Famous Last Words

Revisions on Anna Mei are due this week. I’m down to the last few sections that need tweaking, including beefing up the role of a minor character that could appear in a possible sequel. She’s like the bit player waiting in the wings and hoping a bigger part comes along next time. Good luck, Zandra—I hope it works out for you!

The task that’s weighing heaviest is
coming up with an additional sentence or two for the ending. The final setting is the night before Thanksgiving, and I used a quote about gratitude to end it. While the editor likes the quote, she wants an ending in Anna Mei’s words, to make it more personal. And the thing is, she’s absolutely right.

I think I’ve always struggled with figuring out the exact words that will wrap up a story in a perfect bow. In college I liked to end my term papers with scholarly quotes, which worked like a charm until I ran up against Dr. Robert Weisbuch, head of the English Department at the University of Michigan. “Overall it’s quite good,” he wrote at the bottom of my first paper for his class. “Your research holds up and your points are well thought out. But it’s weak to end with someone else’s words.” Busted!

A few years ago I was submitting a short story called “Peter Keeps Cool” to children’s magazines. Paula Morrow, an editor at Carus Publishing, actually took the time to write a personal note on the rejection form. She said that she had really enjoyed the story—it was lively and whimsical, and perfectly captured the loving relationship between a mother and her young son. But she thought the ending fell flat, that it didn’t measure up to the playful atmosphere I’d built up in the story. She invited me to rework the ending and submit it again.

It was a generous offer, and I wasn’t about to let it slip away. Besides, I could see exactly what she meant. I came up with a modified ending that maintained the playful tone of the story, and sent it back—along with a thank you note—to Paula. Not only was “Peter” published in Ladybug Magazine, it has been resold to two different testing companies. So far I’ve made more income from that little story than anything else I’ve ever written!

Coming up with the perfect ending is no small feat. For inspiration (sometimes spelled “procrastination”), I came up with a list of some of my favorite last lines. I think you’ll recognize most of them, but just to make it a little more interesting, I put the book titles at the bottom.

1. He would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning.

2. Goodnight stars, goodnight air, goodnight noises everywhere.

3. So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

4. After all, tomorrow is another day.

5. But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the Forest, a little boy and his Bear will always be playing.

6. It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.

7. Thank you, thank you, Sam I am.

8. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.

9. Max stepped into his private boat and waved good-bye and sailed back over a year and in and out of weeks and through a day and into the night of his very own room, where he found his supper waiting for him, and it was still hot.

10. Well, I’m back.

Aren’t they great? They illuminate what came before and make you wish the story could go on forever. Here are the gifted authors who wrote them:

1. Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
2. Margaret Wise Brown, Goodnight Moon
3. F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
4. Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind
5. A. A. Milne, The House at Pooh Corner
6. Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
7. Dr. Seuss, Green Eggs and Ham
8. Henry David Thoreau, Walden
9. Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are
10. J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

So, that's it for now, I guess. Um... the end?

Magic Mailbox

A few weeks have passed since I last wrote about Anna Mei, so I thought it was time for an update.

For one thing, getting the mail has certainly been more fun lately—I keep finding treasures tucked in there among the bills and the credit card applications. First to arrive was a nice “Welcome to the Family” packet from the publisher, including their 2009 catalog and a detailed style sheet for submitting my final document. I also got a lovely hand-written note from my editor and a PBM ballpoint pen, which I had to rescue from the dog when it rolled off the table, everything on the floor being automatically perceived as hers. Just ask all the poor socks that have suffered an untimely (not to mention slobbery) death by shredding.

A few days later my contract arrived—eleven pages of whereases and hereunders that I had to distill somehow into actual English. My favorite part is the one that refers to selling the rights to my manuscript “in all forms and all media now known or hereafter developed throughout the world.” That pretty much covers it, right? So in the future when we are all reading books via microchips implanted into our brains, mine will apparently already come preloaded, even for people who live in Outer Mongolia. I think I can live with that.

After shooting a few questions over to the Business Office manager, I was ready to sign on the dotted line. Normally I would use my “lucky” pen, the one my son David gave me to celebrate my first sale. I’ve been using it to sign my cover letters when sending in submissions, and it has done a pretty great job for me so far. But since this sale was already a done deal I figured I’d seal it with my official PBM pen (once I’d wiped off the dog drool, of course).

Next I heard from the editor again, who seems almost as excited about this project as I am, and to whom I owe a huge debt of gratitude for getting the ball rolling. She outlined her suggestions for improving the story and asked that I lay a foundation for (dare I say it?) a sequel. She also wondered if I had any suggestions about cover art. How exciting to think of seeing the character of Anna Mei brought to life by an illustrator!

So now the ball’s back in my court—it’s time to start sharpening and revising my story so that it’s as perfect as possible before being shipped off to Boston again. Not that this process will be a piece of cake or anything, but it will certainly be sweetened by the most recent treasure to show up in my mailbox—a check! This is the “advance” I get to keep whether Anna Mei sells one copy or one million. Eventually I’ll figure out something special to use it for, but for now I only have two primary goals:

1.) get those revisions done, and

2.) keep that check from falling on the floor.
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