Done and Dusted
Although it’s taken a long time, I have another picture book coming out in 2022.
Writing is hard. Not only does a writer have to write a manuscript, it has to be sold, illustrated, edited, marketed. This includes rejection. Years and years of it.
A newspaper once bought an essay about my father, who read two daily newspapers. Because he frequently read passages to me, I dreamed of becoming a reporter. My essay paralleled his life with my own publishing journey. After the sale, the editor requested I eliminate 500 words, especially the passages about writing, because: “People aren’t interested in how hard it is to write.” He was apologetic.
No one wants to watch potato chips being bagged and boxed. Or cement being mixed and poured. End results are the selling point, not the process. I cut 500 words.
If you aren’t a fan of process, stop reading here. I understand.
My picture book, Library Girl: How Nancy Pearl Became America’s Most Celebrated Librarian, has a lengthy backstory. In 1986, I worked with Nancy in a Tulsa bookstore, and we became friends. She was not celebrated then, nor was I published.
When she visited me in 2010 on a Twin Cities’ library speaking tour, we’d accomplished both. Listening to her speeches about her life with books, I considered writing a picture book about her. During a 2012 visit with her in Seattle, I presented the idea.
She agreed.
Unfortunately, her childhood memories from Detroit were blurry. She remembered being a misfit. Not being athletic. Asking questions no one wanted to answer. Naming her bicycle Charger. Saturdays at the public library. Horse and dog books. Significant librarians.
I tried a breezy rhyme about her school issues and placed her as a character inside books.
Gym class, they told her, was meant to be fun.
“It scares me,” she said. “I don’t like to run.”
She didn’t love throwing or kicking a ball.
Her problem with climbing: “What if I fall?”
And this.
Her happy heart beat as she started to look
at the stacks they created with book upon book.
Nancy read about people who settled the West,
and she, too, crossed the prairie in a calico dress.
Critique partners suggested I had great scenes but no plot. I called Nancy. When more memories surfaced about Detroit’s Parkman Branch Library, I researched the historic building. I switched to prose and played with titles: How a Little Girl Found a Big Life.
Nancy loved every version.
Editors and agents did not.
I revised; I gave up.
Regularly.
My daughter Maggie grew up watching this. For encouragement, she offered: “Mom, lots of great artists weren’t famous until after they died.” I said, “Thank you, sweetheart.” She needed to see me succeed—while I was alive.
In 2019 the manuscript sold.
Editorial work began. When illustrator Sheryl Murray submitted art, I deleted some sentences and rewrote others. Swirling fall leaves added drama, but all the surrounding trees remained green. Text vanished in a crowd scene. Art was redrawn. Layouts changed.
Nancy had to agree with everything. After all, it was her story. She and I spoke by phone 6 times across 4 time zones once. Know how a picture is worth 1000 words? Look at my footstool. When this process started, it had three small scratches.
What am I doing until the book launches?
Writing the next one.
Notes and drafts cover the dining room table.
You wouldn’t be interested in seeing the process.
Trust me.