The e-mail pops into my inbox:
Hi Lisa, we need your inscription for the
dedication page.
My fifth dedication. This does not
get any less stressful for me. With so much support in my life, so many people
who have given so much to my writing, how do I pick only one?
This has been a long journey for me,
a lifelong journey. (I was writing and submitting to publishers when I was 10
years old–and I have the rejections to prove it!) But these last miles, the
ones in which I’ve been writing kids’ books, have been championed by my husband
and my children. Three children. So again, how do I pick only one name for the
dedication page?
I began writing picture books in my
head when my kids were tiny. At this point I had two children (although some
days it felt like two dozen.) I recall the youngest, successfully installed in
her snowsuit and gloves, wailing as she waited for me to chase the three-year-old
bundle of hyperactivity through the dining room. I’d chant silly songs to calm the
youngest down and make up funny rhymes to entertain the oldest as I jammed his arms
into sleeves and his feet into boots. The stories I’d recite kept me sane–and kept
my kids from being subjected to a real-life Mommy-Monster (hopefully not too
frequently, at least.)
The first full story with developed
characters, plot, and a complete arc came about a few years later. A now
seven-year-old bundle of hyperactivity ran up and down the stairs while a new
baby grasped my hair in a talon-like grip and I asked my four-year-old what she
wanted for Christmas. Wide-eyed and sincere, she told me that Santa was
bringing her a polar bear. I deflected. “How can Santa do that? What would a
polar bear do at our house? Wouldn’t he cause trouble, so much trouble that I’d
want to send him back to the North Pole?”
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| http://amzn.to/22z9Yb2 |
As
Nat and I played with answers to these questions, If It’s No Trouble... A Big Polar Bear took shape. Of course, there
was much more work to do. Three years of writing, revising, submitting, re-writing and re-revising. But eventually, the story I “wrote” with Nat became a
book. The dedication should have been easy, right? But I had three children–and
a fabulous husband–and experience enough to know that getting published is hard.
What if it never happened again? So I dedicated the book to all of them.
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| http://amzn.to/1Sd71b9 |
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| http://amzn.to/1T48jHO |
Then along came Skink on the Brink, A Moose Goes A-Mummering and Bear’s adventures continued in Bubbly Troubly Polar Bear and in this final book, Double Trouble at The Rooms. In it, Bear joins Nat on a class trip to The Rooms museum in St. John’s, Newfoundland. After all the fun and excitement of having a big bear around, Nat wonders if the museum will even have “the room” for its unexpected visitor. But, of course, the museum does. In fact, it has room for two bears as Bear becomes good friends with Peter in one of the exhibits. And maybe it would be good for Bear to stay somewhere that has the room for him to play–and for Nat to come visit all the time.
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| http://amzn.to/22za8Pt |
So now, with my fifth dedication, I
will dedicate this final polar bear book to Nat. I can feel confident that
there will be more books, further opportunities to thank each of my kids and
all the people who have been wonderfully supportive of my writing.
I will address the e-mail to my
editor and I will type out my dedication:
For Natalie Sage–where Bear’s story began.
And
I will click “send.”
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| http://amzn.to/1UyesNC |
Twitter:
@lisaonthebrink
Thank you, Lisa, for the inspiration found in your journey to being published :) Children do warm our hearts and our writing.
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by My Word Playground, @Charlotte Dixon. So glad to have you here!
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