Word Weaves

I finished the rewrite on my first book, polished my query and groaned through another synopsis. I researched agents on Agentquery, Querytracker, SCBWI, and the Children’s Writers and Illustrators’ Market Guide. Then, I checked SFWA’s Editors and Preditors to ensure none of my chosen agents were on the Beware List.

Two weeks ago, I sent queries to fourteen agents. I had the first response within two hours. I took a deep breath and opened the email. My eyebrows sprung to my hairline. It wasn’t a rejection! The agent requested a partial. I stared at the computer in shock. I wasn’t ready for this. I had prepared for fourteen rejections. At best, I hoped for nice rejections.  

I pulled up the first few chapters of my book and with superhuman will power, I did not reread them before I pushed send. More deep breathing and some hyperventilating followed. Since that day, I’ve received three very nice rejections and another request for a partial. Even if my sample chapters don’t pass muster, I’m thrilled to have written a query that does. But I’m not sure when I’ll stop feeling like a spastic balloon, puffing up and deflating.

Kate DiCamillo is one of my favorite authors. I read Because of Winn Dixie years ago and was enchanted by DiCamillo’s voice. This month I’m reviewing The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane.

Edward is an exquisite porcelain rabbit who has everything a toy could ask for: little Abilene who adores him, stunning outfits created especially for him, the entire family’s respect, and a grand house to live in. But Edward takes his life for granted. He doesn’t feel anything for Abilene or her family. Then one day he’s lost at sea and so begins a difficult journey through years of heartache…yes, a porcelain rabbit can feel heartache…and mistreatment. Edward’s reduced to a toy fit for the garbage heap.

In between hardship, Edward’s rescued by an old fisherman, a vagrant, and a starving child. He’s surprised when he begins to care about the people who save him. He sees their suffering and he’s grateful for every morsel of kindness and good fortune. After his face is smashed by a cruel diner owner, a doll maker restores him to a version of his former self. Edward lingers for years in the shop, an unwanted rabbit on the doll shelf. One day a young girl falls in love with his cracked face. The girl is Abilene’s daughter. She returns Edward to the life he once knew, only this time he treasures it.

Below is an excerpt from the book. Edward’s been at the ocean bottom for a long time.

“On the two hundred and ninety-seventh day of Edward’s ordeal, a storm came. The storm was so powerful that it lifted Edward off the ocean floor and led him in a crazy, wild and spinning dance. The water pummeled him and lifted him and shoved him back down.

Help! thought Edward.

The storm, in its ferocity, actually flung him all the way out of the sea; and the rabbit glimpsed, for a moment, the light of an angry and bruised sky; the wind rushed through his ears. It sounded to him like Pellegrina laughing. But before he had time to appreciate being above water, he was tossed back down into the depths. Up and down, back and forth he went until the storm wore itself out, and Edward saw that he was beginning, again, his slow descent to the ocean floor.”

This morning on my walk, I spotted a double rainbow. It arched over the trees into a deep gray sky; the afteraffects of last night’s thunderstorms. The me that lives in my imagination leapt to that arc and clung for dear life. I didn’t have to wonder where that impulse came from.

Last week was a train wreck: friends and family with serious health issues, budget shortcomings, and the conspicuous absence of a call back after a hopeful job interview. Then there was the discussion I came across on the Verla Kay board about agents preferring prospective clients not shop their work to editors. That was difficult to swallow after spending the last two months in hyper mode, rewriting my first book to submit with conference coupons to editors before the September 4th deadline. And I set my second book aside to do it.

What I read on Verla Kay rang true and reliable sources confirmed it. Why did I learn this the week before I sent my submission? Did I lose two months of writing time on my second book for nothing? I believe in God’s timing and in listening to that voice we all have inside.  For some reason, I was meant to rework my first novel. No doubt, it’s a much better book. Even if it’s not marketable, I grew as a writer through the revision and my next book will be better for it.

I wasn’t looking for the pot of gold when I latched onto that rainbow this morning. I was looking for hope. I’m starting the week with a new plan, tossing the editor’s coupons and compiling an agents’ list. I’ll query a dozen. If the reaction is negative, my first book goes in a box labeled STEP ONE.

Even as I finish polishing my first book and submit chapters of my second book for critique, the voice in my head is nagging me to start another. I blame the oil spill in the Gulf. It catapulted my muse into environmental guerilla mode. I envision a little figure in combat fatigues scribbling tirades in my mind.

I process the world through art and writing. I’ve journaled through emotional lows, painted anger and angst, celebrated in line and word. Pouring  interior dialogue into creative outlets is satisfying but it can also leave me emotionally drained.

Nature restores me. I try to start each day with a walk.  This morning, as I headed for the street, two sandhill cranes strolled up the sidewalk. I stopped to watch the elegant pair. I often hear their prehistoric cries but rarely see them up close. It’s always an “ah” moment.

The birds brought to mind Lyle Lovett’s Whooping Crane song. And that jerked me back to the destruction of the natural world. Okay, so I don’t always manage to keep my walks refreshing. Oh dear, here comes that mini-commando, hammering away at an environmental adventure novel.

You can hear a sample of Lovett’s Whooping Crane from his Natural Forces CD on iLike.

When people asked why I needed to revise my book…again…I didn’t have a definitive answer. And they deserved one. They were first readers; the only people on the planet who knew my story. I think they felt cheated. Why would I change a book they had given their support to?

Now that I’m nearing the end of the second rewrite, I think I can explain.  It all began with the synopsis. I needed one to submit my story for the SCBWI W-I-P grant in February. I scrawled thirty versions of that dreaded document without satisfaction.  I sent it off figuring it was the best I could do. Then I took an online synopsis class.

That class asked questions of my story I hadn’t asked. I knew my main character like a sister. But who were the primary and secondary antagonists and what were their conflicts and goals? What were the external and internal plots/goals. How does the story build from beginning through plot points to climax and resolution? 

Those questions forced me to face what I didn’t know about my story and what was missing.  To be blunt, a snarly secondary character  upstaged my wimpy protaganist; my plot didn’t just drag in the middle, it sagged like a pot belly pig, and my black moment was dim! I slapped that book closed and shut my mind off. 

After a few weeks of  healing,  my trounced creativity bounced back with and I took drastic action. I kicked my MC out of the story.  I mourned her loss. Introducing a new MC to an old cast of characters isn’t easy. The strange protaganist was like the new kid in school that nobody knew, including me. But she did just what I hoped; she shook things up. With the synopsis class fresh in mind, I started over.  Partway through the rewrite, I took a MG/YA class and used the lessons as I revised.

The story is so much better, even I can see it. Last week, when I wrote the query to submit it, for the first time the book sounded like something I might like to read. By the end of this week, I’ll reface the synopsis. I pray this time, the result will answer the critical questions.

For the next few weeks, I’ll be posting only on Mondays so I can focus on finishing my book to meet the submission deadline. Not that anyone reads this blog and after reading another blogger’s criticism of unpublished writers blogging about nothing but their writing journey, I’m seriously thinking…why do I do it? Was that sentence ludicrous?

My online class ended this weekend. One of the great things about virtual learning is the opportunity to share with writers from all over the world. In both the classes I’ve taken, students from other countries have participated and it’s fun to compare notes. The writers in this class were a talented bunch with positive energy and imaginative story ideas.

Kate Coombs presented detailed lessons on plot, character development, pace, description, and dialogue, along with homework that involved dissecting our stories. The students offered valuable feedback and support and by the end of the class, someone had started a Yahoo alumni group. It’s amazing how fast a bond forms, even in a virtual classroom.

All in all, it was a good experience and I recommend  the Writer’s U classes.  Even the negatives served to challenge me. In regards to my story, I was told portal tales are a dime a dozen. And the response to my one sentence pitch? It needs work. Not the most constructive criticism, but I’m sure both were valid. One thing I’ve taken to heart is that perseverance is key to a writer’s survival. I still have lots to learn and not all the lessons will be easy. But I’m in it for real.

The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate is Jacqueline Kelly’s debut novel. It’s set in a small Texas town on the cusp of the twentieth century. During the summer of her eleventh year,  Callie Tate approaches her formidable grandfather in the rickety shed where he catalogs his scientific finds and attempts to distill pecans into liquer. Calpurnia shares his curiosity and becomes his dedicated assistant.

When Callie and her grandfather discover what he thinks is a new plant species, they travel to town to have it photographed and send their findings to the Smithsonian for verification. Throughout the year as they await news, Callie daydreams about what she will become…a teacher, a scientist, one of the first telephone operators. At no time does she think about housewifery, but her mother plans otherwise. She schedules practice sessions to improve Callie’s poor domestic skills, leaving Callie no time to spend with her grandfather.

Callie’s favorite brother and father encourage her mother’s course. Even her grandfather falters when Callie tells him she wants to go to university and be a scientist. Just before the old year passes, word comes from the Smithsonian. The plant is indeed a new species and will be named after the Tates. Callie and her grandfather are toasted for their discovery. Callie enters her tweflth year and the twentieth century with hope for her future.

Favorite passages:

Callie’s description of her grandfather before she approached him in the shed:

The old man had tufty eyebrows of his own, rather like a dragon’s, and he was altogether too imposing a figure to have clambered on as an infant.

Her grandfather’s tale of forming the National Geographic Society in 1888:

They had banded together to fill in the bare spots on the globe and to pull the country out of the morass of superstition and backward thinking in which it floundered after the War Between the States.

Edvard Munch’s painting,  The Scream, pretty much sums up how I’m feeling with thirty days to finish the rewrite on my manuscript. Meeting that September 4th submission deadline (clearly stated on the editors’ coupons from the SCBWI conference) may be an impossible dream. My book feels like an unfinished rag doll in bits and pieces, with stuffing pouring out of holes.

Dani, the new protaganist, is settling into her role. I feel I know her pretty well and she’s certainly added spice to the story. She’s also energized the secondary characters.  I can’t say I’m as fond of her as I was of Gilly, the original character.  And I’m having a hard time justifying Gilly’s exile to people who read my original manuscript. Dani was created under duress, sort of like a forced friendship, but I’ve grown to admire her.

Some of the newly integrated scenes feel raw and clumsy. I’ve been offering small chunks of my story as homework in the class I’m taking.  That’s a good thing except it’s slowed down the revision. Feedback is invaluable, but in the end, it all comes down to the writer and the pen. And my pen needs to fly.

Yesterday, I was having a REALLY bad day. Class lessons, manuscript deadline, and emails piled up; a local reporter needed a photo (preferrably with cows!) for an article she was writing about my Highlights’ win, and household tension mixed with a skull-cracking headache.

Around noon something soft bumped against my front door. A package! Inside was a note from my dearest aunt, a pair of deep blue pajamas covered in stars and moons, and a Flicka DVD. All my hard edges softened. In the card, my aunt related a story about my grandmother polishing her waitress shoes so they’d look good on the outside. Then Grandma stuck cardboard in the bottoms to cover the holes and headed off to work.

My grandmother’s flame burned bright. My aunt pointed out that I am that woman’s granddaughter. And my amazing aunt is her youngest daughter.  Grandma had ten children, nine that survived. She raised them during the depression on a diner waitress salary. Her husband, when he came home, was a violent alcoholic. My grandmother escaped him and remained single for many years until she met R.C., the man my cousins and I knew as our grandfather.

R.C. and Grandma settled in a house he built on his farm in Bushnell, Florida.  Tucked into an oak hammock behind their new home, was R.C.’s cracker homestead. My family lived in that old house for a year when I was twelve and that seeded the story that won me the Highlights’ contest.  Yes, I am my grandmother’s granddaughter. She inspires me still and so does her daughter.