Two bits of news:

 The Fiction Class is coming out in a large print version and the cover is completely different than either the U.S. or UK version, as you can see below.
 

Also, The Fiction Class was chosen as a selection for Reading Group Choices 2009 (www.readinggroupchoices.com) This is an annual anthology geared to book clubs, and so it’s a wonderful boost to my book.

TFC has now been out in print for nine months, which is about 3,000 years in publishing terms. One of the major things I’ve learned as a new author is how little time you have to make an impact. Basically four months. And by that point, you’re either selling or you’re not. So it’s a great relief to me that I’m still selling and that TFC seems to have some traction. In fact, one of the things I like the most is seeing the way my book is seeping through the country. I love getting e mails from all over the place, and I get a kick out of the fact that so many are from small towns in the South.

When I was writing short stories, almost every magazine that published me was from the South—Tennessee, Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, and so on. And what struck me as odd at the time was that I was connecting with southerners and yet I could not be more of a New Yorker—born and raised in Queens, studied in Rochester and Manhattan, live in Westchester. And I think I conform to just about every stereotype I have about New Yorkers, so it is intriguing to me that my writing connects with people who I imagine as being so different. Maybe it’s my religious background? Maybe it’s the topics I write about? Maybe it’s a statistical fluke? I don’t know, but I treasure that connection because I think writing should about building bridges.

How about you? What surprises have you had as a writer?

My latest excitement is that last week I received an email with the back copy for my book, which is basically the text on the back of the book that entices the reader into picking it up and buying it. My editor included the copy and asked me to check it over and make sure I liked it. 

I think I had actually written the back copy myself some months ago, so I had high hopes that I would like it, plus which I am really not looking for any more work, and so I figured as long as I didn’t hate the back copy, we would all be fine. Unfortunately, when I read it I thought it seemed kind of boring. It wasn’t terrible, I just didn’t feel excited about it (and if the author doesn’t seem excited, that’s probably a bad sign).  

So, hoping I was wrong, I sent it off to my agent and asked what he thought and he said, It seems kind of boring. Which was another bad sign, though it is nice to deal with someone who’s honest. So I looked at the back copy again and thought, All right. I like the basic premise. I’ll just move around some words. Some of the sentences just seem sort of bland. 

I spent an hour fiddling with the sentences and it did read better, but, unfortunately, it still didn’t read well. I really really really did not want to start over. I hate starting over. This is something I talk about a lot in class because often, after a critique, it becomes clear (to me anyway) that what is required is for the author to rethink her premise and this doesn’t mean that everything should be thrown out and you’ve wasted ten years of your life, because all that good work stays inside of you and comes out somehow. But it does mean you have to open up a new file and look at some white space. 

No one wants to do this. But if you don’t start over, then you can spend weeks and months fiddling with something and not make much progress.  

Fortunately, in this case I was just dealing with three paragraphs and not a whole novel (though I have started over with whole novels and I hope I never have to do it again). I looked at the blank screen and asked myself: What is the point I’m trying to make?   This is always a good question. 

Then, I stopped and looked at the page for a bit and I concluded that I would never write anything sensible again and my career was over before it started and then bang, something popped into my head. And I liked it. And then the rest fell into place and now I have back copy that I love and, thank heavens, my editor loves it too.  

Or she did. At the risk of writing a novel-length post about the back copy, it turned out that although the new version was good, it didn’t hit enough of the themes that the publishing house wants to hit—which is to say, more about the mother-daughter relationship and less about the class. So I have to rethink this. It’s okay; it’s all good. I want to sell lots of books. I just wish my brain wasn’t feeling so empty. 

So how about you? Have you ever had to start over?

One day last summer I was standing on line at the deli counter at Stop & Shop, waiting to order half a pound of roast beef. My cell phone rang, I found it, and it was my agent, Alex Glass, calling to tell me that Trident had had just sold the British rights to my novel and was that all right? I said it was more than all right, particularly because I didn’t even know they were trying to sell the British rights to my novel. (Perhaps I should ask my agent more questions, but my feeling is that the more I know, the crazier I get.) 

The next day I got a lovely e mail from my British editor, who is a novelist herself, and is the most enthusiastic person I have ever met in my life, and I don’t say that lightly, because I’m fairly enthusiastic myself. But next to Charlotte, I’m Scrooge. Anything you’ve heard about British reserve is a lie. 

What I found intriguing, and didn’t realize until all this happened, was that the British company publishing my novel had absolutely nothing to do with the American company. I’d assumed that if a division of Penguin was publishing my book in the U.S., then it would be a division of Penguin publishing in the UK. But not so.  

All of which is to say that the cover of the British version of the book is very different than theU.S. cover, as you can see (below).   

Completely different tone, right? The American one seems somewhat thoughtful and literary to me and the UK one seems more fun. Each one is true to the book, but they both pick up on different sides of it.  

Which one do I like best? 

That reminds of how my kids always used to ask me which one of them I liked best. I’d always answer that I didn’t like any of them (which isn’t true in either context).  

So, what do you think? Apple or squiggles?

Not long ago, I was sitting at my computer, obsessively checking my e mail, putting off doing what I should be doing (which is writing a synopsis of my next book) and pop—up came an e mail from my editor with the mock-up of the cover of my novel. There is something disconcerting about seeing something appear so suddenly that you have been thinking about for decades. I suppose it would be like dreaming of being pregnant and then having a baby land on your kitchen table.

I was scared to press the link. What if I hated it? What if there was a stiletto on the cover? What if it was tacky? I’ve read so many cover horror stories—including one by an author who had stickers made up for his readers to put on his book so that they could cover up the original cover that he hated so much. I didn’t think I would hate the cover, because quite honestly I don’t hate anything, except for every Adam Sandler movie I’ve ever seen. But you don’t know.

Fortunately, my husband also obsessively checks my e mail (which is an issue probably best dealt with by a marriage counselor.) So he clicked on the link, called me and said, “The cover came. It looks great.”

“What does it look it?” I asked. To which he replied, “It’s pretty and there’s an apple in it.”

Still, I didn’t click on the image, because now I was concerned about the apple.

“It’s a big apple,” my husband said.

This anxiety went on for a while, and I’ll spare you the details, except to say that I did finally click on the image and my eyes immediately went to the light coming in from the corner, which I loved. And of course, the apple.

What does the apple signify? First of all, the novel takes place in The Big Apple, and then it is about a teacher and her students, and then there is an apple that figures in the novel. So I don’t know that it is the first image that I would have mentioned if you were to ask me what my book is about, but I like the redness of the apple. I can picture people saying, “I’d like that book with the apple on it.” It’s all good.

That week I took my cover into work with me and showed it to my boss, Alex Steele, at Gotham Writers’ Workshop and he looked at it very seriously and thoughtfully, as is his wont, and then he said, “Do you want my honest opinion?” (which is always a bad sign).

I said, “Of course.” (Because I lie.)

And he said, “I don’t like the apple.”

So, where do you fall on the apple divide? What do you think?

My debut novel is being published this February, and a few weeks ago my editor asked me the question every author dreams of hearing—“So, have you given any thought to the cover?” In fact, I had spent years thinking about the cover.

In fact, before I wrote the book, I thought about the cover, and I had a hazy image in my mind of something with Bestseller on the top and my name on the bottom. But that was as far as I got.  

My novel is about a mother and a daughter. But it’s also about a teacher and her class. The mother and the class are never in the same place. If the cover focused on the mother, it would leave out the half of the story; but if it focused on the class… 

So I said to my editor what I always say when I’m not sure, which is, “What do you think?”  My editor said I’d written a great book and it was like a multi-headed hydra and that someone wonderful was working on designing the cover and she was sure that I would love it. Which I took to mean she wasn’t exactly sure what the cover should be either.  

(I should say that, like most debut authors, my contract does not give me a lot of say over what my cover looks like. It says that I shall be consulted, but that in the event of a conflict, the publishing house “shall prevail.” I find there to be something thrilling about that language, as “prevail” makes me think of my editor as a knight on a horse, but that was not particularly helpful in this context.) 

Anyway, one does not like to look like an idiot, and I felt I should suggest something, and so, upon reflection, I passed along two thoughts about the cover to my editor. 

First, I told her that my favorite color is blue. 

Secondly, I suggested that the cover should be pretty. Like a gift. Because in my mind, this book is a gift, because in all my years of writing, nothing has ever come as easily to me as this book did. Also, the very fact that it is being published is a gift to me, and finally, because I hope that mothers and daughters will give it to each other as gifts, and that the novel will help other families heal relationships in the way it helped me and my mother heal ours. (That’s a longer story that I will address at another time.)  

My editor agreed wholeheartedly with this last (she is a lovely person) and in the next installment of this blog, you can see what she came up with. Meantime, why don’t you tell me what you’d like the cover of your book to look like. (Don’t worry if you haven’t written the book yet; that didn’t stop me either.)