Hope in the Mail

by Wendelin Van Draanen

  You may be totally ticked off while you’re trying, but that doesn’t matter—whatever it takes. Because effort is the first step in making a change.

  And with that change will eventually come success.

  And with success will come the feeling of accomplishment.

  And with accomplishment will come empowerment.

  Pretty soon your thoughts will move from I can’t (or I don’t want to) to I can (so get out of my way).

  The more competent, the more empowered. The more empowered, the more fearless.

  Like a bolt of lightning through a desert sky, desert camping—desert survival—was suddenly something worth exploring, not as a setting, but as an agent of change.

  And quickly following that bolt of lightning was a rumble of thunder:

  During my first six years of full-time teaching, I worked two nights a week at a continuation high school trying to help at-risk teens get their GED. The reasons these teens had landed at the continuation school varied widely from apathy to drug use to pregnancy, but the goal of each student was the same: finish high school because…because they needed to because…because everyone said they needed a diploma to get anywhere in life.

  Which is, by and large, true in our society. But for most of these students, much bigger issues were at play in their lives. Almost all of them needed repeated pep talks, because they could see no relevance to many of the courses required for graduating. Were they ever going to use the quadratic formula? Almost certainly not. But even more crucial than curriculum concerns, these were teens adrift. They were already way off course, but worse, they hadn’t found a passion that could pull them back. Without an internal fire to keep them motivated, what chance did they have?

  Suddenly these two threads that had woven through my life—camping and working with at-risk kids—tied unexpectedly together in the square knot of Wild Bird, the story of Wren Clemmens, a girl who’s gone so far off the rails that, in a move of desperation, her parents have her taken against her will to wilderness therapy camp in the Utah desert. It’s the story of learning to build a fire to survive in the wild, and also of learning to build a fire inside your heart, to find a passion that will give you a reason to move forward through life in a positive way.

  Wild Bird was a story I’d been preparing for my entire life without knowing it. It just took one strand of a friend’s experience to open up the possibility for seemingly unrelated threads to be woven together in a meaningful way.

  What this underscores is that when you grow up with something or are surrounded by it, you often don’t recognize the value in it. I certainly didn’t appreciate the “beautiful scenery” at the time. But maybe it was all the crazy camping and Bridge Out experiences that gave me the, uh, gumption to think I could change a clutch, which made me think I could help rebuild a factory, which made me think that, by comparison, how hard could getting published be?

  You just can’t know how what you’ve been through (or what you’re going through) will prepare you or equip you with something you’ll need in the future. The relevance may unfold in short order, or it may take years, but your experiences are all seeds. So collect them. Store them for when the time is right. They will let you know when it’s their time to sprout.

  When I became a published author, I knew very little about how the business end of publishing worked, or even what the process of bookmaking was beyond the point at which a manuscript was accepted. And the questions I get asked most by aspiring writers indicate that they’re floating around in that same boat.

  Clearly this book is not a how-to manual for getting published. My hope is that it’s helpful to you as a writer and as a person. But I’ve spent many years of interacting with writers—and those just beginning to think about becoming one—and there is no ignoring their desire to know more about publishing.

  There are also, I’ve found, a lot of misconceptions about the process and the roles of the people who are involved in turning writers’ words into books. So in this section I’ll touch on the basics and answer the questions I get asked again and again, as well as relate a few stories that may shed a little light on the process as a whole.

  Remember, this is not a how-to, just a peek behind the curtain. But I do hope you find it useful!

  In publishing, there can be long stretches of slipping gears, interrupted by the rev of something happening, followed by the quick drop into neutral. (I’m pressing the gas, why am I not going anywhere? No! Please don’t make me change the clutch!)

  Back in the Box House, while my potential editor was “waiting for the time to be right” to present Girl to her new editor in chief before she could offer me a contract, I continued working on Sammy Keyes and the Skeleton Man.

  An element of naïveté might be necessary when pursuing big dreams. Like thinking it’s a good idea to write a second title without a contract for the first. But working on Sammy’s story made sense to me. And it felt good to continue to put hope in the mail.

  But when I started forming ideas for a third Sammy Keyes book and I still didn’t have a contract for anything, I finally mustered the nerve to call the editor who had Girl. Was it ever going to be “the right time”?

  I had not spoken in person to any editor or agent before and didn’t know what to expect. Was calling a faux pas? Was she going to be brusque and annoyed? Or, worse, would it roll over to voice mail, where I would undoubtedly make a babbling fool of myself?

  But I’d just had a birthday and was sure not getting any younger. So I steeled my nerves and dialed.

  My heart went into overdrive when she answered the phone. I told her who I was, and to my utter amazement she said, “Oh, Wendelin! I’m glad you called. I just got out of a meeting and I have great news!”

  She then made an offer on How I Survived Being a Girl, and just like that, after ten years of trying, the waiting was over.

  After we hung up, I floated around, living on cloud nine.

  Finally!

  But what followed the joyful acceptance phone call was the anxious waiting for a contract. When, after six weeks, it finally arrived, I read it and realized that, having no agent to guide me, I was way out of my league. I didn’t know what was standard or what might constitute foolish giveaways on my part.

  The advance I’d been offered was quite modest, but I was well beyond caring about big money. I just wanted a real book. One I could hold in my hands. One I could go to the library and check out.

  But I didn’t want to be a chump, either. So I did a little research, then drove an hour to meet with an entertainment lawyer. He was the closest thing I could find to a book-publishing attorney in my area, and his secretary had assured me he was familiar with publishing contracts.

  Ironically, going to see him was what made me a chump. He clearly knew less about it than I did, and I got billed two hours for what boiled down to “Looks good.”

  So I compiled a list of my own questions, called the editor, and tried to not let on how nervous I was in questioning some points of the contract.

  She was pleasant and receptive, explaining why she couldn’t change some things and agreeing to compromise on others. I signed the amended contract and returned it, and then began the anxious wait for the countersigned contract and manuscript revision notes to arrive.

  Meanwhile, once again, I got back to work.

  I finished Sammy #3.

  There was no word from New York.

  I couldn’t stop the creeping doubts. Had something gone wrong?

  Determined to stay productive, I began Sammy #4.

  Finally, the revision process for Girl began, which, as you know, I found to be torturous. There was some contact with my editor during that time, but when the revision was complete, once again, things went quiet.

  Again, I tried to stay productive and returned to writing. But when the silence was finally
broken, I wished it hadn’t been. I learned that the publication for Girl had been delayed for a season and that the book was now “orphaned” because my editor was leaving her job at the Girl publishing house for an editorial position at Knopf.

  It was no longer my imagination. I was on very shaky ground.

  So, okay. You already know that Girl was eventually published, and that my editor and I have worked happily ever after. The point of this story is that the road to publication can be bumpy and full of potholes, but no matter how rough the process becomes, make yourself move ahead with your writing.

  Create possibility.

  Keep putting hope in the mail.

  Because even if that deal you’ve waited a decade for falls through, you’ll have a body of work waiting to catch you.

  Over six years after she’d asked me to cut How I Survived Being a Girl in half, my editor and I finally had the chance to meet in person at a writers’ conference in Southern California. We’d been invited to be on a panel to discuss the editor-author relationship and she was flying in from New York for it. I was really excited to meet her, and also more than a little nervous.

  The second Sammy Keyes was soon to be released, so we’d worked our way through three books at this point and I felt like I knew her. But people can be quite different in person than they are through written correspondence, or even over the phone. Would it be weird? Awkward? Would she hate me?

  Also, she’d gathered information about me for promotional purposes, along with a head shot. But since this was pre-social-media-explosion, I didn’t even know what she looked like!

  This was my first writers’ conference and I didn’t have high expectations for accommodations, but I was still a little disappointed to find that I’d be sharing a small room with two other authors, and that, being the newbie and the last to arrive, I got the rollaway cot.

  The other two authors were new friends to me and were great. Encouraging and supportive and fun to be around, they’d known each other a long time and had both been successfully published for many years. They seemed to enjoy showing me the ropes, and it was in this little motel room that they seeded the idea of my doing school visits, assuring me that I could make a living that way.

  I was skeptical. None of the schools I’d attended as a kid had ever hosted an author. The first time I met a real live author was after I’d been published. Schools would pay you to visit?

  They were elaborating when the motel phone rang. It was my editor.

  “I’m going over to her room,” I said after I hung up.

  They knew I was nervous. “She will love you!” they called as I scurried out the door.

  I remember my first impression of my best friend from grad school. I thought she was a snob. Her first impression of me? She thought I was a ditz. (So I’m blond and have retained my inner child. Judge some?) The point being, first impressions can be damning, and I’m glad my friend and I got to a point where we could share our first thoughts about each other and laugh over how wrong we were.

  The same would be true of meeting my editor.

  She opened the door to her room and (she later told me) thought, Eating disorder? I took one look at her and thought, Whoa! My editor is Snow White.

  And I suddenly felt like a giant.

  I’m a little shy of six feet tall.

  My editor is barely five.

  What my friend and editor share (aside from wrong first impressions of me) is a way of making me feel like we’ve been friends since childhood. They both give me an easy sense of connection, of being understood, and beyond that—and just as important—they both make me laugh. I mean, really, really laugh.

  Before long, my editor and I had moved past first-meeting formalities and were facing each other crisscross-applesauce across the gap between her room’s two queen beds. I couldn’t help bouncing on the mattress a little. (You try not bouncing if you’re ever crisscross-applesaucing with Snow White.)

  The conversation wound around all over the place, from personal stuff, to the great reception we’d been getting for the first two Sammys, to the upcoming Sammys that were slated for publication, to the next Sammy under revision. Sammy, Sammy, Sammy. It was so much fun to talk to someone (aside from my husband) who also spoke about Sammy Keyes like she was real. Actually, it was…awesome.

  Finally we began discussing strategies for the next day’s conference panel. The topic was the editor-author relationship—how I’d found her, what it was about my writing that had caught her attention, how the revision process worked for us…that sort of thing.

  And this is when she broke it to me.

  The reason everything had taken so long.

  The truth about Girl almost not being published.

  “She hated it,” my editor said about a newly hired boss’s reaction to Girl. “She wanted to cancel the contract.”

  My editor had fought for the book and had won, but a bunch of other stuff came out then too. And I suddenly understood that her path hadn’t been an easy one either. While I’d been feeling ignored or neglected, she’d been trying to shield me from in-house turmoil. “I didn’t want you to worry,” she explained.

  In return I explained that I’d rather know what was going on than wonder. Because when you wonder, you start imagining all sorts of bad outcomes, which can wind up being worse than any actual bad outcome.

  Although I couldn’t really think of an outcome that would have been worse than having Girl dropped from the list.

  After everything I’d been through?

  Yeah, that would have been devastating.

  This was a conference of aspiring kid-lit authors and illustrators. And it was clear from the accommodations (her two queens to our crammed two-twins-plus-a-cot) that guest editors were more highly valued participants than authors. (Which made sense, I guess. The authors had what the conference attendees wanted—we could even be viewed as competition—whereas the editors were the ones who could make their publishing dreams come true.)

  So when my editor asked who I was staying with and I let on that there were three of us in a room half the size of hers, she invited me to share her room. And normally I would never have taken her up on it, but what came out of my mouth was “Really?”

  “Of course,” she said, reading my thoughts. “Don’t be silly. Go get your stuff.”

  So I did.

  Now, the reason I’ve told you this story is to illustrate the importance of finding an editor who is right for you. There are a lot of editors in publishing, and some of them will hate your work or want to cut you off at the knees when you’ve barely learned to stand.

  Others will understand you.

  They may even like you.

  The former is more important than the latter, but the combination—if you’re lucky enough to find it—is something to treasure.

  Which brings us to this story’s sequel.

  A sequel that’s all about…a sequel.

  One of the things my editor told me during our sleepover heart-to-heart was that her accepting a job at Knopf was partly driven by her wanting to buy Sammy Keyes. She hadn’t been able to offer a contract while at the other house because the thinking there was “Let’s see how Girl does first,” bridging toward a tepid “Maybe try just one” approach to Sammy. Which is why that whole “Start with Skeleton Man” idea was suggested.

  While my editor was, unbeknownst to me, planning to switch houses, I had retained an agent. A single-book contract mistake is one thing; making avoidable errors on a series deal is another. And since, in my mind, Sammy Keyes was a series, I wanted an agent to do the contracts for Sammy.

  But those contracts weren’t offered. And since there was no indication as to why, my agent started shopping Sammy around.

  I was forthright with my editor about it, and although it didn’t make her happy, she didn’t try
to stop me. If I had known what she was going through, I would have thought better of it, but all I knew was that I’d completed four books in a series that seemed stuck in limbo. (If I could encourage one thing, it would be for people to talk to each other.)

  Then my editor switched houses, and since her new position gave her more authority and freedom, one of her first calls was to see if Sammy was still available. My agent immediately put the brakes on shopping the books elsewhere, and things fell together pretty quickly after that.

  Then Sammy Keyes shot out of the gate by winning an Edgar for Hotel Thief, and weird stuff started happening. People in publishing who had turned me down for years were now knocking. Would I be interested in writing a mystery for them? Would I consider contributing to their mystery anthology? One even asked me if I’d write a foreword to a Sherlock Holmes collection for kids.

  Sherlock Holmes?

  Really?

  I was like, I am so not qualified to do that! But I didn’t tell them that. I simply replied with what they’d been telling me for years: I’m sorry. This is not right for me at this time. But please. Think of me again with your next project.

  But the biggest jaw-drop happened at another conference that I was attending courtesy of Knopf. My editor was there too, in charge of making sure her authors got to the publisher’s floor booth and sessions and other functions on time. The one thing she didn’t shepherd me to was a dinner I’d been invited to by the Girl house.

  “Really?” she asked when I told her about the invitation, and she seemed a little backcombed about it, although she did her best to hide it. After all, she was attending a dinner with one of her other authors…something I’d realized I needed to adapt to with grace. (Authors may have only one editor, but editors must, by the nature of their job, juggle several authors’ books at once.)