The Elegant Variation: HARRY, REVISED

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October 02, 2007

HARRY, REVISED - AN UPDATE

I get lots of questions about where things are with my novel Harry, Revised, and since people do seem endlessly interested to hear about the process of these things, I thought I'd take a moment and give you a Harry-at-the-Halfway update.

When this all began, I was warned by older, wiser writers that although the lead time seemed long, the months would race by. I can report that they are absolutely right. Although the book is still half a year away, I'm already experiencing mild palpitations at all that still needs to be done. So perhaps it's more salutary to focus on the parts that are already "in the can":

Revisions: The revision process was gentle, indeed. My editor, Colin Dickerman, gave the manuscript a close, thoughtful read and, feeling the book was already very clean, offered a handful of thoughts, only one of which might count as "major-ish." After I had a chance to digest his notes, we had one meeting in New York in June during BEA to discuss how to attack the revisions and then I was off to the races. I'm told the process isn't always so smooth but I've gone through revisions in Hollywood so many times that I've learned to remove ego from the equation in these settings. I also believe that, although one must be true to one's vision, one must also have everyone involved with the book fully on board. My M.O. has always been that if I can incorporate notes addressing concerns from an agent, editor or producer while remaining true to the essence of what I'm after and without sacrificing or violating any of my intentions, then I'm obligated to work out those changes. (Colin, to his credit, was quick to point out that "This is, ultimately, Mark's book, and the decisions are his to make." As it happens, Colin's Big Note deepened the work immeasurably, taking it to a higher level. I'd have been an idiot not to take it.) I turned the revisions back in August and, after one light line-edit pass, the book went "into production."

Blurbs: When a book goes "into production," all kinds of exciting things happen, I learned. Designers start working on covers. Type is set for galleys. Suddenly, it all feels very real. Which is when the hunt for blurbs begins. I'm a pretty forward guy but there is nothing quite as uncomfortable as asking for blurbs. (In my case, because I am a first-timer, we're hoping for blurbs for the galleys and catalog, so in addition to imposing on people, there's a dimension of "please drop everything" that just adds salt in the wound.) Fortunately the writers I approached have been universally graceful about it – they've all had to ask, after all – and I suspect it's a rite of passage for us all. (I've already been reminded to be similarly gracious when I am inevitably approached.) I need to be discreet for now about blurb status but I can say there's one I'm hugely excited about, which includes the words "remarkable" and "debut" ...

Catalog copy: Another thing that occurs as the book goes into production is that publicity and marketing come into the picture. I've already seen and approved the catalog copy for book, which draws heavily on Miles Doyle's beautiful summary of the book that Bloomsbury issued with the acquisition announcement. (This was, incidentally, the first time that I saw my book's ISBN, which was one of those weird, heart-stopping milestones.) I'm oddly excited to see the catalog, probably because I receive so many of these every week. The news of the catalog deadline set off a subsequent rush to come up with an official author photo.

Photos: Next to asking for blurbs, there's nothing I like less than having my photo taken. But it was time to have something professionally done and the catalog deadline was looming, so after some research I chose Sara Corwin, an L.A. photographer who took Laila Lalami's lovely headshot. In Laila's case, Sara had much better material to work with but she managed to make me comfortable enough for a nice pair of photos, which you can see now on my "official" website.

The Big Surprise: I've been meaning to blog about Kevin Smokler's new venture Book Tour.com (about which more anon), which tracks authors' reading schedules and connects writers with audiences, so I decided to go and set up an account for myself so I could try it out firsthand. There was a slot to insert the ISBN, and when the page went live, I noticed that in the "Author's Books" section, under my title, it included a "Buy this book at Amazon" link. Curious, I clicked the link to find that Harry, Revised is already listed and available for pre-order.

You have to understand that I'm the sort of person eternally waiting for the other shoe to drop. Wondering all along when Bloomsbury would change its mind, back out. But when I saw this, I thought – "Jesus. It's for real." It's coming, and it stands as a firm rebuke to all those who think of bloggers as little more than resentful wannabees. (I have promised myself, by the way, to pay zero attention to Amazon rankings since we all know they are virtually meaningless.)

What's next: Much still to come. I'm waiting to see the cover art. Then the galleys will arrive. (I've been advised by my agent that galleys can only go to people actually in a position to advance my interests. So sorry, MOTEV, no galley for you.) The Frankfurt Book Fair is approaching, where we hope to find some international takers for Harry. My personal website needs a complete overhaul. And I've just been informed that I will have the copyedit tomorrow. (When my agent explained the copyediting process to me, he said "From this point on, you will no longer work on this book in any computer." It's all to be done by hand until publication. Which is something else I didn't know but might have guessed.)

It's all terribly exciting stuff, time consuming, too, and you discover your capacity for endlessly worrying the small stuff. (I can only hope all my emails about selecting the final photo never see the light of day.) You also get to work with smart, passionate and literate people which, for me at least, never gets old.

The best advice I've received, however – and this has come from every single writer I have spoken to – is, amid the excitement and preparation and work, the most important thing to do is to get busy on the second novel. Which is exactly what I've done. And what I'm off to do now.

Posted at 11:47 AM in Harry, Revised, Personal | Permalink

Comments

Wow--sounds like it couldn't have gone any better...I'm debating whether I should show this post to a friend who got her galleys back and wanted to slit her wrists.

Posted by: Jimmy Beck | October 02, 2007 at 01:04 PM

Put my pre-order in today (no, really, I did). Very exciting to think I was with you in Paris while you were working on 5 & 6. Couldn't be more proud of you my friend.

Good photo. WOTEV picked out a nice combination. I can't help but feel there's something "John Grishamish" about the shot.

C-

Posted by: C- | October 02, 2007 at 02:24 PM

Hi Mark,
Very nice to hear you experiences of the publishing process, and congrats on the book becoming so nearly here. I work in a small publishing house here in New Zealand and am mostly involved in the typesetting and production side of things and believe me, the reactions of authors to receiving their first type-set proofs are as varied as the books themselves. What is very interesting though is that very few authors know how the process of making the final manuscript into a book actually works, and how much time and effort is involved to make it not only error free but a pleasure to the eye. Perhaps not many appreciate a well type set page above a well designed cover, but a good page of type can be just as big a delight.

Of course, you've left one thing off the list of things yet to be done, don't forget to start thinking nice and early about where you are going to have your launch party!, and who is going to send the book into the world!

Posted by: Craig Gamble | October 02, 2007 at 04:17 PM

Congrats, Mark -- this is a great write-up. It's something special to be able to observe this process taking place, and I think your faithful readers can all feel like we're sharing in your enjoyment. Can't wait to see the book!

Posted by: Levi | October 02, 2007 at 05:07 PM

Mark that is great! I'll look forward to getting a copy when it's published and now that you've mapped out the process of the shaping of this novel it makes it that more interesting. Sounds like you've got some good editorial backup too - which all helps!

Coll

Posted by: Colleen | October 02, 2007 at 11:57 PM

I don't know, I think the green shirt might have been a poor choice.

Posted by: appler | October 03, 2007 at 06:16 PM

The comments to this entry are closed.

MY NOVEL

HARRY, REVISED - Get all the details here.

TOUR DATES

WORTHY READINGS

TEV DEFINED

The Elegant Variation is "Fowler’s (1926, 1965) term for the inept writer’s overstrained efforts at freshness or vividness of expression. Prose guilty of elegant variation calls attention to itself and doesn’t permit its ideas to seem naturally clear. It typically seeks fancy new words for familiar things, and it scrambles for synonyms in order to avoid at all costs repeating a word, even though repetition might be the natural, normal thing to do: The audience had a certain bovine placidity, instead of The audience was as placid as cows. Elegant variation is often the rock, and a stereotype, a cliché, or a tired metaphor the hard place between which inexperienced or foolish writers come to grief. The familiar middle ground in treating these homely topics is almost always the safest. In untrained or unrestrained hands, a thesaurus can be dangerous."

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Diary of a Bad Year by J. M. Coetzee

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The Indian Clerk by David Leavitt

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*Now in Paperback*

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The Believer Book of Writers Talking to Writers by Vendela Vida

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Here Is Where We Meet by John Berger

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Home Land by Sam Lipsyte

In his recent TEV guest review of Home Land, Jim Ruland called Sam Lipsyte the "funniest writer of his generation," and we're quite inclined to agree. We tore through Home Land in two joyful sittings and can't remember the last time we've laughed so hard. Lipsyte's constellation of oddly sympathetic losers is rendered with a sparkling, inspired prose style that's sent us off in search of all his prior work. In Lewis Miner's (a.k.a Teabag) woeful epistolary dispatches to his high school alumni newsletter ("I did not pan out."), we find an anti-hero for the age. Highly, highly recommended.

THIS GUN FOR HIRE:
Reviews & Criticism

SECOND LOOK

The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald

Penelope Fitzgerald's second novel is the tale of Florence Green, a widow who seeks, in the late 1950s, to bring a bookstore to an isolated British town, encountering all manner of obstacles, including incompetent builders, vindictive gentry, small minded bankers, an irritable poltergeist, but, above all, a town that might not, in fact, want a bookshop. Fitzgerald's prose is spare but evocative – there's no wasted effort and her work reminds one of Hemingway's dictum that every word should fight for its right to be on the page. Florence is an engaging creation, stubbornly committed to her plan even as uncertainty regarding the wisdom of the enterprise gnaws at her. But The Bookshop concerns itself, finally, with the astonishing vindictiveness of which provincials are capable, and, as so much English fiction must, it grapples with the inevitabilities of class. It's a dense marvel at 123 pages, a book you won't want to – or be able to – rush through.
The Rider by Tim Krabbe

Tim Krabbé's superb 1978 memoir-cum-novel is the single best book we've read about cycling, a book that will come closer to bringing you inside a grueling road race than anything else out there. A kilometer-by-kilometer look at just what is required to endure some of the most grueling terrain in the world, Krabbé explains the tactics, the choices and – above all – the grinding, endless, excruciating pain that every cyclist faces and makes it heart-pounding rather than expository or tedious. No writer has better captured both the agony and the determination to ride through the agony. He's an elegant stylist (ably served by Sam Garrett's fine translation) and The Rider manages to be that rarest hybrid – an authentic, accurate book about cycling that's a pleasure to read. "Non-racers," he writes. "The emptiness of those lives shocks me."

The Elegant Variation

A Literary Weblog.
A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog
"Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

October 02, 2007

HARRY, REVISED - AN UPDATE

Comments

MY NOVEL

WORTHY READINGS

TEV DEFINED

RECOMMENDED

THIS GUN FOR HIRE:
Reviews & Criticism

SECOND LOOK

Categories

The Elegant Variation

A Literary Weblog. A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog "Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

October 02, 2007

HARRY, REVISED - AN UPDATE

Comments

MY NOVEL

WORTHY READINGS

TEV DEFINED

RECOMMENDED

THIS GUN FOR HIRE: Reviews & Criticism

SECOND LOOK

Categories

A Literary Weblog.
A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog
"Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

THIS GUN FOR HIRE:
Reviews & Criticism