Much of a writer's life involves waiting. Much of ALL human life, I suppose, involves waiting. As Dr. Seuss wrote in Oh, The Places You'll Go, we can spend countless hours of our precious time here on this earth in this way:
Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come,/ or a plane to go or the mail to come,/ or the rain to go or the phone to ring,/ or the snow to snow or waiting around for a Yes or No/or waiting for their hair to grow./Everyone is just waiting.
After first waiting to hear if my agent liked my new book, The Lost Language, and then waiting to hear if my editor liked it, and then waiting to hear her responses to round after round of revisions made for her suggestions, the book is well along in production. I have a final cover, which I adore and am sharing every chance I get (see below!). And I have electronic ARCs (Advanced Reader Copies), which are now being sent out for early reviews, for which I am NOW beginning to wait.
Let me tell you: It is terrifying to wait for those first reviews.
I doubt it's possible for me to have any reviews for at least another month, and maybe two. But then they will come, if I'm lucky (with so many thousands of books published each year, many don't achieve the honor of any reviews at all). The chief review organs for children's book are Kirkus, School Library Journal, Booklist, Publishers Weekly, The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, and Horn Book. What these reviewers have to say about my book will make a huge difference to its success - or lack thereof. The BEST kind of review is a starred review (where here, it's not that the book gets x number of stars on some scale, but that the review itself has one big, beautiful star next to it.)
I've had starred reviews on various books throughout the course of my career, but not very many. But I've never before written a book as good as this one. Some of my author friends get HEAPS of starred reviews: three, four, or even five for one single book. Sometimes, in a mildly irritating way, they will write Facebook posts that begin: "Pinch me! My book has just gotten its FIFTH starred review!"
What if that irritating person this time is . . . ME?
I remember hearing stories about Broadway actors huddling at Sardi's in the early morning hours after opening night, waiting for those newspaper reviews that would hit the streets at dawn: the reviews that would determine whether their show closed immediately or ran through hundreds of performances. At least those theater reviews came right away, and the anxious actors were together as they waited, presumably drinking some cheering or consoling adult beverages. I don't know when my reviews will come. Not yet. But soon? Or soonish?
Now, everyone knows that the wisest course of action for any writer while waiting to hear from agents, editors, or reviewers is simply to get busy writing the next book. Forget the first book! Pretend it never existed! Pour your whole heart into the new work-in-progress!
This is not easy to do.
Dr. Seuss reassures us:
Somehow you'll escape/ all that waiting and staying./ You'll find the bright places/ where Boom Bands are playing.
But note that he doesn't give any guidance for HOW you will do this.
My own plan - well, not MY plan, exactly, but the universe's plan for me - is to stuff my summer so full of a whirlwind of fully vaccinated gaiety that I will have little time to sit hunched over my email waiting for reviews to trickle in. My two little granddaughters are coming for a week each month. My younger son and his girlfriend are coming from Chicago for three whole weeks. Multiple friends are coming through Boulder on cross-country road/train trips. I'm going on a girlfriend getaway of my own to Santa Fe next week and to a mini-reunion with five friends from my freshman-year college dorm to Newport, Rhode Island, in August.
My whole life will be a bright place where Boom Bands are playing!
Or at least that's the plan.
As I wait, and wait, and wait for those first crucial reviews....
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