Happy Monday. Over at The Writing Barn, we are saying no to no, all year with our blog series Rejecting Rejection. Today we welcome Meredith Davis, one of the founders of the Austin SCBWI, and a terrific writer, on how she says yes to herself, when the world says no. Meredith will be serving as a TA for our upcoming Batteries Not Included, Advanced Writer Weekend Workshop with agent/author Ammi Joan Paquette and author K.A. Holt this February. Welcome Meredith.
I smell like bananas.
Eat turnips.
Not yet.
by Meredith Davis
My kids have figured out a way to mess with my phone, so that when I text the word “hey” the words, “I smell like bananas” comes up. Or I type “thanks” and it shows up as “eat turnips.” I’ve adapted a similar strategy when receiving “no’s” when it comes to publishing. Immediately, in my head, when I read the word “no” I think “not yet.”
My most recent manuscript, soon to be out on submission, is a result of many “not yet’s.” Its genesis was actually an entirely different manuscript. Which was a result of a different manuscript . . . wait, I’ll back up a few years.
I told myself when my kids were all in school, I’d get really serious about submitting my work and I’d finally get published. When child number three entered first grade, I had four middle grade novels and a dozen picture books completed. While I had spent the majority of my time writing and working on my craft, I had submitted several of these over the years to editors and agents. I received mixed reviews. Those who went beyond the form rejections said they liked my writing, but the stories just weren’t working. They said “no.” I read “not yet.”
I decided to start fresh. I wrote a new middle grade in the hours between breakfast and mid-afternoon, when the kids trundled back through the door. I spent a lot of time in pajamas, eating the remains of the scrambled eggs right out of the skillet for my lunch so I wouldn’t waste any time. I was intense. Determined. This was it. After revising and sending my story through the rigors of my critique partners, I began to submit it to editors and a few agents, and once again, I got “no’s.”
It was getting hard to be all Pollyanna and read “not yet” after so many no’s. I was discouraged. What was wrong? I’d read so many craft books, and regular books, learning from the best. I attended conferences, paid for critiques, I had written and re-written, but obviously I was missing something. I felt like my craft had stalled and I needed to push it to the next level. It wasn’t there. Not yet. Then, in one day, I had four people encourage me to look into the MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults program at Vermont College of Fine Arts. When Kathi Appelt, the fourth voice that day, chimed in, I said “yes.” In the face of all the “no’s” I’d received I said “yes” to spending two years to hone my craft.
Two years later, I graduated. I sang Michael Buble’s song “I Just Haven’t Met You Yet” with gusto in my car, dedicating it to the agent who just hadn’t met the new and improved work of Meredith Davis. Not yet. And I got more “no’s.” But two of those “no’s” were with the caveat that the writing was good, really good. They just didn’t feel like this particular manuscript was right for a first book. They wanted to see more. This sounded very close to a “not yet.”
I had a phone conversation with one of those agents, and I clearly heard, “not yet.” She told me she was looking for something more commercial, but with the same heart and great characters she admired in my previous manuscripts. I pitched an idea my husband had pitched to me in the car a few days earlier. And she was interested. So I buckled down, clung tightly to the “not yet,” and set out to prove that I could do it. I could write a manuscript that could sell. I just hadn’t done it yet.
I spent hours plotting out this new story, hitting delete way more than I wanted, because I had learned that writers have to learn to say “not yet” to themselves. To work that isn’t ready. I made myself wait until it was really, really ready. A year later, after many critiques and lots of revisions, I sent it to those same two agents. I waited. And one day, an email on my phone popped up from one of those agents. I did a little dance in the library parking lot, I called, and a week later, she said something even better than “yes.” Alyssa Eisner Henkin, from Trident Media Group, asked me if she could represent my work. And I got to say “yes.”
I realize there will be many “no’s” in my future, even after I finally get the long-sought-after “yes” from an editor and my manuscript is bound and placed on a bookstore shelf. I know this because I’ve listened to other writers. From Katherine Paterson to the girl at her first SCBWI meeting, we all get “no’s,” all along our writer way. But I will continue to choose to see something different, just like with my hijacked text messages.
I smell like bananas.
Eat turnips.
No, you say? I don’t think so.
Not yet.
Meredith Davis writes middle grade novels and picture books in Austin, Texas. Over the years, her love for children’s books has manifested itself in working for an independent children’s bookstore, serving as founder and Regional Advisor for the Austin SCBWI chapter, reading hundreds of books, using forests of paper (I’m sorry, I do use both sides), producing three new readers for the world, and earning an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is agented by Alyssa Eisner Henkin at Trident Media and has been published in Hunger Mountain and The Horn Book.