Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Expecting by Carla Damron

I have never had children. I have had multiple pets, and I love them like family, but that’s not the same as giving birth, changing diapers, watching them go off to school, etc. Many of my peers have become grandmothers and I find myself having grandchild envy. I dote on nieces and nephews and godchildren, but it’s not the same.

So I’ve never been pregnant. Yet right now, I feel like I’m expecting.

This week I received a contract from a literary publishing company. My upmarket women’s fiction manuscript, THE STONE NECKLACE, has been accepted by Story River Books, an imprint of the USC Press. The editor in chief? Pat Conroy. 

I am thrilled.  While I love mysteries, and will continue to write them, I wanted to cross genres. Literary fiction is HARD. This 110,000-word tome took several years to write, revise, revise again, and yet again… you get my drift. The multiple story lines had to be interesting and fresh. The narrative required more attention; word choice, sentence structure, descriptive devices were all carefully scrutinized by me and umpteen critiquers/editors. And yes, I have one more revision to go.

Writing this novel has changed my approach to my work in mysteries. I don’t let myself get lazy.  I must reject canned metaphors, monotonous sentence rhythms, and cliché characters. The process takes longer than it used to and I was never a fast writer, but I’m more satisfied, eventually, with the results. 

Will I try another literary project? Yes, but maybe not for a while.  I need to recover from this project first, and I have a mystery in the works I’m anxious to complete.  

My pregnancy will be a long one. After Story River Books gets my final revision, they will have work to do. The novel isn’t scheduled for release until Spring of 2016; that’s eighteen months before delivery!

I can’t wait, but I will. I’ll savor every month of the process: the cravings, the lost sleep, the excitement, and, ultimately, the birth.  Then I’ll hold my baby and show it off to the world! And pray the reviewers love it as much as I do.


What’s it like when you’re expecting? 

14 comments:

  1. Congratulations, Carla! You deserve every moment of success with your little one. I know you will watch proudly when others discover and rave about your wonderful work. Just keep its siblings coming..

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  2. Carla,

    What a great achievement! Congrats and best wishes for your continued success.

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  3. How wonderful, Carla. That's a major accomplishment. Having a grandchild is much easier because someone else does all the work. Writing a 110K work of literary fiction is much harder, with a longer gestation period. Best to you.

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  4. Thanks, y'all! And yes, hoping for several siblings. With perhaps a shorter gestation period.

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  5. Carla – that is such exciting news. Congratulations and then some. So, you can consider this an “Irish twins” pregnancy or perhaps that of an Orca whale. The one good thing is that you have so much time to prepare for the birth (although it will probably feel like too short a time.)

    ~ Jim

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  6. Carla, such wonderful news! Congratulations! I hope you will share with us every step of your publication journey.

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  7. Carla, that is so awesome. And actually much better than a pregnancy with all those diapers to change, sleepless nights colic, etc. with an actual baby. :-) And Pat Conroy as the editor! I can't wait to read your book since I like literary fiction, too. Mega congratulations to someone whose writing I enjoy enough to know a great book is in the future for me to read.

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  8. Congratulations! I think a large part of being a writer is waiting. i have two manuscripts in with editors/agents. I'm expecting...a long wait.

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  9. Good luck, Warren. And thanks to all of you for your support!

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  10. I'm so happy for you, Carla. A terrific achievement. Give yourself a treat. You deserve it.

    I love your mystery series though so I hope you continue it as well. And I hope you blog about your experience working with Pat Conroy--please!

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  11. Congratulations, Carla! What a wonderful achievement. I hope to hear much more about THE STONE NECKLACE and your publication journey.

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  12. Congratulations! It's nice to see all your hard work is paying off!

    Let us know how this baby develops, and keep us up on any new siblings!

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  13. Congratulations. It may be a long labour, but I'm sure you'll be thrilled with the results.

    Gotta go. I think I have a murder on my hands. Iggy is trying to kill one of the other cats. Oh well.

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