I realize you folks aren't too eager to follow links, but I'm hoping some of you writers out there will take a look at the first of an irregular (monthly?) series I'm posting about writing my first novel, #HiramFalls . It's a warts and all exploration of learning, exploring, changing, cutting, revising.

The first post talks about the initial idea -- a found diary from 1892 -- which became a story performed on stage. I would love to know what you think.
https://geoffreygevalt.substack.com/p/1-journal-how-my-novel-got-its-start

My debut novel is with my agent, and I have now begun a monthly series on how I wrote Hiram Falls: the origin, the revisions, the changes, an intimate look at one writer's process: https://geoffreygevalt.substack.com/s/writing-hiram-falls

(Subscribe for free and you get a bonus: text and audio of character sketches performed by Vermont Stage Company.)

My first post: An 1892 diary of a teenage girl...
#WritingCommunity #fiction #HiramFalls #writing #writers #firstnovel #magicalrealism

Hi folks,

I have a little news about my novel: I've secured an agent, done another revision and soon the agent will be pushing #HiramFalls out to some publishing houses.... wish me luck.

I've written an update on what I'll be doing on my Substack in the meantime... or, rather, while I wait.

https://open.substack.com/pub/geoffreygevalt/p/novel-an-update

#WritingCommunity #fiction #novel

@Emmacox funny you should say that first part. I had no idea - until after I told a few folks that I'd got an agent and who she was - that so many people have struggled for so long to find an agent -- the only way, these days, to get in front of a book publisher.

But I feel #HiramFalls has been blessed from the start: It arose from a commission to write character sketches for stage; five people I contacted to be reader-editors all said yes and all stayed with me throughout. And now this. Wow!

#writingcommunity #firstnovel #WIP

Sometimes magic happens. I just received word that a kick-ass agent with jewels for clients has agreed to represent my book, #HiramFalls

Hurdle one is cleared. Now for the second ...

Finding an agent seemed a dreary enterprise, and I feel blessed that my misery lasted but six weeks.

"The stars wink above Jenna’s Diner in Hiram Falls. They blink and sparkle, disappear and reappear much like Mitch Perrault’s moods, one moment jovial, the next ornery, passing from outgoing to recalcitrant at the speed of light a characteristic that makes people wary whenever they encounter him unexpectedly..."

A new story as I await word from a prospective agent on my novel, #HiramFalls
https://geoffreygevalt.substack.com/p/mitch-and-amber-1974 (audio narration, too.)

#WritingCommunity #photography #writing

@SJHoodlet Thanks, Sarah. Such good thoughts here. As I told @sfwrtr I just sent off a short story for stage (1600 words) presentation. The stage company commissioned me to write one each year for their annual winter show (that's how the novel, #HiramFalls came about!). Two new characters; I am toying with a sequel.

As to other things, you are right. I want to return to my digital story series on people who love (and are good at) what they do. (https://www.geoffreygevalt.com/projects/tag/I+Love+My+Work) And the garden beckons!

#wordweavers 5: characters that challenge a MC's beliefs?

#HiramFalls (Vera finally sees the ghost that her husband, with his damaged brain, has seen for years.)

"Vera knows now she has been so wrong about Ben. She feels she's let him down by thinking all this time that his talk about the man was just Ben’s gone-haywire brain. Maybe it's the man who’s helped Ben remember things lately, she thinks, he, like her, still yearning to get back to what they were, back before the accident."