Stop seeing radishes
How to be patient
Five years ago this month, I sent that query to Danielle Smith. In those five years, two of my books have been published, and six more are under contract. Also during that five years, I've written a lot of books that don't (yet?) have book deals. The past five years has been a lot of writing and working hard (and a lot of fun).
When I was querying agents, I remember reading about writers who said the book they got their agent with was not their first book under contract. Or that some books took years to write. Or that sometimes they'd work for years on a novel and it would end up being a practice novel, never to be published.
All of that is terrifying to hear when you're a querying author. But it's also the truth. Publishing is notoriously a slow business, but so is writing. Writing well takes time. Five years ago, I didn't know that my 2018 picture book (which I first wrote in 2012) would undergo 60 revisions before its final version. I didn't know that I'd write two chapter books as well as four full not-yet-book-deal novels. I didn't want to believe that I'd have to delete much of my first drafts to make a book better, but it's true. Especially with a novel, it's so painful to face the amount of time and work it takes to make a good book.Â
None of this is new to you if you've been working on writing for a while. But if you approach books as a reader, some of this might be a surprise. People who aren't in the publishing business are taken aback by how long it takes to go from first draft to final book (at least two years), and how many years of writing might be behind some of their favorite books.Â
If you're working at writing, I'm reminding you of all this so you remember that it's supposed to take time, and that all that time is a gift. You have the time to make your book the best it can be. And all those gorgeous books, the ones you wish you wrote, the ones with all the success? Remember that those took years to make, too.Â
It takes time for a book to grow, just like it takes time for a tree to grow. Don't look at other writers' forests and think you're seeing a radish patch. There's no quick and dirty way to make a successful book, so don't try. Be glad for the time. Work hard, make your writing better every day, and you'll have a forest of your own books before you know it. (Because while five years might seem like a long time, it has gone by in a blink, and is really no time at all.)
Two Dogs in a Trench Coat Go to School got its first review! Kirkus Reviews says: "Giggle-inducing shenanigans ensue when two loyal dogs hatch a plan to save their human boy from school...For readers who appreciate the goofy."
Two Dogs is also going to be an audiobook! If you're someone who likes to listen to books, I know you're going to love the narration on this one.Â
I'm planning a big pre-order swag giveaway, so stay tuned! I'll announce the details of that in late April.
Reader Mailbag!
Stephen J. asks:
In a picture book manuscript, what is the proper way to indicate a character's dialogue?
For example, in your manuscript for Snappsy, did you write Snappsy's dialogue like this:
   And, worst of all, his big jaw wouldn't SNAP.
   SNAPPSY
   This is terrible! I'm just hungry! Why is this rude narrator trying to make it seem like I need a nap?
This is a great question! There are a lot of ways to approach this, and I think the key thing to remember is not to worry about it too much, be consistent, and make sure it's clear who's talking, no matter which format you choose. The first answer is that in Snappsy, there were dialog tags in the original manuscript. So it said
"This is terrible!" said Snappsy. "I'm just hungry."
The dialog tags were taken out because Tim Miller (illustrator extraordinaire) wanted to use speech bubbles. In the second Snappsy book, since we knew what it would look like, we put the narrator's lines as straight text and Snappsy's lines in quotes.
With the picture book I have coming out in November (No Boring Stories), we knew it was going to be all speech bubbles before it got to the illustrator. So that one is set up like a play, with the character's name, a colon, and then the dialog.
There's one other one I have that has a camp counselor talking with a bunch of campers. It's all dialog, and I formatted it so the counselor's speech is plain text and the campers speech is all italicized, and put a note at the top explaining that. So it looks like this:
[note: plain-text speech is the counselor, speech in italics are campers]
counselor's first line
counselor's second line
first camper says something
second camper says something
I love answering technical questions like this, as well as publishing questions, so please feel free to ask me!