January 31, 2012

Last week I sat down with my new publishing team at Howard / Simon & Schuster to talk all things Iscariot. They are so excited about this story, and have wanted to bring it to you swiftly--later this year, even, if possible--so aware of how patiently (or not ;) you've waited. This has been a priority for me, as you are ever on my mind. But they also want to do it right, and that means time for each step of the publishing process. So look for Iscariot on shelves this time next year (you'll already have pre-ordered your copies beforehand, yes?) Meanwhile, that process has already begun; I've seen early versions of the cover, and can tell you I love it. I hope you will, too.

For now, I am overwhelmed by early response to the manuscript. Completely humbled. It's still a mystery to me how sweat at the desk can pull at the heartstrings of others. But one thing I do know: it does take sweat. Thank you for your love and encouragement through this process.

Later this summer after Mortal's release, I'll begin work on a new solo book. It marks a return to ancient opulence, intrigue, power... as well as the feminine point of view. More on that in months to come. I'm already excited.

October 17, 2011

I get asked this almost daily now.

"When is Iscariot coming out?"

Have you noticed the way I've avoided the question, ducked around the corner, excused myself from the table?

Well, the truth is I haven't been avoiding you--but I have been waiting to have something to tell you.
So here, my dears in this poisonous garden, is the story.

Earlier this year, my agent and I made the tough call to switch publishers. That was a big decision, and Iscariot was not complete at that time.

Let me tell you about Iscariot. It took two and a half years of my life to craft, including a journey to Israel with the Biblical Archaeology Society, a library's worth of academic books, lecture transcripts and commentaries, the input and answers of a very esteemed panel of advisors ranging from the dispensational evangelical, to the Jewish academic, to the archaeological and historical. Their names will appear in my author's notes and acknowledgements, and if you are into that sort of thing, I'm sure you will recognize several of them.

And then it just took many, many hours of very lonely and often soul-wrenching work.

I overwrote the book by a mere 130,000 words. If you're not sure how many pages that is, divide that number by 250, and that's about right. I anticipate at some point having many deleted scenes and excerpts for your perusal (similiar to those for Havah). Suffice it to say, I cut the book down, and literally threw out enough research to write separate dissertations each on first century Israel, the man Judas himself, and the life of Christ.

Why did I do that? Because despite the fact that I'm known for my research, this is a book of the heart. And so I returned to and went after the heart--and the jugular--of this story, which is as much the story of Christ... and the story of us... as it is the story of Judas.

Early readers have left me humbled and grateful at their response. I won't say more. I'll only say that this is my most controversial book yet. You may love it. You may hate it. But I don't believe you will feel lukewarm.

Iscariot is now in the hands of my agents and has gone off to market, all grown up. If all goes well, I'll have news for you in weeks to come. That news should include a new release date. I realize you've been waiting a long time for my next solo novel and I'm so sorry for the delay, but I think you will find it worth the wait. I hope so. I can tell you that my time in the interim is devoted to Mortal and Sovereign, which will both come out next year due to your demands. ;) Both should release before Iscariot. If all goes as planned, Iscariot will come soon after. 

I promise to keep you posted--not only on when you can expect to read it... but what my next solo work after it will be. I do have a good idea about that. ;)

Meanwhile, Forbidden has spent two weeks on the NY Times Bestseller list. Thank you for all that you have done to make that book a success and to my new series with Ted Dekker off to a great start.   

 

August 18, 2011 

My new series, The Books of Mortals with NY Times bestseller Ted Dekker, begins September 13. But it begins for you and I today. Go HERE to sign the Book of Mortals. Make your mark. In so doing, you will auomatically be given a free copy of The Keeper, a short story prequel to Forbidden. You will also be entered to win several give-aways including iPads, iPods, Nooks, Kindles, and an all-expense-paid trip to the setting of Forbidden itself: Rome.

But there's more. Initially, we intended to deliver this series over three years, but you didn't want to wait that long. You spoke, and the publisher heard you and called us asking to release all three in one year. We have agreed.

And so you'll be able to look for Mortal in June and Sovereign in October of next year. 

I've written this epic with Ted Dekker, who is known for his killer pacing and action, which we combined with my prose and description in a story neither one of us could have created alone. We both wrote every chaper, which took a massive amount of time, but we believe the result speaks for itself.

This is going to be one heck of a ride over the next year, so hold on.

This is your story. You will see.

 

March 27, 2011

For those who like to follow the writing life, I have a habit of keeping a running "writer-cam" on my work days. You can access the archive here. New pictures go up on my Facebook page regularly! (Have you joined my page? Click the Facebook icon at the bottom of this site to go, and hit "like" when you get there. Viola!)

March 15, 2011

I speak often about fear in art and writing. You can see my most recent talk on the topic here.

In other news, there is much on the horizon: notably, the writing of the second book in the Books of Mortals series with Ted Dekker, which I'll be writing this summer, and the release of Forbidden, the first book in the series this September. More to come...

October 20, 2010

There are two twin demons that plague the writer: Fear and Perfectionism.

It takes a certain vulnerability to put emotion on the page (and you have to feel it acutely, because even the best writing only captures a fraction of what the author is actually feeling). And that vulnerability makes us especially susceptible to criticism--or worse--indifference. Our fear is that we will pour ourselves out and be told that what we've done isn't up to par. Or worse, that it does not matter.

And yet, cultivating a thick skin is not authentic for many of us. I am not thick skinned. Bad reviews sting. Being rated like one more soulless blender on Amazon is difficult for me. People write things about me as though I will never see them. I do. On some days, it would be far easier to never write another word. 

And so we procrastinate. There is a safe place in imagination where our idea is still perfect. We have not brought it out into the harsh and corporeal world to be disappointed by its defects. Or to struggle with its incongruities. I remember my girlfriend Meredith reading Havah  over my shoulder once while I was line editing. "Huh?" she said. "'That was the heinous and grievous of depravity.' What does that mean?"

"I don't know," I said blankly. I didn't. It was simply a grotesque sentence.

It is hard to show up on a page (or a canvas, or a stage) where heinousness exists.

Luckily, we're not alone in the creative process. There is a co-creator (your reader) and there is God. God, Spirit, Universe--whatever you want to call it, there is a creative force in all of us that I believe to be the legacy of an Ultimate Creator. And you only see what's going to happen between you and that creative legacy when you authentically and imperfectly show up on the page. 

And so we learn to get over ourselves. It is not all up to us. That helps immensely with the fear that this giant burden of writing rests solely on our shoulders. We come humbly to the page. And because of that we can only take partial credit for any success we have. Every time a reader writes to me to say that my book has touched them or had some effect on their lives, I know that that is not, ultimately, because of me.

Most days I pray before I write (some days I forget). I do it on my knees by my desk. It sounds a lot like begging--a little crazed, and maybe desperate. I think that's probably okay, though--it's honest and God's used to me. 

One way I have found to show up and silence those critical voices in the backs of our minds, is to do what Julia Cameron (The Artist's Way) calls "Morning Pages." Three pages, with pen and paper, about anything. No stopping--the hand moving across the page. It gives airtime to the critical censor so that we can get it out of our system. So that by the time we sit down to write what we want to say, we can write authentically--and imperfectly--what is really there.

I approach my first drafts in a similar fashion to those three pages. The result is often heinous. Anne Lamott writes about this in her book, Bird by Bird  in a chapter aptly titled Shitty First Drafts. There's no getting around it--unless you can allow something to be horrible enough for you to get on the page, like a lump of clay on a potter's wheel, you're not going to have anything to work with later. You will rewrite and rewrite your beginning and never reach the end. So instead, you get it out and worry about crimping the edges later.

November is National Novel Writing Month. I don't take part formally, but I like the idea of it especially for new writers because it helps break that habit of trying to get it done perfectly. I will be writing very heavily through the month in my own version of NaNoWriMo. It will be messy. There will be screaming and the ritual uttering of bad words as I root around in the ugly, searching for nuggets of sense and beauty. 

Care to join me?

September 21, 2010

We're not so different, you and I. Like you, I'm inspired by reading, movies, music, art, beauty. I would add travel--there's something about leaving your daily paradigm that shocks you out of your own skin and someplace else. 

Sometimes the most inspiring place for me is sitting in a seminar, in church, or on a plane. Yes, I'm essentially admitting that my mind wanders, even when I'm supposed to be paying attention. I think there's a reason I used to write so many stories and poems in school.

Movies move me much. They leave me sometimes with gaping holes until I stagger off to find a pen and some paper to chase a fill for them. Art moves me often. Two prints by artist Raina Gentry hang on my office wall. One in particular, titled "It's All in Her Mind" speaks to me daily. It is not a beautiful or settling picture--but as someone who struggles with anxiety, it is, to me, true. Another artist I love is Jia Lu. What she paints is sheer beauty.

I love movie soundtracks. But unlike so many friends who write to music, I can only  write in silence. I take all those soaring notes with me by the time I sit down.

The main problem of inspiration doesn't seem to be finding it so much that we neglect to feed ourselves. Art, movies, a new book, music, wine with friends, a trip away... too easily feel like guilty pleasures. Some of them cost money, after all. Others--standing in a storm--simply seem foolish.

This is what I think. Inspiration will always seem foolish or uncouth at best to anyone looking on. Have you seen someone in the throes of that divine moment? They look crazed. No one understands it. And trying to verbalize it will reduce you to a babbling idiot--even by your own ear.

So let's be babbling idiots. This will be our pact: I won't say anything about how ridiculous you sound if you you promise not to haul me in from the storm.

Julia Cameron talks often about restocking the well and how failing to do so causes us to cannibalize ourselves. Most writers I know are distinctly familiar with the literary equivalent of gnawing on their own wrists. Maybe that's why when I think of any utopia, it is never a place devoid of fears or monsters, but where strange winds blow freely and tears quell that eternal thirst. 

August 3, 2010

From the question box today: Beth asked me what books influenced me in the writing of Demon. The answer is... none. At least overtly. I know it gets compared to The  Screwtape  Letters  (pinch me--it's an honor every time). Though I have heard portions of Screwtape read by the incomparable John Cleese, I've never actually read it. (I know. Stone me now.)

Though I've read Paradise Lost  in college, I don't remember much of it at all. I get it and Dante's Inferno  mixed up. One of those has the gates of hell inscribed with "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here." I remembered that, and have always wanted to have that stenciled over the doorway to my office.

I'm sure every book of Anne Rice's I've ever read has influenced all my writing at some level (and the license plates she used to have in New Orleans have a cameo in Demon). As have Marion Zimmer Bradley and Anita Diamant (whom I'm sure influenced Havah). And Anne Lamott. These are the great aunts (to borrow an Asian sentiment) I look up to. That I'd love to sit down to dinner and port with, these women I marvel at. Though MZB did not care for me much while she was still alive (she passed in 1999) and she definitely did not like the one piece of writing of mine she ever read. Agh.

**

One day last week I looked at Havah  on Amazon. I know you're not supposed to do that but sometimes I have to, because I can't remember how many years I hoped to be able to do just that thing. (Or to go into Barnes & Noble and to see one of my books there. And Friday there I was, signing some copies at the customer service center in the middle of the store and it still struck me as though I might be living someone else's life so that I had to look down and see whose name I was signing.) Anyway, that dayHavah was #5 on the Biblical fiction list, nestled between Anita and Anne as though I had laid my head on both their shoulders at once.

It was one of those moments.

 

Tosca Lee ©2012