Growing From Aspiring Writer to Published Author with Rebecca Ansari
Debut middle grade author Rebecca Ansari chats with Mary about the journey from aspiring writer to published author, MG craft insights, and what new things she has in the works!
This webinar exclusively for Story Mastermind students originally took place in 2020 as part of our Kidlit in Conversation series. For serious writers ready to take their work to the next level, Story Mastermind is a proven program that helps you refine your craft and position your writing in the market. In just six months, you can finish your draft, get professional edits, and develop a plan to launch your book—all in an intensive small-group workshop environment. There’s nothing else like it in the writing world.
Transcript for Growing from aspiring writer to published author: interview with rebecca ansari
Mary: And without further ado, let's introduce our fabulous guest who was here before me actually. I'm very lucky to know and admire Rebecca Ansari. She is a debut middle-grade author with "The Missing Piece of Charlie O'Reilly," her fabulous middle-grade fantasy book. She is raising the roof right now. Rebecca is a fascinating character because she actually left a career as an emergency room doctor to write full-time, which is phenomenal. She has one book out and another one under contract. And depending on how things are going with that, she may or may not share. And I just wanted to have her on for this kind of Kidlit in Conversation interview because I wanted to reward you for looking at my mug for so long by featuring somebody else's face. It must be a welcome relief. I have questions, Rebecca. I hope that she can share insights with you about the writing craft, about middle grade, about being a debut writer in this day and age, and how everything has been since March since Charlie O'Reilly hit shelves officially. So, welcome, Becca.
Rebecca: Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm so glad to see all you guys here. This is exciting.
Mary: And now that we figured it all out half an hour later, let's dive in. I have a couple softball questions so that Becca can introduce...
Rebecca: Let's do it.
Mary: ...herself and her book to you guys. So, tell me about your book and I'm especially curious about, kind of, from inception on. Tell us about the idea, the premise of the book, and how you came up with it, please.
Rebecca: Okay. So, the story is based around Charlie O'Reilly who is a 12-year-old boy whose little brother has been missing for a year. And the weird thing is that nobody notices he's gone other than Charlie. His parents tell him he's an only child, they send him to therapy to try to figure out what's up with his imaginary friend, and the story moves on from there. His best friend, Ana, she doesn't remember Liam, the little brother either, but she at least believes Charlie, and so it is their goal to figure out what happened to Liam, but then not only try to get him home but they have to get him home remembered. So, that's the premise and the setup.
It started with a very real news story. There was a report I believe it was out of Iowa many years back of two best friends, two girls who actually went missing. And I was really interested in how would two families deal with such a tragedy, and the families were best friends, and they lived right next to each other. And I thought, "Wow, there is such a fertile field here in what this shared grief could be." And then I also said, "Well, that's not in any way a children's story. That sounds like a tragic adult book that is heartbreaking." And instead, I thought, "Oh, it's a children's book if only the children notice."
So, for the first year of this book, there were actually two missing children. There was Charlie's little brother and his best friend Ana's little sister. They were both gone. But the more I figured out what was actually the answer to the mystery that I've set before myself, the more I realized that that didn't hang. It didn't work anymore. The explanation made no sense for two. So, I had to go back and rewrite with Ana's sister getting a reprieve. She is just her sister now as opposed to a missing child and Charlie's brother is the only one that's missing. So, that is, kind of, the real-world inception and also the lesson learned in that where you start is not necessarily where you end.
Mary: See, I don't even have to drag the talking points out of you. You're providing value already. So, how many years did you, sort of, marinate? Did you noodle on this idea since seeing that story?
Rebecca: I was still working when that happened, and so that was probably a year and a half to two that I knew that was my starting spot, but I didn't know...first, I needed to figure out, well, so why would this happen. What was the...? And of course, I'm not going to tell you the answer to that because that's at the end of the book, but once I knew the why, then I also needed to figure out the how and who else is involved in this and why they would play the roles that they played. So, that was noodling for a good year and a half to two so that when I sat down... I thought I knew what I was going to write about but of course, like I said, it changed once I started writing.
Mary: So, I hope not to spoil too much. I've read the book, it's absolutely fabulous. Very twisty, very unexpected.
Rebecca: Thank you. Very twisty.
Mary: I love your plotting. That is something definitely to admire.
Rebecca: Thank you.
Mary: It goes in, kind of, a fantasy direction, right? So, I don't know how much you want to say about that, and this was not on my prepared question sheet. So, you started with a very real-life starting point, then you went into a fantasy direction. How was it to, sort of... So, you're talking about the logic for what's going on, kind of, the underpinnings for why it happens. What brought fantasy to the table for you?
Rebecca: I knew that that was always going to be the direction. I personally believe that one of the reasons why the Harry Potter series grabs children by the heart so deeply is it starts very much in a "that could be me" story. You know, it's just a regular 11-year-old kid who lives with his nasty aunt and uncle, and they put him under the stairs, and it stinks. So, then something magical happens, right? So, that is always the model that I knew this was going to go in. I want to write...and I do write books that...my next story is the same way. It starts off with every kid reading it, saying, "This could be my life," and then something goes sideways. You know, I'm a huge "Stranger Things" fan, all of these stories where it starts relatable and then takes off from there. So, I knew that that was the direction it was going to go from square one. And it was funny. I had a review by somebody saying that they really liked the realistic part, but they didn't like it when it went into fantasy. And I'm like, "Well, which part of this story did you think wasn't going to be fantasy? This kid just vanished off the face of the earth, but that's cool. Thanks for liking the reality part. I appreciate it."
Mary: Hey, you know, the first 10 pages really grab the... So, you actually set me up perfectly for my next question, which is let's zoom out for just a second. Can you speak to why you're passionate about middle grade? This is a boy protagonist, for example. Why boy? Why middle grade? Why fantasy? What, kind of, brought you to this category? It is a huge category. There's a lot of excitement about, especially boy-focused middle grade, especially, kind of, fantasy, adventure middle grade. How did you arrive at your category and chosen audience?
Rebecca: So, I think that middle grade or the middle school years... And I write to the upper end of middle grade. Middle grade officially, by publishing definition, is 8 years old to 12 years old, which I am constantly befuddled by because someone who's 8 years old is in 3rd grade. Someone who is 12 years old is in 7th grade. How any book is supposed to bridge that, I'm not entirely sure.
Mary: Elementary school, middle school.
Rebecca: So, I write...
Mary: Yeah, two different worlds.
Rebecca: Middle school. I mean, think of yourself in those phases and it's like two different creatures. So, I write to the top end of that, which I think is an age that in my, again, reflection of my own life, that's some of the hardest years of your life. You are really starting to figure out what is your place in your family, what is your place in your friendship group, who do you want to be. You're with this group of friends, and maybe you don't actually...you realize that you're not that person, but you want to be someone else. You don't know how to be someone else, and you're trying to figure that all out. So, I think of that as a place where kids are so interested in finding out what are my options and what is available in this world to me.
And I have four kids of my own, and to answer your boy question, all four of my children are boys. So, I have just a test field going on in my house at all times between them and their friends. So, that is a very comfortable spot for me because it's what I'm surrounded by all the time. But I watched my son... My oldest is now 16, my youngest is 10. I have watched them go through middle school, and I think that adults tend to infantilize this age group somewhat. They're so young, and they're so innocent, and they're so sweet, and they don't have real problems, and there's so much that they juggle. There is so much heart and emotion in this age that I love writing to them because they're trying to figure so much out.
Mary: I love your passion for it, and I think that anybody who, kind of, glosses over the middle school years is in some serious denial about what they've experienced. They were easily the worst years of my life.
Rebecca: Or just, like, they've blocked it out.
Mary: Yeah, worst years of my life.
Rebecca: Oh, worst.
Mary: Most complex. Just so many different forces pushing and pulling. Anyway, I love your passion and how you're able to articulate why this is such a fertile category. It's such a fertile age group, and that speaks to this idea of, you know, in children's books, maybe more so than adult literary fiction, for example, we really have to think about our audience. We have to think about the phase in life, where our reader is, what they're going through, and, kind of, trying to reach out to them and to speak to them, especially in this, kind of, very vulnerable moment in their lives where, again, so many things going on that they're going to want to forget later.
Rebecca: Correct.
Mary: Yes, I love your passion for it. I think it fits perfectly with the middle-grade category that you've chosen to write. So, good life choices. Validation for you there.
Rebecca: Thank you, thank you.
Mary: Let's pivot a little bit to the back end of things. Your route to publication. So, you started writing. You're passionate about the category. You had this idea, and then at some point, it went from, "Okay, I have a manuscript, or I have an idea. I need to do something with it. I am working crazy hours, but I want this to be my goal." Can you talk a little bit more about, kind of, pivoting to thinking about getting an agent, thinking about getting a publisher? Speak to your experience there.
Rebecca: Yeah, I have a friend who writes non-fiction, and his path was, "Come up with an idea, pitch it. They said, 'Yeah, that sounds good. We'll give you money, now go write it.' " And I thought, "Wow, that's so not how fiction works, certainly not children's fiction." You know, the path is you sit alone in a room for hours on top of hour, making something that you then hone and polish and you try to make it this gem that then you can start actually trying to make a career. So, it's kind of bizarre the amount of work, and effort, and honing that goes into something that I would joke to friends and say, "You know, this very well may never leave my computer. I've spent three years on it, and it may just be a cute little story that lives in my house."
So, you have to have this leap of faith, and you have to let people read it, and you have to listen. That's the hardest part is finding trusted readers when you are just that random person who's writing a book. And so I took classes at the Loft Literary Center. I went to multiple SCBWI conferences, getting both craft ideas from them as well as letting them read, like, first pages. Of course, you have to pay for all that stuff, which is hard. It's not like it's just free that you can get input on your book. I wish it wasn't like that. But I went through all those steps of hearing people's thoughts.
And, you know, my first chapter I took to SCBWI LA. I paid the $100 to have an agent read it and give me feedback. And we sat down, and I'm nervous, and I just sat there and picked it apart and thought it was just beautiful. And she said, "It's not the right place to start the story. So, I'm interested in your story by what you've put in your summary, but this isn't the right place for it." And I'm like, "Is it at least good writing? Is it at least like compelling in any way?" She's like, "Yeah, but you just need to start over." And, you know, I had to leave. I had to go walk the streets of LA and, like, lick my wounds because it hurt so much to hear that.
And yet now looking back and knowing what my first chapter is now, she was totally right. There was no question that what I had put as my beginning was not that interesting. It wasn't the right beginning. It was the first thing I had written, and I didn't even know my story yet when I put that first chapter in. I really believe that first chapters should be written last. Absolutely last. Put something in there that holds a spot, but the chance that what you start with when you don't even know where it's going is going to actually have all of the veins and the nuggets that you need to plant. There's no way.
Mary: And unfortunately that's what the agent will see. That's what the critic will see when you buy critique at a conference. That's what the publisher will see, because you're submitting the beginning of your novel. There's so much pressure on those pages, and I'm obsessed with this Terry Pratchett quote that says the first draft is you telling yourself the story. And I firmly believe that you should only write your actual first chapter after you've told yourself the whole story.
Rebecca: 100%. 100%, because then I went back and started from scratch. I wrote a completely new, unrelated first chapter a couple times and now I love it and it makes sense. And it is imbued with everything that is yet to come but you just don't know that yet.
Mary: You learned all that.
Rebecca: But I didn't know that yet.
Mary: You learned it, and then you could bring it to... So, you started with a blank page.
Rebecca: Correct.
Mary: You put it aside, opened a blank document.
Rebecca: Yes, start over.
Mary: I wish more people had the courage to face that blank page again because I find that too often writers, when they revise, they're like, "Well, those words are already there. I'm just going to tinker."
Rebecca: I always want to edit instead of create. It's so much easier. But as the phrase goes, there's only so much you can polish a turd. Sorry for the language if anyone's offended, but that's the truth.
Mary: No, no, no. People have heard webinars from me before.
Rebecca: Like, if it's not good...
Mary: So, we're cool.
Rebecca: I mean, there's some stuff that...like, there was no way to polish that first chapter into what it needed to be. No, it wasn't going to happen. I had to start totally from scratch. And similar to your favorite quote, one of my favorites is the first draft is putting the sand in the sandbox. You can't make the castles until you have the sand. So, put the sand in. That is your first draft. I believe it's Shannon Hale, if I'm going to give credit.
Mary: Unrelated news, I have a new favorite quote.
Rebecca: There it is. You're welcome. Now I should actually find out and make sure I know who I'm attributing it to.
Mary: No, that's true. So, you did your due diligence. You had a draft. It sounds like you worked it. You did the conference circuit. You availed yourself of learning opportunities, critique opportunities. You got a critique group, I'm imagining. And then at some point, you reached this level of, "Okay, I think I have something that needs to be shown to a gatekeeper." So, you actually have an interesting scenario, I believe, where...well, two interesting scenarios. You did a lot of legwork on the actual book contract that you ended up getting, which is a little bit unusual because sometimes, you know, that can seem so nebulous to people. They don't have connections. So, talk to me about this next phase—the submission, agent, publisher phase.
Rebecca: So, I went to a Highlights Foundation. I don't know if the audience knows of it. Highlights, the company is what you think of when you hear that word. It's the pediatrician's office. Little, you know, free flyer. But they also have an arm that is a writer's support arm, and they have a retreat space where you go and it's a bunch of cabins.
Mary: Oh, it's beautiful.
Rebecca: And they make you food. It's amazing. And you sit and you write. And it's kind of crazy if you just go and don't do any of the workshops but just exist there, it's like $120 a night, which, you know, for lodging and food is, kind of, ridiculously cheap relative to a lot of travel plans. But I actually took a seminar there called The Whole Novel Workshop: Writing the Unreal, and it was led by Anne Ursu who is a Minneapolis middle-grade author who wrote "Breadcrumbs," "The Real Boy" well as couple of others. Just had "The Lost Girl" come out. The other author was Laura Ruby who wrote "Bone Gap" and she's also written the York series among others.
So, I paid to go there, and the beautiful thing with that is that they read your entire manuscript. You know, it's really hard to find readers for your whole book. You get people who read a chapter here or a chapter there. And in doing so, made some connections with those guys, which was awesome. And then there was a visiting agent who came, and I made connections with her. And then there was a visiting editor who came. Got to know him a little bit. And because we were at this conference, they said, you know, "You are free to submit to us." And that was really what opened the door wide in my personal case.
I did not end up signing with the agent that was there, but I did ask Anne who she would recommend as far as agents and then helped that be the list that I used. And then I did submit to Jordan Brown, the editor who was at the seminar, and I did that all at the same time and I signed an agent. And by the time Jordan doubled back with me, he was ready to make an offer and my now agent was able to do that deal and that's how I cracked in.
Mary: Yeah.
Rebecca: So, it's, kind of, a weird path, but I tell you I hate anything where people are like, "Well, it's just about who you know," because I don't like that model but it helps to get to know people. You know, they...
Mary: I would say there's a distinction there, right, because you didn't know any of these people when you arrived at Highlights, right?
Rebecca: Yep, that's right.
Mary: So, you made a good impression. Again, you availed yourself of an opportunity to go to a workshop to, sort of, think about yourself more seriously than maybe you were comfortable with at the time. But you said I want a career in this. I want to invest in my career even though I don't even know if I have a manuscript. So, you treated yourself seriously, and you made a good impression, and your manuscript obviously had merit when you went to this conference.
But you came in a nobody to Jordan Brown, right? So, it's not like you're somebody's daughter's cousin's college roommate. You got to know these people at the conference, and that opportunity is available to anyone. So, it's not even an issue of nepotism or anything like that. You made a good impression, and you brought solid work to the table. So, I also hate the, "Oh, it's all about who you know," because at the end of the day, the manuscript and the person behind it, those are going to be the determining factors for success.
Now you do have an unusual path. To market in that, you showed up in Pennsylvania, and there was Jordan Brown, and now you guys are working together, right? But these things do happen.
Rebecca: Right, that's super weird.
Mary: They do absolutely happen. So, a lot of the writers here, just so you know, a lot of the big houses like HarperCollins, like your Random House, they're close to unagented, unsolicited submissions. This is actually an exception. If you make a connection with somebody at a conference and they offer a submission that, kind of, goes around their gatekeeping strategies, you can actually submit directly to a bigger house without an agent, which it sounds like worked out really, really well for you.
It's unusual that you hit a bullseye like that.
Rebecca: It is.
Mary: But this is living proof that it does happen.
Rebecca: Yeah.
Mary: So, let me consult my... So, you have a book out. Now you're working on another draft. So, now you are back in the cesspool of insecurity and anxiety, otherwise known as creative writing. Can you talk me through your creative process a little bit and how you're approaching a new manuscript?
Rebecca: Okay. Well, I always like the mystery. I think that's kind of obvious with how Charlie O'Reilly started. So, I started looking for what's another setup, what would be another cool, kind of, "everything was fine until..." setup again. So, I just started looking at websites about unsolved mysteries and things that are weird and just, kind of, mining through stuff that I could take the nugget and then sneak away with it and turn it into something of my own. And the story that I found, in this case, the history of a train crash that happened back in 1928 in England where a lot of people ended up perishing in a huge fire that happened when two trains collided. And 16 people died, 14 families came forward and claimed their loved ones. Two to this day are not claimed, and they're both children.
Mary: Oh, wow.
Rebecca: And I just thought, "Well, hold up. Who put them on the train? Who isn't missing them?" They had on, like, fancy clothes and school uniforms. What school was it from? No one ever figured it out. To this day in England, there is a grave marker for all of these people. And at the bottom, it says "two unknown." And I just said, "Okay, I'm in. I don't know what's going to happen yet, but that's my story." So, that was the starting spot for this.
And this story is much more linear in how I wrote. You know, people say, "How do you write?" I'm like, "Well, it depends on which book you're asking about." Like, with Charlie, I knew pieces and parts. I would write the final scene one afternoon and then I'd come back and write a scene with Charlie and his mom the next day. And then I'd come back and say, "Well, I know these two have to have a fight at some point, so I'm going to write the fight." It had nothing to do with a normal chronologic pattern, which then was a problem when I tried to stick it all together. Like, the mood was all over the place, and I had to iron out all those waves.
But this book, I started and had been moving forward since the beginning. So, my process has... I don't know. I wouldn't even say it has changed. It is a constant I sit down and write what seems like the next reasonable thing and that was different for the two processes.
Mary: So, you don't plan, you're a panster.
Rebecca: I'm more of a panster. I did a little more planning on this one, but one of the best moments, in my opinion, and the same readers that I've talked to of Charlie O'Reilly, the thing that everyone goes, "What?" is something that I didn't even know was going to happen for the first two of the three years I was writing it. I surprised myself with that revelation. I literally, at one moment, went, "Oh, that's what needs to happen." And so when people say, "I didn't see it coming." I'm like, "I know, neither did I." So, that moment of realization is like this thing. I'm starting now to be, kind of, like a junkie with being like, "Oh, when do I get the next moment of [vocalization]?" because those I think are very genuine to the reader as well. But, you know, a lot of times it doesn't come and then you're like, "Hmm, I'm plodding along here, and I'm boring myself because no one likes it."
Mary: Well, if it's boring for you to write, it's going to be boring for readers to read. And people don't like to hear that, but there's truth to it.
Rebecca: It's true because when I planned this one... Sorry, I'm undoing my shoes. This one was more planned, and I think, as I read back through it, I can feel that a little bit more. I was telling my husband, I'm like, "Eh, this one's not as good." And then my editor was like, "Oh, I love it." My husband's like, "Why are you so hard on yourself?"
Mary: Because I'm a writer.
Rebecca: He says he loves it. Exactly, because we torture ourselves.
Mary: See, look, for any of you who are sitting there and feeling bad and alone and somehow strange for the way you feel, this is a published author...
Rebecca: It's reality.
Mary: ...with a two-book contract, and she still is, kind of, a weirdo and, kind of...
Rebecca: Kind of?
Mary: Kind of insecure about it. Well, I think it's interesting. I do think that outlining and pantsing both have a lot of things to recommend them. I am a huge advocate for outlining because I take manuscripts that are, kind of, a mess, and I have to make sense of the mess. And so that's where, kind of, structure is helpful. But I really love what you're saying about surprising yourself. I really think that there needs to be room left open in the creative process to just have these bolts of inspiration, because I know I definitely had a whoa moment reading your book, and I'm wondering if it's what you're talking about.
Rebecca: Oh, it's the same one, I'm sure. Yeah, I'm guessing it is.
Mary: So, that's awesome. So, you're taking a bit more of a linear approach and you're, kind of, maybe chafing against it a little bit because it's a little less spontaneous.
Rebecca: And, you know, the first book is this beautiful process in that no one's watching. No one cares. And that's both lonely and fantastic because I was just throwing stuff in the manuscript being like, "Let's see if this works," you know? Whereas with the second book, I feel like I have a deadline. I have expectations. I have things that people want of me. And so I felt like I needed to have a little bit more of a plan, a little bit more professional. Again, my editor likes the book, so that's awesome news, but one of those things that was unexpected in actually now having a career in this is your own freedom changes a little bit when there are people looking and watching.
Mary: Which brings me perfectly. It's as if I had sent you the structure of this conversation ahead of time, but to this idea of, okay, so you reached the goal that a lot of aspiring writers, a lot of the people here have. What has surprised you about it? What have you learned that maybe was unexpected about the dream coming true?
Rebecca: Yeah, I think there's this sense of finish line. And even though people told me that there is none, I'm like, "Well, yeah, there is. I'm getting an agent," and then I was like, "Yay, I have an agent. Okay, well, now I need a publisher." "Oh, yay, I've got a publisher." "Well, now I have to revise it. And, yeah, okay, I revised it. It's coming," and then it came and then it's out in the world, which is amazing, don't get me wrong, but then you're like, "Okay, well, I guess I need to start writing something new." And you don't really know how your book's doing for a while. My book came out in March. I won't get any numbers on how it's actually doing till October of 2019. It could be selling gangbusters. It could be failing. I have no idea. So, again, that sense of like, "I did it," definitely. There are wonderful moments that you pop the champagne along the way, but then you get back to work. So, that was the part that was... I was told that, but still the internalization of, "Yeah, it's a process. It is still a process even when you've made it. You still just get back to work."
Mary: It's the numbers vacuum. So, a lot of people don't realize royalties are paid twice a year, and you have to go full royalty period. And then you see, tada, what have I done? Or, you know, my marketing worked or whatever. So, is that numbers vacuum motivating for you or demoralizing?
Rebecca: I think you mentioned that I'm an ER doctor by training.
Mary: Oh, yeah.
Rebecca: Yes, I am a person who wants to see the problem, figure out what it is, and solve it in eight hours on a shift. So, for me to wait till October is definitely...I wouldn't say demoralizing, but it is absolutely frustrating. But at the same time, it is what it is.
Mary: Look at that full smile.
Rebecca: You adapt, you figure out.
Mary: It is what it is. There are a lot of elements of the actual publishing industry and the publishing business and the book marketing activity set that are a bit of a [vocalization] for people just coming into it no matter how prepared you are. I'm wondering if you can...
Rebecca: It's just a black box.
Mary: It is. So, I'm wondering if you can speak to...because book marketing, you are trying to reach children in your case, and that's not a very direct path sometimes because there are gatekeepers. The people with the wallets are not the people with the eyeballs. That's a weird sentence, but I hope it makes sense.
Rebecca: I know what you mean.
Mary: And so can you speak to your experience of, sort of, launching and the things that you've done to support the book—good, bad, maybe you do them again, maybe you wouldn't, kind of, takeaways from that?
Rebecca: Yeah. Well, I came into... Once I had the deal and it was coming and launch is set for March 5th, I incorrectly assumed that my publisher was going to have set things up for me. That is not the case. At least with HarperCollins, the plan is they market the book to bookstores, booksellers...
Mary: Which are their customers.
Rebecca: ...movers and shakers. Their customers.
Mary: This is important to know.
Rebecca: And also, kind of, the move... Yes, the movers and the shakers of middle grade readers. They, kind of, make sure that my advance reading copy, the thing that comes out before the published version, got into the hands of those people who talk it up. But when it came to marketing me, book signings, school visits, launch party, anything that my face was going to be the main thing, that's on me, 100% on me. I've set all of those things up independently with the only thing being through Barnes & Noble, they prefer to, kind of, at least talk to your publisher. Everything else is just me walking in, saying, "Hi. Hi, this face wants to be over here and signing books."
Mary: To be in your face.
Rebecca: Yes, yes. So, that was very unexpected that, you know, if I want to go on a tour, well, I'm paying for that. And I just did my first school visit last week, set that up because of a connection through my husband. He met a guy who's a principal at a really big middle school and talked about me. And he said, "Oh, let's have her over." So, I did it and it was great. And I talked to almost 400 8th graders. That is a huge school, that I talked to them in groups of, like, 80 at a time, spent all day talking to them, doing the same talk over and over again. And that was just something I set up myself.
So, it was a little disheartening to feel like, "Wow, are you really not supporting me more?" but apparently that's, kind of, standard, and it was just a lesson that I had to learn as a debut author that that's what I thought wasn't the norm, it was different than reality.
Mary: So, when I was planning these interview webinars, you were the first person I approached because you just had a debut, and I was joking about the name. I settled on Kidlit in Conversation, which is, you know, very mature and sends the right message. But I really wanted to call it Too Kidlit to Quit, which was my preference. And thank you for laughing. That's not your first to hear that joke, but the reason being is I really want to nail home this idea that you have to hustle, whether it's the writing process, the revision process, the getting out there to workshops, and conferences, and meeting people process, and now the debuting process. Nobody is going to hand you a book tour, right, unless your name happens to be James Patterson, which I don't...just looking at you, I don't think it is.
But you are a well-supported author. You have a two-book contract. You are with a major publisher. You have, sort of, all of the ducks in a row, and yet notice what Becca is saying about the, sort of, lion's share of the marketing. And any of her personal, kind of, brand building has really fallen on her shoulders to execute even though... Harper hasn't thrown her on the slag heap, this is just business as usual. Like, they're being as supportive as a big publisher is for most projects.
Rebecca: And certainly for debut. I mean, I get it. No one knows who I am, so to try to splash my face everywhere, no one really cares yet, to be honest. So, my job is to hopefully make them care more later. But, yeah, it's work, and I highly recommend being on Twitter and following other authors, follow agents, follow editors if they're out there, because that's even how I found out about that workshop that I went to is it was something that Ann put on her Twitter feed, Anne Ursu, and I thought, "Well, that sounds awesome so let me check that out." And there's support for fellow authors out there as far as, like, other debuts. But it takes time and it takes effort and it's an important part of community as well.
Mary: You know what? So, I'm looking at the chat box, and Corine or “Corine”—I am always terrible with names when I'm only reading them and not hearing them. So, when we were talking about first chapters, she was saying, "But it's so hard to let go. You know, it's so hard to, kind of, go through the ups and downs of the creative life and now, sort of, this marketing into a vortex, a limbo life." I've always admired you for your attitude. You know, you're a little bit badass. You pull no punches, which is why I think we get along personally, but can you speak to, sort of, how a writer might, sort of, arm themselves for battle, if you will, kind of, going into this process? What has kept you sane, and motivated, and encouraged?
Rebecca: I can't emphasize enough the idea that none of what is cut or edited or changed is failure. It's so easy to think of that as, "I threw it away. It's gone. It's a waste of time. None of it is wasted." Every bit of that process is the writer's process. Like, to say that that was wasted is not true. It is part of you figuring out your story and making it better. And if you wrote something amazing, you have it in you to write more amazing stuff.
Mary: Oh, brilliant.
Rebecca: So, maybe this isn't right for this, but you're going to make more. And the whole idea of kill your darlings, at first...I mean, I'd have a paragraph or a thought or a sentence and I'm like, "But it's too good. I love it so much," and I didn't have faith that I could replace it with something that I also loved so much. And it was only through the process of doing it that I thought, "You know what? I have to give myself a little grace here, a little bit of faith that if I can write something that I don't want to kill, I can do it again." And that's all part of the process.
And I actually have a personal gripe with this process being called writing because the actual writing is only a fraction of the process. I like to refer to that I'm gestating a book right now, right? I go for a walk with my dogs. That's writing. I stand in the shower and just let the hot water dribble off my face. That's writing. I actually have a waterproof pad of paper and pencil that live in my shower, because that's where I have ideas. I very rarely have new ideas with my fingers on the keys. So, give yourself space to let your brain wander, give yourself space to cut things that you love. Put them in a file. You might come back for them later, or they may be perfect for another project. But you have it in you to make that new chapter, and it's going to be good too.
Mary: Oh, I feel so bad for every writer who's not listening to you right now because you are just spouting wisdom like so much shower water.
Rebecca: Thank you so much. So much shower water.
Mary: I have to come to your house and see this infamous pad.
Rebecca: Oh, it's for real.
Mary: Like a scuba notebook.
Rebecca: It's awesome. Of course, you know, the other family members... What's it called? You can find it on Amazon. It's totally waterproof. It's awesome. I love it.
Mary: Well, I think it's that back brain creative work that you're talking about, because you can't pour from an empty cup and so many times the cup that shows up at the keyboard is a little bit stressed and frazzled and empty. And so you need to do all this other stuff to refill your cup, so that when you show up to type, you have the ideas.
So many writers get caught up, you know, in hippie-dippie circles, we call it the myth of scarcity, right? So, they think, "Oh, I only have this one manuscript in me, and I only have one shot at the shelves and there's only one spot for me. But all these other people getting book deals and advancing, and I see all of this happening, you know, it's taking up my space." It's not. If you had one idea, ideally, you will have more ideas. If you typed 50,000 words, ideally, you will type 50,000 more. And if your friend gets published, ideally you can show up on shelves near them and celebrate them in the meantime.
So, at least in, sort of, my work with writers for the last 10 years, it's the writers that cling the hardest, that tend to have the hardest time, sort of, going through this process because it's a process of growth. It's a process of letting go. It's a process of replacing, and regenerating, and revising. And I think you just...I don't know, you've given me a lot of courage and, kind of, an attitude adjustment myself by recognizing some of these things. Anyway, I'm going to stop fawning all over you.
Rebecca: One other thing I want to say to that idea of, like, give yourself space. Every one of you, whether you know it or not, if you have an iPhone, and I don't know about Androids, but I'm guessing it's there too, there's a voice recorder as one of your basic apps. It's an Apple app in my case. My phone's always with me. If I'm walking the dogs and I come up with something, you'll never remember it. For years, I was like, "Oh, that was such a good one. I'm going to remember it." You won't. You'll come back and you'll be like, "Ah, what was it?" So, use that app. Just boom. Hit the button. Yeah, so-and-so needs to have a fight with so-and-so, and they need to say this, and that's when they're going to realize that. End.
But then when I go and put my fingers on the keypad and I am empty, as you were saying, as far as your cup, I've got recordings to fill it up to be like, "Oh, that's right. Let's play with that idea today." Don't let those snippets get away from you. We all have the technology to grab.
Mary: No, that's really, really smart. So, we're getting to the end of our time together. Is there anything that, kind of, looking back at the process of debuting, the process of, sort of, writing or marketing yourself or your book, anything that you really want listeners to know or anything that you would do differently now that you're, kind of, at the phase where you are?
Rebecca: What I would do differently? I think the hardest part is just to get your head out of the nonsense. It's so easy to fall into the politics of the whole scene, the opinions, the... I don't know if any of you guys are YA. You know, YA Twitter can be a nasty place, and it can also be a great place but just try to turn it off. You don't have to ignore it. You can have part of that in your space, but just write the story that's in you and focus on that.
Like, as I write more, I worry like, "Oh, well what is this going to mean in the bigger picture of the political blah, blah, blah, blah, blah?" Stop. Just write your story. And maybe it's something that you'll have to tweak up later because you run into a certain wall that's a problem, but don't worry about that now. Just go make your characters true to you, make your story your story, and you can worry about all the nonsense later.
Mary: So, I think that there really is a space to follow the market, to pay attention to the market. Like you said, you never would've found the Highlights workshop if it hadn't been for Twitter.
Rebecca: Right.
Mary: So, it can be a great force for good, but at the same time now that you have a book to market and a book to write, I think that the real wisdom comes from knowing how to put boundaries on your time, knowing how to allocate your time, because it's completely possible to be sucked into the marketing piece and into Twitter and into, like you said, the politics, and all of these external things. So, how do you balance...? That's a great question actually. And it might be one of my questions, but we've totally gone off the rails here. How do you balance having a book out in the world and, you know, duh, duh, duh, doing that song and dance and then having a book, gestating as you say and, sort of, honoring that whole creative process?
Rebecca: I can't emphasize enough the value of habit and having your writing space protected from all of it. So, I'm fortunate enough that my husband started a business while I was still in practice and that business has been successful. So, I was able to tag out and hand the mortgage to him while I did this. And my habit... For the first year, I didn't have a habit, and I didn't get much done. My habit is the kids get on the bus, I sit in the chair, and I stay there until either a thousand words or noon...
Mary: Lunch with Mary.
Rebecca: ...whichever comes first. And lunch with Mary. Yes, that's right. And then after I turn it off, shut the computer, walk away, that's when all the other nonsense gets through. So, now I need to figure out like, "Okay, do I need to do to schedule school visits? Do I need to schedule signings? Do I want to try to get out and visit friends in New York and maybe go to cool bookstores while I'm there?" Those are separate, but that 8 to noon is writing time. And, again, I get that, with a full-time job and life and other things and small kids that are not disappearing at 8 in the morning, that probably is not a realistic schedule for many. But if you can just find that peace, that chunk, even if it's an hour, even if it's 30 minutes before the kids get up, try to have that be a habit that is just protected and nothing else gets in the space. And then, for me, that lets me turn the other stuff off because I know I'll pick it up again later. But trying to juggle it all at the same time has never worked.
Mary: And if your kids do disappear, you get to go on a fantasy quest to find them as Charlie does in The Missing Piece.
Rebecca: Correct. Exactly, bring it all together.
Mary: So, I landed the plane, but we have a couple questions actually. So, you're talking about, you know, your afternoons are spent doing this marketing piece. If you scroll down, Becca, we have two questions, one from Bridgitte and one from Jane, about school visits. So, it seems like that is a hot topic. Can you talk a little bit more about what your talk was and, kind of, student reaction?
Rebecca: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah. So, school visits, I'm amazed at how little is talked about school visits. I mean, I went to a conference session about school visits, and they talked about, like, make sure you bring a flash drive and figure out your parking before you get there. And I'm like, "I don't care about any of that stuff. What am I supposed to talk about?" And so I went and actually watched some local authors do their school visits to give me ideas.
Mary: That's a great idea.
Rebecca: Yeah, I went and followed Jacqueline West for one, Daniel José Older was speaking at my own kids' school, so I went and watched him do his thing, and then stole away with, kind of, their thoughts. The biggest thing...I start off talking about my book and the fact that... I'll read the first, like, three pages just to say, "Here's my book. Here's what I'm excited about. If you want to know more, here's where you can find it." But then I jump ship and I go... One of the things that was helpful is looking online for top questions to ask an author, and then I just answer those to start.
Mary: That's so smart.
Rebecca: So, I start with, did you always want to be an author? No, not at all. This is a total surprise to me that this is where I ended up, and then I give my own story. And then the next question, where do you get your ideas? Well, I talk about how the world is filled with ideas that you can then twist and take with you. And make a point that it's not plagiarism since you're talking to students. Like, you don't steal ideas in whole cloth, but you take seeds and you help them grow.
And then the next thing in my presentation is, how do you write a book? And I talk about my process and how I go through the beginnings of ideas. And I have Pinterest boards for each character in each setting so that I can, kind of... I'm very visual when I write, so I explain that. And then I have a picture of all my drafts that I went through, and I have pictures of Post-it notes that I stick up on my wall that has the days of the week on some, and then the different chapter events that happen, and the realizations of what happens in each one under each. So, if I have to move things around, all those Post-it notes move with it.
And so my school visit, kind of, is breaking into those different sections of how one writes. And if I have time, I talk about the publishing process, but then kids aren't as interested in that per se. And then I also ask the school ahead of time if there's any, like, common core or current things they're studying in English or writing that I can prop up in my talk.
Mary: Wow.
Rebecca: So, if I can make something actually thread through what they're already learning but make it in a more real setting from an author.
Mary: Wow, that is really smart. I like how you're, kind of, reverse-engineering your approach there. Wow.
Rebecca: Yeah.
Mary: You're so smart.
Rebecca: So, it's like, well, if this is what you're going to ask me, why don't I just start with this?
Mary: Right, preempt it and get the school involved.
Rebecca: Yeah, and then at the end, I talk about the narrative art and make it a little educational before they start snoring and want to...of course, this is 8th graders. They're all, like, too cool for school.
Mary: Even if it's the best presentation ever.
Rebecca: I got to, kind of, keep it interesting.
Mary: You're up against a tough crowd.
Rebecca: And I'll tell you what, the difference between a 4th-grade class listening, I mean, all their hands are in the air, and they're asking a thousand questions. And then it's 7th grade on, it's just, boom. Yeah, so you got to work the room.
Mary: Wow. So, is there anything that you want to, sort of, leave us with? I know Samantha has a question right now about first pages. I feel like it's such a gigantic question. I'm actually teaching on June 1st a first pages webinar. I will post the link. I don't think that the links in the chat box are clickable, so you'll have to copy and paste that one. But I am teaching a webinar all about first pages. I think that is just such a huge question way beyond the scope. And Becca already said she hates first chapters anyways.
Rebecca: Yeah, but the important thing is that what I realized from that first chapter that got canned, the woman was very kind in that she said, "Your idea is interesting. I don't see it here. These pages don't display for me what you're promising me in your synopsis. Make those first pages..."
Mary: Reflect the story.
Rebecca: "...tease."
Mary: And plant the seed.
Rebecca: Yes, give me the seeds of what's coming. And, you know, I just started it off with, well, we first need to get to know these characters, so they're going to be playing at a baseball game, and they have friends they don't like, and some people that they do like. And she's like, "I don't care. Like, none of that is telling me that this amazing mystery is lurking. So, give me something that tells what's coming," and she's right.
Mary: And in the middle school...rather the middle-grade category, school settings are so common. We get the friend, we get the bully. We get just a little bit of low-grade tension, but it's not the story tension most of the time unless your story is entirely about the school or the bully. It's just, sort of, the beginnings of tension, but you're not really working on the story problem there if you start with school. And so I can really see it.
Rebecca: Right, or the really common, you know, first, I've just moved to a place where I don't know anyone and it's my first day of school. It is hard to make that stand out...
Mary: Or I'm just an ordinary kid.
Rebecca: ...because it's so common.
Mary: Like, you wouldn't believe what extraordinary thing happened, right? So, there are a lot really, really common tropes in middle grade, young adult beginnings that's just hard to stand out, like you said. If you really have a cool story and you have a super cool story, but if they're playing baseball and not touching any of it in the first chapter, I can see exactly why you've got that feedback.
Rebecca: Or, like, in my first chapter, I make reference to the fact that someone's...refer to all the stress at home, and I say, "Stress at home, a universal code word for Charlie's mom." And that's all I say about...
Mary: But you plant that seed of tension.
Rebecca: It makes you go, "What's up with Charlie's mom?" So, there's that little bit of just... And I couldn't write that at first necessarily because I didn't know what the full story of Charlie's mom was. So, it's the seeds that make it I think if... I'm not an editor or an agent, but if I were, those would be the things that make me go...
Mary: Readers react to tension.
Rebecca: "I'm in."
Mary: And tension and conflict don't necessarily have to be characters screaming at one another on page one, but this little mystery. What's up with Charlie's mom? That tension is enough to, sort of, hook readers in, and so you're always looking for opportunities to plant strategic information, if you will, not a huge info dump right away.
Rebecca: No, not a dump. Not a dump.
Mary: Just enough to, sort of, get the readers' satellite dishes up. These are these satellite dishes by the way. Well, we are a little bit over time, and so I think it's time to... Oh, can you answer one last question?
Rebecca: Yes, Wendy's question?
Mary: Yep, Wendy's question.
Rebecca: Yeah. So, I first found two other local women who were writing. The question is about critique groups. I got good feedback from them as well as not-so-good feedback from them. They were writing different genres than I was, but they were local so I grabbed onto them. One is writing adult contemporary, one is writing more YA, realistic, and I write middle-grade fantasy. So, it was a great starting spot, but I found, in the end, I needed to find people that were more doing what I was doing. So, here in Minneapolis is the Loft Literary Center. I took a class there and found some people that we could send manuscripts back and forth to. And the tough thing with that is it's a two-way street. You have to give to get, and sometimes it's hard. I'm like, "I don't have time to read your pages," but you can't expect others to read your pages if it's going both ways. So, add the reading of pages to my afternoon list of things that I have to dedicate myself to. And then ultimately my tight critique group at this point were two other authors I met at Highlights. One's in Kansas, and one's in New York. But we are very similar in what we value in a manuscript, way more similar than what I had in my initial group. And so it took some wine to find my people. I did find them in the end, but it took time.
Mary: And I think that brings up a very important point. This will have to be the point that we end on, which is as long as you're moving forward and getting feedback, it's valuable. You do have to, kind of, look at what is the value of the feedback and, kind of, is it relevant to me. Because that person who's writing adult contemporary, for example, they may not have necessarily had great feedback for you, but they were a good starting spot. Ideally, you're working with people who you align with which is where you ended up. It's okay to split from a critique partner. It's okay to try and find a fit. It's like dating. You don't stick with a critique group if it's not working. It's okay to, sort of, seek bigger, better...
Rebecca: And it can be as painful as that breakup. I mean, it is hard to say, "I don't know that I'm the right reader for you and P.S. you're not the right reader for me." That's hard. But you don't have infinite time, so use it well.
Mary: Yeah, and what's undeniable here is that critique is very helpful. Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Rebecca: Oh, can I make one last point? With critique, a lot of times people will tell you what's not working and then they'll tell you how to fix it. It's up to you whether you take any of that advice, but if you are hearing again and again and again that something is not working, you don't have to fix it the way they're telling you to fix it, but what you have to do is realize that moment isn't working.
Mary: It's sticking out for a reason.
Rebecca: It's sticking out. So, there is something you need to do here. It's up to you what that is, and you may take their answer or their solution or you may not. But ignoring it altogether because you don't like their solution is missing a really good point which is something needs to change. That's my last point.
Mary: I think that's great advice. And honestly, I really want to thank you for your time and your insights. But look at this. This is a writer who's reached the milestones, but she still works her patootie off. She still involves critique. You know, it, kind of, reinforces for me that it's such a process, and it's a lifelong process. And I hope all of you check out "The Missing Piece of Charlie O'Reilly." It is a fantastic book. You can use the link in the offers section, and I just want you all to join me in thanking Rebecca for her time, and expertise, and wisdom. This has been an awesome hour for me. I hope you feel the same. And, Rebecca, thank you.
Rebecca: It was great. And best of luck to all of you, guys. Keep doing all the good work and write your stories.
Mary: All right. Have a great weekend, everybody. We're signing off. Bye.
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