A 25 Year Journey to Published Author | Back to One
In a 25 Year Journey to Published Author, Antonia Gavrihel (Twitter: @AntoniaGavrihel), author of Back to One, joins host William Glass to discuss the starts and stops to get her breakout novel published. Antonia shares the failed publisher and producer pitches where she came inches from publishing her novel to her unique writing process. You’ll learn how music plays an important role in Back to One both in the story and in crafting the story.
Antonia has released a unique NFT project in accordance with the novel’s publishing. View the Back to One project on OpenSea: https://opensea.io/collection/back-to-one.
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James is the Founder of Vermillion Private Wealth and Wixology Candle Company. His curiosity about entrepreneurship led him to start his first company while serving as an officer in the US Air Force. Since then, James has continued to grow as an entrepreneur. As the owner of Vermillion Private Wealth, James serves as a fee-only financial advisor and investment management, overseeing investment portfolios that focus on innovative and disruptive technologies. With Wixology, James works alongside his co-founders to continue to grow the brand, emphasizing sustainability.
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Transcription
Transcription is autogenerated and may contain errors.
[00:00:00] William Glass: Welcome to the Silicon Alec podcast. Super excited to have you on today. Thank you for inviting me. I appreciate it. Yeah. So I’m excited to talk to you for a couple of reasons. Antonio Gabrielle also known as Anne Glass, AKA my mom. So really excited to sit down and specifically talk about a book that you’ve been working on for a very long time called back to one.
Yes. Yes. , do you mind giving the audience a little context on the history behind this?
[00:00:28] Antonia Gavrihel: Well in 1994, when you were just a little Todd, I, um, began writing this book. I would come home. We’d have dinner, have some fun time, and then you go to sleep. And then I would sit down at, what was kind of a makeshift desk with my brand new computer, 1994, of course, brand new computer.
And I would start to craft the story about, this marriage. We had a small child, who really, meets someone she should never have met and they become best friends. And he’s actually, uh, a Hollywood movie star with a tabloid reputation. And to the world, it looks like an odd relationship, but it’s really a very wonderful relationship.
And I would write these, these little tails, from about midnight to three o’clock in the morning. Cause there was very little distraction at that time of night and I seem to be most creative. Then it took me about a year with editing to get the book ready to go out to publishers. And then I started to.
And receive those wonderful collections of rejection letters. And I also submitted to production companies because I tend to write, as if I’m viewing a movie and then I write what I see. So I thought this would translate very well into a movie, to a motion picture. So I would also send it out to production companies, literary agents, and, and, and I did for many, many years for 26, 25, 20 16.
[00:01:59] William Glass: It’s a really cool story that, over the course of 26 years to get to this point where it’s being published and you’ve gone through all these different rejections, it’s very similar to the startup world, right. Going to VCs and pitching and getting those rejections and those nos.
And this is, you’re kind of the, . The baby that you’ve been working on and you’ve got this vision, and it’s getting that across to other people. So I’m curious, that’s taking a step back. W. So where did the idea to start writing come from? Have you always been a writer? Where did that creativity to start writing come from?
[00:02:30] Antonia Gavrihel: Unfortunately, growing up, I was a latchkey child, so I would come home from school and I had my little key and I would get in the house and I wasn’t, my parents were not home. To take care of me. So I would just sit in my room and, and write because it was a release. It was a way of creating a world for myself that was full of friends and quite enjoyable.
And I just fell in love with writing. At that point. I was very young when I started doing this.
[00:03:00] William Glass: What type of stories there was, it always been fiction. What’s that
[00:03:04] Antonia Gavrihel: process. It was mostly fiction, although I did read some screenplays and some play plays. , so I did a lot of that as well. Anything I could act out because I was by nature, an actress, and I came from an entertainment world.
My parents were entertainers. I was surrounded by that. And, and my mother put me in front of a camera when I was quite young. So I, I view everything as, like I said a film., the actress in that film or my characters or the actors in the film. Well,
[00:03:35] William Glass: that, so how, how did that growing up impact you in terms of thinking about like the creativity you mentioned, parents were in entertainment.
Can you talk about how that plays into the story? Had a
[00:03:49] Antonia Gavrihel: delightful childhood, despite the latchkey part of it. I had a really wonderful childhood growing up with entertainment. Parents,, can be tricky, but for me it was wonderful. I would love to visit my father on a film set. I would love to sit in a recording studios, my other cut an album.
W to me, it was, it was wonderful to watch my parents be childlike because when they were performing their youth, their excitement, their creativity came out. And to see my parents from that point of view, almost on a daily basis was. Quite fulfilling. It allowed me, my father always told me, you know, you do something in your life every day and you shouldn’t be miserable doing it.
And there’s nothing more wonderful than taking a talent and creating a living from that. And that’s what my parents did. So I had that as a role model for me and I. Thoroughly enjoyed my childhood. My brother’s incredibly creative. My older brother. So I mean, with those three people in my life surrounding me, I was able to continue to create for myself.
[00:05:03] William Glass: Yeah, no, that makes sense. We have being in that environment and getting to see your parents be. Yeah, as you said, you full and playful and creative and, and make people laugh and do these different things. So how, how did that play? How does that play into this story? Right? Cause you mentioned that there’s a Hollywood actor as one of the main characters.
, talk to me a little bit about the story
[00:05:27] Antonia Gavrihel: itself. The story was created out of my own. I would say. Need for friend loneliness, maybe even. And so obviously Catherine is me, I would say the better parts of me and, and actually Robbie is you because he’s a three-year-old, The rest of that is, is really it’s my own fantasy world.
I mean, obviously I do not know, uh, Kyle,, so it was something that, that I just started to develop and think wouldn’t this be wonderful if this would occur? And that’s where the book came from. and I, I tried to make sure that both Kyle and Cate. We’re the type of characters that people could relate to, that they could look in the mirror and say that person’s my friend, or that could be me or something very relatable.
And, I, I think that I accomplish that, but the book was written truly to make me happy. it was, it was a story that I could only dream. Would come true. so it was, it was really my, my own personal, adventure. You might say that I created. And so other people liking it. Really excites me because I really did write it for myself.
But then again, you know, I’d always heard even when I would take creative writing classes and high school and in college, I would hear, you know, you, you write what, you know, I know myself, so you write what you know, , and you really do write not for a specific audience, but you write for yourself.
If it entertains you, if it excites you, then other people will feel that and relate to it.
[00:07:21] William Glass: Absolutely. And I think that that’s something that really stands out is that early on you, you develop this interest in the characters, you really want to know what happens. You can relate to them, as you said. And I think that’s something that your writing really shows.
And part of that goes to think to the dialogue, right? Your experience acting and. Performing, you kind of understand how people communicate in real life and being able to put that on the page, but have it as your reading, be something that you can visualize and picture, I think is really, really something that stands out to me.
I’ve obviously a little biased, but I’ve read the book now over the number of years and seen it kind of transform. And I think that’s something that you do very, very
[00:08:01] Antonia Gavrihel: well. Well, thank you. I always start the dialogue. That’s I, every writer has their own method. My method is to get the story down and the story for me is always in the dialogue.
So I get the story down. Then I play it back in my head as if it’s a movie and write what I see for the action. And I’ve, I’ve always done it that way. Even when I was a child, that’s the way I
[00:08:24] William Glass: wrote. You’re writing the dialogue though. You’re not picturing it. You’re just picturing the conversation. And then you add
[00:08:30] Antonia Gavrihel: the, I picture.
That’s an interesting way of putting it. I do picture it, but not as fully as when I go back and play it again in my head. And then I’m focusing not on the dialogue anymore. I’m focusing on what’s happening with the dialogue what’s happening behind the dialogue. Okay. So it’s really kind of a two-step process for me.
I’m going back and filling in the actions, he picked up the glass and took a sip, you know, something as simple as that creates a picture and an environment. , and you understand. Where the dialogue is actually coming from by the physical actions there it’s very symbiotic. You have to have both, and you have to have them so that they mesh.
So that’s how I, that’s how I’ve always written.
[00:09:22] William Glass: Awesome. No, that makes sense. I’ve had that question and I’ve been waiting to ask you that specific follow-up question of, if you picture the, if you read the dialogue first, are you, what are you picturing?
[00:09:31] Antonia Gavrihel: I am not as intensely as I do when I play it back in line.
Because no longer is the focus on the dialogue or the story that’s already there now. It’s what’s happening behind the dialogue. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:09:44] William Glass: So what is, what is something that you hope a reader takes away from, from the story? .
[00:09:49] Antonia Gavrihel: Everything is based on friendship.
Whether it’s a marriage or a love affair or, or, or just your buddies, friendship has to be the basis. If you don’t have that as a basis, then there’s something lacking. It’s not, it’s not real. It’s not tangible at that point. So friendship becomes the main focus. There’s two quotes in there by Aristotle.
And the ironic part about it is. When he, and I, I’m not sure which one he wrote first, but his definition of what love is, is almost identical to his definition of friendship. So I thought that’s and I was a philosophy major. So I thought that was, that’s very fascinating that, that he linked those together.
Because it’s, they are completely linked.
[00:10:42] William Glass: And you brought an Aristotle and philosophy into the story and you’ve got Hollywood and acting. You’ve got. Alabama and the
[00:10:49] Antonia Gavrihel: south. So you’ve got,
[00:10:52] William Glass: you’ve got all these different, cultures and, and ideas that are wrapped up into this one story about a
[00:10:58] Antonia Gavrihel: friendship, right.
And, and children, children play a big part in it. There, one of the things that draw the two characters together as they both have small children and, and Kyle’s kind of trying to figure out how to be a good father. And watching Kate be a good mother, helps him to understand what, what is necessary to be a good father as well.
So they help each other in that respect. And I think the children benefit from that quite a bit, in the relation. Absolutely.
[00:11:32] William Glass: Yeah. So let’s go back to the story of you were trying to sell this book. You talked to a number of people. Can you talk about some of those rejections? Are there any that stand out?
[00:11:43] Antonia Gavrihel: Well, there were actually two near misses. One was a literary agent in Beverly Hills. I flew out to meet with him. And I was very excited cause you know, that’s, that’s the door opener is having the literary agent to go to the publisher, to present to the publishers. And you’re not really, I, I, there are some publishers who will look at your work without a literary agent, but I think it gives you a lot of credibility if you have that layer of, communication through a literary agent.
So I was, I was in Beverly Hills and, and he really enjoyed the story. He liked it, a great deal. Came back. And he said he had too many people in that genre and he didn’t want to take on another writer in that Yara, which was interesting because I could never figure out what my genre was. I really struggled with that for a long time, because it wasn’t a romance novel.
This isn’t a romance and it wasn’t a it wasn’t just straight up fiction. I didn’t think. So I really struggled with what my genre was. And so he rejected me based on too many people in that genre, whatever that might have been. And then the other one was a production company, a major production company, was filming out of.
And I lived in Phoenix at the time. Well, no, actually I didn’t live in Phoenix. I was living here, but I was visiting family. My family still lived in Phoenix. And so I went down and met with the production company and gave them a copy and they, I never heard anything back for all. I know it got dumped in the trash can.
But I actually was able to meet with the production company. So that was pretty exciting to me. A little disappointing. I never heard from them, but yeah, very exciting.
[00:13:26] William Glass: So had a couple of near misses and then. It sat on the shelf for awhile where you active?
[00:13:30] Antonia Gavrihel: I decided to go law school and, as an adult, I decided to just go back to law school and go to law school and become an attorney.
And while I was in law school, I, my focus had to be on studying because I still worked full time and went to law school at the same time. I have a little drawer under my bed. It was placed in that drawer and that’s where it kind of made a cozy little home for awhile. I would bring it out when I would be feeling down and I would reread it cause it always cheered me up.
Then the summer of COVID 2020. And, you came to visit and stay with me for awhile, which was wonderful. I loved it. But one of the first things you said to me was mom, I do not want to sit and watch marathon TV with you for however many months, we’re going to be doing. And S and you suggested if I remember correctly, what did you ever do with that book that you wrote?
And I said, it’s in the drawer and you said, well, why don’t you pull it out and update it because you’ve always complained. You wrote it in 95 and it’s a little dated, it had video stores and things like that in it. So I decided that was a good idea. And I pulled it out and I updated the book and brought it, not all the way through.
Because I just, once I got to the end of updating the book, Another book appeared St. Character’s continuing their story. And I didn’t want to get into the nether worlds of time where the book was basically placed in 2024, but we don’t know what happens in 2024 because we’re not there yet. So I, instead of bringing it all the way up to date, I brought it up by 10 years to 2005.
Okay. And I started from there. I still have video stores, which was good. Cause I could leave that in there. So I, uh, brought it up today, had to change my music. Music is a big deal in the book. So I had to change my songs because that would make, Cate and Kyle born later than what they were in the original book.
and so their, their musical interests would be different. Obviously if they were born in a, in a different decade, once you went back to New York, I happened to bump into a good friend of mine and he knows you and asked me, what was I doing during this, this time of hibernation that everybody seemed to do?
And I said, I said, William came to visit and darn, if that kid didn’t make me pull out a book, I wrote years ago and update the. And he looked at me and he said, did I ever tell you that I know somebody who’s in publishing, I could maybe get this to them. Would you like me to do that? And it’s like, well, we should definitely please.
And he’s submitted the book for me and maybe introductions. I submitted the book and within a week or so. I had a contract and my publisher loves my two main characters quite a bit, and asked me to consider doing a second book, which I then said, well, I’ve already finished the second book. And he said, keep going.
So I have kept going and I have finished the four.
[00:17:00] William Glass: Wow. That’s a really, really awesome journey. And obviously it sounds like putting yourself out there and talking about what you’re working on and being excited, helped introduce you to the publisher
[00:17:13] Antonia Gavrihel: and the right person. Yes. And, and, and I always believe that things happen in the right time.
And I think back often, if this had happened 24 years ago, back when I originally wrote the book, would I be this happy? Would I be this appreciative? Maybe, maybe not. But having waited this long period of time and gone through all the struggles and the rejections, it it’s it’s. Credible. I’ve never been this happy in my entire life.
Never been this happy, consistently happy. It’s not an up and down thing. It’s a consistently happy, which motivated me to write the other books being on this kind of, excitement or high, so to speak, is what allowed me to, to be, to kind of open up that creativity again and continue the journeys for the two.
[00:18:07] William Glass: Yeah, that’s awesome. And obviously I can, I can feel the energy and I know how excited you are and it makes me happy to see you happy. And I’m super proud of what you’ve been able to accomplish and excited. Can you talk about what your goals are for the book and what you’d ideally like the story of Kate and Kyle to be
[00:18:25] Antonia Gavrihel: long-term the problem with that is that it gives away too much.
[00:18:29] William Glass: I’m not telling you to give away the storyline,
[00:18:31] Antonia Gavrihel: They’re really substantial characters. And I think a series of books with those two characters has longevity. And I really do feel that, I mean, the second book, the first book is the first four years of their relationship as friends.
The second book is 10 years. The third book is about eight years and then the fourth book is a surprise.
[00:19:01] William Glass: What do you envision like ideally happening to the book itself? Right? So are you got into the characters? I was more thinking about, you mentioned that you submitted this to production companies.
[00:19:13] Antonia Gavrihel: I would love to see it made into a movie. And I’m talking about big screen. I really think that these are the type of characters. If a production company, if a producer found this, this material, and a screenplay was well-written, I would love to help with that. I think that this could be a franchise for someone
[00:19:36] William Glass: I do too.
I think that the quality of the characters, the storytelling, and then also, as you said, the way that you write coming from the entertainment background. Adapting this into a screenplay and putting it on the big screen is a very easy task relative to other novels where there’s a lot of descriptive words and things.
I think that’s something that’s really interesting is you’ve asked other people, well, who would you pick to play Kyle or KX or characters in a movie? And everyone has a different
[00:20:02] Antonia Gavrihel: answer. It’s very much so very
[00:20:05] William Glass: much. And I realized that that’s part of the way that you described. You describe enough where someone can put in their vision of, of who would fulfill that role.
But you’re not saying here’s, you know, every single detail of their character, but it allows that kind of vision for anyone to morph it to, to, what excites them and how they, how they connect with the characters, which is
[00:20:24] Antonia Gavrihel: something that I really like. And, and some of the people that they’ve come up with, I think to myself, no, I don’t think, but I don’t say it because that’s their vision and let that be their vision.
That’s fine. People often asked me, did you base Kyle on anyone? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Kyle is kind of my ideal man. So, and it’s funny because I can visualize all the carriers. All the characters except Kyle it’s, it’s a weird phenomenon. I can see his eyes. I can see a smile. I can see expressions, but to see Kyle, I I’ve never really been able to see him.
And I think it’s because for me, he such the perfect. And when I say perfect, man, he’s not flawless. He has plenty of flaws, but for me, it’s very hard to visualize that person. There’s no face. I mean, just like I said, just express.
[00:21:20] William Glass: Which is really, really interesting. And I don’t know, how other writers write, but I would imagine that they typically have some sort of vision for all of their characters.
And it’s really, yeah. Really interesting. But
[00:21:30] Antonia Gavrihel: I have visions for all the other ones. I mean, I know exactly what Ben looks like. I know exactly what, Tracey looks like. I know what the, all of those characters look, I know what Scott looks like. I know what Robin looks like, but I, you know, I just can’t really picture him.
[00:21:47] William Glass: What have you learned throughout this process? Obviously, you know, it’s been a long journey and it’s far from over, it’s really picking up steam, I would say more than anything. And probably at the beginning, so to speak, which is crazy to say after 26 years. But what have you learned throughout this process that someone else that is thinking about writing
[00:22:07] Antonia Gavrihel: could go through?
I have on my class ring from loss. In Italian, the word resilience. And I think that’s what a good writer has to be. You have to have persistence and resilience. You have to be able to be flexible. If an editor doesn’t like something in your book, you know, take a look. They might have a much better idea because, because when you write a book, you kind of narrow your focus a bit.
And it’s nice to have input from others where they say, you know what. I don’t really like the way that works, but if we did this instead and my editor is absolutely phenomenal, so that was the kind of input I would receive. And it’s like, okay, fine. Let me go try it. And I tried it and it was so much better, so much better than what I had written.
And it’s like, wow, that really, that really improved it so much. Do you have an example? Yes. I had a therapist. Session actually at three of them in the book. And my editor said nobody really wants to hear somebody having a therapy session. Not really. So why don’t we change it to maybe he’s having a drink with his buddy?
It’s like, okay, well I can do that. And so one of the minor characters became a much more major character because he took the place of the therapist when they were just having. So that was kind of interesting that, and it worked out so much better, so much better doing that. And, and I, I really appreciated that in.
And what’s really exciting to me as, when you, when you have a book like this, you have a book launch team, and that’s about 30 people that you know, that you respect their opinions. You give them what is known as the advanced reader, copy the arc. So it’s not quite perfect yet. And, you get their input and hear what they have to say.
And I always felt well, women will, will love this book. What’s real. Just completely shocked me in a wonderful way is my main readers love this book. And I think, well, that’s, that’s great. That is absolutely wonderful. It’s Kyle is so relatable to men and the whole situation I, there, there, I’m sure everyone in their lifetime has had an opposite side.
Friend, that everybody else looked at and thought, all you guys, aren’t just friends. And it’s like, well, yeah, we really are just friends and, and, and almost fighting a battle to prove the quality of your friendship. So I think it’s very relatable, situation for most.
[00:24:50] William Glass: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
I think that’s, that really comes across and, you know, I love the advice of staying persistent and continuing to work towards, what it is that you want to accomplish with a book or a project that you’re working on. And then, being able to take input, be able to take feedback and implement it.
I think that as you said, helped kind of connect the dots in a way, cause the story was great and I’ve seen it develop over the years, but it really came together in a way. I mean, it’s just, you fly through it. Yeah. So
[00:25:19] Antonia Gavrihel: it is an easy read. It’s a very easy read, I think. Um, and it really is in two sections. I hope people pick up on that.
But I actually changed. Catherine’s name and the first part of the book, she is Catherine. But in the second part of the book, she’s Cate and that’s because her life has changed and, and that’s to kind of demonstrate that she has a new life. She has, she uses a new name now. It’s not as formal because Catherine’s a fairly formal name.
And, and there will still be people who will call her. Catherine. Her brother will always call her Catherine because that’s the way they were raised. Her mother will always call her Catherine, but, but for everyone else, for all the new people in her life, Cate is much more fun, almost personality that comes out of that name.
You, you just feel that exude from the name.
[00:26:15] William Glass: And where can people get the book
[00:26:17] Antonia Gavrihel: everywhere? It will be released November 2nd and you can get it on Amazon. Books-A-Million Barnes, noble, little professor, any book dealer, Costco, I mean, everywhere, you can get books, and you can get the ebook as well.
And we’re, we’re aiming for somewhere around January, February having audio. Okay. you’re doing yourself, which I am. Yes. I’m going to do myself. I’m very excited about it. It, like I said, it’s a dream come true. It’s a dream come true. A dream. I, and I have to admit, I probably should share this, but when I first sent the book to the publisher, there’s a lot of trepidation in that because.
The book is almost like a child to me and I, and I felt what he really hates this book. I don’t know if I could handle that rejection one more time. So it was wonderful that they love the book, but it really. It has been with me so long, just like a child has, would be with me that, it’s very, very special to me in that regard.
[00:27:22] William Glass: It makes sense. It’s also probably part of the reason why people are able to connect with it.
Right. Because there is so much of, of the things that you said you were, you know, visually visualizing that you needed at the time that you were writing it, that comes through that kind of connection. Yes. Yes. There’s also some other interesting things that we’re doing around the book to help market and sell it.
So if you’re not familiar there, the goal is to be a New York times bestselling best-selling author, right. That means, for those that aren’t familiar, the way that you get on New York times bestselling author list, it’s not actually total sales, certain sales channels matter more, also different types of orders, not just one big bulk order.
So it’s not just based on how many books sold, but it’s based on number of sales across the different suppliers across the country, across the country. And so the big push is that if you’re listening to. Please pre-order if you’re listening to this before November 2nd, 2021 on Barnes and noble, and then afterwards,
[00:28:21] Antonia Gavrihel: everywhere.
Yes. Barnes and noble. Pre-orders roll into the first week of sales. So. Yeah, that would up the first week of sales,
[00:28:31] William Glass: tremendously and bestseller lists are based on weekly sales. So the pre-order is a push to hopefully get on the list right
[00:28:38] Antonia Gavrihel: off. Right. But only through Barnes and noble only
[00:28:41] William Glass: at this point, at this point in time.
So Barnes and noble, if you’re pre-ordering and then after wherever you get your. And we’ve also got an interesting NFT project that we’re, that we’re rolling out. So there’s going to be, first additions, essentially NFTs if the covers that people can get, there’s a limited number of those.
They come with a signed copy. Yes. It’s kind of a unique thing that, that I don’t think anyone else has really done when it comes to books.
[00:29:08] Antonia Gavrihel: My office is this has been an exciting
[00:29:10] William Glass: journey for me. Yeah. Yeah. Is there anything else that you want to leave the audience with or any other stories or anything that you want to make sure that we share?
[00:29:18] Antonia Gavrihel: If they would go to my website, there’s actually a couple of kids’ stories on there that they could read about. And it’s AntoniaGavrihel.com, which I’ll link to in the show notes. So it’s, it’s all one word and. I would just appreciate everyone’s support and, and I know that the love it.
So enjoy the book,
[00:29:38] William Glass: enjoy the book. Well, thanks for sitting down. I appreciate it. Thank you.
[00:29:42] Antonia Gavrihel: Appreciate it.
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