Letter to a Writing Friend

Last year around this time I’d hit a roadblock on my very long road to publication. I was starting to question my resolve to continue writing, never mind pursuing publication. I’d written nine—NINE—novels (several multiple times) and didn’t have anything to show for it. Except for the nine finished novels, of course. Which at the time, sadly, seemed like nothing to me, because I didn’t have any of them under contract. What I did have was a stack of rejections. No money earned for all of that work. A child about to begin his senior year of high school, and therefore college (and horrifyingly high tuition payments) was looming. My husband gently mentioned that after four years of my writing full-time, I might want to possibly consider maybe looking for a job.

Oh. And my agent abruptly left the business.

It was a dark time in my writer’s journey, to put it mildly. And there I’d always been the gung ho writer who wrote for the sake of writing, the self-disciplined little worker bee, hauling myself out of the house to complete my word count goal every day, absorbing rejections by writing charming thank-you notes to the rejectors and redoubling my efforts by rewriting old novels and/or starting new ones.

There was a moment though, around this time last year, when I didn’t think I could do it anymore. What was the point of writing these books that no one except a few family members and friends were ever going to read? How could I justify the time taken from the pursuit of a real job, the time and energy taken from my kids, my husband, my sad sorry state of a house? How could I continue to have those awkward conversations where I’d meet someone and she’d ask me what I did and I’d say, "I’m a writer," and she’d say, "Oh, where I can I find your books?" And I’d have to say, "Um, nowhere," while adding the word, "yet," and wonder if the woman was then looking at me as a deluded flaky dreamer.

I blogged about this angsty process—a lot—grappling with how to continue working toward something that might (gulp) never happen. But finally, and I’m not sure how it clicked, but somehow, I just let it go. I was going to write because I couldn’t imagine myself doing anything else. Also, I told my husband I’d get a durn job. Durn it. And then I set a date six months in advance.

Which was when I got my publishing deal.

Yeah. So that was cool.

I’ve been thinking about all of this (and reliving it, remembering that dark time when I almost quit right when I was about to pass over) because a good friend of mine is grappling with some of the same angsty themes in her own writing journey. The last thing she probably wants to hear from me is that she shouldn’t quit, that it’s going to happen to her too, that she’s just got to keep writing, blah blah blah. Because (having been there myself) I know exactly what she is thinking:

"How does she know?" and "What if it doesn’t happen?" and "Why am I doing this?" and "What is the point?" and blah blah blah.

But I am going to tell her anyway.

So,

Dear Writer Friend,

Don’t even think about quitting.

Because what you write is wonderful and smart and funny and full of heart and totally worthy of being published. Okay. So maybe it hasn’t made it into the right hands of the right person at the right moment yet, but that doesn’t mean that it won’t. By sheer force of will and (statistical probability) if you keep sending your work out, one of those pieces will slide across the desk of the person who has been waiting all along for that very story. And, sheesh! It will be about time!

Because you have talent and skill and years of writing experience. I’ve read your stories and novels and I’ve also read tons of published stuff, and your work is just as good, often ridiculously better. I confess that when I open up one of your writing files, something you’ve asked me to look over, I get a little thrill that I am one of the very first readers on the planet to read it, this book that I know will eventually be published. Maybe you will put my name on the acknowledgment page, I daydream egotistically, and then I will be connected (in a small way) to this soon to be classic, beloved story.

Because writing is what you do, and regardless of your publishing status, you are a writer. Yes, I know, this is the hard part to come to terms with. In our society if you don’t earn money doing something, it isn’t taken seriously. Well, I say: PFFFT to that. There are a lot of worthy things that we do in this world that earn us no money at all. I’ll give you one example: being a parent.

Because if you can push aside the annoying, frustrating, not-being-published-yet part and also ignore the self doubts and awkward conversations with well-meaning but clueless people, what you and I get to do every day, is really really cool. I wish I could go back and smack myself for my dark thoughts last year, when I thought that those nine books I created were nothing. Come on! How many people can say they’ve written nine books? Or any books? Or in your case, dear friend, hundreds of stories…

How many people are lucky enough to spend their days creating anything?

Or are lucky enough to do it so well?

Very very few.

Which is why I hope that whenever you have a low moment and the naggy thought about quitting buzzes around in your mind, you will smack it away like the pesky bug that it is.

And keep writing.

Love,
Jody

I Attempt to Dip my Toe into the Pool of Self-Promotion

(Full disclosure: I am not in any way an expert on marketing or publicity or social media.)

But I know, as a writer with a novel coming out in little more than a year, that I have got to get up to speed and fast. The book industry is in a state of angsty turmoil over the rise of e-books. Marketing budgets are not what they used to be (if they ever were) and publishing companies are asking authors to do more of their own publicity. Unless you are already a celebrity like Julie Andrews or Snooki, I’m sorry to say that no one is going to send you out on a multi-city book tour.

The trouble is I don’t have a degree in marketing. And I’m hesitant to shell out thousands of dollars to hire a publicist. When I first got my book contract I talked to a good friend about the pros and cons of hiring a publicist. My point was that I was an intelligent enough person—I should be able to navigate the publicity waters myself. "After all," I said, "I don’t hire anyone to clean my house, right? And anyway, the few times I did have a Merry Maid come in, they didn’t even do that great of a job, etc. I can do this. I’ll create my own buzz. I’ll set up my own book tours, yadda yadda ya."

My friend waited until I finished then she said simply: “But DO you clean your house?”

Haha. She is a funny one.

Okay. Maybe she's right, but I am a stubborn (and cheap) do-it-yourselfer.
Unfortunately, I'm also reluctant when it comes to selling myself.
So that’s another hurdle.

Forget the time and money involved in self-promotion. I’m struggling with the idea of self-promotion itself. I’ve heard horror stories of writers slipping manuscripts under bathroom stalls to editors, tweeting spam links to their self-published book series, driving around with boxes of books in their car trunks and hawking them like they’re selling kitchen tools on an infomercial. Uck. I have a hard time even talking about my book. The worse thing for me about querying agents (besides the rejection that usually followed) was the pitch part. I just wanted to send them a letter saying: "Here’s my manuscript. Thank you for reading it."

As soon as I announced my book deal, I've had people asking me what my book is about, and I feel like a deer in the headlights. I know I should have a prepared ten second elevator pitch—a couple of snappy sentences that sum up my novel, but instead I stammer and fall back on my inclination to say: "Um, here it is. Puh-lease read it."

Which is probably not the best way to self-promote. There’s got to be a middle ground. Somewhere between having a filthy house and managing to keep it clutter-free without shelling out the bucks for a housekeeper.

In the spirit of do-it-yourselferism (and probably also as a way to delay actually self-promoting), I have been researching all aspects of book-promotion and gearing up to do whatever I can to help my publishing company Beyond Words/Simon & Schuster market my book. (Plug: It’s a young adult novel called Thin Space) Yeah. I know. I know. Not the best elevator pitch. I’m working on it.

But my head’s dizzy by all of the marketing things I must do. Just to give you an idea what I’m talking about-- debut writers that I’ve been studying

1. Set up and maintain a website
2. Blog
3. Vlog
4. Review and promote each other’s books
5. Tweet
6. Maintain Facebook author and book pages
7. Host contests and giveaways
8. Plan a launch party at a local bookstore
9. Create “swag” –bookmarks and postcards, etc., related to the book
10. Put together a press kit
11. Attend/speak/sign books at writer conferences and conventions and book fairs
12. Give talks and sign books at bookstores
13. Talk and/or teach writing lessons at schools or give Skype visits
14. Write discussion questions for students and/or book clubs
15. Give blog interviews or old-fashioned radio ones

And somehow they do all of this while writing their next books.

Just writing this list now kind of makes me exhausted and overwhelmed. Luckily my book won’t be out until Sept. 2013. And lucky too that so many writers are willing to share their ideas.

My advice: pick their brains at conferences. Follow them on Twitter. Lurk around their websites. Many of them share how they promote their own books—what works and what doesn’t. Start with writers in your genre or who have novels coming out with your publishing company. It also helps to attend workshops and take advantage of a professional organization such as SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators).


Hands down the best resource I’ve stumbled upon is Marissa Meyer’s (author of CINDER) NaNoPubMo blog series. For thirty days Marissa shared all of her research—work she was doing to prepare for her own debut book launch last year. If you’re a soon-to-be published author (or plan to be) stop what you’re doing and read every one of Marissa’s posts on the subject.

Go on. Do it. And while you do, I promise I’ll work on that 10-second pitch for my novel.

Wallowing Between Projects Or My (sad) Obsession with a Reality TV Show

Oh. I have sooooooo many things that I could’ve been doing today.

For the record I just finished the second round of a revision on my eventually-to-be published young adult novel Thin Space. This revision, along with the first round of more extensive revisions, took many weeks of work and hard thought and endless hashing it out conversations with my support crew (husband and two teens). Also many days of being parked out in my pajamas, shut up in my office. And therefore many nights of breakfasts for dinner—the old standbys: chocolate chip pancakes, eggs, and/or cereal, which my support crew ate without (much) complaint.

There were a few other events that took place, sandwiched in during these weeks of revision work. Namely, my son’s high school graduation and the hosting of a house full of lovely out-of-town relatives (plus a sweet little dog guest, Mr. Peppers). And our 4th of July celebration, in which my husband and I hosted his father’s yearly family reunion for a week. These were lovely out-of-town guests too. Even during multiple days of 100-degree heat. It should be noted that they remained lovely even on the last day when we all lived through a monster freak storm and lost power. It was a fun final night, sweating it out on the driveway in foldout chairs, watching the neighbors take chainsaws to their fallen trees. (Our trees made it through relatively unscathed, having lost most of their branches in the monster freak storm the week before.) (Side note: what the heck is this with monster storms lately?) (Side note #2: don’t answer that. I’ve read so many post-apocalyptic nightmare novels lately that I really really don’t want to know.)

My point is that today, after all those weeks of finishing my revision(s), and hosting lovely out-of-town people (and Mr. Peppers), I suddenly have a stretch of time on my hands, time that could be filled with any number of important tasks. I made myself a helpful list this morning that included things like: research website designs and read a novel for an upcoming blog interview and resume work on a book I’ve been writing with my critique partner. Nevermind all the household tasks that have fallen by the wayside—laundry and vacuuming and bathroom cleaning, etc.

Instead, I did something wasteful and horrible and pathetic.

I watched four hours back to back of the Bachelorette so I could get caught up for tonight’s episode. I could lie and say it was because I wanted to spend time with my daughter. (Well, this isn’t exactly a lie. I do want to spend time with her, and watching the Bachelorette is our mother/daughter bonding activity this summer. See, daughter was away at camp and I waited for her to return to watch the show and now we have no choice but to catch up for tonight’s episo—

But. The truth is I have gotten sucked into what I know through every fiber of my being is possibly the dumbest show on TV. I wanted to watch those four hours. Helpful list be damned. And here I am a person who’s always prided myself on never watching reality shows. I missed all of the previous Bachelorettes. And Bachelors. I don’t watch the Kardashians. Or the Housewives of Wherever.

Jeez. I don’t even know how I got sucked into the Bachelorette. Daughter had the first episode on and I tuned in and started mocking it and next thing I know the two of us are having a grand old time laughing at the guys as they meet the beautiful (yet vapid) Emily for the first time. Cut to: we’re making a date to watch the damn show every Monday night. My daughter is a busy girl with tons of friends and an enviable social calendar. But she STAYS HOME on Mondays nights to be with me—

Yeah. I know. I am still trying to defend the indefensible. I pretend that I’m studying the show from an anthropological perspective. Besides mocking it, I attempt to analyze it. Isn’t it fascinating that the guys living it up in the cool condo have slowly descended into frat boy behavior? Why does Emily wear a different freaking ballgown on every outing?  What’s with the insipid dialogue? (Every place they travel—from Croatia to England to Romania—is “like, awesome and romantic.”)

A few weeks ago I had a serious discussion about stereotypical sex roles on reality tv shows with the professor sister of my neighbor. This is a woman who watches these show for actual research purposes. We started out talking about how it was unfair that Emily was judged for kissing multiple guys per episode whereas on the Bachelor no one seems to bat an eye when he’s serial-kissing girls. Then we quickly descended into talking about Emily’s teeth. (They are absurdly white and pronounced.) (Also, we didn’t understand why Jef with one f spells his name that way.)

I hate to bring you all down to wallow with me in my sad obsession with Emily’s choices (I am really flummoxed here. Should it be Jef with one f or Arie? Which guy will she pick?) so I will end this post by segueing into a book review.

Total fun, page-turn-ery summer read. It’s the debut novel The Selection by Kiera Cass.

It’s a cross between Cinderella and The Bachelor with a sprinkling of Hunger Games thrown in. The prince, gorgeous yet introverted Maxon, is looking for a wife, so his parents set up a Bachelor-style reality show at the palace for him to choose one. It’s a bleak dystopian world where most people are hungry. Main character America has her name thrown into the pot by her desperate family. And big shocker, she gets chosen as one of the contestants. The trouble is she already has a boyfriend (yes, this is another girl torn between two hot guys plotline). The novel is fluffy and kind of silly, but strangely addictive, with enough twists to keep even the most jaded reader (uh, me) reading into the night.

Well. Must sign off now. It’s Monday night and I have something…um…important…I need to do now…

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.

Interview with Martha Bennett Stiles

Everyone in the Midsouth region of Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators knows Martha Bennett Stiles, the children’s writer with the kind of long-lasting career most of us can only dream of having. Martha’s first novel, One Among the Indians, was published by Dial in 1962 and her latest, Sailing to Freedom, is out July 3 from Henry Holt. She’s published nine other children’s books in between, an adult novel Lonesome Road, and too many articles and stories to list here. She’s also an active member of the Midsouth SCBWI community, attending conferences and workshops and cheerleading and mentoring writers on the listserve. Plus, she’s just an incredibly sweet and generous person. Now, because I can’t help myself, I’m going to look like a fool by sharing my favorite Martha memory: There’s no way she would remember this, but at a workshop in Lexington Martha and I sat next to each other and at one point she turned to me and remarked that I looked like Julia Roberts. (Haha. Good one, Martha! Do I need to mention that she also has a great sense of humor?)

Jody: Martha, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your sitting down to “chat” with me today. Oh, and I just heard the news that you were too modest to share: Sailing to Freedom has been chosen by the Kentucky Department of Library and Archives to represent the state of Kentucky in the National Book Fest.

Martha: I am not modest, just self-conscious.

Jody: Fair enough. I guess I’ll start with the question that I ask all my writer guests: where do you get your ideas?

Martha: You are flatteringly kind to ask that question, given its implication that my ideas are worth getting. The best answer I've heard is, "If I knew, I'd go live there."

I got the idea of Sailing to Freedom from my father's account of a pie-stealing pet monkey on the battleship Delaware, 90 years ago.  Any fact you decide on leads to questions, and answering these successive questions writes your story.  Whose monkey is it specifically?  The 12 year-old cook’s helper?  Well, what’s a 12-year old doing aboard a coastal schooner? Is he perfectly welcome?  Why not?  and so on.

I got the idea of the kidnapping that’s at the heart of Lonesome Road from news accounts of the disappearance of Etan Patz.  I was living on a horse farm, so I put the victim on a horse farm and incorporated many of my own experiences.

One Among the Indians is the story of my first American grandsire, a cabin boy who for three years was swapped to Pocahontas’s father as a hostage. My mother told my older sister and me about him when we moved to Virginia so that, she later explained to me, we would feel at home in Virginia, entitled to be there. Unfortunately, my grandsire was named Thomas Savage, and hard as it is to believe, I already at 2 and 3 knew what a savage was and was cripplingly embarrassed by the news that I was descended from one.

Jody: I love how you’ve found a way to weave old family stories into your fiction. Sometimes beginning writers struggle with this--they have a true story to work with but can't quite develop it beyond something autobiographical. I know I used to stumble at this point, sticking too closely to the facts and not allowing the story to go where it wanted. Now I do a lot of free-writing, figuring the plot out as I go. What about you? Is that your method or do you see yourself as an outline-ahead type of writer?

Martha: The longer I write, the more I plan before I start writing. My plans are not inflexible, however. Sailing to Freedom was completed and accepted when, at the prodding of my blessedly remarkable Henry Holt editor, Noa Wheeler, I thought of having my cabin boy hero’s monkey scuttle up the pantry shelves and foul the villain’s clothing from above, inspiring said villain to disembark, to everyone’s huge relief.  As for my stalwart Canada-bound  hiker, Ogun, I hadn’t originally meant to say more about him than a sprinkling of insertions at varying intervals in my cabin boy’s saga, but as I wrote about him, he became my favorite character in the book, and his sentences became paragraphs-- became, sometimes, pages.

When I sold Lonesome Road, the story ended with the escape of the kidnapped boy. Gnomon Press's editors did me the favor of persuading me to add some pages showing how the boy adjusted to returning home.

I commenced writing The Star in the Forest immediately after completing a YA set in World War II Germany, in which I had tried to be fair to everyone. 'Now,' I told my husband, 'I am going to write a book which has a villain, and nobody likes him because he IS a villain, and nobody tries to understand him, they just don't like him because he is bad.  And I am going to split his skull.' Well, it's a long book with several major characters, and I intended to wind things up for each of them.  But as my villain dropped, I felt such relief and satisfaction that I didn’t write another word.  I just sent the manuscript off. I expected my editor to ask me to wrap things up more explicitly for the other characters than I had done, but to my pleased surprise, the manuscript was published just like that.

Jody: I love hearing background info about a book I’ve just read. The character Ogun in Sailing to Freedom was a favorite of mine too. I should mention to my faithful blog readers that if you’ve got an 8 to 12 year old boy reader in your life, definitely check out this book. It’s a nail-biting adventure of a boy on a sailing ship. The time period, pre-Civil War, comes alive, and there’s lots of Martha’s good humor on display (which you can probably guess from her description of the boy’s pet monkey above). And some real heart wrenching moments too—in the interludes of Ogun, the runaway slave.

Okay, switching topics here, but what kind of work schedule do you have every day?

Martha: My writing schedule has changed with my life.  As a professor's wife, I would go to my desk as soon as my husband left for work, and not rise till I noticed I was hungry, usually around two.  Then I would be a good wife the rest of the day.  Not being cramped for time, I could embark on projects that called for lots of research, like One Among the Indians, which is set in 17th  century England and Virginia.

After my husband left the University of Michigan chemistry department for our Kentucky horse farm, I did my writing before breakfast.  Horse barn breakfasts being served around dawn, the cook leaves her office for her kitchen before dawn. There’s a limit to how much I am willing to suffer sleep-wise for my art, so to compensate for less desk time, I switched from historical to contemporary subjects. Sarah the Dragon Lady, Kate of Still Waters, Lonesome Road, Island Magic, are all contemporary, calling for no trips off the farm to a library.

Five years ago we sold our farm and I am back to writing more than any other activity. I don't JUST write; I try to preserve my health and observe the decencies, but mainly I sit at my desk or trudge to the library. For the first time in my life I live within walking distance of a public library, and a perfectly glorious library system Lexington, Kentucky has. The book Henry Holt is publishing for me, Sailing to Freedom, is about the Underground Railroad during Fugitive Slave Law times.  Every paragraph seemed to call for me to consult another book, and the library could not have been more helpful.

Jody: I like that—“observe the decencies.” And you’re making me pine for the days I lived in Lexington and was able to take advantage of those libraries. (But I should give a shout out here, to my local library in Upper Arlington, Ohio. I didn’t use it for research but I did write an entire novel sitting in one of its comfy chairs by the windows. For accuracy purposes—said novel was the sixth novel I’ve written and the first to snag a book deal.) So I must ask you: How many books did you write before you got your first book deal?

Martha: My first novel was so bad, only three people saw it: two English professors and a good friend. Two of those three readers were so obviously embarrassed by how bad it was that I never showed it to anyone else; not even my husband, and certainly not to my agent. It is somewhere in my basement and I have got to find and burn it before I die.

Jody: You just made me snort coffee out of my nose. Hold on while I clean up and then run upstairs to my office to find (and burn) my own painful first stab at a novel. Okay, I’m back. Continue…

Martha: My second novel, The Strange House at Newburyport, went to an elderly editor who promptly retired. Her assistant took maternity leave. The replacement editor went on her honeymoon. So far as I know, no one at that house ever read a page of The Strange House at Newburyport. My agent asked for it back and sent my third book, One Among the Indians, to a different house.  Once the latter published One Among the Indians, she sent them Strange House, which they bought, a trifle suspiciously, I thought. I felt better when it became a Parents' Magazine Bookclub Selection, a Parker River Researchers paperback, a Kentucky Talking Book, and, like One Among the Indians, was translated into German. (For the hometown of Sailing to Freedom’s hero, I turned to Newburyport again, smiling to think how much work this would save me.  I already had visited Newburyport; I already knew its history and how it lay and what books would tell me what I might not remember.  I forgot that for most of my new book, my Newburyporter hero is at sea.)

To answer you succinctly, I wrote only one novel-length book in vain, but don’t ask about picture books, the delight of my soul.  Countless written, three published.

Jody: I won't go there with the picture books, but with your other works, how many rejections did you receive along the way?

Martha: For short stories, I received countless rejections and published only fifteen, before deciding just to concentrate on books.  Had I been an English rather than chemistry major, I might have tried longer.  When I got rejections with a few comforting words and the initials RA, for instance, I had no idea that the latter stood for Roger Angell and indicated that it might be worth my while to keep sending stories to the New Yorker. Bobby Ann Mason persevered; I was clueless.

I fared much better with articles. A fair number were rejected here and there before finding homes, but mostly I knew where to send them in the first place.  I see now that I had published forty-three articles before the constraints of being a farm wife made me less mobile, more prey to can’t-ignore interruptions; made article writing less easy.  And so concentrated on books.

Jody: Hmm, “only fifteen” shorts stories, you say. We should all publish so few! And what a bummer about your quitting early with the New Yorker. Sometimes, though, I think it’s okay to be a clueless in this business. In any event it got you focused on your novels, which seems to have worked out in your favor. I don’t think many beginning writers realize how much effort goes into submitting. There’s a lot of research involved in figuring out where to send and what the guidelines are of each place. Never mind collecting and cataloguing the inevitable rejections. So much of what we do has very little to do with actual writing, and lately there’s another element to a writer’s day: marketing and using social media. What are some of the things you do to promote your books?

Martha: I have a website, www.marthabennettstiles.com, which makes it easy for anybody to get in touch with me who so desires. I enjoy school and library visits.  I still drive, but not, as when young, just anywhere. From my Lexington home, Maysville, for instance, is no problem; Nashville, I go annually, but only if someone else will transport me in return for my buying the gas.  I don’t mind any distance at all, so long as somebody else is at the wheel or in the cockpit.

Jody: Okay final question, I promise, I’ve been wondering about your thoughts in general about author self-promotion. I’m coming into this late in the game, but I know that the expectations for authors doing more of their own marketing work have changed over the years. As someone who has been in this game for a very long time, would you like to share your thoughts about that?

Martha: I am unequal to the task.


Jody: I think you are too modest, Martha. So I won’t let you have the final word. Congratulations on the sale of your latest book Sailing to Freedom and for all of the accolades it’s already received. It’s a wonderful story that will likely be read by many children for years to come.

Dispatches from a Borderline Troglodyte (Or, How I Accidentally Discovered the Comment Feature on Word)

Let me start by saying I am not the most technologically inclined person in the world. Cue: guffaw of laughter from my computer programming son in the next room. He thinks I’m a dinosaur, still tapping out texts on an old cell phone (the kind not connected to the internet; the kind where you have to count numbers to make letters). Also, I use paper maps. In my defense, the lady on my GPS has led me wrong on more than one occasion. I’m driving along on a perfectly good highway and she’s saying stuff like: "Return to road immediately." Sometimes I sense there’s an undercurrent of exasperation in that polite robotic voice.

There was more than an undercurrent the other day when I spent an hour talking to an IT guy about glitches in my internet connection. Dealing with internet connections is always my husband’s responsibility (see: anything related to cars, things that have motors, things attached to wires or pipes, things that require a tool to fix, etc.) But sweet resourceful hubby was out of town on business and so it fell to me to figure out what was wrong. (Son’s knowledge about computers falls more in the theoretical/programming capacity. Also, he’s so evolved he doesn’t talk on the phone.)

I feel sorry for the IT guy who ended up with my service call. Sample of our conversation:
Me: This doesn’t work! I need it to work!
Guy: Ma’am, (in clipped polite accent) is the modem connected to your router?
Me: What’s a router? What’s a modem?
Guy: (After a fifteen minute explanation/description) Now, ma’am, find the wire that’s connected from the modem to the router and—
Me: What wire?! There are like five wires!
Guy: Ma’am…

I’ll spare you the rest of this, but I spent a good hour on the floor, tracing multiple dusty wires with my fingers while whining to this guy who kept his cool for the most part, although I sometimes wondered if he wished he could climb through the phone and smack me upside the head.

The real issue was the email I was trying to retrieve, the one from my editor, so I could see what she thought of the first set of revisions I did for her. Backstory for those just joining me on my long road to publication journey: after fifteen years and ten book manuscripts, I signed my first contract for a young adult novel. Now I’m knee deep in a second round of revisions with an editor. Side note about editor: I love her and am so thrilled to be working with her, but there is a tiny splinter of fear that she thinks I’m a flake.

Why? Because I came dangerously close to blowing off hours of work she did on my book.

What happened was several weeks ago, she sent me a file with her copy edits and notes on areas in my book that still needed “tweaking,” as she called it. Love that word, by the way. Much better than saying “complete overhaul.” I was very proud of myself when I downloaded the file and saw a bunch of little red copy edit marks. I may be a borderline Troglodyte, but I’m hip to the “Track Changes” feature on Word. But I didn’t see any notes. Instead I saw all these numbered yellow highlighted areas (105 to be exact).

Hmm. Well, those were obviously areas that needed work. I could do that. Bad timing though for getting started on it. My son was graduating from high school and we had a house full of guests plus a dog. I couldn’t study this file and instead had to be content with reading bits and pieces of the printed off manuscript whenever I had a stray moment. This was good, I told myself. I’d have time to digest, to ponder, to work out little plot holes. And I did figure out how I wanted to deal with most of these, except in a few nagging places. Why had the editor highlighted this particular sentence? What did she mean by highlighting that one? Maybe it was my job to divine her intentions?

But wait. What about the notes she promised me?

That was the question that woke me up in a cold sweat one night. Mind racing, I booted up my computer and pulled up the file. Surely, she’d given me more—dashes of notes in the margins? Something in color that hadn’t printed off because we don’t have a color printer?! I scrolled through the pages quickly, but there was nothing. Just all those yellow highlights....

It was sheerly by accident that my cursor hovered over one of these and a cute little bubble popped up.

A note.

Really, a whole paragraph written by this lovely, earnest editor. OMG. Every darn one of those highlighted areas had a comment attached (105, if you remember) of the editor’s suggestions, questions, things for me to consider, work on, etc. One hundred five comments that I had not read.

Yeah.

In case you're wondering, it all turned out to be okay. The majority of the things she’d pointed out were things I’d already figured out myself after multiple readings. And the few places where I’d struggled to understand what she wanted me to do—well, those bubbles popped up with nothing but little smiley faces.

Did I tell you how much I love this lady?

"Reviews Are Not for Authors" and Other Bits of Wisdom from the Cool Chicks on the Dark DaysTour

It hit me when I had to park three blocks away from the bookstore that this was no ordinary writer book signing. The place, the awesome independent children's bookstore Cover to Cover, probably doesn't have more than fifteen parking spaces and every darn one of them was taken when I pulled up (naively) ten minutes early. I'm not good at counting people in crowds, but I'd have to guess that at least a hundred people were there--ranging from middle schoolers and moms to older teens and college types. The big draw, I realized at once, was Veronica Roth, author of the Divergent series. (I must confess here that I have not read the books yet, but I promise they’re on my short list.) The buzz is that this dystopian series will satisfy readers of the Hunger Games. Other fun trivia, the second book Insurgent is out, and Roth is working on the third, which she's jokingly calling Detergent. Her fans love this and LOVE her. The kids around me gushed about Roth like she was a rock star, and when she emerged from the back room, they cheered and giggled and swooned.

I had to sit on the floor behind a pole so I didn't actually get to see her at first (or the other authors along for the ride) but their voices all sounded cool. Sally Oddi, the owner of Cover to Cover, introduced the group--Roth, Bethany Griffin (Masque of the Red Death), Elizabeth Norris (Unraveling) and Aprilynne Pike (Destined--the fourth book in the Wings series)--then set the ground rules: twenty minutes of questions before we’d form orderly lines to get our books signed. The first questions were mostly for Roth--"Veronica! What's your biggest fear?" But then things settled down and we got into some interesting stuff:

Someone from the audience brought up a controversy on Goodreads. Apparently some writers are responding to negative reviews on that site. I wish I could've seen from behind the pole because I have no idea which author said what. I think it was Aprilynne Pike, though, who pointed out that book reviews really aren’t meant for authors. By the time a book’s out; it’s out, and there isn’t anything a writer can do to change it. Reviews, she said, are for readers. The others agreed, saying they tried to avoid reading reviews but couldn’t always help it, especially these days with social media. One of them laughed and said that there are readers online who tweet bad reviews directly to her. Maybe they don’t realize that she’s an actual person sitting at home in her pajamas reading this thing. But they all agreed that it was not cool to attack a reviewer and sometimes there was stuff they could learn from a negative review, that could at least help them with the next book they’re working on.

Then there was the mention of the controversial article in the New York Times recently that disparaged adults who read children’s fiction. I hate to even bring this up. One, because it ticks me the hell off when people attack an entire genre of literature—particularly one that I love so much—and two, because I think it just gives attention to a troll. Last year it was the article in the WSJ that painted all YA fiction as deliberately lurid. The ladies on the Dark Days tour waded in after the audience had finally quieted down (Yes, these rabid YA fans were ticked off too, offended that some blowhard would dare knock the books they love.) YA literature is popular right now, was one of the author’s responses. (again, could not see WHO since I was stuck behind a pole!) which makes it a fun target. But why not be happy people are reading more? Why attack books you haven’t read? Here here! (I get the feeling that certain critics are deliberately being provocative, trying to hit a nerve to throw a spotlight on themselves, and if we all ignore them, maybe they’ll go away.)

There were questions about the writing process. Two of the writers, Elizabeth Norris? and Bethany Griffin? (pole in the way!) have day jobs and fit writing time in at night. Veronica writes in spurts, working long days for weeks at a time, then taking as many weeks off after. Aprilynne has four kids and writes when they’re at school. She got a laugh when she mentioned that her only two goals every day were to write a certain number of pages and to run five miles. Cleaning and other stuff, including taking a shower, might not ever happen.

What do they do to combat writers’ block? One turns away from the blaring blank computer screen and writes by hand. Another (Veronica?) tries to figure out what’s really at the core of it—too much pressure, fear of failure—and address that first. And another said she doesn’t believe in writer’s block and because of that it can’t hurt her. Which prompted one of them to quip, “I want to live in your world.”

When the lines formed for the signings, I finally crawled out from behind my pole and managed to see these ladies. Oh, they were all very cool and hip and young-looking! Most of the audience squeezed into Veronica’s line. We sweated it out in a store not really built for over a hundred people, but everyone was polite and patient, and I was happy to see that most of those fans had bought at least one book by the other authors. Those writers were gracious and a little bowled over, I think, by the reception.

"What do you think of this?" Sally Oddi said to me at one point, clearly gratified herself by the mob of YA book lovers crammed into her store.

“It’s awesome,” I told her. “And it’s nice to see your place can handle a large crowd.” I nudged her then and we both laughed. We’ve been chatting for a couple years about my struggles getting published and now about my book sale, and Sally (because she's amazing and sweet and kind) offered to host my book launch party (Sept, 2013, mark your calendar). Can’t imagine I’ll have anything like the crowd for the Dark Days Tour. But hey. I’ll boost Sally’s sales with invites to all my family and friends. And now that I know Cover to Cover’s got the capacity (and plenty of parking on nearby streets) I’ll beg my bunco group to come too.