…and after all that, and three years later at eight AM, I pushed back from the desk and thought, it’s done. First draft of my first-ever novel—boom! I went out front to wait for the parade. Biz-casual types whipped past in Euro sedans to OMG jobs, parents in SUVs swerved by on their way to the school, and not one showed a hint of adulation for the frumpy guy at the mailbox in his bathrobe and a stupid grin. No parade.

An under-employed friend handed the draft back to me a couple weeks later and said, “Dude, there’s probably a class at the college.”

I’d read a lot—always read. But study English? My first day in an honest-to-God writing class and everyone seemed to know each other. They tossed around what I suspected to be writing terms like they were Frisbees: attribution, third-person omniscient, hyperbole, alliteration. I was screwed. I didn’t know what I didn’t know and it was huge. Ly and ing slow the action? There’s a Writer’s Digest? Back home that night in my chair—the writing chair—I searched my draft for lys and ings. They shot up like weeds.

Another three years of progress and the diesel-fueled, earth-moving and heavy-revision equipment came to rest. Buried somewhere in the landfill were thirteen characters and seven chapters I’d deemed central to a fascinating story—a best-seller, for sure. Gone were three Popes and The Mob, the eccentric museum director, a few sugar-addled bike messengers, Raul’s Best-of-the-Bay Taqueria, the lesbian Chinese stripper and a meandering one-hundred-and-fifty-piece civic orchestra. I sent the manuscript cross-country to Patti Walker of Obstinate Daughters Press for editing. Then, with the manuscript all tidied up, I turned it over to trusted readers.

My friend at the bike shop handed the draft back a couple weeks later. “Dude!”  More Progress.

So, Fathers’ Day was finished—a big deal, right?

Then what?

Answer: No ambitious work shall go unpunished by marketing. I recently heard Joyce Carol Oates remark,

“Once Marketing gets involved, it’s all over.”

Time to find an agent and hit up one of the five corporate giants? (“Dude, let me know how that works out.”) Think edgy, get naked, and go indie? Self-publish? Or lovingly kiss the manuscript on its dewy butt, drop it into the box of yearbooks, track medals and what-the-hell behind the furnace and fuhgeddaboudit? I liked the shortest distance being a straight line and the getting naked part. I’d contact independent publishers directly. Plan A.

“Interesting story. Just not a fit for us.” The first rejection. “Loved the font choice—Baskerville?— but a bit sprawling for my taste,” read a hand-written note. “Cool cover letter, but…” And they droned on. After a year of living badly, I decided to self-publish through Createspace. Plan B.

My wife, artist and acid-bath critic, designed two delicious cover comps and we presented them to a few hundred reading and cycling buddies through email and Facebook. “Which book would you pick from the table: #1 or #2?” Eighty-percent of female respondents chose #1. Start the presses.

Fathers’ Day showed up on Amazon in February, 2018 and picked up a few awards. I got into gear and joined the Goodreads community with an author page and put up a website through WordPress: www.hjbrennan.com. While re-writing Fathers’ Day, I’d finished a second novel, workshopped it at Stanford and sent the final draft to Patti for editing. And thanks to advice and encouragement from former agent and author consultant, Mark Malatesta, the piece was circulated to agents. January, 2019 I sent queries to one-hundred targeted agents. Yep, second novel’s marketing started with Plan C. I signed with an agent this month, and I’ll let you know how that works out.