Interesting Article on Once A Runner

At the end of 2008, Slate.com published a very interesting article on Once A Runner, John L. Parker's novel about cross country. It's an intriguing piece about how Parker self-published the book back in 1978 and--in a vastly different media landscape--sold the book from the trunk of his car. Once A Runner (which, by the way, is a great title) went on to generate a cult following and was recently put back into print by a commercial publisher. It's now generally hailed as the seminal book on what it's like to be a distance runner. Imagine if he'd had today's media--FB, Twitter, blogs, etc.--at his disposal to market the book. Would've made the undertaking a whole lot easier.

Though it sounds like something I'd like, I've never read the book. In fact, I'd never even heard of it until about a year ago. I imagine I'll read it someday, but, at this point--with almost 300 pages written--I'm concerned that reading it might influence my own writing more than I'd want it too. Obviously, it'd probably be valuable see how Parker handled the subject matter, but it could also make me second guess the entire way I went about handling the subject, and I've put too much work in so far to risk the feeling of wanting to trash everything and start all over.

Query and Proposal Sent

I recently sent out a query letter and a proposal to Skyhorse Publishing. Per the company's submission guidelines, I sent my usual query letter and a version of the proposal tailored to their specifications for nonfiction submissions. My proposal is about 75 pages--it took me a while to complete, but I think it's pretty good. It has capsule summaries of each chapter, a marketing plan, a few sample chapters, etc. To be honest, it was kind of a pain in the ass to do, but everyone I've talked to in publishing says a proposal is a necessity for nonfiction.

As far as Skyhorse goes, anyone out there have any experience in dealing with them? They're relatively new on the block and seem like a smaller publisher--something that looks more appropriate (and realistic) for a project like mine than the Random Houses and Simon & Schusters of the publishing world.

Former XC Runner

One crucial aspect of working on this book was going back to run in my old team's alumni race last August. Doing so not only helped me channel some of the feelings I had back in my own high school running days, but it gave me a new perspective on what our team did back when we ran competitively.

I wasn't even close to being in any kind of shape to be running a race, but my good friend--who was on my high school team back in the day and is featured in the book--told me to "man up and run." Even in my thirties, I'm vulnerable to peer pressure, I guess. So, I went out and jogged maybe a mile-and-a-half or two a few days before the race. I seriously doubted I'd be able to run the entire thing without stopping to walk.

The day of the race I found the performance anxiety I used to experience 15 years earlier came right back. I had to pee like five times before the starting gun. When the gun went off, I was stunned at how fast the team's current runners went out. Seemed hard to believe that my teammates and I used to do the same thing. After the first half-mile of the race, I never saw any of them until I crossed the finish line and saw them all standing around.

I finished the 3.1-mile race with an embarrassing 26:09, over nine minutes worse than my best time of 17:04 on that course. At least I was able to run the whole way through without stopping to walk and an ambulance didn't have to be called afterwards. A victory in and of itself.

One thing became abundantly clear to me that day: I am no doubt a former XC runner. Even though I ran for four years (and sometimes ran well) I never thought I was a "real" runner. Since that day, I haven't run one time. Just can't bring myself to do so. At the same time, I can't get the story of our team out of my mind.

Manuscript Excerpt #1

After two posts, I thought it was time to present a very brief excerpt of the book, in the event you need a little arm-twisting to become a follower of the project. There will be more excerpts in the future, randomly selected so you can get an idea of what I'm doing, but not have the story ruined in the event the book is ever for sale someday. Also, it's a good way of keeping myself accountable. Hopefully, that'll be good motivation to keep working on the project.

A little set-up: The following is the beginning of what is currently the book's 20th chapter. The chapter opens with a little background on the annual Manhattan College XC Invitational. I always thought it was very cool that our team traveled to New York every year to run in this event. If you've run in this meet, then you know what it's all about. If not, well then, there's the book I'm working on that could give you some insight.

Again, the excerpt is very brief--it's just a screen shot of the Word document that I'm writing in. Hope it entices you to want to see more. (You can click on the screen shot to enlarge it.)

Truth Or Fiction?

One thing I've grappled with while working on this project is whether I should write the book as a true story--which requires substantial research--or write a novel that's based on the true story. There are advantages to doing it either way: For instance, if I decided to write a novel I could take the basic plot from the true story and enhance it in certain places that I think would make the narrative more dramatic than it actually was. Or I could just make stuff up to fill in parts of the story that are difficult to research. That'd be great.

However, totally factual, true stories always seem to resonate with readers in a unique way, and I think the story of our XC team and, in particular, the 1992 season is great on its own merits. No doubt, it's a harder path to go down because I've had to research a lot and interview several people, and still have to interview several more. Still, as I work my way through the writing, every now and then I have a little doubt about what I'm doing and entertain the idea of just fictionalizing the whole thing and making it a novel.

What prevents me from doing that, though, is that I keep coming back to the fact that when I decided to begin this project, I dug up all my old XC memorabilia and, of the four seasons I ran on the Wood Cross Country team, the 1992 season was the only one for which I had everything. I clipped and saved every newspaper article from that season, I held on to every meet result sheet our coach handed out to the team and saved every trophy or medal I won that year. I even found all the team clothing I wore that year. Some instinct in me--even though I don't specifically remember saving all of that stuff--knew the story of that season was a good one. At that time, I had no desire to be a writer, but I imagine I held on to all that stuff because, perhaps, some subconscious part of my brain figured I might need it someday.

Welcome/Building An Audience

Welcome to the XC Book Project blog! My name is Andrew—I'm a writer and former cross country runner. 

I'm working on a nonfiction book about high school cross country and, while I've put in a decent amount of work so far, I still have a long way to go before it's finished.

The main reason for the blog is to build an audience for the book, since several literary agents I've contacted have expressed to me their lack of confidence that a substantial audience for a book about high school cross country exists. In the coming weeks and months, I'll post updates here detailing progress made in writing the book and perhaps some snippets of content from book in the writing stage.

Here's where you come in. I'm asking for your help in getting this book published. Evidently, I cannot do it alone. So, if you're a fan of XC, you'd like to read a good book about XC and you like what I'm trying to do here, please become of follower of the blog, an audience member if you will, so I can go to an agent or publisher and say, "See, there is an audience for a cross country book!"