The first picture book I wrote was in 2019. Like so many of us, I always loved writing and have boxes full of journals. But I was late to the game in part due to significant health issues that required a brain surgery in my late twenties. At the time I wrote my first draft, I had been working as a speech therapist in skilled nursing facilities. This book was an ode to my experiences as a therapist. It was sweet, thought -provoking, and… terrible. As a rookie mistake, I wrote it in rhyme, and not good rhyme. I immediately queried it (yet another rookie mistake), adding speech therapy terms to my queries like “promotes phonological awareness.” Little nuggets that probably required some agents to digest my query with a cocktail. Not surprisingly, I got a few no’s, a few non-responses. I was disappointed, but something else happened: I caught the writing bug.
I worked on my next manuscript, and then another, and another. Then came that special year we call 2020. We were in a pandemic, and I stopped working to homeschool my child. When I wasn’t making Fruit Loop artwork, I was writing. I joined the writing community on Twitter, read a whole lot of books, participated in contests and pitch events, and then queried some more. Not wholeheartedly, but here and there.
As 2020 rolled into 2021, my life changed in profound ways, and I was going through some intensely painful personal challenges. But somehow, it didn’t make me want to give up. It made me double down. (Disclaimer here: this was only my experience. People respond to pain in all kinds of ways. I was lucky that writing offered me a place to breathe).
I threw myself even more into the craft. I took more classes. I learned more about pitching, and scoured Twitter for those well-liked pitches so I could dissect them. I studied up on alliteration and assonance, story structure, and tension. I read picture books and took them apart and typed the texts to get a feel for the flow. I listened to stories on YouTube while I did the dishes. I googled best- selling picture books, and ones that had won awards, and I listened to them over and over again. I joined a critique group and found the most amazing critique partners a writer could hope for, and discovered the joy of seeing and being seen. It was instrumental that I found critique partners who are encouraging and honest.
I was completely in love with writing, but still struggling personally. I queried a little more. I got my first request for more manuscripts at that point, which sent me straight to the moon. But the rejection on that full was a long and hard fall. And here’s the thing about querying: If you’re hoping that querying your book will fill a hole in your life, be careful. Because if you get rejected, you might wind up with a bigger hole. I felt broken, and I made the best choice I could have at the time: I stopped querying for 4 months over the spring/summer, hounded my critique partners with draft after draft, and tripled down.
I got up early, stayed up late, ate a lot of ice cream, and gave myself a timeline: Come September, I will query again. And that’s exactly what I did.
Soon after that, I had a pitch contest “like” that led to an amazing offer, and a nudge that led to an offer from a dream agency…And the best agents I could ever imagine. I knew within the first couple minutes of our phone call that they were my match. Naomi and Ramona read my work, and saw through to its beating heart.
I think sometimes the advice for querying writers is to KEEP GOING. And it’s good advice. But if you need a break from querying, it’s ok. If you need a break to take care of yourself, or focus on family, or take a few more classes, or just eat a bit more ice cream…it is ok. You can also take that time to double or triple down, hone your craft, and hit the ground running if/when you are ready. And if now is a hard time, know this: There are stories inside of you and they will be seen. YOU will be seen.
Many manuscripts later, I have returned to that terrible rhyming book of my heart. I am dusting it off and tearing it apart so that I can build something new. So that I can take all that I have learned in classes and in life…and try to turn it into something beautiful. Because—in the wise words of Sean Thomas Dougherty—
“Because right now there is someone out there with a wound in the exact shape of your words.”