I needed professional help, and got way more than I bargained for.
I’m my own worst editor. As a writer, I know what I mean; I know how I want it to sound; I remember what I’ve cut long after I’ve removed it, and I know what I want to add before I add it. The creative process gets jumbled with layers of memory and intent, mixed with recent changes, pervaded throughout by me—alone—knowing that devil I’m trying to say.
It takes another person, with no previous familiarity with the manuscript, to figure out what I’ve actually written, and identify the shortcomings, omissions, and other problems. I’m often shocked by what those editors find, but fear of embarrassment is a terrible reason to abstain from the process.
So…I embrace it.
I found my first two editors for “Hash 207” through the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance. I edited their full-length manuscripts, and they edited mine. I learned a lot, and sent the sixth draft to yet another editor: someone intimately familiar with the settings and struggles in “Hash 207.”
But it was still too long. Too ambitious. Too…much. So I sought Jedi-level professional help.
Google searches for the editors and agents behind several of my favorite authors, at least those who write for similar audiences as I do, kept turning up the name Alan Rinzler.
As a developmental editor, he’s worked in New York at Simon and Schuster, Macmillan, Holt, the Grove Press, and was the editor-in-chief of the Rolling Stone’s Straight Arrow Books. He’d edited and published Toni Morrison, and my heroes Hunter S. Thompson, Clive Cussler, and Tom Robbins, and miraculously, wrote back to me.
We formed a plan for “Hash 207”: scrap it, and rewrite the best parts of the central story.
We spent a year outlining that story and telling it from a clean, fresh page, to the final period 87,500 words later.
I learned a lot. The story coalesced in a marvelous way. I’m glad I had the courage to reach for an editor of Alan’s caliber. Though the process was brutally humbling, I’m much better off for engaging with it…and so is “Hash 207.”
When I needed a cover, I reached out to Jessi Darnell-Boynton, who designed my amazing H3 patch. I sent her a copy of the manuscript, and a month later had one of the most heart-felt, reassuring meetings of my life. She believed in the story, in the telling, and in me, and agreed to work for the humble budget that f/64 Publishing offered.
Jessi’s designs rekindled the passion I’d had in the early drafts, and stoked the confidence that the book’s message could connect with people who don’t already know me and aren’t obligated to be nice. That’s a huge hurdle for any artist to get over, and I owe her a great debt of gratitude for helping me believe in “Hash 207.”
During the final design phase for the cover, at the time f/64 was laying out the interior, I sent manuscript copies to Walt Moore, Heather Auman, Randy Salisbury, and the authors Dave Collins and Kim Millick. None of them owed me anything, each of them agreed to read the manuscript and provide honest feedback.
They believed in the book, too! That took courage on my part, and a lot of time on their part to read, reflect, and respond…and then they passed their copies on to other advanced readers! The pithiest, most quotable parts of their feedback made it onto the “Advanced Praise” page inside “Hash 207,” and onto the back jacket.
To them I owe a tremendous amount of gratitude as well, not least of all for the encouragement to bring this book to a mass market audience. Not everyone will like it, but the opinions of these folks who uniquely understand storytelling, and/or the Hash House Harriers, has meant the world to me already.
Thanks, team. It’s been a long decade working on this book. I appreciate you helping me get it out there for readers!
