Author Leanne Baugh On Letting Characters Lead The Way

Inspiration is a funny thing. It can come to us like a lightning bolt, through the lyrics of a song, or in the fog of a dream. Ask any writer where their stories come from and you’ll get a myriad of answers, and in that vein I created the WHAT (What the Hell Are you Thinking?) interview. Always including in the WHAT is one random question to really dig down into the interviewees mind, and probably supply some illumination into my own as well.

Today's guest for the WHAT is Leanne Baugh, author of The Story of My Face, from Second Story Press.

Ideas for our books can come from just about anywhere, and sometimes even we can’t pinpoint exactly how or why. Did you have a specific origin point for your book?

For my book, The Story of My Face, inspiration came from a few sources. I was a teenager who struggled with body image and I wanted to find a story thread to explore this theme. Although I didn’t want to write an “issue book”, I knew I wanted to write a story with a female protagonist on her journey of self-acceptance. The other inspiration was a book called, The Bear’s Embrace by Patricia Van Tighem. This memoir is a very moving account of a woman who was severely attacked by a grizzly bear. That book has always stayed with me and became a great source of research for me. So, I put these two things together?

Once the original concept existed, how did you build a plot around it?

I just asked myself the question: In a society that is obsessed with beauty, how would a teenage girl with a severe facial disfigurement navigate her way to self-acceptance? And what obstacles would she face along the way? (Many, as it turns out.)

Have you ever had the plot firmly in place, only to find it changing as the story moved from your mind to paper?

I try not to have the plot completely nailed down when I begin to write. I like to set the stage with a rough roadmap and then I just follow my characters around. They know where to take the story better than I do.

Do story ideas come to you often, or is fresh material hard to come by?

Sometimes I can’t write new story ideas down fast enough, and other times I’m tapping my pen on my notebook waiting for inspiration. Luckily, when the faucet is open, I usually have more than enough new material to explore. Then it’s a matter of figuring out what story really grabs me – what is the story I’m dying to tell.

How do you choose which story to write next, if you’ve got more than one percolating?

The story I end up writing is usually the one where there’s the most energy. Characters will start nudging their way to the front of the line, (“Pick me, Pick me”). Sometimes I have vivid dream of certain settings, or scenes or bits of dialogue will just pop into my mind (usually when I’m on a walk or in the shower).

I have a lot of cats and usually have at least one or two snuggling with me when I write. Do you have a writing buddy, or do you find it distracting?

No furry writing buddies to keep me company, I’m afraid. The closest buddy would be my espresso machine! Sad, isn’t it?

All The Stories Have Been Told

I love being a media consumer. And man, do I consume.

This year I've read 72 books (so far). I binge watch Netflix, borrow DVD's from the library, and download really long audiobooks when I know I'm going to be traveling. And while I fully believe that reading, watching, and listening is only one step behind actually putting your fingers to the keys and writing, there is a downside.

And that downside is that I always know what's going to happen.

There's a theory that there are only seven basic plots. I've been told for years that all the stories are exhausted, we're just recasting them in a new mold. When I was younger I didn't believe that, but now I see that's only because I hadn't been exposed to many of the already-manufactured stories in existence. Now that my horizons have expanded I can see it's pretty much the case.

I know. I always know. My brain has devoured so many plot lines, characters, story arcs, and fake conversations that it's almost impossible for me to get the same enjoyment out of books, movies, and TV shows that I could when I was younger. I'm at the disgusting point where I can predict dialogue. Recently, the boyfriend and I went to the movies and there were three different points where I turned to him and said the next line of dialogue before it happened.

I'm really annoying to go to the movies with, by the way.

There are benefits though - I know what people expect when they're reading my stories, so I veer off somewhere else. An author who blurbed my debut novel, Not A Drop to Drink, told me that he decided to do so when he thought he knew where it was going and then... it didn't.

But people are onto me.

Basically, they expect me to either kill someone they really like, come up with something amazingly disgusting - or both. Like M. Night Shymalan, I've got to find a way to reinvent myself, because everyone is onto my tricks.

Maybe I'll write a romance.

Emily Layne On The Waiting Game of Submission

If there's one thing that many aspiring writers have few clues about, it's the submission process. There are good reasons for that; authors aren't exactly encouraged to talk in detail about our own submission experiences, and - just like agent hunting - everyone's story is different. I managed to cobble together a few non-specific questions that some debut authors have agreed to answer (bless them). And so I bring you the submission interview series - Submission Hell - It's True. Yes, it's the SHIT.

Today's guest for the SHIT is Emily Layne, author of These Wicked Waters, coming in the fall of 2019 from Owl Hollow Press.

How much did you know about the submission process before you were out on subs yourself?

Not much. I thought book deals happened overnight. Or at least within a month. Because those are the deals you hear about. The ones that went to auction and the author had a contract in a matter of days. Boy, did I learn…

Did anything about the process surprise you?

How long it takes! I went into the submission process with some pretty false expectations. I assumed my book would sell and sell fast. But months went by. And months. And months. Being on submission is almost exactly like querying except you’re usually guaranteed to get a full request and you’re not alone in rejection disappointment—your agent is right there with you.

Did you research the editors you knew had your ms? Do you recommend doing that?

I did a little bit. I would check out their Twitter occasionally, hoping for a teaser about what they were reading or about what kinds of books they were interested in. But as time went on, I stopped checking.

If you’re the kind of writer who can obsess over checking editors’ social media, I don’t recommend researching them. But if you have a gentle curiosity and just want to see what they’re about… go for it!

What was the average amount of time it took to hear back from editors?

It varies so much! But average… I’d probably say at the 3-6 month mark. I had one editor who responded after only a few days with a rejection. Others took a year. Some we didn’t hear back from at all, despite my agent’s gentle nudges.

What do you think is the best way for an author out on submission to deal with the anxiety?

I don’t think there’s a way to totally forget that you’re on submission and the anxiety that goes with it. A lot of people say “start a new project!” Which is absolutely good advice. You want to have something to sell next!

But sometimes the last thing you want to do is write. And that’s okay for a little while! One thing that really helped me handle the anxiety was time. The more time passed, the less excited and nervous I became. Once the three month mark hit, I was ready to start a new story. My advice is to understand the process, realize it will take a while (usually) to hear back, and take a well-deserved break before starting a new project—you got an agent and have editors reading your book! You’ve earned a writerly vacation!

If you had any rejections, how did you deal with that emotionally? How did this kind of rejection compare to query rejections?

Rejections are never fun. The first few I got on These Wicked Waters were a big disappointment, but I quickly accepted the fact an editor didn’t think it was a right fit and moved on. After all, I had other subs out.

When I got to the end of my subs… That’s when I got nervous. Because unlike querying, there is a smaller pool of publishers. If they weren’t interested, then I had nowhere else to go (except self-publishing. And while that’s a great opportunity for writers, I wanted to be traditionally published).

If you got feedback on a rejection, how did you process it? How do you compare processing an editor’s feedback as compared to a beta reader’s?

I never got much detailed feedback on any of my rejections. Like agents, editors get a bunch of subs and look for reasons to say no. Many rejections were generic. A popular line I read over and over was, “I just didn’t fall in love with it.”

When you got your YES! how did that feel? How did you find out – email, telephone, smoke signal?

I never expected to get a “yes.” I’d been on submission for two years (yep, TWO YEARS. You read that right.). My agent and I had officially shelved my book back in March 2018, but she met an author at a conference who raved about her publisher. So my agent asked if I’d like her to send These Wicked Waters their way. I O.K.’ed it, feeling very pessimistic. I was done with TWW. We’d even started going out on submission with another book of mine!

Then in June 2018 I got a call from my agent. I didn’t recognize the number so (like the introvert I am) didn’t answer it. She left a message. I started listening to it, got a few seconds in and heard “Hi, this is Becky. Owl Hollow is interested…” And then I squealed, closed my voicemail, and ran in circles around my room. Eventually I calmed down long enough to listen to the rest of the voicemail and call my agent back.

Did you have to wait a period of time before sharing your big news, because of details being ironed out? Was that difficult?

Between when the publisher expressed interest in publishing These Wicked Waters and I accepted, I had to wait about a month and a half before sharing the news. We had to go through contract negotiations which took about four to five weeks. The wait time would’ve been much harder if I hadn’t been getting married three days after Owl Hollow offered publication. The whirlwind of a husband, new apartment, new state, and new job kept me from being too antsy. But I still couldn’t wait to share the news! I had a newsletter written, ready to send as soon as I got the OK. I’m pretty sure it sat around for about a week before it went out!