Marsha Diane Arnold and the 7 Year Drought

             Writers are no strangers to droughts. There are droughts when good ideas don’t come. Droughts when the right words won’t come. And there are droughts when no one wants your stories.

            All those droughts are painful, but that last type of drought can break your heart and your spirit. It almost broke mine. But fear not, dear readers/writers, this story has a happy ending.

            My blog for the Picture Book Academy is supposed to be about character-driven stories. I’m going off-course a bit to share some news and encourage all of us to persevere. If there’s a character here, it’s me; I’m not as interesting or determined or spunky as my book characters, but I hope you’ll stay tuned for a bit of drama and that happy ending.

Jamichael Henterly and myself

Karen Risken and myself

It took years to find an editor who loved my first story as much as I did. That editor was Diane Arico.  Heart of a Tiger, illustrated by Jamichael Henterly, won a sweet little award, the Ridgway, for Best First Book by a New Author. It was a nice beginning.

            Diane was my champion during my early career. When she moved from Dial to Golden Books to start a new picture book line, I went with her. Golden published three of my books. Then Golden went bankrupt, Diane left publishing, and Random House acquired Golden’s publishing rights; many authors’ books were unceremoniously “shredded.”  That was a major detour, but my drought was yet to come.

            I still had a strong connection to Dial, but I didn’t click with another editor there until along came the marvelous Karen Riskin, who I adore. Karen was my editor for two of my most beloved books, Prancing Dancing Lily (illustrated by John Manders) and Roar of a Snore (illustrated by Pierre Pratt). But before Roar of a Snore hit the bookstores, Karen left for the even more important work of raising a family. That was a big bump in the road.

            Treasure those editors, writers. They really are golden.

            The drought started after what seemed a precursor to good things. I had two picture books published in 2006 from two top publishers, Dial (Penguin) and Abrams. Two picture books in the same year. That had never happened for me before.      

            But this was also the beginning of big changes in children’s publishing. Technologies were changing, cultures were changing, economies were changing, publishing houses were changing. Successful editors, some with their own imprints, were being let go. E-books and apps were squeezing traditional books. Mid-list authors were getting squeezed too.

            As writers we all have similar tales of woe. Our manuscripts get “close;” an editor loves our story but acquisitions turns it down. But since my first book was accepted, I had never had such a dry spell.

The years passed. It didn’t feel like 5 or 6 or 7.  It felt like I’d been wandering in the wilderness for forty years, like the Israelites. Like them, I’d be there, “until the whole generation that had done what was evil in the Lord’s sight was gone.”  Except I was the whole generation and the Lord was the Big Six (soon to be the Big Five).

            I had sold my first 11 books on my own, with no agent. But with drastic changes happening in publishing and more and more houses closing their doors to unsolicited manuscripts, even from published authors, it was time for an agent. Luckily, I found the wonderful Karen Grencik of Red Fox Literary.  She loved my stories. She was heaven sent.

            But something was wrong. My manuscripts were still getting “close;” an editor would love my story, then acquisitions would turn it down. ETC.  I’d been down this road alone, in misery. Now, I was just sharing the misery with someone else.

            Then suddenly and unexpectedly, as happens in a drought, it began to sprinkle.  In early April, Karen emailed there was interest in one of my manuscripts. (Blah. Blah. Fine. This had happened before. No reason to get overexcited.) But it didn’t take long for the sprinkle to turn into a shower. There was lots of interest in my manuscript.

            And in the end, it was a downpour. The drought had ended. The offer that could not be refused came from the man who emailed: “It’s utterly simple….and simply brilliant.”  My story was bought in a pre-empt, in a two-book deal from the exceptional Neal Porter of Neal Porter Books. There is simply no better way in the children’s publishing world to end a 7-year drought.

            I cannot tell you what the “simply brilliant” story is, but I will tell you it is minimal text. Really minimal text.  It’s a story that came to me in images, in the early morning hours. My art notes show the way to a character-driven story. Indeed, there are many characters driving the story, into oblivion and back again. I cannot wait to see how the illustrator paints them.

            So now I am rejuvenated, regenerated. I feel a bit like a phoenix rising, like a cicada chirping my song after being underground, unseen, for 13 or 17…or 7 years. Detours, bumps, and droughts come to us all. But, writers, if we persevere, if we have faith, if we keep “showing up,” we can survive the drought and rise like a phoenix.

                  After a 7-year drought, my story is now…to be continued.

  Marsha  Diane Arnold is an award-winning children’s book author with a heart of gold. Besides writing, she enjoys visiting schools internationally, nationally, and through Skype, sharing her love of books and writing through presentations and writing “funshops”.  In 2008 Marsha was honored as one of seven artists invited to be part of Sequoia National Parks Foundation’s Artists in the Back Country, the only children’s author ever invited. The program’s goal is to rekindle the American tradition of enhancing public appreciation of our natural world through the arts. She shares her adventures in the high Sierras at www.earthsvoices.com

When not creating imaginative worlds and wacky characters at her home in northern California, Marsha also enjoys traveling the world, scuba diving, and (like her characters) always trying new things.  To learn more about Marsha’s books or to contact her, visit www.marshadianearnold.com. You can also find out more about Marsha’s phenomenal home school e-course on Writing Wonderful Character-Driven Picture Books at http://www.picturebookacademy.com/writing-character-driven-stories.html