Adventures in publishing

Photos of people reading my books in relaxing settings keep popping up on the Web. I admit I love it. This one is from Andrew Welch.

Just as I was mulling whether or not I should take more of a break in my running routine, I came down with what appears to be a mild stomach flu. It's crept up on me over the last three days of little food and less energy. On Monday I attempted one cramp-plagued run that included a mad dash to an outhouse. I haven't run again since. I think August is not a good month for me. I am glad it's over.

During my down time, I've been browsing the blogs of other authors who have shared their self-publishing stories. I thought I'd share my own story to provide another insight beyond the "How I Sold A Million eBooks" hype, but that I feel has been successful nonetheless. I also hope to entice other aspiring authors to join me at Arctic Glass Press. If you have any interest in independent publishing, please send me an e-mail at jillhomer@arcticglasspress.com and I'll explain more in detail my ideas for an indie author cooperative.

I fell into indie publishing by accident in November 2008. I spent the summer typing up the "long version" of my 2008 Iditarod Trail Invitational experience, woven together with the back-story of how I found myself in such a strange situation. I didn't write it with publication in mind, but by August I had a piece of writing I was excited about and wanted to share with others. I mulled how I could go about posting an 80,000-word story on my blog when I had a better idea: I should just publish a book, and maybe my blog readers will buy it to help me fund my 2009 Iditarod attempt.

I researched a few options and put together "Ghost Trails," then publicly released it on November 13, 2008. At the time, I was extremely shy about my project and hadn't even told my then-boyfriend that I planned to release a book. I was so uncertain about it that I convinced myself I had no choice but to cut the rope and hope for the best. So it came as a surprise to everyone. I made plenty of rookie mistakes in the execution and the book went through several drafts after that official release. But overall, I had a good experience with my first foray into self-publishing, in a time that is now considered the cusp of when self-publishing moved from its "vanity" stigma to the more widely accepted entrepreneurial endeavor that it is today. It's impossible to know how many copies of "Ghost Trails" I've sold. I didn't keep track of any of the books I sold from home, which number in the hundreds, and I didn't track sales when I first put the book on Amazon Kindle, thinking no one actually read eBooks. (ha!) But based on what I can track, I figure I sold roughly 2,000 copies of "Ghost Trails" from November 2008 to May 2011.

Fast forward to April 2010, when I had another book I felt was worthy of readers and wanted to look into the traditional publishing route. I worked a considerable number of hours during the months of April and May 2010 crafting a book proposal, writing query letters to agents, fielding calls, and trying to polish my manuscript. Feedback was just positive enough to keep me trying, but I never received any hard offers from agents or publishers. Most eventually fed me what appears to be a common response to authors, all along the lines of "I read your proposal and enjoyed your sample chapters, but your book doesn't fit my market right now." Reading between the lines, I gathered my book was too niche (basically, bikey) to attract a large enough audience to justify publication.

I completed a few freelance projects, but mostly I just lived off my savings during those months despite the fact I felt I was putting in a decent amount of actual work time. I figured I might as well just pay myself to travel around Alaska and ride my bike for a living, which was more fun than contacting publishers and had about the same odds of future financial success. I did this for a month in May and June, and then I got a real job at a magazine in Missoula, Montana.

When I moved to California in March 2011, I decided I wanted to pursue a career more focused on writing and didn't want to waste any more time with the book that had been hanging over my head for a year. I decided to venture down the self-publishing route again, and found the waters to be much friendlier than they were three years ago. For starters, there is a huge network of indie publishers out there these days, offering support and advice. Their sales are starting to match the numbers achieved by professional publishing houses. I don't feel shy about this anymore. I realize that I can create a good product, and I can sell it, without help from the "gatekeepers." I genuinely believe that traditional publishing is not a viable option for me. I wouldn't turn down any opportunity that had more potential than my current efforts, but at the same time, I'm not sure the publishing industry could offer me a better deal, at least not if I continue to write the kind of books I want to write.

My efforts, in my view, have been successful. While crunching my end-of-month numbers the other day, I determined I've sold about 800 copies of "Be Brave, Be Strong" and 300 copies of "Ghost Trails" since the initial release of my second book on June 15, paperback and eBook sales combined. Add to this my magazine and newspaper freelance projects, and it has not been a wholly useless summer. I'd go so far as to say that I'm almost making a living as a writer. Not enough to live un-subsidized in the San Francisco Bay area, no doubt, but if I went back to the frugal life I led when I lived in a small room in Juneau, I'd be set.

I feel that the best thing I can do right now is continue to pursue new projects, and also work to advance my publishing effort. Right now I'm conversing with two authors who are interested in working with me. I'm also consistently tapping away at a new project I'm really excited about. It surpassed 25,000 words today. I'll expound on my book project soon; that is, if I'm still too sick and injured to bike or run. Stay tuned.

Cycling and art

I view cycling as an extension of my creativity, a kind of art in motion. The whir of hubs, crunch of tires on dirt and rhythm of pedal strokes are music; the trickles of sweat and labored breaths are poetry, the flow of my legs and sway of my upper body a dance. I draw invisible patterns on the world with my movements — broad paint strokes on the strenuous climbs, staccato marks on technical trails and swooping pencil lines for ethereal descents. Every ride is a different kind of work, seen and known only by me, but I find this creative outlet immensely satisfying all the same. I return home and write paragraphs and process photos, but these are only reflections of the beautiful creation that I left outside.

It doesn't surprise me that a lot of creative types find their way to cycling, or maybe it's the other way around. I recently received an e-mail from A. Jeffrey Tomassetti, a 2011 Tour Divide finisher who lives in Florida, offering to send me one of his Tour Divide-inspired original paintings, free of charge. He simply wanted to create something for his Tour Divide "compatriots." Even though Jeff and I have never met, he believed as a fellow finisher, I could understand and appreciate the depth of his work.

This is the painting Jeffrey sent to me, titled "Red Rock Pass." The painting is acrylic and texture layers with a Nanoraptor tire tread "lift" to reveal the darker layer underneath. Here's what Jeffrey wrote about it in his artist statement:

"During the 2011 Tour Divide Race from Banff, Alberta, to Antelope Wells, New Mexico, I studied bike tracks on the trail for hours and was consumed by their beauty. Often the trail was wet, impassable mud, which grabbed hard onto the bike until the wheels would no longer turn."

And then he quoted from my book, "Be Brave, Be Strong:" "Just a few short minutes of downpour had rendered the once-solid road into a chunky sludge the color and consistency of peanut butter. I could only pedal a few strokes into the goop before my rear wheel seized up like the mouth of a greedy kid who had taken too large a bite of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich."

I love that Jeffrey created this peanut-butter-colored painting with a Nanoraptor bike tread slogging down the center. His attention to details add to this painting's meaning, from the clear gloss coat that glistens like water from a recent rainstorm, and the cracks in the paint revealing once-dry and smooth dirt. I can relate to this particular Tour Divide scene a thousand times over; it remains the image that's burned deep into my memory.

Then he named it "Red Rock Pass." This is a picture a local photographer snapped of me on the backside of Red Rock Pass, near Island Park, Idaho, during the 2009 Tour Divide. The Centennial Valley of Montana was my first full and harrowing encounter with the horrors of wheel-sucking, bike-stopping mud, followed by an intense lightning storm. The photographer actually took this photo after I hosed off my bike and myself at an RV park on Red Rock Road. "The Mud" would become a near-daily battle through Wyoming, parts of Colorado and all of New Mexico. When people ask me what the hardest part of the Tour Divide was, I always say "The Mud." The Mud of Tour Divide is a worthy adversary more terrorizing than distance, elevation, and even solitude. And the Nanoraptor tire track signals, to me at least, the ultimate conquering of The Mud.

Thanks for this great painting, Jeff. As you can see, I hung it in the middle of my living room next to all of my bikes. It seems a fitting home for "Red Rock Pass."

Crisis of confidence

I enjoyed my weekend despite the fact I wasn't perched on my bike in Washington state, ripping through a cloud of Capitol Forest dust. We took a trip to the city, met up with friends, went for a couple of runs, ate good food. I spent most of Friday glued to updates about the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc, which, in case you haven't heard of that race, is generally considered the most competitive ultrarunning race in the world. I was embarrassingly unproductive for most of the day, then stayed awake much too late on Friday night hitting refresh on my Twitter feed. I did feel the 4.6 earthquake that struck south of San Jose at 12:15 Saturday morning, and was still awake at 1:30 a.m. PDT, about the time Geoff and Scott Jurek dropped out of the race. I admit I went to bed feeling bummed. I was really pulling for Geoff — for obvious reasons — as well as all of the other "local" (American) runners in France.

Since Friday there has been a lot of chatter about why so many Americans didn't finish UTMB. Of course I don't know any of the racers' individual reasons, but to me the answer seems obvious. It's an extremely hard mountain race and many of the Americans who made the effort to travel to Europe intended to compete with the top runners. Anyone racing to win has to stick with or nearby the leaders, and racing near the front always comes with enormous risks, even more so when the race is on unknown terrain. It doesn't surprise me that so many U.S. runners flared out in the process. The after-race chatter has bothered me. I'm not usually one to subscribe to nationalism but I admit even I bristled a bit about the  jabs against "lazy Americans."

Since I started to follow ultrarunning more closely, I've been surprised by the strong anti-DNF sentiment that is so prevalent in this sport. Of course finishing a race is always preferable to not finishing, but the "finish at all costs" sentiment doesn't seem nearly as strong in ultra-cycling. Indeed, a fair amount of respect is doled out to bikers who crash and burn during races because "they left it all on the trail." Finishing with gas left in the tank is seen as a negative in competition. And finishing the race with completely wrecked knees just to say you finished is viewed as actually kind of dumb. (Believe me, I know. This was some of the feedback I received after the 2007 Susitna 100, in which I ignored blatant knee pain in a drive to finish that race, and couldn't ride a bicycle again for three months afterward.) But in ultrarunning, DNFs seem to be strong marks of shame. My ever-kind friends are always quick to point out that I "timed out" of the TRT100, which as far as I can tell is preferable to a "quitting" DNF (but in my mind just emphasizes the fact that I'm ultra-slow.) Other friends have described vast horrors in their drive to finish ultras. One has a particularly cringe-inducing story about her Su100 finish, involving a few moments of literal crawling. I certainly have gone through some challenging times in my efforts to finish ultra races, but I don't think there's shame in quitting if you are truly spent. And only the individual can make this judgement call. Agonizing later about a DNF is only human; I still second-guess a lot of decisions I made in the TRT100. But the acronym to "Did Nothing Fatal" still applies.

It's likely that much of the sensitivity I feel about criticisms surrounding American DNFs is attached to my own current insecurities. On Saturday, my friends and I went for a mellow 11-mile run in the Marin Headlands on the Dipsea Trail. Because of my injured arm, I have been running extremely carefully all week long, especially during descents, where I scrutinize every short, deliberate step. But on Saturday, near the steepest part of the descent, I was distracted by a large group of hikers and hooked my left foot on a root. Suddenly, in extreme slow motion, I felt myself going down, and my injured elbow was headed directly for the hard, painful-looking gravel far below. I had an intense surge of adrenaline and somehow threw my right leg out just in time, landing hard and twisting my knee in the process. But it must have been an impressive save, because one of the hikers said "Nice." I felt shattered. My sense of ability drained from tentative to nothing. I hiked down to catch up with my friends and declared that I would never run again, because I "sucked," and from now on would stick to hiking forever and ever.

I know I sounded like a whining child, but the truth is I haven't experienced a crisis of confidence like this since 2007, when chondromalacia patella (decreased knee mobility) dogged me for the better part of three months. It started with the TRT100 DNF, continued through the slump I was experiencing before the crash, onto the crash, and the longer-than-expected recovery. And recovery is going well. There really isn't any complication in my injury that would prevent me from continuing to run, except for I really shouldn't rub any more gravel into my wound if I can avoid it. The problem is, I'm not sure I can avoid it. My crisis of confidence has extended to the point where I question whether I even have control over my movements, or if I'm doomed to perpetual clumsiness, mistakes, and pain.

In some ways, I place too much faith in my irrational insecurities, but I also view them as my own personal challenge — forget that I wasn't "Born to Run," forget my clumsy legs and awkward arm flailing and over-sensitive feet, I'm going to run anyway. Indeed, I went back out today with Beat. We charged hard through the heat up Black Mountain, until my elbow was soaked in so much salty sweat that it burned with distracting intensity. But I continued running anyway. At the top, I turned around and ran down. I was very careful. I did move more slowly than usual. I did think about how amazingly hard it must be to finish a race like UTMB. But I didn't fall. I did finish my run with a smile on my face. Running up and down Black Mountain felt good, except for the burning wound part.

I'll get through this crisis of confidence, I will.

A time to run

Beat complained that I haven't updated my blog all week. One might think it's because I'm lacking bike inspiration, and that's part of it. But another is that I've recently launched into a new writing project that I actually feel both optimistic and excited about — the first of my many starts this summer that I'm convinced I'll not only finish, but finish relatively fast. Work has been going well but it's been a substantial creative drain. I feel like I don't have anything left for my regular assignments, let alone my blog. I've even lost my focus for picture taking. This week during my evening runs, I saw beautiful sunsets, a rattlesnake, a crazy suicidal rabbit and intriguing light over Steven's Creek Reservoir. Not once did I even attempt a snapshot, until today, when I realized that I hadn't take a photo all week, and probably should make at least one to go with the blog post I promised Beat I'd write.

I still haven't ridden a bike since I crashed two weeks ago. My barometer for readiness is my ability to drive — when I can successfully hold both hands on my steering wheel for the length of a trip, then I will feel ready to take a chance on riding, starting with my fixie on the bike path. Sadly, I haven't been successful yet. Even the suspension in our brand new Subaru causes too much jiggling on my arm, and pain quickly increases from annoying to intolerable. I stubbornly held on over the speed bumps today; that was a terrible idea. Needless to say, if my arm can't handle speed bumps in a Subaru, those nerves are going to need a bit more healing before I can rip mad descents on my mountain bike.

It's hard to determine exactly why there's still so much pain. My wound is still open, shedding dead tissue and bleeding some, but there's no sign of infection. And my running strength has nearly returned to normal. I ditched my sling on Tuesday, and while I still run with my right arm held in place (and my left arm flailing to make up for this minor imbalance), I can run without pain. But every time I place pressure on my arm or grip something, the pain returns. It almost seems like a deeper internal problem, possibly with a muscle or other tissue that was compromised. I believe it will just take more time, and I'm willing to give it all the time it needs. It's been a rough two weeks, and I am so tired of this pain that I'll give up anything to avoid it, even cycling. Yes, it seems the universe has finally found a way to keep me off my bikes while I'm (otherwise) healthy and strong.

That said, if I were training for a 50K right now, I'd be pretty pleased with myself. Although I had a slow start to the week, I've been running stronger since I ditched the sling. A bit of pent-up energy and the fact I still have to short-step the descents has led me to push as hard as I can on the climbs — lung-burning, gut-busting hard. As I crested today's eight-mile, 2,500-feet-of-climbing jaunt, it occurred to me that I've been running six to nine miles daily all week, and starting to feel hungry for a long run. Without my bike in the picture, it's suddenly not difficult to log a 50- or 60-mile week.  This has led me to believe that if I just injured my arm before the Tahoe Rim Trail 100, I might have actually finished the thing. (I kid, I kid.)

I'm still sad I won't be getting on a plane to Seattle tomorrow to race the Capitol Forest 100. But I'm glad I didn't push that pipe dream; it's obvious I'm not ready.

Small victories

I returned from my Thursday run drenched in bliss, and a decent layer of sweat, after successfully executing my three-mile uphill run and three-mile downhill shuffle/hike with only a few encounters with the invisible searing knife of pain. I felt as satisfied as I often do after finishing a 50K, or a day-long bike ride, even though my accomplishment was comparatively small. When one's ability to move pain-free is taken away, even for a short time, and even by a relatively minor injury, every new movement suddenly feels like a gift.

Today I accomplished an even stronger run, covering seven miles with a consistent running stride and only walking a few of the steepest descents. Earlier this week, I struggled with the jarring impact of each step, which sent a stabbing sensation through my elbow that I referred to as "jiggly pain." That impact soreness has mostly abated and I can now run (slowly) without issue, although I'm certainly not out of the water yet. I was reminded of this today when I picked up a half gallon of milk and felt an electric jolt that nearly caused me to drop the carton on the floor. When I grip things with my right hand, I engage an arm muscle that triggers what feels like exposed nerves in my open wound, and it hurts something fierce. I still drive one-handed, and feed myself with my left hand (even with chopsticks during my birthday sushi dinner, a feat I was quite proud of.) It feels like it will be a while yet before I can grip handlebars and steer a bicycle.

Still, I have been genuinely enjoying my short and slow runs (short I guess only by some standards. Five to seven miles is still enough to get my heart pumping.) At first, I was so grateful for my renewed ability to even get out of bed without pain that I convinced myself I could live out my life happily as a five-mile-a-day jogger. But as pain diminishes, so grows my desire to go longer, higher, harder. And even though I feel a sort of post-crash disillusionment about mountain biking, I still salivate when I pass cyclists on the road. I am itching to get back out there in a real and challenging way, to energize my body and fuel my creativity. And yet I have this most annoying injury, this hole in my arm that cuts into the muscle, still open and oozing and shedding bits of gravel after ten days. It's hurt me physically like nothing I've experienced before. And yes I'm grateful it's not worse, and nothing's broken, and I will recover. But I admit this has been a hard lesson, an unsettling reminder of just how quickly and easily health and vitality can be ripped away.

Still, every movement is a gift, and maybe it's good to receive a refresher course on building from the ground up, every once in a while.

32

Today's my birthday

I can't go for a bike ride

Grateful all the same

August lost

On Monday evening, I attempted a four-mile hike. Using an ACE bandage, I created an elastic sling for my arm to aid in stability and suspension against each jarring step. I set off walking, fighting back the initial sharp releases of pain until the impact settled. The sun cast golden light on the hillside and it felt so wonderful to just be outside, focusing on breathing and movement again. For the past four days, my thoughts have largely drifted to stillness and pain. The truth of the matter is my arm hurt a lot, and every time I moved, it hurt even worse. But in stillness I could almost be free, almost.

I held my arm away from my body and pressed my wrist deep into the sling until my shoulder burned from the effort, but by doing so I could almost achieve stillness while moving. The gray pall of pain lifted and I started jogging up hill, drinking in the saturated colors of the evening. I reached the crest of my route and surveyed the sunlit valley below. It was so incredible, so beautiful. I felt a literal, tangible tear of joy roll down my cheek. That's when I remembered that my moods were all jacked up from not having slept more than an hour at a time in four nights. Sleep had just become so difficult, because my arm constantly felt like somebody was holding a hot iron against the joint. I usually drifted fitfully to sleep only to be jolted awake in twenty minutes by sharp pain, probably spurred by movement. On Sunday night, I only slept about an hour, total. On Monday morning, I had to duck into the bathroom to quell some tears after the car dealership employee told me my three-hour wait for an oil change was probably going to extend to four. My humorously overdramatic reaction to that news only confirmed that I really needed to get some sleep, and get out.

On Monday night, I still had hope. Hope for participation in the Capitol Forest 100. Outside hope that I might even heal up enough to run a 50K for my birthday at the end of the week. These hopes were all but extinguished just a few hundred yards after I started downhill into a new barrage of burning pain. It was impossible to brace against so I just had to suck it up and deal with it. It was probably no different or worse than it has been for the past four days, but my reaction to the pain was amplified by the beautiful setting, some mounting frustration, the wild emotional roller coaster of sleep deprivation, and of course, disappointment. This injury isn't going to clear up in time for anything. Not without some sort of incredible turnaround.

I returned home to more stillness, and attempts at acceptance. This probably appears to be a humorously overdramatic reaction to road rash. The injury is actually a bit more complicated. When I hit the ground at 20 mph on Thursday, I landed directly on a sharp, quarter-sized rock that dug deep into my elbow. Then, with a puncture wound several millimeters deep, I slid a meter or so, ensuring that maximum debris was pushed deep into the wound. The plastic surgeon I consulted on Friday used terms like "bullet hole" and "shrapnel." He smiled as he said these things, and I assumed he was using hyperbole for humor's sake. But honestly, after four days of near constant pain even with the aid of Vicodin (which I was at first too proud to ingest, and am now rationing), I've become more convinced that this is what it might feel like to be shot in the elbow by a small caliber gun. I can honestly say that while this may not be the most serious, it is certainly the most painful injury I have ever sustained.

I have another appointment with the surgeon on Friday, and am really hoping for no further complications that might necessitate surgery (and maybe a renewed Vicodin prescription.) But I'm ready to accept that the rest of this month is probably going to be about a slow comeback in the form of easy hikes, jogs, upright spins on a trainer, and possibly several weeks before I have enough arm strength and stability to ride a bicycle again. That's OK, injury is part of life, and for now I'm grateful for simple things, short releases from the stillness, and a renewed appreciation for health and vitality.