Revealing the Secrets to Writing a Book

I stood in front of my classroom looking out at all the faces staring back at me, hungry for all the secrets on how to write a book, when the idea for How to Write a Novel in 20 Pies: Sweet & Savory Secrets for Surviving the Writing Life came to me. 

I get giddy when I sense the sizzle of students excited to put their ideas down on paper. I want all my students to write, edit, finish, and publish their books, but I also know that it is not an easy task. I know it takes lots of hard work, studying of the craft, and drafts, lots of drafts, but most especially it takes perseverance. Not all students have that right away. I can tell because those particular students want to rush through and finish, then become rich from their bestseller status, but often give up before they even get the first draft done. Perseverance, I figured, needed to be more fun.   

When I stood in front of the classroom and imagined this book, I wanted all these dreamers in the chairs in front of me—with those eager smiles, pens dangling over their page, ink ready to ooze out onto the paper—I wanted all of them to be just as enthusiastic from the first drop of ink to the last drops of blood and sweat they put into their creation. 

My workshops and classes are playful as well as productive. We work hard, but we laugh along the way. I figured I would use my curriculum as the structure for the book, but also tell my own story along the way. I’d make fun of my own foibles. My experience of writing a novel, getting an agent, then an editor, and a great book deal with Penguin, then receiving bestseller status—all of this was full of exhilaration, disappointments, thrills, and heartbreak, all wrapped up in rose-colored cellophane that was the consistent belief in my dream to be a published novelist.  

As I wrote the first draft of How to Write a Novel in 20 Pies, I began folding both my curriculum and my own personal story into the narrative. I realized immediately this would not be a book on how to write per se, but a book on how to finish. The first night of class we always start by listing the barriers and hindrances to writing. The students go around the room and discuss what is their stumbling block to getting their pen to stay on the page, and I scribble these on the white board. Then we discuss the bumps of interruptions and mountains of responsibilities, and ways to trek over them to get to, and stay at their desk. While I ask everyone to come up with a different hurdle than one already listed, they almost always can relate to the entire obstacle course listed on the board. 

For me, my biggest impediment was how to keep going after all the leaping and bounding and climbing only to see more uphill slogging ahead. How could I make it to the other side, and then to the other side of that, without finally giving up? I mean, once one draft was done, inevitably changes would be necessary, and the domino-effect meant more changes from there. Then, once I queried agents, how would I ever make it through the wait to find an editor, and then through their hierarchy to get a contract, and then, ugh, waiting until pub day?

Pie! That’s how. 

While working on my first novel, when I felt my proverbial tunnel’s light had burned out, I would bake a pie. At first pie was just to fill that comfort food craving, and it worked as a salve for my gloom that I would never, ever type THE END. But, I soon realized pie also satiated my desire to have a creative project finished in a shorter amount of time than a novel. Plus, I could eat it when it came out of the oven. Then, with my tummy full, my refreshed right brain was reinvigorated to set out on the creative trek again. 

My quest with divulging the Sweet & Savory Secrets for Surviving the Writing Life is to motivate and fortify every writer and dreamer so they never stop believing while enjoying the teetertotter journey all the way to pub day. The four-color illustrations on every page will make the reader laugh, and the personal stories provide community, and if that still doesn’t work, there’s always pie. 

—

Amy Wallen, MFA is the author of the Los Angeles Times bestselling novel Moon Pies and Movie Stars and the memoir When We Were Ghouls: A Memoir of Ghost Stories. Her latest book How to Write a Novel in 20 Pies: Sweet and Savory Secrets of the Writing Life will be released October 2022. She facilitates and co-teaches (with past Los Angeles Times book critic David Ulin) a manuscript workshop in San Diego (at which she serves pie). She has taught creative writing at UCSD and UCLA Extension and other venues. She is also the creator of Savory Salons, literary salons with pie—a day of discourse with successful authors on the writing life. She’s also the founder of DimeStories—Three-minute stories told by the author, and featured on NPR. Currently, she is working on two novels, and she started NaNoPieMo after NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), which encourages writers to get started on their books. In her twenty years at the New York State Summer Writers Institute she served as associate director, student advocate, and novel writing mentor.

HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL IN 20 PIES

Providing comfort food and inspiration for the aspiring novelist, How To Write a Novel in 20 Pies offers novelist and writing coach Amy Wallen’s insider secrets on living the writing life. Filled with chapters about writing, revising, submitting to an agent, and book promotion, this book combines Wallen’s experienced writing advice with the brilliant illustrations of Emil Wilson, including recipes for literary success and the full recipes for 20 sweet and savory pies.

As a novelist, memoirist, and associate director of the New York State Summer Writers Institute, Amy Wallen has a few things to say about the writing world, many of them irreverent and snarky. From her perspective as a teacher, mentor, and published author, her belief is that the way to survive the hard knocks of writing a book and trying to get published is to bust a gut working, laughing, and eating pie.

With chapters including “Oh Agent, Where Art Thou?”, “Revising, Rewriting, and Reimagining,” and “The Joy of Rejection,” Wallen balances out the challenging stages of the writing process with both sweet and savory goodness, featuring recipes for chocolate pecan pie, salmon and portobello pie, and the recipe for the best cherry pie ever.

Throughout the book, Wallen demystifies the vagaries of the publishing business, providing delicious recipes that will keep your belly full even when you’re staring at an empty page. Her writing advice is neatly paired with the brilliant illustrations of Emil Wilson, who shares her sharp wit, sardonic look at the demands of the writing life, and her mad love of pie. Combined, the stories, lessons, images, and recipes will provide encouragement and camaraderie for the novel-writing journey, from putting pen to page, to finding an agent, to celebrating publication—all with a piece of pie.

BUY HERE

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: Contemporary Women Writers, How To and Tips