A few days ago, an editor at Scholastic Press requested I submit a picture book she and I discussed in passing back in June. I am amazed at her memory and her notes.
But I’m even more amazed that just two weeks before that, she requested an entirely different manuscript that she had expressed strong interest in at the same June conference.The one she was paid to critique.
So two weeks, two picture book requests from the same editor.
I don’t know what to make of this new request, but I’m taking it as a good thing. In my experience, and say that of a few thousand other writers, if editors aren’t interested in your work, they don’t request a second manuscript. They simply say “Thanks, not for us. You have talent, but we can’t use it.” (Rejection letters let you down easy; critiques are a slap in the face).
I rewrote this second story, too, just a bit, to make sure it was right to send to her. I didn't quite agonize over it the way I did The Spaghettisburg Address because an editor at Cartwheel (an imprint of Scholastic) had once expressed interest in it and had taken to offering her thoughts on revision. Between her notes and an agent's thoughts on the project, I felt relatively comfortable sending it out. Now I'm in the waiting and hoping game, hoping not only that it gets signed, but that I don't have to wait too long to find out.
And then I'm hoping that one other thing she said in passing also comes true -- that she could see me doing an entire series of these books. Now that's worth waiting for!
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