Alumni Voices with Melinda Cordell: The Buddy System - Promotion at its Best

My nonfiction book, Courageous Women of the Civil War: Soldiers, Spies, Medics, and More, came out on August 1. It’s only been a few days since the book’s official release date, but it seems like much longer. 

Long before the book came out, I did something smart: on my Facebook account, I started friending folks from way back in my life. People I went to school with. My parents’ friends. Folks from around town. Writer friends. Hamline buddies (of course). I friended my fourth-grade teacher, my speech therapist from clear back in kindergarten, folks from Nodaway, shirttail relatives, college buddies, professors, the list goes on. Of course it’s nice to have all my old friends and relatives in one place, but I also knew that home folks would be interested in seeing what I did, since they knew me back when I was small and walking around with my nose in a book.

The nice thing was how good it felt to reestablish contact after lo these many years. And when I talked about my book on there, folks actually got excited. This didn’t usually happen in my life, so it felt pretty good.

A few months before my book’s release date, I hit a rough patch due to outside factors. I stopped caring about writing and was profoundly unmotivated to change this. My little family kept me going, and I love those guys for it, but I was low. I’d been a writer all my life, and now this other stuff was going on, and I was worried that I was going to be stuck without writing for the rest of my life. I needed help, but it seemed like wherever I turned for help a door would quietly shut in my face.  

But then, after I got my box of books, some of my buddies (from FB, naturally) wanted to buy a book from me. So I sold one. Then I sold another. Friends – and I just said that in my preacher’s voice – friends, that’s when the light shone upon me. I handed somebody my book. They handed me a $20 bill. After all these years of hard work, I was getting a tangible reward. Instant gratification. And that’s when I got hungry. When I got hungry, I pulled out of my funk. I got so motivated so fast it made my head spin.

So anytime anyone on FB said they wanted to buy my book, I told them that if they buy it from me, I’ll take it to them and sign it right there. Old friends are taking me up on that. The neat thing is, not only do I sell a book, but I get to talk to an old friend I haven’t seen for a while. That’s definitely worth the price of admission.

Other friends are helping out in other ways. Some give me leads about places to sell my book, or they’ll share posts about my book with folks they know. Some friends have invited me to come out and give presentations. You never know who will have a lead for you – so invite ‘em all!

And I’m getting more ideas just from hanging out with these guys. I used to say that I had no interest in self-publishing. Then, after an author’s showcase at the library where I hung out with a bunch of self-published writers with tons of books on their tables, I got hungry again. “Dude!” I thought. “I have so many old manuscripts that agents have passed on – I’m going to self-publish them too!” So now I’ll have more books to sell with my Civil War book. I’m still sending stuff out to agents – but Mama’s tired of waiting over here. She’s going to make her own damn books!

You know, this whole experience has been a kick in the pants – a very welcome one, because I had no idea that promotion could be such a nice thing. My friends’ support has been invaluable, and actually has been one of my favorite parts of this whole journey. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

*Melinda Cordell earned her Master’s in Writing for Children from Hamline University. Her first book, Courageous Women of the Civil War, has been published by Chicago Review Press and is (at this particular millisecond) a #1 New Release in Teen & Young Adult Military History.  Melinda's fiction and articles have appeared in Cricket, Highlights, and The Horn Book, as well as Organic Gardening, Birds and Blooms, and Grit. Visit her author's website at http://www.melindacordell.com/ to learn more or just say hi!

Alumni Voices with Melinda Cordell: This Is What Writing Is

You get an idea you want to write about. It’s a beautiful thing, all precious and gold, an amazing thought, a stunning image, and you think, Oh my gosh, this is the most beautiful idea I’ve ever had. And this idea is like a magnet made of gold, and all these little golden flecks start collecting on it – other ideas. Looking at this brilliant idea, your brain starts racing. You start envisioning what you want this story to look like when it’s finished. You can just see it, all solid and perfect, in its final form, and you want so much to create this story. People start to annoy you. Work starts to annoy you. Why can’t people leave you be? All you want to do is think about this idea.

But you don’t write about it yet – you want this idea to be strong enough to hit the page and look good. If you write too early about this idea, it turns into a bank of fog that burns away when the sun comes out. So you wait, you brood, and you get ready.

But the catch is, once you start writing – the moment the words start to hit the page – the work of imagination turns into a work of demolition.

Every word you write is a sledgehammer against that idea.

That beautiful story idea, even when it’s made up of images, is connected in your mind in a constellation of unspoken ideas, concepts, hidden meanings that have no direct meanings in words. The idea is rooted in emotions that you can’t name, feelings that clutch the foundations of this idea, down in the dark. But they aren’t in the dark because they’re evil, but because they’re feelings that you don’t understand, that you haven’t plumbed yet.

So as you translate this story to the page, and as you write about this glimmering golden thing, every act of translation is ripping parts of this image out of this constellation. You are groping for words that you don’t know how to say, words that don’t yet exist for you.

It seems like a simple process to move the thought from your mind to the page, to break an idea into its component parts. But every word is a solid thing, with every one bearing a particular meaning, and all the connotations they bring with them. As you try to shape this idea into words, the words pull the idea into different shapes. That’s not the right word, that’s not the right idea at all, you mutter, looking back at the spill of words on the page, like a track of blood from a wounded deer.

Yiiiiiiikes.

The writing of the idea is a journey, too, as you follow those words--that track of blood into the night forest. When you follow the words, you journey into yourself. You have got to be honest with yourself, brutally honest, even if it seems like the most scandalous thing in the world. You are going to see parts of yourself that you won’t like, but you have to write them anyway.

You’ll see glimmers of the idea as you walk into the night forest – which, actually, is a very beautiful place, though every scuff in the leaves shoots pulses of fear down your nerves, and sometimes you hear a cough that might be a mountain lion. Or you hear a bobcat scream, like an old lady getting murdered, and you just about turn inside out trying to get away.

When you get to the end of what you’ve written, you can’t help but look at it with some despair. When you read it, though, you see a few glimmers of the original idea in there – but now the writing has turned into something different. It’s like kintsukuroi – you repair the break with silver or gold, and now the piece is more beautiful for having been broken. The writing has turned into something altogether new, and though in the end it doesn’t resemble that lovely idea, it is a beauty of a new sort.

That’s okay. That’s how the work goes. One kind of beauty can be transformed into a different kind of beauty. That’s how the magic works.

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Melinda R. Cordell is a 2012 Graduate of the MFAC program. She lives and writes in Missouri. Her book Women Heroes of the Civil War will be published in 2016 by Chicago Review Press. 

Alumni Voices with Melinda R. Cordell: Secrets of the Trade: The Wisecrack Notebook

My favorite books have characters that spout wisecracks that make me laugh aloud, or those that capture the tiny details of life so clearly that I feel like I’m actually there with the main character, seeing those details. I want to write books like that. But then I look at my draft and get so frustrated because those neat details and wisecracks aren’t anywhere in sight!

But I have a notebook: A word-hoard that’s packed full of the smart and funny things that people say. And when I get frustrated with my limited attempt, I open that notebook up.

  

 Girl: Every day with you is an eye-opener, except I’m all like, “I really wish I hadn’t seen that.”

People are always funnier, cooler, and crazier than we give them credit for, and our favorite books have characters that reflect that. These books winnow the best and most interesting bits out of life. That's where this notebook is going to be a huge help.

This guy is on the lookout for cool stuff -- and you can be too.

So in this notebook, I write down all those things that I wish I’d said – quotes, overheard conversations, wisecracks, random signs, lines from songs or poems. I will actually take the time to go through my journals and transcribe lines from that notebook to this other one to be sure I have everything I've written down. I'm a disorganized gal, so this is pretty big news.

“Maybe I can use this in a novel,” I think, and sometimes I can. So here’s a story about a guy who was arrested for bulldozer racing. Or here’s a news article about two would-be carjackers foiled by the mysteries of the stick shift. Or Grandpa Eldon musing, "That Bonnie ... she really knew how to throw dishes." Write it all down, because you never know – maybe your next story will need it.

Sixth-grade girl: I told him to bring it. So he brought it! And then he went home crying to his mom!

When I have a decent draft of a story, I like to go through the manuscript at random. Wherever my cursor lands, I see if I can fit in some lines out of this notebook. If the little bit of funny doesn’t fit in, I take it out and put in a different one. But if it does fit, it makes the language in the story so much livelier and unexpected. Even better yet, once in a while this little throwaway detail fits in just right, and then it branches out through the story in a million unexpected ways.

Boy (running): I can’t stop, Dad, Darth Vader is on my tail!

Another thing that’s fun to do is to secretly take notes when your target audience is around. This is tricky, because with kids, one or two of them get wise to you pretty quick. But boy, the conversations they have are just about the best you’ll hear anywhere.

(Two kids are playing.)

Katy: Give me your jacket.

Sophie: Not in a million years!

Katy (intoning): A million years later….

You can also have somebody help you write dialogue. Sometimes I ask my husband for good lines and he’ll come up with some zingers that I never would have come up with on my own. And asking somebody else for dialogue help gives your character a more distinctive voice – because I have a problem with all of my characters sounding like smarter versions of me.

Husband (at 2 a.m.): Why didn’t Captain Picard ask him to sign that book?

Me (half-asleep): What on earth are you talking about?

Husband: That episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where they went back in time and met Samuel Clemens. Picard could have asked him to sign a book.

Me (groggy): That would have violated the Prime Directive.

Husband: But he could have made a shtload of money!

Me: Just go to sleep, dear.

Borrowing from others is a good way for me to stretch myself and get away of the same old stuff that keeps rattling around in my mind. Poetry readings are great places to pick up great lines from your buddies. Don’t plagiarize, of course – but you can find many diamonds in the rough that you can cut into a style that fits your story. “I experiment with others’ voices because I get tired of my own,” as one of the Gang of Poets said. A noble goal, indeed.

Melissa: I probably broke all the rules of poetry in this poem.

Dave: That’s the spirit!

But it doesn’t all have to be funny. You can collect serious quotes as well – especially if the quotes fit one of your works-in-progress in some way. Often when I’m listening to audiobooks and I hear a quote, I scribble down a short phrase. Then later I do a Google search for that phrase, then copy and paste as much of the quote as I need into a document dedicated to these quotes. (If the book isn’t in the public domain, you might find the quote on the GoodReads website.)

“Remorse, even the greatest, has the nature of a debt; if we could only clear the books, we feel that we should be free. But a deep compassion has the nature of love, which keeps no balance sheet; we are no longer our own.”  The Charioteer – Mary Renault

Keep running lists of names you like, first and last, to give you ideas in naming your characters. I also like to collect town names – Hot Coffee, Mississippi has long been my favorite.

Actively collect these things the way a raccoon collects shiny trinkets. Then seed your story with the quotes you’ve collected. You'll win thousands of major awards! Actually, this has not been proven. But you will have fun, and that's a big part of the battle right there.

*

 Melinda R. Cordell is a 2012 Graduate of the MFAC program. She lives and writes (and eavesdrops) in Missouri. Her book Women Heroes of the Civil War will be published in 2016 by Chicago Review Press.