synopsis

The Logo Illustrates an ancient Zulu Folktale
of how a Woman's  Heart is made.

When I finished my novel I had to write a synopsis. 

How do you get the gist of a 138,000 word novel into a "jacket cover" description?  Here was my first try:

In Post-Apartheid South Africa, four mothers and daughters from different tribes tell the story of surviving poverty, abuse, and life in the township of Diepsloot.  Their daughters, all becoming women themselves, add their voices to paint a picture of how, in one generation, so much has changed in South Africa.  With ancestral beliefs challenged, the ways of the traditional healers being traded for modern medicine, and the threat of Apartheid over, are the girls’ lives so much different from their mothers? 

Hope, joy and celebration, despite poverty and injustice,  Treasures In Diepsloot delivers a story, woven by eight women who see the very same things, but from different eyes and life experiences.  In the end, the triumph of the human spirit prevails, and the reader is delivered into a satisfying world where mother-daughter relationships are still a refuge in the midst of change and adversity.  

Before you think I did good, here’s some things a well-trained editor would tell you:

1.    My synopsis doesn't synopsize my book;

2.    My summary leaves men not wanting to read it;

3.    I used too many words;

4.    There are too many clichés.

So, here’s the one that was edited down to a real synopsis:

When Annah, an abused wife and mother, loses her shack to a mysterious fire her neighbors in the township of Diepsloot are not surprised.  Mbali, her Pastor's wife and a small circle of friends seek to intervene to help Annah recover.  As they begin, the women uncover dangerous secrets that tell a darker story: one that reminds them of their own lives, filled with similar demons.

Treasures in Diepsloot is told by eight women in sixteen interlocking chapters. 

Through the perspectives of the four mothers (each from a different South African Tribe) and their four modern daughters the reader is transported into another world.  What one generation has overcome the next has nearly forgotten in order to face new challenges in a new world.

All of them endeavor to protect the greatest treasures that they have: their hearts.

The second synopsis took months to polish and still is not 100% finished.  Meaning, it still needs work.

When someone asks what my book is about, I give them the second synopsis – also known as “a pitch”. 

So that’s what my book is about....

agent

I actually went to bed last night wondering why I haven’t been getting rejection letters.  I had grown so used to them and now I kind of miss them. 

Kind of.

I wrote my first novel in 2012, one I called “Treasures In Diepsloot”, had it professionally edited, and got it back, ready to submit to (*Jaws theme*) an agent. 

After you write a novel and want it published you are given a crash-course in how things work.  You can SELF-PUBLISH (a growing choice now that publishing is changing) or you can publish “traditionally” (do not be fooled by the adverb – publishing is changing every day). 

For Christmas 2011 Mario bought me a book called “The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published” by the husband and wife team of Arielle Eckstut and David Henry Sterry.  The book scared the heck out of me but I read the first three chapters and got busy…. Writing a book involves a schedule and I wrote religiously every day any time I could. Then it involves these other little things I had never thought of....

EDITING 

I finally had the story down (I’ll tell you what it’s about tomorrow).  Now was time to get it edited.  I researched all the editors in the universe and finally decided on one I would ask to edit my work: Molly Giles.  She edited all of Amy Tan’s books and I was sure she was the editor for me, so I wrote to her.  She taught Creative Writing at University of Arkansas so I emailed her and asked her if she would consider editing my just-finished baby.  Guess what?  SHE SAID YES!!! 

I must have danced around the house for days, elated that it was going to happen!  My baby was going to be edited!! 

Molly Giles - an angel of an editor!

I sent the book home with my Auntie who had been visiting me at the same time (poor Auntie Emmy lived with me during the final revisions).  She mailed it to Molly Giles and then (cricket cricket) I waited. 

A couple of months later she wrote back: 

 "What an intriguing book! I felt very close to these eight strong women by the time I finished and feel I learned a lot about their lives in South Africa. Your writing is simple and uncomplicated and realistic and it rang true emotionally for all your characters.

 I admire the way you organized the material, pairing mother and daughter in the first two sections and giving the last two sections first to the four mothers, then to the four daughters. Condensing the time period to only three months in the lives of these women, interspersing the present with separate flashbacks and connecting the present sections through Annah’s fire, was also effective. Very accomplished for a first novel! You should be proud. Your presentation too was beautiful; I love the heart design with its chambers and hope to see it again on the cover of the book when it is published!”

I took dancing to a new level that week.  I think I even did a triple lutz and a flip flop.  Mario and I would break out laughing for no reason. 

Molly Giles said “published!!!”  

And she said it about my book

THE AGENT SEARCH -

 Before I could get too happy about the fact that a great editor loved the book that I wrote, it was now time to find a literary agent that could represent it and get it published.  Agents are like heroes to me:  Ninjas who know the back doors to publishing houses and get your stuff read and sold.  They’re half business people, half bloodhounds.  They are like miners for manuscripts of gold. 

The only way to get an agent nowadays is a referral. 

Molly Giles referred me to one of my literary agent heroes.  Her office asked for exclusive reading rights before she gave me an answer.  I said yes, blushing.  She denied it with quite a strong no.  Thanks, but no thanks…it’s not me.

No, it’s me.  It’s my book.  Are you saying you don’t like it?

I’m saying it’s not for me.  I’m not in love.

Thank you… (rejection dance…walking away with my head downcast and my manuscript dragging on the floor).

This happened EIGHTEEN more times.  After my referral dried up, I went from agent to agent, studying who likes world fiction, women’s fiction.  I wrote a query letter introducing the book and introducing myself.  The query letter is a pitch – a pitch to busy agents that they read and decide yes or no.

Eighteen times I heard: “Not for me,” “Not what I’m looking for…” “Too long…” “No vampires”, “No thanks!” … Fifty shades of denied.

In December, I found an auction through twitter called “Publishing Gives Back” – a group of editors, agents, publishers raising money for Hurricane Sandy relief.    Agents offered critiques of our pitch, query letter, synopsis, etc.   I desperately needed to be part of it.

“Haven’t we spent enough money on your book?” Mario asked me.  I was standing in front of him, asking permission to bid on a package, offered by an agent who was auctioning a critique of my synopsis and my first three chapters.

“I have a feeling no one is reading my book,” I said, sadly.  “I think everyone is just reading my query letter.” 

He shook his head.  After all, we didn’t have an unending supply of cash.  In about an hour he apologized and told me I could bid… and I did.

Gail Fortune

Ten hours later I won!  An agent named Gail Fortune had offered a “Critique of first three chapters and synopsis with a 72-hour turnaround!”  I did my happy dance again. 

After contacting her and asking when I should submit my work to her, she asked for a weekend reprieve before she could get started.  I waited for what seemed like hours and finally submitted on Monday night (it would be Monday Morning I New York).

Days ticked by in minutes.  Honestly, I do have a life and things do happen to me, but it was like waiting for your boyfriend to call or something.  I knew that a literary agent had my work and she was going to (gulp) tell me what was wrong with it.  What I should change, why it may not sell in this market…you know – agent stuff.

On Friday there was a note in my email:

  Dear Janet:

 Wow, what an amazing and powerful story. I can’t wait to read the rest. So, if you would be so kind…please send the whole ms. as a Word attachment and I’m happy to read and discuss representation in the new year. I would appreciate having until early January to consider.

You have done a wonderful job of taking me to a different place and immersing me in a new culture. I also enjoyed looking at your blog. I also have a very close relationship with God and I think we would get along fabulously together.

I am so grateful that you found the Hurricane Sandy auction and that you were so generous and won the auction for my critique.

Looking forward to reading more…

 All best,

Gail

Oh my….

Mario and I hugged each other and started jumping up and down.  How blessed are we??  I sent her the rest and waited some more…and then we went on vacation.

All my vacation I thought of maybe having an agent.  Maybe she would like it.  Maybe someone will represent me…

At the tail end of my vacation we were in New York.  I gulped and called Gail, the woman who had my beloved manuscript.  She knew just who I was. 

“Janet, how are you?”

I gulped.  She sounded happy I was calling. 

“I read it and I love it.  I would love to represent you…”

I didn’t hear much else on the call, but she was on speaker phone and Mario heard everything.  All I heard is that she loved my book!  She was going to represent me!!  She likes me!  She really likes me!!

NOW

So, I have an agent.  I’m still writing…but I feel a similar sense of completion as the day I finished my novel.  

This was awesome.

Can you tell I’m smiling? 

Here’s what happens now: My agent and I will work together to get a package ready for submission.  We will submit to people (editors) in publishing houses until we find someone with the same love, the same desire to see this go to print as I have and now Gail has.

After we find that person, they make me an offer on the manuscript and we begin real editing.  The kind of editing that hurts.  The kind where we lob off things that I think are dear and precious in my story (do you hear me preparing myself? ). 

Now please pray I find an someone else who loves it…so it can be published…so you can read it…and love it.

Thank you for reading and sharing this story of joy with me.  

To see more about my agent, Gail, click here

blog

"BLOG" is a portmanteau (a word like “smog” - formed by blending “smoke” and “fog); a combination of the words “web” and “log”. 

This word was invented in the late nineties by two geeks sitting in front of their computers in their pajamas and braces (I can’t prove that last bit).   

 

By 2001 the number of blogs  swelled the internet so drastically that how-to manuals began appearing.

• ·        The majority of blogs are an online diary.

For those of you that don’t know the origin of Brazen Princess, it started out as a dare.

Being in Africa, separated from family and doing our life's work, we wrote update letters regularly for two years, sending them out to my family and friends - most of whom didn't read them. 

They sucked the life out of me. 

After awhile, the update letters were “Look what we did!”  and “See, this is why we’re here!”  I felt like we were justifying the calling we had on our lives.  They became less and less frequent.

One day (a normal day I would never include in an update letter) I spent at the church office syncing my pocket calendar with the church calendar.  Charles (our church administrator) and I filled in the empty spaces before getting interrupted by an emergency: there had been a possible assault of a child in the township.

I left quickly with my friend to check it out.  After I did, Charles noticed I'd left my calendar and emailed Mario with a subject line: “Janet’s Diary”.  The bulk of the letter told me that I had left my “diary” – my pocket calendar in his office. 

Mario saw the email and thought Charles was alerting him to a website or some link that he read.  When I got home (everything was alright with the child) he suggested that I do something different: move the update letters – along with excerpts from my journal -  to an online storage place  where people could see, even access an archive. 

 

I really wasn’t interested - I said "I don't have time,"

 

So he dared me.

“You should do one of those online blogs,” he smiled.  “And call it Janet’s Diary.”

I smiled back.  “What in the world would I write about?”  As soon as I said it, a flood of inspiration knocked me down. 

I would write about anything I wanted to.

 

By the way, "Janet's Diary" domain was taken.  I had a whisper in my ear to call it "Brazen Princess" - at the time I had no idea the real definition  of "brazen" 

• ·         Most bloggers seek something called “an audience”

I grew up in a house that had two built-in fireplaces that were about one foot off the ground.  I used to perform “on-stage” for my sisters and brother, and they used to perform for me.  

I’m used to a relatively small audience.

Still, the master bloggers can attract several thousand hits a day to their own blog.  Today I was surfing twitter and found a post I loved and lapped up that was posted by a well-known literary agent – “7 Signs That You’re Not a Good Blogger”.

I checked out the site and saw that I was not a good blogger.  I make critical mistakes in marketing myself.  Ha!!  He gave me many tips – plus a “how-to-bulk-up-my-audience" book he invited me to download J.   

When I looked at it this morning it had 2 comments- right now it has 19. 

A good blogger not only captures attention, tells a good story, shares a good recipe, shows good art… they  reach a broad audience. 

As I searched for an agent to represent my upcoming book, “Treasures In Diepsloot”, one of them told me to “brand myself.”

“You should be actively building your blog audience,” she said.  “You’re a good writer, more people should be reading you.”

“How many people is a good audience?” I asked her, uncharacteristically shy. 

“A good blogger has in the neighborhood of seven hundred followers,” she said, flatly.  I felt like someone hit me on the side of my head. 

At the time I had 36.

• ·         Posting gives people a window to my world.

People blog for all different reasons.  In the end I realized that I blogged to share my heart.  The update letters have stopped and the daily writing sometimes comes out here - on this blog.  In it I have a connection to my family, my friends and the others who read anonymously.

One of the greatest joys of writing is sharing a story; sharing my heart.  I will eventually have to figure out how to do this thing properly… until then I am all about sharing my world.  It’s a unique and special world.  

I love being inside of it.

 

"7-signs-you-are-not-a-good-blogger"  Read it and weep.

forgiveness

When I learned the word forgiveness

It had a halo and some feathers.

It was a way to forget and bless -

A trade for uncomfortable tethers .

It wasn’t until much later that I knew how much I needed it

Like a wrench inside a toolbox,

Breaking through whatever impeded it-

breaking  paper, scissors, rocks.

My costly bloody wrench knew more of sacrifice

Than mercy; its costly job released me.

Some places I used it more than twice

Where offense was sharp or greasy.

And now forgiveness breaks my shame,

Not far from my embittered heart.

In case I slip and fall and blame

It lifts me to the place of art.

Because my freedom, joy and peace-

Can not exist without release

calypso

Blue eyed soul when we used to dance

In calypso rhythms and bow our arms

Like Carmen; only deeper in our hearts

Bleeding like children wanting to be seen

More than anything.

Now there are bars and letters

Places I am not supposed to share;

People I’m not supposed to tell;

Tears that are sentenced to my intestines….

But here I am - the real one who sees

The one who used to dance without fear 

before you got lost.

The one whose colors would light my dreams

Now fallen; I am left to live in secrets.

Left to miss you

Like a child waiting to be seen.

Did you know you were leaving me?

love

I love looking back on memories (both recent and long past) and finding love.

I was born into a family that loved and loved and got mad and forgave.  It wasn't until I was in my twenties that I realized that most families were not as easy as mine.  I was taught that love is a gift...and I have been given it more than anyone I know.  I love my mom and dad for giving me this start.  For modeling this love for me...

I love my husband, my beautiful man who is the most incredible boy...the strongest man the most tender warrior I have ever met.  I love watching him sleep and wondering why God would grant me such happiness.  Why did I get him?  Why do I deserve to be the one who's happily married; deeply loved?

I love Vince.  My complicated, beautiful green eyed son who thinks in the depths of the ocean and makes me scared to dive into the beauty of the dark.  I love him for who he is and for his gorgeous fear and daring to plunge into it.... I love his mind and I love his hopes.

I love Alicia.  She scares me with her beauty.  She is wild and brilliant and filled with joy and reckless happiness.  A wild mustang with a white mane running in the snow.  I love her for her high volume love and her tender side that only a few can see.... 

I love the kids I inherited through Mario.

I love David, the easy, groovy, salty man with the laugh and drive so like his dad's.  I love him for loving his girls, loving his wife.  I love him for his oodles of forgiveness he has lavished on me over the years.  I love him for the joy and the laughter and the books and the music... I love his brain and I love his heart.

I love Joe - my blonde and beautiful step son who treaded carefully and stomped at the same time.  I love how his DNA is so close to his father's and his promise is so close to his.  I love his peaceful cool; the nightmarish dillemmas that live so deeply inside of him.

I love my granddaughters and they actually love me back.  Their love and beauty and open abandon to live life each moment makes me happy to be alive mself.  I love their wonder in every moment- their selfish desire to be tended and their gorgeous curiosity.  I can hear the wheels turning as they sit next to me.  I am humbled by their love and joy over me....

On a normal day I can sit and think about all of the love in my life and cry with gratitude.  Today was one of those days, as I look back on all of the pictures of our vacation.  It's almost over and I have so many memories to be grateful for.

Today I am weepy grateful for all of this... all of this love.
 

new

"In The Center" - a sculpture by Saint Clair Cemin (taken on 79th Street in NYC)

The word safari, loosely translated from Swahili, means journey.  It usually is used to describe a journey taken by people not used to the rigorous demands of life in the African bush, a life where there is no such thing as convenience or familiarity.

Every new beginning is a safari.

January is a month of new beginnings, the month itself named after Janus, the Roman god who looks both forward and backwards.  The New Year stretches out before us and dares us to be different; challenges us to accomplish new things – maybe ones we couldn’t accomplish the year before.  Most of us will make some kind of new resolution to be fit, thinner, do Pilates, read War and Peace or some other outward accomplishment.  

Most people have given up on their resolutions by March.  Gyms see a noticeable decrease in attendance by that time, the new converts to 6 a.m. workouts giving up because of the results are not what they expected.

Our journeys of new beginnings don’t always bring the desired results by the time we want them.  It would be awesome to run for a week and drop a pound; build church membership by March just by implementing a new program; learn a second language and speak it fluently within the year. 

This morning I woke up in New York.  I am looking out over Columbia University’s football field – a reminder that Columbus is highly revered here even though his foot never touched the USA.  Peter Minuit (a Dutch lord) bought Manhattan Island for the equivalent of twenty four dollars – a steal for the land that now has supremely high priced real estate.  He saw the future, and named the place New Amsterdam, the place where the settlers were from.  The Dutch sought after a place of familiarity and home, whose smells and sounds comforted the thoughts of the new inhabitants of a strange land. 

Later the English fought for the land and took it from the Dutch, naming after York – their home back in England (actually the Duke of York claimed it as his).

God is currently unfolding new things before me.  I see a new adventure before me in 2013 – one that is a bit of an uncharted adventure. 

Maybe I’ll call 2013 the Year of the Safari.  An incredible journey that will unfold before me – a challenge to rise up and see the future. 

Janus