Today’s post is a guest spot from author and climber John Long. Here he discusses the writing process and his experience working with Di Angelo Publications.

To bring a book to publication is a kind of magic act. An adventure starting with a blank page and resulting, for others, in laughter, thought, the gnashing of teeth, drinking whisky from the bottle. The good stuff, the stuff you remember, is always a collaboration. The writer and the editors traverse the work with metal detectors and scythes. Looking for gold, and polishing. Cutting down the chaff. Culling out the needless altogether. There is a technical side to this requiring knack and an eagle eye, but the critical work involves pulling the stories through your soul and your humanity. This can get excruciating because it takes so much time and focused attention. Living with stories long enough to know. Invested enough to make sure, so far as you can, that every drop of value has been squeezed from those black dots on the page.

So runs my experience with Cody, Ashley, and Willy, my editors at Di Angelo Press. Stay the course till the work is realized. That’s how the pros do it – except so few ever do. I’ve wanted to kill those three on occasion, as they’ve wanted to murder me. But that’s the fun of it. The quest after the unattainable. The perfect line. Lightning in a bottle. You have to love what you do to even try.

Click here to order John Long’s book Icarus Syndrome, and here to pre-order his flash fiction compilation, Rogue’s Atlas.

John Long on life...