The other day I scraped the backside of my car against a concrete post

I was backing out of my spot in a parking garage. A friend and I had driven to Dayton to give talk to our writers' group there. It had all gone well and I was telling my friend I thought it had gone well. The talk was about motivation and how it is important to have writing goals.

I had a cold all last week and I was kind of out of it, so I'd been worried about the talk. Add to that, we were in Dayton, two days after a mass shooting. I said to the writers in the group, We need to write now, more than ever!

Police and security guards were on every floor of the library. The place closed promptly at 8:30 and a security guard escorted us to the parking garage. Another stood behind my car, watching us as we got in. At the end of the writing talk I had told the group to write down their goals for the rest of the year.

Don't set a goal that's not in your control, I told them. Don't say, Be published by the end of the year. Say: Write a first draft. I did the exercise too and immediately ignored my own advice: Finish my revision and go on submission in the fall. 

I went through a bag of cough drops during the talk and had to keep stopping to blow my nose, but everyone acted like I was doing a good job. I hadn't given a talk like this one in a while. To be honest, I felt like a fraud. I haven't been writing since we moved. But even before that I was struggling.

I say we need to write now more than ever, but how do we do that exactly, when the world is falling apart around us? I wrote three books since my last book was published. Each one came close but ultimately did not break through.

Follow your dream, I told my writing group. Be persistent. Roll with the rejections. Keep writing. 

In May I finished a draft of a fourth book. I'd overhauled it completely and reworked it over a two year period. Why wouldn't an editor snap it up in the fall? 

Somehow I forgot there was a concrete post next to my car. I was looking at the security guard when I was backing out of the parking space. Drive slow, was what I was thinking. Be careful. The fourth book is not ready to go on submission in the fall. When I heard the deep grinding scrape noise, I was stunned. The concrete post was so big, and so suddenly and glaringly obvious.

The damage was bad, but luckily, only cosmetic. I tried to laugh it off with my friend, explained that I was usually a responsible driver. I'd had this car for over ten years and had never even gotten a scratch on it. But how did I overlook the concrete post? Was I distracted by the security guard? Had I eaten too many cough drops? 

Why do I keep writing books that come close but don't break through? 

Maybe it's time to try writing something different, my friend told me. The answer is so suddenly and glaringly obvious.

I will. 

Portrait of the Artist as a Self-Doubter

The first rejection derailed her. Maybe it was a sign from the Universe. QUIT, she imagined the Universe shouting. ORDINARY PEOPLE LIKE YOU NEVER BECOME PUBLISHED WRITERS!

(Although, she did reread the rejection letter several times-- true, it was the typical form letter This story does not fit our present needs...--but the editor had scrawled a note across the bottom Nice work! Try us again!...)

She waited six years before she tried again.

Sometimes she missed writing, but most of the time, she was too busy to think about it. She worked full-time as a teacher. She had a two year-old running around at home. Writing was something she'd done as a teenager and in college, but she'd grown up since then. She'd put away childish dreams.

A fellow teacher passed along a brochure about a writers conference in town. Wanna Be a Published Author of Children's Books? Come to our conference! Meet a Real Live Editor!

For an extra fee the editor would critique the first three chapters of a novel.

She had never written a novel. It seemed like a ridiculous idea. When would she have time to write novel?

She paid the fee. She wrote the novel during her planning period. The conference was cool. She ate lunch with the editor who worked at Simon & Schuster and she told him that her toddler's favorite book was Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, which was published by Simon & Schuster. The editor told her that he'd just signed a new author and he was so excited about her and her book. It's called Running out of Time, he said. It's by a woman named Margaret Peterson Haddix.

I will have to check that book out, she said.

Later, she read the critique of her three chapters. The voice is strong and the dialogue is realistic and there is some real emotion in the chapters... but (and she knew now there was always a BUT) it is unclear who the main character is. It's hard to tell what the conflict is. Maybe you can try to-- 

Maybe she couldn't.

She read Margaret Peterson Haddix's book when it came out. It was so good. She read other books in the same genre. They were good too. Why did she think she could Do This?

She waited another four years.

Now she had two kids. Sometimes when her son was at pre-school and her baby daughter was napping, she'd work on a story. One of the stories was published in a magazine but she couldn't manage to sell another. To have something to do during nap-times, she signed up for a writing correspondence course. She wrote a book for the teacher, who enjoyed it.

She sent it out to publishing houses and it was rejected.

The Universe was shouting at her again and this time it was saying: THIS IS A SILLY HOBBY!

She sold another story. One day she got two pieces of mail: a check for twelve hundred dollars for the story, and a brochure for a writing retreat that cost twelve hundred dollars.

(the universe?)

She wasn't sure. Should she leave her kids for a week? She'd miss her daughter's birthday, which happened to fall during that time. Also, both of the kids took part in a zillion activities and she was the Carpool Mom. Maybe Writing was a thing she once did and maybe now it was time to let it go?

She went on the retreat. The first night everyone in the small group introduced themselves and talked about what they were working on. When it was her turn, she said her name. She said what she was writing. She realized it had been years since she had admitted this out loud to strangers.  

She felt shivery, shaky. If she was writing, did that mean she was a writer?

Seven years later she sold her first book.

My First Critique. Also known as "I'm a daydreaming doofball"

My first writing conference I was a weird mix of anxiety and arrogance.

I'd been writing for a long time. Pretty much since I could hold a pencil. I'd majored in Creative Writing in college. I'd worked on an MFA and had a masters degree in literature. I'd had a couple of stories published. 

What I'm saying is I knew I was a good writer. (See arrogance, above)

The conference was put on by SCBWI  (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators). The anxiety came into it because I had to drive four hours to get to the conference, and I don't like driving long distances by myself. 

How these conferences work is editors, agents, and writers speak about writing and the children's book industry. They teach smaller sessions on craft and marketing. There's lots of networking and inspirational pep talks. For an extra fee, you can submit a few pages of a manuscript and cross your fingers that an editor or agent will be the one it's assigned to. 

I submitted the first few chapters of one of my manuscripts. For the record, it was the third book I'd completed. The first was totally a practice book. It was me--the poet and short story writer--figuring out how to write a novel. I had no hopes for the book, but I could see the value in having written it. The second book was autobiographical. I did have some hope for that one but I also knew from the bazillion writing classes I'd taken that sometimes we've got to get all that personal angsty true stuff out of us and out of the way before we begin to tackle fiction. 

But the third book, this new manuscript--this was the one. I could feel it--when I came up with the idea, as I struggled and sweated over the various beginnings, when I read bits of it aloud at a writing retreat. And when I finished the draft and read it through. 

I submitted the first ten pages and I knew it would be given to an editor. (It was.) I knew she would read it and love it and ask for the rest. 

I knew this so surely that I printed off a copy of the entire manuscript and brought it with me to the conference. I tucked it in a bag and carried it to the morning opening session, where What a Coincidence! that very editor would be giving the keynote speech.

I loved her as soon as she started speaking. We were the same age. She talked about her favorite books when she was a kid and why she loved being an editor, and I gazed at her as if she was already my mentor and best friend.  

The future scrolled out so clearly I could see the Newbery Award sticker on the book cover. The editor would greet me for my critique session. Before I could even sit down, she'd be gushing about how much she loved the first ten pages, saying how original the idea was and how exquisite the language. She'd laughed while reading. And sobbed, when it was appropriate. Oh how grateful she was to have signed up for this conference! What luck that she'd been the one to get my book!

Of course she wanted it.  

If the first ten pages were any indication, she knew she would love the entire book and wanted to sign me now, on the spot. It was an award winner, for sure. And a best seller. On the plane ride down to the conference, she'd begun to cast the characters. "Oh, Jody!" she'd say with a smile, "I know it's silly, but I already feel we're going to be best friends."

Yeah.

Do I need to write how this critique actually went down? 

Weirdly, things started out almost as I'd envisioned...

The editor spoke. When her session was over and everyone else filed out of the room, I hung back and introduced myself (thinking that I may as well get the whole dream ball rolling). She smiled when I said my name. 

"Oh, Jody!" she said. "You're one of my critiques!"  

At lunch we ate together and talked about our similar taste in books. I fought the urge to give her the manuscript that was practically burning a hole in my bag. But I played it cool. No need to rush things. 

Time for the critique. More smiles. We were already well on our way to being friends, so no surprises there. Then she whipped out my pages, suddenly all business-like.

I have no idea what she said. Because of what she didn't say --the beautifully clear vision of gushy praise and book deals on the spot did not seem to be happening. In a flash the fifteen minutes were up and she smiled. 

Apparently, the critique was over? 

Stunned at the stark contrast between dream and reality, I gave the dream one last shot. "Um, I've got my full manuscript" --I lamely patted my bag-- "right here with me. Do you want to--"

She cut me off with a tight smile. "No. That's okay. I don't take manuscripts at conferences." Smile smile. "But why don't you try some of my suggestions, and you can submit in a few months?" 

The rest of the conference is a blur. Probably because I was blinking back tears and everything was literally blurry. I drove home, alternating between crying and arguing in my head with the stupid editor. She didn't know what the HELL she was talking about. She was wrong about my book. She didn't UNDERSTAND it. Blah blah. 

Hour three, I was grudgingly admitting that she might have been right about a couple of things and why not play around with them, just to see if it worked better.

Hour four, I was excited. How had I not seen the obvious? Those suggestions would make the book stronger, better. What an idiot I'd been not to realize! 

I would do everything the editor said and I would revise the entire book and I would send it to her in a few months and she would gush about what a great sport I was at taking criticism. She'd buy the manuscript and it would win the Newbery and soon we'd be on the way to being best friends.

Yeah. So, none of THAT happened either.

It took 6 more years and 3 more completed manuscripts before I got my book deal. I am not best friends with my editor, although she is a very nice lady. The book did not win a big award or sell a million copies. 

This weekend I'm off to an SCBWI conference where I'm teaching a few sessions. I'm also critiquing the first ten pages of several manuscripts. 

Dear lovely writers who are just beginning this journey, would you believe it when I tell you that I might understand how you feel? 

(A sample of rejections for the manuscript that was THE ONE)

The First Bad Review (gulp)

Yeah, so I knew it was bound to happen. A bad review. As far as bad reviews go, it wasn't even that bad. More meh-ish, really. I only read the first paragraph, took in the two star out of five star rating, and then handed it to my husband to read the rest.

He was adorably defensive on my behalf, pointing out how ridiculous it was and wrong, etc. I nodded along, and weirdly, defended the reviewer. Oh well, I said. She read the whole thing, right? And she took the time to think and process her reaction. Her review--um, the paragraph I read of it--was thoughtful.

The rest of the day, I'd click on my Goodreads account (this is where the review went up) and, yup, it was still there, the two star review. I kept waiting to feel something. Anger. Depression. Annoyance. But nope. What I actually felt was more like relief. I got my first bad review, and apparently, I'm going to be okay.

Not all writers have the same reaction. I've heard that some argue back to the reviewer, a faux pas in my opinion, but then I've had good training taking criticism.

This goes back to college when I was a creative writing major and we had these marathon workshop sessions where we tore each other's work apart. Our professor jumped in here and there when things got a little too personal, but for the most part he let us go. The poem, the story--the writing--speaks for itself, he told us. What you meant to imply was either there on the page or it wasn't, and hearing readers articulate their responses was something a writer was just going to have to deal with.

Use it as fuel to work harder, ignore the critic, or call him a dingbat in your head, but never EVER argue back.

I grew an even thicker skin when I began submitting my work. Here's a cool perk of being a publishing late bloomer: you get LOTS of practice absorbing criticism. I have a wonderfully bulging file of rejection letters from agents and editors that spans over 20 years. They range from bland form letters to very personal and specific signed handwritten notes. Some of the phrasing sticks in my head even now.

Fun sampling:
"full of authorial mistakes"
"depressing"
"unbelievable characters"
"no teen appeal"

The nice thing about rejections is that once you absorb the blow, you really can use them to make your writing better.

Negative reviews, unfortunately, can't be used that way. The book is as finished as a book can be.

Even when a book is in ARC form, there's not much that can be fixed, aside from formatting issues or typos. True story: when I did my final pass through Thin Space, my editor pointed out that I'd used the word "clench" 33 times. So, yeah. Gotta nice clench in my stomach upon hearing that. And then, clenching a thesaurus in my clenched hand, I opened the manuscript back up and got rid of 30 of those clenches.

Reviews aren't for authors. Reviews are for readers.

As a reader, I read reviews to help in my decision-making process. A million+ potential books to read-- which one should I pick up next? Or maybe I've just finished reading a book and am grappling with what I thought about it--something didn't quite work for me or I wasn't connecting with the story. I read a few reviews and find that other readers felt the same way. Or not.

There's a whole community of readers out there weighing in and digesting and mocking and passionately loving books, and they're talking and sharing and complaining and defending.

The writer truly plays no role in this equation except possibly to lean in now and then and marvel that a book she wrote is now being passed around in the world. Hated. Loved. Thrown across the room in disgust.

Or cherished so much it is read, again. And again.

The Waiting Is the Hardest Part (or not)

I wasn’t going to write about this, the potential book deal, PBD for short, that’s been pulsing in the back of my mind for weeks now, flaring up here and there during quiet moments or simmering on the back burner when I’ve been distracted by out-of-town visitors. But there are no distractions now. The visitors have departed. The carcass of leftover turkey has been picked clean. Yesterday I threw out the remaining plop of congealed stuffing because no one in my family could bear to look at it anymore. Today hubby is at work, and children are at school, and I am back in my office/guest room and there is nothing much to do but THINK about the PBD while at the same time trying NOT to THINK about it.

I wasn’t going to write about this because I have the niggling, superstitious feeling that writing about a possible dream-come-true may jinx, curse, doom (insert you negative verb here) the whole thing and I will be left looking like a fool/hopeless dreamer/naïve beginner. It seems silly to talk about something that hasn’t happened and possibly won’t happen. Don’t count your chickens, etc. So I was going to wait and not discuss it and then if/when IT happened, I could just burst out with the good news and cry happy tears on my keyboard and say thankyouverymuch to my supporters, yadda yadda ya.

But I started this blog because I wanted to create a picture of what life is like for an unpublished, persevering writer. I envisioned a person like the Me of fifteen years ago reading it, a person just starting on the journey and not knowing what she is getting into. And I think that person should know what it feels like at this point, when there is a PBD glimmering just ahead.

It feels like you're a nervous, pessimistic wreck.

I’ve heard stories from people, writers who came soooo close and then watched their chances slip away. I can imagine what this feels like. I was putzing around the grocery store the other day and I had a vivid flash of myself getting the call, but it wasn’t the one where your agent tells you there’s an offer on your book, it was the call where she says they changed their minds. Actually, this would probably happen in an email now that I think about it. Which is why I dread opening mine lately. In the supermarket I let the whole vision unfold. My few minutes of frustrated tears. My day or two shuffling around the house wearily wondering if I should just quit for good. The well-meaning reactions of family and friends. (They’re comforting yet also sort of like, yeah, that sucks, but did you really think this was going to happen to you?) And then I saw myself plunked out in my office opening up a new file and starting another book. Because that’s what I do in the face of rejection. I write. This whole vision flashed at me in the grocery store aisles and I went through the entire gamut of emotions and came to the check-out feeling completely fine. It hit me that I know exactly how I’d react because rejection and failure have happened to me before. Been there. Done that. I keep writing anyway.

But success. Now that is something I have no real experience with.

Seemingly pointless digression: Last year my son got cut from the lacrosse team at his school. It was a very discouraging experience for him, to put it mildly. He’d worked hard, attended grueling practices, done all of the things the coach suggested to get better. The way they tell the kids if they made the team or not is they have all of them come to the gym and then the coaches call each kid in one by one to have a little talk. It seems excruciating to me, that wait out there in the gym, the guys all looking at each other and wondering who’s in and who’s not. But my son told me the moment the coach called his name wasn’t too bad. It was the moment when he still had a chance to be on the team, so there was this feeling of expectation and possibility and hope and he could see himself in the uniform and running out onto the field in front of the cheering fans.

He got cut. But that moment right before he found out was the closest he was going to be to being on the team so he let his dream in and he basked in it.

I have no idea what’s going to happen with the book deal, but at this moment I think I’ll bask in its potential glory. And I promise from now on I’ll share every gory and/or delicious detail with you.

A Reflection on Rejection

Some rejections are harder to get than others. Or maybe they’re all equally hard. I should be able to judge this. I’ve gotten all kinds of rejections. I just got one a few hours ago so it’s nice and fresh and pulsing in my mind. So take whatever I write next with a grain of salt. (I don’t even know what that expression really means. But I digress.)

Rejections….

I used to think the worst kind of all was the No-Response Rejection. That’s when you send your manuscript off to a publishing house that tells you up front they’ll only respond if they want it. So, chances are, you get nothing. Maybe the editor lost it. Maybe they hated it so much they set it on fire. Maybe they thought it was a hilarious mess and tacked it up on the wall so people in the office could practice throwing darts at it. Or maybe they thought it was okay but just not right for them, blah blah blah, but simply had no time to tell you. It doesn’t matter. You’ll never know.

The form rejection ranks up there too. I imagine a nice stack of these on the editorial assistant’s desk. She wades through a few pathetic lines of a particular manuscript, pitches the rest in the recycle bin, grabs a form rejection and sticks it in the aspiring author’s self-addressed stamped envelope. Done. Sorry. On to the next manuscript in the slush pile. Yes, getting a form rejection is depressing. Although I have read some very sweet let-the-poor-writer-down-easy versions. At least someone cared to write that once upon a time. It beats the No-Response by a hair. At least you get something. Or maybe not. With the No-response you’ve still got a slim chance…

Next up—the form rejection with a nice personal note tacked on the end. This used to be my favorite kind of rejection letter. It meant there was a real live editor on the other end who liked my manuscript enough to uncap a pen. I used to live for those sweet scrawled: Not right, but try us again notes, and I hate to admit that sometimes I would pull them out of the drawer and look at them again in moments of despair.

Once I got two rejections for the same story. That was kind of sad. Not sure how it happened. I sent a story to a magazine, got their form rejection, then a few months later got another form rejection. I guess they really really didn’t want it. Or somehow it missed the recycle bin and some other suffering assistant had to read it again. Oh well.

Now I get letters from editors explaining why they’re rejecting my manuscripts. This seems like it would be a big step up but somehow it almost makes me yearn for the form letter/no response days. Do I really want to know that there is no market for my manuscript, that reading it was frustrating, that the structure was confusing, or that they liked it but didn’t quite love it?

Gah. I don’t know. All I know is I hate getting rejections. Who doesn’t? I also know that in the end getting one (no matter what kind) is just a silly little wall thrown up in my way. It does nothing to keep me from writing. Oddly enough. And my first order of business is to write the kindly editor a thank you note. For taking her time reading my manuscripts. (she read two. And two others over the years. Which must be some kind of sad record. But I digress again) For taking the time to explain what she liked and (gulp) what she didn’t like about them.

Long sigh.
I feel better already.
Really.

Rejections

The other day a beginning writer on my writers’ list serve wrote that he’d just received two rejections. He explained that one agent and one editor had rejected his query for a middle grade novel. WHY!? he wondered. What was the problem? Was it the quality of the query? The idea of the novel? The sample pages he’d sent? Jeez, was this a sign that he should quit writing? The kind, generous, sensitive souls on the list serve chimed in. Rejections happen to the best of us, they said. Even the most successful writers have gotten rejections. Look at JK Rowling, they pointed out. Didn’t she get like 25 rejections before someone snapped up Harry Potter? The beginning writer was cheered up and presumably will continue to send his work out, and, (I sure hope he realizes this) get more rejections.

Rejections. There is nothing that bums a writer out more. I don’t care how long you’ve been doing this. You get that “unfortunately this story does not fit our editorial needs at this time…” letter and sometimes even the best of us can’t help spiraling into an existential pit of despair.

I got my first rejection over ten years ago. It was from Seventeen magazine when they were still publishing YA fiction. It was a form note, but scrawled on the bottom of it were two words: nice story. My first reaction was shock. They rejected ME? What were they thinking? Was it a mistake? I analyzed those two words “nice story” to the point of absurdity. If they thought it was a nice story, why didn’t they want it? What did they mean by “nice”? I cried. I questioned my decision to write. I questioned my reasons for existence. I had no list serve to buck me up. I knew no other writers. I suffered alone.

Then I sent the story out again. It was rejected once more (by Teen. Is that magazine even around anymore?) Then it was accepted by Cicada. Woo hoo. My first published story! After only TWO rejections. I was on my way, happy that the days of rejections were behind me. Ah. I was so deluded and naïve.

Looking back now, I realize this experience was the most gentle of introductions to the submission world. Because over the years I have amassed quite a collection of rejections. (I’m not one of those writers who papers the walls with them, so I can’t tell you how many). The very kindest rejections have those handwritten words on the bottom—nice story, or keep sending. (God, be thankful for those. They're truly little gifts to keep you going.) The worst rejections are not even the form notes, but the no notes. Lately, the policy of many editorial houses is to contact a writer only if they are interested, which means that most writers will receive nothing. No response. Your work simply disappears into a black hole—which I picture as some NYC editor’s desk and later her recycling bin.

Okay, this is starting to depress me. And my intent was to be uplifting to a suffering, frustrated writer soul like the Me of fifteen years ago. So here’s my advice: quit now if all you’re dreaming about is publication and awards and monetary success and movie deals and sitting on a set with Robert Pattinson who is playing your main character. BUT, if you truly love to write, keep writing. You don’t need me to tell you this or some editor either, by the way. If you’re looking for a sign from above, here it is: if after you receive your first rejection (or your 100th) you continue to write, then cheers! Writing is what you are meant to do.