It’s been almost two years since the giddy phone call when Jaynie Royal and Regal House said yes to Just Maria, and I said yes to Jaynie and Regal House. At the conclusion of the call, Jaynie said she would send along a book contract for my review. She encouraged me to have my lawyer look at it, but even as she spoke those words, I’m sure she knew the truth: I don’t have a lawyer. I don’t know anybody who has a lawyer. I know lawyers, sure, and I know where to find one if I ever need one, but I would never consider them mine. My lawyer? Who in my income bracket has a lawyer?
I understand the word my here is not a possessive in the traditional sense. Rather, it refers to a tradesperson you use with enough frequency to think of them as yours. So, sure, I talk about my barber, my mechanic, and my firewood guy. But my lawyer? I’m afraid not. I am not wealthy, nefarious, or criminal enough to need a lawyer on a regular basis.
So while Jaynie and I both knew I could ask around and find an entertainment lawyer, she and I both knew I would not. I did take the contract to my friend Allan Wolf, a published children’s author with a drawer full of similar contracts. His advice? Just sign it.
Oh sure, he looked through it, noted a few ways it looked different from his own contracts, but we agreed that it was largely boilerplate, and if there were provisions in there that were going to jump up and bite me in the butt, both of us were too dense to know what they might be. Just sign it, he said. And I did.
(Disclaimer: If you are reading this blog for legal advice, please stop.)
From there commenced the two-year process of bringing Just Maria to print. That might seem a long time, but this is standard in the book trade. Indeed, Allan told me it was a good sign it would take so long to get the book published—evidence that I had landed with a reputable press, in line with industry standards and serious enough about their work to schedule things years in advance.
The editorial process was new to me, by turns exhilarating and mystifying, and punctuated by long bouts of nothing at all. Though frustrating in places, I heeded the advice of my friend Jake Morrill. “Enjoy it,” he said. “You might publish another book, and you might not. Enjoy the ride.”
First I had to clean up my manuscript, to get it ready for the Regal House editors, following the rules of the Chicago Manual of Style. I had to ensure that my indents all lined up, that my apostrophes were turned and tucked in the proper direction, that my em-dashes and hyphens were consistent and distinct. I raked through the manuscript with a fine-toothed comb, and sent it off for review.
My next task was to compose my Acknowledgments and Dedication. I suspect all writers find these tasks to be rewarding and intimidating in equal measure. For the Acknowledgements, of course, you want to thank all those who helped without leaving out anyone out, all with the appropriate mix of modesty and gratitude, while also keeping it short. Writing the Acknowledgements Page is surely an art form in itself, with its own rules, expectations, and etiquette, but it’s a forgiving one: while I’ve read Acknowledgements pages that interested me more than others, I’ve yet to run across one that I thought was bad. It takes someone with a pinched and small perspective to criticize another’s gratitude.
Harder was the Dedication. I knew it would go to Nita, my wife, who is the love of my life and has supported me from Day One. She batted not an eye when I told her I wanted to try my hand at writing, even if it meant we’d be poorer than we might otherwise be. She also led me into the profession that I have truly loved and that provided the source material for Just Maria: the education of children with blindness and visual impairments. How to capture that in a few short words? I spent as long on my six-word dedication as I had on whole pages of my book. This is what I wrote:
To Nita: Pathfinder, Cloudlifter, Hiking Buddy.
I don’t know if she has seen it yet.
Once those were submitted, we started the back and forth of editorial review. My editor at Regal House was Pam Van Dyk, and she read with a sharp eye and keen instincts. Contrary to my imagination, we did not send drafts back and forth, marked up with red ink and wrapped up with parcel paper and twine. This was 2021, after all. We used a shared Microsoft Word document, with comments and track changes turned on. Pam had a comment or suggestion on almost every page, and it took me weeks to read, consider, and respond to them all, making changes where changes were due. Most were minor – a word here, a comma there – but some were more substantive, as we explored the characters’ motivations, inclinations, and means of expression. I have never in my life had anyone read a piece of my writing as closely as Pam read Just Maria. And while I did not take every recommendation she made, it was gratifying to be part of such an intimate exchange about the words I had written, what they meant, and how they might be better. We settled on a final draft and pronounced it ready to publish.
Next came typesetting, galleys, and final proofs, as we poured over the manuscript to spot any stray errors that had escaped our notice on previous readings. I found this to be the most tedious of the entire process. By that time, I had read the words in Just Maria so many times that they ceased to hold meaning for me. I could scarcely focus for a paragraph, let alone a page or chapter. I read as close as I could, but not close enough. There are at least two typos in the final copy: you might catch them, I did not.
Then came the waiting. I was set for a Fall 2021 publication date, and when they set up the release calendar, I landed on the back end: January 7, 2022. That’s next week, if you hadn’t noticed.
It’s been seven years since I started Just Maria, three years since I finished it, and almost two years since I signed the contract with Regal House.
In four days, it hits the shelf.
Giddyap.
Next post: Confessions of a Reluctant Pitchman