Speaking Volumes

On Tuesday, August 24th at 6:45, Glen Maynard, author of Strapped Into an American Dream will be at Saxton B. for a talk and book signing. This event is part of The Connecticut Author Trail.

To see other CAT events visit
http://sites.google.com/site/ctauthortrail2010/HOME.

     

Please welcome Glen Maynard as he talks about his book, the writing life, and shares some special insights about the writing process.

"Strapped Into An American Dream" details my one year journey through
America's 48 states in an RV.  The longer journey was the road to
publication.  It eventually became a race against time to realize
another dream...having my parents read about my journey in pages of a
hard covered book.  Sure they read my 20 newspaper articles in local
papers along the way, but the finer details were missing.  This trip
would not be complete until my story was published.  

Rejection after rejection led me to signing with an agent in CO, where
my wife and I had moved in 1993. This agent held my book for two years,
and I ultimately had to take my book back following my divorce.  I was
told that HarperCollins had cut my book out of their quarterly line at
the last minute, and so my search continued. The agent was not pleased
that I took the book back, but my divorce meant I had to tweak the book.
I moved back to CT and my book had to be retyped in it's entirety onto a
computer, since technology moved ahead of my Word Processor.

Now with my manuscript on a computer, I blasted query letters to agents,
no longer having to do so through the US mail.  I emailed query after
query while the cows started to come home, but I persisted.  I put too
much into this manuscript to just let it go.  I promised myself that I
would not quit until my story gets published, and a new decade greeted
me. Query letters only led to rejection, and a couple more agents that
could not sell my book.  They could only sell me on sending them a few
hundred dollars to satisfy their fee. 

My father began with his health problems, and one day I walked to my
mailbox to find my SASE with my manuscript greeting me upon pulling the
door down.  My heart again sank to my stomach. The agency that sounded
so hopeful, having asked to see my manuscript, rejected it after several
months.  Each step of the way was an eternity. I stared at the returned
manuscript, thought about my father's failing health, and believed that
he would never be able to see me realize my dream.  I gave it a solid
week before I restarted the process.

Having no bites as the years passed, my frustration increased while my
father's health declined.  He had slowed considerably into his 80's.
They did a stress test on him for a knee replacement operation. They
said his heart couldn't take an operation, and he needed open heart
surgery.  While in the hospital, he lost a lot of blood due to their
negligence, and he had a stroke.  This was when I came to the
realization that my father would never see my book.  My mother told him
who was here, but he didn't quite understand, and he couldn't speak.  He
recovered slowly, but there was a difference. The important thing was
that he was still among us. I still had a chance.

I finally had an agent respond that he couldn't help me, but knew of a
small publisher who might be able to.  I queried them, and we went back
and forth until my book proposal turned into a publishing contract.
That was wonderful news, but books can take up to a year before they
come out, and I wasn't sure I had a year.  The process did take forever,
but I'll never forget my satisfaction in seeing my father sitting in his
recliner one day reading my book.  I didn't think the moment would ever
come to fruition, but I felt like I had just won the race.

There is a second book completed, which is a work of fiction, but I am
only in the beginning stages of finding an agent.  There is no race like
there was with the first book. My father has slowed, but is doing well
for 85 years old.