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Cuckoo's Child
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From: Freeman808 at aol.com <Freeman808>
Date: Tue, 10 Sep 1996 08:41:58 -0400
I worked on The Cuckoo's Child for a long time -- I don't like to recall exactly how many years, but it was years, plural -- while raising two children and working as a book reviewer for various publications. I think most of my family thought it was my hobby, this project that kept me shut away at my computer for hours and made me absent-minded when I had to deal with something else, like making dinner.
I didn't always have much confidence that what I was working on would turn out to be more than a hobby either, but I pushed myself to go on. I was a member of a writing group that met once a month and that helped. It also helped having been a book reviewer for so many years -- I read some galleys that made me think: if this is going to be a book, then I can write a book too.
I lived in Beirut as a child when my father was a visiting professor at the American University there and, for a long time, I wanted to write something about that experience. Instead of my own experience, I created Mia Veery's. We shared certain things -- those intense feelings of homesickness, especially -- but she is a feistier, in some sense more admirable and certainly more honest child than I ever was.
When my book was almost finished, I sent it off to an agent I'd found through book-reviewing contacts. She liked it, but wanted me to finish quickly before she could send it anywhere. I finished quickly, but I'm not naturally a quick writer and the ending wasn't great -- it felt forced, even to me when I read it over. My agent sent the book to Susan Hirschman at Greenwillow and she sent back some scathing comments which still humble me when I look at them. I was already working on changing the last section of the book, but her honest remarks helped clarify what needed to be done. I worked hard for another few months and, at last, I had a contract with Greenwillow. Of all unlikely things in life, I was actually going to have a book.
Even now sometimes it feels unlikely -- but my family seems to take it a little more seriously when I say I have to work. I'm working -- slowly -- on another novel these days.
The hardest part about writing, for me, is the isolation, and that's one of the thrilling things about all this new technology -- I feel linked to a community of writers and readers in a way I never could before. Thanks, CCBC-NET Suzanne Freeman Freeman808 at aol.com
Received on Tue 10 Sep 1996 07:41:58 AM CDT
Date: Tue, 10 Sep 1996 08:41:58 -0400
I worked on The Cuckoo's Child for a long time -- I don't like to recall exactly how many years, but it was years, plural -- while raising two children and working as a book reviewer for various publications. I think most of my family thought it was my hobby, this project that kept me shut away at my computer for hours and made me absent-minded when I had to deal with something else, like making dinner.
I didn't always have much confidence that what I was working on would turn out to be more than a hobby either, but I pushed myself to go on. I was a member of a writing group that met once a month and that helped. It also helped having been a book reviewer for so many years -- I read some galleys that made me think: if this is going to be a book, then I can write a book too.
I lived in Beirut as a child when my father was a visiting professor at the American University there and, for a long time, I wanted to write something about that experience. Instead of my own experience, I created Mia Veery's. We shared certain things -- those intense feelings of homesickness, especially -- but she is a feistier, in some sense more admirable and certainly more honest child than I ever was.
When my book was almost finished, I sent it off to an agent I'd found through book-reviewing contacts. She liked it, but wanted me to finish quickly before she could send it anywhere. I finished quickly, but I'm not naturally a quick writer and the ending wasn't great -- it felt forced, even to me when I read it over. My agent sent the book to Susan Hirschman at Greenwillow and she sent back some scathing comments which still humble me when I look at them. I was already working on changing the last section of the book, but her honest remarks helped clarify what needed to be done. I worked hard for another few months and, at last, I had a contract with Greenwillow. Of all unlikely things in life, I was actually going to have a book.
Even now sometimes it feels unlikely -- but my family seems to take it a little more seriously when I say I have to work. I'm working -- slowly -- on another novel these days.
The hardest part about writing, for me, is the isolation, and that's one of the thrilling things about all this new technology -- I feel linked to a community of writers and readers in a way I never could before. Thanks, CCBC-NET Suzanne Freeman Freeman808 at aol.com
Received on Tue 10 Sep 1996 07:41:58 AM CDT
