By request: The story behind it all
Posted as an update on the Kickstarter page, but here it is for all my lj peeps (I am partial to the purple bunnies):
We're now in the exciting part--when the countdown has switched from days to hours, and we all hold our breaths to see if we make that one, big, final bonus.
This is a really big deal for me. The project you've all backed with such wonderful enthusiasm and confidence has been in the works for a long, long time.
Originally there was a proposal titled "Sun, Moon, Star," which was sold to Jane Yolen Books along with a ms. that actually saw print, His Majesty's Elephant--a YA novel (which would probably be labeled Middle Grade now, for the age and sophistication of the characters) about two young people and a very wise elephant at the court of Charlemagne. SMS was supposed to be the next YA of my career.
But just as I received the revision letter--in those days we got them by FedEx; I literally was opening the package when this happened--word came through from my then agent that the line had been terminated. Like that. Boom. SMS was orphaned, and I had so many other irons in the fire that I decided to put it aside.
It sat for a long time. It saw the YA market bottom out, the century and the millennium end, and the entire landscape of publishing undergo some major and, for many, devastating changes.
About five years ago I pulled it out again, having done so off and on but never gone much of anywhere with it. It needed a major update, and a pretty complete rewrite. It had grown in my head as the real world changed, and it had a whole new focus and essentially a new plot, though the characters had stayed pretty much the same.
I worked on this with my current agents (one for adult and one for YA/MG fiction). We tried it on a few editors. We collected comments, which helped with further revisions and enhancements. We polished it up. We started sending it out.
And out. And out. A couple of rejections actually led to another sale: editors asked for a "magic horse book," hence, House of the Star by my alter ego, Caitlin Brennan. And that was its own kind of excitement.
But the project now called Living in Threes kept getting the same results over and over. If the editor wanted it, the publisher would turn it down. My favorite of all the nays: "Editorial loves it, but Sales believes it's 'too girl-friendly for science fiction.'"
Actual. Verbatim. Quote.
Meanwhile we all went through Publisherdammerung in the fall of 2008, when the bottom fell out pretty much everywhere. And when the dust started to settle, the world as we knew it had become a different place. Is still becoming. Won't slow down much, I don't think, for quite a while to come.
Also in the fall of 2008, something new came into the world: a cooperative of professional authors under SFWA eligibility rules (except for the part about being in the sf genre), called Book View Cafe. I came on board in the spring of 2009.
And still Living in Threes went the rounds. Its agent loved it and was (and is) devoted to it, and put much work into finding a home for it. But it just didn't fit any of the slots. It was sf. And fantasy. And historical. Where in the world could it go?
Then the digital revolution started to look like a real and significant thing. Ebooks weren't just a fringe format any more.
And there was this thing called Kickstarter, which friends and colleagues were trying, and it was intriguing, and...
Finally I got my act together and asked my agents if I might try something different. They gave their blessing. Then I asked my friend Sherwood, who is an amazing editor and critic as well as a great writer, if she would look at the ms. and see what it needed. Which she did--with notes. And comments. And suggestions. And, "This is a good book, but it can be a great one--if you put the work in."
But work like that takes time, and I have horses to feed--and most of what I do to keep them fed isn't writing. To which my very evil friend Catie, who had just finished her own spectacularly successful Kickstarter, said, "You know what you can do about that." Then another friend who does lovely art said, "Would you like a cover artist?"
And here we are. There is going to be an ebook. By tomorrow night, we'll know what else there will be--but the most important thing is for-sure happening. Living in Threes will finally make its way into the world.
And here's your link to share: http://kck.st/A6WIQ0
Thank you all. So much.
We're now in the exciting part--when the countdown has switched from days to hours, and we all hold our breaths to see if we make that one, big, final bonus.
This is a really big deal for me. The project you've all backed with such wonderful enthusiasm and confidence has been in the works for a long, long time.
Originally there was a proposal titled "Sun, Moon, Star," which was sold to Jane Yolen Books along with a ms. that actually saw print, His Majesty's Elephant--a YA novel (which would probably be labeled Middle Grade now, for the age and sophistication of the characters) about two young people and a very wise elephant at the court of Charlemagne. SMS was supposed to be the next YA of my career.
But just as I received the revision letter--in those days we got them by FedEx; I literally was opening the package when this happened--word came through from my then agent that the line had been terminated. Like that. Boom. SMS was orphaned, and I had so many other irons in the fire that I decided to put it aside.
It sat for a long time. It saw the YA market bottom out, the century and the millennium end, and the entire landscape of publishing undergo some major and, for many, devastating changes.
About five years ago I pulled it out again, having done so off and on but never gone much of anywhere with it. It needed a major update, and a pretty complete rewrite. It had grown in my head as the real world changed, and it had a whole new focus and essentially a new plot, though the characters had stayed pretty much the same.
I worked on this with my current agents (one for adult and one for YA/MG fiction). We tried it on a few editors. We collected comments, which helped with further revisions and enhancements. We polished it up. We started sending it out.
And out. And out. A couple of rejections actually led to another sale: editors asked for a "magic horse book," hence, House of the Star by my alter ego, Caitlin Brennan. And that was its own kind of excitement.
But the project now called Living in Threes kept getting the same results over and over. If the editor wanted it, the publisher would turn it down. My favorite of all the nays: "Editorial loves it, but Sales believes it's 'too girl-friendly for science fiction.'"
Actual. Verbatim. Quote.
Meanwhile we all went through Publisherdammerung in the fall of 2008, when the bottom fell out pretty much everywhere. And when the dust started to settle, the world as we knew it had become a different place. Is still becoming. Won't slow down much, I don't think, for quite a while to come.
Also in the fall of 2008, something new came into the world: a cooperative of professional authors under SFWA eligibility rules (except for the part about being in the sf genre), called Book View Cafe. I came on board in the spring of 2009.
And still Living in Threes went the rounds. Its agent loved it and was (and is) devoted to it, and put much work into finding a home for it. But it just didn't fit any of the slots. It was sf. And fantasy. And historical. Where in the world could it go?
Then the digital revolution started to look like a real and significant thing. Ebooks weren't just a fringe format any more.
And there was this thing called Kickstarter, which friends and colleagues were trying, and it was intriguing, and...
Finally I got my act together and asked my agents if I might try something different. They gave their blessing. Then I asked my friend Sherwood, who is an amazing editor and critic as well as a great writer, if she would look at the ms. and see what it needed. Which she did--with notes. And comments. And suggestions. And, "This is a good book, but it can be a great one--if you put the work in."
But work like that takes time, and I have horses to feed--and most of what I do to keep them fed isn't writing. To which my very evil friend Catie, who had just finished her own spectacularly successful Kickstarter, said, "You know what you can do about that." Then another friend who does lovely art said, "Would you like a cover artist?"
And here we are. There is going to be an ebook. By tomorrow night, we'll know what else there will be--but the most important thing is for-sure happening. Living in Threes will finally make its way into the world.
And here's your link to share: http://kck.st/A6WIQ0
Thank you all. So much.
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