The Countdown Continues!

Keowee Valley will be released in two days!

My husband asked me yesterday, “So what really happens on Thursday?” As if something magical were going to take place.

“Nothing,” I told him. “It just means that the book is available in bookstores and online, or bookstores can order it for customers if they don’t happen to have it in stock.”

And, really, this is all that happens on my official publication date. Press releases do go out, and my publishers at Bell Bridge Books do a bunch of behind-the-scenes marketing, sending the book out to libraries, review sites, and more. Keowee Valley will be featured on the front page of the BelleBooks/ Bell Bridge Books web site, and of course available for purchase through them, too.

Even though there won’t be any bells and whistles, the whole thing truly is magic. Mixed, of course, with a helluva lot of hard work and quite a bit of luck.

At my house, we plan to celebrate with dessert from one of the many wonderful restaurants in our little town, and some champagne.

* * *

In other news … (pretend I sound like Tom Brokaw) ...

 

I returned on Saturday night from the Southern Women Writers Conference at Berry College, where I presented a paper (an excerpt from Keowee Valley). It was a great conference, populated by absolutely fabulous writers, including the other presenters in my session who read from short stories and novels-in-progress. Whenever I attend conferences like these, I’m always astounded at the quality of writing going on out there in the world.

Some incredible writers on the scene for a while: the singer-songwriter-actress Marshall Chapman, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson, poet Barbara Hamby, and South Carolina’s own Josephine Humphreys.

Some new (to me, but certainly not the writing world) faces: Iranian-American author-lawyer-activist-blogger Melody Moezzi, essayist Melissa Delbridge, and Episcopal priest and author Barbara Brown Taylor. All were simply stunning. And what a delight it was to sit over meals, especially, to talk with other attendees and writers and to listen to these funny, brave, incredibly talented Southern women talk about the writing life.

I had to leave earlier than I would’ve liked to get home on Saturday (the conference was Thursday – Sunday), but it was well worth the 4.5 hour drive through the mountains of Western North Carolina and North Georgia.

I chose the route, in fact, because the first half of it traced the journey my characters Quinn and Jack took, in Keowee Valley, when they traveled through the Cherokee wilderness to meet Jack’s family, in Chota (the spiritual capitol of the Cherokee Nation at the time).

Once I got over being in the car alone, and without my dog, Scout—who’s been my travel buddy for the past nine years—I set my playlist to begin with a little Sam Phillips (from the album “A Boot and Shoe. For a taste, listen here). I headed off down NC Hwy 64, heading west. Followed the incredibly gorgeous Cullasaja River--which moves between Highlands and Franklin, N.C.--craning my neck to look down into the gorge as I wound slowly up the two-lane mountain road, wondering if the roof of my Honda Element would scrape the rock outcroppings overhead.

Keowee Valley Spoiler Alert!

The Cullasaja is a special river for me: Nearby, in my fictional world, is where Jack proposes to Quinn, back at the deep of a cave, behind a roaring waterfall. Truth be told, it’s where and how I imagine the modern Bridal Veil Falls—which on my drive I saw plenty of bikers and motorists parked, taking photos and walking beneath it. I can only imagine the Falls in the 18^th century, no road, only a footpath or game trail, rushing through the glossy undergrowth.

(Alert over.)

After following the Cullasaja River for quite some time, up through the Nantahala National Forest, I meandered along past the Little Tennessee River, through towns like Young Harris, Blue Ridge and Ellijay, and then into North Georgia and the gorgeous Chattahoochee National Forest. It was a jaw-droppingly beautiful day—with a crystalline blue sky free of clouds and humidity, just hinting at the glories of October. And it was fun for me, to take that journey again, to remember when I was just dreaming up my novel.

Have I mentioned that Keowee Valley will be released in TWO DAYS?

Just checking.

 

Literary Idols and Luck

There's a message from one of my literary idols on my cell phone right now. No kidding: this man is my favorite living writer--possibly my favorite writer of all time. I'm still hornswoggled by the fact that if I dial for my messages and push "2," his voice is there. And it's not a joke.

He's on my voicemail because I recently wrote him a letter, care of his literary agent, asking if he'd consider reading a review copy of KEOWEE VALLEY, and if he likes it, possibly offering a blurb. Honestly, I never in my wildest dreams--and as my husband and anyone who's had to share a room with me over the years can attest, they are wild--thought he'd respond. I never even thought he'd get the letter. My guess is that this particular gentleman receives mounds of fan mail each year, much of it from wannabe writers who are also fans. But I've been reading his work since I was 10 years old, worshipping the way he crafts words on the page for so very long, that when it came time for my first novel to be published, I had to take the chance.

I'd tell you his name, but I'm superstitious. (This is coming from the same girl who in high school didn't change her stinky-nasty-sweaty soccer socks until we lost a game, and offers up the same exact prayer before road trips that she's been repeating since age 15.) I really want him to like my novel. If he doesn't, I'll be okay, but I don't want anyone to know that. Let me just tell you that he's a modern Southern literary icon, that all his books are bestsellers and many of them made into movies. He's the voice of the South, at least to me. His writing sings and pulses and burns, and he's the literary touchstone of my South Carolina childhood.

There.

When I first listened to his message, I thought someone was playing a cruel joke on me. But as he kept speaking, I knew it was real. My legs literally went out from under me, and I sat in an ungainly lump on the floor in my house. I momentarily lost the power of speech. He said many things in his message, but one thing he did say was that I'd written a "terrific" letter, and that while he tried to avoid doing blurbs any more, when someone writes him a letter like that he has to read the novel.

There's a waterfall in Pisgah National Forest, near my home, called Courthouse Falls. It's about 50 feet high, and there's a deep pool at the bottom. It's dark in this part of the woods, even in daylight, and in summer everything is green, mossy, slick and growing. I jumped off those falls in near pitch-darkness for the first and only time, a little over a decade ago. Night was falling fast and deep as it does in the Southern woods, and all I could see as I curled my toes over slick rock and rotting leaves was the vague white of the water where it crashed into the pool at the bottom. God, I wanted to jump. I can hear the thunder of the falls in my ears and feel the thump of adrenaline in my blood, even now. I can still feel the frigid shock of that spring-fed water.

I'm learning, more and more with this book preparation-and-publication process, that it's necessary to go for it. To step out over the dark and the wide, even when it's scary. You never know what might happen.

Granted, when you jump off a waterfall, you're taking your life into your own hands. I don't necessarily recommend it, especially for the faint of heart. (And if my daughter ever comes across this post in her teen years I plan to deny, deny, deny.) But when you're a first-time author reaching out to your favorite published authors, seeking their approval and help, what's the worst that could happen? They say no. Or they don't answer at all.

It's still worth the plunge. Trust me.