Cheryl Klein Interview & Book Giveaway

Today I’m so excited to interview Cheryl Klein, the senior editor at the Arthur A. Levine imprint of Scholastic. I was lucky enough to meet Cheryl at a SCBWI conference where she gave a fabulous talk on plot. If you ever have the opportunity to attend a conference where she’ll be speaking, you should definitely go.

Her book Second Sight: An Editor's Talks on Writing, Revising, and Publishing Books for Children or Young Adults is being released today. It’s a wonderful collection of talks, workshops, and blog posts about the craft of writing and revising manuscripts. What makes this book special is Cheryl’s amazing grasp of plot, voice, and character development in revising a manuscript and the fact that the book focuses on children’s literature.

1. Can you tell us a little about yourself and your book?

I've loved books and reading since I was a very little girl -- in part thanks to my grandfather, Philip Sadler, who taught children's literature at the university level for many years, and who founded one of the nation's first children's literature festivals. I knew I wanted to be a book editor while I was still in high school, and after majoring in English degree at college, I went to the Denver Publishing Institute, where Susan Hirschman (founder of Greenwillow Books) inspired me to pursue children's publishing specifically. She also introduced me to Arthur Levine of Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic, who hired me as his editorial assistant. I'm now the senior editor in the AALB imprint, where I work on a wide range of books for children and young adults.

My book, Second Sight, is a collection of talks and essays directed at writers for children and young adults -- material I've been writing and compiling since 2003. It has a special connection to my grandfather, too: Before he died in December 2009, he offered to pay for my design costs, which was immensely useful in freeing me to concentrate on the writing and editorial side of the book. The book is dedicated to him and to my grandmother, Carol Sadler.

2. What made you decide to write Second Sight?

After I had a pretty good number of talks online, writers started asking me, "So when are you going to put out a book?" That planted the idea in my head, and when I heard about Kickstarter.com (which helped me raise the funding for my first printing), it seemed feasible for the first time to put it together and publish it myself.

3. Yes, I was one of those people asking you to write a book. I’m so glad you did. How long did it take you write? When did you find time with your demanding job as an editor?

I had already written nearly all of the material when I announced the project in July 2009, so at first I was really optimistic about how fast the process would go. But I write my talks in outline form, with bullet points for each phrase to remind me when to breathe or change the register of my voice, and converting that form to readable prose took a lot longer than I anticipated. I also revised a number of the talks in the process, especially my voice talk, which had never 100% satisfied me.

All of this had to be done around the edges of my day job -- that is, on nights and weekends; but then I also do a lot of my actual editing on nights and weekends, so I found it difficult to work on my own writing without feeling guilty about neglecting my authors, who were waiting for my response to their manuscripts! And I wrote a couple more speeches in the meantime for various occasions . . . and that's why it's taken me until now to get the book out.

4. You’re self publishing this book. What made you decide to go this route rather than finding a traditional publisher to publish it for you?

To self-publish successfully, you need to have two things: the ability to create a quality book, in both appearance and content, and the ability to reach your intended audience effectively. I felt my experience in publishing gave me the first, and my blog, website, and conference appearances gave me the second. And finally, it was just fun to be able to put together my own book, just the way I wanted it.

5. If a publisher contacts you in the future to publish this book, would you be open to it?

Certainly -- I'm not ruling anything out!

6. Did you have anyone critique your manuscript as you revised it? How did it feel being the author instead of the editor?

When I write my talks, I go through all the same creative headaches and heartaches that real writers do -- losing faith that the speech will ever come together; cycling through "I'm a failure! I'm a genius! I'm a failure! I'm a genius!" pretty much every ten minutes; envisioning all the public acclaim or derision that would go with either genius or failure. Whenever I feel stuck, that's usually a good sign that it's time for me to get a second reader, and friends, my boyfriend, and even a couple of my authors have critiqued talks in draft form for me, which I always appreciate.

7. How do you plan to market your book?

It will be available through my website and blog, which get a pretty decent number of hits each week, and at all of my conference appearances this year -- I've got five scheduled thus far. It's also gone out for review to a number of children's writers' blogs, and I'm doing some blog interviews like this one (thank you!).

8. Do you have any plans to write other books?

Not at present! Though I'd love to write a novel someday.

9. Tell us how we can buy your book.

Click on the following link!

https://secure.mybookorders.com/order/MultiProduct.aspx?SiteID=382

Thanks for joining us Cheryl and good luck with your book. Cheryl will be stopping by so be sure to comment. You can find Cheryl at her website http://cherylklein.com/ and her blog http://chavelaque.blogspot.com/. I follow it and recommend you do too.

I’m giving away one copy of Cheryl’s book. All you need to do is be a follower (just click the follow button if you’re not a follower) and leave a comment by midnight on March 19th. I’ll announce the winner on March 21st. International entries are welcome.

ETA: Cheryl has generously given a copy of SECOND SIGHT for the giveaway so there will be TWO winners. I'm so excited.

-Posted by Natalie

Thursday Spotlight Update

Updated this week....

Rebecca Sherman / Writers House
(General Update)



Marcia Wernick / Wernick & Pratt
(New Agency / General Update)

Also, don't forget to come by tomorrow for Natalie's awesome interview with Cheryl Klein, senior editor at Arthur A. Levine Books, about her new book, SECOND SIGHT.

Ellen Oh: A Success Story

I received the sweetest comment from Ellen Oh after she sold her book, PROPHECY: THE DRAGON KING CHRONICLES (and two more!), thanking me for my blog and the Agent Spotlight series. I e-mailed her back and mentioned I would love to feature her on my blog and thus began a lovely exchange of e-mails. Now, here she is with a guest post! I hope you'll find her story as inspiring as I do.

I started writing back in 2000 and worked on 2 manuscripts in 7 years. It took me that long because I was working full time. I queried my second manuscript and got back good feedback from agents but it was clear I needed to do major work on it. But before I could go back to revise it, the idea of for Prophecy sprung into my head while I was stuck in traffic on the beltway. I remember trying to write frantically on bits of paper as my car was crawling along. That book took me 5 months to write and then I got my first agent fairly quickly. We went on our first round of submissions and got back a lot of requests for revisions. I took a year revising but at the end of the year, my ms was so different from what my first agent had signed on for and we decided to part ways. I didn't know it at the time, but it was the best thing that happened to me.

For my second agent search, I did things differently. First of all, I found your blog which was a godsend. I read every single agent spotlight interview and started compiling a new agent excel spreadsheet based entirely on what I like to think of as compatability factors. What books had the agents repped, what were their likes and dislikes, how did they come across in their interviews, etc. The Agent Spotlight series helped me create the perfect list of agents to query. Instead of doing a mass querying, my second time around, I was extremely cautious of who I queried. I made sure I knew everything I could about an agent before querying them. And I queried in very small batches. I was fortunate to get a lot of full requests and by having staggered my queries, I was able to get some feedback from agents that rejected my ms. Of the agents that rejected me early in the process, every single one of them gave me back useful comments that I used to revise my MS. In fact, two wonderful agents gave me detailed comment letters that I will always be grateful for. Because it was after I made the last of these revisions and sent out new queries, that I got four offers of representation. But the key to this was taking my time, not rushing the query process. And in many ways I was very lucky because most of the agents asked for and read my full quickly. The offers I got were all from amazing agents, but I ended up signing with Joe Monti for two reasons - first, we talked on the phone for 2 hours that felt like 20 minutes, and second, he already knew how he wanted me to revise, and even though they were big revisions, I knew he was right.

So then came six more months of heavy revision before I finally heard the news that we were ready to go on submission. And then after what felt like years of writing, revising and waiting to get to this one moment, a week later I had an offer of a lifetime.

When I got my publishing deal, I had a sort of a flashback of all the long years I'd been writing. It was like a montage of memories filled with the naysayers and the well wishers and my moments of both incredible highs and depressing lows. I don't think there's a writer alive who didn't think of quitting at some point in their careers. It's a difficult business. But at that moment, as I gratefully accepted my offer, I was thankful for every single one of those moments. The naysayers made me determined to prove them wrong and the well wishers supported me through good and bad times.

So thanks Casey for all your hard work on the Agent Spotlight series! I wouldn't have found my amazing agent without it!

Thank YOU, Ellen, for sharing your story with us. I seriously cannot wait to read the trilogy!

If you'd like to read more about Ellen's path to publication and her deal announcement, click HERE. If you'd like to read a little interview with me, head on over to her blog. Ellen can be found at the following places:

Website
Blog
Twitter
Goodreads
Facebook

Tip Tuesday #79

Hello all! Casey here. Thank you for welcoming Natalie to Literary Rambles yesterday. If you didn't catch the news about my fabulous new blog partner, check out this post. Today, I have a wonderful and fun tip from Christine Tyler with poetry by her critique partner, Jeigh Meredith. Please visit their blogs on the way out. They both blog fairly regularly about writing. If you'd like to read another tip by Christine, she was #73 a few weeks ago.

Here's Christine:

Revisions can be nasty. In my head, this sounds a lot like "moose bites can be nasty" from Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail. I've therefore determined, Revisions are just as nasty as Moose bites. Sometimes it is in our best interest to do the painstaking work of copy-editing our work piece-by-piece. Other times, and most times, we're going to work on large-scale revisions, such as a second draft in which our focus is still on the expression of entire events. Essentially, we're rewriting scenes.

So here are my suggestions for a virtually pain-free revision process:

Print your rough draft. Read it over several times. Highlight what you love about it, or talk about it with your critique partner. Print, and then read over the revisions your CPs have sent you. Pay special attention to what they mention works. You can't skip this step. You'll just have two versions of the same problems. Critique first.

Make sure you like the first sentence, open up a blank document, and type this sentence. Then, put your rough draft and revisions face down on your desk. Close your eyes, and think of those phrases and descriptions that worked. You might be surprised how much you remember. You may even realize there are specific sentences you can recall word-for-word. Type up the scene building up to those golden bits. Everything else is fluid and flows around them.

This is not just a plain "rewrite" this is a "re-vision." Literally.

This is a fantastic technique for cutting out deadwood and shortening a scene. You'll end up with all your favorite parts, while still maintaining your stream-of-consciousness. In my experience, going back and nitpicking piece-by-piece on my rough draft, looking back and forth from my paper to screen, leads to a lot of choppy ideas. The closer I look at it, the more I lose the big picture. It took me a little while to realize: I have the big picture in my head. Now that I've written it once, I have my key-phrases in my head. I know how to write this, and given the chance, I could write it better. So I do.

Just kind of a funny detail, this is the "poem" my CP (Jeigh Meredith) sent me. I thought she explained why this is useful rather well :)

Whilst doing my mound
of neverending dishes tonight
and bemoaning the fact
that my book is sucking
a dozen eggs,
I remembered wise words
from a wise friend,
namely Christine Tyler,
who said
(among other things)
"Blah blah blah,
rewriting the chapter
without looking and
the good parts
come back to me
and the rest
falls away."

So here I sit,
rewriting without looking,
and my fingers fly,
because it's easier to make
all new words than to mix
new words with
old dumbface words.

Bless you.
And your face.
And your brain.

I Have A Blog Partner!

Hi everyone! I have an exciting announcement today. Natalie Aquirre, who you're sure to have seen in the comments of this blog and others, is joining Literary Rambles as my new blog partner! Natalie has been a long-time supporter and I'm thrilled she'll finally have a place in the blogosphere for people to visit and hear what she has to say. Natalie has some AWESOME stuff lined up for you guys, and I think this is a complete #win for everyone.

Natalie wrote up a quick intro just for the occasion. Here she is!

Hi everyone. I’m so happy to be joining Casey! Almost as excited as if I’d just gotten an agent. Seriously, I’ve had a big grin on my face the whole month of February just thinking about it.

I’m a middle grade and YA fantasy writer. I’ll be blogging on Mondays starting March 21^st and will tell you more about myself and what I plan to blog about then. Hint: there will book giveaways.

I have a special interview coming up this Friday, March 11^th. I’m interviewing Cheryl Klein, a senior editor at the Arthur A. Levine imprint of Scholastic. We’ll be discussing her new book, Second Sight: An Editor's Talks on Writing, Revising, and Publishing Books for Children or Young Adults. And I’ll be giving away a copy of her book. Hope to see you then. And thanks Casey for letting me join as your blog partner.

Yay, Natalie! Everyone, please join me in welcoming Natalie to Lit Rambles and make sure you come back Friday for her interview with Cheryl Klein. I've had a sneak peak and it's fabulous!

Thursday Spotlight Update

Updated this week:

Beth Fleisher
(New Info on Clear Sailing Creatives)


Jamie Weiss Chilton
(General Update / Awaiting Review)

Tip Tuesday #78

Tip Tuesday is a recurring feature where readers send in tips for fellow writers. If you'd like to send in a tip e-mail me at agentspotlight(at)gmail(dot)com. Today's tip was sent in by Julie Hedlund and it's a good one! Please visit Julie at her blog, Write Up My Life.

I've been using this resource for a while and figured it was time to share. There's a feature on the Renaissance Learning website that allows you to quickly find the word count of almost any children's book. It also provides the book's publication history - by year and by publisher. If you follow this link: http://www.renlearn.com/store/quiz_home.asp?c=MA+21%3A72%3A9+1102%2F8%2F2, it will take you to a page where you can search for books by title, author, ISBN, etc. In less than five minutes, I found the word counts for these popular books:

A Sick Day for Amos McGee: 441
Ling and Ting: Not Exactly the Same: 887
Clementine: 12,706
The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate: 80,972
Mockingjay: 100,269
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: 198,227

This is a great tool for comparing your own word counts to other popular books in your genre. I hope everyone finds it as useful as I have.

Julie Hedlund