Wednesday, September 01, 2010

The Life Cycle of You Are Not Here

Only 30 days until You Are Not Here launches! To celebrate I'll be doing several new blog posts about my writing process, inspiration, behind the scenes info, and more. So check back every few days for something new!

People often ask me, "How long does it take to make a book?" I still don't have a good answer (besides: somewhere between a few weeks and a lifetime). But I can tell you how long it took to write You Are Not Here...and how long it took to get from the manuscript stage to a finished book!

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Summer 2006
Sitting in a work meeting, a coworker says something like: “Wow. That would be a crazy place to live.” The first thing I think of is that it would be weird to live across the street from a cemetery. Later, I think it’d be even weirder to live across the street from a cemetery if someone you cared about were buried there. Then this little idea becomes a bigger idea. What if a teenage girl’s boyfriend suddenly died and was buried outside of her window? At first I think that I would make it about really lovely relationship, but soon realize (or was it my editor who told me?) that happy relationships are boring (to write or read about anyway). After telling my editor, David Levithan, this idea he suggests making the boyfriend already dead on page one. And so it went… (Only now, the cemetery is a few blocks from her house. It seemed like overkill to have it be right out her window.)

INTERMISSION
I toy with the idea a bit, do some reading about religions and burial practices, read books about grief...start working on an outline and some sample poems.
September 22, 2008
Email my awesome editor the concept for You Are Not Here (which is about 20 pages of poems and story notes mixed together) and ask if we can have lunch to talk. I feel pretty nervous, but I want his feedback to see if he thinks I’ve got something. I assume lunch will entail him giving me ideas/suggestions…then I’d go off and rework and formally submit the proposal to him.

September 23, 2008
Miraculously, David and I schedule lunch for the next day. While sitting at an outdoor Soho cafĂ©, David tells me he loves the proposal and doesn’t need me to rework it. He wants to show it to his colleagues at Scholastic to see if he can acquire it. This is highly shocking!

I sold my first book, I Don’t Want to Be Crazy, without an agent and wanted to do things differently this time around. So, the search for an agent becomes a lot more pressing. I make lots of phone calls, read lots of agent websites, poll author friends, etc.

October 10, 2008
Send first choice agent, Barry Goldblatt, my proposal.
http://bgliterary.com/

October 14, 2008
Meet with Barry. It’s a love fest. We decide to work together!

October 16, 2008
David makes Barry an offer—and it’s for two books! I wonder, can I handle two books—especially when I have no clue what the next one will be about? I get more than a little freaked out, but Barry talks me through it. We accept the offer!

INTERMISSION
Work, work, work. Coffee, cafes, visits to cemetery, muffins, reading about religion.

June 15, 2009
Send first draft to David. Finger crossed!

INTERMISSION
Excitement turns to nervousness. Why hasn’t David gotten back to me? Is the manuscript that bad? Mild panic is soothed when David tells me he’s workload is really backed up and it’s going to take awhile to get back to me.

September 10, 2009
Get general comments from David. He says,
“I think what you’ve written is fantastic – thoroughly disturbing at first, then with the right veins of hope toward the end. The writing itself is nearly flawless – you capture her voice perfectly, and the verse is deeply effective in its starkness.”

I may be a teensy bit too excited that he called it “disturbing.” But that sounds like a compliment to me.

September 11, 2009
We meet for lunch and David gives me various general “homework assignments” about things he’s like to see developed. Among other things, he wants more about Annaleah and her mom and more happy flashbacks about Brian and Annaleah together.

Work for about a month on the homework poems. It feels strange--but good--to be writing again after a few months off.

November 5, 2009
See first cover. LOVE IT! But later find out that there is another YA cover that is very similar and we will have to rethink our plans. Sad. (And yes, my last name is mispelled. I'm used to it by now.)













November 8, 2009
Send David second draft! This includes all the new “homework poems.”

December 28, 2009
Get amazing comments back from David.
“As you’ll see, I think it’s in wonderful shape – I’d say the mass majority of my comments are words of praise. It’s really come together beautifully – I think the additions you’ve made really deepen the work, and that you’ve conveyed Annaleah’s experience is a genuinely moving (if at times profoundly sad) way.”

Review David’s edits. Accept most (after all, David is a genius). Reject some.

January 11, 2010
Send David third and final draft!

February 3, 2010
See second cover. Do NOT love it. It's good, but not great. Have VERY long talks with friends (especially ones who are designers/artists). Have long talk with Barry (my agent) about my concerns.









February 12, 2010
Get copyedited manuscript from David. The copy editor (the person who goes through the manuscript with a fine toothed comb and notices all sorts of errors) seessome really funny typos. Also, it is clear that I do not know how to use commas. CE also noticed some creepy typos. For example, on two separate occasions I use the word “widow” instead of “window.” (color key to image below: yellow is the copyeditor, blue is my editor, red is me.)











February 22, 2010
Return copy edited manuscript.

March 4, 2010
See third and final cover and LOVE IT! Hurray!
As an editor it is SO hard not to make notes about nerdy things like leading (the amount space in-between the lines), fonts, colors, etc. I do send excessive notes, but I am pretty sure that I will be ignored. I need to be the author not the editor here.













March 11, 2010
Get first pass (aka “pages”). This is the first time I see the manuscript designed and looking like an actual book. It’s real. And really big! I make some additions and deletions.












March 22, 2010
Return first pass (aka 1P) with comments.

March 28, 2010
See and return 2P. Perfecto!

May 21, 2010
Twitter post: “galleys are in for You Are Not Here. if you see a crazy person runnin thru Soho, throwing people aside & muttering ‘it's here!’ that's me!”

August 25, 2010
Get first copy of You Are Not Here. Run around the office like a lunatic showing anyone and everyone that will talk to me.


October 1, 2010
You Are Not Here goes on sale…



1 comment:

E. Kristin Anderson said...

YAY, Sam! This is a great post -- a lot of folks seem to think authors produce books overnight. So not true!

And, re: leading -- I used to work in print production at a big magazine, and I am going to be a NIGHTMARE when I get to that stage in the process, I'm sure!

Can't wait to read this book!

<3