Location: Old New Castle, Del.

Yesterday I wrote about finding a treasure–a children’s picture book manuscript that a friend referred me to. It is a story filled with magic, sensory richness and adventure.

You may have guessed, after my raving about the story yesterday, that I offered representation.  You would be guessing wrong.  I did contact L. Stewart Marsden through my friend, but it was to ask his permission to blog about his project.

So why, if I’m crazy about this story, did I not offer to represent it?

There are a number of reasons. I thought by discussing them here you might get some insight into why agents make some of their seemingly inexplicable decisions.  So, let me list a couple:

Genre mismatch-- Although I have sold some wonderful children’s picture books both in the CBA market and the ABA market, it takes a real specialist to sell children’s books these days. Someone who keeps up with the market and knows who is buying what. It would be a disservice to Mr. Marsden to take him on for this story. He needs to find a children’s agent.

Generalist Author– I looked at Mr. Marsden’s website and noted that he is in the experimental phase of his career. He has his children’s book but he also has adult fiction, poetry and other offerings. This is normal when an author is exploring, but to an agent, it is a sign that the author has not yet found his genre and his voice.  When he settles, he’s going to be much more attractive to an agent. (I’ve blogged a number of times about the importance of finding your writing “home.”)

I’m sharing this so you realize that finding an agent is as much about a perfect match as it is about getting an agent to fall in love with your writing.

What can an author do to ensure that the right agent falls in love with his writing, his book?

Location: New York City

Talk to any literary agent and she will have stories about discovering that perfect project– the one that wouldn’t   leave her alone. Today I’m going to talk about one such project that I discovered this week. On Friday I’ll reveal why I made the representation decision I made.

One of my longtime writing friends wrote to our critique group to tell us about a reporter who was doing a story about her. She told us he was an aspiring writer himself and she pointed us to a children’s story on his blog. I normally wouldn’t have time to go look at a blog but she loved the story and I needed to see why. The story is for a children’s picture book and is titled Stinky and the Night Mare by L. Stewart Marsden.

I’ve always been a children’s literature aficianado but it’s rare to come across a manuscript that is neither condescending nor “precious.” This is one of those rare ones. As I read the story I could practically see the illustrations. It’s the perfect combination of realistic and magical. I couldn’t get it out of my mind.

Immediately I began compiling a mental list of the editors to whom I’d love to present it. Tomorrow I’ll share next steps but in the meantime let me tell you what it takes to catch an agent’s eye.

• An outstanding manuscript– this goes without saying.
• Perfect timing. In this case I happened to have a few extra minutes to go out to a website and read a manuscript. That’s a rare occurrence and had I been at my desk instead of on the road, who knows?
• A connection. This is not required of course but in this case one of my friends pointed me in this direction. In the place of a recommendation, a meeting at a conference or a stand-out query may do the trick.
• A match between the agent and the genre or subject. We’ll talk more about that tomorrow.

In the meantime, use the comment section to tell us  your story of being discovered. Or about how you discovered a brilliant piece of writing and why it appealed to you.

Blogger: Wendy Lawton

Location: Back in the Central California Books & Such Office

I’m back home, fondly remembering my time away and savoring my return home. That’s your final word for this week– savor.

I thought a lot about that word over Christmas. I love Christmas– the decorations, the food, the family, the music, the smells. Everything. I’ve learned to savor Christmas. Confession: Our tree goes up the day after Thanksgiving and does not come down until epiphany. This year we took down the outside lights so no one would know we were still fully decorated inside and still enjoying the sparkle and warmth. We savor the whole season.

But then I savor spring as well. And I love fall. I savor time with my grown kids and with my almost two-year-old grandson. I savor food (too much) and movies and books. (Books!) I savor time with friends and long evenings with only my husband. You are probably nodding your heads, right?

As writers, part of that savoring is seeing the world in a deeper way. Looking at things from all angles. Using our five senses and examining things in all their dimensions. Our job is to see things deeply and then to help our readers see them in a new way. G. K Chesterton wrote, “The modern world has far too little understanding of the art of keeping young.  Its notion of progress has been to pile one thing on top of another, without caring if each thing was crushed in turn,  People forgot that the human soul can enjoy a thing most when there is time to think about it and be thankful for it.  And by crowding things together they lost the sense of surprise; and surprise is the secret of joy.”

People forgot that the human soul can enjoy a thing most when there is time to think about it and be thankful for it. Wise words.

Do you savor things? Do you ever set aside time to just do nothing but enjoy the moment? Do you feel guilty about “doing nothing” or do you realize it is the secret of joy as Chesterton said. Encourage us to savor. Tell us how you do it.

Blogger: Wendy Lawton

Location: Round Top, Texas

This last fall my husband and I went to a prayer retreat that had one purpose– to help us learn to listen. I was shocked to discover how powerful listening is. I’ve been trying to put it into practice as a spiritual discipline.

As writers, listening is doubly important. We are called to listen to the world around around us. How can we honestly write if we are not listeners? Novelists know this. Lauraine Snelling, the bestselling writer of both historical and contemporary fiction was just telling me about something that happened to her as she was driving through the desert a couple of weeks ago. She heard a voice saying one poignant line. Lauraine says she nearly had to pull the car to the side of the road. She could picture the scene from that one line. She started crying and knew she had to know the rest of the story. It will be the centerpiece of her next book.

(Those of you who do not write fiction are probably creeped out by that– voices and all. It’s not a serious illness. Trust me, for novelists, it’s quite normal.)

Lauraine is a listener.

Over the last three days I encouraged you to dream, to risk and to ask. All proactive words. Now it’s time to listen. It’s an important word to work into your goals for the year. The more you listen, the more you’ll have to write.

So help us with this word. Have any of you discovered new ways to listen? Have you experienced the power that comes with listening? Share with us what you’ve learned.

Blogger: Wendy Lawton

Location: Round Top, Texas

Yesterday at our meeting here in Texas I gave the morning meditation. It was titled, “So What Do You Want?”  Earlier this year I read the account in Mark 10:51 of Jesus leaving Jericho, followed by a large crowd. A blind beggar, Bartimaeus, called out loudly, “Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.” The crowd tried to shush him– it was embarassing– but he persisted. Jesus told them to bring the man to him. I can just picture the scene: Jesus, the miracle worker, looking at this blind man standing before him. You’d think with the crowd pushing in and the whole entourage trying to get on the road Jesus would just reach out and heal the man but instead he did a curious thing. He said, “What do you want?”

Duh!

Why do you suppose it was important for this man to put his request into words?

There’s an important lesson for all of us here. We need to be specific about what we want. the Bible says, ask and the door shall be open. Hmmm. sounds like a promise. So how do we apply that to our quest for a career as a writer?

Just as we, as agents at Books & Such, write specific goals, it is important for writers to be just as intentional. Dreaming big is engaging the imagination. What can you dream if you take away the fear of sounding foolish. And how far can go if you are willing to risk big? Then say it out loud.

Ask.

At first you will couch it in all kinds of disclaimers. “If it’s not too much to ask. . .”, “I don’t want to seem greedy, but. . .”, “If it be your will, Lord.” (This one goes without saying.) Don’t hem and haw. Just ask.

My friend, New York Times #1 Bestselling author, Debbie Macomber, has long known the secret of boldly asking. She showed me her journal entry from January 1, 1977 where she said, “The deepest desire of my life is to somehow, some way be a writer. I should start with the pages of this journal to practice for the future. And the most important thing in my life is to serve the Lord Jesus Christ, my Savior.” Debbie committed her dream to words. More than that, she asked for it.

She’s been a proponent of writing down goals and dreams for a long time. Of asking. If you’ve ever heard her speak you’ve probably seen her hold up a colored index card she rediscovered on which she had boldly written a list of outrageous dreams — all of which had long since come true. She often hands out colored index cards to everyone in the audience and waits while they pen some of their most audacious dreams. I still have mine tucked in a pocket of my folio inside my purse. It’s an exercise in asking.

I’m not going to request that do your asking here in the blog comments since it’s not me who is asking the question, “What do you want?” I’m going to encourage you to be bold, take a risk and go to that Man who stopped by the roadside in Jericho to help a blind Bartimaeus put his dream into words.

Ask. It’s powerful stuff.

Location: Round Top, Texas

Every year the agents at Books & Such spend some serious time setting professional goals. We have to commit to paper what we want to accomplish including specific financial and performance goals. Last year was a record year for me. I surpassed my sales goal in early September and ended up going almost 60% over my goal.  It led me to thinking about risk. As I was chewing on what to do for 2012, here’s what I wrote, in part, to my fellow agents:

I’ve been back and forth about my Books & Such goals because I sold so much this year and so many of my clients are already contracted. So does that mean I should be realistic for 2012 and set a lower goal? As I’ve been thinking about taking risks I’m realizing it’s not what we do that counts, it’s about how big we think our God is. He plainly asks us, “What do you want?” (Mark 10:51) He wants us to put it in words! I took baby steps in doing this for 2011 but it increased my faith in leaps and bounds. A skeptic might say that by asking for something specific we just work all that much harder to get it. He might say it wasn’t really God, it was just hard, focused work. That may be part of it, but my prayer journal and some amazing “coincidences” disprove that theory.

So, about taking risks– I think I need to ask for big enough results that I can clearly see it’s all God and very little me. Sometimes this is scary. What if we ask, believing, and it doesn’t happen? Will it diminish my faith? Will it diminish God? That even sounds silly, doesn’t it. If he says no, for whatever reason, we’ll dig into that and figure out what he’s teaching us. Either way, our faith will grow.

I’ve decided I need to be bold on behalf of my clients (and because I’m becoming addicted to seeing God move mountains as a result of prayer). He can do immeasurably more than we ask or imagine! (Ephesians 3:20) Immeasurably more.

Part of the reason I’m talking about risk is that I’m doing a long distance Bible study with my husband and grown kids. It’s the one I mentioned yesterday, Chase the Lion, based on Mark Batterson’s book In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day. It’s about stepping confidently into the unknown, taking risks and meeting challenges. I tend to want to lead a conservative, safe, peaceful life while all the time God is challenging me to strap on my helmet and take a dive into adventure. Batterson says, “The world is full of cautious and prudent people who will live fine, long lives. But chances are if you spend your life in an attempt to eliminate risk, uncertainty and fear you will miss out on some of the most amazing experiences a person can have with Jesus.”

So what about you? Are you willing to take risks? What about banging on some of those doors in publishing marked “no admittance.” How about risking to write that book that may be outside the parameters of what is selling right now? What about diving right in and doing multiple submissions to both agents and publishers who still take unsolicited queries? If you are dreaming big, what are you willing to risk to reach for those dreams?

Location: Round Top, Texas

Elizabeth Barrett Browning said: “God’s gifts put man’s best dreams to shame.”  At the beginning of a new year, our job is to dream.

Hopefully by now, you’ve spent time analyzing the past year. Socrates said that the unexamined life is not worth living. I believe that. So once you’ve looked over 2011– seeing what goals were met, which were left for the coming year and which ones no longer matter– you’re ready to embrace another year. Wouldn’t it be awful if there were no new beginnings? If every day just lined up in a row? No Mondays. No Januarys. No first day in a new birth year. No opening day of school. No first game of a new football season.

Happily, that’s not the case. We are a people of new beginnings. My friend and client, Debbie Macomber, just celebrated the launch of her newest book, One Perfect Word. More than twenty years ago, Debbie and a group of her friends decided to pick one word for each year. Over the years that practice has shaped her life. When she took time to intentionally focus on just one word for a whole year it not only changed her life but it changed the lives of those around her. Debbie says in the book, “In this information age words swirl around us every day. Tens of thousands of words—maybe a hundred thousand words on a crazy, busy day. We read newspapers, we check out blogs, we may follow Facebook and even Twitter. We respond to e-mail and we listen to real people talking . . . and talking . . . and talking. We drive with the radio on. We try to squeeze in time to read books and magazines. We may turn on the television at night. Words come at us incessantly.” She suggests we all go on a word diet and instead of trying to take in millions of words we concentrate on one word. One perfect word.

I started following her practice a few years ago when I read her book Thursdays at Eight. I highly recommend it. In fact so much so that I decided to choose just one word to blog about each day this week. I chose five words that are vitally important to you on your writing journey. Of course they are five words that are vital to living a life that matters.

Your word for today is: Dream.

We are called to dream. To imagine what could happen. I’m reading a book that just came out a couple of weeks ago,The Circle Maker by Mark Batterson. If you want to be challenged to live big, this is the book for you. In it, Batterson says, “If you’ve never had a God-sized dream that scared you half to death, then you haven’t really come to life. If you’ve never really been overwhelmed by the impossibility of your plans, then your God is too small. If your vision isn’t perplexingly impossible, then you need to expand the radiuses of your prayer circles.”

Perplexingly impossible. That sounds like trying to get published in this ever changing climate doesn’t it? In the Bible study, Chase the Lion, based on his other book, In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day, Batterson says, “I think part of us wants God to reduce the obstacles. We like situations where the odds are in our favor. But sometimes God allows the odds to be stacked against us so he can reveal more of his glory through it.” Hmmmm.

I’m dreaming big for 2012. Dreaming big for myself and dreaming big for my clients. How about you? Are you going to dream impossible dreams? Are you brave enough to tell us what you are dreaming? Remember that when we say the words, we commit to the dream. What are your dreams for the future?

Location: Books & Such Central Valley Office, Calif.

This week we are sharing one of our unforgettable Christmas people. My mind goes immediately to my family. That would be the easy choice. I grew up in a happy, happy family.

My father wasn’t so blessed, however. His family was. . . well, odd. He was an only child with a composer/musician father and a mother who never quite grew out of her speakeasy days. To say they were interesting would be an understatement. My grandfather played the piano at the Cliff House in San Francisco between gigs on the radio. My grandmother’s three sisters–Cora, Electa and Grace–lived in a downtown San Francisco hotel for as long as I knew them. I remember their clean laundry being delivered every week from the Chinese laundry, wrapped in slick blue paper and tied in string. The aunts had long red fingernails and wore ropes of jewelry–the antithesis of my mother’s solid farm stock.  When the aunts laughed, it came out as a trio of cackles. I have to admit, we were mostly scared of them.

At Christmastime my father would collect his whole family and bring them to the house for dinner. As he extracted the aunts from the car, he would always wink at us kids and whisper, “Double, double toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble. . .”

But writing about those characters is too easy, isn’t it?

Instead, if the spirit of Christmas is giving, I’m going to tell you about my mysterious giver. My Dad was diagnosed with cancer during my last year of high school. He died just before my graduation. It devastated our family, especially my mom, a widow in her forties with seven children and precious few resources. I had already planned to go away to college, and my mother insisted we keep things moving forward. She figured we’d manage it somehow. My counselors at school scurried to get financial aid for me, and by September, I packed my things and headed off to school with little more than change in my pockets. It was a scary time.

Money was so tight I had no idea how I would make it. That first Christmas, before school let out for break, I received a letter in my mail cubby in the dorm. It had no return address.Inside was a blank piece of paper wrapped around a twenty-dollar bill and a five-dollar bill. I don’t remember why I needed it so badly that exact moment, but I do remember bursting into tears. It made all the difference in the world to me at that time. I racked my brain trying to figure out who had sent that gift. I never did solve the mystery, but those envelopes came three or four times each year I was in college–always just when I needed it most.

To this day I have no idea who my secret benefactor was, but he or she changed my life. Not because of the money or the belief in me, though that was no small thing. I learned firsthand the power of anonymous giving. It’s something of which the world has so little understanding. There’s a verse about this: “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven” (Matthew 6:1-3). My mysterious giver must have known that verse.

Because of this giver, my challenge has been to pass it on whenever I can. At Christmastime, most of us receive gifts that are tagged and given with great fanfare. I challenge you to find at least one way to give anonymously. It’s not too  late to take up this habit before 2011 tiptoes away.

Have you had an anonymous angel in your life? Have you found any innovative ways to “pay it forward?” By sharing, you’ll help to inspire our giving.

Location: Books & Such Central Valley Office, Calif.

Here at Books & Such we’ve been blogging about our Christmas memories this month as a way for readers to get to know us better, outside of our professional selves. (Yes, Virginia, agents do have lives apart from publishing.) Our task this week was to remember a treasured Christmas ornament.

For me that’s easy.

The Christmas of 1971 I could hardly focus on Christmas festivities because my wedding was to be held at seven in the evening on December 31st—New Year’s Eve. Nobody told me that New Year’s Eve was a terrible night to get married. Or that getting reservations in the years to come for a nice, quiet anniversary dinner out would be nigh onto impossible. Not to mention that that we should have spread out our celebrating. After all, my birthday is December 30th. All my major celebrations occur in the same week– a week in which most people are broke, gifted-out and celebration-wearied.

It doesn’t matter, I still love my celebration week.

Our Wedding cake had the expected bride and groom, but on the very top layer two plastic turtle doves nested. Those two turtle doves became our very first Christmas tree ornaments. Over the years they’ve mellowed to an ivory color, but they have graced our tree every single year since. You’ll find them nestled in the uppermost branches.

Because this New Year’s Eve will mark forty years of marriage for us, these ornaments have become even more precious. Some things only improve with age.

So tell us about your most meaningful or your oldest ornament. We’re loving the shared stories!

Location: Books & Such Central Valley Office, CA

The post WWII years of the fifties are considered the decade of innocence. People still sat down as a family for dinner. Though televisions were making their way into homes, most people still read or played games in the evening. Some listened to radio programs. This insulated period was filled with hope. Jobs were plentiful. Houses and cars were relatively affordable. It was in this milieu that theme parks were birthed. The most famous, of course, was Disneyland, which opened its gates for the first time in 1955.  Other theme parks began to sprout up. The one I remember was Santa’s Village in Scott’s Valley, California which opened in 1957. Interestingly, it was the first ever theme park franchise–there were other Santa’s Villages, one in Dundee, Illinois and another in Lake Arrowhead, California.

Our family could never have gone to Disneyland– it seemed like a world away–but I’ll never forget the day in 1958 my parents packed up our turquoise blue Ford station wagon and we made the fifty-mile trip to Santa’s Village. I don’t remember much about the park except that there were large sculptures of mushrooms and toadstools that we could climb on, lots of shops with toys, a candy shop and a North Pole made out of ice. Of course every child had to put his tongue on it and I was no exception. (Can you imagine the germs?)

I also remember my father being nervous the whole day because at Santa’s Village one never paid for anything. If you wanted a hot dog or a toy you just handed your “official Santa’s Village passport” to the clerk to mark the purchase. The owners wanted to “protect the magic” by never allowing money to change hands, so one didn’t pay until checkout at the end. This was before the age of credit cards and with our big family and modest means, I could see that it made it hard for my dad to feel the magic of Santa’s Village. By the time we checked out the bill was bigger than the budget, so my mother wrote a check. If I remember correctly, we ate frugally the rest of the month.

But as for a remembered place, it was such a rare treat, my brothers, sisters and I never forgot that day. The official Santa Claus at the village was an iconic Santa— a Danish actor respected for his professionalism. We were sure we had seen the real Santa and to this day, no Santa has ever measured up.  I still feel somehow feels as if I visited Santa’s workshop once, a long time ago.The reason Santa’s Village– clearly a commercial venture– is a remembered Christmas place is that it represented an especially happy day in a happy childhood. A sacrifice on my parents’ part, but a rare treat that we often remembered together.

Do you remember any of your visits to Santa Claus?