Review: Issaquah Press April 4, 2006

In her career as a chemical dependency counselor dating back to 1992 in Los Angeles, Wendy Blackburn worked with people who had some amazing tales on their road to recovery.

“I hate to say I was getting material for a novel,” Blackburn said. “But I was always saying, ‘God, I’ve got to write this down.’”

Having never written more than journal entries or private poems, Blackburn’s journey to pen a relevant tale about addiction and recovery would span seven years.

Now an Issaquah resident, Blackburn’s novel, “Beachglass,” ships from Amazon.com May 16. The fact that she’s getting published at all still boggles her mind.

“In Los Angeles, everyone’s got a screenplay or a script,” she said. “We used to joke that waiter and writer are only one letter off.”

Blackburn’s journey to get published is as unconventional as the book’s tale itself. Writing about what she knew, drug addiction recovery, Blackburn felt the more interesting tale was what happens afterward.

“Drug addicts know how to use drugs. I don’t think that people who don’t use drugs would care,” said Blackburn, who now works at a treatment center in Kirkland. “Recovery is long term. It continues with life’s ups and downs. That hasn’t been addressed in many novels.”

Others agreed. Eventually.

While still writing, she sent out query letters in search of an agent — 73 in all. By the time Blackburn’s manuscript was 688 pages at its longest, one agent, Charlotte Gusay, said she wouldn’t even consider representing her until she trimmed the novel down to 500 pages

.That’s when Blackburn began learning the frustrations of the publishing business. But through the help of a writing group and a series of freelance editors and other expert input, Blackburn was able to whittle down the tale of recovering addict Delia. Trimming 350 pages from the first draft required eliminating entire characters and cutting back on the amount of descriptive narrative of the things around Delia.

What began in 1998 was completed a year and a half ago. Delia’s tale — of life after recovery and her greatest test, to fulfill a pact to care for a friend dying from AIDS — still needed a publisher.

“At one point, while I was writing this,” Blackburn said, “I thought it’s too bad no one is going to read it."

Her agent shopped the novel to 16 publishing houses. Luckily, Gusay had been around the business so long, she had a sense for whom the story was more appropriate, Blackburn said. It came down to two publishers that made an offer.

“Diane Reverand, of St. Martin’s Press, just got it,” Blackburn said. “And the changes she wanted were very minimal. The other editor wanted to tell an entirely different story.”

As the finished product prepares to hit store shelves, Blackburn realized her fictional story comes on the heels of the wildly successful, but ultimately controversial, “A Million Little Pieces,” by James Frey.

“His story, and others I’ve read, seemed a little angry to me,” Blackburn said. “He seemed to be bitter — a big, bad drug addict who’s now a big, bad sober guy.”

Instead, Blackburn wanted a tale showing that recovering addicts don’t have to continue to punish themselves and instead should look at life as an open door of what’s possible.

The mother of two and happily married, Blackburn said she’s unsure if she’ll pen another novel, regardless of the success of “Beachglass.”

“I’ve been frustrated with the whole process. And I’ve said I’m never going to write any more than a grocery list,” she said.

But since, she’s caught herself writing little snippets here and there that could pan out to be ideas for the future. And she kept a folder on her computer desktop of much of the deleted material from “Beachglass” that could evolve into another project.

For now, she’s enjoying her daughter Lindsey’s growing love of reading.

“We’ll go into a Barnes & Noble looking for her next book and she’ll ask them, ‘When are you going to get my mom’s book?’” Blackburn said. “It’s one of the neatest things.”

Read this article at the Issaquah Press site