Laurel Corona, author of Aloha Wanderwell Takes the Wheel: What It’s Like to Write Another Book When Ten Years Ago I Swore I Wouldn’t
I said I was done writing historical fiction. I originally had four ideas for novels, and I had written them all. I felt so beaten up by everything about the publishing process that I wouldn’t subject myself to it again. I wasn’t willing to make the sacrifices to health, relationships, and overall well being that getting deeply engrossed in writing a book entails. I was more interested in other things and didn’t have the time. It was over, kaput, finito.
Aloha Wanderwell
And then I discovered her. Aloha Wanderwell ran away from her boarding school in 1924 at age 16 to become the first woman to drive around the world. Aloha’s coming-of-age story of spending the next ten years driving a half a million miles across five continents, trying to navigate not only the lack of roads, but her relationship with the charismatic con man who became her husband, had given me no choice. I took a deep breath, ordered source material, and sat down to write Aloha Wanderwell Takes the Wheel.
Though it had been twelve years since my last book, The Mapmaker’s Daughter, it felt in some ways as if no time had passed at all. In my discovery draft, which is what I call my first pass, the writing flowed easily as I got to know Aloha better, hearing her voice and discovering her weaknesses and strengths. The other characters had to be invented largely from scratch without deviating from what was factually known about them, and that was a challenge I always enjoy.
I love letting my characters’ thoughts, actions, and words flow through my fingers. I love thinking of how to bring as many of the five senses as possible into a scene. I love incorporating insights from my own life into my characters’ thoughts and actions. I love the free therapy writing provides to process the tough “coulda, woulda, shouldas” of my own story. I was so glad to be back in the writing seat that I didn’t even mind the toll the years had taken on my ability to sit for hours without getting up hunched over and hobbling.
Enamored with Words
I’ve always been enamored with words, down to the shapes of the letters. Nothing about that has changed since I was a child writing my first little stories and realizing with a sense of awe how something that did not have a concrete existence suddenly did because I wrote it down. Writing Aloha I just kept putting down the words—deleting, adding, and changing them until a year later I had a first draft, and another year later a much better one, and eventually one that was as good as I could make it.
Then reality hit. I will be blunt here: There isn’t a lot of interest in publishing a writer in her 70s. You can’t blame a publishing house for choosing a debut writer they can develop over a career as opposed to someone who may have anywhere from zero to a couple of books left to write.
Judged by Sales
And then there’s the issue of sales history. Being judged by that is a bitter pill to swallow, because it’s hardly fair to judge an author by the publishers’ failure to market previous books. If I had known that titles considered mid-list would have only a small amount of the time of a publicist for about a month, I would have thrown everything I could behind my first novel. If anyone reading this is early in your career, my advice is to hire a publicist and pay the maximum amount you possibly can for a good campaign. Success with one book could set you up. Lack of success could bite you down the road. I’ve been lucky that several of my books have done well, but not as well as they might have.
Another thing that’s new since my last book is the rise of publishers with innovative models. Back in the 2010s, there were vanity presses that would publish anything a writer was willing to pay for. They still exist, but now there are also legitimate, high-quality hybrids like She Writes, and a market co-op model like the one at Sibylline Press, which now publishes my books. They have brought new life into the industry and a wealth of excellent books for readers.
There’s a third factor that’s different In recent years interest has skyrocketed in novels, historical or otherwise, written about cultures and lifestyles unfamiliar to the typical reader. If a publisher had to choose between my book or one by an author from Zimbabwe or Uzbekistan, or someone with a life beyond the experience of the average reader, I wouldn’t like losing out, but I understand how much we need diverse voices and stories that take us places we can’t reach on our own.
Things Have Changed
Many things have changed in the last decade. Social media in the 2010s was limited to exchanging guest blog spots on websites hardly anyone read. Even having a website was cutting edge. Paying companies to do book trailers was all the rage. Goodreads and Facebook were just a few years old and there was no Instagram or TikTok. I’d never heard of an influencer. I can’t say I’m loving catching up with all this. Ideally, I’d like to be known as that famous recluse who rarely makes any kind of appearance, but I recognize now how much of the success of a book is on me, and I have to gird my loins, put myself out there, and be ready (and grateful) for the attention my book will receive.
Of course that will include questions about what I’ll publish next. Honestly, I have no idea. If I do write more books, maybe there will be a story about how I’m the oldest person ever to top the New York Times best seller list. Now there’s a fantasy I’m going to enjoy for a while!
(c) Laurel Corona
- Author website
- Facebook: @laurelcoronaauthor
- Instagram: @laurelcoronaauthor
About Aloha Wanderwell Takes the Wheel:
In the 1920s and 1930s, Aloha Wanderwell drove Model Ts across five continents, winning fame as the most traveled woman in the world.
Sixteen-year-old Idris Hall ran away from her boarding achool in 1924, changed her name, and joined the daring around-the-world expedition of charismatic Walter “Cap” Wanderwell, beginning a decade-long adventure that would take her across five continents behind the wheel of a Model T, in an era where roads were often no more than grooves in the dirt, and few if any people had seen a car or a European face.
Who was Aloha Wanderwell? How did she find the determination and courage to survive threats like stampeding elephants in Africa, a blizzard obliterating the road in Ukraine, and armed militants in China? Who was Walter Wanderwell? Rogue, philanderer, con man, and perhaps a German spy—he was all of this, as well as the love of Aloha’s life. Through the grit of their travel and the giddy heights of their international fame, Aloha grows from a starstruck teen to a woman confident of everything except the man who cannot love her the way she needs.
Aloha Wanderwell Takes the Wheel is a richly imagined exploration of Aloha’s inner and outer world, told against the backdrop of one of the great adventure stories of its time, and the murder that brought it to a catastrophic end.
Order your copy online here and here.
Read more Historical Fiction Meet the Author articles on Writing.ie here.
