Please
tell the readers a bit more about you. I
became a first-time author at age 63 – I guess that’s worth noting. I was always considered an accomplished
writer beginning in grade school, but my life took other paths. I graduated from Northwestern University with
a BS in Radio, Television, and Film. I
met my husband, Scott, at Northwestern, and we were married shortly after I
graduated. It was the Vietnam War era,
and Scott was in the Army, so we moved frequently. I worked in radio or television stations
wherever we went, taking whatever job was available. By 1973, Scott had been discharged, and we
moved to Washington, DC. I found a job
as a copywriter, providing support for the advertising sales staff, at U.S. News & World Report magazine. By the time Scott was transferred to
Cincinnati in the early ‘80s, we had a young son, and I decided to be a
stay-at-home mom for a while. In 1990, I
started volunteering at a no-kill animal shelter in Cincinnati. My responsibilities grew, and for a while I
was putting in 55-60 hours a week at the shelter. I still work there, giving medication to sick
cats, but a few years ago I was able to cut back my volunteer hours and start
writing again.
What
types of books do you write? I’ve
written only one book so far. It’s a
memoir called Incomplete Passes: Reflections on Life, Love, and Football. I grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and when I
was twelve I became a huge fan of the Packers football team. I’d
always been a nerdy kid up to that point—a chubby bookworm—but because of my growing
interest in sports I made some new friends who changed my life. These three girls and I were all infatuated
with the Packers. These were the days of
Vince Lombardi and a championship almost every year. Since Green Bay is the NFL’s smallest city,
we could literally follow our heroes around town. As we grew older, that led to some incidents
that were embarrassing at the time, but funny today. We went our separate ways, but about 15 years
ago we started making an annual pilgrimage back to Green Bay, to see a Packer
game and renew our ties. So the book is a
coming-of-age story, and it’s about this fifty-year female friendship, but it’s
all tied up with the Packers, who taught us a number of life lessons. I would like to write at least one more book,
a novel about people who work in an animal shelter. Most people don’t realize how enormous the
homeless-animal problem is. They think
they’ll drop off their unwanted dog and he’ll have a great new home in a
week. I’d like to tell them what really
happens, both good and bad. This book
would be a novel rather than a memoir, because I’d like to write about the relationships
between the volunteers. Our interaction sometimes
turns into soap opera because many of us get along better with animals than
with humans. I don’t want to write about real people and possibly make them
angry, so I’d have to fictionalize my account.
Who’s
your main audience? I
see my ideal reader for Incomplete Passes
as a woman who’s either a baby-boomer or is interested in the Sixties. If she’s a Packer fan or from Wisconsin,
that’s great, but she doesn’t need to be.
Maybe she was crazy about one of the Beatles and can relate that to the
way I felt about the Packer players.
When
it comes to writing, what are your strong points? What are your weaknesses? I
think that my biggest asset is the ability to write in a conversational
tone. My broadcast training had a lot to
do with that. As for weaknesses, I guess
the biggest one is a reluctance to ask questions. My parents harped on me to mind my own
business, and I also have a phobia about making phone calls, so I never could
have succeeded as the journalist I once expected to be. I think sometimes I back off and simply don’t
get into some areas that could be adding depth or interest to my work. As far as Incomplete
Passes is concerned, I think a possible flaw is that some readers will expect
a big, dramatic, happy ending, but that doesn’t happen. I don’t marry the football
player of my dreams—or get a chance to turn him down. But after all, the book is called Incomplete Passes. That’s the way life is. Things so often don’t
turn out the way we plan, and that’s a theme of the book.
What
do you think of this term—Writer’s Block?
How do you overcome it? I
can’t say I’ve suffered from Writer’s Block, although I’m sure other writers
do. When I’ve had an assignment, I’ve
always been able to take a few hours off and then come back to it and get it
done. With Incomplete Passes, I didn’t have a firm deadline. It took me a few years to write it, because I
was busy with other things, but I didn’t ever feel blocked. It’s more that there have been periods in my
life where I’ve been writing, and other periods where I simply haven’t. If I’m too stressed, I don’t write—and if I’m
too happy, I don’t write.
How
many books have you written? See
Question 2.
Are
you self-published or traditionally published?
Since we’re talking about a single book, it makes
sense to answer these questions together.
Incomplete Passes is self-published, through iUniverse. I submitted it to a number of small,
traditional publishers, but I got impatient with the process. A couple of times, a publisher requested
chapters and then kept them for months while I waited for a verdict. I lost time because I was afraid to continue
writing and editing. I didn’t want to go
in a direction that would make the book less appealing to that publisher. As it turned out, those publishers did not
accept the book, so I decided to self-publish.
In
the beginning I didn’t know about companies like iUniverse and
CreateSpace. I eventually decided to
publish through iUniverse because they offered a social media startup
package. I believed that the Internet
was the best way to promote a book by an unknown author, but I had no idea how
to establish a website, tie it in with a blog, etc. My package included an editorial evaluation,
so I was able to have the guidance of a professional editor, even though I had
to pay for it. I did a lot of rewriting
after that evaluation. So I needed iUniverse.
If I do the second book, though, I might
save money by doing more on my own.
There are a lot of resources available that I hadn’t heard of at the
time I discovered iUniverse. I would
check out Smashwords, for example.
What’s
the hardest part of the writing process for you? Nothing in the writing
process is as hard as what I’m doing now—marketing a book on my own.
What type of books do you enjoy
reading? I read
mainly for relaxation, so I read mostly popular fiction. I like best-sellers, chick-lit, etc. While I was writing Incomplete Passes, I was afraid to read memoirs, because I was
afraid I’d pick up another author’s style.
But now I’m enjoying that genre as well.
Who’s your favorite Author? This is far from unique,
but I’d have to say Jodi Picoult. I
appreciate the way she takes a social issue, researches it thoroughly, and then
manages to tell the story in human terms.
She makes me care so much about her characters.
What’s your all time favorite
book? Again, not an
original choice, but it’s Picoult’s My
Sister’s Keeper. I was furious that
they changed the ending for the movie.
Another novel I have read over and over is Anne Rivers Siddons’ Peachtree Road. I found the characters in that one
fascinating, too, although I think Siddons tends to over-write, and she steals things
from her earlier books and puts them in her newer ones. I know a little bit about her Southern world
because my son went to the College of Charleston. Siddons was the commencement speaker at my
son’s graduation, and I was thrilled to see her in person. My son was scheduled
to get his diploma early in the ceremony, and he wanted to sneak out after that.
He told my husband and me to sit in the back so we could leave unobtrusively and
join him. It was a big outdoor venue, and
here was an author I loved, and we were so far away, I couldn’t hear a word she
said!
How long does it take you to write
a book? It took me
about three years to write Incomplete
Passes, and another year for the editing and production. There were periods, of course, when a
publisher was considering the book or things got extremely busy at the animal
shelter, and I didn’t write at all during those periods.
Out of all of your characters,
which is your favorite? Why? I’m not sure if this
question applies to me, because my only book is about me and three
girlfriends. I wouldn’t dare choose
between them! So let’s say that I ended
up devoting a lot more space than I anticipated to Paul Hornung, the Packers’
handsome, blond halfback of the ‘50s and ‘60s.
I guess you never forget your first crush.
What is one of the most surprising
things you’ve learned as a writer? A
lot of my training was journalistic, and my copywriter job was similar to
technical writing. I learned to
differentiate fact from opinion, and keep my opinion out of things. Writing the memoir was very different. I wasn’t sure I could break out of that
factual mode and convey emotions. But I
think I did learn to stretch in such passages as, “I wanted to climb that big
man like a jungle gym.” It surprised me
that I could write that.
What does your family think of your
writing? My
son has been very supportive, but of course he doesn’t have to live with me
anymore. I think he’s surprised that his
mother could put a whole book together.
It has to be unsettling for him to read about the silly things I did as
a teenager. My husband acts proud when
we’re with other people, but I’m not sure he really feels that way. Writing and marketing take a lot of time away
from our home life, and since I’m a new author, I’m still paying off the
self-publishing costs and haven’t brought in any money. (Hint:
Buy my book! Save my
marriage!) Interestingly, Incomplete Passes has been out since
August, and my husband hasn’t read it yet.
There’s one chapter called, “This Chapter Has a Ten-Year Statute of
Limitations!” Because of something that
happened to me in Green Bay, the gimmick is that my husband isn’t supposed to
read that chapter until 2017. (It’s not a sexual indiscretion; it’s a
security breach that I know would make him mad.) So he says he’ll wait until 2017 to read the whole book, and as
far as I know, he honestly hasn’t read any of it.
Do you manage to write every day? Again,
for me it makes the most sense to answer these together. I’m not working on a new book yet, just on
marketing Incomplete Passes. I do a blog post over the weekend and try to network
via the Internet on Mondays and Tuesdays.
Wednesday and Friday are my long days at the animal shelter. I’m there from about 6:00 a.m to 7:00 p.m, so
I hardly ever write on those days. I
also work there on certain Thursdays and Saturdays. I try to do something in the marketing area
on each day I don’t spend at the shelter.
I hope to start working on the new book early next year. But that may give me a different schedule—since
I will be writing about an animal shelter, I may keep a daily log of material
from the one where I work.
What’s the latest news you’d like
to share? Incomplete Passes was
named a Finalist in the Memoirs (Other) category of the 2012 Next Generation
Indie Book Awards.
Do you have any advice for new
writers? Ask
me again in about a year—I’m still so new myself. The world of writing and publishing is in
such transition—print vs. e-books, traditional publishing vs. putting something
together cheaply and giving it away on the Internet. I’m still trying to make sense of all the
trends and options.
Find out more here:
Website: www.incompletepasses.com
Blog: http://lindalange.
http://twitter.com/linda_lange
http://facebook.com/pages/
Indie Bound: http://www.indiebound.org/
1 comment:
Really loved this interview. I learned a lot about Linda, I volunteer with her on Fridays at the shelter, though we work in different areas.
Linda and I seem to be a lot alike. I also love to write, and have a had a few articles published, but in years past. Linda gives me hope that there is still a chance for me.
I had a similar love affair with the Cincinnati Reds, during the Big Red Machine Era. My crush was with Davey Concepcion, I even spoke with him one time on the phone. He wanted to meet up and get together, I chickened out. I never had the opportunity to meet him one on one, but my husband agreed to name our second son after him because he knew I was so crazy about him.
I also had one best friend that we spent many many days at Crosley Field and Riverfront Stadium together following the Reds. She was a Johnny Bench fan, I was a Davey Concepcion fan.
Linda is a great person who dedicates so much time at the shelter...I will look forward to her next book!
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