Emily Echols's Blog

A few days ago I started a blog post talking about how I'd been kind of down lately, mostly feeling sorry for myself. The non-writing project I've been preoccupied with is a baby. I'm into the second trimester and, for some reason, the puking has started now. I'm getting over a cold and my husband has been out of town for almost two weeks. It went on to say that when I'm feeling bad and especially when my husband is out of town it's easy for this stay-at-home-mom-ness to feel monotonous and thankless and lonely. It doesn't usually feel that way. Usually, I genuinely enjoy it and I'm thankful that I'm able to stay home.

Then it said: I know that the remedy for this is writing.

I'd planned to say that writing grounds me, always has. When I'm working on a writing project I have direction and focus. I'm a better me when I'm writing. I'd planned to quote Franz Kafka, "A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity." I'd planned for all of this to kick my butt in gear. Even though it's hard to write when you're throwing up in the kitchen sink. I was going to power through and make it happen.

But then last night I woke up in the middle of the night and instead of talking about writing or writing about writing, I actually wrote something. I'd been thinking of my son's birth and a particular memory made me cry into my pillow. Instead of wallowing in it, I got up and wrote it.



After fourteen hours of labor, including two hours of pushing with nothing to show for it, the doctor said, “This baby is either very large or in a strange position,” and recommended a C-section. Shortly after 1:30am I held my nine pound, two ounce baby boy with a head two inches larger than the average baby. He was chunky and perfect with a full head of dark hair.
The next morning, I sat up in the hospital bed, still exhausted from the night before. My fine, straight hair was already hanging limp and greasy around my face. I was swollen all over. My belly still looked quite pregnant even minus the nine pound baby. I was holding my son when the student nurses and their supervisor asked if they could come in the room. I said sure.
The supervisor put a hand to her chest and said in an awed voice, “Oh, you look so beautiful. You’re just radiant. You are such a beautiful new mother.” I started crying. I knew what I looked like. My sarcasm meter started to go off. It was such an over-the-top, almost ridiculous compliment but when I looked at this woman’s face, all I saw was sincerity and kindness.
I still rate it as one of the kindest things anyone has ever said to me. Perhaps this woman, who spent a lot of time with women who’d just given birth, said that to every new mother and maybe the student nurses told every mom that their baby was the cutest one in the nursery. I sure hope so.

Even in the middle of the night, writing is never the wrong answer.

Yikes! I haven't blogged in forever! I've been working on another project recently. It's been pretty consuming. I haven't been writing much at all.

This year, just like the past two years, my New Year's Resolution is to submit a manuscript to an agent. But this year, I think I'm actually ready. Last year my bubble burst when a kind reader pointed out that the manuscript really wasn't ready. I've gone back and forth on which manuscript I'll be submitting and I've finally decided that I'm submitting the memoir. It's my story to tell but honestly, it's some of my best writing. I was reading over the manuscript and I'd forgotten all about that last round of rewrites. It was so much better than I remembered. There were huge sections that I didn't remember writing or reading before.

My heart sank again [when I heard which church I would be serving]. In a worship class in seminary I joked that, “It’s not church if there’s not an organ.” I had always had high church “smells and bells” tendencies that only grew stronger in seminary attending chapel at Candler. The song my heartstrings are tuned to sounds like “Be Thou My Vision." There’s an organ and sometimes a piano playing along with it. There’s weekly communion and stained glass windows. And liturgy, ancient words. It was fine to wear shorts and flip flops but in the song my heartstrings are tuned the clergy wear vestments.
I already knew that my soul wouldn’t be fed there. There are many ways to worship God. This is just the particular song that my heartstrings are tuned to. I can find God in other songs but this is the song I lean on. This is the song of my childhood, this is the song I grew up with, the one I can sing in my sleep, the one I can sing when there are no other words.

In many ways I'm afraid that a spiritual memoir will be harder to publish than a novel. But a great spiritual memoir is better than a bad novel, right?

As ever, my husband continues to show his support by quietly supplying me with what I need. He bought me the 2015 edition of Writer's Market. Now I have no excuses. I have a book that lists agents and publishers. And a husband who knows way more about religious publishing companies that anyone else I know. 

It's really happening.

These are Alison Lawrence Sugar Cookies. I first made them December 2003 with Alison and Anthony. Alison and I both enjoy baking and it isn't really Christmas without sugar cookies, right? Alison, Anthony and I assembled in the basement kitchen of our dorm to bake these cookies. The recipe yields 5 dozen large, round cookies. We were using cookie cutters so it made even more.

We spent the entire afternoon in the dorm kitchen baking on borrowed cookies sheets, taking cookies out of the oven, putting more in and making mounds of powdered sugar icing. We let Anthony use the food coloring so our Christmas trees were neon purple and our bells were hot pink. We turned up music up and danced around the kitchen. Eventually we got bored with decorating and started sprinkling them with colored sugar before we baked them. It was actually, if there is such a thing, too many cookies. We spent the next few days giving Christmas cookies to everyone we knew. It was a desperate attempt to spread Christmas cheer and get rid cookies.

We continued this tradition every year afterwards. A few years ago, Alison and I got together to bake. I was very pregnant and we both admitted that we just didn't really feel like baking. But we told everyone that we had. Because we had to, it was a tradition.

When I first baked these bookies eleven years ago with my friends I never imagined that I would be baking them with my own son. We made these yesterday for his class party at school. Who knew this special sugar cookie recipe with sour cream and nutmeg would have such staying power? Who knew it would become such an important fixture in my life? It all started with dancing in the dorm kitchen.

I dance every time I make them.

She took my heart. I don’t know how it happened.
We took the floor and she said

[Chorus]
"Oh don’t you dare look back.
Just keep your eyes on me."
I said, "You’re holding back."
She said, “Shut up and dance with me.”
This woman is my destiny.
She said, “Oooooh, shut up and dance with me.”

"Shut Up And Dance With Me" by Walk the Moon

This also might be new my life philosophy.

Don't you dare look back. Shut up and dance with me. It's an invitation into the dance, bringing people in. Don't worry about the past. Come dance with me. Don't worry about looking silly. Don't worry about the past.  I said, don't worry about the past. Dance. Stop thinking. Stop talking. Dance with me. Take my hand. Join me. You know this dance. You've always known this dance. Now, rock it!

Don't you dare look back. Just keep your eyes on me. Shut up and dance with me.

I'm working the parallel plot lines and things are happening. I have 25,000 words, which in NaNo Land would be halfway but since I'm aiming for a real length with the sequel it's not even close. But! It's words on the page. Words on the page is the hardest battle.
Yesterday I read a blog post by a writer who keeps track of every single word he writes in a spreadsheet. He's written a million words this year. How motivating! I love word counts but I hadn't thought of having a running word count that included every project. I need that. I'm starting that today.
 And with minimal effort I've already written 114 words today! Bam! 115!

The plan is not working. I got stuck with Beatrice. Things were happening too quickly. I needed more tension, more material. And Aster, a character I thought would show up in book 3 was bright in my mind, like sunshine blinding me.

I thought,
Maybe it's not two more books. Maybe it's just one. Maybe Aster is in this one.

So I started writing parallel plots with Beatrice and Aster. But things still happened too fast. The path feels too straight. I need to make a list of the top ten worst things that can happen to these characters and then do that. Maybe.

I thought,
I know what I need! More parallel plot lines.

So I added Peter, who is a Jasper Industries drone. But he's boring and, once again, things happened too quickly. I need a little teeny bit of establishing stakes and story conflict setup. And yet, I try so hard to start at the beginning. It's a balancing act.

I thought,
I know! I need to fill out a Basic Beat Sheet. That will focus me.

So I tried to do that but I realized with three parallel plot lines I essentially needed to fill out the worksheet three times. Then I mentally cried for a while.

I'm still not entirely sure where this is going. And even my super rough pantser outline is falling apart. Characters that I thought would become a couple aren't very compatible. And my new NaNoWriMo idea keeps butting in.

I'm a little lost. Usually it's easier than this to find my way out. This time, I can't even seem to find my way in.

Okay, so I didn't really mean to start writing the Baker's sequel. It just happened.

I'm still working on Miraculous Conception. I did mean to take a little break from Miraculous. I need a little space from the manuscript so I can see it with new eyes before I get into rewrites. I also need a little space from it so that I haven't memorized and fallen in love with every word on the page so I can hear what my betas have to say without dying inside. 

I meant to take a break on this book but I didn't mean to write another one. But, like they do, the words just showed up. And I just wrote them down. I thought, "Okay, I have the opening scene. But that's all I'm going to write." And then more words showed up and I wrote those down, too. Now I just can't stop.

I thought I might save the sequel for NaNoWriMo but I've completely lost my mind and instead I'm thinking that I'll write a first draft of book 2 during these two months I gave the betas to work on Miraculous. And then for NaNoWriMo I can hammer out book 3.

Is this the worst idea I've ever had or 
THE BEST IDEA IN THE HISTORY OF IDEAS!?!?!

Part of my mania is fueled by the fact that for the 3 days The Baker's Memory was free on Kindle there were 834 downloads. Normally the scale of my royalty reports is one to five. It took me a moment to realize that the scale was in hundreds. Hundreds.

834 downloads in 3 days. 

That's a lot of new readers. A lot of new readers who need a sequel.

Pretty much the moment the first person finished reading The Baker's Memory they asked me if there would be a sequel. I said, "Well, I think I shut the door on that one." Or I'd tell people that I always imagined it as a stand alone book. Or, if you were really lucky I went into a rant about how I hate series. If you read one book, you're really committing to reading 7 books. I really hate series that you read while they're being written because you have to wait. Sometimes the time between books is excruciating and sometimes you're not even interested in them anymore but you're committed because you read one so you keep reading them. And, if the series is long enough, you end up with those bridge books that just set up the next book and you feel cheated.

But then Husband finished the book and said, "You have to write a sequel."

I said, "No. I shut the door on that option. Plus, I hate series."

He said, "You have to write a sequel and here's how you can do it."

Interestingly, he had a different interpretation of some key events as well as a different timeline in his head. And you know what? In his interpretation and with his timeline a sequel is completely possible.

So I said, "Fine, but it's still not a series. It'll just be two books."

I started working on a story about Beatrice, the woman from the epilogue. But the more I thought about Bea, the more it became clear to me that there had to be at least three books. There was too much for just two books. I was already seeing things beyond Bea. In fact, I was already thinking about Elle in book three who is covered in botanical tattoos and then I spent way too long on Pinterest looking at black and white botanical tattoos, which totally counts as writing.

What I'm trying to say is this:

There will be at least two more books in the Baker's series. 

 My across the street neighbor moved away a few days ago. We spent tons of time together and her whole family will be greatly missed. Little Guy has already announced that he's going to move into their new purple house with them. (The house isn't really purple.)

Before she left, my friend left me this. Yes, that's a 6-pack of yellow legal pads. My favorite. Seriously. I love yellow legal pads in a way that you probably shouldn't love office supplies. She knew about my passion.

Even bigger than the yellow legal pads themselves was the note she wrote.

 Emily, 
Please don't ever stop writing! I hope these legal pads will come in handy. (So you can forgo the napkins!) We will miss you a great deal. 
Love, Steph & family 
"

Seeking beta readers for a science fiction novel with religious themes. There might be magical monks and theology libraries.

What is a beta reader?
A beta reader is someone brave enough and kind enough to read a still crappy first draft and willing to give constructive, un-soul-crushing feedback.

Examples:
What's working? What isn't? Does the plot make any sense at all? Where do I need more description? Does the male protagonist sound like a man? Do the two voices sound different enough? Where are the plot holes? Are their problems with continuity? How bad is the theology? Call me out if it's the exact same story arc as The Baker's Memory
Requirements:
Applicants must like me as a person and not seek to crush my soul Must be proficient with Word and be able to write specific comments Must be able to complete assignment within 2 monthsEspecially seeking beta readers who identify as male for help with the male character who still "sounds like a girl" according to one male beta reader
Compensation:
Baked goods. Lots of baked goods My undying loveCredit in the acknowledgements Reciprocation for any writing, editing work etc.