First blog post for SwoonReads
THURSDAY, MAY 08, 2014 0 CommentsLuck, Hard Work, and More Luck: My Publishing Story – A Guest Post by Author Rachel ToorRachel Toor
I can’t tell whether my publishing story will make other writers want to stick their heads in the oven, kill me, or be happily inspired. If I heard it, I’d probably feel a combination of all of those things. The truth is, what happened to me is a lot about luck, a little about the rewards of hard work, and then some more luck.
Even though I’d published three books of nonfiction, I’d been struggling to find the right topic for a next one. I’d finally come up with a proposal and after working with my agent on it for about a year, she had just sent it out to publishers. We got an early offer I wasn’t thrilled about, and a bunch of rejections. Then I got this out-of-the-blue email from an editor at FSG BYR who said he’d just read my memoir about becoming a runner,Personal Record, and wondered whether I’d ever considered writing a YA novel about a teenage girl who decides to take up running.Yikes! I said I was flattered (I was beyond flattered, if you want to know, I chased my dog around the house chanting FSG, FSG, FSG!) but I told him I couldn’t do it; I didn’t write fiction. He said, “That’s ridiculous,” and encouraged me to try. I would write twenty pages, e-mail them to him, and the minute after I pressed Send would realize how bad they were and start over. I wrote and discarded hundred of opening pages until I knew who my characters were. He read and made suggestions and the process became truly collaborative. I listened to and thought hard about every single thing he said. Sometimes I didn’t follow his suggestions exactly, but if he said there was a problem, I knew there was mostly likely a problem and that I had to try to fix it. It was like having a coach who sees what you can do, understands where you want to go, and helps you get there.
Me running with my dog, Helen.This novel was the first time I’ve really had fun writing. In the graduate nonfiction creative writing classes I teach I always tell my students that writing is hard, hard work. If you haven’t sweated and bled to write something, readers will probably struggle to enjoy it. I always rolled my eyes when novelist friends would say things like, “I can’t wait to see what happens to these characters,” as if the writer wasn’t in charge. But guess what? You’re not in charge. The characters become live little extensions of your subconscious and take over. They change and grow and you begin to see connections that surprise, and sometimes delight, you.I thought I wanted to write a book that showed those who didn’t think they could be runners that they were wrong, that helped teens (and their parents) through the horrors of the college admissions process, and that would help rehabilitate the image of pet rats, which have, let’s face it, gotten a bad rap throughout history. It turned out to be about a whole bunch of other things that I hadn’t realized would come up. So. Much. Fun.After we’d been working together for a while my editor had gotten to know me pretty well. He understood the many ways that I’m neurotic and insecure. One day he asked me for a bunch of changes on the first section and said he wanted to share it with his colleagues.
My very first YA novel!A few days later I got an e-mail from my agent with the official offer.I’d been flying from Spokane, Washington, to Chicago to see my college roommate. By the time I had to change planes in Minneapolis my agent told me they’d made a deal.At O’Hare I got in a taxi and called my editor. He said he didn’t want to tell me he was taking the project to an acquisitions meeting because he knew it would freak me out.And was he ever right. I had heart palpitations and hives for about three months after getting the good news. I knew I could finish the novel, and I was happy and excited, but my body couldn’t contain my emotions and it twitched and erupted in weird ways.Which isn’t to say that the whole process wasn’t wonderful. From that very first e-mail to getting a lovely message from the editorial director who said that after reading my proposal one of the editorial assistants had started running and she, the editorial director, was considering getting a pet rat, I could not have imagined a better publishing experience. Nearly all the people at Macmillan who have worked on the book are runners, and I’m thrilled to have been made an honorary member of the company’s running club, MacRunners. I feel like I’m surrounded by my peeps.
A friend of mine once asked why it feels so much worse to lose than it feels good to win. I thought about that a lot and finally I realized that it doesn’t. The sense of triumph I had the day I got the news about the contract has not faded. Whatever happens to the book after it goes out into the world can’t take away from how proud I am to have written it.It might make me seem like a loser or not a “real” writer to say this, but I would never have had the faith or the guts to do this on my own. Finding someone who believed in me and kept me going—especially when it got tough—was how this novel got done.I love that Swoon Reads provides a whole community of people who will read, and cheer, and prop you up when you start to slump. Sometimes, it takes a village to write a novel. Find your village and get to work.
Rachel Toor is an associate professor of Creative Writing at Eastern Washington University and the author of three nonfiction books. Farrar, Straus and Giroux will publish her first Young Adult novel, On the Road to Find Out, in June 2014. Rachel lives with her dog, Helen, who raced in her first half marathon this February. She was 4th dog (out of 42).Visit her online at http://racheltoor.com.
I can’t tell whether my publishing story will make other writers want to stick their heads in the oven, kill me, or be happily inspired. If I heard it, I’d probably feel a combination of all of those things. The truth is, what happened to me is a lot about luck, a little about the rewards of hard work, and then some more luck.
Even though I’d published three books of nonfiction, I’d been struggling to find the right topic for a next one. I’d finally come up with a proposal and after working with my agent on it for about a year, she had just sent it out to publishers. We got an early offer I wasn’t thrilled about, and a bunch of rejections. Then I got this out-of-the-blue email from an editor at FSG BYR who said he’d just read my memoir about becoming a runner,Personal Record, and wondered whether I’d ever considered writing a YA novel about a teenage girl who decides to take up running.Yikes! I said I was flattered (I was beyond flattered, if you want to know, I chased my dog around the house chanting FSG, FSG, FSG!) but I told him I couldn’t do it; I didn’t write fiction. He said, “That’s ridiculous,” and encouraged me to try. I would write twenty pages, e-mail them to him, and the minute after I pressed Send would realize how bad they were and start over. I wrote and discarded hundred of opening pages until I knew who my characters were. He read and made suggestions and the process became truly collaborative. I listened to and thought hard about every single thing he said. Sometimes I didn’t follow his suggestions exactly, but if he said there was a problem, I knew there was mostly likely a problem and that I had to try to fix it. It was like having a coach who sees what you can do, understands where you want to go, and helps you get there.Me running with my dog, Helen.This novel was the first time I’ve really had fun writing. In the graduate nonfiction creative writing classes I teach I always tell my students that writing is hard, hard work. If you haven’t sweated and bled to write something, readers will probably struggle to enjoy it. I always rolled my eyes when novelist friends would say things like, “I can’t wait to see what happens to these characters,” as if the writer wasn’t in charge. But guess what? You’re not in charge. The characters become live little extensions of your subconscious and take over. They change and grow and you begin to see connections that surprise, and sometimes delight, you.I thought I wanted to write a book that showed those who didn’t think they could be runners that they were wrong, that helped teens (and their parents) through the horrors of the college admissions process, and that would help rehabilitate the image of pet rats, which have, let’s face it, gotten a bad rap throughout history. It turned out to be about a whole bunch of other things that I hadn’t realized would come up. So. Much. Fun.After we’d been working together for a while my editor had gotten to know me pretty well. He understood the many ways that I’m neurotic and insecure. One day he asked me for a bunch of changes on the first section and said he wanted to share it with his colleagues.My very first YA novel!A few days later I got an e-mail from my agent with the official offer.I’d been flying from Spokane, Washington, to Chicago to see my college roommate. By the time I had to change planes in Minneapolis my agent told me they’d made a deal.At O’Hare I got in a taxi and called my editor. He said he didn’t want to tell me he was taking the project to an acquisitions meeting because he knew it would freak me out.And was he ever right. I had heart palpitations and hives for about three months after getting the good news. I knew I could finish the novel, and I was happy and excited, but my body couldn’t contain my emotions and it twitched and erupted in weird ways.Which isn’t to say that the whole process wasn’t wonderful. From that very first e-mail to getting a lovely message from the editorial director who said that after reading my proposal one of the editorial assistants had started running and she, the editorial director, was considering getting a pet rat, I could not have imagined a better publishing experience. Nearly all the people at Macmillan who have worked on the book are runners, and I’m thrilled to have been made an honorary member of the company’s running club, MacRunners. I feel like I’m surrounded by my peeps.A friend of mine once asked why it feels so much worse to lose than it feels good to win. I thought about that a lot and finally I realized that it doesn’t. The sense of triumph I had the day I got the news about the contract has not faded. Whatever happens to the book after it goes out into the world can’t take away from how proud I am to have written it.It might make me seem like a loser or not a “real” writer to say this, but I would never have had the faith or the guts to do this on my own. Finding someone who believed in me and kept me going—especially when it got tough—was how this novel got done.I love that Swoon Reads provides a whole community of people who will read, and cheer, and prop you up when you start to slump. Sometimes, it takes a village to write a novel. Find your village and get to work.Rachel Toor is an associate professor of Creative Writing at Eastern Washington University and the author of three nonfiction books. Farrar, Straus and Giroux will publish her first Young Adult novel, On the Road to Find Out, in June 2014. Rachel lives with her dog, Helen, who raced in her first half marathon this February. She was 4th dog (out of 42).Visit her online at http://racheltoor.com.
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