I stopped doing New Years Resolutions decades ago. Keeps me from having to begin the year filled with regrets for the promises I failed to keep. But I do keep a set of tips for myself about writing. Writers, the road to publication is hard. So give yourself an extra special gift right now. At the end of each year, I like to sit around the Christmas tree, stare out at the landscape and ruminate about those tips. Today, I want to share one of them with you.
I’m fortunate to have learned a big lesson with my very first manuscript. Once you heaven agent, you tend to get better responses from acquiring editors who look at - and then reject - your manuscript. And one of my best lessons came with my first book. It was a YA romance, PULL, with a heroine I loved creating, Yolanda Dare, called “The Dare” by the boys in her high school. I wrote her to be smart, empathetic, and a fashionista - a whiz at making her own clothes and accessories. I also gave her an abusive ex boyfriend, PULL's antagonist. She is prepared to return to him to protect the hero’s younger sister. (Relax, the hero, aptly named David, saves the day.)
I remember the rejections I received from two agents in particular. The first told me that Yolanda’s actions around her ex proved she was too dumb to have accomplished so much. I was just about to look at her and see about making changes, when I received a second rejection the very next day. That editor told me Yolanda was obviously brilliant, accomplished and self-assured, not someone who would ever be foolish enough to be involved with the antagonist, the ex-boyfriend.
That left me scratching my head. Was she too dumb to live or brilliant and accomplished? Fortunately I didn’t change her. About a month later, another editor bought my manuscript with the Yolanda I originally created.
Those words and other rejections, along with a few acceptances) now make me laugh when I hear aspiring authors say hat agents and editors do or do not want. When questioned, it almost always ends up that one person told them something, and they have extrapolated that to the entire industry. If I were to do that based on some of my more recent MG rejections, I could tell you that agents and editors don’t want dead parents, mean girls, or heroines that are too smart or mature. (Shades of poor Yolanda).
Four books later, I still struggle with the same questions I had with poor Yolanda. At least now I know there is no industry-mandate that young heroines can't be smart and mature. The order against dead father's is only one publisher. Mean girls are still a reality in both real life and in books. So now, come the new year, I will grab a cup of hot chocolate and relax while my manuscripts keep searching for a publisher tha will love it the way it is.
Actually, I think I'll get eggnog instead of hot chocolate, while I follow my own advice to relax and be good to myself over the holiday.
P.S. You can find more information about PULL, and the unstoppable Yolanda Dare, at https://www.babinns.com/pull/
