Your Book Won't Get Revised Unless You Revise It

This post is the sequel to my earlier post, "Your Book Won't Get Written Unless You Write It."

Three weeks ago I finished the full manuscript of my third-grade-level chapter book set in an after-school coding camp: Lucy Lopez, Coding Star. I am pleased to say I finished it by my deadline and promptly sent it off to my brilliant editor and brilliant writing group.

They gave me comments right away. Guess what? Just like every book I have ever written throughout my long career, this one NEEDS MORE WORK!!

The big surprise for me was that the part that is looking good is . . . almost all the bits about coding! The parts I was most worried about were pronounced clear and engaging. Whew!

The parts that aren't looking so good are . . . the character arcs for the protagonist and her sister (it's a sister story), and how they drive the plot. These are not small or inconsequential elements of a book.

At first I panicked. Well, first I sulked, then I panicked. Even though this will be my 60th published book for children, I had suddenly forgotten exactly how one goes about revising a book. The scenes that were already written seemed, well, the way it actually happened. How could I change them so things happened some other way? How on earth would I even begin?

Then it came back back to me. You begin. . . by beginning. As Arnold Bennett writes in his delightful 1910 self-help book, How to Live on Twenty-Four Hours a Day: "Dear sir, you simply begin. There is no magic method of beginning. If a man standing on the edge of a swimming-bath and wanting to jump into the cold water should ask you, 'How do I begin to jump?' you would merely reply, 'Just jump. Take hold of your nerves, and jump.'"

So I took hold of my nerves and went through the page-by-page comments from my editor and writing group friends and inserted them into my master copy of the manuscript, adding them with ALL CAPS so they would stand out. I also added ALL CAPS notes of my own. There were all the things that needed to be addressed in the course of the revision.

Then I made seven handwritten pages of responses to these comments, starting with the question, "What IS Lucy's character arc?" and moving on to "How does the tension BUILD?" and "Other things to do. . . 1) Differentiate Mom and Dad more - how? 2) Foreshadow the end-of-book Coding Expo; 3) Clarify the teachers' role; 4) Simplify the camp logistics...."  and more... and more...

Then. . . I began. I just began. I changed a bunch of things in Chapter 1 that affected the shape of the rest of the story, and then I started to work on the rest of the story. Each time I sit down to work more on the revisions, I read over what I've already revised to gather confidence. Look how much better Chapter 1 is now! Look how much better Chapter 2 is, too! Surely I can find a way to deal with the problems in Chapter 3...

So, just as my book won't get written in the first place unless I write it, it won't get revised unless I revise it.

And the best way to revise it, dear sir, dear madam, dear anybody, is simply to begin.

More Fun with Book Promotion

As many readers know, I am currently trying harder to promote my books. In fact, I'm trying harder to promote this brand-new sweet little book:

I'm not sure that any of my strategies are paying off, but I'm certainly having fun with them, and there is no downside to having fun.

I did my blog tour - fun!

I ordered bookmarks - fun!

I did an "Instagram takeover" arranged by my publisher, Holiday House, for Nixie's launch day- fun! My own favorite of my posts for the "takeover" was where I shared photos of my first failed attempt at making the homemade dog biscuits the kids make in the book, side by side with photos of the second, much more successful attempt.

 Hideous!

Non-hideous!

I have worn my new CHEF COSTUME several times in public, including at a delightful launch party for the book at the delightful Denver children's bookstore, Second Star to the Right.

I looked mildly ridiculous, but undeniably jolly. I gave out starry prizes for my cooking-themed trivia questions and served extremely delicious cookies, including my signature ginger snaps. (And if you say you don't like ginger snaps, then you have never tasted mine.) So that was VERY FUN.

Finally, I had a chance to do an interview for the podcast Beyond the Trope, and it turns out that doing interviews is fun, too. I sound smarter and better than I thought I would, so I've listened to it several times today, thinking, ooh, this person sounds smarter and better than I thought she would! So here's a link to it, in case you want to hear me talking about the big, deep philosophical questions I explore in Nixie Ness, Cooking Star, and the forthcoming Vera Vance, Comics Star.

It was ALL fun. Maybe I'll sell three more copies of the book through all my efforts. I bet I will!

But in any case, I had fun.

And there is nothing more fun than having fun.

Better Half-Baked by the Deadline than Over-Baked Too Late

One of my tasks for this month was to complete a chapter I had been invited to contribute to an edited philosophy collection. This, of course, involved starting the chapter, writing the chapter, revising the chapter, and then submitting the chapter. As the deadline approached, I hadn't actually done ANY of these things. I had MEANT to do them, but of course that's not the same thing at all.

I had comforted myself with the thought that academic deadlines are often largely fictitious and fanciful. I know many academics who submit book chapters MONTHS past the deadline, with impunity. There are always stragglers. Maybe this time I would be one of them. I wouldn't miss the deadline by a huge amount, just a week or two. How terrible would that be? Not terrible at all, I told myself.

But then, a week before the deadline, I learned that it would indeed be VERY terrible. The co-editors were traveling to be together in person to meet and go over our chapters together, so they could send timely feedback to all of us, so we could revise in a timely way to meet the press's apparently NON-fictitious and NON-fanciful deadline.

Gulp.

Well, there would surely still be SOME stragglers, I told myself. Would this really be the first project in the history of academia with no stragglers at all? I started composing my heartfelt apology in my head. And believe me, I could put enough of my real-life hideous heartbreak and unbearable stress into the apology to cause any editor to weep on my behalf and excuse me from all deadlines, forever.

But then I thought . . . what if . . . what if instead . . .  I actually sat down and WROTE THE CHAPTER and sent it in on time???

Ooh!

I had indeed given the chapter plenty of thought. It was only supposed to be a maximum of 5000 words. That isn't SO long. The editors had encouraged us to write in a conversational and engaging style, and that's precisely what I'm good at doing. I still had a week, even though most of that week would be spent visiting my sister in Indiana before attending the annual conference of the Children's Literature Association, held this year in Indianapolis. But I love writing in other places.

So I started writing here at home at my desk. I kept on writing while sitting on the world's comfiest couch in the world's coziest living room at my sister's house. I allowed myself to miss one conference session each day to lie on my luxurious hotel-room bed, writing. And I sent the paper off by the deadline.

The editors responded within a day. They were "very happy" with it - and I'm sure they were extremely happy to have it on time rather than late. They noted the paucity of citations, which I had noticed as well, since I didn't have any of my books with me on my trip. If I wanted to add any, they'd be glad to give me another week to do so. And yes, indeed, I would!

Now, my tastes may differ from yours, but I much prefer under-baked cookies to over-baked ones and even prefer burnt cookies to no cookies at all. If I set the oven timer for less time than needed, I can always add more time, but if I set the timer for more time than needed, I end up scraping blackened cookie bits from the tray.

So now I'm off to add some citations to a paper submitted on time in an ALMOST-finished form rather than a perfect paper submitted too late. And then I may bake some slightly oozy, gooey cookies as a reward.

An Unexpected Boon of My Book Promotion Efforts

My new publisher, Holiday House, is giving my books more love than I'm used to, with impressive publicity strategies on every front. One reason I'm trying harder than usual to promote my books these days is to match their heroic efforts by making (mildly) heroic efforts of my own.

So, thanks to Holiday House, I spent last weekend at the ginormous Pop Culture Con at the Colorado Convention Center: participating on three author panels, giving three presentations for kids and their families, and signing books provided by the famed Tattered Cover Bookstore.

Did I sign very many books? No. Was this my ticket to fame and fortune? No.

But there was considerable downtime for the featured authors in between our various speaking and signing obligations. And I love writing in unusual places. If what I have to write is at all daunting, it helps me to face the challenge in a new and even wacky environment. Then, ever after, I fondly remember exactly where I was when I wrote those scenes.

Here I am, writing Chapter 9 and Chapter 10 of Lucy Lopez, Coding Star in the company of the Big Blue Bear peering through the Colorado Convention Center's tall windows.

I sat cross-legged on the floor there for hours, scribbling away, happy as could be, while costumed convention attendees posed for photos in front of the bear; one of them kindly took this photo for me. By the end of my three days at the convention, I had solved previously insoluble plot problems and brought Lucy's central dilemma to a satisfying conclusion.

The book is slated for publication in Fall 2020. If you read it, when you get to those last two chapters, know that a Big Blue Bear gave them his blessing.

Book promotion is important, I'm sure. But most important of all is WRITING THE BOOKS: writing the best books we can, with the most joy in the process. And if we can do our best and most joyous writing while off at a huge promotion event, all the better.

Does Author Book Promotion Do Any Good?

My new year's goal for 2019 is to do a bunch of NEW THINGS. One of these NEW THINGS is to make my first serious effort to promote my books.

I haven't really bothered with book promotion before. Once upon a time (back when I first became an author), no authors did. We wrote the books; if we were lucky, they got published; if we were very lucky they got lovely reviews or end-of-the-year honors, and that was that. Once in a great while a publisher sent us to a librarians' or booksellers' convention. There were no book launch parties, no cover reveals, no social media boasting (there was no social media), no begging for Amazon or Goodreads reviews (there was no Amazon; there was no Goodreads).

It's tempting to think of these as the good old days. But that is how good old people tend to talk. If you want to sound old, this is an excellent way to do it.

I've also been skeptical, however, that author-generated book promotion really does any good. If you hand out bookmarks with your books, how much of a difference, in the end, does that make to sales? If you sell even fifty copies at a book launch, that's still only fifty copies. Ten online reviews that you bully your friends into writing are only ten reviews. Oh, what's the point?

But in Erin Entrada Kelly's Newbery-winning middle-grade novel, Hello Universe, one character, known for her wisdom, says this: "Of all the questions you ever ask yourself in life, never ask, 'What's the point?' It's the worst question in the world."

Besides... I mean . . . what's the point of ANYTHING? If you just lie on your bed surrendering to nihilism, you'll have a pretty dreary life, and a pretty short-lived career as a children's book author.

So this year I'm trying to promote my new book, Nixie Ness, Cooking Star.

My guiding strategy - and it is an excellent one - is to concentrate on doing things that are fun for me to do, anyway. Or just things that add little tiny bits of joy to the world.

I've never made bookmarks for my books before. But bookmarks are fun! People LIKE bookmarks People USE bookmarks. So now I have them! Come by one of my events and I'll hand one to you!

Writing is fun. Writing blog posts is fun. So I organized a little blog tour for myself which starts today. Here's the schedule:

Friday, May 31, 2019  Bluestocking Thinking

Monday, June 3, 2019 Pencil Tips Writing Workshop

Tuesday, June 4, 2019 Clara Gillow Clark: Writing from the Inside Out

Wednesday, June 5, 2019 Unleashing Readers

Thursday, June 6, 2019 Elizabeth O. Dulemba: Living Life outside the Lines

Friday, June 7, 2019  Cracking the Cover

Parties are fun. Giving talks is fun. Cookies are fun. So I organized two bookstore events for Nixie, where I'll talk about the book and cookies will be served.

The first is next week, on Tuesday June 4, 2 p.m., at  Second Star to the Right in Denver.
The second is this fall, on September 10, 6:30 pm, at Boulder Bookstore in Boulder.

SO: the point is . . . fun. And maybe I'll sell a few books. And I'll keep a new year's promise I made to myself.

That's enough for me, for now.

Your Book Won't Get Written Unless You Write It

I agreed to get the full manuscript of my long-delayed chapter book (set in an after-school coding camp) to my long-suffering editor by June 1.

There was only one problem.

I had written barely any of it because - and this is the sadly crucial part - I HAD NO IDEA WHAT TO WRITE.

Despite months of (admittedly somewhat slipshod) research, I still didn't have a firm grip on what kinds of things kids would do in a coding camp. Worse, I didn't have a firm grip on what my protagonist's character arc was going to be: how would she grow and change as a result of a month spent learning how to do coding? And what kinds of plot-generating events could transpire at the camp to make this happen?

These are very significant things not to know about a book one is supposed to be writing. And if I hadn't figured these out after months of fretting, moping, and whining, how on earth could I figure them out in a mere three weeks?

I am here to report that all is well. I figured out most of these things lickety-split.

How, you may ask?

BY ACTUALLY SITTING DOWN AND TRYING TO WRITE THE DARNED BOOK!

Yes, I learned yet again a lesson I've learned many times before. Although many people praise the power of subconscious creativity and the benefit of gaining perspective on a project by stepping away from it for a period of time (say, for the period right up until three weeks before it is due), and the secretive toil of kindly nocturnal elves, I have found that the only way I have ever gotten a book written - the ONLY way - is by sitting down and starting to write it.

Even though I don't know what to write.

Even though I have no idea how to figure out what to write.

Even though I've forgotten how I ever figured out how to write anything.

If I sit down to write - and commit to writing for a whole entire hour every single day - timed with my trusty hourglass - words start to appear on the page - words written by me. Characters say and think witty things. They make choices that precipitate predicaments. They react to other people's choices and other people's predicaments.

All from just picking up a pen and moving it across the page.

Best, I can then type up the pages and share them with my brilliant writing group who offer insights beyond anything I could ever have generated all by my lonesome before the first word was written. I can leave my meeting with them energized and inspired.

I CAN write a book set in a coding camp! I can! I can!

Five days into serious hour-a-day writing, I'm loving my book. These five hours have given me the best of all gifts from the writing fairies: momentum. When my boys were little, I would ask them, "What does Mommy like?" and they could spout the correct answer: "Progress!" Progress is now being made simply because I am now making it

Oh, darlings, if there is something you need to write, or want to write, or vaguely feel like writing, just sit down and write it. I am here to tell you it really truly won't get written otherwise.

Take it from me, who has just completed a most pleasing revised draft of Chapter Three....

The Moment to Decide

As many of you know, my personal life these days lies in what I cheerfully describe as "flaming ruins."

Well, maybe this description isn't all that cheerful. 

Throughout all my recent Sturm and Drang, I've managed to stay a faithful and engaged professor for the students in my online class for Hollins University (on the figure of the emerging female writer from Little Women to The Poet X); I've continued to work closely with my three mentees through the fabulous mentorship program in our Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators Rocky MountainsChapter.

It's relatively easy to do things that absolutely have to be done.

What I haven't managed to do is to make any real progress on my chapter book set in an after-school coding camp. There was no day on which I absolutely had to accomplish any writing, so basically I accomplished next to none. It didn't help that I remain paralyzed with dread at the thought of learning anything at all about computer coding, despite having attended numerous coding workshops and read (well, skimmed) numerous coding books. So I am now a teensy bit behind on delivering that manuscript to my editor; it was due April 1, and so far I've drafted three chapters of ten.

Two days ago she sent me a kindly worded email saying that she really did need to know when (if ever?) I would be able to send her the manuscript, as she needed to finalize her list for Fall 2020. 

Basically, I either have to send the manuscript to her sometime on the soon-ish side, or else my book will have to be postponed until 2021.

That feels like an awfully long time from now.

One of my favorite hymns begins, "Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide," with lyrics written in 1845 by poet and abolitionist James Russell Lowell. Well, once to every woman and writer also comes the moment to decide, and this was my mine.

In favor of postponing the book:

1. I have enough stress in my life right now. Do I need to add more?

2. This month I still have my Hollins course to finish up, and the three SCBWI mentorships. And promotional efforts for the first book in this series, Nixie Ness, Cooking Star, pub date June 4. And my friend Rachel's wedding to attend in Minneapolis on May 18. And a sermon to write and deliver for church. And a week-long visit from my grandchildren.

3. Plus, I'd like to do a good job on the book, not a hasty, half-baked one.

In favor of making a heroic effort to write the book RIGHT NOW:

1. 2021 is SO far away.

2. I'm happiest when I'm writing.

3. I'm happiest when I'm busy.

4. I'm happiest when I have something other to do than mourn and mope, grieve and grumble.

5. Any good job on any project has to begin with a hasty, half-baked one if it's going to begin at all.

So I emailed Margaret and said, "Can I make the Fall 2020 list if I get the manuscript to you by June 1?"

And she emailed back, "I think we can make that work."

This morning I got up, not at 5, but at 3:45, so I could be writing by 4. Because EVERY SINGLE MORNING, to every human being and certainly to every writer, comes the moment to decide. The big decision - do it! - has to be followed by many, many smaller decisions of the form: do at least something on this project right now.

I wrote three handwritten pages. They are not very good pages. But all writers know that not-very-good pages have to come first. I now have three more of them than I had two hours ago. 

I have decided!