Mike Jung's Blog, page 29

The EMLA Retreat

Publishing is a business, which can be a complicated thing for those of us who function most happily and effectively in the creative realm. The business aspects of a writing career affect our perceptions of and experiences within the relationships we develop with industry professionals, including our agents and editors. This is no small thing to contend with, especially for those of us who struggle to define and understand the boundaries associated with wearing hats of both professional and personal natures. I’ve heard some authors and illustrators say it’s risky – even dangerous – to develop too close a relationship with editors and agents, who must traffic in pragmatism and goal orientation in the commercial realm as well as all the subjective vagaries of the creative realm.

I, however, fall in the other camp, which embraces the possibility of forming closer, emotionally meaningful bonds with our editors and agents, bonds that go above and beyond the dynamics of the stereotypical “working relationship.” There IS risk involved, of course, and it’s the same risk found in every single kind of relationship that exists: the risk that the relationship will founder and topple into a heap of splintered psychological wreckage. I haven’t always been willing or able to take that kind of risk, and I fear that the attendant losses are too great to be tallied. I’m both willing and able now, however, and thank the heavens that the children’s publishing community has been providing such an abundance of those opportunities.

Yesterday I arrived home from one of the most extraordinary and moving events of my professional life, the EMLA retreat. As always, I was riddled with fear of being perceived as too dull, strange, inarticulate, disengaged, or maladjusted to spend time with. I’m a terribly, terribly insecure person, but the tribe of EMLA looks after its own, Just like last year (my first), I felt welcomed, embraced, and celebrated. My beloved editor Arthur A. Levine was also there, which raised my state of emotional fulfillment to a level unmatched by any other career-related experience I’ve ever had.

Authors, illustrators, agents, editors, publishers – we’re all engaged in the work of building our careers, and it’s undeniably important that we develop professionalism, maintain a level of pragmatism, avoid improprieties, and respect boundaries. Maybe it IS dangerous to let ourselves publicly express profound emotions we have about our colleagues. Maybe it’s icky, or saccharine.  Perhaps it’s even annoying. But when I think of the five days I just spent with the people of EMLA and the FOEMLAs (Friends of EMLA), the only word that seems even remotely sufficient to describe the experience is love.

I love being a part of this agency. I love my bandmates in Erin Murphy’s Dog (we rocked the house, yo), I love my editor (a core member of EMD now and forever), I love my fellow EMLA clients (I’m sorry I missed talking with so many of you), and I love the agents and staff of EMLA for creating an event and a community that have caused my heart to swell, Grinch-style, by at least three sizes, if not thirty. If that’s inappropriate and overly treacly, so be it. Thank you, Gangos, for being in my life. You mean the world to me.

Maggie

I first met Maggie Stiefvater at a reading she did in El Cerrito, CA when she was touring in support of LINGER. Maggie and I frequented a few of the same online venues and were on friendly terms, virtually speaking, but you know how it’s so often a different thing to meet someone in corporeal space? I was a bit insecure about introducing myself for that reason. I was also a bit insecure because I’m just insecure in general, as you probably know by now.

Still, we’d had more than one agreeable online exchange, so I felt emboldened to ask a question during the Q&A. She answered it, then surprised the bejesus out of me by saying “Are you MIKE?” I skillfully disguised my flabbergasted state and said “yes,” at which point she said “I thought that was you! I recognized the top half of your face.” Which isn’t as bizarre a statement as it sounds, since at the time I was in the habit of using avatar photos which only showed the top half of my face because I’m all bashful and stuff.

So yeah, it was nice to be treated like a regular person worth meeting, and not like a lowly worm wriggling in the unpublished muck by the side of the road. It’s easy for us neurotic writers to feel diminished by or envious of a planet-devouring career trajectory like the one Maggie’s on, but I don’t, mostly because I think well of her. She’s a good egg.

Raina

The Scholastic family dinner at ALA Annual 2012 was a pretty memorable event for me. Among the many quality people I met that night was Raina Telgemeier, who I had the good fortune to be seated next to. I’m still largely clueless about the current world of comic book creators, but a year ago I was thoroughly, irredeemably clueless, and although I’d seen SMILE on bookstore shelves I had no idea who Raina actually was. There was probably an upside to that – thinking “OMG, NYT bestseller & Eisner Award winner Raina Telgemeier” might have made me act like more of a numbskull than I did – and I thoroughly enjoyed talking with her during the meal.

A few months later Raina appeared at one of my local indie stores for the Scholastic Graphix Tour, and I dropped by. Despite the fact that I’d spent a couple of hours chatting with Raina at that Scholastic dinner, I was neurotically prepared for the possibility that she wouldn’t remember me, but she did. Shockingly, she even appeared visibly happy to see me. The signing line was catastrophically long, as expected, and when my turn at the front arrived Raina gave me a big smile and a hug. We chatted for a bit, and I went home in a very chipper mood. Meeting someone and discovering that they’re not only spectacularly talented and successful but also genuinely sweet is, well, it’s a good thing. It dishes up a nice thick slab of hope or optimism or something, don’t you think?

Trent

Last summer I attended the ALA Annual Conference for the first time. One of the individual events I went to was a dinner for all of the Scholastic people in attendance, where I met a bunch of people for the first time, including Trent Reedy. Now, it’s more or less common knowledge by now that I’m plagued by a gargantuan case of social anxiety, so I was grappling with that in the usual manner when we arrived at the restaurant. Trent (who wasn’t seated in the same part of the vaguely obscene, sparkly red Hummer/limo that Scholastic sent for us) gave me a big hug, expressed great enthusiasm about the fact that we share an agent (the fabulous Ammi-Joan Paquette, of course), and bought me a drink. I was and continue to be deeply appreciative of the fact that at my very first conference as a published author and my very first Scholastic family dinner, Trent made the effort to greet me in a manner that actually made me feel like family. I’ll never forget it.

Relationships

Being one of those socially inept introverts who give a bad name to introverts in general is often hard – the psychological ricochet after social events is discombobulating, the fear of social judgment is tiresome to do battle with, and the suspicion that the rest of the world is speaking a language you lack fluency in is discouraging. And yet, I seem to be developing positive relationships with people in the children’s publishing industry anyway. I still feel out of place and out of sorts on a regular basis, and I’m certain I’ll have to contend with those feelings for the rest of my life, but the feeling of belonging that I have in this community is the strongest such feeling I’ve ever had in any community. It’s not entirely substantial – the overwhelming majority of my interactions with people are virtual, and those interactions are limited by nature – but there’s more substance to this multiplicity of new relationships than I originally would have dared hope for. And the number of people who I feel a genuine, real-world, non-internet bond with is shockingly large, at least by my standards. It’s a somewhat theatrical question to ask, but have I found my place in the world? I wonder if I have. It’s a startling thought.

Emma, circa 1985

A recently unearthed memory from 1985 or thereabouts (I think, anyway): some of the details still elude me, like what school event this took place after – it might have been the spring musical? Or a band concert? I suppose it might even have been the end of a plain old school day, during that short lull period between the final class and the beginning of band practice.

I was in the main hallway of the music wing at Pascack Valley High School, near the doors that opened onto the backstage area of the auditorium, when a voice called my name. It was a voice I hadn’t heard in a while, and indeed, it was Emma Armstrong (née Bassant), who I believe had graduated the previous year. Emma unleashed that toothy, cockeyed, glorious smile of hers, apparently delighted to see me. I was SHOCKED, simply because at that time the concept of people being delighted to see me was so far outside of the boundaries of my worldview, but damned if it wasn’t genuine.

Emma gave me an enthusiastic hug of greeting. If memory serves, she was wearing a blue coat, and she also wore contact lenses, which threw me for a couple of seconds. She asked how I was, and we chatted briefly, although back then I was even less skilled at spur-of-the-moment conversation than I am now. I wandered off uncertainly, as I tended to do in moments of transition, and that was that.

That was the last time I saw Emma in person, so of course I never told her how much I valued that unexpected moment with her. I loved seeing you then, Emma; it really meant something to me. Thank you.

Old Friends

Yesterday I posted about an old friend of mine from high school who I haven’t seen in decades, Julie Forte Solleder, who unexpectedly passed away. Julie was a gem, and she’ll be terribly missed. The people who commented on my post included other folks from high school, some of who were in the marching band with Julie and me. It was good to hear from them all, and helped me understand with greater clarity that as much as I struggled during those years, I wasn’t the only one. It occurred to me that there were actually quite a lot of people whose mere presence helped me, if only because they were visibly kind and decent people, and of course I forgot to mention more than one genuine friend.

Then later in the day I got a Facebook friend request and a Twitter follower from a particular old friend, someone who I actually didn’t think I was still friends with. Chris Eliopoulos and I were both artists in high school, with a mutual fanaticism for the world of comic books and their creators (John Byrne was our idol). Our friendship stumbled to a halt after he graduated high school due to communication breakdowns, mutual insecurity, and a mutual unawareness of the struggles we were each going through. I’d buried the memory of how much his friendship had meant to me but part of me still remembered, because a few years ago I saw his name while doing research for my debut novel, and I Googled him to see what roads he’d traveled.

Unlike me, Chris went on to pursue a career in art, specifically illustration, and I was wonderstruck to see that he’d become the grand poo-bah of lettering at Marvel Comics, the Eisner-nominated creator of a hilarious series of one-offs starring Fantastic Four offspring Franklin Richards, and the writer and/or illustrator of a broad swath of print and web comics like Lockjaw and the Pet Avengers, Misery Loves Sherman, Desperate Times, and Cow Boy. If you read the rights report in last week’s edition of PW Children’s Bookshelf, you know that he’s now a children’s book illustrator as well (for Brad Meltzer’s Ordinary People Change the World PB series, to be published by Dial).

He’d done it, you know? He’d snared the brass ring. And still I was afraid to contact him, because that absurd, decades-old fear stayed with me: “he’s moved on to bigger and better things; I couldn’t possibly be of interest to him anymore.” HE never said that – it turns out he thought and felt quite the opposite, in fact – but I’d believed it for so long that I just went back down that mental spiral on autopilot.

Then I read Chris’s Twitter feed, which included a moving series of grief-stricken thoughts about our departed friend Julie, and he said something about how it was too late to thank her for being his friend. I realized how right he was. Chris had given me a way to re-engage with him: there was still time to thank him for helping me through the hard times so many years ago, so I mustered my courage and did it.

Chris responded in kind. We talked (well, we tweeted and emailed). And an incredible wave of memories flooded my mind: playing tiny souvenir harmonicas on the bus during a band trip to Nashville; another band trip into Manhattan when a crusty New Yorker on the subway asked if I was on drugs because I couldn’t decide where to sit; reading my brother’s copies of X-Men and Alpha Flight to tatters in the basement of my parents’ home in Hillsdale; Chris’s furious (and possibly unsanctioned) drum solo during a jazz band concert; our very stylized use of the word “buddy”; hastily comparing superhero sketches in the gap between the end of school and the beginning of band practice; strapping those ridiculous giant Q-tip hats on in the band room before home games; and so much more.

Chris and I discovered we can still be friends. Julie’s gone, and Chris and I (along with everyone who shared the gift of Julie’s friendship) will continue to mourn her. But maybe this was a final gift to two of her old comrades from our days in the PVHS marching band. Is it silly to think that? Maybe, but it’s comforting too. I remembered that high school wasn’t all anguish and despair – there were people worth cherishing, and moments worth remembering. A day filled with horrifying pain and rage for so many people also included something truly wonderful for me, and it was good to remember that unexpectedly wonderful things are still happening, every day, every hour, every second. The universe took one old friend away, but gave back another, and I’m so grateful.

m.

In memory of Julie Forte

It’s no secret that high school was a very difficult time for me – I wrote about it in my essay for the Dear Teen Me anthology, for example – and my unhappiness during those years colored my perceptions of people in general for a long, long time. In high school I suspected that the vast majority of people around me were potential monsters who were just waiting for an opportunity to attack. Not everybody, though, particularly the friends I had in the band. Not Deanna Dean, for example, or Erik Schweitzer, or Jim McCaughey, and not Julie Forte Solleder. Julie was kind, and thoughtful, and gentle. I trusted her to treat me with respect and friendship, and she never failed to do so. I lost touch with Julie, as I did with almost everyone I knew in high school, but in recent years we reconnected here on Facebook, and I’m grateful for that, because it helped me to remember that even during my darkest emotional times, there were good people in my life, even if I was often unable to fully appreciate and engage with them. I just learned that Julie passed away yesterday after a brief, cruel illness. I’m sorry that I didn’t see her at least one last time before she was taken from us, but her friendship enriched my life, even across a gap of so many years. I love you Julie, and I’ll miss you. Goodbye.

 

Regarding LA13SCBWI

Yes, I AM posting something here about LA13SCBWI because my blog URL is posted on the conference website, which means people might actually come here and sniff around, pee on the shrubbery, that sort of thing. Wait, that’s a bad metaphor – why would anyone pee on the shrubbery here? Can you tell that I’m flummoxed and off-balance and wildly excited about being on the faculty for the SCBWI Summer Conference this year? Because I am, y’know. My publishing career has been a succession of dreams come true, big and small, and this is closer to the big end of the scale – I’ve wanted to work this conference ever since I first attended it in 2008, and now all my blackmail–err, I mean hard work is paying off! Huzzah, I hope to see you there!

On being human

“To love someone fiercely, to believe in something with your whole heart, to celebrate a fleeting moment in time, to fully engage in a life that doesn’t come with guarantees – these are risks that involve vulnerability and often pain. But, I’m learning that recognizing and leaning into the discomfort of vulnerability teaches us how to live with joy, gratitude and grace.”

― Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection

I find myself experiencing some shame today. I’m also experiencing quite a lot of discomfort, but I’m okay with that. The shame is a destructive thing, rooted in disengagement and self-hatred. The discomfort is rooted in honesty and love, and thus has a rightful place within my psyche. There ARE people in this world who I love fiercely, and I’ll keep fighting off the feelings of shame that try to ride on that love’s coattails. It’s hard, because the shame is dogged and single-minded. The fear that my existence merits nothing but scorn is an old acquaintance, one who’s traveled with me through many chapters of my life. I exist in a state of thundering, wind-battered imperfection, because I am human. But being human also gives me the ability to love, which is indescribably precious, and oh, I’m so grateful for the people I love.

Am I worthy of love from them too? I don’t know. Yes. Maybe. I so often don’t know! Yes. Yes, I am. It’s my birthright as a member of humanity, in all its gnarled, complex, agonizing beauty. We are all worthy.