Create Happiness

I've been reading both personal resolutions and writing goals, and I've decided to combine mine into a single guiding principle:

Create happiness.

Creating happiness means:

I will make the things that makes me happy. It may be a novel, a picture book, a short story, or a drawing -- if I am expressing something, that is enough.

I will make things to make others happy. Writing what I want does not mean I'm talking to myself. I can't guarantee that everything will be published -- no one can! -- but I'll think of what a reader or viewer would like and write for them. 

I will try to make other people happy. First is my family -- I won't let my goals and struggles get in the way. I will aim to make them happy, and I will also reach out more to others as well and grow the circle of the people in my life.

I will create happiness in myself. I can't make problems or sadness disappear but I will strive to appreciate the good that I have and live in the moments I have been given.


How much clearer it would be to post a word count goal! Reach it or fall short, words end up the page either way. But creating happiness is only a principle, and it's ambiguous by design. 

The worlds we write carry over into the real world, for ourselves and our readers. I aim to increase my creative output this year without shutting the door. Mine will not be a refuge or flight from real life, and I will not let writing be a struggle that wears me down. I hope to find flow, joy, and peace in the creative process and create greater happiness in myself and others.

About Kell Andrews:  Kell Andrews writes picture books and middle grade novels. Deadwood, her middle-grade contemporary fantasy about a cursed tree, comes out from Spencer Hill Middle Grade in June 2014. 

Giving Up

The other day I had a writing setback. Not a huge one, but the timing of it made me add up all my rejections for the past few years, and... well, it was a big number.

Amid them, I've had a handful of acceptances, but so far, it's all come to ... well, nothing.

One thought brought me comfort: the thought of giving up.

I could just give up! I didn't have to do this any longer. I didn't have to work toward publishing my fiction. I didn't even have to write fiction.

Give up.

It was possible. I could stop for a little while, or forever.

I could give up.

Why was the comforting? Because it's a choice. As long as I can give up, I am free. The corollary is that as long as I pursue this path, it means that I am choosing it.

So I'm choosing it for now.

Here's a little theme song for those of us who need the option to quit so that we keep going. There's no glory in compulsion -- I choose this of my own free will.

You Can't Live a Dream

Being a writer has always been my dream. Guess what? I am a writer. I write nonfiction for my day job, and I write middle-grade fiction as a passion. I've even been published.

So why doesn't it feel like a dream come true?

Because you can't live a dream. You can only live real life.

There are dream-like moments -- getting an offer from an agent, a contract, an award, a bestseller (some of those remains dreams) -- but reality is much more mundane. Big contracts come with pressure and deadlines. So do small ones. So does self-publishing, only the people cracking the whip are readers who demand more.

Agents and editors and readers often don't have the same ideas as you do. They don't always like your latest work. There are reviews, returns, and unearned royalties along the way. There are disappointing sales and dropped contracts. There are empty book signings, readings that fall flat, endless blog posts, and internet controversies. Hopefully there is plenty of writing and more books along the way too.

Writing can be a good job or bad one. Well paid, poorly paid, or unpaid. It can be a very good life, and I'm grateful for the one I have. But it's always work.

So what about the other part of my dream -- a pot of dark-brewed coffee and a thousand words, a long walk on a crisp sunny fall day, another thousand words?

That's not real life. That's a writer's retreat.

When You Need a New Hobby

Writing used to be a hobby. Now I've realized I need a new one.

Not that I mean to stop writing -- I don't. But writing fiction has changed for me. It's not something I do as a form of escapism from real life, or something that relieves stress and angst. It IS my real life. And it's often a source of stress and angst. I don't think the change came from being published -- it comes from focusing on becoming (and staying) published.

I don't make a living from writing fiction -- not by a long shot. Still, I have acknowledged myself as a writer and it's part of my public persona, but more importantly, it's too big a part of my private identity. It's no longer a no-stakes endeavor. The emotional stakes are high.

So now I need a hobby as relief from my hobby. Before I had children, I used to garden and still do, but my schedule doesn't give me free time during prime gardening hours. It's hard to prune roses at 9:30 p.m.

So I've returned to childhood pursuit that fell by the wayside -- drawing. I was a serious art student in high school, but now I find myself shockingly rusty. Still, it's fun for now. I'm actually trying my hand at illustrating my own stories, just pencil, ink, and brush pen. I'm strictly unprofessional and hope to stay that way -- if I start angsting about developing an illustration career, I'll be back scrambling for another hobby.

Is writing a hobby for you, or is it more? When did it change? What other personal pursuits do you have, and how do they interact with your writing?

Tale of Two Bookstores

I have discovered the worst place in the world to be inspired as a writer.

It's a bookstore.

Not just any bookstore, but the Bargain Book Warehouse that popped up about a year ago in the vacant shell that used to be a Borders. With bare, dingy walls and acres of tables piled high with remainders, it's a great place to discover a new book for a dollar, but a terrible place to reflect on the need to add your own story to the sad lot of unwanted tales throughout history.

When I look at those tables, I think, "There are enough books in the world. There are more than anyone could ever read, and here there are more than anyone wants."If there were still a cafe in the dreary space, I can't imagine anyone sipping coffee and tapping out a novel there.

How many of those books would have been sold, might have been solid successes, had Borders not closed? And here they are, gathering dust, in the very same place that is a graveyard to writers' hope. I'm normally delighted to see my friends' books in the wild, but this was one time I didn't whip out my camera. (If I had enemies, it might be different, as Clive James wrote so well.) Note that my feelings of futility did not prevent me from picking up a few good discoveries. 


Fortunately, it's not the only bookstore in town. 

Yesterday, I went to Children's Book World in Haverford, a gem of an independent store that carries just about every title I could think of, classic to new, picture books to YA, even a small, carefully curated adult section. I didn't visit CBW nearly as often when Borders was alive, and now I do. And it's CBW's shelves where I long to see my own books, alongside the autographed editions by Kate DiCamillo, Laurie Halse Anderson,  and Jerry Spinelli.

Did I start longing again?? That's pretty close to inspiration -- better get to writing!

What settings or situations are motivating -- or demotivating -- to you?

Summertime, when the writing is easy

Ready to earn your writing badge? Join Camp NaNoWriMo or another writing challenge.

Is writing ever easy? Well, no. But this year, I'm going to try make summer my writing season, easy or not. I've got a file full of WIPs and outlines, and by the end of the summer I'm going to polish off a couple picture books and make solid progress on my next novel.

I know a lot of writers with day jobs as teachers and school librarians look forward to summer as a time to work on their writing. For a lot of writers, it's business as usual at the day job, with writing during nights and weekends. And other writers with children find summer their least productive time, when kids are home from school. Operation Awesome's Toni Kerr wrote about challenges and strategies for handling the season earlier this week. Becky Mahoney wrote about the frustrations and agonies of the summer publishing slow-down for writers who are querying or on sub.


For me, it's not a great time to write -- children, day job, and the distractions of summer fun. But I've realized no time is really good -- the only time is the time we have. So for me, this summer is it!

Need some inspiration? Summer is also the season for writers' conferences, retreats, and workshops, small and large. Here are a few of the biggest:

Camp NaNoWriMo - Pick your summer month, then write a novel during a month-long virtual writing retreat. Join now for the July session! 

ALA Chicago - The summer conference of the American Library Association is where librarians convene and rub elbows with writers like Alice Walker, Khaled Hosseini, Temple Grandin, and Ann Patchett. (June 27 - July 2)

The 42nd Annual SCBWI Summer Conference - The Los Angeles meeting of SCBWI is about craft and networking with fellow children's writers and illustrators, like Laurie Halse Anderson, Kirby Larson, Jon Scieszka, Mac Barnett, and Richard Peck. And be sure to check your regional SCBWI for more events.  (August 2-5)

What are your summer plans? More writing? Less? What are your goals? Do you have any events on the calendar, or know of any others? Any books you're especially interested in reading?

Is Your Character Wearing Green?

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Are you wearing green? More importantly, is your character?

Your book may not take place on St. Patrick's Day, but what would your character do? Wear little shamrock deely-boppers? Dress in green head to toe? March in a parade with his bagpipe brigade? Swill a green beer? Sip a Guinness? Roll her eyes and dress in black? Or have absolutely no idea what St. Patrick's Day is?

Holidays and celebrations can reveal a lot about characters, and they are even more important in historical and fantasy fiction, showing the values, rhythm, and shape of society. While you may not be strongly aware of Lughnasa, Soyal, Carnival, or the Spring Festival, if you have your characters going about their daily business during an important time on the calendar, you're missing an opportunity. If you are building your own world, and you don't have a few holidays figured out, you haven't yet created a full society.

So ask yourself:

• What holidays and celebrations would take place during the events of the story?
• How are they celebrated?
• What is the historical and religious significance?  
• What do these days mean to the people in society? 
• What do these days mean to your characters?
• How might the events of the plot be tied to this event?
• What kind of personal conflict or societal strain might be attached to the holiday?
• What is the thematic, symbolic, or emotional meaning?

Happy St. Patrick's Day, whether your characters are wearing green, Sunday best, or pajamas right now.

(Mine are bedecked in fuzzy green sweaters and green plastic beads, if you were wondering)

Writing in the Multiverse

Recently I've been working on a requested revision of a picture book for my agent. It's a quite a bit different than the original, which is not uncommon for picture book revisions. Often a revision is a complete rewrite, taking the same concept down to a blank page and beginning anew. Other times, it's more like a variation on the motif -- new elements added, others deleted, to stay at that elusive 600 word mark within the framework. Sometimes at the end, only a handful of the original words remain.

But this version is a split from my original story -- an alternative, not replacing my previous one, but existing alongside it. Which is the real version? They both are. It feels like I'm writing in a multiverse -- each story is an equally true, existing at the same time. 

I have a friend who rewrote a fantasy into a realistic contemporary into a ghost story. Same character, same motivation, but that single character lives in a different instance of the multiverse where her story plays out in different ways, where magic is real or not real or operates under different rules.

Writing in a multiverse has its challenges. When the versions diverge,  commas corrected or sentences tightened in one version remain in the others. It's frustrating to come across an error you remember fixing, only to realize you were working in another universe when you fixed it.  

Rewriting a book in another direction can be an interesting exercise, whether the revision is requested by an editor or agent, or the writer is trying to make a well-loved story more saleable. Or maybe he's just wondering what would happen if some condition in the story changed -- what if the character chose a different option from a "choose your own adventure" map.

So when you have two or five versions of the same multiverse, which is the true one? For me, it will be the one that gets published. But until then, they are equally true.

Do you have more than one version of a story with a major change or different set of rules? Do you keep separate versions of any novels or does the new version always overwrite the other? Have you ever a sold a version of the story that you didn't feel was your "A" version -- that another iteration was better or truer?

The Blank Page

It's nearly 2013, which means the New Year's Revisions Conference is almost here. But it also means turning a new page on the calendar.

Writers often say that you can't revise a blank page, but on a calendar, the blank pages are the only ones we can change. The future is ours to write, shape, change as we will, even as events and forces change us. It is the past we cannot revise.

Serial writers -- from Dickens to TV series to comics -- may have a plan, but they write and publish as they go. That's how life works too -- we're always fast-drafting. Hopefully we get better at it as we learn from mistakes.

And as 2013 approaches and 2012, my page looks very blank. How will I fill it? What will I write? I'm not even sure of the genre. What career moves will I make? It's clear that "career" for now is something that exists alongside my writing, and that's a blank page too.

I'm proud of the page I wrote in 2012. I published a book,  signed with an agent, wrote some new manuscripts, and returned to on-site employment after years of freelancing. Mostly importantly, I spent another wonderful year with my daughters, husband, and family, and that's what I'll remember when the calendar is 50 years advanced. 

So bring on the blank page. It's not empty. It's unmarred, unspoiled. It's unwritten, and I'm ready to write it.

In Operation Awesome News: 

Get ready now for the Critique Partner Match-up on January 3rd, leading into our New Year's Revisions Conference on the 4th, 5th, and 6th. 

Not to mention a January Mystery Agent Contest on January 1st. If your page is blank now, it soon won't be!

Why I Lost a Y: On Pen Names

Now that my friends and family are finally getting their hands on DEADWOOD, they keep asking the same question:

What happened to the Y?

DEADWOOD by Kell Andrews (not Kelly!)
Order from Amazon now!

That's because I'm publishing under the name Kell Andrews, and all my real-life friends and acquaintances know me as Kelly, with a Y (not an I, IE, or EY). So let's get this straight: The missing Y is not a typo! It's a pen name.

As pen names go, this one isn't exactly a secret identity, but it has advantages. Kell is more gender-neutral, which is helpful since I'm trying to reach boy and girl readers with my middle-grade fiction. Kell Andrews is more unique --  I'm the only Kell Andrews in the U.S., while I'm one of 261 people (81.79% of us female) named Kelly Andrews -- not to mention Kelli, Kellie, and Kelley Andrews, and those in other countries around the world.

But the real problem was Google. Not only do other Kelly Andrews dominate, there are some that I definitely don't want to mix with on a search results page.

I'm not talking about Kelly Andrews who is the head of the Green Party in Northern Ireland. I wouldn’t mind being confused with her.

I mean Kelly Andrews, the English "glamour model" (wink, nudge), whose photos dominate the first page of Google and are definitely NSFW, and even less safe for a kidlit writer who is trying to reach 8- to 13-year-olds and their parents, teachers, and librarians.

So Kell I am, at least as far as my books go. My pen name is unique but easy. I own the domain www.kellandrews.com. It's recognizable to those who know me. And it's recognizable to ME, so that if someone calls me Kell, I don't look for someone standing behind me.

Good Reasons for Pen Names

Real name is too common. You might need something to distinguish you from similarly named writers -- although Dan Brown and Suzanne Collins did OK with boring names. 

Real name is too difficult. If your name is hard to spell, potential readers might not find you in search engines. If it's hard to say, they won't talk about you for fear of botching it.

You write in several genres. If you write in unrelated genres, like adult nonfiction and picture books, different names might allow you to distinguish your identities. This is common even with closely related subgenres, such as romance, where many writers use different names for contemporary versus historical or paranormal romances, or to indicated different heat levels.

Your day job (or your writing) is sensitive. Many writers like to keep their writing and career identities separate. This is especially common for the spicier genres.

You publish in several modes. Writers who publish with traditional presses and self-publish sometimes keep the identities separate, often for the same reasons as above.



What are your thoughts on pen names? Anybody famous (or infamous) have your name? What’s a good reason to write under an assumed name? Do you use your own name or another one?

And here's an article from Rachelle Gardner on this subject:

Should I Use a Nom de Plume?

Getting Ready for a Small Press Launch

My debut middle-grade novel, DEADWOOD, will be officially released December 1 by Pugalicious Press (and can be ordered now!), a new small press that is releasing five new titles in its first year of publication, and I'm getting more excited by the day. A small press book release is a bit different than a big one -- at least, my release is. It's a slow build rather than a huge initial push.

DEADWOOD by Kell Andrews - coming December 1!

I’m realistic about what being published with a small press means: my book will have an opportunity to be reach actual readers. I have a gorgeous cover and an editorial and marketing team behind me. I also know what it doesn’t mean: I probably won’t be in the major bookstore chains and big box stores. But you know what? A Big Six publisher is no guarantee of B&N placement either.

I have an additional challenge, since DEADWOOD is a middle-grade book, and middle-grade readers are hard to reach online. Because of that, I decided not to do a huge blog tour, which is the staple for YA books from presses large and small. There just aren't enough blogs for middle-grade kids, and there's evidence that users are tuning out blog tours anyway (interesting discussion at Creepy Query Girl here).

So what am I doing? Through Pugalicious, I spoke with Kirsten Cappy of Curious City, a children's book marketing consultants. We identified some avenues, and she reaffirmed that some of the things I'm doing (many of which I started on the advice of author friend Dee Garretson (WILDFIRE RUN, WOLF STORM), are the right direction. My goal is do school visits and Skype with classrooms, which are two of the most effective ways to reach middle-grade readers, but first I need to build those connections and credibility. That includes:

• Building an online presence that has subject-area information. In addition to writing about writing here at Operation Awesome, I'm blogging about trees and outdoor education at kellandrews.com and treeandtwig.tumblr.com in order to create resources for students, teachers, librarians and parents.
• Reaching out to teachers and librarians. Instead of doing a lot of blog giveways, I'm sending most of my author copies to teachers and librarians who I hope read the book, share it with students, or include it in their collections, and spread the word.
• Reaching out to related educational organizations. Although DEADWOOD is a fantasy, it has a major theme of appreciating connections with the natural world. I'm contacting outdoor educators who might enjoy and share the story. 

This is a lot of work, and I haven't gotten it all done yet. But I don't have to do it all now. Because I'm NOT in big chains, I don't need to sell a ton of books out of the gate or risk flooding the warehouse with thousands of unsold returns.

My goal is to do something everyday -- to write guest posts here and there, to reach out to educators, to spread the word over the course of the next year, not the next few weeks. We'll see what happens -- it's been fun so far, and I'm only getting started.

Here's where you can order DEADWOOD now! Thanks for all the support from the readers of Operation Awesome.

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Books-a-million

IndieBound

Dionna L. Mann on POV in Description

This week I asked middle-grade writer Dionna L. Mann to write a guest post. Dionna is the author of FREEDOM PEN (Pugalicious Press, also the publisher of DEADWOOD!), a new gem of a children's novel with a pitch-perfect rural Virginia voice.

FREEDOM PEN by Dionna L. Mann,
Pugalicous Press, 2012, on sale now!

Here's the blurb:

Being mean ain’t in nobody’s blood.
 
Reckon folks will argue that one until there’s no more moonshine on the mountains.  But in Freedom Pen that’s what Sarah the Twerp believes.  And soon she and her brother, Billy, are setting out on a courageous summertime adventure to free two pit bull pups from a violent future.  Will the pup’s heroes succeed in their quest, though they’ve been penned in by a violent past themselves?

So how does she capture that POV in every line? She sent over this guest post and I used it immediately in revising picture book manuscript -- it really helped me think about choice of word and image.

POV: Parasol or Velcro?

By Dionna L. Mann 

The sky is an opened parasol hovering above … or is it Velcro stretching taut across the horizon, better yet, is it mashed potatoes filling a blue expanse…?

Truth be told, if the penned stylist doesn’t know who is looking at the sky, then the whole manuscript-troposphere is a muddled mess!

So…what’s the sky made of? Is it a Parasol Or Velcro? It all depends on whose eyes are gazing upward—the POV—doesn’t it?

Who’s gawking up? 

If the eyes gawking up are of a teenage girl from Harlem, New York, then the stars filling the firmament sure better not look like the shining scales of a freshly caught herring. And if the eyes are of a ten-year-old boy from the hollers of an Appalachian Mountain range, then the bejeweled night canopy sure better not look like an aluminum garbage can stretched from North Street to South Street with headlights bouncing on it.

Talk about whipping up some unsettling wind conditions for anyone attempting to hang glide in the sky of your created world! The poor reader piloting such a confused story will probably feel lightheaded due to POV-oxygen deprivation! (Look out below! She’s coming in hard!) And that’s your manuscript hitting the reject pile.

Be kind to your reader, will you? Let the POV-air blow gently, steadily, consistently.

Eye know what eye am seeing! 

No matter if your narration, the point of view, of your story is in the first person: “I looked at the sky…”, and I’m Jimmy and—Get back writer!—I know how I see the sky! 

Or if it is in the limited third person: “Jimmy looked at the sky….”, and I’m the narrator seeing everything through Jimmy’s eyes, so, don’t question me, I know how Jimmy sees the sky.

Or if it’s in an omniscient voice: “That whippersnapper Jim looked at the sky…”, and I’m a wise, old man from Kentucky, so I know how Jim and everyone else sees the sky. What’s more, I’ll describe it in my own crotchety way!

Author Dionna L. Mann

No matter any of that. The bottom line is that the sky must be seen through the eyes of whom the story speaks. That’s POV, plain and simple.

Right Shade of Blue 

If you really want to get the hue of blue right for the arch above, consider this: How does my character feel when he’s outside staring heavenward? Is he a downhearted charcoal-gray? Then surely he won’t describe the sunset as an ice cream sundae with rainbow sprinkles.

Is he feeling a jubilant baby blue? Then his eyes must not wander aimlessly toward dusky clouds that seem to be oozing black ink. Heavens, no! Do that and your reader will be yelling, “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!”

The mood of each scene and the character’s state of mind at any given time during the narration of the story must influence the POV.

Is Columbus breathing this air, too? 

Think about this, too. When was Jimmy born? If the kid came into the world in the 1800s, he’ll not describe the sky the exact same way as if he was born in the year 2012, or 2504. Research (for historical fiction), imagination (for a futuristic envisioning), and at all times, observing the world as Jimmy would, will bring your POV clearly into focus.

So next time your character gazes into the sky, how will he or she describe it? Like a parasol or Velcro? Spend time getting into the head of your character or narrator, and then you’ll know just what to make of the blue bowl above us!

Suggested reading: Description by Monica Wood, published by Writer’s Digest Books.

Related Links

More about Dionna L. Mann
Buy Freedom Pen
Interview with Dionna L. Mann by Kathy Erskine

Writers Are Strong, Not Neurotic

This week there was some talk about Amazon's new ranking for writers, and much of it was a variant of "Aren't writers neurotic enough already?"

It's like a variant of the old saw:

Just because you're neurotic doesn't mean there's nothing to obsess over.

But I'm tired of that stereotype that writers are fragile, emotional, scattered, or obsessed. We are not neurotic. We are strong and brave and resilient. 

You have to brave to write down your thoughts and share them with others. You have to be brave to ask for and accept criticism, and strong to make your writing better. You have to be strong and persistent to actually finish a novel or story, then polish it to the best of your ability.

You sure have to be brave to query a novel.

You have to be resilient to take rejections, and for many us, begin another novel after rejection and start the process again.

When you get an agent after one book or a dozen, you have to be strong to go on submission -- so close, but often still not close enough.

When your first or twentieth book is published, you have to face down industry reviews and reader reviews -- or maybe loud, shrugging, total indifference. You have people think you're not a real writer because you're self-published or with a small press or you write for a genre that doesn't really count to them. You have to go to book signings where you don't sell books and open royalty statements with "unearned royalties" stamped in red.

And if you're a published writer, you're ranked already -- you have to go out and promote your book even when your Amazon ranking shows you're the 821,678th most popular, and your Goodreads page has gifs of celebrities gagging at your work. And anyone can see it. Everyone.

So I don't buy that we're truly neurotic. Does an engineer have to face down one-star reviews? Does a salesperson have to go out and sell a product, with the number "821,678th most popular" stamped on his forehead?

No. But we do. We are not neurotic.

We are brave and strong and resilient in the face of setbacks, both public and private.

This week I was thrilled to get a new agent, Kathleen Rushall of Marsal Lyon Literary Agency, and I posted about it on my own blog, if you're interested in the whole story. It took a lot of resilience to get here after many manuscripts and many, many rejections. I have a book coming out with a small press, and I'm putting myself out there, beyond my little cave, and for me, that's brave.

If you are reading this, wherever you are on your writing journey, you are brave and strong and resilient.

What's something you did as a writer that was very hard to do, but you did anyway? 

Salina Yoon on the Difference Between Character-Driven and Concept Picture Books

This week Operation Awesome features the amazing author/illustrator Salina Yoon, who celebrated the release of her first character-driven picture book, PENGUIN AND PINECONE, A FRIENDSHIP STORY (Walker and Company) on October 2.

What's so amazing about Salina is that while this book is a milestone for her, she has actually illustrated, written, and designed nearly 200 interactive, novelty, and concept books for young children! I had the pleasure of reading a wonderful draft of one of Salina's upcoming books, and I was surprised to find that she considers herself a beginner at writing character-driven stories. Her devotion to learning craft inspired me in writing my own picture book manuscripts.

Still, I had to make her explain the difference between the books that made her name and wonderful stories like PENGUIN AND PINECONE, which is receiving rave reviews everywhere. Believe me, Salina is busy, so I'm so pleased she shared these answers with us.

You are celebrating the release of your first character-driven picture book, but you've worked on nearly 200 interactive and novelty books. I don't know if all readers know the difference between the two categories. So what is the definition of an interactive or novelty book?

Novelty and interactive books are books with interactive elements designed into the book, usually for our youngest audience (though there are novelty books for older children and adults as well). A novelty book may include lift-flaps, touch-and-feel elements (cloth or textures embedded into the book), sliding elements, tabs to pull, wheels to spin, special peek-a-boo die-cuts, sound buttons, and even pop-ups are in the category of "novelty." Almost any book that is different from your standard book format is considered novelty which opens the door to lots of creativity in this genre. I have done a few concept picture books (COUNT MY BLESSINGS 1 THROUGH 10, CHORES! CHORES! CHORES!, SUPER BABIES ON THE MOVE, all published by Penguin), but these are different from narratives.

How did you first get published? And how did you come to publish so many books . . . all without an agent?

I worked as a designer/art director for three years at Intervisual Books, a book packager/publisher that specializes in interactive and pop-up books. Best publishing education EVER! It is there that I learned about novelty books, and there that I fell in love with them.

My passion for them grew and grew, and the more I designed them, the more I wanted to illustrate them too. I was given the opportunity to illustrate a few books while employed there, as a freelance project. This gave me some credibility in the world of publishing, and later lead to Cindy Loh, editorial director of S&S at the time, to contact me about illustrating a novelty book written by another author. I was actually floored when she contacted me. Numb, and in shock.

This was the year I had left my job to relocate to San Diego to be with my fiancé, now husband, and was freelancing, hoping for book deals with my former company. Intervisual acquired many novelty titles from me, but I hadn't even considered submitting my books to NY houses at the time.  I quickly jumped at the chance. Thankfully, Cindy was happy enough with the project to ask me to illustrate another novelty series. But this time, she asked me if I could write the text as well. I'd never written anything other than first-words books. But I also couldn't let this opportunity slip away, so I quickly told her yes. (See a pattern?) Cindy was kind enough to edit my clunky text and make it publishable. 

After the novelty series, I was ready to submit projects of my own. I asked if I could send her something, and she and Robin Corey (former S&S publisher) said yes. It was a project she immediately loved, but after 12 months, ultimately had to pass due to pricing issues. So I built a new dummy set and sent it to Penguin as an unsolicited submission. (Building dummies are time consuming, so I would only build one set and target one house at a time until I heard from them.) 

I had no agent, no connections at Penguin, just an address from my Children's Writer's and Illustrator's Market reference book. It took about six months before an intern called me on the phone to say they love it, and if an editor could call me to discuss a deal. It was an incredible eight-book deal. I remember this moment because I was pregnant with my first son (now 8 1/2 yrs old). I was also publishing lots of novelties with S&S at the time. Two years later, Penguin offered a 22-novelty book, two-year exclusive deal. This is how I came to publish so many books, especially with Penguin, and without an agent. Those two houses kept me busy. Robin Corey moved to Random House later. She acquired several titles while there. My Penguin editors moved to various houses which gave me new connections and new publishing opportunities. Cindy moved to Scholastic (who gave me my Cartwheel contact), then moved to Sterling, and now at Bloomsbury. This is all to say that my publishing contact list grew and grew over time simply because my editors moved. 

But now, I DO have an agent (Jamie Weiss Chilton at Andrea Brown Literary Agency), and I find our partnership to be INVALUABLE on so many levels. 

Salina Yoon has published a novelty book about every major holiday.

What is the creative process for interactive and novelty books? Do publishers come to you, or do you develop the ideas yourself?

Mostly, I create the projects myself and submit them traditionally. I create the entire book (design, illustrations, text and format) and build a book dummy to ship out (or digital book dummy that's emailed). But in a few cases, publishers have contacted me to create something specific for their list with general guidelines. But this does not guarantee an acquisition, however. It's more of a suggestion from the editor that I could choose to follow up on or not.

Creating a novelty book is really a unique process because there are three very distinct and important elements to a novelty, and each must work with the other seamlessly: the format, the concept and the art. The format is the physical design of the book, and the added interactive component.  The concept is the idea of the book, including text. And the illustrations must fit the audience AND the publishing imprint, which is why I work in several art styles.

Some of your books, including the gorgeous KALEIDOSCOPE, are highly engineered and/or involve complicated die-cuts and moving parts. What's the process for developing those? Can you think of any specific compromise or change you end up making?

Salina Yoon's KALEIDOSCOPE, so gorgeous it's sold in the MoMA gift shop

Novelty ideas like KALEIDOSCOPE often start off as little paper cut-outs. I snip away, glue things on, sketch loosely, and try to envision the format. The format is key for novelty. Once I nail the idea, I work on my computer to create the art and design the book. The last thing I do is write the text. But while I build the full-size dummy, it goes through some changes as I find ways to improve it. Changes often occur after acquisition as well, due to pricing, child-safety, or other manufacturing/production issues.

PENGUIN AND PINECONE: A FRIENDSHIP STORY is your first picture book. Why did you branch into picture books? Did the idea come first, or did you decide to write a picture book and brainstorm for ideas?

Picture books seem like a natural progression from novelty and board books, though the process in creating one is entirely different. I was obsessed with the idea of creating a picture book with a penguin character. I just love penguins. So cute! This lead to the first penguin-character picture book manuscript, "Three Little Penguins," a retelling of the Three Little Pigs. Unfortunately, this manuscript was rejected, but we did get a revision request. Passed again. After this experience, I questioned my ability to write a picture book. I took a break and went back to creating novelties. Eight months later, I still thought about Penguin. I decided he needed an entirely new story and a new art style to go with it. I bought a Wacom tablet to experiment with new art styles on Photoshop. (Before then, I'd only illustrated digitally with a mouse.) Penguin was born. And with this, a story emerged.

You've described yourself as a novice in picture books, but with so many published titles, that's surprising to me. How different is it to write a character-driven narrative? How have you worked on this craft? 

In writing a character-driven narrative, I have to really understand Penguin's motivations, his emotional range, his physical range, what inspires him, and his understanding of the world. Once I know this, many plausible story lines reveal itself... though they're not always good stories! 

I never had to delve into a character before for my novelties. My novelties often lack a central character since they were often concept books. It's an entirely different way of working for me, but I'm enjoying the new challenge!

Salina Yoon, photo credit Marlo Yoshimoto

The character of Penguin is so vivid, adorable, and quirky too. Will we be hearing

Thank you, and absolutely you will see more Penguin books in the future in 2013 and possibly beyond! Please look for PENGUIN ON VACATION next spring!

What other stories and books are you working on?

I am working on three picture books at the moment, two that are story-based and the other more concept driven. I still love creating novelties, but I will be dedicating the next few months with completing these... unless I'm hit with a great novelty idea that will derail my plan.

Can you describe your other books that have released in 2012?

KALEIDOSCOPE (Little, Brown) a poetic novelty with a prismatic lens for children and adults, (look for its sequel, PINWHEEL, in the spring) SPACE WALK and DEEP SEA (Sterling), a non-fiction lift-flap series, HUMPTY DUMPTY (S&S), an Easter-holiday board book, IN THE OCEAN (Macmillan), a first words board book with foil accents, JACK AND JILL (S&S), a Halloween board book, DO CROCS KISS? and DO COWS MEOW? (Sterling), a fun animal sounds book with large mouth-shaped lift-flaps, WHERE'S ELLIE? (Random House), a hide and seek board book, and last but not least, PENGUIN & PINECONE (Walker/Bloomsbury), a picture book, caps off 2012!

Thank you for inviting me to the Operation Awesome blog, Kelly! 

Thank you to Salina! Visit her at www.salinayoon.com and look for her books everywhere.

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Seeing Differently: Where Ideas Come From

Where do ideas come from? I'm getting ready for Picture Book Idea Month, which is about opening your mind to story ideas -- seeing the world as a story to be written. But to be a story, an idea isn't about just recording the world -- it's about seeing it differently and describing it in a way that's simultaneously fresh and recognizably true.

It's easy to see the difference in picture books. An anecdote is something cute or funny that you see your child do or that you remember from your own childhood. A story is that anecdote transformed -- bigger, neater, funnier, more universal, more specific, better. It's making that anecdote magical, even when you're writing contemporary realism.

Ideas for novels are more complicated. Sometimes they start as an original idea -- a blast of inspiration, even in a dream. Sometimes it's a twist on a trope. Sometimes it's a "what if" from looking at the ordinary world in a different way.

The story of DEADWOOD was inspired by one of those little "what ifs." I noticed how certain trees in the park were carved with messages and names, some of them really old. I didn't even know what kind of trees they were (beeches). I didn't know that the messages have an anthropological name (arborglyphs). But I wondered, "What if the messages were mystical? What if they were a channel for magic? What if the tree could use them to communicate?"

That idea isn't a story, and it certainly isn't a book. I need plot, character, setting, voice, dialogue, description -- but all those things came from seeing something ordinary and looking at it in a different way.

I'm sharing some photos from my tree blog as a fun example. I started taking pictures of arborglyphs, then I started noticing that a lot of trees (bumpy London planetrees especially) look a lot like people -- generally grumpy people. Here are a few of my favorites -- they might take a little imagination and squinting, but once I started looking, I started seeing them differently.

And that's what writers -- and photographers, and all kinds of artists -- do. The thing, person, or experience that washes over others can be a source of inspiration.

Contemplative tree, Belmar, Nj

Cartoon tree. Looks like Bart Simpson. Wynnewood, PA

Cubist tree. Eyes on same side of head. Wynnewood, PA

Skeptical tree. Philadelphia, PA

Looking Ahead to November

While much of the U.S. is focusing on the next election cycle in November, many writers are preparing for our own grueling test: National Novel Writing Month (NaNo). I join another set of writers in a different challenge: Picture Book Idea Month (PiBoIdMo).

Picture book writer Tara Lazar (author of the upcoming THE MONSTORE,  I THOUGHT THIS WAS A BEAR BOOK, and LITTLE RED GLIDING HOOD) started PiBoIdMo on her own in 2008 and launched it publicly in 2009. Now involving more than 600 participants, the event includes an impressive slate of guest bloggers and a slew of prizes -- critiques, art, and more The challenge is the same: Generate 30 new picture book ideas in 30 days.

I took part last year, and although I fell short with only 14 ideas, I count it as the turning point for me in writing picture books. I had written two previously (one of which I'm happy will never see the light of day), and wanted to try more, but I had been waiting for ideas to hit me in the head. PiBoIdMo helped me realize that if I want ideas, I have to chase them down instead of waiting.

Idea generation is a muscle -- you have to use it, and once you do, you get stronger.

Only one of my ideas last year turned into a finished manuscript, but I have written several others from new ideas in that time.

I'm confident that I'll do better this year -- my goal is focused on higher concept, more commercial ideas. But getting ready for PiBoIdMo is a bit different than gearing up for NaNo -- with NaNo, it's all about the preparation. With PiBoIdMo, once you start thinking about it, the ideas themselves start flowing.

Are you getting ready for NaNo? Interested in trying PiBoIdMo? If you participated in the past, what results did you get -- ideas, a draft, a finished manuscript, a polished or published book?

Lies and Statistics

Most of us start writing because we love words. But at some point, some of us become obsessed with numbers.

• How many words did I write? If I need to delete a scene, that will set me back! Is it better to have more bad words than fewer good ones?
• How many twitter followers do I have? I'm following more than that -- do I look like a loser?
• How many queries did I send? What's my request percentage? What is the acceptance rate of the agent I'm querying? How many fulls do I have to send before my odds of an offer are good? How long have I been waiting and how what are the odds that that is a good sign or bad one? 
• What's my lifetime number of rejections? Is a high one a badge of honor or shame?
• How many people visited my blog post? How many commented? Is it worth doing if no one is listening? 
• Google Analytics says someone from NYC visited my blog! Is it an agent? Is it an editor? Are any query responses due (must cross reference with QueryTracker)?
• What's my Klout score? Why does it say I'm influential in zombies and couponing?
• How many "likes" do I have on Facebook?  Oh no, no one "likes" me!
  
• How many adds do I have on GoodReads? How many reviews? How many friends?
• What's my Amazon ranking? So how many books have I sold?
• What's my star rating? Oh no, a one-star review! That will ruin my average!
• When will my royalty statement arrive? What does it mean????

Some of those numbers give us an illusion of control, but only an illusion. Just because you can measure something does mean you control it. Sometimes numbers don't even help you understand something better -- it's easy to get lost in statistics. Lately I've been watching my Google Analytics for signs of life,  trying to read the numbers like tea leaves. It doesn't do any good -- I just have to wait for responses, for my book release, for something to happen. 

And if I can,  while I wait, maybe put some words down. I'll try not to focus to much on how many.

Evaluating Ideas

I'm trying to decide which new novel to write, and it's a hard decision. Some writers only follow their muse -- pursuing their Shiny New Ideas wherever they go. My problem is that I can't decide which ideas are truly shiny and which are fool's gold. Which ones will fizzle out by page 50, which will languish in my trunk of broken dreams, which will sell?

I wish there were a better way to evaluate new ideas before writing a book. Lately I've watched some very talented writer friends query gorgeous novels that they'd carefully crafted over periods of years, only to meet utter thudding indifference at the query stage. If the pitch, premise, or query can't get an agent to request, the beauty of pages 11 through 400 does not matter. The novel is DOA. Yet agents and editors only consider completed novels -- the only way to get them to even consider the pitch is to write the whole dang thing.

Of course, established writers are able to test their ideas earlier, not only by running them past their agents, but by selling books on pitch or proposal. Of course, it seems a tremendous luxury to write a book that is sold, but that understates the pressure of writing a half dozen pitches before one hits with the acquisition team -- and then rushing to complete the contracted novel in six weeks.

So what should the rest of us do?

I've been thinking about a model for evaluating ideas used by Karl Ulrich, Vice Dean of Innovation at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He teaches his courses on new product development in a tournament format. At the beginning of the course, students bring in their ideas. The class votes, knocking out the weak ideas at each stage and joining teams around the strongest projects. In the end, the most promising products emerge -- a cage match, if you will.

Ulrich hopes that the tournament teaches students that deciding not to pursue an idea should be considered a success, not a failure. It saves the resources that would have been spent on a doomed idea and redirects them towards a better one.

That's the principle behind sites like Authonomy, but those sites were devised more as a slushkiller to help publishers identify good stories, not for writers to find the most successful concepts in their own idea files. The site comes too late in the development cycle to help a writer gauge the appeal of his or her own ideas, and the judging system is questionable. And who wants to put their best ideas out in the public sphere before they've even written them?

One of the main problems in vetting ideas is that nobody really knows a book will sell until it does. Not even agents know, or they wouldn't have so many unsold client manuscripts gathering digital dust. Chasing trends only works if you're fast enough to catch them. Trying for high concept is no guarantee -- one of my friends had a manuscript rejected because it was "too commercial" to sell. Say again? We are still puzzling over that one.

So how do you identify which projects to work on? Do you think about the idea you're most passionate about, or do commercial considerations come into play?

July Mystery Agent Winners and Reveal

Unveiling our July Mystery Agent: 

Michelle Humphrey of Martha Kaplan Literary Agency

Before returning to the Martha Kaplan Agency, where she was previously an agent 2009-2010, Michelle Humphrey was an agent with International Creative Management and Sterling Lord Literistic. She has served as an assistant for Renee Zuckerbrot Agency and Anderson Literary and worked as an English teacher, proofreader, and freelance book reviewer.

For this month's contest, Michelle requested a first line contest instead of a one-line pitch, and she explains what grabbed her in each winner. Without further adieu, the winners!

Michelle's Picks and Comments

Runner Up #3: Ari Susu-Mago / UNFAMILIAR SPELLINGS. First line: "It was way too early to be awake and this idea was stupid." 

First, I should say, I'm drawn to first lines that both establish an interesting character and set a plot in motion, and this opener definitely does both. I already like this protagonist because she's not a morning person (something I rather subjectively connect with) and I'm enamored with the humorous notion that she's embarking on something she feels is a bad idea; my interest is piqued to discover what this bad idea might be, and I'd like to read on.

Runner Up #2: Janice Sperry / SHE CAME FROM THE HILL. First line: "Nothing thrived at the far end of the park." 

Interestingly, this line doesn't quite follow my formula of establishing character and plot, but rather evokes what is, to me, a very intriguing setting. I have a sense of what this section of the park looks like -- dead trees, junkyard stuff on the ground,  lots of shadows -- it successfully conjures a mood and an archetypal place that has an immediacy and makes me want to read on.

Runner Up #1: Nikki Urang / BROKEN. First line: "Red and blue lights dance off the roof of my mother's car." 

I love the duality of the line: we are about to encounter the police and the tension that follows, as well as meet the character who caused the trouble in the first place. I also suspect the narrator is a counterpoint to the mom, and likely a reasonable sort of young person with a wry sense of humor. (I'm particularly enamored with the way the police are evoked -- a concise, light-hearted description of their lights dancing. ) Well done.

WINNER: LL McKinney / COVETED. First line: Caleb learned long ago being friends with Martin MacMurty required two things, inhuman patience and a tolerance for impromptu fashion shows. 

This is the line that made me (and my intern Aimee) laugh out loud. Martin MacMurty, in one line, successfully comes across as a quirky and humorout character; as a counterpoint, Caleb comes across as tolerant and cynical, almost Martin's "straight man" buddy. And, I suspect that tension between the two will follow shortly. So: we have the establishment of two characters, really effective humor (which is partly effective because the line is so concisely worded), and the promise of conflict. Really nicely done.

Congrats to the winners! Runners-Up should send a query and 10 pages to Michelle at michelle.c.humphrey@gmail.com. Winner, please send your full.

Michelle also answered a few more questions about what she's looking for and is open to other queries as well.

On to the questions!

What kind of books are you most interested in seeing right now?

Middle grade and Young Adult contemporary. Also, I'd love a murder mystery, something intricate, like an Agatha Christie YA or middle grade. I'm also looking for non-fiction picture books -- perhaps a biography about someone from the 20th Century who accomplished something important, but who appears to be a bit overlooked by the history books.

Rejections often say "I couldn't connect with your character." What makes a main character appeal to you?

In the first three pages or so, I look for a character's nuances: specific details that make her/him both likeable and flawed, as well as a sense that this is a character who very clearly desires something, and they're nowhere near getting it.  As a writing teacher, I loved doing an exercise where the class would read the first five pages of a book, and make a list of all the memorable details about the main character - things that were really quirky, unusual, contradicting, and surprising (and thus, human.)  The more "quirky" details I get about a character, the more likely I'll connect. 

Can you tell us about any recent or upcoming client books you're excited about?

I'm very excited about Denise Jaden's NEVER ENOUGH, a young-adult novel about two sisters, one of whom struggles with bulimia. It's a poignant, moving, and very page-turning story; I'm also excited about 37 THINGS I LOVE by Kekla Magoon, which came out last spring, a young-adult novel about a girl who deals with a quickly-changing friendship with her best friend while her family goes through difficult times (her dad is in a coma and she and her mom are at odds over the decision to remove him from life support). Both books have been getting great reviews.

Other than client books, what other recent books have you enjoyed?

I'm in a book club, so other books would include what we have been choosing to read as a group: QUIET, by Susan Cain, POSSESSION by A.S. Byatt, and DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY by Eric Larson. We read a lot of adult fiction and non-fiction, but I'm hopeful our next pick will be a YA. :)

Thank you to Michelle and all the participants, and congrats to the winners. Come back August 1 for our next Mystery Agent contest -- get your pitches and first lines ready. You never know when you have a chance to pitch!

Acknowledging Acknowledgments

I've been getting ready to write my acknowledgements for Deadwood, and it's harder than I thought. It's not as if I haven't been drafting them in my head for the past five years that I've been seriously working towards publication, but the text is always changing.

As I writer, I do pay attention to acknowledgements, but I pulled out a few books to see how they're usually done.  The basics: Some acknowledgements are on the copyright page, some in the back. Some are brief, thanking editors or spouses. Some read like bibliographies of sources. Some resemble a Who's Who on recent best seller lists, and some are more like Who's Who among the writer's relatives and babysitters.

Wrong Assumptions
A lot of my assumptions about acknowledgements didn't hold up. I figured that historical fiction would have the longest acknowledgements and that contemporary novels, with fewer expert sources, might have brief ones.  I thought first novels might have the longest acknowledgements, theorizing that debut writers might want to clear their artistic debts in case they didn't get another chance. I thought more confident, multipublished writers would be more matter-of-fact about their success, and probably less effusive.

None of these were consistently true. For example, Libba Bray's acknowledgements for her debut historical fantasy, A Great and Terrible Beauty, are a succinct one page, while for her recent contemporary satire, Beauty Queens, they stretch to 3 1/2 pages -- with footnotes!

It may be that publishers indulge popular (and witty) authors with more space. But maybe that's not the only reason acknowledgements grow.

Add It Up
Gratitude is cumulative. If my first novel had been contracted on its first round of subs, I would have had only my husband and my agent to thank -- my only two readers until that point. But it wasn't published.

So I still have those debts to all those who supported me and helped me getting better throughout the sub process for my first unpublished book, added to all those writers and readers who have helped me with this one, plus all the other projects I've written since. All those critiques, encouragements, and even rejections have gotten me here.

That's a lot of people to thank. My hope is that for my next book, the list is even longer.

Do you write acknowledgements in your head? Who do you credit for helping you continue and improve? What style of acknowledgements do you prefer? Do you pay attention to the acknowledgements in the books you read?