Hi folks, I'm continuing my series called Lucky March. I'm about a quarter Irish, and this month I'm writing about about random circumstances that end up sending good fortune your way. This week I'm writing about those serendipitous moments that change everything. These lucky moments can come at any time and any place. Often they will come when you are least expecting them.
Here are a few things that I have noticed about lucky moments. Lucky moments are rare. You must be ready to leap. Lucky moments do not check your schedule to make sure your are emotionally available. Just embrace the luck even if you have tears on your face. Lucky moments often come with a ton of kismet, deja vu and que sera, sera. Call it fate, harbinger, or providence, these lucky moments will send shivers down your spine and pull out the neat threads that stitch together your understanding of the universe. Psst, you will be better. Finally, sometimes you might totally misread your luck. Just because it doesn't feel lucky at the time doesn't mean that it wasn't lucky.
I hope these thoughts on luck help you. Regardless of how your good luck comes, I hope it finds you this week.
I had the opportunity to ask two brilliant children's writers about lucky moments on their journey this week. One is
Alison McGhee. Alison's lucky moment was a dark and blizzardy night when she'd lost her suitcase at the airport. (not exactly feeling like a lucky moment, but her missing suitcase lead her to
Kathi Appelt, a friend to treasure and a writing partner. So there you go -- luck that a suitcase went missing!
Kathi Appelt also shared a lucky moment story. Many years ago, she wandered into the only independent children's bookstore in BCS (
Jacque's Toys and Books). A conversation began and by the end of the conversation Kathi had a new job that transformed her understanding of children's books forever. Yay for lucky conversations. Don't be too busy to chat, friends. Luck hunkers down in good conversations.
I find great value in revisiting the moments that change everything.
I know this week is short, but I am CRAZY busy! I hope you contemplate luck and if you are like me you realize that luck is just godspeed. That said, godspeed to all of you. I will be back next week with more lucky March.
No doodle this week. I am having a cover crush. Please consider checking out Kathi Appelt and Alison McGhee's new book:
MAYBE A FOX.
Here is a traditional Irish blessing to tuck in your pocket.
May love and laughter light your days,
and warm your heart and home.
May good and faithful friends be yours,
wherever you may roam.
May peace and plenty bless your world
with joy that long endures.
May all life's passing seasons
bring the best to you and yours!
Hi, folks! Welcome to the next series. I'm about one quarter Irish, hence the luck of the Irish is with me as a writer. ;) Luck is all about random circumstances that end up sending good fortune your ways. Do you want some luck of the Irish in your life? Here is a sure fire plan.
The whole luck of Irish meme was started by miners in the gold fields back in the day. Those Irish miners kept finding gold. It's a good thing they didn't stay in Ireland. I've learned a thing or two like my Irish ancestors. Stay where you are, and things will never change. Do things the same, and things will never change. Don't ask for help, and things will never change.
A few years back I took a novel revision class with Darcy Pattison. In this class Darcy offered an exercise, identify the weakest chapters in your book and then revise to make them awesome. As we all know, luck is really about dropping yourself in opportunity rich places and then reaping the benefits. I've made it a practice to choose the three weakest chapters of my book when I have a solid draft and revise them. I make the better. How? I make better stuff happen. I dig into the emotional core. I cut the fat. Ooh, I was punching the sky when I finished my revision notes.
So whatever creative stuff you are doing, go to the gold fields. If you are searching for gold, you know where those fields are. Gear up and prospect. First study the land. For you writers, read, read, read. Lose the dreams of get-rich-quick. Band together with other prospectors. You need writers who work hard and show up. Dig in. Luck finds the tenacious. It does.
So there you have it, a road to the luck of the Irish. I will be back next week with more Lucky March.
Here is a quote for you pocket. A traditional Irish blessing:
May the blessing of the rain be on you—the soft sweet rain.
May it fall upon your spirit so that all the little flowers may spring up,
and shed their sweetness on the air.
May the blessing of the great rains be on you, may they beat upon your spirit
and wash it fair and clean, and leave there many a shining pool
where the blue of heaven shines,
I am superstitious. I live with a black cat.
Before Blackberry -- b.B.b. -- I had written many novels. None were published.
B.B.b. -- I had also written half of a memoir about my experience with breast cancer. I didn't finish it. I really didn't want to spend another year of my life describing that year of chemotherapy and radiation.
B.B.b. -- My husband and I were trying to write a musical together. We fought more about characters than we ever did about our finances or taking out the trash.
B.B.b. -- Our daughter was smart and talented, but a little more socially awkward than most.
So, b.B.b., life wasn't always so good.
In 2004, we adopted a little black kitten. Our daughter named her Blackberry.
A.B.b. -- My husband and I stopped writing that musical.
A.B.b. -- Our daughter found an amazing group of friends at her new middle school. She kept those friends, and every year has added more.
A.B.b. -- I have continued to be cancer free.
A.B.b. -- In the summer of 2005, I started writing a humorous adventure story called
Nature Girl. It wasn't published until 2010, but I knew I had found what I was meant to do.
My husband jokes that Blackberry changed our luck. I'm pretty rational about correlations and coincidences, but I have to wonder if he's right.
And so in this Thanksgiving month, I want to acknowledge how grateful I am for all the good things in my life. I know that I am lucky to have opportunities to share my stories, the blessings of friends, and especially our good health.
It's nice to know our black cat has our backs.
Photo by Vicky Lorencen
You’ve had them. Those dreams of days that exist solely in your mind’s eye. You imagine how you’ll feel, what you’ll say or do as soon as the thing you’ve longed for a long time flips from fantasy to reality.
Then, that magical day arrives, and in a blink, you realize your mind’s eye was playing tricks on you.
It was like that for me earlier this month when my dream agent Erin Murphy offered to represent me. I was near tears, but then a surreal calm covered me. Not at all what I expected. I always assumed I’d hang up the phone and do a squeal/jump/cry combo. (Just picture it!) But I didn’t. I sat alone in my office in stunned silence. I’ve heard from friends who’ve had a similar experience.
Why? Well, I’ve pondered on that.
My best guess is that when your brain has been standing guard over your dream-holding heart for many years, it takes a bit before it can stand down and let your heart be happy. Your mind cares so much about your safety, it goes deaf to the cries of your heart that’s saying, “This is great news! Let’s celebrate!”
Photo by Vicky Lorencen
Thankfully, it only took about 24 hours before my mind unlocked my heart and I was free to be both grateful and giddy (yes, I even skipped down the hall with happiness).
Now, I know there’s still lots of work ahead, no guarantees and more opportunities for rejection, trail and error, and failure. My mind will still be busy watching over my heart, but for now, I’m delighted to enjoy this milestone.
Let me encourage you to celebrate your milestones too–sending out a submission you’ve spent many months (maybe years) preparing, making the shift from beer to champagne rejections (that is a big deal!), selling an article to a magazine you admire, getting that beloved book contract or whatever achievement makes your heart smile and your dear, overworked mind nod in agreement.
Remember to celebrate milestones as you prepare for the road ahead. ~ Nelson Mandela
If all it takes to sell a book is talent, work hard and perseverance, more of us would be published. Like it or not, luck is a piece of the process. But can you make your own luck? I think so. You just have to be willing to ask for it, compete, put out, flaunt a little and sell yourself.
1. Ask for it. Whenever I receive a manuscript critique from an editor or agent, I always end the conversation by asking if I can send him or her my manuscript. Pride is too pricey. Go ahead and pop the question the editor or agent is expecting you to ask. (And then make sure you follow through. Send that manuscript and mention the invitation in your cover letter.)
2. Put out. Sweetie, shyness is simply out of your price range. You really must interact with other writers and members of the publishing community via social media. Send cards. Build and cultivate a blog or web site. Comment on other’s blog posts. Be generous and offer your help to others in the form of critiques or feedback. Aside from surrounding yourself with a supportive community of talented people, you never know where those connections may lead.
3. Flaunt a little. Humility is pricey too. You’re going to have to loosen up and show off a little. An author/illustrator friend of mine, Ruth McNally Barshaw, was contacted by an agent after a friend encouraged her to share her sketches online. Ruth wasn’t looking to lure an agent, but posting her work resulted in the start of a fabulous partnership and the launch of her graphic novel series–Ellie McDoodle.
4. Be willing to compete. When was the last time you entered a writing contest? In 2012, I entered a contest sponsored by the National Association of Elementary School Principals. Did I win? Uh, noop. But my picture book manuscript placed in the top 5 out of more than 750 entries. Did that boost my confidence. Yes, indeedy. Children’s Writer and Highlights run themed contests regularly.
But don’t limit yourself to writing contests. If there’s a pricey conference you want to attend, chances are there’s a scholarship contest to go with it. I have had the privilege of receiving funds for both a regional and a national SCBWI conference, as well as for a Highlights Foundation Writers Workshop. And don’t assume you have to be penniless to apply. Check out the requirements to see if you qualify and go for it. Even if you don’t win, oftentimes filling out the application gives you great practice for a query letter or synopsis. So, it’s time well spent even if it doesn’t result in cash.
5. Sell yourself. Have that elevator pitch memorized. Be ready to talk intelligently about whatever you’re working on right now. Know how to introduce yourself as a professional–including a beautiful business card. Work it, Baby.
Make yourself some good luck this week!
Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. ~ Seneca
You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocket ship underpants don’t help. ~ Bill Watterson, Calvin & Hobbes
Titles--heartache city! The title must do everything a synopsis or query does: grab the reader, provide a summary, and hint at the action yet to come. A lot of time goes into working up a good title, and it's not just the author's work, either. The editor, the editor's coworkers, and sales and marketing all have their say; everyone's input must be considered.
Titles cooked up and rejected for A WHOLE LOT OF LUCKY:
- Two Flavors of Lucky
- The Year of My Magnificent Luckiness
- Three Million Dollar Girl
- The Duplicitous Luckiness of Hailee Richardson
- Serendippitydoo
- Lucky Me
- Impossibly Possibly Lucky
- Hailee Richardson, Girl Millionaire
My editor and I brainstormed pages of titles and promptly rejected most of them. The problem lies in the word "lucky:" phrases involving "getting lucky" are imbued with the wrong kind of nuance! Also, we wanted to avoid words like jackpot or other buzzwords that are too close too gambling. (This was hard, because even the buying of a lottery ticket is gambling.)
My sister suggested "A Whole Lotto Lucky," and the powers that be loved her suggestion! With a bit of morphing, my sister's words became A WHOLE LOT OF LUCKY.
Now you can try your luck without all the heartache my editor and I went through! For a free, signed hardcover of A WHOLE LOT OF LUCKY, just enter the Goodreads contest!
Hi, folks! I'm continuing my series for the month of March. In honor of Saint Patrick's Day, I'm calling this series: Lucky Serendipity. I have tripped across many moments in life that really direct the whole of my writing future. I call these moments: lucky serendipity. So here is the story of one of those moments.
A few years ago, I came to the end of a project and was wondering what to write next. I had no idea. I was flailing around with ideas: something about a hurricane, a lame superhero with the ability to walk on water, and a squirrel who breaks the "squirrel code" and talks to a human to solve a murder. Nothing was really working. I had never come to a place like this before. I had writer's block!
I was a brooding on the couch like some descendant of Grendal. Driving the car pool, three teenagers plus one, and volunteering at the elementary school mixed with writer's block does stuff like that to you. My daughter Jubilee breezed into the living room and plopped on the couch. She was born sunny-side up and has Beowulf attitude I grumbled and griped about my dilemma. I could see the wheels turning in her head. "You should write about plumbing,' she said. "I love your stories."
It's a tradition in my family to tell stories about your life to your children. When I was in high school and in college, I worked as a plumber's helper during the summer. It was tough work and I had plenty of stories about those days.
"That's your next book and you'll publish it for sure," Jubilee said. She popped off the couch and ran off to chat with her friends about fashion, books, and the horror of high school.
Easy for her to say. Gosh, I needed chocolate. Her idea would not leave me. I began writing. I will say that first scene made me laugh so hard that I fell off the couch. My block faded away. I'd started a little project entitled "Plumber Gal" at the time. This story grew into my novel: Plumb Crazy, published by Swoon Romance, coming out on June 30.
It took a while to get here. All those teenagers are new adults now and the plus one is a teenager. I have been on the best journey. I hope the lucky serendipity that inspired my book, inspires you. I will be back next week with more Lucky Serendipity.
Now the doodle. I call this one: "Before Goliath."
And last of all, a quote for your pocket.
The Almighty makes miracles when he pleases, wonder after wonder, and this world rests in his hands. Beowulf, lines 930-932.
Can you create your own luck?
Thomas Jefferson said it best: "I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more luck I have."
An open writer goes to a writer’s conference and sees the potential to make new friends and contacts with the possibility of getting in touch with an agent or editor. A closed writer sees competition and shuts down.
Luck is what happens when you open yourself up to chance. Chance meets optimism.
You’ve worked on your manuscript, loved it, and now you feel the time has come to introduce it to the world. You hold you story out the window and wait for the Agent Fairy to fly by and pick it up. If only that’s how getting published worked!
Luck is what happens when you sign up to pitch your story to an agent, find the perfect outfit, wear an extra layer of deodorant, prepare and deliver your one-minute speech. The next minute you’re being asked to send the full manuscript to the agent. Preparation meets opportunity.
I’m sure you’ve heard many authors say they were in the right place at the right time for their book to be sold. Does that mean they stood around at writer’s conferences, waiting for an agent to spot them and ask for their story? Do they mean once they typed the words “The End” the journey was over? Did they land a book deal on the first query? Most likely not.
Luck is what happens when you write and write and edit and on query number 189 you land a book deal. Discipline meets perseverance
One hundred eighty nine rejections. That is a lot of “no thank yous” or “your story is a right fit for us.” A lot of soul crunching pain, wondering if your dreams are worth the trouble. Each time the backbone gains a little more strength, scar tissue interweaves
This is one of those books I read years ago and blogged over at Booktopia. It's one of those books that went under the radar, but every time I hand it to a reader, they come back having loved it.
Poor Ivy. A Jinx has followed her since she broke a mirror almost seven years ago. No matter where she and her mother move, bad luck follows. In fact, getting to Gumm Street is the first good thing that has happened in a long time. Ivy and her mom have inherited Aunt V's old house.
Gumm Street happens to be the very street where Pru, Cat, and Franny live. You would think that 3 girls of the same age who live on the same street would be friends. Well, they used to be. Not any more. After all Pru is all stuck up with her nose perpetually in a book, Cat is a great big show off and queen of the cartwheels, and Franny has so many big ideas that she cannot possibly follow through with any of them!
When Ivy moves to the block, a piano is mysteriously delivered and the elusive Mr. Staccato - piano teacher extraordinaire - shows up to offer some lessons. Ivy's first lesson shows her that there is something else to Mr. Staccato besides piano! His dogs seem to talk, and he has a museum room filled with movie memorabilia from way before her time. The prize of which seems to be ruby slippers.
An adventure soon begins with the girls having to get together and work together to defeat the crazy Aunt Cha-Cha and her creepy nieces Bling-Bling and Coco. The girls travel to Spoz, then Spudz and each of them works to find their "unique talent" that Mr. Staccato has told them they possess.
I am not sure how to really describe the plot. Elise Primavera has written lots of plot! I think that kids who have read The Wizard of Oz series will get more out of this book than kids who have not read it. There is a large amount of magical realism, and necessary suspension of belief is required to get through. I did, however, really enjoy the book. I think that it is written on a couple of levels where older readers will get the wry writing style and younger readers will get an adventure story.
I had fun!
By: 1questionaday,
on 3/17/2011
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I know someone who had dinner with Andre. An friend of mine, through some art world connections, found himself across the table from the man, chatting between mouthfuls of pasta or sushi or some such. My apologies if this bombshell has caused you to drop your mug of coffee or to fall down a well, IPhone in hand, mouth agape. It is shocking, but I assure you it’s true.
If you aren’t shocked, it’s only because you’re thinking, “Andre? Andre Agassi?” Heavens no. This wasn’t some binge of crystal meth and Oedipal rants. “Andre the Giant, then?” Sadly, that glandular wonder is dead, and even if he was alive, I suspect a dinner with Andre the Giant would involve massive turkey legs and troughs of gravy as opposed to the stimulating discussions for which the Andre I refer to is famous. “And which Andre, pray tell, is that?”
In the 1980s, if you wanted to make a joke about intellectualism, Louis Malle’s My Dinner with Andre was always a good place to start. It was a film featuring Wallace Shawn, most famous to the masses for his “inconceivable” role in The Princess Bride and now for his joyously goofy part on Gossip Girl. In the film, Wallace (or Wally, as he’s known to pals) eats dinner with Andre Gregory. They talk about art retreats and existentialism and all things well-heeled and white. And that’s it. Roll credits.
As much as people were baffled that this could be a movie, there were critics such as Roger Ebert, and plenty of turtle-necked philosophy majors, who ate the junk up. I saw it when I was green and impressionable and while I can say it wasn’t an entire bore, I definitely didn’t buy into it. Just like I didn’t buy into Waking Life or I Heart Huckabees or similar exercises in navel-gazing cinematic blather. That said, should I ever be invited to a dinner with theatre stalwart Andre Gregory, I would be honored and humbled. Because it is the equivalent of winning the culinary/conversation lottery.
Really, it is. Think about it.
Let’s say Andre eats dinner every day, a safe assumption. Let’s also say he eats at home most often, but regularly goes out with his wife or friends, and occasionally dines at art openings and parties and business functions. From this, we can make a generous guess and assume that, on average, Andre eats dinner with a person he has never met once every five days. Now you can’t count any person who happens to be in the room while he cuts a t-bone. Having a conversation with Andre is essential to having dinner with him. So all things told, for each year of his life, Andre has had about 73 new dining companions. It’s been almost 30 years since the film. In that time, it multiplies to 2,190 folks.
Now let’s roun
I want to thank everyone who emailed me their thoughts on writing groups, and here is my collective response: writers' groups are great if they work for you. Maybe they support you in some way that is necessary for you to go on writing. They are just not for me, and I need to spend what little time I have actually writing. So while I appreciate offers to join online critique groups, I like figuring out how to revise on my own. Just the way I work. And I think I'm more ruthless on myself than nice people would be.
Besides, I have to spend my online time looking up obscure facts about polar bears and peacocks so I can look at the clock and think, "OMG, it's 1:45 and the boys will be home in 17 minutes, and I haven't started revising yet!" It makes me really use those 17 minutes constructively. Unfortunately, another way I work: the Internet is my endless encyclopedia of trivia.
And while I'm sort of on the subject of writing and writing groups, I had no idea so many folks out there are aspiring to be writers, and YA writers in particular. It seems to have exploded, and I feel like Rip VanWinkle. Where did all these people come from and what were they doing before?
In reading some of these emails, I found out a lot that I didn't know, so I started snooping around the Internet to see what they were referencing. Now, admittedly, I am not a writer involved in many literary social loops - okay, no literary social loops - but I discovered a huge business has sprung up to cater to the aspiration of being a writer. There are workshops run by editors and former editors who charge mightily to critique your manuscript and make it publishable. (Can/do they guarantee that? What if that manuscript is still lingering in your hard drive three years later? Do you get a refund?)
There are conferences and weekend retreats and retreats combined with spa treatments to relax you so you can write better. So a sea kelp facial and then a little plot tweaking? Oh, sure, I get that. And none of these are cheap.
Then there is a strange fellow termed "collaborative publishing" - which seems like an advanced form of Xeroxing. You pay someone to publish your book. That's putting it a little baldly, but that's what I gathered from reading their spiel. You get to say you're published even if you're out a couple of grand.
Through none of this does anyone mention talent. There is a conspicuous absence of the T-word in most publishing come ons, and there is this weird atmosphere around writing that if you work a manuscript to death, send it out enough, throw some cash at it, you'll eventually hit it right, quit your day job and start lunching with JK Rowling. Or something along those lines. The odds are never mentioned.
We live right near Atlantic City, sort of a subdued LasVegas with tons of casinos and gamblers. One of the things Gamblers Anonymous does is explain the incredibly low odds of making it big at a casino. It's logical, and mathematical, and inarguable. You would think all the examples would keep the gamblers away from the glittery lure of Harrah's. But it doesn't, and the casinos continue to thrive. They keep coming back and spending money despite the almost impossible odds.
The gamblers know there are so many gamblers and so few jackpots. And the casinos know exactly how few gamblers will accept that as fact.
I got the Friday the 13th slot. By definition nonfiction authors should be nonsuperstitious, but it seems unlucky to ignore this occasion. So I decided to write about the luck factor (or lack thereof) in writing nonfiction for kids.
The lucky thing is that you don’t have to make anything up. You can find facts and subjects so amazing and surreal they defy imagination.
The unlucky thing is you can’t make anything up. There’s no fudging an unknown area; you’ve got to find the facts that fit.
The lucky thing is that schools and libraries can always use a well-written book to update their collection on a particular subject.
The unlucky thing is that they can’t afford to buy them.
The lucky thing is that you can create books on subjects kids will love.
The unlucky thing is that many publishers can’t imagine marketing nonfiction to the trade market, so the kids don’t find them.
The lucky thing is that with new printing techniques and fabulous illustrators, nonfiction pictures books portray our world in gorgeous detail.
The unlucky thing is that the big chains limit their nonfiction stock and won’t display it face out with the other new picture books on the back wall.
The lucky thing is that you always have something new to talk about at social gatherings.
The unlucky thing is that sometimes people don’t share your enthusiasm for the question of how NASA is going to do an emergency appendectomy in space, what with gravity not keeping organs in their normal places—or even blood inside the body for that matter. And why isn’t that dinner conversation?
The lucky thing about being a nonfiction writer is that you are learning your whole life.
The unlucky thing…hmmm…no downside to that!
Elizabeth Joy Arnold
Pieces of My Sister’s Life
Publisher: Bantam
Pub date: July 2007
Agent: Kim Lionetti
(Click to Buy)
Author Web site: www.ElizabethJoyArnold.com.
My debut novel tells the story of identical twin sisters, Kerry and Eve, whose childhood is upended when they learn that what they both want is a future only one of them can have. After an estrangement of thirteen years, Kerry returns to her childhood home to be with her ill sister and to confront Justin, the husband she thought would be hers, and Gillian, the niece who looks just like her—hoping to finally bring closure to the dark secrets and cruel betrayals that tore the sisters apart.
My publication story started like almost every writer’s, in that I suffered for years from not even being able to get agents to ask for material after I sent queries. Now somehow here I am, with a really nice deal from a big publisher, my book sitting on the lead spot in that publisher’s catalogue, a first print run number that absolutely blows my mind, newspaper interviews and print and radio ads coming up—absolutely a dream come true; I literally have to pinch myself every day, because it still doesn’t seem real to me.
So how did I get from there to here? I wish I had an easy answer to give you, but that would be acting like the herbal-supplement people who tell you they’ve got the secret to losing weight. Anyone who says they have a surefire way of getting you published is either trying to scam you or they’re a vanity publisher. I’d have to say it’s about 80% perseverance, 10% luck, and 10% “talent.” (I put quotes around talent, by the way, because although I guess there are some people who are innately talented, almost anyone can learn to write better. Talent comes primarily from hard work, I think.) So that means 90% of it is up to you.
Just a quick note on each of these:
Perseverance
People will tell you it’s nearly impossible to publish a first novel without prior publishing credits, but that’s obviously not true. In my case, I never stopped believing this was what I was meant to do, and so I kept papering my walls with rejection slips, writing new manuscripts and sending them out, and then filling another wall with rejections. I kept trying because I loved to write, not because I ever expected to get published; publication was just the cherry on top. I was happiest when I was immersed in the worlds I’d created, and so I never gave up. And eventually, people started getting interested. A few years ago, I actually had an editor at Soho Press send me an encouraging letter, along with my manuscript (he actually paid for postage) with editing marks all over it, which meant he’d read the whole thing. That little pat on the back was enough to keep me going for another few years worth of rejections.
“Talent”
I think part of the success of this novel is that I found the right story, one that my agent and publisher believe people will connect to. I learned how to write by writing daily, sometimes from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., to the point where my husband was starting to feel like a widower. And I learned by reading—I still read every spare minute, sometimes three books at a time, everything from Chekhov to Vampire novels, and I pay attention to what I like and don’t like, think of different choices I would’ve made in the writing, and what works and doesn’t work for me. (By the way, there’s very little in Chekhov that doesn’t work. . . .) For most people, this is where “talent” comes from. Not copying or emulating, of course, but learning with every book you read.
Luck
Well, this is the tricky one, because luck is mostly outside your control. But to some extent, you do make your own luck. Write the best book you can possibly write—Do rewrite after rewrite until you feel like the book is as good as it’s ever going to get. (I’ve probably written twenty versions of my second novel, and it hasn’t even gone through the editing process yet.) Do a lot of research before you decide who to query, and write a kick-ass query letter that’ll get their attention. I owe a ton to Kim, my agent, who showed so much enthusiasm for the book when she called to take me on, and I know that enthusiasm must’ve carried through to the editors she met with. So I was incredibly lucky to find the right agent, one who truly believed in my story, and just as lucky to find Caitlin, my editor, who also had so much excitement about the book that she got me excited all over again, and really pushed it to her publisher. But the luck wouldn’t have come without the hard work and perseverance.
It’s been a year and a half since I first got my acceptance from Bantam, and finally the book’s out there in the world. The book’s only just been published, and I’ve already gotten seven pieces of “fan mail,” from people who’ve bought the book. Getting those e-mails was the first time the whole thing actually began to feel real for me. The realization that people are now reading the story and meeting the characters that were alone in my head for months and months just blows me away. And that’s what made all the pain of rejection and the hard work (not to mention the carpal tunnel syndrome) worth it.
Best of luck in your own publishing adventures!
Feel free to ask Elizabeth questions in the comments. She'll drop in during the day to read and answer them.
And so did I. The book is Con Ed by Matthew Klein. Click here to see my review from the Sunday Oregonian. And the NYT said it was "funny, full of tricks and very, very hard to put down." Even so, when I walked into my local bookstore, they weren't carrying it. (After I walked out, the shop had it on order to stock.) Sometimes it seems so hard to be an author. If your book's not on the shelf, people are much less likely to buy it. But bookstores can't carry everything. Maybe it all comes down to fate and luck.
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Sometimes, I secretly make offerings to the Agent Fairy. **Shh**
So here's a question: I'm going to a writing workshop next month, and I know there will be some "movers and shakers" there. How should I prepare? Should I have a pitch ready? A query? I'm not shy, but I feel a little weird just rambling on about my work...Advice?