{"id":38120,"date":"2011-06-28T19:36:09","date_gmt":"2011-06-28T19:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/ive-signed-a-contract-with-a-wonderful-publisher\/"},"modified":"2011-06-28T19:36:09","modified_gmt":"2011-06-28T19:36:09","slug":"ive-signed-a-contract-with-a-wonderful-publisher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/ive-signed-a-contract-with-a-wonderful-publisher\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

I\u2019ve signed a contract with a wonderful publisher \u2014 a Penguin imprint called Avery Books \u2014 and a sharp and enthusiastic editor named Rachel Holtzman. One of the most thrilling moments of my life as a writer was walking into Penguin headquarters in Manhattan and seeing classic jackets for Jack Kerouac\u2019s novels like The Dharma Bums framed on the wall. It was reading the exhilarating, compassionate, and perennially fresh poetry and prose of Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder and their friends that made me want to grow up to be a writer in the first place. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sentimental about old media vs. new media. Nothing will ever replace the sublime feeling of sanctuary created by the printed page, but I treasure the books on my Kindle too, particularly when I\u2019m reading at 30,000 feet. What I love is words \u2014 storytelling, the flow of well-wrought sentences, the gradual unfolding of a long and thoughtful tale, the private communion with an author\u2019s mind. <\/p>\n

But now comes the hard part. It\u2019s one thing to work up a 4000-word magazine feature and another to sit down and write a 100,000-word book. I\u2019m acutely aware that I\u2019ve been granted a precious opportunity to cast light on forgotten history and provide a platform for voices that are rarely heard. At the same time, I\u2019m scared out of my wits that the two decades of journalism that have led up to this project have not prepared me to write a good book. I wake up at 3am staring into the darkness, wondering if I\u2019ll have the skills, discipline, and inner resources to pull it off. <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve chosen to deal with my anxiety by tapping into the wisdom of the hive mind. I recently sent email to the authors in my social network and asked them, \u201cWhat do you wish you\u2019d known about the process of writing a book that you didn\u2019t know before you did it?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Practical Tips on Writing a Book from 23 Brilliant Authors | NeuroTribes<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve signed a contract with a wonderful publisher \u2014 a Penguin imprint called Avery Books \u2014 and a sharp and enthusiastic editor named Rachel Holtzman. One of the most thrilling moments of my life as a writer was walking into Penguin headquarters in Manhattan and seeing classic jackets for Jack Kerouac\u2019s novels like The Dharma […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"quote","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[],"tags":[1539],"class_list":["post-38120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-quote","hentry","tag-emergent-digital-practices","post_format-post-format-quote"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6PWot-9UQ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38120\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}