DS: The road to selling two "finished" novels at once was unusual. I completed a novel while at the Michener Center for Writers called The Beautiful Miscellaneous." I finished it in April 2003 and sent it to some prospective agents and Wendy Weil signed me in August 2003. But she also asked for some revisions. In the meantime, I had started a new novel (Mercury Visions), which was at about 80 pages of a draft when I received a Dobie Paisano Fellowship from the Texas Institute of Letters. That fellowship ran from August 2003 to March 2004. The Beautiful Miscellaneous was getting a good reaction but no firm buyers for a few months. Then, in early 2004, I sent my agent a draft of the Daguerre book. She started sending both books out together and within a month we sold both to Atria, a division of Simon and Schuster.
The Daguerre draft was actually written end-to-end in a year but with a lot of revision following that. My editor at Atria, Suzanne O'Neill, is very gifted at knowing what needs to be reshaped in a manuscript. She has helped me make both books much better. I'm revising The Beautiful Miscellaneous as we speak and it will come out some time in 2007.
AC: Is it hard to go back to The Beautiful Miscellaneous after so much time away from it? Or does the time away sharpen your perspective on it?
DS: It was hard to find the thread of the story again. I had to go back and read the whole thing with my editor's comments in mind. But because I hadn't touched the ms for two years there was also this distance and critical eye that was nice. I found that I had developed as a writer on a sentence-by-sentence level through the writing of the Daguerre book. So as I revise I'm finding myself cleaning up some older, shoddier sentences. I'm also less attached to things that I like but don't quite work. Was it Anne Lamott who suggested "Kill your darlings"?
AC: Is The Beautiful Miscellaneous also historical fiction?
DS: The Beautiful Miscellaneous is contemporary. It's a story about the average son of a genius; a kid who has been raised by a particle physicist and always had lofty things expected of him.
AC: As far as publicity for the novel, how much has Simon and Schuster done for you, and how much are you doing on your own?
DS: Atria has been squarely behind my book since early on. They've organized an 8-city book tour, retained a PR company to set up media events and interviews, and will be running an ad for the novel in The New York Times Book Review. They also submitted the book for the Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers Program, for which it was recently chosen.
But I have also been very involved in generating some buzz about my book. For example, I've organized a launch party and signing at the Austin Museum of Art. There'll be live French music, food and wine, and [the independent bookstore] Book People will be there selling the book. I sent out galleys to a broad range of people who might endorse the book. It's all about word-of-mouth.
It's felt like a nice partnership; we're both working hard and making investments in getting the book talked about.
AC: Any final words of advice for other would-be novelists, particularly historical novelists?
DS: First, find a story that keeps you awake at night. It's such an arduous process and only a story that mesmerizes you on some level will go the distance. Read everything you can from the period if it's a historical work -- poetry, novels, newspapers, ads. Believe in your own work. There are days when you're convinced that your draft is trash. Press on. Writing is really a process of re-writing. We all know that, but we forget.
