Book covers and waiting
You could reasonably assume, looking at my homepage content and the tags for this site, that I would blog mainly about what it’s like to write for children. There are a couple of reasons I’ve hardly mentioned it so far.
One is that during the time I was still very unsure about the possibility of writing books for children, I scoured the internet for writers’ stories. I was looking for clues about how long it took for agents and publishers to respond, tips and ideas people had for finding agents and publishers, an empathic word or two on the peculiar bedfellows of joy and terror that emerge whenever you make a serious attempt at something you feel is really important etc. And while I now have thoughts on all of these sorts of things, and would like to offer them in case other budding writers would find them useful, I feel compelled to wait until there is at least one book on a shelf somewhere in the world with my name on it. Otherwise it all seems a bit presumptuous and premature.
And related to that feeling is another – an anxiety that something could happen that will mean this dream of mine won’t come true after all. Before August, which is when Sophie’s Salon is due for release, perhaps some new invention will emerge and make books completely redundant. Perhaps due to some new strain of economic crisis, the publishing houses dealing with my work will all be obliterated.
But the gradual process involved in this whole venture (finding an agent, celebrating like mad, finding publishers, celebrating like mad, sending edits back and forth, seeing first rounds of illustrations, seeing second rounds, celebrating like mad etc) means that each step makes it feel more solid and real.
For example, last week my lovely editor at Walker sent me the rough for the cover of Violet Mackerel’s Brilliant Plot and I LOVE it.
So, sooner or later I hope to have something to say about writing for children after all.
