What's the Difference Between Being Published and NOT Being Published? (Also, a Brief Digression about Fleas)

It's been roughly one month since my first book Thin Space was released and lately I've been thinking about the differences between the Before I Was an Officially Published Writer ME and the After Me.

Before I was published I ruminated over the question too. I'd been writing and pursuing publication for years and truly believed I was on the verge of publishing almost as long, but somehow the ever elusive finish line kept moving out of reach.

When it finally happened--the book deal--it almost seemed anti-climactic.

The Pre-published Me struggled to sit down every day and write. That Me set goals and the majority of the time accomplished those goals. I'd figured out over the years that it's hard to write the first draft of a novel, and that the "finished" draft will need to be revised multiple times, and all of that will take a long time.

I was plagued by self doubt. There were days when I hated what I was writing. There were days when I thought my work was brilliant, but then I was plagued by the fact that no one would ever read this brilliant work because I couldn't seem to snag an agent--and later, when I had snagged an agent, she couldn't seem to catch the attention of an editor.

I kept writing.

I wrote ten books. I wrote multiple versions of these ten. The despair of finding readers for any of these grew exponentially. I kept writing anyway. I vacillated daily, sometimes hourly, between hope and despair.

So that was the Me then.

The me now is the same.

I still struggle to sit down each day and write. I still have terrible days when I think that what I am writing is horrible, that I will never be able to pull strands together, and that if/when I do, I won't be able to sell the damn thing.

I have been through the angsty painful process so many times that I know I will finish the project eventually. I also have an agent now who will read it. But there is no guarantee that she will like it and want to sell it. And there is no guarantee that an editor will want to buy it.

The differences:

One is promotion. I might want to spend all my time hunkered down with my WIP but I have to promote Thin Space (a book I finished writing five years ago). I am not complaining about that, just stating the reality. I am traveling around to schools and bookstores. Which is fun and gratifying and cool but also tiring. (see: I am an anxious traveler).

The biggest difference has more to do with perception and response from other people--and it's why being published had always been so important to me. I had made my peace with being a writer who wrote for the sake of writing itself. I love writing (even when I HATE IT) and know that if I never published another word, I would continue to write. But I will be the first person to admit that it is very nice to know that people are reading what I write.

I visited Middle Tennessee State University last week when I was in Nashville to sign at Parnassus Books and I talked to a lot of the students. The first question I asked was "Are you a writer?" Each one gave a hesitant reply.

Yeah, um, sort of...
Well, I hope to be but...
Um, I'm working on that...

I totally understand that hesitation--it's amazingly difficult to say out loud what your dream is--to say unequivocally Yes, I am a writer because the usual response from the questioner is something like, "Oh, what have you written?" (which really means, Is your book published/Can I find it at a bookstore?) and then the writer will have to hesitate again. Um, well, I'm working on something but, um, no, not yet.

It took me ten years to answer simply: "Yes."

It took another ten years to write something worthy of publication.

I told the students: Just save time, skip ahead ten years, and say I am a writer. If you write, you are a writer and in the end the only difference between being published and not being published is ... being published.

For years I had imagined the big release day of my first book. I'd be chatting on the phone or on social media with well-wishers. Maybe I'd visit a few bookstores and bask in the glow of my beautiful book faced out on the shelves.

Here's how I actually spent the long awaited for day:

Locked out of my house.

A couple of days before I'd discovered that my dog and cat were infested with fleas. Not sure how I'd missed this because the $*^&# fleas were all over the place. The morning of the Big Day I carted stuff out onto my back porch--open food containers and tooth brushes and pet food and the litter box. I corralled my anxious old cat and my skittish puppy (who even after a year of co-habitating still loathe each other) out there too. My neighbor and I ran around my house setting off flea bombs and screaming as the poisonous stuff spewed into the air.

We raced out the back door to find the cat hissing and the dog crying. My neighbor, no dummy, went home. I sat out on the porch picking fleas off my pets as they whined to me about their proximity to each other.

Did I mention it was the hottest day of the year?

While my house was being poisoned, I combed out fleas. I sweated like a pig. The animals finally settled down and in exhaustion and possibly under threat of heat stroke, they flopped out at my feet and fell asleep. I worked on my latest manuscript. My phone dinged every once in a while.

"Congrats on your book!!" said the well-wishers. "Enjoy your day!"

Ah, just as I had always dreamed.

I swiped the perspiration from my eyes and whacked dead a hopping flea, then I wrote back to each one: "Thanks!"

Just out of curiosity, why in God's name would there ever have been a child's game called "My Dog Has Fleas"? 

How to Publish a Book 101

When I was fifteen, a gazillion years ago, I wrote my first book. I gave it what I thought was a poignantly symbolic title: Another Leaf Just Fell, which was just perfect for the subject matter, a tearjerky--heavy on the symbolism--YA romance about a girl who falls in love with a handsome popular boy who, unbeknownst to her, is dying of cancer. (Cue soap-opera-y music.) I hand wrote the first draft of this manuscript and then revised it several times before painstakingly tapping out the whole thing on my typewriter.

handwritten (above) and typed version. CANNOT believe I saved these!

Finished at last, I was ready to pursue publication, but I had no clue how exactly to pursue said publication. In a great moment of serendipity I stumbled upon an ad in the back of my Seventeen magazine for a publishing company called Carlton Press. Carlton, according to the ad, promised great success for its authors. I wrote my first query letter and crossed my fingers.

Several weeks later I got a response from B. Leiter, Associate Editor. For only three thousand dollars Carlton would happily publish my book. Mr?/Ms? B. Leiter added kindly (and I'd say somewhat snarkily) that if the cost was too much, perhaps I "should try some of the giant firms who do not require any subsidy from their authors." I had never heard the term vanity press at this point, but even my naive little fifteen year old self had an inkling that the Carlton route was probably not the route I wanted to trek down.

Besides, I did not have anything approaching 3000 dollars.

I put the manuscript away.

It would be nearly fifteen years before I wrote another novel, and fifteen years after that before I snagged my first publishing deal from one of those giant firms that don't require a subsidy from their authors. It was a loooong road to publication and there were a ton of things I had to learn along the way to navigate that road.

It probably didn't help that the publishing business kept changing even while I was trying to figure it out. I remember going to a writing conference in the mid 1990's where the keynote speaker, an editor from Simon & Schuster, told the eager children's writers that we did not need to have an agent and he would gladly accept full, unsolicited manuscripts from us. Too bad I didn't have a decent one to send him at the time.

A few years later Harry Potter transformed the children's book industry. Suddenly there was big potential money to made on kids books and everyone and their mother thought it would be easy to write them. Twilight hit next and wannabe writers jumped on the YA vampire gravy train. The publishing houses that used to take unsolicited manuscripts from unknowns were buried under their wizard-y, vampire-y slush piles.

Agents, who rarely used to handle children's fiction authors, took notice (money to be made!) and now, for the most part, they are the gatekeepers who wade through the slush piles. That editor at Simon & Schuster, by the way, is a senior editor these days and won't look at anything but agented queries. The other big houses are the same. If you're a children's writer and you want to take the traditional path, you probably need to find yourself an agent. (Good luck!)

And don't get me started on e-books and Amazon and publishing house mergers and bookstores closing. The times they are a-changin' in the book publishing industry. Which could (and does) freak anyone associated with the business out. Are books going the way of the dodo? Or is this just a (painful) bump in the road as stories leave the paper format behind and the industry scrambles like Music and Newspapers to figure out how to keep making money as the mode of transmission changes?

Who knows?

I'm choosing not to freak out. Maybe I am like one of those resistant, optimistic horse and buggy owners who will insist to my dying day that automobiles will never catch on--but I think stories and the people who tell them will stick around. How these stories will be published, and what "published" even means in this new age--that, I have no idea.

At the moment most of the writers I know are still firmly and/or shakily on the traditional publication path, but I've met a few people who are striking out and trying self-publishing and having great success. An entire industry is springing up to help these writers--editors, book designers, publicists, etc.

There's a little tension between the two groups, which sort of reminds me of the tension I used to feel when I was a working mom, and later, when I was on the other side as a stay-at-home mom. I never understood that animosity. I mean, we were all moms trying to do our best raising our kids. What was the point in blaming, or being envious, or griping about which group had it harder?

And when it comes to writing and publishing books, the bottom line, I think, is that we all want to tell good stories and get them out there, somehow, into readers' hands (or onto readers' electronic devices).

So that's the longest intro to a blog series ever, but what I'm going to do over the next few weeks is interview writers about their various paths to publication--ask them, specifically, the burning question that my naive fifteen year old self would've wanted to know:

How do you get published?  

Tune in, in June, for the answers...

Fun Pit Stops on the Road to Publication

So, a couple of years ago I started this blog because I felt like I was on the verge of publication and I thought it would be fun to chronicle that moment of crossing over. I had this vision of my ideal reader as my Self of 15 years ago, when I was just starting out and not knowing very much about the business.

"Hey," I thought, "I can be a kind of mentor to that struggling, naïve writer. I’ll give her advice. Throw her some helpful stuff I’ve learned along the way about writing and the publishing world and books in general—stuff I learned the hard way—the slow, painstaking way—by going to conferences and talking to other writers and reading books on writing and working on my own writing, day after day after day." At that point I felt like I was an expert. I’d been writing forever and pursuing publication for what seemed like forever too. It seemed to be only a matter of time before I snagged that dream book deal.

Big shocker: this turned out to be a tad overly confident on my part. One thing I have learned is that struggling writers tend to vacillate (sometimes daily; sometimes hourly) between confidence and potentially crippling self-doubt. I think it’s just one of those things that goes with the territory—I don’t care if you’re Joe Schmo or Stephen King. In the end it’s just You and the Blank Computer Screen. You’re alone. You’re sitting in your (smelly) pajamas. You’re living in your head, listening to voices. That’s your freaking job, whether you’re getting paid for it or not. Sometimes you finish a day’s work feeling elated and pumped up by your own brilliance. Other times—most times, honestly—you’re convinced that what you’ve written is the biggest pile of crap anyone in the history of the universe has ever set to type. You question your talent, the point of writing when you have no audience, your place in the universe, the meaning of life, etc. It’s kind of depressing, to put it mildly.

Anyhoo. The dream book deal took longer than I thought it would to come together.

(Brief digression so I can bring you up to date on what the deal is: The novel is called THIN SPACE. It’s a young adult mystery with a supernatural twist. Note to self: MUST work on cool 10-second elevator pitch.) It’s being published by Beyond Words/Simon & Schuster. Look for it in stores in Fall of 2013!!!)

It’s a long long story how this all came together and what my life’s been like since I signed the contract, and probably not interesting to anyone but me, but I thought in the interest of the original intent of this blog (giving a helping hand to a struggling writer/detailing all aspects of the publishing journey—both bad, and GOOD!) that I’d list some of the highlights:

1. Signing the contract itself was a pretty big highlight. My daughter happened to be home sick from school when the paperwork came in the mail and she made me change out of my pajamas so she could take pictures of me actually signing. (She also made me put on a necklace. A necklace!! Haha. I rarely wear jewelry, rarely even wear clothing besides pajamas. But there I was wearing clothing and a necklace and holding my precious contract. My awesome supportive neighbor drove with me to the post office and took more pics. (I had changed into normal clothes by then, because, really, the nice clothes and jewelry were pushing it.)

(Look how cute the postal worker, Dave, is. He had NO idea why the heck my neighbor was taking pictures of me or why I was grinning like a big doofball.)


2. Ah, the day I got the first installment of the advance check. Fun facts: it was the first money I made off my writing in four years! I opened my own bank account! I bought a laptop to replace my unreliable/broken-keyed one! Woo hoo! Money!! But not that much money…not so much money that it would mess up our son’s college financial aid package. So woo hoo!

3. I’ve been working with an editor. And I must say she is wonderful and amazing and the whole editing experience has exceeded all of my expectations. (I went into this process with a dream editor in mind: Ursula Nordstrom blended with Patti Lee Gauch with a sprinkling of Julie Straus Gabel, in case anyone is wondering.) This is my first real experience with an editor and I can’t imagine it could be better. She knows just how to push me without raising any of my hackles. And I know she loves my book (and gets it) almost as much as I do. We had a little wrinkle at first when I didn’t realize she had written me all of these notes in the comment feature of Word, but once I figured that out, I loved that too. It’s like she’s in my head, guiding me and whispering words of encouragement while at the same time getting me to think hard and change stuff. Example of how this process works: she will write something like, "why is this character angry here?" And I will read it and think, "yeah. Why IS he angry?" And of course what she’s really saying is: "it makes no sense that he is angry and you must do something to expand upon that or take it out, you dingbat." But she is much too nice to say it that way. I am now approaching my final week (I think!) of edits, and the book (that I thought I’d finished three years ago) is SO much better because of this lovely, brilliant woman.

4. Beyond Words set up a focus group of teens around the country to read and fill out a response sheet about my book. I got to see a few of their comments and all I can say is I absolutely love these teen readers. So smart and thoughtful and careful with their answers. (It helps that they were complimentary. Haha. )

5. And last but not least: the other day the art director people sent me THE COVER! It is not finalized yet but it is beautiful and perfect and just what I would’ve designed (if I had any artistic/visual sense at all). They had asked me several months ago if I had any thoughts about it (which is very kind. I don’t think writers typically have any input.) And I told them some random blathery ideas, and their design totally exceeded my vision. Oh, it is so cool and clever and just the type of cover that I think would grab potential readers. I promise I will share it as soon as they give me the go ahead so we can all bask in its glory.

Yes. I know I am over-the-top gushing now. Which means it is probably time to stop. (Also, I probably need to change out of my pajamas.) Thank you, dear blog readers for bearing with me through this bloaty brag fest and for putting up with me through all of those other posts of doubt and depression and questioning and gnashing my teeth at the fickly gods of the publishing universe too. Couldn’t have done it without all of your encouragement and support.

And that’s another nice thing for a beginning writer to know. Yes, you are alone in front of your computer screen, but please do everything in your power to reach out to other writers. I promise there really is a wonderful community out there of pajama-wearing, voices-hearing, self-doubting/brilliant writers just like you.

A Dream Comes True Part Two: Gift of a Hair Dryer

If you've been following my blog for a while, or even at random intervals, you know that I've been writing for a long time and dreaming about being published for nearly as long. This has not been what anyone would call, uh, easy. It's helped, though, to have a supportive family-- bemused hubby and easy-going darling children-- who don't mind their manic/distracted mom serving chocolate chip pancakes for dinner multiple nights per week whenever she's immersed in a project. Finding an awesome writing buddy, Donna Koppelman, to share this crazy up and down process with, has been a godsend too.

Several months ago the alternating exhilarating/soul crushing journey reached a new crescendo when a glimmer of a potential nibble turned into an actual book deal. I got The Call from my agent on January 26 that Beyond Words/Simon & Schuster wanted my young adult novel THIN SPACE, but because the deal wasn't hammered out officially until last week, I've had to sit on the news. Now I hate to say it almost feels  anti-climactic.

Okay. I'm totally lying. When I signed the contract I was such an over-the-top loon I made my neighbor take pictures of me at the post office. Here's me, with confused Dave the Postal Worker, as I mail the contract back to S & S:

It's hit me that I've blogged about every step in this journey--chronicled every twisty-turny, angsty thought as it crossed my mind except for the feelings I had as I experienced the actual Reach-the-Destination part. And now that initial excitement is gone and left unchronicled. I could tell you about how I was folding laundry when I got The Call. How I put down the phone and cried tears of joy into my daughter's clean gym shorts. How I called my husband and texted my kids and my mother. How I toyed with the idea of opening a bottle of champagne but it was only like, two-o'clock, and I was alone in the house, and that seemed kind of, I don't know, weird. Instead I called Donna and strangely she was more excited in many ways than I was. I think I was numb, shocked that this was actually happening.

The truth is I still feel like that. So I didn't write any of this down at the time. And therefore I can't go back to the moment and capture it. But maybe I can do the next best thing. I can share with you what Donna wrote on her blog:

A Gift of a Hairdryer

Today in the mail, I received the gift of a hairdryer. I cried as I opened it. Sobbed, even. My hands shook as I held it for the first time. I sat for a good twenty minutes with this hairdryer in my lap. I just couldn't believe it. I finally had the hairdryer. After three years (and really more than that), I held the hairdryer in my hands. Even as I type these words, my fingers shake, and I can't believe it.

You see, I have a writing partner, an accountability partner. More than three years ago, we met at Highlights Institute at Chautauqua, exchanged email addresses and a few pithy words while in line at the port-a-potty. Six months after Chautauqua, JC dug my email out of her bag, and sent me a message. It was the sweetest message one writer can send to another: "I think I know a good home for the novel you are writing." You see, she had met an editor at a conference who was looking for something like my project, and she wanted to share the news. It was so kind and thoughtful, and over the next few weeks, we shared our writing goals and struggles. We commiserated that no one else seemed to take it as seriously as we did. We weren't just dabbling. We were serious writers. So we made a pact that we adhere to even today.

Every morning, JC sends me her goals for the day, and I send her my goals for the day (via email). Then, at the end of the day, we own up. Did we meet our goals or not? Sometimes we even send the work to each other to PROVE it. Developing this partnership was a HUGE turning point in my writing. It made me goal-oriented and accountable to someone--a surprisingly hard thing to accomplish when you work alone.

Through the years, we have read hundreds of books (passed them back and forth through the mail) and proofed each others' work. We've shared lots of craft advice from other writers and read many such books. In Stephen's King's amazing work ON WRITING, he tells about when he started writing. His wife was so patient and supportive. When he finally sold his first novel, he wanted to celebrate, to get her something to thank her. For whatever reason (and due to the fact that he is, in fact, a man), he got her a hair dryer. Yes, a hair dryer. JC and I found this so hilarious that we pledged that the first one of us to sell a novel would buy the other a hair dryer.

And you guessed it. JC sold her first novel. I'm actually not supposed to tell you until the papers are signed, so don't tell anyone, but it's true. And it's big. And it's amazing and exciting and unbelieveable all at once. Because while we said over and over that we weren't giving up until we made it, a little tiny part of me always wondered and worried. What if? What if neither of us ever makes it?

But guess what? Now one of us has. And it feels like both of us. Really. Because we've been in the trenches together for so long. I wanted to see the editorial notes as much as she did. I went over the contract with a fine-toothed comb, too. I screamed and cried and celebrated on that big day last week, maybe as much as she did. Too bad we're several states apart and couldn't celebrate together. At least not yet. But we will.

Anyway, today is the day the hairdryer arrived. It is the most awesome, amazing, fantastic hairdryer EVER. I can't wait to use it. Or maybe I should bronze it. At any rate, I am paying very close attention to the quality and features of this hairdryer.

Because hopefully, I will have to purchase one myself. I hope to send an awesome hairdryer across three states one day.

But in the meantime, it is more than enough to have this hairdryer of my own, JC's contract, and the beginnings of a dream-come-true. No matter what happens in my career, I have a hard time believing it will beat this hairdryer.

I need to get going on my thank you note for said hairdryer, and I think I'll drop a line to ol' Stephen King while I'm at it.

Best of luck, JC. I will be touting your awesome novel right here, and yes, it is the one I predicted would be snatched up first. It is fantastic, and everyone is going to LOVE it. And to quote my favorite celebrity crush, "Oh, the places you'll go!"

(And here's me again: Thanks Donna, for everything, and eagerly awaiting my own gift of a hair dryer from you....)

Acceptance

Lately I’ve been consumed by the college application process. (My son is a junior and our family just got back from a spring break college tour trip.) I am by no means an expert on the "getting into college" game, but I’m starting to figure it out, and I’m alternating between hope and despair about my son’s chances of acceptance into a top-notch school (which for our family includes some kind of financial aid package. The average price for a private college these days is considerable. Fifty-five thousand dollars a year at many schools. Cue horrified scream.

What’s interesting to me is how much this process is like the publishing business. Recently on NPR there was a report on the admissions process at Amherst. The way it works is admission counselors (in the writing business we call them first readers) cull through the thousands of applications (manuscripts in the slush pile). They come up with strongest candidates and present them to the admissions board (editorial department) and make their case. So much of it is arbitrary. One counselor presented an applicant who sounded phenomenal. The boy was the valedictorian of his class, had taken AP classes since he was a freshman, and had done tons of community service work. Yet he was rejected. Sometimes it comes down to a phrase in the personal essay (query letter). One student admitted he wasn’t passionate about anything. Well, forget him, they all agreed. Another kid mentioned something about chicken nuggets, which got a laugh from everyone and a place in the Yes pile. But later that Yes pile grew too big and the counselors ended up pulling some applications out randomly.

Yes. College admissions is sometimes like a lottery. These kids had already made it through the first round and the second and they still got cut. A counselor admitted the school had rejected students who ended up being Rhodes Scholars. He said it truly wasn’t a personal rejection, that Amherst had over 8000 applicants and could only take 1000. (For the record, Harvard has something like 35,000 applicants and will only accept 3000) In the end so much of the process is out of the student’s control.

Control is the key word here. Or rather the lack therof. You can have top SAT scores, a stellar academic record, and extra curricular activities up the wazoo, but there may be some other white boy from Missouri who juggles and plays the jazz sax and climbed Mount Everest last year too, so sorry, kiddo, you’re out of luck. It’s like this in the publishing business. There is a certain presumed standard of competence and talent and the rest comes down to praying your manuscript sounds like nothing else out there.

So why bother? I had this discussion with my best writing friend. She’s going through a crisis of faith and I’ve been emailing her inspirational messages and trying to talk her down from the ledge. I’ve been there before on that what’s the point ledge and it’s a discouraging place to be. Eventually, every writer has to come to terms with the reality that her dream may not come true. Seven thousand kids are not getting into Amherst this year. Oh well. They’re going to go to college somewhere. And I have a feeling they’re going to be just fine.

As for me (and I truly hope my dear writing friend too) I am going to keep writing. I have learned this lesson over the years: I feel better when I write. That’s really all there is to it. Yeah, it’d be nice to have some outside validation, an acceptance letter from my first choice publishing house in my mailbox. But like all those rejected Amherst applicants, in the end, oh well.

There’s always community college.