Banana Peelin' with Tara Lazar

Happy Banana Peel Thursday! Wait a minute...it's still Wednesday! But I am having issues with Blogger. So Thursday it is. (It's Thursday somewhere, right?) If you missed Wednesday's post, it's down there, past this one.  It's me blabbing about Povember. And if you are asking, "What the heck is Povember?", well, you just need to scroll down to check it out!

Today's post is from the archives, from way back when, in... January.
But first, a WINNER! The winner of Janee Trasler's masterpiece, Caveman: A B.C. Story, is...

                                                              ROMELLE BROAS

You go Romelle! (Which really means, you go and send me your address right away so I can forward it to Janee! Yay!)

And now, let us revisit the post where the brain behind PiBoIdMo shared some of her most humbling experiences while writing for children! 

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Do I even need to introduce today's guest author? If you are involved in the online, children's writing community or perhaps have needed a 3AM boogeyman assassin, I highly doubt it.

Ladies and gents of  BaPeTh (AKA Banana Peel Thursdays)...may I present to you, the slips of PiBoIdMo's own Tara Lazar!

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Banana peels? I've got a bunch.

Some of you know that my debut picture book, THE MONSTORE, will be out with the Aladdin imprint of Simon & Schuster in 2013. Well, about six months before I signed the deal, I brought the manuscript to a conference to have a picture book consultant give me a critique. She read the story and then slowly, silently pushed it back across the table. Uh-oh. She called it "a practice manuscript" and recommended that I put it aside to work on something else--it was unsellable as-is. While I was extremely disappointed, after talking to this consultant for the next half-hour, I realized she was not the humorous-quirky type of picture book editor. She liked sweet and sentimental. Our styles didn't connect. I ignored her assessment and it's a good thing I did. So I call this slipping on a peel but landing on a bean bag chair. Remember that this industry is very subjective. Believe in your work.

I once began talking to an editor by telling him the name of his favorite book (I had researched him online). No hello, no pleasantries, just BOOK TITLE right in his face. Talk about stalkerish! No wonder he didn't talk to me for the rest of the conference.

I also made a total fool of myself while talking to an agent at another conference. I asked her a question and she leaned in, interested to engage in conversation, but her answer was terse. I had no follow-up question! My mind blanked. We stared at each other for an awkward moment. End of conversation.

I was convinced that the first thing I ever wrote would be published by the first editor who read it. I couldn't believe it when rejections piled up (and then toppled over). But I sent out a 1200-word manuscript about a homeless man with no child protagonist. DUH. Submitting too early happens to everyone. I just didn't think it would happen to ME. Wrong-o again.

I also submitted a middle grade novel to a first page session---and the attending agent requested the manuscript! I was so excited! But at the time, the manuscript wasn't done. It wasn't even near done. In fact, I was just two chapters into it. I missed out on a great opportunity by submitting something unfinished. At the time, I didn't know an agent won't work with you until something is completed, polished and ready-to-sell. Now I keep early work to myself.

And one of my biggest banana peels? Keeping my agent waiting for an answer. Ammi-Joan Paquette offered me representation in a phone call and I was excited, but I still had submissions out with four other agents. I knew to inform those agents, but I didn't know to give them a deadline to respond. So poor Joan is waiting for me, and poor me is waiting to hear from the other agents. Joan even sent me a message saying that she wanted me to be as enthusiastic about working with her as she was about working with me--and I was!!!!--but I didn't realize she was biting her nails waiting on me. ME?! You really want ME?! So I think I almost lost Joan due to my ignorance of how to deal with these things. And that would have been a tremendous FAIL because she is the BEST AGENT IN THE WORLD (for me).

I am sure there will be more banana peels. After all, my first book isn't even out yet! I haven't ventured into the world of book signings, school visits, appearances and the like. There is always some new mistake to make. But banana peels are great because you always learn from them. And if you're lucky, slipping on one means that someone nearby baked banana bread and you can nom on a slice.

Tara Lazar is a children’s book author, mother, foodie and boogeyman assassin (currently booked at 3am nightly).

Her first two picture books, The Monstore and I Thought This Was a Bear Book, will be published by Aladdin/Simon & Schuster in 2013 and 2014, respectively. Tara is represented by Ammi-Joan Paquette of the Erin Murphy Literary Agency.

Her last name rhymes with “bazaar”. She’s not Tara Laser-beam (although that would be awesome).

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Keeping early work to myself? Shnikies! I wish I had that advice a few months ago! WOOPS!


Thank you so much Tara for taking the time participate in this week's BPT.  I am so eternally grateful to have had you as a guest. You are wonderful. I know I am much wiser having read this as I am sure many other readers are. =)  I wish you the best of luck in any future banana peels you may encounter.

Banana Peelin' with Ame Dyckman

BEEP. That's BOT for hello. Today marks the beginning of the Banana Peel Count Down to Halloween. This month, authors from some of my favorite festively ghoulish books will be featured. I am super excited to have Ame Dyckman here today. She is incredibly funny and she has this great book called BOY + BOT. Now, BOY + BOT isn't necessarily a Halloween book, BUT it does include a robot and what Halloween is complete without a robot or TEN?! Please welcome AME DYCKMAN!!!!

BANANA PEELIN’ POST

Ame Dyckman

            Hi, guys!  Want to read my big Banana Peelin’ moment?  And how I finally picked myself up and brushed banana bits of my pants?

            Okay, here goes:

            My first picture book manuscript was called BLACKBERRY, THE FLYING GOAT. There are several good reasons why you’ve never heard of it:

·         BLACKBERRY was 1,423 words long. 

·         It had a grown-up protagonist. 

·         And it was a love story.  (Not with the goat.)

Yeah, I hadn’t done my homework.  So naturally, I was convinced my manuscript was awesome! 

In March, 2008, I took BLACKBERRY to my very first NJ SCBWI event.

I was positive the editor would adore it.

I expected her to write “A+++” all over it, like the teacher in A Christmas Story.

I thought she’d hand me a contract over dessert.

I could not have been more mistaken. 

After my critique, I went home and:

·         Cried.

·         Ate all the ice cream and blamed it on a freezer malfunction.

·         Got a shovel and buried BLACKBERRY in my backyard.

Then I rolled up my sleeves (which were really muddy from all that digging), and I got to work.

I signed up for every single NJ SCBWI event I could.

I went to First Page Sessions and Mentoring Workshops and Annual Conferences.        And I listened to all the feedback and advice.

What I heard most was, “If you want to write picture books, you have to read them.”

I read picture books to my kid, of course.  But I needed to read them to me.

So I got the biggest tote bag I could find and I went to my local library and checked out 50 picture books—the max you can check out at one time.

I went home and read those 50 picture books and brought them back and got 50 more.

And then I got a library card in my kid’s name so I could check out 100 picture books at a time.  (If you bake for your librarians—which you should do anyway—they will pretend not to notice when you do this.)

I got a Picture Book Haul every week.  (And I still do. )

And I kept going to NJ SCBWI events.  (And I still do.)

With all that reading, my writing and my feedback improved.  Editors said my writing was funny, but there was a little problem.

My subject matter was too… weird. 

I was told there wasn’t a big market for a picture book about a were-chicken. 

Or a talking bowl of fruit. 

Or a dead goldfish. 

After contemplation (and more ice cream), I realized the editors were right.  I needed a protagonist with wider appeal—not banana peel.

And my first thought was, “Well, everybody loves robots!”

Like her book, Ame is awesome. She has offered to giveaway a copy of BOY + BOT plus some swag.  All you need to do is leave a comment below describing the strangest premise for a book you have ever had OR a book you have read that has haunted you ever since due to its wackiness! (My "friend" offers a personal example: a girl with a pet hairball, named Harriett.) Thank you so much for reading! Good luck!

Agents Beware

Get ready, get set, AGENTS BEWARE! Now where did I put that pencil? With my goggles on to shield my one near-sighted eye from all of the banana mush as well as to collect salty tears of frustration and self-pity, I have begun to really submit my work folks.

After some positive feedback on one specific manuscript and an amazingly warm and fuzzy critique with the Picture Book Whisperer, Mira Reisberg, on another, I am in agent research mode. We will see where this takes me. Hopefully to a SBAWOTLC4ME.(Want Ad translation... small boutique agency with oodles of tender loving care for me.). =)

Whatever happens though, I have the strangest feeling that all will lead back to you banana peel blog, where embarrassing moments run the show.  Ahhh...such is life. Or at least, such is MY life.

P.S. Please forgive me for running over Mira Reisberg's Banana Peel Thursday post. I am still learning. I know not what I do....Reeling from her post as well as the 10,000 hit milestone, her banana peel moments did not get the attention they deserved due to my giveaway extravaganza. Please check her post out for it is so wise and worth your time. Also, she is extending a half-off special for her ecourse, Hero's Art Journey, where I am going to explore my creative and wild side this June. (I think I'll keep the goggles handy for that experience as well.)

Banana Peelin' with Juliet Clare Bell

I'm a panicker. Are you a panicker? My daughter's a panicker. Hmmm...should I panic about that? Maybe I should just go buy our next author's book, Don't Panic, Annika! I am so excited to share with you the very insightful banana peel slips of this week's contributing, children's author. Please welcome Juliet Clare Bell!

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Juliet Clare Bell with an Annika made of icing, stolen from an incredible cake made for the SCBWI British Isles’ 2011 Conference Mass Book Launch

You need a very tough skin in this industry. Mine’s much tougher than banana skin now but it wasn’t always. Here are two ways to wear a tough skin rather than slip on one…

1: Learn not to think of your stories as your babies.

I spent months working really hard on my first rhyming story, Scatterbrained Kate and the Party. The story was quite simple, the rhyme quite complex, but I’d worked on the meter and scansion and had come up with something that I felt was energetic and fun. And hey –I’d shown it to family who really liked it. So it must be good. I was excited. Really excited. And proud of my little baby… And then I used SCBWI’s old manuscript exchange list to show it to a few SCBWI writers who were up for swapping picture book manuscripts.

An older woman I’d never met with a very authoritative email voice told me simply that ‘this will never get published because…’ and listed the reasons. I hadn’t grown my thick skin yet and this was my baby! I was indignant (as well as upset). Surely that was only her opinion? I was so affronted by her manner that I completely dismissed everything she said and within days, I’d deleted her email as it made me feel sick every time I looked at it (and I couldn’t stop looking at it).

Of course, this woman was absolutely right. It was never going to sell –and I actually think now she was trying to do me a favour. I overlooked what she’d said before ‘THIS WILL NEVER GET PUBLISHED! I’M MUCH BETTER THAN YOU, YOU’RE AN AMATEUR’ (as I’d read it), which, if I remember right (you can’t reread a crit you’ve deleted) actually said she thought I was good at rhyming and good at other things. She wasn’t saying it was bad. She was saying it was unpublishable –which is different, and I think she was trying to save me time by encouraging me to start something new which might be more publishable.

Her manner was poor, but if I’d had a thick enough skin and hadn’t felt so personally attached to the story, I’d have [1] kept the critique, [2] discarded the superior tone in which she’d written it, [3] read it really, really carefully and actually benefited from the content (in spite of the tone).

Fortunately, I’m very stubborn and I picked myself up relatively quickly and set up a critique group which is still going strong six years later (where we’re frank with our feedback, but still completely respectful). By regularly exposing my stories to other people, I’ve learned to be less emotionally involved and listen –properly- to feedback that is about a particular story and not about me.

If you’re really serious about a manuscript (and I was about Scatterbrained Kate), it’s hard to believe that it might not be the one to launch your career. That doesn’t mean it won’t be playing a huge part in your getting there eventually, or that you don’t need to put as much work into it. It’s like an apprenticeship. And what you learn from writing it, editing it and then listening to feedback may well help your next book become something extraordinary –and publishable. If you want something published, professionals will have to read it and they will not give it more than a quick skim through unless it jumps out at them. Why not let go of it earlier in the process and get other writers whom you trust to enable you to present something that really will jump out at that editor or agent? If you think of your manuscript as your baby (loved, beautiful, doted on, and woe betide anyone who says anything against him or her), chances are he or she will never grow up into a book. 

Of course, it may be different for you –your early work might be fantastic and publishable. But don’t give up it it’s not.

This is me with my real babies, as drawn by Esther, baby number two, second from left. Whilst I know these guys are perfect and I don’t ever need feedback on them, I also know that every story I write will be improved by other writers’ feedback.

No. 2: Never send something to editors or agents you kind-of-know-isn’t-right for them just because you can do it quickly (via email), or so they don’t forget you after you’ve had some contact with them.

When I’d been writing picture book manuscripts for about five years and was getting lots of near misses from editors, I decided to contact a specific agent whose responses in interviews about picture books really fit with how I felt about them. She usually took on two or three writers out of the 3000 or so people who contacted her in a year but I thought I’d start with her anyway (and then make a list of other agents to approach whilst I was waiting for her rejection).

After six weeks, there was an email from her in my inbox. I knew it must be a rejection because it would be crazy to be anything else. In fact, it wasn’t. She said she really liked two of the five manuscripts I’d sent her and would I write her some more as she’d need at least three to take me on? And this is the bit where I didn’t quite listen well enough and jumped the gun with something that wasn’t right…

She had told me specifically what she liked about the two manuscripts and she wanted more in that vein (warm stories about family and everyday life). She’s said why she didn’t want the other three (too hard a sell). She said so. So I knew exactly what to send. Much quicker than I normally think up and write a story, I wrote one. And soon after, another. But whilst I was waiting for feedback on the second (I’d already send out and got feedback from my critique groups on the first), I got impatient. I had a great idea: whilst she was waiting for the kind of stories she’d specifically asked for, shouldn’t I send her something else I’d been working on that was completely different and educational in feel, even though a fellow writer I’d spoken to months before whom she represented had also said that that project didn’t sound like the agent’s style? (I’d tell her of course that I’d send the others soon…) I thought it would keep me in the forefront of her mind.

Why? What a hugely wasted opportunity –I was only another couple of weeks from sending her two really well revised warm stories about family and everyday life. I clearly hadn’t listened and had wasted her time with something irrelevant. The rejection wasn’t even from her. It was from her assistant –and it even said they were really sorry as they’d really liked the other manuscripts. This agent was an extremely busy woman, dealing with 60-odd hopefuls in a week on top of her job of representing her current clients. She had been really interested and had asked me for a very specific thing -and I’d blown my chances.

You don’t get loads of chances –don’t blow them by sending something too soon, or something irrelevant. Agents and editors are phenomenally busy and their main priority is not finding me –or you. Only ever send the best –and most relevant manuscripts you have.

The story had a happy ending though –I apologised profusely over email; she changed her mind and asked me to send them to her when they were ready. And although she finally decided against taking me on, she recommended another agent, Celia Catchpole –who was already top of my list of who to approach next- as she thought she’d like my stories. She did, and she’s the absolute right agent for me. The story I wrote in response to the first agent’s initial positive reply (I came up with the first line of it that evening) became my first picture book, Don’t Panic, Annika! You can see it here, read by one of my real babies, my (un-panicking) daughter, Annika.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6uj3Vc7jGM

Juliet Clare Bell is the author of Don’t Panic, Annika! (2011, illustrated by Jennifer E. Morris; Piccadilly Press, UK; Koala Books, Australia; also in Dutch and soon to be in Chinese and Slovenian). Pirate Picnic, an early reader, is out in May, 2012 (Franklin Watts) and The Kite Princess (illustrated by Laura-Kate Chapman; Barefoot Books, UK and US), accompanied by a recording of the story read by Oscar-nominated Imelda Staunton, will be out in autumn, 2012. She’s an active member and volunteer of SCBWI (British Isles), an organisation she’d recommend highly to anyone who is serious about telling the very best stories they can in the very best way they can, and getting them picked up by editors or agents. Her website is www.julietclarebell.com and she’s just joined Picture Book Den, a blog by ten UK picture book authors, with additional guest spots (Julia Donaldson is doing a guest blog in March 2012): http://picturebookden.blogspot.com/ .

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I don't know about you, but I feel about ten times smarter having read Clare's slips. (Juliet Clare becomes Clare after you share such intimate knowledge such as one's banana peel moments!)

Thank you SO much Clare for sharing your experiences. Also, for sharing your lovely daughter's reading of your work! What a sweet girl. (I know you don't need feedback, since she is perfect, but just thought I would let you know!) Good luck to you with your fall release of The Kite Princess! Can't WAIT to read it!