Annie Jones (0:01)

Your message amplified. Ready to share your message with the world? Start your podcast journey with Podbean. Podbean Podbean Podbean Podbean the AI powered all in one podcast platform. Thousands of businesses and enterprises trust Podbean to launch their podcasts. Launch your podcast on podbean today. My school uses Podbean. My church too. I love it. I really do. Welcome to from the Front Porch, a conversational podcast about books, small business, and life in the South. When you write a novel, you are alone in it. But when writing, there is always for me a hope that I will not be alone. Not in this work and not in this world. John Green Everything is Tuberculosis I'm Annie Jones, owner of the Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in beautiful downtown Thomasville, Georgia, and today, in celebration of the publication of my debut book, Ordinary Time, I'm answering your questions about the writing and publishing process. Ordinary Time is officially out in the world this week. I've got a few tour dates still on the books. If you're in the south and want to meet together in person. If you're listening to this on the day it drops tonight, April 24th at Midtown Reader in Tallahassee, Florida, I will be in conversation with my friend and fellow bookstore owner Sally Bradshaw. On Monday, April 28th, I will be in Birmingham, Alabama at Little professor with my friend and small business expert Carrie Rollwagen. On April 29, that's a Tuesday, I will be at Garden District Bookshop in New Orleans and then on May 5th at M. Judson in Greenville, South Carolina. I will be doing a reading from my book and I believe they will be serving cocktails and mocktails so everybody gets super excited. I am. Now if you cannot join me in person at one of these events, please do not forget that on Thursday, May 8th at 7pm Eastern, I'll be hosting a virtual event on Zoom with my dear friend Hunter McClendon. Tickets are $10 and can be purchased through the Bookshelf. There's a link in the show notes. I wanted a way to honor all of the long distance friends and customers who I won't be able to see this spring. And conversing with Hunter and having him interview me about the book felt like a really fun way to do that. So this event will be recorded. If you can't watch live, you can always watch later. And all of the event details, including event details about the Zoom event are available@anniebjoneswrites.com There are links to all of those in the show notes. I cannot wait to see you and celebrate this milestone with you. You helped make it possible. Now back to the show. What do you do as a bookstore owner and podcast host when it's time to release your book into the world? Well, I don't know. I feel like for the past several months I have just been figuring it all out, muddling through one day at a time. But it did feel silly to keep recording from the Front porch episodes as if nothing big or unusual was happening, when big and unusual things are definitely happening at bookshelf. So I appreciate you indulging me last week as I shared about my audiobook recording experience. This week I'm answering your questions about the writing and publishing process. I think it fits to make this episode a little bit more interactive with you, the listener. Since I've also been a guest this week on multiple podcasts talking about Ordinary Time itself, you'll probably get sick of hearing me talk about the art of staying put over the next couple of weeks. So although I'll talk a little bit about the book's content here, this week I'm mostly focusing on the writing, editing, and publishing processes and how I went from a girl with a Google Doc to an author with a book on the shelves of hopefully a bookstore or library near you. All right, let's dive right in because there are quite a few questions we're going to start with Writing writing questions, maybe writing an initial publication questions. How much did you have written when you sought to have this book published? Or was this just an idea? How long had you been writing with the idea of a book rather than just journaling or writing a newsletter? And did you know the theme to your book before you started writing? Okay, so a few weeks ago, I was in Chattanooga at my brother's school, Shout out to Boyd Buchanan and their fantastic team. I had such a great time talking to their students about the Bookshelf from the Front Porch and Ordinary Time. And this was one of the things we talked a lot about because I think so much of traditional publishing is shrouded in mystery. And that feels so unnecessary. It feels so unnecessary for it to be so hidden. So here's how that process, here's what that looked like for me. And the first way I want to explain it is how I explained it to the students in Chattanooga, which is there is a difference between writing and publishing a fiction work and writing and publishing a nonfiction work. I truly did not know this, and so maybe you do, and if so, you are steps ahead of me. I honestly had no clue. And it wasn't until I started talking this idea over with my business coach, which my business and creative coach is actually Emily P. Freeman. She wrote the foreword to the book. She is an author and podcaster. She is beloved by many, and she happens to be my creative and business coach. So we had been talking for years, honestly, about writing a book. Writing a book is not a new dream of mine. We'll talk a little bit more about that, perhaps even later. But I did have somebody ask me in this process if this was just like part and parcel of owning a bookstore and hosting a podcast. And for me, that answer is no. I have wanted to be a writer since before I knew what a bookstore owner was. I have the journals and the short stories to prove it. But it was. It wasn't until I started meeting with Emily Freeman that I thought, okay, maybe I can utilize the skills and the yes platform that I have been creating at the bookshelf to ultimately turn me toward this bigger dream of becoming an author. A published. A traditionally published author. So in the fiction writing process, you write your book and then you pitch it to publishers through query letters and things like that. Hunter, who I have already mentioned on the show, Hunter, is constantly in the process of doing that because he writes a lot of fiction that one day I hope we all get to have in our hands. And so he's a good example. He's a friend of mine who happens to be working on the fiction side of things. So his process looks a little different. He is expected to have an entire book that he queries and that he asks agents to represent, that he reaches out to publishers about. If you are writing a nonfiction book, and this is, by the way, general, I am sure there are exceptions to all of these. These are not rules. These are just, this is my personal experience and what I learned through the process. My understanding is that in nonfiction writing, you write a book proposal. You do not submit an entire book to an agent or a publisher. What you are selling them is an idea. And so I began working on a book proposal during Lent of 2023. I again have been writing forever, but I finally decided with the push, with a push from Emily, to see if I could scrabble together a book proposal. And I think one of the helpful things about this process and why it was a great Lenten practice was I started writing every day and I started to figure out if there were themes in my work. I had an idea for a book, a book of essays. It's still an idea I really like. So I'm not Going to talk about it here, but I had an idea I really liked, and that was kind of what the proposal revolved around, was this original idea I had. And over the course of 40ish days, I wrote that book proposal. Because the truth about me is if you tell me to do something and I think it makes sense, I will do it. And I utilized templates from the Internet to write a proposal. And then it just kind of sat there because this is what happens to me often. I'm going to use the example of exercise. Several years ago now, I decided I wanted to run a 5K. Do you remember color runs? You remember when those were a thing? I wanted to run one of those. And so I did couch to 5k, and I ran that 5k. And I've never run a 5k sense or anything since. Once I do it, I'm done. And so I wrote this book proposal and then I just kind of sat with it. And Emily kept gently pushing me to look up agents, because that's the next part of the process, is you pitch your proposal, you take your proposal to different agents. And I was really overwhelmed by that. I was really overwhelmed by the idea of a stranger, like, reaching out to a stranger and cold call, essentially cold calling or cold emailing. And so I just sat on this proposal and I will put a link in the show notes because a few months ago, maybe even a year ago now, I did a podcast episode with Jonathan Merritt. Jonathan is my agent, and we talk a little bit about book, and we also talk a little bit about the publishing process. But how I found Jonathan is, I will be honest, probably how most people find their agents, which is, I knew someone who knew someone, and I want to be really open about that because I think cold calling is really hard. And sending your book out into the world or your book proposal out into the world without a connection of any kind, I think it's hard to get a book published that way. But I happen to be at a family function with Jordan's side of the family. Jordan's aunt is a podcaster, and she has a really large, loyal Instagram following. Her name is Jamie, and you might know her as family savvy. And so she and I were discussing something, I don't remember what, at a family function, and she casually mentioned Jonathan Merritt. I have followed Jonathan online for years, and she talked about the possibility of. Of book publishing and how she had just done an interview with him on her podcast. And I am terrible. Oh, my gosh, I am terrible at schmoozing at making connections. Like, I would rather connect you to somebody than ask for a connection myself. But here's what I will say. I felt a nudge and Jamie is approachable and kind. She's known each other forever. And so I was like, well, actually I wrote a book proposal this year and I will never forget. Jamie's one of the first people I mentioned in the acknowledgments of the book because Jamie, without hesitation, and I think in book publishing, people can get really tight fisted. But Jamie immediately said, oh my gosh, well, let me connect you. And truly, two days later, she had put me on an email with Jonathan and Jonathan and I think we talked about this on his podcast episode, which again, I'll link in the show notes. Jonathan, Jonathan did not know who I was and I think honestly was just kind. I think by his own admission was a little bit like, sure, fine, let me meet with this girl. Let me meet with this random girl. Let me do this woman a favor. And he met with me in, I believe it was July or August of 2023. He looked at my proposal, made some really helpful tweaks to the proposal, narrowed my focus quite a bit, and told me, if you make these changes and you're interested, I'll represent you. And it felt like an opportunity I couldn't pass up and a gift I didn't deserve. And so I worked my butt off and fixed the proposal, taking his recommendations, making his tweaks. And in September, I believe this is correct, In September of 2023, we signed a contract together. In October, he began pitching the book to publishers. In November, there were five publishers who were interested in bidding and they bid on the book. And on Jordan's birthday, November 29, 2023, I had a book deal with Harper One. So to me, even telling it to you now, it feels a little bit unbelievable and very fast. And I mean, it's not surprising. If you're surprised, I'm surprised. If you're surprised, I'd be surprised. But I am a person of faith. And so I figured if this book was not supposed to make its way into the world, doors would close. And I fully expected doors to close. And instead doors kept opening and it felt like lightning in a bottle. I like, I don't know that it would ever happen this way again. But by November of 2020, oh my gosh, did I do that math? Yeah, I did that math, right. By November of 2023, I had a book deal. And so I am so grateful for all of the people I hope you heard, I hope you heard, all the people who made this possible. Because it wasn't just me. It was doors opening thanks to connections, friendships, relationships, all of which are made possible, yes, by my family, you know, Jordan's family, but also because of the bookshelf, because of from the Front porch. I mean, this book. This is part of the reason I wanted to have the book launch at the Bookshelf, even though I knew we would sell out so quickly. The book is only possible because of my work at the Bookshelf and because of what we've built together at the Bookshelf. So, anyway, I had in the book proposal two sample chapters plus an introduction. That's what was included in my book proposal. That's what was written in its entirety. And I am here to tell you, and I don't know if this is typical, but the introduction you read is pretty daggum similar to what I wrote in the Proposal, the proposal, once. Once I tweaked it after talking to Jonathan. So that introduction did not change a ton from September 2023 till now when it was published. And I had other essays in the works because of my newsletter, because of blogging for years, because of journaling for years. But I had. During the proposal process, I had written those three chapters, and then I had sketched out an outline of the other chapters in the book. And those also mostly stayed the same, which I think is interesting, and I do not know if that is typical, but it was true for me. And then I just. I'll address that last question. I think I answered all of them. But did you know the theme to your book before you started writing? That theme was cemented by Jonathan. So that theme was in the original proposal, but he is who drew it out. As readers, we typically give a lot of credit to editors, and we're going to talk about the editing process in a second. But. But I discovered what a giant role the agent plays in really being the midwife to a book. Because this theme, this idea of staying was all through my writing and through the original proposal. But it was Jonathan's brain and his genius that, like, looked at the proposal immediately. He said, that's your hook. And the words just came pouring out after that. Okay, did you pitch this book or did an editor reach out? What was the process like? I think I've discussed that process. I pitched this book. No one reached out to me. I think if I had been waiting on that, I would have waited forever. The truth is, even though platform. Well, because platform. And I'm Using air quotes, brand are so important now, particularly in the nonfiction space. Certainly the Bookshelf and From the Front Porch and even, yes, I shuddered to say, but even Annie B. Jones, they have a loyal. We have a loyal following, but it is minuscule compared to larger writers, celebrities, podcasters. And so I don't know that an editor or agent, in this case, I don't think an agent. I think I would have been waiting a really long time is what I'll say. So I pitched this book with the help of discovering an agent and with the help of establishing connections and relationships. When did you actually begin writing the book? So I began writing the book in earnest during Lent 2023, because that's when the proposal process started. After the book was sold In November of 2023, I immediately began writing, but I, at that point probably already had three to five chapters written or at least drafted. That's what I'll say, drafted. So I probably had five of 25. I had a fifth of it written prior to November, December 2023. And then I wrote December 2023. January, February, March of 2024. I believe I submitted. Yes, I submitted a first complete draft of the whole thing. April of 2024. Again, I do think that was fast. If I were to do it again, I do not know if it would happen that quickly, but that is how it happened this time. And I think that is partially because. And I said this on the audiobook episode, but Jordan said it was like watching somebody turn on a faucet, and it was like somebody had finally given me permission to do this thing. And so the words just came pouring out again. I don't know if that would be possible again. But it did feel. There's a way in which it felt really fast. How much time did you devote to writing and how did you balance it with everything else? What was the hardest part of establishing a writing routine while running a business? Did you have a strict writing schedule or write in fits and bursts of time? Okay, so those are three separate questions, but I combine them together because they're essentially asking the same thing. Which is? Which is, how did you run a store and a podcast and write a book? The answer is with a ton of help. And what I mean by that is, I have operated the bookshelf for 12 years this year, and in that time I have worked diligently to try to delegate and make room and be able to live a life outside the bookshelf. I could not have written a book 10 years ago. No way. No way. But now we have a team of people who are incredibly good and gifted at their jobs, and they gave me the gift of time. So I had already started to establish some work rhythms that made writing possible. I had already tried to start recording the podcast from home, doing some work from home. And this is something I've been working on since 2020, kind of giving myself a little bit of space for from the bookstore. And when this project looked like it was going to actually happen, I sat down with Olivia. I already had Mondays off from the store. Wednesdays were a podcast day. And I told which I do from home. And I asked her, told her, I said, I'm writing a book. I need Monday, Wednesdays, Fridays to write. And once a month, Wednesdays were a podcast day. But any other, any other week, it was a writing day. So three days a week I wrote from home. And then Tuesdays, Thursdays and some Saturdays, I worked the store. Whether that meant the floor of the store or mostly what it meant was bill pay and things upstairs. That is how I wrote. Now, I love learning how other people write and fit in their writing time. I know I've referenced Jeff Zentner. He's just the most recent author I've spoken with. But when he was here for reader retreat, we all found out he is a practicing attorney, like still, like still practicing attorney. And there was a time in which he wrote and maybe even still writes books on his phone, like with his thumb, like in the Notes app. And that was so refreshing to hear because I think we get this idea of like sitting down at 5am in your quiet office, lighting a candle and getting to work. Now, did I write a candle? You bet I did. I did not get up at 5am I'll tell you that right now. I did not get up at 5am for me, what worked was having designated writing days. I also, some of the best advice I got, I think it might have been from Emily, but it could have been from somebody else, was that writing is more than just sitting down and writing. It meant going on walks. It meant talking to a friend. Like, the creativity has to come from somewhere. And so on days where the words weren't flowing, it was important to do something that would get them flowing again. For me, that was going for a walk or going for a drive and not thinking that that was wasted time, which was probably counterintuitive to some of my personality and really helpful, actually. So the Bookshelf staff made this book possible and having a relatively strict, or I'll say boundaried, I'll Use boundaried instead of strict. Having a boundaried writing schedule was crucial because I was juggling slash am juggling a lot of things, and I wanted to make sure I made time for this. This was important. Once I signed that contract, it felt even more important. And so making a schedule and sticking to it felt imperative. Somebody asked, can you talk about your writing timeline? How much time to write each chapter? Was it hard getting in the writing flow? It was not hard getting in the writing flow. I think I'd been waiting a long time for this. I didn't know it, but Jordan was right. I think there was a part of me that was just waiting for permission. I was waiting for somebody to tell me I could do it. And once I was told I could do it, I did it. So it was not hard to get in the writing flow. Maybe the occasional day, like I said, I had to go for a walk or clear my head. But once I got some words out on paper, I love the editing part. I think that's my former newspaper editor journalistic brain. And so it felt like if it wasn't a good day for writing, like if it wasn't a good idea for creative thinking, it was a good day for critiquing. So if it wasn't a day in which the words were flowing, I already had some words to work with and I could tinker with those instead. How much time to write each chapter? I really don't know. Some chapters came so easily. Boot Scootin Boogie, which is one of my favorite chapters. I had already written some of that for the newsletter, for my newsletter. And so that was something I already had intact and I just had to kind of tweak. There's a chapter about my childhood friend Morgan. That chapter took a lot of work. I couldn't get it right, and I think I finally got it. So some chapters flowed really naturally and really easily, and then some less so. So I don't know how much time it took to write each chapter. I really don't. But I do hope I've given you an idea of how long the whole book took and then you can do maybe the math from there. Did you write exclusively on a laptop or some on paper? Did you have a go to writing snack? I did not have a go to writing snack, although I will thank Duncan for their refreshers. I did go through a lot of those. I wrote exclusively on my laptop. And then occasionally I do have notes on my phone where, like, I would be driving or I'd be riding in the car with Jordan. And I would all of a sudden think, oh, a sentence. And then I would put the sentence in the notes app and add it to the Google Doc later. You know, I think childhood me would have thought I would have written some of this on a legal pad or something like that. But no, I wrote this entirely in Google Docs and occasionally a sentence or two or maybe a paragraph on my phone. How do you fight imposter syndrome and how do you create a writing habit? I'll answer the writing habit question first. I think I've been writing not. I think I have been writing my whole life. That is absolutely true. That is not an exaggeration. I've been going through a bunch of stuff in my house to make room for a nursery. And I mean, I have found so many. I mean, I honestly can't believe it. So many stories, poems, little books. I mean, I have been writing since I honestly, since before I knew how, because I did find a. I did find a couple of stories that like I clearly had dictated to my aunt and they're in her writing. So I've been writing since before I could even write myself. So I think creating a writing habit is just something I do naturally because it's how I process the world. And I know you've heard people say that before. It's an oft quoted. I have quoted it often, a Flannery O'Connor quote about writing. So we know what we think. That is true of me and that has always been true of me. I would write, I would keep writing whether I was published or not. I will say blogging starting in 2008. I think writing a newsletter, both of those things were helpful in consistency. They're still helpful. I struggle with consistency a little bit because of all the other things I've got going on. But having a place where I know, oh, like almost like forcing myself to have a deadline, I think has also helped me establish a writing habit. I don't know that everybody needs a newsletter sometimes. I don't even know that I need one. I don't know that everybody needs a newsletter or a blog. But there was something about the accountability of other people reading my work that did help me maybe establish a writing habit outside of a journaling habit. How do you fight imposter syndrome? You ignore it. I mean, it's there always. It's there now that the book's out in the world. I read a lot of books. I know what a five star book reads like. I know what a Pulitzer Prize winning novel is. I Know what a Kirkus starred review is? There are parts of my book that I'm really proud of, and I don't have imposter syndrome about at all. And then there are other things that I'm like, oh, I have such a long way to go. But I think, and I don't know where I said this before, maybe I said it on somebody's podcast that you've already. That you've already listened to or heard, but you've got to start somewhere. I think it was actually on Meg Cranshaw's podcast, Meg's Reading Room. I think knowing you've got to start somewhere and we're all a little impostery. Like there's some of that. God, I mean, is it wrong to say some of imposter syndrome is true? Like, I am not the best writer. I want to be such a good writer. And I'm going to keep practicing and I'm going to keep writing whether I publish again or not. So maybe let the imposter syndrome fuel you a little bit. Because acknowledging, oh, yeah, there is room for improvement here. There is. I'm not where I want to be yet. I'm not where I want to be yet. And like, maybe acknowledging that instead of thinking of it as a bad feeling would be helpful. Maybe just acknowledging, yeah, yeah, I'm a little bit of an imposter. So what? I'm a little bit just faking it till I make it. So what? So maybe, maybe that's part of it. And then just turning the volume down. Turning the volume down as best you can. I write about it in the book itself, but listening to the voices who matter. Yeah, I think that's how I would fight imposter syndrome. That's how I do fight imposter syndrome. I don't think it goes away. I don't think it goes away. Okay. Somebody asked a question which I think I would have asked, which is, I wonder about the editing process. Sometimes I read a book wondering where was the editor? Other books, the editing was so well done. I don't even think about an editor while reading. All right, I don't know. I'm going to talk about, obviously my personal experience, but also non fiction. I don't know about fiction. I really don't. The only example I have in my head is reading To Kill a Mockingbird and then, you know, a decade or so later reading Go Set a Watchman and realizing the role an editor played in that work. I will say that probably what we as readers should be doing, and I Have found my. You know, I've said this on the podcast before. Where's the editor? I feel like Hunter and I talk about it all the time. Where was the editor? I think sometimes the question should probably be where was the writer? I still think, I mean, I turned in my first draft in April. I did lose my editor, my original editor, and that happens in publishing all the time. She went to a different company publishing company. And so I got a new editor and she edited my book over the summer. We went over it together via a really helpful phone call. Maybe, maybe it was a zoom call actually. And that was a highlight for me. I was just on cloud nine because I'm not an mfa. I didn't go to the Iowa's, you know, the Iowa Writing Workshop. You know, I've got none of that. And so to have an editor sit with me and talk me through my work was so beneficial. At the same time, they do less than you think, at least in my very limited personal experience with nonfiction. And so maybe sometimes when we read a book and wonder, where was the editor? The question maybe should be, where was the writer? I think an editor should ideally make your work better. I also think publishing is like any other industry. I think about even my own experience running the bookstore. There are seasons in which we are incredibly short staffed. And one thing I learned about publishing is I am not the only author. I am not the only client. And so when it comes to marketing, publicity, and yes, even I think editing, they are editing a lot of people's work. I can't remember. I think I even asked my editor at one point, I was like, how many things are you working on? And I wish I could remember the number, but it was a large number and it was a good reminder that, okay, like this is not just up to her. I gotta, I gotta step up my game because she's busy. And the same is true of publicity and marketing. So I think this is a great question and I think it probably differs from project to project and genre to genre, but. But I do wonder if we as readers and really I. Cause I have had this question a lot. If I as a reader have been hard on an editor when really an editor is dabbling in or dealing with or holding so many projects at once and the writer is probably only working on this one. And so maybe yes, an editor should perhaps be heavily involved, but maybe they're involved less than they once were because of sheer volume. I don't know. That's my personal experience. Anyway, somebody said how many drafts I Have. Oh, my gosh. I should have looked. I have a whole bag. It's over in the corner. I have a whole bag of all my drafts. Because what I would do is I would finish a draft, and then I'd have it printed at Kinko's, and then I would go in and edit it, because I did not like editing electronically. I wanted to edit on paper. So I guess. I guess I did do some of my writing kind of sort of on paper. I did the editing on paper. I'm gonna say between three to five drafts are probably sitting in that corner over there, because I edited myself a lot. And then the editor probably did. I think the editor did two different drafts. So, yeah, probably three to five, maybe five drafts. But some of those chapters really did stay the same from concept to publication. And then some of them got reworked multiple times. Did or how did you consult with friends or family that were in the book? This is a good question, because journalism brain tells you, no, no, you don't consult. People don't get. People don't get to approve what you write. But when it came to some of my essays on my church experience, that was a chapter that I sent to my family, my parents, my cousin, my aunt and uncle, and then my dearest couple of friends, because I knew they had experienced similar things and. Or they had watched me experience it. And I wanted to know if it was truthful. I wanted to know if I was telling the story in the way it needed to be told, in truth and also in gentleness. So there were a couple of faith chapters that I wanted other people's expertise on because they lived it with me or they saw me living it. I asked to use some people's names, and then I was talking to my editor, and she was like, you don't need to do that. So I stopped doing that. But I thought, you know, whenever I've read books, I just assume those names aren't real. The names in my book are real. The names in my book are real right down to. There's one of my favorite chapters is a chapter I write about my brother, and I reference his best friend from childhood, Russ. And I was like, can you ask Russ if I can use his name? And it was just important to me to use his actual name, especially once I realized I didn't really need permissions for that. I guess I just assumed people were changing their names. I do think it was interesting because I have a deeply important person in my life who I referenced in the book multiple times, but her name is Similar to a name I had already used in the book, which in my real life, I just have, like five friends with the same sounding name. And the editor told me not to use her name. It was too confusing. So I thought that was interesting. So, yeah, I, thanks to the editor's help, learned when and when not to ask for permissions about names. And then when it came to certain essays and stories. Okay. For example, of course, there are two personal chapters about my marriage and about life without kids. To me, it was very important that Jordan have input in those chapters because, again, parts of those stories are his. And I did not want to share anything he would have been uncomfortable with me sharing. And he really was quite open and quite willing to be open. So anytime I felt like I wanted to make sure I was telling the truth, I would consult with friends or family, occasionally sending them a chapter. But I really do think that Faith chapter and then the Marriage and Children chapter, those were the only ones I really did that with. I did ask my friends if I could use their names in the Lion Dancing, the Boot, Scootin Boogie chapter. Pretty sure I asked them. Pretty sure I asked them if I could use their names. Why this title? Great question. The title has been the same the whole time. Like from that very first book proposal I wrote during Lent, it was always Ordinary Time. It will be interesting to see if other people like that title. I've heard people make it plural. I've heard a lot of people call it Ordinary Times. It is Ordinary Time. It is based on the concept of the liturgical calendar and the large. The huge bit of time on the liturgical calendar that is just ordinary. It's not Advent, it's not Lent, it's not Christmas, it's not Easter. It's just ordinary. And I loved that idea because most of our lives are just ordinary. Most of our time is just ordinary. So that is where the title comes from. I do remember getting almost, like, almost having completed the book, maybe even finishing the first draft. And then I went to the editor, and I was like, I never really explain why I called the book Ordinary Time. Do you think I need to put that somewhere? And she very quickly said, no. So hopefully it's a subtle reference. And I think if you get it, you get it. And if you don't, that's okay, too, because it speaks to the quiet, ordinary life. What's one chapter or topic you thought would be in the book but isn't? Okay, so like I said, pretty much the chapters I laid out in the proposal, the proposal that was tweaked with Jonathan's help. Almost all of those chapters stayed in the book, like. And the format, this idea of, like, staying friends, staying faithful, that all stayed the same. I think there was a section that got removed because this is how long they wanted this book to be. And so I was sticking to a certain number of words and pages. I will tell you, there was a chapter. Well, I want to be careful because, I don't know, I might. I might write. I might write these later, but there was an essay about family relationships and the things we learn from family relationships that I ultimately did not include. I didn't think it fit the overall theme of the book. There was a chapter I wanted to write, and I started it, but it never could come out right. There was a chapter I wanted to write about the friendships I've made through the bookshelf. So Hunter is a good example of a friend I made through the bookshelf. But, like, the different. How the bookshelf opened me up to all these different people and worldviews and personalities, and that essay never came to fruition. The closest thing is the obituaries chapter, which is about what it's like to have these dear customers die and how we learn that and how we process that. So that chapter wound up being kind of similar in theme. So I did not continue working on the unique friendships that I've developed thanks to the bookshelf. That was an essay that would have been on theme, but it felt a little redundant with other essays I'd already written. How involved were you in the COVID And would you please tell the story of your cover? It is fabulous. Everybody wanted to know about the COVID and this is fair. I had been told that you have little to no input on the COVID I will say that I had more input than I thought I would, and I really. I can't wait. I'll probably show some of the original cover concepts on Instagram. They weren't bad. Many of them. Oh, so many of them had Sam on the front, which I thought was hilarious. There is an essay in the book about is my dog, But I couldn't believe that in this entire book, that was, like, the theme. And then, you know, I think my sweet mom said, well, surely they read the book. You know, the COVID designer reads the book. No, I think they might read a blurb about the book. I think they might read some of the COVID language. But no, I'm under no impression that an artist has read my entire book or even. Or even, honestly a part of my book before Designing the COVID And therefore, there were a lot of clocks at one point. Lots of clocks. I really wanted to use the color green because green on the liturgical calendar is the color that represents ordinary time. I also like the idea of growth and spring. We really fought for a spring release. It's part of the reason I wrote. I wrote like I was running out of time because I thought, I really want this book to be a spring book. I didn't want it to be a fall book. But anyway, so there was a point in which the COVID was very green and it didn't look right. And Jonathan had the great idea. And some other people in my life told me, you know, make the book a thumbnail because that's how people will see it on Amazon. And then make the image large printed out and put it on a shelf and see how it looks. And my family knows, my friends know. It took a lot to get to this cover design because I also was quite reluctant for it to look like the bookshelf. I just felt like, oh, you know, this isn't a book about the bookshelf. I mean, the bookshelf plays a role. And the bookshelf is the reason I think I got a book deal. I think it's one of the big reasons I got a book deal. But it felt at first like it just didn't fit with the overall concept of the story. And then the more I thought about it, the more I was like, it has to be the bookshelf. Of course it's the bookshelf. The bookshelf is the reason I'm in Thomasville. The bookshelf is one of the major reasons I stay. Of course, it's the COVID of the book. And so after some initial reluctance and pushback on my part, it became very clear that it should have been the bookshelf. It should be exactly the COVID that it is. And I love the color scheme. Love it. I love it. I think it's bright, vibrant. I love how it looks on the shelf. I think the spine is pretty. I think when you take the COVID off, the bright yellow is cheerful and fun. I love the whole thing. And I cannot believe I get to say that, because I don't know that every author is as thrilled with their book cover as I am. So that's a little bit. I'll try to share some pictures. Maybe when this episode drops, I'll try to share some pictures of what the book cover could have been. Okay. That is a little bit about the writing and publishing process. I think it's important for me to say this was my personal experience. If you're a published writer, your experience might have been quite different. This is just how it went for me. This is the road that I took and I am grateful for every door that was graciously opened for me. And as I said last week, I am extremely grateful and very aware that the Bookshelf and Thomasville and from the Front Porch and you, the long distance customer and listener, all of those things made this book possible. And I think that's one of the reasons I was so excited to celebrate this week with Bookshelf staff, with friends family. Because writing a book is not a solo process. I mean, it kind of is. I loved the solitude of writing the book, but getting the book to be in your hands took so many people. I loved that John Green quote. I thought about once again using a quote from my own book and it just felt like, well, that feels a little bit like overkill. And I was listening to everything is Tuberculosis, which is amazing. And there's this chapter called Marco Polo and the way that John Green writes about writing a book and then putting it out into the world and he says it's like him saying Marco and then a reader every so often like waving their hands and saying Polo. And I think that is the most beautiful metaphor. And so it was the perfect way to open the episode and hopefully it's a good way to end it too. This week I'm reading Heartwood by Amity Gage. From the Front Porch is a weekly podcast production of the Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in Thomasville, Georgia. You can follow the Bookshelf's daily happenings on Instagram at Bookshelf Tvill and and all the books from today's episode can be purchased online through our store website bookshelf thomasville.com a full transcript of today's podcast episode can be found at. From the frontporchpodcast.com Special thanks to Studio D Podcast Production for production of from the Front Porch and for our theme music, which sets the perfect warm and friendly tone for our Thursday conversations. Our executive producer of today's episode are Cami Tidwell, Jamie Treadwell, Linda Lee Drost, Jean Queens Martha Stephanie Dean, Beth Ashley Farrell, Amanda Wickham, Nicole Marcy Wendy Jenkins. Thank you all for your support of from the Front Porch. If you'd like to support from the Front Porch, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Your input helps, helps us make the show even better and helps us reach new listeners. All you have to do is open up the podcast app on your phone. Look for from the Front Porch, scroll down until you see. Write a review and tell us what you think. Or if you're so inclined, support us. 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