WAIT.... WHY AM I STUMBLING OVER A BOOK CONTRACT?
Finally. I’ve received a contract offer for my paranormal novel from a reputable small press. I’m delighted and honored. Yet…now that it’s happened, I’m not sure I’m going to sign.
I drafted Secrets of the Blue Moon in November 2020, eight-plus months into the chaos of COVID and a Presidential election that refused to end. The editor likes the ghost story angle but wants all 2020 markers removed. She points out that COVID dates the book, and ALL references to politicians and the political situation as it occurred in 2020 must come out.
Fair enough. I get that the press is not in business to deliver political discourse. Neither am I. So perhaps I should change the book’s time stamp to fall post pandemic and nix the political satire?
Then again, maybe I shouldn’t.
The story follows a grieving woman who battles her own personal ghosts as she chronicles the haunted history of a quaint Georgia town. She grows obsessed over two unsolved deaths that occurred under a 2012 blue moon in the house where she’s staying. Then a third death occurs at the house, under a blue moon on October 31, 2020. She’s plagued by questions. Are these deaths connected? If so, how? And then the dead start to taunt her. It's then she knows that she must solve the mystery.
Personally, I love the blue-moon-on-Halloween angle. It’s a rare phenomenon, occurring only once every nineteen years. That’s what prompted the germ of this story. Back in October 2020. When a blue moon shone down from the sky on All Hallow’s Eve.
I didn’t realize it then, but the germ of this story has always been hope. Writing it carried me through a time when hope was threatened. Fear tactics ran amok, and too many people spewed answers without stopping to listen. As I wrote—and rewrote and edited—universal themes emerged. Like our need to find courage to overcome fear. To keep an open mind. To seek a balance between good and evil…because life’s not ever quite black and white, is it?
Granted, I’d love to see my book out there—with a traditional press, to boot. I’m stumbling, though. If I change the date and premise, will I lose the heart of the story? If I don’t make those changes, am I being a foolish diva?
I write commercial fiction. My goal is to entertain, not to win a Pulitzer. Yet I also like to give the reader something of substance to ponder. And I like to spike all my writing with hope.
So for today, the contract’s on hold. Come tomorrow, I might find a way to stop stumbling.
And, well...stay tuned for next month’s newsletter, coming your way around February 23rd. Surely, I’ll have more to share by then.
Cheers ~ J
P.S. By the way, our progressive New Year’s Eve dinner was a hit! Rice thinks I might have overcooked the fish. But I do NOT care!
