Sweeping out The Old Year(s)

 

    What else does one do on a cold-for-Florida Sunday afternoon but clear out files, right? 

    Most of our neighbors with kids have boxes and boxes piled in their recycling bins. I have pages and pages.

 

 

    I sent a lot of the more interesting ephemera from my books to the University of Southern Mississippi's deGrummond Children's Literature Collection. But I kept a few "gems." 

Like a whole file of rejection letters for GLORY BE. The original title was Junk Poker. No wonder it was rejected. 

Actually, it was rejected also because 

1. The time wasn't right. 

2. Historical fiction wasn't selling. 

3. Nobody wanted to read about the 60s. 

4. That editor who requested your manuscript has left the publisher. etc etc etc. 

 

    I also found many, many chapters with comments from various writer friends/ critique partners/ cold readers. It was like a walk down memory lane as well as a reminder that this journey didn't happen overnight. Or even over-a-year. 

But I loved that story a lot so I refused to give up. That, I suspect, was the trick. That's how you have to feel about what you've written. You have to feel in your heart that it's a book kids need to read. A book teachers will want to share. A book families can read together. And a book that, with a new title like GLORY BE, will end up in school libraries and classrooms. You'll get letters from kids telling you they love it, telling you what you messed up, telling you you need to write more stories about Glory, her sister, her sister's boyfriend, and Emma. Even if you can't do that, the letters make you feel like a million dollars.

 

    So for all you writers out there. Turn the calendar page to a new and glorious year and write like kids are waiting.  You never know what 2021 will bring. 

 

 

 

On one of my favorite, ever, Author Visit days, a boy gave me his very realistic drawing of the fabulous cover art. He told me he'd originally left out the "L" in Glory. But not to worry, he said, and he laughed, "It's fixed now."  It makes me smile every time I remember that day. Titles are pretty important. Not sure Gory Be would have caught an agent's eye any better than Junk Poker.