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It’s three, three, THREE rejections in one!

Saturday, May 20th, 2006

Yesterday I got a big “No, thank you” on James, Smith and Pioneers, all from a single editor. She seemed to like my subjects a lot more than she liked my writing style, which is somewhat troubling — I come up with new subjects every week, but my style changes a little less often.

Oh, well. This means a new chance with a new editor — maybe three new chances with three new editors — starting next week.

And maybe, to quote Duke Ellington, “Fate is being kind to me. Fate doesn’t want me to be too famous too young.” Of course, it was funnier when he said it, because he was in his 60s at the time. And famous.

Posted in Project_James, Project_Smith | 9 Comments »

Once more, with no feeling

Wednesday, March 29th, 2006

Things did not go as I’d hoped with the latest submission of my picture book biography of James. Yesterday morning I had an e-mail from the editor saying all manner of nice things about the manuscript but also that, for various stated reasons, this version wasn’t right for her or her house. While unenthusiastic about seeing another revision of James, she did ask if I had anything else to send her.

I switched right into “What’s next?” mode, thinking about where to send James off to now and mentally flipping through my file of potential picture book ideas. I zapped a quick e-mail to my agent and got on with my day.

It was only in the evening while washing dishes that I realized how, not so long ago, I would have felt either bruised by the editor’s rejection (after 11 months of sharing James exclusively with her) or overjoyed by her request that I send something else her way, or quite possibly both. And however I would have felt, I likely would have felt that way for some time.

I miss having that sort of reaction. Even-keeled professionalism has its benefits, but frankly, I’d have preferred feeling a little more strongly about yesterday’s news. But I really didn’t give myself time for that, which is a shame, because writing can’t be just business — it has to be personal. So if I had it to do over again, I would have read the editor’s e-mail and just let it sink in for a few hours, maybe overnight, before doing anything else. And that’s what I’ll do next time.

Posted in Project_James | 12 Comments »

What to do?

Thursday, February 9th, 2006

This may well be a very short-lived condition, but for the first time in well over a year, I don’t have a nonfiction revision roosting at the top of my to-do list. Earlier this week, I sent Agent Erin my Smith rewrite, and with James dispatched to an editor last week, that takes care of my major, non-Day-Glo projects of late.

So, how to fill my time?

Compiling and burning a companion CD for my Smith manuscript. I don’t do this for all my subjects (though I guess I could), but Smith was a musician whose work is not as well known as it should be. Obviously, I’m trying to change that. Does a companion CD enhance the experience of reading a manuscript or expose its flaws? Guess I’ll know soon.
Resuming work on my marketing database for The Day-Glo Brothers. Does anyone know a good children’s bookstore in Cleveland?
Getting back to my research for E.F.
At last revising, maybe, a picture book fiction manuscript that a friend critiqued last fall. I think it’s going to take me a long time before I’m even ready to write a proposal/sample for E.F., and I’ve got to be writing something in the meantime. It could be this one. Or maybe that middle-grade novel.
Insisting to Agent Erin that I really am focused on nonfiction. It just depends on what the meaning of the word “focused” is.

Posted in Project_E.F., Project_James, Project_Smith | 6 Comments »

Go, James, go!

Wednesday, February 1st, 2006

A few minutes ago I e-mailed my rewrite of James to the editor who last June asked to see a manuscript combining elements of two earlier approaches.

June? Can it really have been that far back that I got her request for revision? And for a picture book? Yep. There was a lot of research I needed to do for this rewrite. While the draft I just sent does not directly use as much of that as I expected, I know James a whole lot better than I did seven months ago (reading the highly opinionated letters he wrote when he was 16 sure helped), and I hope that it shows.

There’s no contract for this book yet, and so I also hope that this new version will change that. If not, I may have to read more letters.

James lived to be 87. That’s a lot of letters. Please let this version sell…

Posted in Project_James | 3 Comments »

Is anybody goin’ to San Antone?

Friday, January 13th, 2006

I heard back from my agent today about my latest draft of James. She made a couple of editorial suggestions that seem so obvious that I’m a little embarrassed that I hadn’t caught them myself.

Both suggestions feel like they should be fairly simple to address, but I suppose I’ll find out for sure in the morning. I’ve got an idea for a new opening sentence, and I’ll be curious to see how well it holds up after a night’s sleep.

I’ll get to meet my agent in person for the first time next week at the ALA Midwinter Meeting in San Antonio. Liz B at A Chair, A Fireplace and A Tea Cozy will be there, too, as will Don Tate. If you’re reading this and plan to be there, please let me know — I’d love to meet as many of you as possible.

Posted in Agentry, Project_James, Socialit | 6 Comments »

My three pseudonymous friends

Tuesday, January 3rd, 2006

Late this past Friday night I put the finishing (for now) touches on the latest version of my James manuscript and sent it off to my agent. An editor is already interested, so I could have sent it directly to her, but before I did I wanted it to get a reading untainted by way too many hours of staring at index cards and spiral notebooks.

Also, like a pet cat with a dead bird it caught, I wanted to show off my latest effort to my new handler. I hope the new draft is better received than most dead birds are.

One-year-old F was sick for several days after Christmas, so I spent a lot of time with him slumped on my shoulder while I read a recent book about E.F. and slathered it with Post-It flags (in Day-Glo colors, I’ll have you know). I’ve since started reading a second book and expect a third to arrive from Amazon this week. So, my research for E.F. is well underway, and I’m even more excited about the topic than before.

On my lunch hours this week, I’ll be revisiting the Smith manuscript I revised last summer. It’s filled with facts and as many quotes as a semiarticulate, taciturn man (Smith, not me — I don’t think) could muster. But now I need to add a certain personal spin to his story to make it come alive. On the other hand, that sounds fairly involved — maybe I should be saving it for a five-day work week…

Posted in Project_E.F., Project_James, Project_Smith | 9 Comments »

Warts and all

Tuesday, December 20th, 2005

Something I’m still trying to figure out with my nonfiction is how far to go with the “warts and all” approach.

Obviously, it’s important to me that young readers know about the people that I’m interested in writing about, or else I wouldn’t be writing about them. And with one notable exception, I can’t think of any children’s biographies that were written about horrible people precisely because they were horrible people. We tend to write about people we admire, or at least about those whose stories are meaningful to us.

But people aren’t perfect, and what I struggle with is how much to dwell on those imperfections. Is it dishonest to frame a story so that it avoids having to deal directly with those flaws? Is it lazy to save up those shortcomings for the author’s note so that they don’t disrupt the flow of the narrative? Would a children’s biography in which the author goes out of his way to poke holes in the subject be any fun to read?

I wish I had better answers than “maybe,” “maybe,” and “probably not,” but at the moment I don’t. I sure hope I do by the time I finish new drafts of Smith and James.

Posted in Project_James, Project_Smith | 9 Comments »

Clued in

Monday, December 12th, 2005

I somehow managed to get within a month and a half of the ALA Midwinter Meeting without realizing that it’s going to be just down the road in San Antonio. And unlike with the IRA show in San Antonio this past May, exhibits-only registration is priced quite reasonably. So I’m going.

(If you haven’t been to one of these shows, the term “exhibits” can be a little misleading. It’s not as if they’ll be displaying a prehistoric librarian perfectly preserved in amber — we’re talking trade show booths, albeit booths piled high with new books and giveaways and populated with real, live editors and marketing folks.)

In other news from the past week, I heard from an editor that Smith still isn’t working for her, had lunch with Don Tate (thanks for picking up the check, Don), interviewed a former Rolling Stone editor about James, and began lightly delving (if one can delve lightly) into E.F. I’m skeptical that I’ll get much more done before Christmas, but I’m OK with that.

Posted in Project_E.F., Project_James, Project_Smith, Socialit | No Comments »

Further on up the road

Wednesday, November 30th, 2005

So why all the e-mailing and phone calling lately? Part of the reason is my research on James, but it’s mostly due to my discussions with the agent.

Things have progressed farther than with any other agent I’ve been in touch with, to the point of me contacting several of her clients. It’s been as illuminating as it has been time-consuming.

I most likely won’t post any more on this topic until the process plays itself out, but I will probably have a lot to say once things are resolved, one way or the other. So, if you’ve got any questions — like I did, and to some extent still have — about the process of finding an agent, feel free to ask them in the comments or e-mail them to me at the contact address on the main page of Bartography, and I’ll answer as much as I can when the time is right.

Posted in Agentry, Project_James | 3 Comments »

E.F. takes hold

Monday, November 28th, 2005

An idea for a new book took hold today. I don’t mean a new idea — it was one that I’d been kicking around for a while. But today, for whatever reason, it seized my imagination and demanded to be moved to the head of the line of my various projects. (It’s nonfiction, by the way.)

My family went on a short road trip this morning. Ordinarily on our outings I’m happy to drive while my wife knits. But on the way to today’s destination, I asked my wife to drive while I outlined the book and bounced ideas off her. By the time we got where we were going, I had what I needed in order to begin researching. (I’ve sung my wife’s praises before, and I’ll do it again. She’s the best sounding board a guy could have.)

Not that I actually can just drop everything and turn my undivided attention to this new project, which I’ll call “E.F.” I’m still reworking James and want to get it finished and submitted to an interested editor. Just yesterday I did a phone interview with the daughter of a labor organizer whose threatened deportation played a key role in James’ life, and early this morning, before E.F. took hold, I e-mailed interview requests to another couple of potential sources.

But E.F. is not going to be denied, I don’t think. It seems like the perfect next step for me professionally, a world of fun to research, an important topic for its audience to know about, and a timely one to boot. It’s all I can do to go to bed tonight and not stay up late to start my fact-gathering.

Posted in Project_E.F., Project_James | 3 Comments »

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