A man I respected once told me, “Jeremy, one day you will wake up and realize that you haven’t felt like shit in a while. I promise that you will be okay.”

That man’s daughter had just died.

That is why I wrote A Dream Undone. I needed to let just one seventeen year-old (who was sitting up at night wishing that he was dead so he wouldn’t have to deal with the crushing reality of life) know that eventually, a long way down the road, he would wake up and realize he hadn’t felt like shit in a while.

I didn’t want to be a writer; I just had something important to say.

So I said it.

And it sucked.

I mean, the message was there, but no one was going to be able to get to it. I wrote and rewrote and edited, but I wasn’t happy with it. So I gave it to my friends and family and asked them what they thought and how I could make it better. Then, the worst thing that could have happened, happened:

They all loved it.

No one had anything negative to say about anything I wrote. These were: my closest friends, my family, people that a vested interest in seeing that my feelings weren’t hurt. Maybe they did love it, but I knew it could be better. I knew it wasn’t good enough.

I looked around for a writers’ group and couldn’t find one, so I started my own.

I’d never been to a writers’ group. I had no idea what to do. I just had a need that I couldn’t fill. At the first meeting, seven people showed up. I read the first chapter of A Dream Undone aloud and got a lot of compliments. But a woman, I don’t even remember her name, told me that she didn’t care about the cool breeze rolling off the Ohio River. She told me that I waited too long to get into my story. That I wasted the first three paragraphs.

That I could do better. 

I have since rewritten the opening to my book 40 times.

There is a difference, clear and fundamental, between a hobbyist writer and a pro. That difference is in the rewrite: how the writer accommodates for his/her own ineptitude and uses critique to advance his/her skill to create a piece of work worth reading.

Now, I’m not a pro. My work might not be great. But it is one million percent better than it was when I started my writers’ group. The reason is that I received clear, articulate, and honest opinions from people that didn’t have to lie to me.

The opinions aren’t always good. In fact some of them are fucking stupid. But they are honest. They tell you what they don’t like and until you know that, there isn’t much you can do to deal with it. And, I’ve heard before that some people don’t give a shit about their audience. But I do. I care about the kid that cuts himself because he can’t handle his emotions, the girl that drinks too much because it is easier than dealing with reality, or the guy who can’t drive past an old house without crying.

I care about them. So I try not to waste their time. I try to give them the best piece of work that I can. And that is why I think writing groups are important.

Now, two years later, I’ve been a member of five writing groups. Each one has had its strengths and its weaknesses, but I’ve learned from every one and I’ve become a better writer because of them. And when that reader gets his hands on my book and can’t put it down, every writers’ group meeting is going to matter.

For those interested, I’ve included what the opening of A Dream Undone looked like when I started my writing group and what it looks like today. The difference may seem subtle, but for me it makes the difference between being bored by the opening and being thrown right into something worth seeing.

Opening to A Dream Undone on November 2010

It is a pretty summer’s day; at least, this is what I am trying to tell myself. A cool breeze blows off the Ohio River and the sun bounces off the leaves in the yard. It is seven-thirty on a weekday morning in the beginning of August. Next week, I will begin my senior year of high school and I’m sitting on my porch waiting for James to show up with the drugs he promised me.

I feel guilty for appreciating the weather as much as I am. 

Mom is asleep in the house and my father is already at work. My neighborhood is characteristically quiet. There is little chance of being discovered. Before this day, I have never done drugs.

Opening to A Dream Undone on July 2012

“Do you know what you’re doing, Brody?” James asks.

He tenses his mouth to say something else, but doesn’t.

I lean into my knees and look at the 20-oz Vanilla Coke bottle that he has filled with Dextromethorphan. DXM. I catch my reflection in the rose lenses of his sunglasses and realize that I haven’t given his question much thought.

Before today, I’ve never done drugs.

___________________________________________________

Thank you Jeremy for your insightful post about writers’ groups and their effect on your writing!

Interested in Jeremy’s novel, A Dream Undone?

ebook | Paperback

Synopsis: 

“After the death of his girlfriend, high-school senior Brody uses progressively extreme coping methods to try to come to terms with his loss, make sense of the world, and learn how to deal with his increasingly unstable emotions.”

Follow Jeremy on Tumblr here.

Check out his Kickstarter project for his upcoming short film, A Dream Undone here.

____________________________________________________

I hope you guys enjoyed this guest post!

Happy reading!

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Welcome to Interview Fridays! 

Today I have the honour of presenting Jeremy Bronaugh, a newly self-published author, to my blog! His debut novel, A Dream Undone, is a deep and haunting look into the world of drug use, abuse, death, and depression through the point-of-view of a young adult grieving the recent loss of his girlfriend. 

Interested? Sound like something you would read?

You can check out my review here.

You can buy his book here.

You can follow Jeremy on his blog here. 

This week’s author offers us an insightful look into how writing can save us and be an outlet for our inner struggles.

Enjoy!

1. How personal is your writing?

“My writing is a showcase of all the things that I can’t deal with, that are too much to talk about. I try to be emotionally honest above all else - true to the way things feel more than the way they are - because that is life. Things are a certain way, sure, but how you feel about them is reality.”

2. I can see some of the authors that influenced you within the characters and the style of writing in your novel, of all those authors, whether dead or alive, which one would you want to interview?

“There are a few I’d like to just talk to. Kevin Wilson, for modern authors. He is my favorite. H. S. Thompson would be fun just to be around, unless he thought I was a pig fucker. I met Chuck Palahniuk once and asked him to sign Lullaby out ‘To: Ebay.’ He said, “That’s cold,” and just signed his name.

Meeting writers isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

3. What books influenced you the most growing up?

“When I was in middle school, The Chocolate War. High school: Fight Club. College: Less Than Zero. I have a long list of favorites, and I can remember when I fell in love with each one of them.”

4. What came to mind first when you were in the early stages of writing A Dream Undone: Brody’s character or the storyline?

“Brody as a character was the most important. I wanted a character who might lie to himself but was telling the truth. Someone who wasn’t a good guy but never stopped trying to be—even though he couldn’t quite get there. The storyline just drew a path for him to realize it.”

5. What was the toughest part of writing A Dream Undone?

“Sometimes I would stop to cry because I was touching on something too raw. Sometimes I couldn’t figure out how to get from point A to B. Mostly I couldn’t deal with how bad my writing seemed to be. So I started a writers’ group that I ran for a year while I wrote the novel. I had a hard time finding people who would be honest with me about the quality of my work, and once I found people who were ready to tell me why my work was shit - I started to grow as a writer.

Note to other writers - Never listen to someone who tells you your work is shit. Always listen to people who tell you WHY your work is shit.”

6. You’re published, congratulations! What are your plans for writing now? And can you offer us a sneak peek into your next book?

“I’m currently working on screenplays for some independent publications and a lot of freelance editing. But my main project right now is a short film version of a chapter of A Dream Undone. When I finish that, I’ll walk away from A Dream Undone and really focus on another project. 

I’m about half way through the first draft of my second novel, also featuring Brody. But I’ve been there for a while.”

7. What are your hopes for A Dream Undone?

“All I want out of A Dream Undone is for someone I don’t know to tell me that the book mattered. That it helped them.

Anything else is nice, but not the point.”

8. If you can remember, what book(s) were you reading when you came up with the idea for A Dream Undone?

9. Have you always wanted to be a writer? If so, what urges you to write? If not, what pushed you into writing?

“To both of these questions, A Dream Undone isn’t a story I wanted to tell. It is a story I needed to tell. 

I didn’t have a plot I thought would make me money, or a slick writing style. What I did have was a chip on my shoulder, a conversation I couldn’t have with anyone.

I may be inspired by other authors, but my story isn’t. It is a story that I had to write because I couldn’t talk about the subjects with my closest friends, so I decided to bare my soul to strangers. 

I had to get it out.

I struggled with how to do it for years. Little pieces percolated and died. I wrote a short story about it. People told me it was garbage. I put it away and left it alone.

Then, I was at work - doing trade research for the World Trade Center - and I realized I hated my life. I was doing it wrong. I started writing it in frustration, at my desk. On napkins. On my palm sometimes. I’d text myself sentences and write them down later. I realized that I had to write a book. I had to get it out. A couple of pillars of my life fell apart at the same time, I quit my job, and I wrote it. Because I had to.”

That’s it for this week! Tune in next week for my next interview, thank you for reading Jeremy’s answers!

Thank you Jeremy for allowing me to interview you and I wish you the best of luck with your future projects.

Happy reading/writing!

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Hey guys, so as you know (or may not know) tomorrow is interview Friday! I’m super excited to present Jeremy Bronaugh, author of A Dream Undone (you can check out my review here)!

Also, I have my first guest post for tomorrow! A piece on ghost writing for you interested writers out there by Karen Cole, the executive director of Ghost Writer, Inc! 

I’m excited to share these posts with you guys tomorrow and I hope you are too!

Happy reading/writing!

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I received a free e-copy of Jeremy Bronaugh’s Young Adult literary novel A Dream Undone a few days ago. Unlike the current trend of authors producing vampire, fairy, zombie, and witch novels, this story deals with the issues of drug abuse, self-harm, suicide, and the power that grief holds over a troubled youth. I devoured this book after I managed to get it on my e-reader. It took a hold of me and didn’t let go until the surprising end.

Bronaugh weaves a story that takes the reader on a sort of trip similar to that of the protagonist’s. He introduces the reader to moments that are often hidden behind facades like innocent smiles and faux joy. Deep, eye-opening, and at times disturbing, A Dream Undone is like a Chbosky, Salinger, Kerouac and a bit of Thompson novel cocktail.

Read more

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