Writing Wednesday – How did you become a writer?
26 August 2009
I’ve actually been really surprised by how interested non-writers are in my writing life, so for a while—at least until I run out of topics—I’m going to address those questions on Wednesdays. Why Wednesdays? Because both “writing” and “Wednesday” start with W. Brilliant, right? So if you have a specific question for Writing Wednesday, you can e-mail me using the form on my web site, or post your question in the comment box.
By far the most common question I get sounds something like this, “How did you … so, like, you had an idea, and then … I mean, you wrote the book, but then …?” And then I usually interrupt and say, “How did I become a writer?”
That is a long, complicated question to answer. And what they’re really asking is how did I go from writing a book to being published. Here’s my attempt to break it down:
1. I wrote a really sucky book.
2. I asked my family and two close friends to edit my really sucky book.
3. I used their feedback to make my book less sucky.
4. I sent out query letters to a variety of agents. If you’re looking for an agent, you can try www.agentquery.com as a springboard. If you’re writing for the Christian Market, try Sally Stuart’s guide.
5. I received lots of rejections.
6. I decided I hated said book and that it should never see the light of day. I started on a new project that became Me, Just Different so for the sake of clarity, we’ll just call it that. I loved my new project (mostly because it was a new project) and told Ben, “This is the book that’s going to get me published.”
7. A year later, I took Me, Just Different to the Florida Christian Writers Conference. A representative for Kregel said they really liked it, but that Skylar was too young. In the original manuscript, Skylar and friends were in 8th grade. She said if I fixed that to follow up with her. (She also told me Eli’s name was weird. I disagree with this, as do Robin Jones Gunn and Sarah Dessen who both have “Eli” as a male lead in their latest books, but I digress.)
8. I got home from the conference and realized changing Skylar’s grade meant changing the whole stinking thing. Discouraged, I set it aside and pulled out the original “sucky” project which eventually came to be called The Escape Route, so we’ll just call it that. Reading through it, I realized it didn’t suck quite as bad as I remembered, that it just needed some finessing.
9. I finessed. Then I e-mailed Kregel, explained that no, I didn’t have the book they expected, but I had this other one… To make a long story short, the representative I’d met loved it, passed it on to an editor who asked for the full manuscript, and then the waiting began.
10. While I waited, I joined ACFW. If you’re an aspiring Christian fiction writer, an organization like ACFW is a must. They have an annual conference for unpublished writers called Genesis, and I decided to enter Me, Just Different.
11. Then came a tremendous slew of rejections. I’d had nothing but positive news for months, then suddenly every agent I queried turned me down, Kregel sent me a form rejection letter after having my book for seven months (Dear Author, Thank you for your interest in our house, etc.), and Me, Just Different didn’t even make the first cut in Genesis. To put it lightly, I was bummed. I’d venture to say I was borderline depressed at that time. Ben deserves full credit for getting me back in my desk chair and getting me back to work.
12. I looked over the comments the judges made regarding Me, Just Different. Some comments were totally wrong, but one judge—I’m pretty sure it was Kaye Dacus—asked me about Skylar’s motivations. As I mulled this over, it sparked a new idea. In short, it sparked the idea of Skylar getting ruffied at the party. And now, when I read Me, Just Different I can’t believe that book ever existed without it.
13. Before the annual ACFW conference, I only had time to write the first three chapters of the new Me, Just Different. We were in the process of moving back to Kansas City, and I was really pregnant with McKenna.
14. At ACFW, during lunches and dinners they spread the agents and editors out to individual tables so that writers can have access to them. I was headed to a very specific table during one of the lunches when I stopped to chat with a fellow YA writer. We’d finished our conversation, and I realized that the table had filled up and lunch was starting. That’s when I also realized that I was at Kelly Mortimer’s table. Kelly had already rejected Me, Just Different a few months ago, so it seemed incredibly stupid to pitch to her again, but also incredibly stupid to leave the table now that the meal was underway. When I pitched to Kelly, I joked that she’d already turned me down, we had a laugh, and she moved onto the next writer. At the end of the meal, she asked us to leave our one sheets for her to review. (One sheets are fliers we make for our books.)
15. A month later, Kelly e-mailed me. She liked my one sheet and asked me to send her the first chapter. Then she liked that and asked for the first 100 pages. While waiting to hear back from her, I was writing the rest of the book. Adding the complication of the party Skylar goes to, as you can imagine if you’ve read Me, Just Different, changed a lot more than my opening. I finished on a Friday and Kelly called me on Saturday asking for the rest of the manuscript.
16. The rest went by in a flash. Kelly sent me a list of suggested edits, all of which I made. Within months we heard Revell wanted to buy it, and that they wanted it to be a series.
The road from writer to author is different for everybody, and this was mine. This timeline covers five years, though I’d written three full manuscripts before this that never saw the light of day. Nor will they ever. The Escape Route might eventually be sellable, although at the moment it requires more effort to revamp than I want to exert.
And since this is already the words longest blog post, I’ll cut myself off here. Hope everyone has a fabulous Wednesday.
I find this entire process completely fascinating. Thanks for sharing.
Posted by Kevin on 29 August 2009