A Book Deal (back in 2014)
Help Wanted: An Ending, Part 2
(Read part 1 here.) We are now in January 2013. The manuscript was five months old (a baby!). After getting a few more critiques, I tried to figure out a way to punch up the ending and make it hilarious and specific.
I’m fond of puns, so I decided that Rooster comes back, and tells Cow that he has started a breakfast restaurant called Cook-a-Little-Egg. It is so popular that he needs Cow to come serve as his human resources manager. (Because yes, kids will definitely see human resources as a satisfying conclusion? Also never mind the fact that there aren’t any humans in this story to have their resources managed.) They are going to bring all the rooster candidates with them to work in the restaurant.
Despite this ending (which is terrible, but better than the traveling musician one), this manuscript got a book deal. The book was set to be published in 2018.
The first thing my editor, Joanna Cárdenas, said in her edit letter was that she was a little disturbed that the rooster was running an egg restaurant. “I must admit I was a bit shocked—he could conceivably be cooking his children!” Oops. That’s what happens when you get excited about a pun and don’t think about it further than that.
With Joanna’s guidance, I came up with a new ending, in October of 2014. Rooster has gone to the city. He comes back to tell Cow that city life is much more relaxing than farm life. Tells her she can come live with him and make it big delivering milk to the city people. “Be an urban cow.”
I wrote one version (which we called “the corporate version”) where Rooster, still in the city from the previous version, is trying out being a city rooster. Essentially, he was a gig worker, going door to door to wake city people. They liked it better than having an alarm clock. He’s also having a bit of an existential crisis (shockingly common in my books):
“The fact is,” he said, “I don’t want to be a rooster anymore. All my life, everyone has told me that I have to be a rooster.”
“But you ARE a rooster,” said Cow.
“I’m sick of being the responsible one, the one who has to wake up the whole farm.”
Meanwhile, Viking acquired a sequel to my debut (which hadn’t published at this point – it came out in 2016). So the second book (Snappsy the Alligator and His Best Friend Forever (Probably)) would come out in 2017, bumping the next two books. No Boring Stories! would now come out in 2018, and Help Wanted: One Rooster in 2019. Which is all fine! Rooster could wait.
And then, at the end of 2017, Joanna left to join the new imprint Kokila, which was amazing for her and a bummer for me, because I loved working with her. We went through dozens and dozens of revisions of No Boring Stories! together (which is why it’s dedicated to her), and she gets me.
In early 2018, I was assigned a new Viking editor, who immediately left. A coincidence I’m sure. Finally, in May of 2018, I moved to another Viking editor, Maggie Rosenthal. We talked on the phone and clearly had similar sensibilities. Ok! Here we go! TIME FOR A NEW ENDING.
Maggie asked me, from that very first phone call, to think about what kind of farm this was. I had been trying to figure out why they need a new rooster. Why isn’t the rooster doing his job anymore? But Maggie’s question got me thinking in new directions. What if this farm is not a farm in the conventional sense?
Next: multiple new endings, and things get weird.
In case you missed it, my picture book Snappsy the Alligator (Did Not Ask to Be in This Book) got name-dropped in the new Emily Henry book, and I, uncharacteristically, made a TikTok about it (with a lot of help from my fave local indie, Print: A Bookstore).
Preorder links:1
Print: A Bookstore for signed and/or personalized copies
From your local independent bookstore
If you’re considering buying a book, preordering really does help. It lets publishers and retailers know that there’s interest in the book. If you aren’t going to buy, consider asking your local library to order it. THANK YOU.
Interesting to hear the backstory of this book!
Curious question? What gets the story picked up when the ending is uncertain? And would that mean concept trumps narrative arc, or is it something else… (I’m starting to write, it’s painful!)