Moose Tracks on the Road to Heavenis now available for pre order in eBook at amazon and Kobo at a special lower price! On publication day (Feb 3, 2015), the cost will go up, so if you think you’ll want an e-version to read, now’s the time to lock-in the preorder price.
Here’s the link to amazonif you want it for your kindle, or to Kobo if you have that e-book reader.
Unfortunately, Barnes and Noble doesn’t have a pre-order function. When it’s available at iTunes and Google eBooks, I’ll post again so you can get the deal while it lasts, if your preferred e-reader uses those platforms.
The preview feature will be added soon at amazon and Google…but in case you’re eager to see some of the book now, you can go here and click on the cover for a look inside and a nice, long excerpt. 🙂
However, I have to acknowledge that the challenge of this – the self-doubt that can creep in by lifting the curtain and writing about experiences and people based in reality – was part of why Moose Tracks on the Road to Heaven took so long for me to write. It’s loosely autobiographical, and the “bones” of the book are inspired by true experiences, feelings, and in some cases, people.
I learned that it definitely take some guts to fictionalize these real people, events, and experiences, and I faced a number of roadblocks (from myself and a few others), along the way. Sometimes it’s the worry of offending someone. Other times it’s the self-doubt about “getting it right” and capturing the feeling and moment the way I think it deserves.
It took me quite a long time to keep working the characters and situations in my head, to crystalize the important elements – the essence – of those events and people, but to also ensure that they remained fictional, as opposed to what they would be if I was writing a memoir as opposed to a novel.
Although it wasn’t easy, I also think it yielded a deeper sense of truth and emotion in the writing, for me at least. That this novel is based in reality gives it a foundation I know is authentic. I don’t need to question certain aspects of it as much as I would a book I was writing that contained entirely imagined characters and events.
Have any of you ever incorporated real life events into a work of fiction? Was the entire work based upon these things, or just a scene or two?
Have any of you read works that do this (that you know of)? Is there a difference for you in the reading experience, when you know that the author based it on real life experiences?
In the thirteen years since my first book was published by HarperCollins (Secret Vows, back in 2001), I’m often asked what it’s like to see one of my books in a store or hold it in my hands. The answer has never changed, from that first book to this, my eighth published novel: It’s a combination of pride, excitement, pleasure…and a tangled mess of doubt and worry.
I suppose it’s all part of the paranoia of any creative person. I’m not usually bothered much by the creep of insecurity, but there are moments when it pokes up its dark little head. Seeing one of my finished books for the first time is often one of those rare occasions…which is good for me, because it’s often tempered by those other, far more positive emotions I mentioned feeling at the same time.
With this book, the doubts are perhaps a little stronger, probably because it’s been so long for me since I’ve had a new book out (the last, “first-time-I-held-a-new-book-I’d-written” was back in 2006, in fact) and because this book is quite personal and a totally different genre from what I’ve published before.
So, where does the doubt come from, for authors who experience it? Continue Reading…
As promised in my last post…here it is, the cover art for Moose Tracks on the Road to Heaven! If you click the picture it opens to a bigger size, so you can read the print.
I chose the image and concept, and then Bri, (of Bri Bruce Productions), designed the cover and pulled it all together to a finished product.
The e-book will be up for presale soon; I’ll post again when it’s available. The print book, unfortunately, can’t be listed for presale but will be available for purchase February 3, 2015.
I’ll be posting another “sneak peek” from inside the book in the next few weeks as well.
The Thanksgiving holiday was wonderful, joyful (and food-filled! That’s my plate before I dug in and finished every last bite 🙂 ), and between all the celebrating I’ve been working with my cover designer as she puts the finishing touches on the official cover for Moose Tracks on the Road To Heaven. It’s looking gorgeous, and the cover reveal should be in the next day or so. Very excited about that!
The novel is also still on track to go up for presale (in ebook) mid-December, with official hard release in print and ebook on February 3rd.
Getting a book out into the world is indeed a bit like giving birth…there are stages and transitions, some painful moments, and ultimately joy. I’m getting close to the joyful part now, and I’m looking forward to sharing the process with all of you.
I hope you all have a wonderful remainder of the weekend, and I’ll be checking in again soon.
This has resonated a great deal with me, lately. There have been a lot of changes going on in my life, personally and professionally. It also feels like I’m always juggling at least four and sometimes five or six different things that all need my attention, my energy, and my time, and it’s difficult. Often I feel like I’m failing at one or another.
Some are for my day job.
Some are for my husband and children.
Some are for my extended family or my friends.
And some are for my writing career…which is part of what comprises the things in my life that are “for me”, even though it doesn’t always feel like it’s something anyone in his/her right (write?) mind would undertake.
And there are times I think about just letting some things go (usually the “for me” things) and trying to settle into a life that is somehow more ordinary and therefore less stressful.
Except I’m not certain that’s even possible. We are who we are for a reason.
What drives us will do so and still be there, gnawing beneath the surface, whether we feed it with action and time or not.
So the only thing we can do, I suppose, is to keep trying. Even when it’s frustrating. Even when my energy is drained.
Because it is part of who I am, and if it truly is, then I can no more easily cut out effort or energy toward it than I can cut off my own limb.
If my life hangs in the balance, then yes. If not, then I guess the only choice is to keep trying!
Authors write for many reasons, but one big reason (presumably) is because we want others to read our novels, stories, poems, or essays.
The publishing world has changed significantly since the days when I was first writing. Back then (and at the risk of aging myself, we’re talking about the first half of the 1990’s, LOL) there was one path to having your work available to readers: traditional publishers. They were the gatekeepers, the “golden ticket” to a tangible, beautiful book on a shelf, distribution, and ultimately, readers.
The publisher handled things like galleys, and securing reviews from reputable reviewers who would then print those reviews in publications or later, online, to entice (provided the review was good), readers to give the story a try. Continue Reading…
Today would have been my father, ” Pa’s”, 85th birthday.
Pa, around three years old in the early 1930’s
Pa was a wonderful man who had a difficult childhood with a loving mother (who hailed from Germany), but an alcoholic father. He spent his first decade growing up during the Great Depression. Life was difficult, and he was forced to drop out of school before graduating…but he valued education, and so he completed his diploma and became the first and only person in his family of origin to earn a Bachelor’s degree. He was almost forty years old when he achieved that goal, but he never gave up. Continue Reading…
Blank (thus far) Acknowledgements Page for Moose Tracks on the Road to Heaven
I’m in the process of crafting the Acknowledgements Page and Author’s note for Moose Tracks on the Road to Heaven. The Dedication for this one was easy for me, since the novel is loosely (very, very loosely) autobiographical in nature. In fact, the only two “characters” who are truly similar to the “real” people they represent are the “Pa” and “Ma” characters – and that is to whom I’ve dedicated the novel (because without them there wouldn’t have been even the germ of the idea to begin with).
But the Acknowledgements and Author’s Note are stumping me.
But I always, always drag my heels at this part of the writing process.
Why? you might wonder. It should be easy to thank the people who have helped you along the way with the manuscript, and not too much effort to provide some background and “fill-in” information for readers in the Author’s Note, right?
Yes, of course.
And no, definitely not.
I’m always worried about leaving someone – or, in the case of the Author’s Note, something – out that should be there. There are so many who overtly or just in my mind and memories lent something to the creation of a book like this; and I always enjoy reading about those in other writers’ books. There is a great deal of background and information that might, with its addition, give readers something useful or enjoyable after they’ve just finished reading the novel; material that might add a bit of extra texture or layered emotion to what they’ve just read (since I tend to put my Author’s Notes at the end of each novel).
And so I put it off, and put it off, until my back is against the wall.
Sigh.
Does anyone else who writes novels – or books of anything – face a similar conundrum? How do you manage it?
For readers out there, do you notice Dedications, Acknowledgements, or Author’s Notes? If you do, is it something you enjoy, or something you just skip over?
As I mentioned in my last post, it’s begun to snow in Upstate New York. It’s very pretty in many ways, if a little early and a little cold, and some of the scenes I encounter in my travels recall a few bittersweet memories for me.
But first, let me say that I know the snow isn’t technically early for this area (I’ve lived within 150 miles of my hometown for most of my life), but I prefer if it holds off until after December 1, when I can more suitably get into the holiday spirit (of course I wouldn’t mind if it drifted away by February and spring would arrive, but that doesn’t usually happen until April or May)
Anyway, as I was driving into work after this first, several-inch snow, it called to mind images from one of my favorite holiday books/movies, The Snowmanby Raymond Briggs.
This story – which I associate primarily with the film version, because of my at-the-time very young daughters’ insistence that we purchase it on VHS and play it several times each holiday season – makes me feel bittersweet (as I think it was intended to do for readers/viewers anyway).
For me, now, however, the bittersweet feelings the film and music (a lovely score with “Walking in the Air” by Peter Auty) engender in me are compounded by the fact that my daughters are no longer little girls. That time has passed and exists only in my memories now. Awareness of this creates a little catch in my throat sometimes…a sense of nostalgia and longing that burns for a second or can even make me tear up a bit.
That’s what happened as I saw these scenes of snow-covered farm land and fields. It made me long for the days when my daughters were little and reveled in the simple, innocent pleasures of snuggling up on the couch with me, holding warm cups of cocoa as we watched The Snowman together.
It is the way of the world, I suppose: The only constant in life is change.
Here’s the full video of the film version of The Snowman for those of you who haven’t seen it before (or just want to watch it again). It’s definitely Christmas-oriented, so if you’re like me, and try to hold off until December to indulge in such festive material, then feel free to bookmark and come back to watch later! Or just do a search on YouTube and you can find it there. 😉
Moose Tracks on the Road to Heaven is now available for pre order in eBook at amazon and Kobo at a special lower price! On publication day (Feb 3, 2015), the cost will go up, so if you think you’ll want an e-version to read, now’s the time to lock-in the preorder price.
M. Reed McCall, Author 