#hiramfalls — Public Fediverse posts

I realize you folks aren't too eager to follow links, but I'm hoping some of you writers out there will take a look at the first of an irregular (monthly?) series I'm posting about writing my first novel, #HiramFalls . It's a warts and all exploration of learning, exploring, changing, cutting, revising.

The first post talks about the initial idea -- a found diary from 1892 -- which became a story performed on stage. I would love to know what you think.
https://geoffreygevalt.substack.com/p/1-journal-how-my-novel-got-its-start

@SergKoren #3GoodThings
1. my agent loved my revision of #HiramFalls and so is starting to shop it to book editors...
2. i have started to work on concept (concept of a plan?) and characters for sequel to the book.
3. It is dang near 70 degrees here in Vermont; shorts weather!

My debut novel is with my agent, and I have now begun a monthly series on how I wrote Hiram Falls: the origin, the revisions, the changes, an intimate look at one writer's process: https://geoffreygevalt.substack.com/s/writing-hiram-falls

(Subscribe for free and you get a bonus: text and audio of character sketches performed by Vermont Stage Company.)

My first post: An 1892 diary of a teenage girl...
#WritingCommunity #fiction #HiramFalls #writing #writers #firstnovel #magicalrealism

Hi folks,

I have a little news about my novel: I've secured an agent, done another revision and soon the agent will be pushing #HiramFalls out to some publishing houses.... wish me luck.

I've written an update on what I'll be doing on my Substack in the meantime... or, rather, while I wait.

https://open.substack.com/pub/geoffreygevalt/p/novel-an-update

#WritingCommunity #fiction #novel

@ellenmorrisprewitt i was blessed with a core group of 5 people who stayed with me and helped me for 5+ years as I wrote #HiramFalls … book now with a brilliant agent. can’t say enough about writing with others as reader-editors.

@Emmacox funny you should say that first part. I had no idea - until after I told a few folks that I'd got an agent and who she was - that so many people have struggled for so long to find an agent -- the only way, these days, to get in front of a book publisher.

But I feel #HiramFalls has been blessed from the start: It arose from a commission to write character sketches for stage; five people I contacted to be reader-editors all said yes and all stayed with me throughout. And now this. Wow!

#writingcommunity #firstnovel #WIP

Sometimes magic happens. I just received word that a kick-ass agent with jewels for clients has agreed to represent my book, #HiramFalls

Hurdle one is cleared. Now for the second ...

Finding an agent seemed a dreary enterprise, and I feel blessed that my misery lasted but six weeks.

"The stars wink above Jenna’s Diner in Hiram Falls. They blink and sparkle, disappear and reappear much like Mitch Perrault’s moods, one moment jovial, the next ornery, passing from outgoing to recalcitrant at the speed of light a characteristic that makes people wary whenever they encounter him unexpectedly..."

A new story as I await word from a prospective agent on my novel, #HiramFalls
https://geoffreygevalt.substack.com/p/mitch-and-amber-1974 (audio narration, too.)

#WritingCommunity #photography #writing

@SJHoodlet Thanks, Sarah. Such good thoughts here. As I told @sfwrtr I just sent off a short story for stage (1600 words) presentation. The stage company commissioned me to write one each year for their annual winter show (that's how the novel, #HiramFalls came about!). Two new characters; I am toying with a sequel.

As to other things, you are right. I want to return to my digital story series on people who love (and are good at) what they do. (https://www.geoffreygevalt.com/projects/tag/I+Love+My+Work) And the garden beckons!

#wordweavers 5: characters that challenge a MC's beliefs?

#HiramFalls (Vera finally sees the ghost that her husband, with his damaged brain, has seen for years.)

"Vera knows now she has been so wrong about Ben. She feels she's let him down by thinking all this time that his talk about the man was just Ben’s gone-haywire brain. Maybe it's the man who’s helped Ben remember things lately, she thinks, he, like her, still yearning to get back to what they were, back before the accident."

@Emmacox re getting into darker characters.

I developed Earl Beauchamp in #HiramFalls listening to3 tracks of Julia Kent, cellist, (https://juliakent.com) Leopard, Flag of No Country and Terrain. Ominous yet expansive, delicate sneaky, a driving, dangerous force inside him that he can neither understand nor control. the music helped me get close to him. But I also needed to make him remotely lieable, relatable.

#writing #writingcommunity

#WritersCommunity #writingcommunity #photography

#HiramFalls is finished. I am blessed by so much help along the way, including from this community. Thanks.

On Friday I sent it to an agent (my first prospect) who asked to see the full manuscript. I'll keep my fingers crossed; she said she'd get back to me asap.

In meantime, my partner & I are fleeing snowy #Vermont for a mostly coastal journey to the south (goal: daily salt-water swim).

I'll post photos, anecdotes along the way.

Be well.

Spring in #Vermont: We got a dump of 14-16 inches of heavy wet snow, and were house bound April 4 & 5. When is spring coming?

But it was a great opportunity to finish making a final pass -- clean-up and tightening -- on #HiramFalls

I just sent out the finished manuscript to a potential agent who asked to see it.

Wish me luck!

#firstnovel #writing
#photography
#writingcommunity

#writerscoffeeclub 25
Yes, I intend to publish #HiramFalls. My editor has convinced me to go for a small independent publisher, so the slog for an agent and a publishing house begins.

However, I have Plan A ... to self-publish: paperback, ebook, audiobook, podcast, radio serial, Substack serial. I have a team of people willing to help, so I'm confident it will make it out into the world by the end of the year.
#writingcommunity #writers #photography

Finished!

First novel.
5 years.
6 staged character sketches.
10 drafts.
Immeasurable help from others.

#wip #hiramfalls #writingcommunity #fiction #photography #novel #firstnovel #writing #writers #literaryfiction #magicalrealism #historical

#pennedpossibilities 240 -- idea for WIP

#HiramFalls had 2 origins: In 1999 I found a diary of a young woman that began: "January 1, 1892, 4 degrees, cloudy. Today was the day for Uncle Lyman's and my trial but it was again postponed. Oh dear me, how can I bear it all." She never returned to that idea. Bleakest shit I'd ever read.

In 2017 I got a commission to write stories for stage. I fictionalized the diary. https://geoffreygevalt.substack.com/p/sketch-carrie-1918 In subsequent years, the novel's characters were born...

good morning #writingcommunity

Today I will finish my penultimate edit of #HiramFalls, will take the weekend off to sugar (make maple syrup) & will begin the final edit on Monday.

My biggest worry in #editing is that I tend to comb the life out of a piece. Editing is a more conscious process than #writing & I seem to be a bit more conservative, more risk-averse. I am going to focus on JUST the writing, flow, GUM.

How do you go about your final edit? I'd love your suggestions. #photography

#writingcommunity
I am looking for an agent.

Can any of you recommend one?

My novel, #HiramFalls , is literary/magical realism/historical. It is long. It has taken nearly 5 years to do. Six character sketches have been put on stage. My editor says it is worth my effort to have it published by, most probably, a good independent publisher.

Any recommendations?
#writers #agent #publishing #bookstodon #WritersOfMastodon
#AuthorsOfMastodon
#AmReadingFiction
#AmReading

#WritersCommunity

@SJHoodlet Thanks. I think your note mirrors the tone of this place -- share and help. I have enjoyed reading your work, your posts and your responses. As a recipient of some of them, I have appreciated your taking the time to do so.

My #WIP? I am five years in. (less the 4-months after I deleted -- on purpose -- the 25,000 word start and took a breather.) I am making the penultimate "pass-through" or edit. One more to go before I send it out. #Writing #HiramFalls continues to be fun.

@MargaretSefton Margaret, I so appreciate that you took the time to seek out the staged character sketches for my book, #HiramFalls

It is an honor that you, and others, have made the effort to read my early scribblings and a few posts on the process itself. Thank you.

As writers we often go down the treacherous road of seeking more and more readers, followers and subscribers forgetting the power and affirmation of a single reader who leaves a comment. #writingcommunity #photography

@KurtHohmann interesting that you work in so many spaces and programs. I can't imagine trying to retrieve it all from so many places.

My process is simpler. I write on either my desktop or laptop. I back both up with external hard drives. I use Scrivener, so backup is automatic. Often I run Time Machine (apple) to be sure I have it in another form.

A side note: When I began my #WIP #HiramFalls I came down one morning and thought it so dreadful I deleted all 25,000 words. From my backup, too.

@Emmacox @davidtheeviloverlord @orionkidder
I get in the 'zone' through music. I found the work of cellist Julia Kent (https://juliakent.com) and ONLY listen to her when I work on #HiramFalls (my novel). Her evocative music brings me right back to where my mind was the day before.

@DevonEllington I led newspapers, then directed a nonprofit; you can't put out a newspaper or run a nonprofit by yourself. So I have a team. Five have been beta readers since the beginning; another 7 readers came in at various points. I hired an editor. The director staged 6 of my character sketches for live audiences. Another nonprofit will provide (for free) its recording studio & engineering in exchange for running it as a serial on its radio stations. It takes a village. #hiramfalls

#writerscoffeeclub re narrate my audiobook...

A stage director and friend of mine frowned when I told her I was thinking of doing it myself. Then she shook her head. Then, "absolutely not."

She then made a deal with me. She'll cast, direct and produce the audio book if I'll help her with the writing of her new play.

Deal.

She later explained: My voice is fine, she said, but a professional actor/narrator will make it far more interesting to the listener.

#wip #hiramfalls

Good morning #writingcommunity

getting a way late start today. nasty cold. but properly caffeinated now, I am slowly inching my way over to continue the final edits of my novel. ...

This edit (2/3 of the way through) is to make sure the restructuring of this 10th draft is clean and reads well. Will do another pass through (final?) to comb out unnecessary clauses and tighten generally. Aiming to cut 15,000 words.

no one ever said writing a novel is easy.

#photography #hiramfalls

@glauber @Emmacox @PamPortlandWriter hang out as in... discuss writing. see what other people do.... give feedback.... talk about how we get past some of those many many obstacles.... I mean today, as an example, @Downes, out of the blue, offered an edit of a post I had done that was an excerpt from #HiramFalls ... it was tremendously illuminating. I'm on my penultimate pass on the 10th draft and that simple act reminded me that I must comb that final final --- really tighten the writing. Wow.

Signing off, getting back to #WIP. cheerio.
#writers #writingcommunity #hiramfalls #wipwednesday #photography

Photo: Wild horses on a secluded beach on Vieques, Puerto Rico.

#wordweavers 20: antagonist's sleep

"Millard Brown awakens at 3:21 a.m., the exact same time he’s awoken for the last several days. The dream has woken him. An anxious dream. A worry dream. A dream he can't quite remember, can't quite catch before it disappears. He tears off the covers – finely woven cotton sheets and a down comforter — and goes to the bathroom. He does not see the man sitting on the seat at the bay window, does not even sense the man is there."
#HiramFalls #wipwednesday

#writingcommunity
I feel invisible
now,
upon my return
from away,
first to find warmth
then to find energy
to finish
what I started
4 years ago
in the aloneness of my mind,
words not yet seen.

I wonder sometimes
whether we
can ever be quick enough
to catch
our minds
and
capture the jumble,
the explosions
of memory
and creation,
of emotion,
and strife,
particularly those
as yet
unthought.

I embrace
routine's resumption,
so wonderful
in its strange
comforting
way.

#hiramfalls #photography

#photography
Been away.
Now back.
Doing final pass through on 10th revision of novel.
A couple of chapters each day to keep the energy up. Smooth out the kinks. Make it flow.
Fun.
#HiramFalls #writingcommunity
#puertorico