I'm delighted to welcome a fellow small press fan to share her inspirational story. And I believe this might be my first poet. Once again the universal message is to take the risk and stick your neck out there because you just never know where it can lead. Thanks to Elizabeth for sharing her story, and look for more from her later this week!
I’ve always loved reading. I’ve loved
it more than anything else that was ever offered to me. I remember in third
grade when my father brought me home the Hobbit for the first time, and I
taught myself the harder words just to figure out what the gorgeous embossed
pictures meant. I was constantly engrossed in who I saw as the literary greats-
Tolkien, Lewis, Hawthorne and Poe. The only contemporary things I would read
were high satire novels from Terry Pratchett, the grim parodies of Gregory
Macguire and occasionally some Rowling. I suppose my first inspiration to write
came from being bored with what everyone kept telling me to read. I didn’t want
to have anything to do with the middle grade books that they pushed on me in
class. I wanted bigger lands, less sappy stories, and healthier relationships.
I wrote a couple of things at the time, most of them fantasy novels that were
all action scenes and not much else, but quickly abandoned each project. I’d
have all these ideas- but no real passion for them. I was writing out of spite,
and not a heart-feeling.
So I
stopped writing fiction for a while, apart from my occasional short story or
two. I focused, instead, on poetry. This form of writing was something that I
didn’t much have to work at. It had always come to me, like breathing. It was
something that I had to do, not something that I wanted to do. I wrote so much
poetry that I decided to try my hand at publishing it, and I’ve been relatively
successful at it. To date, I’ve been included in over twenty journals both in
print and online with more than fifty poems; my first collection was published
traditionally under my birth name in November of 2012.
Somewhere
in the mix of all of this, in my sophomore year of college, I took back up
fiction writing. Thought it might be fun to finish a story for once. The
problem was, I couldn’t even think of anything to write. I tried going back to
my old projects and found that I had all but lost all of my fire for them. I
had a hard time thinking of anything new. Then one day, on Tumblr, I stumbled
upon a feminist rant against the Disney versions of the princess stories. The
Disney-fan in my riled, of course, and I had actually begun this process by
writing a long and angry response to what this original poster had said. But
then I started really thinking about the stories that little girls in the US
are raised with and for the first time I really weighed all of the pros and
cons. It made me wonder what these kinds of stories would look like if they
were written again for those girls who had grown up believing in all of the
good messages from those stories, while unconsciously following all of the bad
ones. I got to brainstorming, and in the end mapped out a seven-book series,
beginning with ‘Till the Last Petal Falls,
and got to work.
I
got really in to the writing of the story. I wrote every second that I could-
before bed, after waking up, in the middle of class and during lunch. I would
get through about a chapter a week, on average, for a total of thirty-some
chapters. I then typed the manuscript up (I always handwrite my works, so that
the typing process becomes a sort of edit), and sent it to a couple of family
members and friends. It got good feedback, most of which I took into account
when I went into edits, and so I thought ‘why not send it around and see what
kind of interest it generates?’ I decided to send the manuscript to both
agents and small presses alike. Within a week of sending out my query, I was
getting requests for the full. A lot of people got back to me with a ‘we like
this, but…’. I guess that’s why I didn’t ever get too discouraged when I would
get the flat out rejection notices. I was used to it, in the first place, due
to my experience in being published with my poetry, and there was enough
half-interest to keep my hopes up for long enough.
I
eventually got picked up by Mockingbird Lane Press, a new small mother-daughter
run press in Arizona. They got the query, requested the full, and then I didn’t
hear from them for a while. I had actually gotten two or three more requests
for the full, and I was e-mailing Regina, the head of the Press, to let her
know where I was standing with everything. She e-mailed me back, saying to
check my mail- that she had sent back some proposed edits, as well as an offer
for a contract with Mockingbird Lane. Now that we’ve published ‘Till the Last Petal Falls, I’m hard at
work with the second installment, To
Dwell in Dreams, which I have written half-way through. I do still hope to
get picked up by an agent someday, to be able to lessen my own work-load and
get a bigger reach audience wise, but my current experience with a small press
hasn’t been unpleasant, and it was still much cheaper than self-publishing.
I
suppose the most important thing that people can learn from my experience is
that, in publishing, spontaneity is a skill you can use. No agent or publishing
house is going to look at your work unless you write it and send it to them. If
you’ve got an idea, then go with it! The worst thing anyone can tell you is
‘no, thank you.’ Also, traditional
publishing isn’t dead- it’s just moving on to independent publishers and
presses. Take a chance on some of these newer companies- you’ll be surprised
with how well you and your manuscript are treated. Take the risk! It’s worth
it.
Blog: thesingingroses.wordpress.com
Facebook: facebook.com/thesingingroses
Tumblr: singingroses.tumblr.com
Twitter: @thesingingroses
Contact: author.elizabethrose@gmail.com
Awesome publishing story. It just goes to show you that it only takes one good idea to go all the way.
ReplyDeleteBest of luck with 'Till the Last Petal Falls and its sequels. :-)
P.S. Hi Michelle! Dropping by from the WoC forum. *waves*
Thank you, Misha! Of course, I wouldn't be able to go anywhere if it weren't for the support of both my readers and other authors! I'm truly blessed to have someone like Michelle willing to cheer on my journey. Thank you for stopping by!
ReplyDelete-Elizabeth Rose