Paper Hearts: Some Writing Advice

A Short Bio of My Writing Life

(Also during this time: I graduated college with a BA in English Education, a teaching certificate, and a minor in history, then I completed grad school in a year in English Lit, then I got my first job as an English teacher in a rural North Carolina town. I didn't sleep much, drank a lot of coffee, and could not afford cable television--the only reason I was able to do so much.)

And I got close. I got so close. So many agents requested the full to read before rejection. I was getting to that level where I knew what I had was good and that it should sell. I spent hundreds--thousands--in contest entry fees, paid crits from agents, attending confernces. And it paid off. At one of the conferences I was at, I pitched the book to a major NY publishing house editor, and she was interested. So interested that she gave me something called a "revision letter." In short, it was a list of ideas and things she wanted me to change. Change them good enough, and she'd buy the book. 

I changed things. I rewrote. 

It wasn't good enough. 

I knew that there were other options. I could self-publish this book of my heart. I was fairly certain, thanks to some connections I'd made, that I'd be able to sell the book to a small publishing house. But...that's not the dream I had. That's not what I wanted. 

So I shelved that book. And the sequels. I put six books and a lot of hopes behind me. I locked them up with the other two novels I'd written, and buried them deep down to hide the sting of the hundreds of rejections I'd gotten by that point.

I tried again. 

This novel was one that I loved, and one that was personal to me. While it was a fantasy, it was tapping into a tragedy that had happened to me recently, and I wrote through the emotions. It, too, was good. I had gotten to the point where I could objectively see when my work was good or not, and this was good. 

But not good enough. 

By this point, I'd written nine novels over the course of nine years. I'd spent thousands in pursuit of publication in the form of conferences, educational materials, etc. And all I'd gotten in return was nearly a thousand rejections from agents and editors, and it all came down to me being one thing: not good enough.

I was, to put it simply, frustrated. 

The tenth book I wrote, I wrote "for the market." I could tell that while my writing was "good," it also wasn't very "marketable." The stories were strange, and didn't really fit into a category. I convinced myself that that was the reason they weren't selling, so I decided to write a book that would. I thought up all the tropes and themes and characters that were common in YA. I pulled the bits and pieces of books I loved and incorporated those elements. I wasn't writing a story that I loved--I was gluing together bits that I hoped would sell. 

That book remains the only book I regret writing. 

Ironically, it was one of the closest books to being published. I had some interest from a small publisher who saw my query pitches online and had read a sample. I could have sold this book with no heart, and collected a (small) paycheck. 

But it didn't feel right. I'd sold out. I'd sold myself. 

I pulled the book quickly; I queried it a little, but I was able to toss that tenth book aside fairly easily and without remorse. It had nothing of me in it, except perhaps a little time, and it was empty of anything that mattered. 

This was the point, by the way, when I almost gave up.

I couldn't sell a book after writing from my heart. I couldn't sell a book that I'd designed for the market. What was the point? It seemed likely--given the decade of time I'd invested in writing and querying--that I couldn't sell a book that was good enough at all.

But then. 

Oh, but then.

I had one more idea. 

Just one. 

It was the twist at the end that got me. An idea for a novel told from two points of view, where one of the people telling the story had a big secret. A spaceship. A girl with red hair. A boy desperate, so desperate, to be good enough. 

I started writing, and the words flowed like magic. 

When I finished, I remember leaning back in my spinny desk chair and thinking, "this is the best I can possibly do." It wasn't just "good enough," it was the best. And if this didn't sell...I would quit. Because this was it. This was the best I could possibly do. 

I sent out the queries. I started with around forty queries. 

I got five offers of representation from agents. Including one offer from my dream agent, the agent who represented one of my favorite authors in the whole world, the one who I almost didn't bother querying because why would she ever notice me?

I signed with her. We discussed houses to submit to. Secretly, I longed for Penguin--I've always liked penguins in general, but I also had a great respect for the Penguin legacy and the quality of Penguin books published. 

Razorbill, an imprint of Penguin, offered to buy Across the Universe and two sequels, A Million Suns and Shades of Earth. 

I'd been teaching now for six years, and I wrapped up editing Across the Universe at the same time as I wrapped up my last semester of teaching. I graded final exams and did copy edits simultaneously. When the next school year rolled around in late August, it felt strange to not have a book out yet, but to also not be going to school. 

In January 2011, Across the Universe was published. The next week, I found out that it debuted on the NY Times Bestseller list. Later that week, I got a rejection from an agent who had just now gotten around to reading my query for a weird science fiction book. "I'm sorry," she said in her email, "you write well, but sci fi books that take place on a spaceship just don't sell in the YA market." 

I resisted the urge to send her a copy of the NY Times.