Welcome Linda Lange, author of Incomplete Passes
What inspired you to write Incomplete Passes?
There were two factors. One was a friendship that started in eighth grade. Growing up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, I became close to three girls who changed my life. We became friends because we all were obsessed with the Green Bay Packers. This was during the period when the legendary Vince Lombardi coached the football team and the Packers won five championships in nine years. Green Bay was a small town and teams didn’t maintain the heavy security they do today, so we could meet the players and get very close to them. We’d hang out at the practice field and also watch for the players when they came downtown.
I was a brainy, nerdy, rather prissy kid, but my new friends got me to play sports and try new things. I became a very different person. The four of us have kept in touch over all of these years, although we live in four different states. Since 1997 we’ve been making an annual trip back to Green Bay to renew our ties and see a game.
The other factor is a weird mid-life crisis I had when I was in my thirties. Believe it or not, this involved the Packers, too. I woke up one day and realized that I was getting close to forty, and I was older than almost all of the active NFL players. As a young girl I had dreamed of growing up and dating the players, maybe even marrying one. It struck me that this was never going to happen. It became the symbol of all the things that I once thought I would do, but hadn’t.
There were two factors. One was a friendship that started in eighth grade. Growing up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, I became close to three girls who changed my life. We became friends because we all were obsessed with the Green Bay Packers. This was during the period when the legendary Vince Lombardi coached the football team and the Packers won five championships in nine years. Green Bay was a small town and teams didn’t maintain the heavy security they do today, so we could meet the players and get very close to them. We’d hang out at the practice field and also watch for the players when they came downtown.
I was a brainy, nerdy, rather prissy kid, but my new friends got me to play sports and try new things. I became a very different person. The four of us have kept in touch over all of these years, although we live in four different states. Since 1997 we’ve been making an annual trip back to Green Bay to renew our ties and see a game.
The other factor is a weird mid-life crisis I had when I was in my thirties. Believe it or not, this involved the Packers, too. I woke up one day and realized that I was getting close to forty, and I was older than almost all of the active NFL players. As a young girl I had dreamed of growing up and dating the players, maybe even marrying one. It struck me that this was never going to happen. It became the symbol of all the things that I once thought I would do, but hadn’t.
Tell me about your publishing journey.
I wrote a few scenes of Incomplete Passes during 2008 and started to write the book in earnest during 2009. By the end of that year I was trying to find a publisher or agent. A couple were interested enough to ask for a manuscript. The problem was, I’d send them the manuscript and they’d keep it for several months before giving me their reaction. As it turned out, neither publisher took the book, and I’d lost a lot of time. Now it was the middle of 2010. The Packer heroes I’d been writing about were in their seventies and eighties. My friends and I were in our sixties. I was afraid that at this rate, all the people in the book would die off before I found a publisher. Some friends recommended self-publishing. I had no idea how to go about this on my own, but then I found out about companies like CreateSpace and iUniverse. I chose iUniverse because they offered a social media startup package, and I could buy a package that included an editorial evaluation. After working on Incomplete Passes for two years, I knew it needed an editor’s eye. It was ultimately the iUniverse editor who persuaded me to minimize the play script and expand the narrative. Also, iUniverse had incentive levels, and if I qualified for Editor’s Choice and Rising Star, I could earn a free cover design. I love the cover they designed for me. I never would have done as well on my own. The book came out at the end of August 2011, and I’ve spent almost all of my free time since then trying to market it.
What do you know now that you wish you knew then?
There are things that iUniverse did for me that I could have done far more cheaply on my own. Also, because the social media package didn’t kick in until my title went live, I lost a lot of promotion time. I should have been promoting the book long before it came out. I’m finding out new places to list my book and new ways to network even now, when I should have been utilizing them in 2011. Fortunately, I’ll have these connections in place when I write another book.
What are you working on next?
The next book is definitely going to be a novel. I volunteer at an animal shelter, and I’ve just started writing a novel about people who work in a shelter. I have a lot of it in my head, but very little on paper so far. I don’t want to write only about the animals. There are plenty of books around that tell sad or inspirational stories of cats and dogs. I would concentrate more on the stories of the people who work in a shelter. I want to entertain, but I also want to educate readers about what goes on in a shelter. Few people know the scope of the homeless-animal problem. A lot of people think they can drop off their unwanted cat or dog at a shelter and he’ll have a great new home in a couple of weeks. The numbers are so huge that it just doesn’t work that way. Working title of the novel is You Can’t Save ‘em All.
There is also an emerging genre called Boomer Lit that I’m interested in. Just as the Young Adult genre was created for baby boomers in the 1960s and ‘70s, authors are now writing Boomer Lit for the same audience. There are about 78 million boomers in the United States. Almost all are now in their fifties and sixties. They have time to read, and they often want to read about people like themselves—people who are adjusting to retirement, looking for second careers, re-examining relationships. Boomer Lit is not nostalgia, and it is not about people becoming elderly and sick. We live in an age where older people can be rebellious, sexy, romantic, adventurous, wise, and fun.
Linda's Blog
Twitter
Facebook
Amazon Author Page
Boomer Lit blog hop
Boomer Lit on Goodreads
I wrote a few scenes of Incomplete Passes during 2008 and started to write the book in earnest during 2009. By the end of that year I was trying to find a publisher or agent. A couple were interested enough to ask for a manuscript. The problem was, I’d send them the manuscript and they’d keep it for several months before giving me their reaction. As it turned out, neither publisher took the book, and I’d lost a lot of time. Now it was the middle of 2010. The Packer heroes I’d been writing about were in their seventies and eighties. My friends and I were in our sixties. I was afraid that at this rate, all the people in the book would die off before I found a publisher. Some friends recommended self-publishing. I had no idea how to go about this on my own, but then I found out about companies like CreateSpace and iUniverse. I chose iUniverse because they offered a social media startup package, and I could buy a package that included an editorial evaluation. After working on Incomplete Passes for two years, I knew it needed an editor’s eye. It was ultimately the iUniverse editor who persuaded me to minimize the play script and expand the narrative. Also, iUniverse had incentive levels, and if I qualified for Editor’s Choice and Rising Star, I could earn a free cover design. I love the cover they designed for me. I never would have done as well on my own. The book came out at the end of August 2011, and I’ve spent almost all of my free time since then trying to market it.
What do you know now that you wish you knew then?
There are things that iUniverse did for me that I could have done far more cheaply on my own. Also, because the social media package didn’t kick in until my title went live, I lost a lot of promotion time. I should have been promoting the book long before it came out. I’m finding out new places to list my book and new ways to network even now, when I should have been utilizing them in 2011. Fortunately, I’ll have these connections in place when I write another book.
What are you working on next?
The next book is definitely going to be a novel. I volunteer at an animal shelter, and I’ve just started writing a novel about people who work in a shelter. I have a lot of it in my head, but very little on paper so far. I don’t want to write only about the animals. There are plenty of books around that tell sad or inspirational stories of cats and dogs. I would concentrate more on the stories of the people who work in a shelter. I want to entertain, but I also want to educate readers about what goes on in a shelter. Few people know the scope of the homeless-animal problem. A lot of people think they can drop off their unwanted cat or dog at a shelter and he’ll have a great new home in a couple of weeks. The numbers are so huge that it just doesn’t work that way. Working title of the novel is You Can’t Save ‘em All.
There is also an emerging genre called Boomer Lit that I’m interested in. Just as the Young Adult genre was created for baby boomers in the 1960s and ‘70s, authors are now writing Boomer Lit for the same audience. There are about 78 million boomers in the United States. Almost all are now in their fifties and sixties. They have time to read, and they often want to read about people like themselves—people who are adjusting to retirement, looking for second careers, re-examining relationships. Boomer Lit is not nostalgia, and it is not about people becoming elderly and sick. We live in an age where older people can be rebellious, sexy, romantic, adventurous, wise, and fun.
Linda's Blog
Amazon Author Page
Boomer Lit blog hop
Boomer Lit on Goodreads
 Incomplete Passes Linda Lange turned twelve in 1959, the year Vince Lombardi arrived in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and changed everything. To say that Linda embraced Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers would be an understatement. Her new passion transformed the way she viewed her hometown, the world, and herself. Football led Linda to Pam, Del, and Carla. The young women formed a bond that would survive distance, marriage, divorce, careers, and motherhood. In her often witty memoir, Linda chronicles the years the infatuated teens followed their heroes around Green Bay. As Kristin Wilson said in her review for the Green Bay Literature Examiner, “The innocence of these girls combined with the situations they found themselves in makes for some pretty hilarious tales.” Sometimes nostalgic, often wry, Incomplete Passes will resonate with anyone who fantasizes about romance with a celebrity, questions a life decision, or revels in the joy of reconnecting with friends. | |
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