Gaddy photo 2014

Gaddy photo 2014

A Long Time Coming

by Eve Gaddy

 

 

 

 

Some books are a long time coming.

 

 

I had the original idea for Cry Love in 1999.  I found the file not too long ago.  It was a one line description that I had saved in my idea file, many computers ago.  But it was a very different idea and at the time I was writing for Harlequin.  There was no way this book would fit what they wanted.  Since I am one of those writers who does best in total immersion, I filed the idea and kept writing other things.

I am also one of those writers who periodically experiences burnout.  I think it has something to do with being so obsessive.  (What, me obsessive?)

 

 

Anyway, every once in a while, especially when I was feeling burned out and battered by the business, I would pull the idea out and play with it.  I went to see the movie Hurricane and found it and Denzel Washington, who plays Hurricane Carter, very inspiring.  My husband and I were the only people in the theatre and it seemed as if it was playing just for me.

 

 

Several years ago, maybe around 2003 or 2004, I wrote the first scene.  I was at a conference and laid down to rest and the scene came to me.   A year or so later, I worked on the plot during an endless drive back from Savannah to Tyler with my daughter.  Then I put it aside again.

I couldn’t get going on it.  I would write random scenes occasionally but what I had in no way resembled a book.  I went on that way until I quit writing for about two years due to burnout, family death, twin grandbabies<g>, and life in general.  I played with my grandbabies, did a lot of needlework and didn’t write a word of fiction.  I decided if I never wrote anything else that was okay.  I’d published sixteen books and that was enough.

Then I talked to Debra Dixon, President of Belle Books, and a friend I’d known for many years.  The self-publishing boom had hit.  Although I thought I had retired, almost all my friends are writers and I was still a member of many writing communities.  I had the rights back to eight books and was toying with publishing them myself.  But I couldn’t figure out a number of things.  Formatting for one.  At the time I wrote in Word Perfect.  Everything now requires Word, which I loathe and use only when I absolutely must.

 

So I asked for help on one of my writers loops and Debra Dixon gave me some great advice.  She also mentioned I didn’t have to do this all on my own.  “I don’t?” I asked.  She said Belle Books was interested in reissuing my backlist.  I knew about Belle Books, of course.  I had always wanted to write for them, in fact.  But I hadn’t realized they had branched out from publishing only original southern fiction to more genres as well as reissues.  I was in heaven.  Belle Books bought my backlist in January 2011.  My first reissue, On Thin Ice, came out with Bell Bridge Books in August of 2011.  I love those books and it is such a pleasure to know they have a new life. I not only have a new publisher but I’m lucky enough to have a publisher and editors who are a dream to work with.

In one of our discussions about my backlist, Deb asked me if I had plans to write anything new.  She knew all about what had been going on with me and that I had mentioned retiring, but she let me know Belle Books would be interested in an original from me.  I said, “Well, I do have an idea for a book that’s unlike anything I’ve ever written.

That was what it took.  Not too long after I talked to Deb, I sent a synopsis of my new book to Belle Books. It was very vague and very short since I still had no idea exactly what I was doing, or even what exactly I was writing.  We decided I’d write the whole book and submit it.

Except I couldn’t write.  I had the synopsis but the book was so complex I couldn’t figure out how to write the thing.  I contacted the fabulous April Kihlstrom, published author and writing coach extraordinaire.  With her help I was able to begin seriously working on my book.  April was a lifesaver.  I truly doubt I’d have been able to write again without her help and encouragement.

 

My friends, many of whom I list in the acknowledgements, were essential to writing my Book of the Heart. I can’t tell you how many talks we had on every subject under the sun. Or how many times I’d call one of them up to try to hammer out a scene. Or email someone with a problem I couldn’t figure out. I’m pretty sure my friends were almost as glad as I was when I finished Cry Love. For that matter, so was my family. I might be just a tiny bit hard to live with when I’m writing.

Finally, nearly a year after I started writing it seriously, I typed THE END on Cry Love.  Thirteen years after the original idea occurred to me, I finished the book.  To call Cry Love a book of my heart doesn’t even approach how I feel about it.  This book was wrenched, sometimes agonizingly, from deep within my heart and soul.  I love this book.  I hope you will too.

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