POP Editorial Services LLC Sponsors Little League Softball Team

This spring POP Editorial Services is sponsoring the Bruins, a Little League Softball team in Montgomery County, Maryland, and Sunday, April 14, was their first game. Check out this awesome team!

We couldn’t have asked for better weather for Opening Day. I’m especially proud of my daughter Hazel, shown here ready to score her first run!

The 8U league is coach pitch, and we are grateful for our excellent head coach, Coach Matt. At this level, the players all get to play, and they play both infield and outfield positions in every game. This allows each girl to get a feel for the different positions, and no one is relegated to right field for the whole game.

I’m so impressed with the professionalism of the coach and the dedication of the team. Every practice, the kids show so much hustle! I’m proud to be a sponsor of this awe-inspiring group of girls.

Here’s to a great season!

Editing a Poem Written with AI

When I opened the email from my client and found a poem attached, I was surprised. This client is in content creation. He writes and places industry articles for business leaders to help them grow their businesses. He sends the articles to me for editing. The work is creative, but not in the way we usually think of a poem. I was intrigued.

Then I read that he had used AI to generate the poem.

My reaction: Well, this can’t be very good then.

Indeed, my client admitted that he’d used AI for the first draft but had to adjust nearly every line. His disappointment was evident.

My reaction: Why would you ask a computer to create what has to be the most human of expressions?

I opened the file, skeptical of what I would find. The poem, I discovered with some relief, was not meant to be deeply personal. Like this client’s other work, it was meant to put forth someone else’s ideas in a clever format that readers would enjoy.

My reaction: Okay, maybe a computer could help with that.

So, what editing needs did I find?

Even after my client’s work to fix the poem, it still had problems with the rhyme scheme. While most stanzas had an AABB rhyme scheme, some did not. I tinkered with word choice and sentence structure until I got it . . . I won’t say “right.” How about “improved.” For its purpose, you might even call it good.

Whereas rhyming might be something AI can do fairly easily, the rhythm of the poem was a greater challenge. Some stanzas had long and rambling lines; others had short, quippy lines. That alone is not a problem. I have read successful poems that move from long to short and back again with intention. You’ll just have to trust me that this did not seem intentional. (Perhaps it’s this intuition that the AI program lacked.)

After more tinkering from me, the poem had rhythm. Now there was one last problem to fix, one only my client could address. Two stanzas repeated ideas, using the same words to rhyme. I considered: Was this intentional? They weren’t placed at key points—say, first and last stanza, or repeating like a chorus. No, I didn’t think it was on purpose. But as the copyeditor, I couldn’t guess another idea he would want to put in its place. My job is to help writers express their ideas better, not tell them which ideas to express.

This is also the job of AI. But here’s where it helps to work with a human: When I discovered the problem, I didn’t pass over it and let my client publish something potentially embarrassing. I queried him to fix it.

I sent back the edited poem with two thoughts in mind:

Sometimes it’s easier to revise something that has already been drafted. If you’re at a loss for where to start, AI can give you the modeling clay you need to shape a work until it says what you want.

And sometimes, it’s easier to start from scratch.

Like this blog? Find more insights and advice in the Updated and Revised Edition of Perfect Bound: How to Navigate the Book Publishing Process Like a Pro!

Bugs: An Essay

Editor’s note: Today I present to you a personal essay about the healing power of music and friendship.

Up to 50% of young children have severe nightmares that cause them to wake up their parents. Nightmares in children tend to peak by ten years of age. After that time, nightmares usually decrease. Some children continue to have nightmares as teens and adults. This may be a lifelong problem for these individuals.

—American Academy of Sleep Medicine

It was four o’clock in the morning, or maybe five. Somehow Kathy knew the kolache bakery would be open, and she was driving. Yes, we were Kathy and Katherine—great friends enjoying a midsummer adventure together. When I awoke, we had just parked under an overpass with the bright lights of the bakery shining onto the hood of our car. The sun was still down, and the streets were quiet.

It would be my turn to drive next, the last leg of our twenty-two-hour journey from Chicago back to Austin, where I was staying for the summer. Bleary-eyed, I chose three or four of the delicious mini pastries from the display case inside and rejoined Kathy at the car.

When I opened the driver’s-side door, Kathy was in the passenger seat with a devilish smirk on her face. She pressed play on the CD now in the slot and Pearl Jam’s spoken-word song “Bugs”  filled the morning air. I laughed, taking my place in the driver’s seat, and Kathy left me there to enjoy it while she used the restroom.

Alone in the car I felt awash in the music. I knew it immediately, even though I hadn’t heard it in over a decade. The song is a haunting three-minute poem set to discordant accordion music that perfectly replicates the feeling of bugs crawling on you. Why did Kathy choose this song to play? Because that’s what friends do when they know you have recurring nightmares about bugs. 

Nightmares had long been a part of my life, although the first nightmare I remember had nothing to do with insects. In the dream I am sitting with my older sister on our cement front porch. It’s too dark for me to see anything, but I can sense her moving around. I open the front door to allow light from inside the house to pour over her. I see she has cut her arm with some broken glass and is bleeding badly. I wake up terrified. My mother has just died. I’m seven.

In another dream, I hold tight to the crossbar inside a sewer, crying out but unable to get anyone’s attention. I don’t know how long I can hold on. I am desperate for someone to save me. No one does. My feelings of helplessness are overwhelming; I am invisible. In the waking world, my father is gripped by Parkinson’s disease and I am helpless to stop it. I’m eleven.

It was a few years later when the bug dreams started. In one recurring dream, I go sliding down the wooden banister in the house I grew up in—the picture of pure joy—only to fall into a swirling pit of insects. In another, turning on the light reveals that I had been surrounded by cockroaches and hadn’t known it. Often, however, my dreams just have bugs in them, crawling on the floor or on my skin. I awake feeling scared and uncertain, and because of the dreams, I’m wary of bugs in real life.

Of course, it wasn’t only the nightmares that prompted Kathy to play “Bugs” for me. My extreme dislike of crawling things—and of cockroaches in particular—had become a plot twist in my summer sojourn in Austin. I had to leave the rented RV where I had been staying when I discovered it was infested with roaches. A two-week respite at a friend’s place while he was on Reserve duty—a lucky coincidence that gave me an abode after the RV plan fell through—included a disused refrigerator swarming with fruit flies. It seemed the bugs followed me wherever I went. Kathy and her friends found this very entertaining, with one erudite fellow nicknaming me Pestilence.

The song was apt for another reason as well. We were just then returning from Lollapalooza, where the night before we had taken in the headliners: Pearl Jam. Kathy, a diehard Pearl Jam fan, was my reason for visiting Austin, and she knew just the song to needle me. I laughed when the music started and I recognized the tune. What fond memories it brought back!

But something strange happened then. Maybe because I was sleep deprived after driving through the night, or maybe because the situation was so far removed from my ordinary life, but hearing that song at that moment was both cathartic and revelatory.

First I recalled that I used to love that song. Which didn’t make any sense given my dislike of bugs. But no. I bought Vitalogy when it came out, and I thought “Bugs” was masterful. I didn’t have the bug nightmares then. What had happened between that time, when I was fourteen or fifteen years old, and the time when the nightmares started?

And then I knew. When I was sixteen, I moved into a two-family flat with three of my sisters, Ellen, Ginny, and Carrie. A fourth sister lived with her family in the ground-floor apartment, and “the four youngest,” as we were called, moved into the upstairs flat. Meanwhile, my father was sent to a nursing home to get better care for his Parkinson’s, leaving me an emancipated minor. While more secure than hanging from the crossbar inside a sewer, living without parents while still in high school was a lonely and vulnerable position to be in.

Compounding my angst was the state of the flat we lived in. The building had not been occupied for some time, and cockroaches had taken up residence in the sewers. The electricity was not quite up to code either, as only one bedroom could run an air conditioner without blowing a fuse. Given the August heat in St. Louis, Ginny, Carrie, and I slept on the floor of Ellen’s room until the system could be repaired. Knowing there were cockroaches afoot made the floor accommodations more than a little itchy. I barely slept some nights as my mind obsessed about the roaches I knew were out there.

At age twenty-nine on my way back from Lolla, these were all things I had known. They were facts about my life that I had shared with others. But I had never connected that experience and the emotions of vulnerability with the onset of the nightmares. Now, in that car, in the early morning hours of a Texas summer day, I did.

The beautiful thing, the thing that makes me shake my head in wonder—at the power of music, of memory, of our own psyches to heal—is that ever after that visit to the kolache bakery, hearing “Bugs” and recalling how much I liked it in the times before my dad moved out, I have not had another nightmare about bugs. That was more than fifteen years ago. It’s as if I found them out and they lost their power over me.

Perhaps just as remarkable, since I found my husband, I rarely have nightmares at all. Something that had been a central part of my inner life, changing the way I related to people and the world around me, fell away almost completely after my marriage. In a way it makes me sad for the little girl and the young woman who had to manage all of that fear, anxiety, and lost sleep. I didn’t have the tools to heal then. I didn’t even know it was possible. Relieving the nightmares, it turned out, was as simple as establishing a safe home and secure love. If only I could have given that to the little girl that was me.

Absent time travel, I am thankful for the revelation and for Kathy. She could not have known the good deed she was doing, but her prank changed my life. Every scared child should be so lucky.

Like this blog? Find more insights and advice in the Updated and Revised Edition of Perfect Bound: How to Navigate the Book Publishing Process Like a Pro!

Unpublished: Taking Down an Essay

For this post I want to share an unpleasant experience I had recently. It’s a problem I never anticipated when I first began publishing essays, and it’s something I hope most writers are able to avoid. A couple of months ago, I asked a journal to unpublish my essay. I was sorry it had to come to that. Here’s how it happened.

Published!

Near the end of 2018, I had a personal essay accepted for publication by The Uncomfortable Revolution. This website has a mission of inclusion, especially around chronic illness. It publishes personal stories of confronting chronic illness in order to make the uncomfortable normal. The essay about caring for my ailing father when I was a teenager was a perfect fit. I was thrilled it would be published.

When the essay went up, I immediately noticed two things. One, they had changed the title, and it now had a grammar error in it. And two, they paired photos of some dude with my essay. Readers might assume the fellow was my dad, but it wasn’t. I figured I couldn’t do much about the images, but I could ask them to correct the error. I asked. They corrected it.

Flash Forward Five Years

A client told me she had read my essay about my dad and found it poignant. I was so pleased, I went back to check on it. Imagine my dismay when I discovered that more changes had been made to the essay in the interim. Strange captions were added to the pictures, phrases were tacked on to the starts of paragraphs, and the whole thing ended with a poem that I didn’t write.

To me it was clear URevolution had tried to make the essay more SEO friendly (i.e., easier to find in a Google search) and had sacrificed the integrity of the essay to do it. I cried.

I considered my options. Do I ask them to revert to the original? Or do I ask them to take it down?

After some thought, I decided I no longer trusted the editors to make good decisions about the essay. I would rather have it taken down than argue over why their changes were wrong and hurtful.

Unpublished!

To the journal’s credit, they immediately removed the essay. They explained that they had hired a third-party SEO company some years back, and had given permission for them to change the essays. They were now going to review all of the company’s work to make sure no one else’s writing had suffered a similar fate.

Now I am looking for journals that publish reprints. I have a few options. I will keep you posted.
In the meantime, if you have essays or stories published anywhere, you might take a few minutes to make sure they’re still intact. You never know what can happen.

Has this happened to you?

If you are looking for somewhere to publish a previously published essay or short story, try these journals:

Doubleback Review. These guys only publish reprints. The original piece must be out of circulation.

Craft. This esteemed journal primarily publishes original works, but will consider reprints as well.

The Dread Machine. Publishers of cyberpunk, sci-fi, and futuristic dark fiction. They also give preference to original works but will consider reprints.

Fractured Lit. This journal publishes flash and micro fiction and will consider reprints.

Several other journals will also consider previously published pieces with varying degrees of enthusiasm. For many more options, see this post from AuthorsPublish.

Like this blog? Find more insights and advice in the Updated and Revised Edition of Perfect Bound: How to Navigate the Book Publishing Process Like a Pro!

Announcing the POP Editorial Services Bookshop.org Storefront

This September I set up a new affiliate page on Bookshop.org. I am really excited about this new opportunity for myself and for my clients. I have supported independent bookstores with my purchases through Bookshop for the past few years, and now I can support my authors with Bookshop too.

Here’s how it works. Bookshop donates 10% of its proceeds to independent bookstores. Why? Because they see a need to counter the fighting power of Amazon. They value independent bookstores and want to see them thrive. According to the Bookshop website:

We believe local bookstores are essential community hubs that foster culture, curiosity, and a love of reading, and we’re committed to helping them thrive.

Every purchase on the site financially supports independent bookstores. Our platform gives independent bookstores tools to compete online and financial support to help them maintain their presence in local communities.

More specifically:

Bookshop.org supports indies in two ways:
— 10% of direct and affiliate sales on Bookshop.org are added to an earnings pool that is evenly divided and distributed to independent bookstores every six months.
— Stores that are affiliates also can share their Bookshop.org links on social media, email newsletters, or on their websites to earn 30% of the cover price (the full profit margin) on any sales they generate, without having to do the work of keeping inventory, picking, packing, shipping or handling complaints and returns.
All books are sent from our wholesaler Ingram, not the bookstore’s actual inventory.

As an affiliate, I receive 10% of the sales through my storefront. That’s great for adding a revenue stream for POP (however small it may be).

But what really has me excited is how this can benefit my authors.

I have organized my lists to showcase as many of the books I have edited as are available through Ingram. The lists are divided into fiction and nonfiction, and subdivided into genre and topic. The covers look beautiful, and the titles and heads are easy to read.

Authors who work with me will be able to have their books added to my lists, making them available one more place. Potential clients can

• review the lists to see the range of books I have edited
• read what the comparable books were about
• see what star ratings and reviews they received

Clients may even want to purchase some books in their areas of interest. This is a huge improvement over my current Recent Titles List, which only includes the title, author, and publisher.

PAST CLIENTS: Please review my Bookshop.org page and look for your book. If your book is not there and it’s available through Ingram, send me an email with the title and ISBN and I will add it!

I hope you will check out my storefront today and see what’s available. Building the lists has been a nostalgic trip through my 24-year editing career.

Like this blog? Find more insights and advice in the Updated and Revised Edition of Perfect Bound: How to Navigate the Book Publishing Process Like a Pro!

How do you say “Don” and “Dawn”?

Last month I attended the 2023 Editorial Freelancers Association Conference in Alexandria, Virginia. A lot happened in the brief two and half days I spent there, so I will likely be writing about it frequently. In this post, I want to share a story from one of the more lighthearted sessions I attended.

On the second day of the conference I attended a session by Eden Bradshaw Kaiser, who is both an editor and a linguist. I happened to have breakfast with her and several other Midwest women that morning, and when I heard about her session on the evolution of language, I decided to skip my planned session and try hers.

Eden Bradshaw Kaiser discussing language change at EFACon 2023.

The discussion was enlightening. I learned that if I ever feel put off by changes in language, it is probably because I am not the target audience for that change.

I also learned that change from the bottom — originating with the commoners, as it were — tends to receive more pushback than change from the top — the elite. Considering language change from a power dynamic perspective gave me a lot to think about.

Also in this session I learned there is a name for the evolution in pronunciation that I have been noticing for the past couple of decades. The “low-back vowel merger” — also known as the cot-caught merger or the low-back merger — is a transformation in language that is happening as we speak (pun intended).

I have noticed it not so much with “cot” and “caught” but with “Don” and “Dawn.” 

During Q&A, I commented that I distinguish between the two names while my husband does not. The discussion became quite lively after that, with most people saying they did not distinguish between them. Then one attendee from New York played her trump card: She distinguishes between “Mary,” “marry,” and “merry.”

Minds were blown, to say the least.

Another attendee asked whether Eden thought the internet was increasing the speed at which language changes. Eden gave an equivocating yes. For me, the cool thing I have seen from the internet is that changes brought about by “commoners” (my term) seem to be having an impact on the establishment faster than in the past.

For example, capitalizing “Black” has been talked about for years. But with the groundswell of support from people online in 2020, the Associated Press made the change, effectively changing the language for all news and magazine outlets. It’s a powerful thing.

Attending this session is another example of saying yes to opportunities, a theme that came up at the conference. I’m sure I would have enjoyed the session I originally planned to attend in the same time slot, but this one was so lively and fun, I was not disappointed I went off script and said Yes.

Like this blog? Find more insights and advice in the Updated and Revised Edition of Perfect Bound: How to Navigate the Book Publishing Process Like a Pro!

Essential Resources for Finding a Book Publisher

There are tons of resources available for publishing a book. In fact, there are so many, what’s harder than finding resources is limiting them to the best ones. This has been true for at least ten years, and it is a big part of why I wrote my book, Perfect Bound: How to Navigate the Book Publishing Process Like a Pro. Writers are overwhelmed with the possibilities.

In this post, I have highlighted the essential resources you need to get started. If you are new to publishing, these books and websites will keep you focused without the tsunami effect: so much information you drown.

Jane Friedman has some very valuable posts on her website on topics from finding an agent, to preparing a proposal, to marketing. She is an recognized leader in the industry and a star at breaking down complex information into understandable pieces.

My book Perfect Bound offers a concise overview of the publishing process and includes some of the biggest mistakes that new authors make. It’s available through the Montgomery County library.

Another book, The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published, by Eckstut and Sterry, is also very helpful for new authors. It gives a broader view, with less info about how a book actually goes from manuscript to bound book and more about how books are acquired.

There are different kinds of publishers, and how you land them depends on their size. The biggest ones — HarperCollins, Penguin Random House, Macmillan, Hachette, Simon and Schuster — and their imprints, will require an agent. Small to mid-size publishers don’t require an agent. 

The most popular sources for finding agents are QueryTracker, Publishers Marketplace, Duotrope, and MS Wishlist.

If you don’t want to work with an agent, you can look at smaller presses. Authors Publish has prepared this list of publishers who don’t require an agent: https://authorspublish.com/the-top-42-publishers-for-new-authors/

Finding a publisher takes a lot of legwork, but it can be very rewarding. And having your book out in the world is an amazing experience. Use these key resources to achieve your dream of publication.

Like this blog? Find more insights and advice in the Updated and Revised Edition of Perfect Bound: How to Navigate the Book Publishing Process Like a Pro, now available on Amazon!

The Key to Self-Motivation: How to Make Yourself Be Responsible When You Don’t Want To

I’m self-employed. I have been for more than 16 years. That takes a certain amount of discipline, and it has given some people the impression that I have things pretty well figured out. Some have wondered how I do it.

In 2017, I wrote the following message to a family member who asked for advice for how to get things done when you don’t want to do them. Although my perspective on the “failures” I mention has evolved, as the new year begins, the message resonates.

What do I do to make myself do things I don’t want to do?

Mostly I think about the hurt I’ll be in if I don’t do whatever thing I don’t want to do.

It takes time to get to a point where that actually works. And it doesn’t always. But first you have to experience the pain. Then you have to figure out what caused you that pain. Then you have to notice when you are about to do what it is that caused you pain — that is, see it coming.

When you see the pain coming, you need to talk yourself into not doing whatever causes the pain. Sometimes that requires a real wrestling match. But if you stop and stop and stop and don’t do anything at all until you can agree to the shitty thing that ultimately leads to your happiness, then you will get to have the good feeling that comes from going for a run, doing all the dishes at one time, folding laundry before it becomes a wrinkled mess, going to work . . . And when you can collect a significant number of good outcomes, it becomes easier to keep doing the right thing. The trouble then is complacency. You forget what the hurt is, or you forget how bad the hurt is.

Still, for me it’s the stopping before doing something that makes a difference. So I don’t want to do the dishes. I don’t walk away and do something else. I stand there and look at them and think about how much I really hate doing dishes, especially at night, and especially when it’s cold out and when I’m tired. I stand there until I can turn my thoughts to how much better I will feel if I just do them all and get them out of the way. Then I will have clean dishes for making dinner and I will have a clean kitchen and I won’t have this shitty chore hanging over my head.

If I stand there long enough and don’t let myself off the hook, I will start the chore. If I’m really feeling like I don’t want to do it, I start with easy things that make a big impact. Like the pots and pans that I know I will need the next day. Once I have soapy water and my hands are already wet, it’s easier to keep going. Sometimes I stop before I am done, but I will always at least do one load, because I’m definitely not going to waste clean soapy water.

When I was in my twenties and living alone, I used to wait so long to do dishes that they would grow mold. I would have to throw out dishes because they were ruined. I might still do that if not for the fact that I have people counting on me. Being accountable to another person really goes a long way in keeping me doing what I don’t want to do.

Two things you should know about me: first, I am very easily motivated, especially by motivational speaker types, even though I never seek them out, and second, I slip easily into depression and negative thinking. So self-talk is a huge part of my quest for sanity and happiness.

These are things I think about, inspired by things I have read or heard along the way, that help me do what I know is right:

• If you want to have clean clothes for work, then you want to do laundry
• If you want to pay your bills, then you want to go to work
• If you want to have groceries, then you want to go to the store
• Walking past a sock on the floor and not picking it up is being lazy.
• Change your mind and you change your life.
• If you believe it, you can achieve it … if you do the work.
• If people in a Nazi work camp could run 100 miles at gunpoint to save their lives, then I can run 1 mile. [No kidding, that’s how much I don’t like to run.]

After all my years on this earth, I’ve realized the keys to a happy life are respect and follow-through.

• If you don’t respect yourself, no one else will either. If you don’t respect others, they won’t respect you. And without respect, you’re nothing.
• Without follow-through you will never accomplish anything. It’s easy to start. It’s the finishing that counts.

To keep me motivated at work, I print out the nice comments I get from clients and tape them to my wall. I read them whenever I feel down.

I write to-do lists obsessively. If I have a big project (at home or at work), I write down all the steps so that I can cross off more stuff as I do it.

I also make deals with myself. I do this for almost everything. I make a deal that I will work on this one project for one hour before checking email. I make a deal that I will not have soda until I drink all 8 glasses of water. (That’s how I got myself to quit soda.) I make a deal that I will do the dishes from now until 8:30 and I will get done however much I get done. I am usually pretty good at keeping to the deals I have made.

I used to write in my journal every day or at least every week. When I would get into a rut, I would find myself writing the same thing, the same complaint, over and over again. I would get to the point where I had to make a change or I was going to go crazy. So I would make a deal: I couldn’t write in my journal again until I had done something to change whatever thing I was complaining about. It worked. I needed my journal because I was low on relationships. With that as my self-inflicted punishment, I would make a change. 

So that’s it. It’s all a mind game. But a lot of it has to do with getting older, having more responsibilities to yourself and others, and recognizing that the end result is worth doing whatever shitty thing it is you don’t want to do.

Describe in detail where you failed and where you succeeded from your current perspective.

Holy mackerel, that’s a long list. And it has changed significantly over the years.

When I was in my twenties and single I was very successful at handling my money. I was very disciplined about saving. I had a savings account and a 401(k) and contributed to both, and both had a substantial amount of money in them. That was a security issue. I had no dreams of being rich. I just didn’t want to have to work until the age of 75 in order to live.

Now that I have kids and a husband and many other responsibilities and draws on my time and money, that has gone to hell. I still have good intentions and know how to do it, but I can’t follow through. So that’s a failure.

Also when I was young and single, I exercised regularly. I biked, I went to the gym, I had free weights that I used at home. I did a 100-mile bike ride in 2005. Now, with kids, work, a dog, etc., I am lucky if I squeeze in a 20-minute workout before work. Failure number two.

From 2007 to 2014, my business was 100% solvent. After kids, that’s not so. My time is squeezed to the point that it has been very difficult to work enough hours to keep the business afloat. POP Editorial Services is currently on probation. If I am unable to make it work by June 2017, I will end my company after 10.5 years. Failure number three.

Of course, when I had money and time, I didn’t have a husband and two daughters, and those three people are the most important to me in the whole wide world. Those relationships are a work in progress, as is my whole life, so I can’t call them a success, but they are definitely a mitigating factor.

So what are my successes? I keep my house running. I get my kids to school and daycare every day. I’m married with no cracks in the relationship. I do the dishes when it’s my turn. POP is on probation but I’m working my butt off to keep it afloat; I refuse to let it die. I have written a book and had other professional successes, and that’s important to me. Although if POP goes under, it’s kind of a wash.

Other successes: I’m making an effort to fight the bad guy, as we say in this house. Trump is a megalomaniac, an autocrat, and a danger to our country. I do what I can to support my husband’s activism and to influence my government to keep Trump from accomplishing his goal of tearing down the republic. I believe it is that serious.

I have friends, too. That is a success.

So in place of time and money I have relationships. I would like to have all three, but the relationships are more important to my health and well-being.

I try not to regret things I have done. That’s not entirely possible — in fact, I fail miserably at that goal — but it does help to remember that just because you did something wrong yesterday doesn’t mean you have to keep making the same mistake. And as I’ve told you before, all those things I did in the past are what made me who I am today, for better or worse.

I don’t at all want you to think that I have things figured out. I don’t. My life is a work in progress. That’s the best I can do. I fail over and over again, but I keep going anyway. I don’t believe in wallowing. And maybe that’s why I have been able to appear to know what I’m doing.

I could go on, but I think I’ve said enough. I hope some of this is practical enough that you can actually use it. Fighting the fight — that’s the biggest thing. Because we’re all just muddling along. 

Like this blog? Find more insights and advice in the Updated and Revised Edition of Perfect Bound: How to Navigate the Book Publishing Process Like a Pro, now available on Amazon!

New Essay Published: “Cornered”

In September I received news that an essay I have been writing for more than ten years was finally accepted for publication. Grande Dame Literary published “Cornered” on September 17, 2022.

I was so astounded by this news, my husband, who overheard my gasp, thought someone must have died. No, I assured him, this was a happy occasion. But my nine-year-old daughter, Nancy, who is oh-so-sweet and intuitive and also a fellow writer, understood it was more complicated than that. It was also bittersweet.

The day after I got the acceptance email, Nancy saw me in the kitchen. She congratulated me for the tenth time. Then she asked, “Are you a little sad you don’t get to work on it anymore?”

I had to admit I was. The words of Indigo Montoya came to mind. After so many years of working on it, what was I going to do now?

It’s not like I had been working on just this one thing all this time. Of course not. Reflecting on what had transpired over the past ten years, I realized I have had several pieces published since I first submitted “Cornered” back in 2011, here, here, and here. I wrote Perfect Bound and Freelancing as a Business, as well as other smaller ebooks. But all the while, “Cornered” was lurking.

In fact, what ended up being “Cornered” is the combination of two essays that I wrote separately, both on the theme of being followed by strange men. In 2016, when I was harassed yet again, I had a new frame for the stories. In 2021, I wove together the original “Cornered” and “Blaze Orange,” added the new story from 2016, and voila, I had my masterpiece.

Well, sort of.

The new essay was rejected more than a dozen times over the next year. I revised it modestly each time. I knew I was getting close because the journals kept saying I had made it to the final round before they decided against it. I felt I was so close, I decided to pay for feedback from one journal just so I could finally get it over the finish line. That, it turned out, was a waste of money. My luck was finding the right beta reader.

In July 2022, my friend and fellow writer Katherine Melvin offered to read the essay. She had already helped me out with other things, most notably Mystery at Creek Academy: Where Is Mrs. Quimby?, and I was reluctant to lean on her again. But, I told myself she wouldn’t have offered if she didn’t want to do it.

Katherine had three small, crucial changes to the essay. I made those changes, sent out the essay again, and finally, finally, it was accepted.

It is a relief to have it out in the world. There were some hiccups with the initial publication (HTML does not always do what you want it to do), but I worked with the journal and together we were able to fix problems.

I am very proud of how it turned out. Not only that, but a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. With this other work published, I have more ideas for new essays to write. Some already in revisions. Best of all, my persistence and hard work paid off, and that feels really, really good!

You can read “Cornered” here.

Publishing a Book with an 8-Year-Old

When my then 6-year-old daughter, Nancy, said she had an idea for a second-grade chapter book, I wanted to support her ambition. Thanksgiving 2019 was around the corner, and we thought it would give us a fun project for the holidays. Little did we know 20 months would pass before we achieved this dream.

With my professional background in book publishing, I knew writing a book as a team would be a challenge. We would have to agree on the approach, divide the work, and execute. Plus, one of us was a first grader.

So how did we do it?

First, we talked through some of Nancy’s ideas. We discussed character names and some of the big ideas she had for the plot. After a few conversations, we sat down to put words on a page. I opened my laptop and began to type.

Screech! It was immediately clear we had no idea what we were doing. Ideas are good, but we needed a plan. We gathered some loose-leaf and a pen and began to outline the book. Mostly that meant me asking prompting questions, and Nancy answering.

“Where does this story take place?”

“School.”

“Who are the characters?”

Nancy named six of her best friends.

“So far all the characters are girls. Will this be a school for girls and boys, or just girls? A regular school or a boarding school?”

“All girls. Boarding school.”

“OK, now is there magic in this story?”

“No.”

We planned 10 chapters, and Nancy and I took turns with the typing. (That was likely the most harrowing part, but we were a team!) We often wrote just a few sentences at a time, but after several months, we had completed a first draft. Working title: Carla and Lola Go to School, But Where Is Ms. Quimby? Celebrations ensued!

Nancy asked what more we would need to do before we could publish our book. I explained all the steps, and she vowed to follow them. Next up: Revisions.

Not surprising given the age and experience of the authors, several plot points were illogical. Why would there be a tree that looks like a shed? If Ms. Quimby is married, why would she run off and marry a prince? Now age 7, Nancy recognized these problems and we fixed them. Eventually we made it through the revisions. Again, celebrations ensued.

“Nancy, it is time for us to read the story straight through on our own. We will each take a copy and make our changes, then we will compare notes.”

“Okay!”

I read my copy—all 80 pages—in a matter of days. Nancy took months. She said the first chapter was boring (better fix that!). It felt like homework. Whenever I suggested she read the manuscript, she shrugged.

So, what finally got her to complete her reading?

One day, she was left alone in the family room with her father, who had a business call. The sketch pad and books were upstairs, and the only thing around to read was Carla and Lola. She read the manuscript in one sitting and declared she loved it.

One problem: The title no longer made sense. Carla and Lola, Nancy said, were not the main characters anymore. The whole gang of friends were equally important. So we revised the title.

That brought us to February 2021.

The next several steps went much faster. I called in a few favors from friends and applied some elbow grease to move the project along:

• Children’s book author and friend Katherine Melvin and my husband, Chris, were our first readers. They identified several areas for improvement. More revisions!
• We purchased an interior design from http://www.bookdesigntemplates.com, and I did the layout. Thank goodness for how-to videos.
• We created the cover design using a free graphic design website called Canva.
• Friend and editor Kathy Clayton proofread the book. More revisions!

Meanwhile, Nancy worked on the illustrations. She had completed five or so back in 2019, when we started the project. She hadn’t intended them for the book, but I loved them. They made the cut. We identified eight or 10 other places that needed a picture. She drew four over the next three months. What gives? Again, it felt like homework.

By August 2021, the art still wasn’t finished. So, we flexed: We cut some of the illustrations we had planned, teamed up on a few others, and called it good.

To complete the project, we uploaded our files to two websites. KDP, which is part of Amazon, is producing the print book, and Draft2Digital is distributing the ebook.

Those processes were not seamless. The cover design had to be redone multiple times over four weeks; a professional designer would have completed it in one week. We also had to add some pages so that our names could appear on the spine. There are now two special features at the back of the book.

At long last, on September 20, 2021, Mystery at Creek Academy: Where Is Mrs. Quimby? was published!

Climbing into her top bunk one night after rereading the book, Nancy said, “Our book would be a lot different if we hadn’t had other people help us with it.” Very true. It is a much better book because of their input.

We are proud of the final result. Nancy has given several copies to teachers and friends, and my friends have given copies to their children. The kids have enjoyed it, the Montgomery County library agreed to carry the ebook, and it may even be included in the Forest Knolls Elementary School library. Nancy and I are so pleased to have completed such a long and rewarding project.

Now Nancy’s 5-year-old sister, Hazel, has caught the publishing bug. She is planning to write her own book with me as coauthor. Working title: How I Learned to Cross-Stitch. Check back in 2023 to find out how it went!

Katherine Pickett is a professional writer and editor living in Silver Spring, Maryland. Mystery at Creek Academy: Where Is Mrs. Quimby?, coauthored with her daughter Nancy, is her first children’s book.

This article first appeared in the Northwood News, the quarterly newsletter of the Northwood-Four Corners Civic Association.

Like this blog? Find more insights and advice in the Updated and Revised Edition of Perfect Bound: How to Navigate the Book Publishing Process Like a Pro, now available on Amazon!