Every Path to Publication Is Unique

But There Is One Common Denominator to Successful Storytelling. And It Is..........

I’ve been writing and publishing for almost 25 years. Even as I type this, it feels preposterous. I still remember vividly how much I wanted to be a published author. It was more than a want, in fact – it was a desperate dream.

I say that to let you know that if your unfulfilled dream is to be published, I see you.

I tell writers all the time that persistence is the key to getting there. So when I read that 14-year-old Dev Shah won the Scripps National Spelling Bee this year after tying for 76th place in 2021 and not even getting into the national competition last year, I thought, now there’s persistence.

But what does this really mean, and is that all there is to it?

First Step on My Path

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my experience with revisions of my first novel and how I had a breakthrough after months of struggling. But even before I got there were years of trial…and error.

I’ve always been pretty good with words. I’d wanted to be a writer since I could talk. I wrote poetry and short stories in high school and college, some of which were published regionally, and wrote articles for hire. I wrote three pretty terrible novels for adults, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

When our son started school, right away we knew something was not going well. He’d been read to since birth, but he couldn’t recite the alphabet. It turned out he is dyslexic.*

About the same time that he was diagnosed, my mom died. To my surprise she left behind a stack of unfinished children’s stories. I poured through them, thinking I might make a memorial to her by trying to get them published. (Okay, full embarrassing confession: I sent one of them unbidden to a neighbor who happened to be, ahem, a really well-published author of note…and she graciously responded with a “these are unpublishable”).

My mom and my son.

Which made me think, why unpublishable?

And that was when I was introduced to the concept of…

…writing for children in today’s world.

Writing For Children Today Has Evolved (And Still Is Evolving)

And discovering that there was such a thing and that it wasn’t the “thing” any which way like the stories I’d read when I was a kid.

So, I wrote for my son. And for myself. I thought I’d found my niche, my way into publishing.

I started, as so many of you do, with picture books. I believed I could teach my son to read through my picture books. I started there because, like many of you, I really love a good picture book, even though I had discovered that today’s picture books were nothing like the Little Golden Books I grew up with.

Still, I thought writing a picture book would be easy. That is a false assumption. A good picture book is harder to write than a full-length novel.

But, heck. I kept trying, and failing, getting multiple rejections. I joined SCBWI. I went to conferences, workshops, monthly meetings. I had critique partners. I paid for critiques from editors and published authors, and I still had nothing. Except, I did start making friends – writer friends. Actual published friends. People who had been there before me, people I looked up to, people who were willing to help with advice and courteous mentorship.

But honestly, while I was learning – and I really was learning – about writing for children, I hadn’t found my voice. I was good with words but I hadn’t yet learned that it isn’t about the words.

So, What Is It About, This Craft of Writing?

It’s about the passion.

It’s about the emotion.

It’s about the connection between writer and reader, whether that reader is a child or an adult.

Once I finally figured that out, I wrote something publishable.

I’m going to save the rest of this story – including what I mean by that connection – for the next post, because the rest of the story is kind of fun, and hopefully instructive. It involves luck as well as persistence, and it involves connections as well as emotions. I hope you’ll stick around for part 2.

And please ask questions or leave comments - I want to hear from you!

*And BTW, speaking of persistence, my dyslexic son is now a published author of, count ‘em, four science fiction novels/novellas/short stories, with many more to come. You can find out more about him here.