We Have Lift Off! (My Journey to my Debut Book Deal)

Writing is a lot like a mission to outer space.

You have this idea--this amazing idea!--but it's never going to launch if you don't put in the work to make it happen. So you buckle down. You design, plan, craft, and redesign all over again. You think you almost have it--but then one part fails, and you're back to the drawing board.

NASA's InSight Mars lander getting prepped for 2016.

You think about giving up. But for some reason...you just can't. So you grit your teeth and keep going.

And then finally, after years of sweat and tears, you have a completed project, ready for lift off! Yes! You did it! It's beautiful!

But having a spacecraft ready to go isn't enough on its own. You can't just launch on the day you finish building. You need to wait until the object you're aiming for is in position. Sometimes that means waiting for months, sometimes years. And when the right day finally comes...when you're so nervous you could burst...when you keep asking yourself, will this work, or will it explode? ...well, if there's bad weather, no matter how ready you are and how badly you just want to see what happens, the mission is put on hold.

Sorry. No fault of yours. That's just the way things go.

"Be patient," people will say. "Maybe today wasn't your day, but your mission is a great one, and some day it will lift off!"

But on the next try, there's a storm. The next one, a piece of launch equipment catches and you have to abort. The next, someone sneezed at the button, and you missed your window.

No matter how amazing your spacecraft is, no matter how hard you've worked, you're at the mercy of forces external to you. And no matter how hard you try to internalize that, it always feels like it's somehow a reflection on you and the mission you designed.

Maybe your mission was never meant to launch.

Maybe you should call it a day. Call it a learning experience. Move on.

And then...just when you're about to pack it in...it happens.

The perfect day.

MAVEN lifting off!

Your mission...it's GO. You have lift off!

---

I'm thrilled to say that after years of hard work--not just from myself, but from my critique partners and my agent, too--my debut novel, DESTINED FOR MARS, has lifted off.

AHHH!!!!!!!!!

It's heading out into the amazing world of Harper Children's, for publication in Summer 2017. It's on its way! Landing at bookstores near you in just a couple quick years! And I am still in complete and utter shock.

DESTINED FOR MARS (possibly getting renamed, by the way), is a story about 13-year-old Miranda, a robotics whiz who is chosen to represent the United States in a decade-long Mars training mission. Right from the start things begin to go terribly wrong, however, and soon it's clear that Miranda is fighting not only for her future—but for her life, and that of many other people's as well.

This book was first conceived of in 2012. At that time, I was querying agents with a manuscript that I'd first drafted in 2009, and writing a shiny new manuscript that my crit group loved (DW, for those in the know). I thought they were going to murder me when I told them I was setting aside my Work-In-Progress in order to write this space book that I'd literally just invented in my head days earlier. But I couldn't help myself. This story had to get out of my head and into a Word document.

I eventually fell so much in love with it that I not only set aside DW, but also shelved the manuscript I had been querying. I realized if I was to debut as an author, I wanted my debut to be my brand new space idea. Besides, I'd gotten two years' worth of rejections from agents on my first polished manuscript, and had to swallow my pride and concede that story just wasn't going to get me anywhere. My hopes now were with a young engineer named Miranda, and her trusty robot, Ruby.

Doodled Ruby at Saturday dinner, NESCBWI '13.

In fall of 2013, DESTINED FOR MARS was in its third draft, and ready to show off. I dove back into querying. I got a partial request right off the bat. Then another agent asked for a full. The response was so drastically different than my previous querying experience, that I scarcely believed any of it was happening.

By December, I had three separate agent offers. And before Christmas, I'd signed with Joan. She just got what MARS was about. It was a perfect match.

For those of you doing the mental math, however, you may have noticed that I signed with Joan over a year and a half ago. So despite the (honestly, intimidating!) immediate onslaught of agent interest in MARS, I can't say that's how my experience on submission with editors went.

Once Joan and I revised and went on sub for the first time, I braced myself for the inevitable rejections. I was used to them, thanks to my earlier attempts at querying agents. Rejections are always rough, but as it turned out, the editor rejections didn't hurt me as much as they confused me. They were often contradictory to one another. I had trouble figuring out what to do with them.

Eventually, Joan and I pulled MARS off submission for a while and did a revision, based on what few common threads we could pick out from the rejections. Among the changes, I deleted a character and added in a new one, hoping things would ring more true. But when we went back out the door with it, the rejections just confused me even more, because on the whole, editors liked it. I had an inbox filling up with lovely notes, but no offers. WHAT DID THEY WANT?

Joan insisted that it was just a matter of time. That we'd find the perfect home for Miranda and Ruby. That maybe one of the editors who hadn't gotten to it yet would be the right match.

I, however, had moved on. Just like with querying, I'd accepted that my first foray into the Bigger Publishing World just wasn't going to go anywhere, and it was time to try something else. I threw myself into a different project (DW, the WIP from 2012 that my crit group had loved so much). I figured my first manuscript taught me how to be a professional writer, MARS was the manuscript that got me an agent, and that my newest manuscript would be what finally landed me a book deal.

And I was so close to having the new manuscript submission-ready. Potentially just weeks away!

Then I came down with pneumonia.

On July 9th, 2015, I sat in the ER, fever spiking towards 104, wondering what in the world had hit me. I spent the next 7 days with fevers over 103, coughing so hard I eventually fractured a rib.

I was less than a month out from turning 30. I claimed 30 was no big deal, but I'd always had the secret ambition to have a book deal by 30. Having lost hope of that, I'd at least hoped to have my newest manuscript submission-ready by 30.

But it seemed it wasn't meant to be. I couldn't get out of bed, much less type. It took two weeks to recover enough to shuffle down my hall, crack open my laptop, and look at my manuscript with whatever energy I could muster. I was at the lowest of lows. My body had failed me, and my goals were just out of my reach, taunting me.

...However, I don't think it was lost on the Writing Gods that the first thing I tried to do with myself after pneumonia was work on writing. Because less than a week later, I had a two-book offer from Erica Sussman at Harper Collins. 

---

Joan called me from Barcelona on July 25th. She was on vacation, not using her cell phone, and I'd missed her original calls because I didn't recognize the number. We finally connected around 5pm, she told me the news, and given the amount of medications I was hopped up on, at first I honestly did not believe it was happening.

All I said for the first couple minutes was a steady string of, "OHMYGOD OHMYGOD OHMYGOD OHMYGOD." I was so jittery, so excited, I ended up in a giant coughing fit but could NOT STOP GRINNING. 

I. HAD. A. BOOK. DEAL. AHHHH!!!!!

I called my parents. Told a couple critique partners. And then couldn't say a word to anyone else until things were made public. It was simultaneously the best news of my entire life, and the hardest secret I've ever had to keep.

My b-day dinner with author friends, Lauren, Tara, and Annie!

Once Joan returned to the States, she emailed me the offer details. A couple days later, we officially accepted the offer. And a week later, on my 30th birthday (and Curiosity's 3 year anniversary on Mars!), the deal became public knowledge, and I was finally allowed to tell everyone. 

Best. Birthday. Ever.

I've only now calmed down enough to write up this story for my blog. I hope it gives hope to anyone who's struggling in their own writing journey. Sometimes obstacles are there for a reason. Sometimes, as cliché as it sounds, it really is darkest before the dawn. And most of the time, being successful in this business just requires a ridiculous amount of patience and resilience.

Stick to it. It will happen if you don't give up.

---

I'm so utterly grateful to everyone who has helped make this dream a reality. My family and friends for their constant encouragement. All members of my crit group, past and present, for building me into the writer I am today. My teachers who saw a science nerd's passion for creative writing, and encouraged me to write more. SCBWI, for the amazing community and services they provide. My agent, Joan Paquette, for being the True Champion of this manuscript. And to my editor, Erica Sussman, who I am so excited to start working with. (Seriously, Erica, you have no idea!)


Thank you all.

And buckle up, everyone! Because this ride has just begun!

Spring Catch-Up: THE CHANCE YOU WON'T RETURN

Hey there, Blog. It's been a while.

I was stuck in a revision cave for the better part of spring, but I'm out now and playing catch-up with all the stuff I missed! So get ready for a series of posts covering all the things that I'd wanted to blog about, but didn't get a chance to do until now.

Let's start with the most exciting one...

ANNIE'S LAUNCH PARTY!

That's right! My good friend and critique partner had her YA debut in April!

THE CHANCE YOU WON'T RETURN by Annie Cardi is a contemporary YA novel that's gotten absolutely glowing reviews (including multiple starred reviews!).

It tells the story of Alex--a girl who should really just be worrying about failing driver's ed and figuring out the guy she may or may not be flirting with (who may or may not be falling for her), but instead has to deal with a frustrating family secret. Out of nowhere, Alex's mom has decided she's actually Amelia Earhart, and that Alex is no longer her daughter, but a young female protégé of the 1930's.

Intrigued? Then you might be like one of the completely PACKED launch party-goers from last April. Probably good you weren't at Porter Square Books in Cambridge that night, though, because they sold out! Good news is you can find copies at many different places now, likely including your local bookstore!

When asked how she's able to write a teen voice so realistically, Annie admits that's just what the inside of her head sounds like...and that she was surprised to learn that's not what the inside of everyone's head sounds like.

Annie is the best. She's basically one of the coolest people you could ever know. Her writing is witty, heartfelt, so very real, and brings you right into the experiences of her characters. Annie's an author you'll want to keep tabs on, because she's definitely going places. And if you aren't following her on Twitter, then I don't know what you're doing with your life.

So proud!!!

A Bird on Water Street

I wanted to take a moment to talk about a touching new book--one that ties perfectly into this month's upcoming Earth Day.

A BIRD ON WATER STREET is a fictional environmental story based on a real town and a real era in American history. I had the good fortune to hear about this book earlier this year, and when I sat down to read it, I couldn't stop.

Elizabeth Dulemba takes readers to a setting almost entirely unbelievable: Coppertown USA, just over 30 years ago. This small Appalachian mining town is like "living on the moon". There's no nature here. No birds, no bugs, no trees. Just scarred earth. Dulemba's skill is twofold, and the first half of that is placing the reader in this incredible setting. She paints the picture of this alien world so visibly, that I wanted to bust into the pages myself to plant some seeds and give this poor town some life back.

Her second great skill is involving the reader in the struggles of the Coppertown community. I was rooting not only for the main character--young Jack, who just wanted a chance to live near some trees--but for all the mining families whose lives were shaken by a series of layoffs and accidents. Dulemba crafts a world where everyone's story matters, which is so completely authentic to small town lifestyle.

I highly recommend giving this a read if you're at all interested in environmental tales, modern historical fiction, or just love a heartfelt story about family and real life relationships. I finished it weeks ago and still feel touched by the residents of Coppertown.

You can find A BIRD ON WATER STREET online at Barnes and Noble or on Amazon. And you can find Elizabeth Dulemba on the web at www.dulemba.com.

AGENT

Blogging has been slow the past couple of weeks, because some big stuff has been happening in my writing life. I'm not going to be coy and dance around this, so here goes...

I am thrilled to announce that I am now officially represented by Ammi-Joan Paquette of the Erin Murphy Literary Agency!

Relevant gif is relevant, for many, many reasons.

It's happened! I have a literary agent, and I couldn't be more excited about it. Joan is fabulous. I know she's going to do a fantastic job representing me and my manuscript in the big scary world of children's book publishing.

For those that don't know what exactly all this means, you can think of this as the first professional step on the road to becoming published. Nowadays, it is extremely difficult to be a published author if you don't have an agent (unless you self-publish). An agent is the link between authors and publishing houses. Now that I have one, I get to move onto the next phase of my career--submitting to publishers to see if anyone wants to take on my book!

I will likely do a longer post in the future detailing how I "got my agent", because that story really deserves its own post. What I will say now, is that I had three agents read my full manuscript, and got offers from all three of them.

It was simultaneously awesome and terrifying. As you might imagine, choosing amongst them was not easy. But in the end, I went with Joan, because I felt like she was the best fit for where I wanted to take my writing career. She's extremely easy to get along with, she has an incredible success rate in the business, and she is a sci-fi author herself. Plus, she connected with my book in such a positive way, that I knew she would strive to see it succeed. Joan was the full package, and I'm still flabbergasted that she saw enough of something in my writing to offer representation.

I feel so lucky and honored to be joining the EMLA family, and can't wait to get to know everyone associated with them. If anyone is reading this and wants to follow me on twitter, my twitter handle is "@paleopaws". I will follow you back! I'm cool like that, I swear.

So that's my big news! Heading into 2014, I'll be an agented writer, getting ready to tackle editor submissions. Thank you so much to everyone who's supported me during all of this. To my friends, family, and critique partners for believing in me and in this manuscript. You were right. Apparently it was an awesome story. Next step: make it even more awesome.

Okay, 2014. Publishing houses. Editors. Let's do this.