A Key to the Lock of the Book

Thinking about tone this morning.

There are four tickets left to see Lauren Groff in my backyard this weekend.

I will be appearing at the New Orleans Book Festival on March 14 discussing the pros and cons of writing on Substack along with my good friend Maurice.

I’m going to teach a one-hour 1000 Words zoom workshop on May 9. It will cost $75. A portion of the proceeds will go to benefit the 1000 Words fundraiser. Registration will be open starting next week.

There will be a few more upcoming events in New Orleans and Atlanta and Asheville so hold tight.

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Hi friends.

Sorry I haven’t been around much this week but I had other work to do and whenever I thought, “Oh I should write a letter,” I realized I had something else I needed to do.

Because I always say, “Do whatever is right in front of your face first.” For a few weeks now, life has been coming first. When I got home from Florida I honestly slept for a few days. And I thought when that was done I could work on my novel. But actually what I’ve been doing instead this week is thinking about this non-fiction proposal. It’s just top of mind and I had this feeling things were starting to…ripen.

So I gathered together some successful (as in sold) non-fiction proposals from friends and then I just dug in and read them for some fresh inspiration. They were actually a joy to read and it was fun to see how what they thought they were going to write hewed so closely to what the books actually turned out to be. (This is kind of a fun experiment if you ever have that opportunity!)

Afterward I thought I probably needed to put together 5,000 words or so and a general outline just to see what I’ve got. I’ve written two non-fiction proposals before, one for my memoir, and one for 1000 Words, and those were sold to two different editors. Who knows what works? Who knows what doesn’t work? I questioned myself for a moment. I couldn’t confidently say one way or another how this one will do. Only that it feels like a book I want to write and read.

So I just had to tell myself, “Don’t worry about what’s going to happen in a month. Just write what you have to write right now.”

And then I woke up yesterday morning and I suddenly understood what the tone needed to be. A key to the lock of the book. I mean I have been thinking about this book for years and could never quite figure out the exact vibe of it. I have been working a little bit on it here, in my writing to you, but also in the notes that I’ve been taking. I have been definitely circling the tone for a while now.