Caroline Starr Rose

award-winning picture book and middle-grade author

How to Break a Book’s Bones and Survive

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a guest post by author Lindsay Eagar

Let me tell you a story about a story.

In 2016, I turned in a first draft of THE BIGFOOT FILES to my editor.

In 2017, we revised it until my editor left for maternity leave. We were mere weeks away from the copyediting date. When she returned to work, she called. “I reread your edits with fresh eyes, and… I’m sending you another editorial letter this week. It’s a lot,” she warned. “Read it and digest it and let me know when we can discuss it.”

“I’m sure it’s fine,” I said.

Reader, it was not fine. It was a gut job.

I’d turned in a dead book. Full of plot holes, full of miscalculated stakes, full of nonsensical character goals. Not a tragedy! It happens. But in order to keep my original publishing date, we’d need to get it into copyedits in six weeks.

Six weeks to rewrite, revise, and line edit a new version of this story. Somehow we arrived at the copyediting deadline with only about two minutes to spare.

Since then, I’ve had time to reflect on how exactly I managed to make this happen—to rewrite a book entirely on such a tight deadline without losing the joy of creation in the process. I have a few tips I’d love to share.

Grief is part of the process

You are asked to ax a project and try again. It is an opportunity to do better, which is a good thing—but that doesn’t mean you don’t feel pain letting go of the book you thought you’d written. I believe that wallowing and grieving is an important step in the revision process. You wrote a book. You were proud of it. You were told it wasn’t enough. Grieving the story you thought you had written (but was clearly only a ghost) is a way of ruminating. It’s a way of preparing your brain for the important upcoming act of resurrection—you kill your old ideas, you bury them, you mourn them, and then you begin to look for new life.

Find the heart

If you can, sum up the heart in one or two sentences. Then you’ll have a true north to follow as you tear your book into pieces. My heart for Bigfoot book was this simple line: “Some things are true, whether you believe in them or not.” Every story element had to push me further along to that heart. If it didn’t fit, it was tossed or placed into a file for future stories.

Finding the heart is sometimes easier said than done—you probably have your own method for conjuring it. Playing a song, talking with a friend, paying attention to daydreams and night dreams, pretending you are being interviewed by Oprah, sketching, making a board of images and quotes—all are great ways of excavating the heart of your book.

You have two jobs

You have a charge to make your book better, in no uncertain terms. You have wallowed, grieved, and made the decision to shape the book into a new form. You have discovered your book’s heart—the spine, the core, the thing around which everything else revolves.

Now you have two jobs. You must fill the well, and you must not say no—for now.

Fill the well. This doesn’t have to mean you spend all your time gorging yourself on new material for new stories—it does mean you should go back to the original sources for this story. Playlists, pictures you held onto, those ever-esoteric “feelings” that you were hoping to give your reader… Now is the time to make an absolute glutton of yourself. Listen to soundtracks while you drive. Take a walk while you think. Doodle while you watch a movie. The goal is to reenter a mode where you are generating ideas large and small, and you must feed the machine. My own brain has a very difficult time shifting from drafting mode into revision mode. It takes a big to-do. Keeping my creative well full to the tippy-top with music and images and words helps me get back into brainstorming mode.

Once your brainstorming mechanism is up and running, it’s time to produce. Your job now is to never say no. Sometimes an idea will come to you for a fix (either from your own mind or from a well-meaning editor or critique partner trying to help) and you just know in your gut that it is not right for this book—that’s fine. Write it down anyway. Making a list of the wrong things can help trigger the right thing.

My original plan for Bigfoot book was to have a small cast, a tight timeline, and an almost claustrophobic-like road trip structure. Single narrative. No flashbacks. Nothing tricky (which was honestly a relief after both HOUR OF THE BEES and RACE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA turned into these double-narrative puzzles that had to be woven together perfectly). Any sort of second, nestled narrative did not belong in Bigfoot book, I was certain…

Until a little niggle in my brain said there was probably more to my main character’s friendship with a girl named Emma than I had originally thought. I gave myself two minutes to explore it and ended up with a five-chapter arc of their friendship’s beginning and dissolving. In the finished book, this is such an important part of the story, I can’t imagine the book working without it—and it’s only in there because I refused to shoot anything down before I gave it a fair shot.

Make lists. Lists of things you know are wrong. Lists of things you know are, for sure, not right for this book—explosions, betrayals, hauntings, breakups, car crashes, embarrassing moments, concerts, whatever it is, make it a game to write twenty wrong things that would not help your book. Just the act of making the list can jar the right things loose.

Let your subconscious do the work for you

It is a good thing, to put in the work. But it’s imperative that you give yourself breaks and leave the screen or the page so your brain can do its undercover web-weaving and bridge-building and furniture-moving. There’s a lot of redecorating that happens when you step away from the desk. There is so much happening under the surface. There are connections being made. Don’t do so much of the upfront, intentional, work that you begrudge your brain the chance to do its secret, quiet work.

There are ways I help my brain with this process. Some of them easy, some of them wacky. I take a walk and I leave headphones behind every once in a while—filling my head with podcasts or audiobooks or music can disrupt the heavy lifting happening behind the scenes. I do laundry (really!), or dishes, or sweep a floor—something where my hands are busy and my mind can wander.

Basically, step away from your desk occasionally to live your life—it’s not that the work will be there waiting for when you come back; the work continues in your head even when you’re not sitting at your desk.

More hardcore tricks for getting your subconscious fired up include taking a midday shower or bath (showers are notoriously fantastic places for letting your mind wander; for me they are a signal of the beginning of the day and my brain reawakens if I take a second shower), putting together an actual puzzle, getting your brain involved in another task that requires problem-solving (baking or cooking is one my favorites), or drinking coffee right before taking a nap. (Really! Get ready for the most vivid dreams of your life!)

Grit and momentum: how I did it

How did I do it? I had a one-year-old, a seven-year-old, a husband who worked full-time, other book deadlines, and zero childcare. I did not have a magic pill for superfast revision brain. I did not have six extra hours added to my week. I did not have a breakthrough.

I had a stubborn insistence to make this book work in the allotted time, and nothing more.

For weeks, I did nothing but write. I woke up before the baby and wrote. I dictated on our walks. I dreamed of the book and woke in the middle of the night, taking notes on my phone. I finished a draft; I printed it out; I covered it in red notes; I started again.

It was… not a healthy balance.

I was able to strip a book down to its core and build it up again because of what I sacrificed. I did not sleep enough. I didn’t eat or exercise enough. I did not spend enough quality time with my children. I definitely did not relax enough on my own, or unwind, or do anything that didn’t contribute to rewriting this book.

I’ve already promised my editor, my agent, and my husband that I won’t try to do that again.

Because in the end:

It’s not actually a bone; it’s a book

File this one under: THINGS LINDSAY IS STILL TRYING TO LEARN.

It’s not a bone.

If it doesn’t get mended, or if it takes a long time, the world will not stop turning.

Sometimes when the deadline is tight and the edits require your blood and sweat, the stakes feel inordinately higher. They’re not.

It’s still just a book. It’s still just play.

Tom Waits says artists are “just making jewelry for the insides of other peoples’ heads.” Don’t sacrifice too much for a piece of jewelry.

The revision process for THE BIGFOOT FILES was over so quickly, I didn’t have any chance to take breaks or read with fresh eyes—I turned in a book with almost no objectivity, basically, and so I held my breath when I received the galleys. I read it out loud to my daughter, whom the book is dedicated to, and was pleased to find that it is a decent book. It’s not perfect, but it’s so close to the book I held in my head. It’s also the most directly personal of any of my published work, and for that reason, I think it beats with a heart and a rhythm that is very close to my own heart. I am very proud of it—but if I ever need to do a rapid rewrite like this again, I’m either locking myself in a panic room to do it, or else I’m going to wisely say, “No, I need to take my time with something like this.”

Bio: Lindsay Eagar is the author of HOUR OF THE BEES, RACE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA, and THE BIGFOOT FILES. She lives in the mountains of Utah with her husband and daughters.

About THE BIGFOOT FILES:

The Loch Ness Monster. The Frogman. Bigfoot. Twelve-year-old Miranda Cho used to believe in it all, used to love poring over every strange footprint, every stray hair, everything that proved that the world was full of wonders. But that was before her mother’s obsession with monsters cost Miranda her friends and her perfect school record, before Miranda found the stack of unopened bills and notices of foreclosure in the silverware drawer. Now the fact that her mom’s a cryptozoologist doesn’t seem wonderful — it’s embarrassing and irresponsible, and it could cost them everything. So Miranda agrees to go on one last creature hunt, determined to use all her scientific know-how to prove to her mother, once and for all, that Bigfoot isn’t real. Then her mom will have no choice but to grow up and get a real job — one that will pay the mortgage and allow Miranda to attend the leadership camp of her dreams. But when the trip goes horribly awry, will it be Miranda who’s forced to question everything she believes? 

Racing Around the World: Two Lady Journalists, 75 Days

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For over a year I’ve been sitting on this news, and now I can come right out and tell you: I have a picture book coming out Fall 2019, my second with Albert Whitman. It’s called RACING AROUND THE WORLD: TWO LADY JOURNALISTS, 75 DAYS and is about Nellie Bly’s famous circumnavigational trip. 

I grew up with a book about the one-of-a-kind, trailblazing journalist, Nellie Bly. In January 2017, I thought I’d try my hand at writing my own book about her. There are a number of children’s books about Nellie — she’s just that compelling. But only a couple focused exclusively on her race, and none mentioned her competitor, Elizabeth Bisland. It was only in reading a fascinating book called Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland’s History-Making Race Around the World by Matthew Goodman that I found out about Elizabeth and knew this was the story I wanted to tell. (Even Nellie spent most of her trip unaware of Elizabeth!) 

When I told my editor, Wendy, about the idea for the book, she told me she’d also grown up with a Nellie book, she’d also recently read Goodman’s book, and a great-great uncle of hers had taken a similar (though less famous) trip. She summed up her interest in one capitalized word: INTRIGUED.

Here’s the official deal from Publisher’s Weekly:

Wendy McClure at Albert Whitman & Company has acquired world rights to Caroline Starr Rose’s picture book RACING AROUND THE WORLD: TWO LADY JOURNALISTS, 75 DAYS, the true story of Nellie Bly, who in 1889 set out across the Atlantic on a journey around the world that she hoped to complete in less than 80 days, and her rival, Elizabeth Bisland, who embarked on a competing westward trip the very same day.  Alexandra Bye will illustrate; publication is planned for fall 2019. Tracey Adams at Adams Literary represented the author and Emily Coggins at Astound represented the illustrator.

This book has been an adventure and a joy to write. I’ve always adored Nellie, but it’s Elizabeth I relate to in her hunger for travel and the beauty she found in the world. These women were remarkable. I can’t wait to share their story with you!

20 Years, 350 Rejections, 17.5 Manuscripts, 7 Books: My Writing Journey in Numbers

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See this? It’s a rejection from my editor Stacey, written in 2008! She didn’t buy a book from me until 2013.

I first started writing the summer of 1998. Back then, I was a teacher on break with three months stretching before me. After years of dreaming, I decided it was finally time to dig in and try to write a book.

For eleven years I wrote, submitting my four novels and six picture books almost exclusively to editors.* This was back in the snail mail querying age. Remember the anticipation you experienced as a child waiting for birthday presents to arrive in the mail? That was me for about a decade.

In spring 2009, I won a contest at a local writing conference. At the last minute, I’d decided to send in my middle-grade historical novel-in-verse. It was my best work, but I wasn’t sure how it would be received alongside pieces meant for the adult market.**  My prize included a one-on-one with an editor who specialized in fantasy, sci-fi, and women’s fiction, a world apart from my writing. She took one look at my manuscript and asked, “Why don’t you have an agent yet?”

Part of my very high-tech submission records and some artwork from my son.

That’s when I started subbing to agents in earnest, sending three to five queries at a time. By May, I’d gotten my first full request. In June I got two more. In July another two. In September, yet another two.

By October, I’d had ten agents request fulls and two ask for partials. One agent liked my story, but felt some significant changes were necessary. I thought through her suggestions but took things in another direction, coming up with an entirely new, stronger ending. In the days I spent revising, two more agents requested fulls, bringing my total to twelve. I contacted the first agent, telling her I’d made changes to the story, though not along the lines she’d suggested. If she was still interested, I told her, I’d be happy to send it, but I also wanted her to know two more agents were reading the newer version. She graciously told me she’d love to see the story if the other two agents passed. One did. One didn’t.

Writing stats from 1998 to 2010, when I signed with my first agent:

10 manuscripts (4 novels, 6 picture books)
211 rejections from editors (2 fulls and 1 partial requested)
12 contests/grants (1 win)
75 rejections from agents (12 fulls and 2 partials requested)

With my first agent I sold two books, May B. (novel #4, which subbed to eleven editors and had 3 offers. It  was orphaned when Random House closed Tricycle Press.  The book was days from its ARC printing. Six weeks later, it was picked up by another Random House imprint, Schwartz and Wade, and went through three more rounds of edits), and Over in the Wetlands (picture book #5, which sold to Schwartz and Wade with zero rejections). After reworking several manuscripts, I officially retired most of them and drafted my verse novel, Blue Birds.

In 2013, I was on the hunt again for an agent. I submitted to three agencies and got two offers. I’ve been with Tracey Adams of Adams Literary ever since.

Writing stats for the last five years:

7.5 manuscripts (1.5 novels, 6 picture books — 3 of these manuscripts have been officially retired)
5 sales (3 novels, 2 picture books…the second picture book I hope to be able announce soon-ish!)
2 anthology pieces, including an overhauled chapter from novel #2…the one Stacey rejected in 2008!
3 grants / 2 contests (with no wins)
55 rejections

Some thoughts

You could look at these numbers and get pretty discouraged. 14 years to see a book on the shelf? Regular rejection with 7 books sold? I can look at these numbers — even knowing things worked out in the end — and feel the same. I know plenty of people with a shorter apprenticeship. I’ve got lots of friends far more prolific. All sorts of authors I debuted with in 2012 have published far more than I have. Here’s the thing: Your process is yours. Your journey is yours. Each book finds its way on its own.

Two truths kept me going before I sold my first book (and aren’t bad to remember now):

  • I have something unique to say (even when I’m not sure what that is).
  • My work can only improve if I keep at it.

Rejection continues to be a part of the process. That’s just how it goes.

The writing life (and the publication process) is a long-road, long-view, long-term journey. There’s no other way to look at it.

So, my friends, if you are on this journey, too, take heart. There is no right way. There’s no quick fix. There is no easy road. There is a fair dose of frustration and disappointment. But there is joy and satisfaction, too.

Here’s to all the good work ahead. Here’s to the next twenty years.

 

*Because an agent isn’t a necessity in the children’s market (but is a REALLY GOOD IDEA), I figured submitting to an agent was an extra, unnecessary step. Perhaps not my smartest move, but it also was not detrimental, as my writing wasn’t yet ready for a sale or representation. These were my apprenticeship years.

**I also wasn’t sure if anyone would understand what I was trying to do with this verse thing. A few months before I had submitted the first ten pages to an editor at a children’s conference. She clearly was unfamiliar with the form and thought it was a rather mature picture book that was missing its ending!

Classroom Connections: How to Code a Sandcastle by Josh Funk

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age range: 4-8
genre: informational fiction; coding
author’s website

With an introduction by Girls Who Code founder Reshma Saujani, a diverse cast of characters, and delightful visual background humor, this painless introduction to coding basics will engage, entertain, and educate audiences. –Booklist

An accessible introduction to coding rules that also easily entertains. –Kirkus Reviews

An excellent, age-appropriate introduction to the world of coding. Highly recommended. — School Library Journal

Please tell us about How to Code a Sandcastle.

First, thanks for inviting me! How to Code a Sandcastle is an informational fiction picture book about a girl named Pearl and her robot Pascal as they code a sandcastle.

“Wait? They code a sandcastle? How does that even work?” you might ask.

Well, coding is just a bunch of logical steps put together to complete a larger task – in this case, building a sandcastle. So Pearl and Pascal use common coding techniques – such as sequences loops, and if-then-elses (commonly called conditionals) to do it.

First, Pearl asks Pascal to find a place to build (and realizes she needs to be very specific with her instructions). Then, she asks him to scoop lots of sand into a big pile using a shovel and pail. But rather than tell Pascal to scoop-fill-dump and scoop-fill-dump and scoop-fill-dump over and over and over again, she uses a loop – and only has to give Pascal instructions once. And so on….

But underneath it all, How to Code a Sandcastle is really just a silly and fun picture book about a girl and her robot who try to solve a problem (building a sandcastle), and coding just happens to be the mechanism they use to solve it.

What inspired you to write this story?

I am a software engineer – I’ve been writing code for over two decades. I only started writing picture books about 7 years ago. It wasn’t until about 3 years ago that I considered (at my agent’s suggestion) writing a picture book about coding. But it took a really long time and many (three and a half) completely different manuscripts to get this to the right place.

There are some great books for older readers where coding plays an integral role, but I see kids starting to code at younger and younger ages all the time, as early as preschool. So it was clear that they could handle a picture book about coding. And I really wanted to create a narrative fiction picture book about coding that would also serve as an entertaining story even if you had no interest in learning about the topic.

And that’s what I set out to do. Hopefully readers will think I succeeded.

Could you share with readers how you conducted your research or share a few interesting tidbits you learned while researching?

At first, I didn’t do much research. I’m a coder, I’ve been coding for years. In fact, I probably knew too much about coding for my own good when trying to write an introductory book for ages 4-12 on the topic.

My research was less about coding and more about how to teach coding to children. And what did my research show? When I was drafting, revising, and submitting my manuscript in 2015 and 2016, the U.S. government was in the process of figuring out which organizations they would fund to research how best to teach coding to kids. (It took re-reading that last sentence several times to make sure I wrote it right, so I don’t blame you if you’re confused.)

In short, there is no consensus regarding how to teach coding to kids. There are no standards. There is no agreed upon curriculum. Everyone is doing it their own way.

But when I looked into it further, pretty much everyone that is teaching coding, starts teaching it the same way:

  1. First sequences.
  2. Then loops and conditionals.
  3. Then variables and functions (or functions and variables).

And that’s what I touch upon in How to Code a Sandcastle – sequences, loops, and conditionals. (Side note: 2019’s How to Code a Rollercoaster covers variables.)

What were some special challenges associated with introducing the complex topic of coding?

Writing a book about coding concepts, something relatively complicated for a picture book audience, was pretty hard to figure out. It wasn’t narrative nonfiction, such as a biography of a historical figure or event, or a deep dive into a scientific topic. And while coding is math-related, it’s a bit more complicated than addition, multiplication, or even fractions – which have been successfully tackled in the picture book arena. Also, it was important that the coding play an integral role in the story and wasn’t just a bunch of buzzwords or a plot mechanism leaving the informational aspect to the backmatter only.

I’m not normally one for mentor texts, but in this case, I definitely learned from Cindy Neuschwander’s Sir Cumference and the First Round Table. If you’re not familiar, it’s a book (series, really) all about geometry, a relatively advanced concept for a picture book – but it’s placed in a kid-friendly and familiar environment (King Arthur’s England).

So when I landed on the kid-friendly, familiar idea of building a sandcastle on the beach, that’s when things really started to click.

What topics does your book touch upon that would make it a perfect fit for the classroom?

My hope is that How to Code a Sandcastle can be used on many levels.

It could be used simply as an introduction to coding concepts such as sequences, loops, and if-then-elses – or even just the idea that coding is “a thing” for those in the younger crowd.

It could be an introduction to offline coding exercises such as writing sequences (and possibly acting them out). A favorite of mine back in elementary school was when everyone had to write down instructions of how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and our fifth grade teacher followed them to the letter – scooping peanut butter with his hands (when the instructions didn’t say to use a utensil) and spreading it on the bag of bread (when the instructions didn’t say to take a slice out first).

Of course, I think it could be used as a primer before diving into an actual coding exercise on some type of screen.

And most importantly, I’d hope How to Code a Sandcastle generates enthusiasm for coding at a young age – because coding is FUN! There’s really nothing like seeing a bunch of symbols on the screen compile, build, and create something awesome!

Thanks so much for inviting me to Classroom Connections!

My pleasure!

 

MIRACULOUS!

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I’ve sold a new novel!

From Publisher’s Weekly:

Stacey Barney at G.P. Putnam’s Sons has acquired world rights to Caroline Starr Rose’s MIRACULOUS, a historical middle grade novel starring Jack and Cora, who learn that it takes more than faith in a charlatan doctor and the magic of his medicine show tonic to fix things that are broken. Tracey Adams at Adams Literary negotiated the deal. Publication is planned for Spring 2020.

This idea has been brewing for years. It started with a visit to a museum in St. Louis, when I sat in on a lecture on medical quacks. Fascinating! MIRACULOUS is about wounds and secrets and belief and power and persuasion and community.

Excited about this one! Wish me luck as I tackle the good work ahead.

 

I took this picture last summer at the Laura Ingalls Wilder Kansas homestead site and rediscovered it this morning. Perfect, isn’t it?

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