Guest Blog: Cutting and Pasting My Writerly Self by Jennifer Gooch Hummer

Today I welcome Jennifer Gooch Hummer, author of Girl Unmoored.  She's touring the blogosphere with BookSparks PR, so be on the lookout for other posts from the author and for reviews (I have one coming on the 26th).

Cutting And Pasting My Writerly Self.

Writing a novel is like trying to bend a spoon with your mind. Complete and utter long-term focus is required but, for me, seldom happens. If I had a wife like Ernest Hemingway did, maybe I too could write from 9-5. Hemingway has been quoted as saying that there were days (days!) he spent mulling over a single “the.” I can only dream of cutting and pasting a nice juicy “the” all day long. “The” is an awesome, powerful word that reigns King Supreme in some cases. “Get me the bread, please,” allows me to sit on my butt. “Get me bread, please,” means not only do I have to get up, I have to get in the car, drive to the store and buy some.

Unlike Hemingway, I do not have a wife. I am a wife. And the mother of three bread-eating non-drivers. None of these four people care where my “the” goes. In fact, they’ve never even seen my “the.” And they’re most certainly not going to wait for me to drive/feed/clothe/help them while I’m cutting and pasting it for eight hours straight.

But still, a writer must write. It’s taken me ten years to get GIRL UNMOORED published; two to write it, and eight more to finally get a “yes.” I didn’t talk much about my writing during this time. It was hard enough to get all those “no’s” in secret; I wasn’t about to publicly lament over them. But now that I’ve penned a book, I’m starting to talk. And it’s been so much fun to share my beloved characters. I’ll never get those eight straight hours, but the truth is I don’t want them. I like jumping back and forth between my two worlds. Or should I say cutting and pasting myself?

About Girl Unmoored

This sharp, quick-witted novel follows Apron, a young woman who has come unmoored by a sea of family drama and break-ups. But when she meets Mike, she’s met her mooring. Although Mike and his cantankerous boyfriend, Chad, don’t know what to do with her at first—Apron just seems to keep showing up, usually with a fat lip—they eventually offer her a job in their flower store. And then it’s smooth sailing for Apron, until she uncovers Chad’s secret. Suddenly Apron is forced to leave behind the safe harbor of childhood and navigate the stormy seas of a young adult. She knows what her real job is now, and it has nothing to do with flowers. 

 

About Jennifer Gooch Hummer

Jennifer Gooch Hummer has worked as a script analyst for various talent agencies and major film studios. Her short stories have been published in Miranda Magazine, Our Stories, Glimmertrain and Fish. She has continued graduate studies in the Writer’s Program at UCLA, where she was awarded the Kirkwood Prize in fiction. Currently, Jennifer lives in Southern California and Maine with her husband and their three daughters.

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