Wednesday, September 23, 2015 / November 29, 2015 by Kaitlyn Lamb

I received a long e-mail from Nayt today, sent to me and to the five other writers who will be published by NRP in 2016. After reading the e-mail, I was amazed by how much effort is involved in producing these books. And I don’t get the impression that they have a very large staff.

Nayt said that last week our manuscripts were given to student editing teams to read. My author’s liaison from my Team will contact me within the next week or so. The Team will send me their first batch of suggestions for edits for FV sometime in mid-October and will expect me to respond to those suggestions by the end of the month. After that, they’ll review the novel again and will re-submit edits by the “end of the semester”—early December? Following that process, the novel will be further edited by Nayt himself, and then he’ll send the MS back to me for my input/approval. Then they’ll actually layout each page and we’ll all check those—mock-up spreads, Nayt called them. Once we all approve these, “review galleys” will be printed to be sent to book reviewers. One more round of copy edits by Nayt and me (reviewing the “bound galleys”) and then the “print order will be placed and we’ll be able to relax until publication.” Phew, what a process! But I sure am excited about it! How will FV change? What will it look like when it’s finally published?

Friday, September 11, 2015 / November 29, 2015 by Kaitlyn Lamb

I Googled “Larchmont” tonight and found another great photo. This one shows the ship steaming out of the Providence Harbor. I bought the rights to that photo, too, from the Steamship Historical Society of America. Thank God for the Internet! It makes life so much easier. Imagine what I would have had to go through 20 years ago to find Larchmont photos.