About the Story
The Miracle in July is a genre-bending love story that is published weekly, on Monday mornings. It is a memoir, a review of my past. But it is also a study in destiny manifestation, because in this story I am writing my future.
This web site is an online draft of what will eventually be the manuscript for my first book. This draft manuscript will be published online over time. It's three Acts, bookended by a [Prologue] and Epilogue, an old-fashioned story format published in an experimental, guerrilla way.
The Miracle in July explores what it means to follow your bliss. Here are some Frequently Asked Questions:
What process is used to write The Miracle in July?
I write everything in Google Docs. This includes lists of things I have to do, links to media and research, song lyrics, and the segments themselves. Having all my documents in one place and accessible anywhere there's an Internet connection has proven invaluable because I have to squeeze in work whenever and wherever I can.
When I sit down to write a segment, I start with a short synopsis of what should happen. With it is a list of music in my collection that I've chosen specifically for that segment of The Miracle in July. I listen to this music while I write the segment. (Read more about the use of music in this publishing experiment on the [About the Music] page.)
I find the most perfect images by doing [Creative Commons searches]. Music videos for songs featured, and footage of places mentioned in the story, are hosted on YouTube. Google makes the maps. The music comes from everywhere. I use a free multimedia tool called [Apture] to embed the images, music, videos and links to web sites to words in the story.
But, no matter where it comes from, media is only there to enrich the storyline. This experiment ends with the story becoming a tangible book. The story must stand on its own when the online draft is finished and the words are stripped of their multimedia interactivity.
Are the characters real?
The Miracle in July is based on a true story, my true story. And while the entire story is already known (to me and few select others) it is a group effort and an organic, living manuscript. The fictional parts in the story are there to serve as storytelling device, or out of respect for the feelings of people in my life who play a part. All of the characters in this piece are real people, or based on real people. Ruthie is a real person. There is a real Jake, Becca and a Lily, and they are some of my most ardent supporters. In fact, they have chosen their fictional name for the story. And, yes, there is a Daniel, who lives in Denmark.
The only real name in this piece is my own.
There are those who insist I choose a genre for The Miracle in July. Is it fiction or non-fiction? Is it a memoir or a semi-autobiography? I prefer to call this project "an experimental genre-bending study in destiny manifestation." If I write it, will it happen? Do I have what it takes to follow my bliss? There's only one way to find out, and that is the core of The Miracle in July.
When and how did you decide to work on this project?
Before my relationship with the Danish man I rarely wrote anything, and I never read for pleasure. As a child I read constantly and I wrote a lot in high school, but in my adult years I just didn't have time. I lost my desire to read or write stories. But then I met my Danish lover, a really great writer and talented actor, who encouraged me to again feel the thrill of stringing the perfect words together. When our relationship ended I found I still wanted to keep typing, but I had no one to write for anymore.
My best friend (Becca in the story) was working on her Master's thesis at the time, and so we began to meet for a few hours every week to write. We still do it. I would track her progress and help keep her on schedule, and she would assign me stories to write and give me three or four random things to incorporate into it. There is a short story embedded in the [Prologue: Big Tasty] called Spilled Soup, which came out of that period. I hope to work in at least two more of these stories in The Miracle in July. As I wrote these stories I began thinking about how to get them published. I reached out to authors and publishers I'd met in the course of social networking and learned some cold, hard facts about traditional publishing. I learned, for instance, that it can take a book years to go from final draft to bookstore shelf. I felt this delay unnecessary in the Age of Technology, what with so many promotion and publishing tools available online, for free.
There is only a slow boil of interest from major publishers in focusing on social media tools and online networking sites to promote their authors. There is a lack of understanding that these free tools provide a huge, trackable return on investment. Participating in social web sites like Facebook and Twitter to promote ideas, books, and authors is extremely cost effective.
Out of this discovery I put the idea together for The Miracle in July: a work-in-progress manuscript that embraces reader's opinion and insight, plays with alternative publishing, experiments with the art of storytelling, explores the idea of user-generated media collaboration, and of course tests my strength as a writer and as a human being. My sweet reward — a hardback book.
What is your ultimate goal for the project? What steps will there be along the way?
I'm using what I've learned as a writer — as mediaChick on the Internet — to promote The Miracle in July. With the future of traditional publishing in flux, and with the huge popularity of eReaders and blogging, I believe the time is now to explore other ways to enjoy and promote literature, and make money doing it. This is not to say I wish to do away with books. On the contrary! In addition to three eBooks (one for each act) which will go on sale on the web site, The Miracle in July will be a hardback book at the end of its online run.
This transformation from virtual story to physical hardback is the part I'm most looking forward to. Whether or not I end up publishing it myself, how thrilling it will be to hold the book of my story in my hand!
In the meantime I'm concentrating on a building a strong story, finding readers and growing a fan base. I would love to prove that a savvy first-time writer with ambition can successfully use social Web tools to build an audience hungry for the paper-version of their story.
Publishing The Miracle in July on the Internet doesn't eliminate the need for the tangible, paper-and-ink experience. It won't dilute the special way reading a book feels, feeling the pages between your fingers. And publishing it myself, if it comes to that, doesn't discredit my talent as an author. There are hundreds of writers on Twitter who have "New York Times Best-Selling Author" in their bio. I'm sure this is just a small percentage of people who can claim that title. And does that discredit the moniker, the esteem? Not at all.
I want to prove that just because a writer chooses to self-publish a work instead of wait to find a publisher, or an agent, does not mean the work isn't good enough to make it to publication. Especially with the exceptional quality of low-cost online publishers and the ease of using social networking to connect with readers and news organizations directly. I believe now is the time to rethink what is considered a benchmark of what is considered success in authorship.
My goal is to melt walls around the idea that a writer must go through traditional publishing to reach fanatic readers, or be considered a "real" published author. This project is a guerrilla effort and because of this, it will be extra special when I reach my ultimate goal: to see my book in hardback on the shelf of Powell's Books. That is my dream. After that...a motion picture would be fabulous! In fact, I'm working with a screenplay writer right now.
What feedback do you wish to get from readers?
Inviting comments on such a personal project that I have spent hours developing has proven to be a painful — but necessary — part of the collaboration spirit of the experiment. There are three main areas of insight I am soliciting:
- How to best use the web and social media tools as a storytelling device
- The content of the story itself: What works? What doesn't?
- The ease of using the web site
Because the reader's optimal experience ("the ease of using the web site") is critical for creating die-hard fans of The Miracle in July, here are the kind of questions I wonder about:
Is it easy or hard to figure out where to start reading? Is it clear that the project is a work-in-progress? Is the navigation (how a visitor gets around the Web site) intuitive? Is the typography hard to read? Does the site load too slow? Are the colors too much or too little?
I want to end up with manuscript that most people agree is well-written and worthy of recommendations, so feel free to share your thoughts about this project by filling out the form on my [contact page].
Thank you for being a part of this project.
Interested in seeing The Miracle in July in paper and ink? Doing something similar? Send me a [message].