I’ve Written a Children’s Book + It’s Getting Published

I am so excited to be able to finally spill the beans on this! I have written a children’s book that centers on disability and it is getting published. It will be available in March 2019!

I’d like to tell you a little about the book, how it came to be and why I felt the desire and a push from the Universe to do such a thing when I had never, ever thought of writing a children’s book before.

In her book Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert talks about ideas as a sort of esoteric spiritual matter that float around in the ether choosing a person to land on to help bring them–the idea–into existence. And if that person acts on that idea, great! The idea has a chance of coming to fruition. But if the person chooses to ignore it, the idea will go find someone else to land on to bring it to pass. I can remember the exact moment the idea for this book landed on me. I was actually at Alt Summit, in Salt Lake City at the time. I was standing there talking to some women about what I do when someone said, “You should write a book.” And I said, “Yeah…I want to do that, I’ve actually started…” And then she said, “No, I mean a children’s book.”

Boom. The heavens parted, angels sang, and a glorious light filled the room. (I feel like I should clarify for all my Mormon friends that I don’t mean any of this literally. It’s just a metaphor.) But right then and there I knew that I was going to write a children’s book and I knew exactly what it was going to be about. I knew the plot, I knew the characters (mostly) and I just knew.

Now, one could argue that the idea was hardly floating around in the ether, because a real live person told me that I should write a book. But that is just one of many ways ideas come to us and in my personal experience it is a common way that ideas, the Universe and God communicate with me–through other people. The woman who spoke those words was just half of the equation, the other half was the force with which the idea hit me. That force, was the Universe slapping me on the back and yelling in my ear, “Wake up! We’re talking to you Suga’!” (In my head this voices sounds a lot like Sally Struthers.) So in that sense, it was my idea. It picked me. It landed on me.

And because the Universe is wonderful, all sorts of amazing things happened over the next day and a half while I was still at Alt Summit to prod me forward in this endeavor. For example there was a well known illustrator there who was drawing portraits of attendees for free. When I went to stand in front of her she stopped and said, “Is your name Amy and did you live in Hawaii 20 years ago?” Yes and yes. Stunned she said she just had this flash of recognition as soon as I stood in front of her. I realized at that moment that I was going to ask her to illustrate my book.

Later, this same illustrator also passed along a contact who lives in NYC and who also works in publishing. I wrote him a few times and he was so kind and helpful. When I was writing my 3rd email to him, it suddenly hit me. I emailed him and said, “Forgive me if I’m wrong, but I think you may have been my manager at Los Hermanos (a restaurant) in Provo many years ago.” We both couldn’t believe it, but I was right. Chills.

That same Alt Summit as I was leaving for the airport and headed home, I prayed and begged the Universe for more help and good karma even at the airport to help make my idea a reality. As luck would have it, I was in the very long security line next to a woman I recognized from the Alt circuit, but had never spoken to before because she is a “big deal.” This “big deal” has had collaborations with Anthropologie, Target, and is just a wildly creative and successful person. But I knew exactly what the Universe was doing so I started chatting with her. When I told her about my brand new baby of an idea she excitedly told me she thought it was wonderful and that she had all sorts of contacts in the publishing world and she was going to connect me with them. She gave me her business card and and I promptly treated it like the golden ticket it was and carefully protected it with my life. (Life tip—I also took a photo of her card with my phone.)

I was so giddy about the whole thing I started writing my children’s book on the plane ride home. I contemplated how long it would take to get going. Hmmm, let’s see….it might take me a week or two to write the book, I’ll contact the illustrator and the “big deal” lady and if all goes according to plan I bet I’ll have a book deal in 2 months.

That was a little over 2 years ago. Here’s how things actually went down.I spent about 2-3 months writing the book. I went through about 15 drafts and reached out to a close friend of mine who is a writer and asked for her feedback, which she gave generously. I emailed my Alt contacts who were very supportive and wonderful. My illustrator friend agreed to do the illustrations but also educated me in the process of pitching a book to a publisher and let me know that unless you’re an author-illustrator you usually don’t pitch together. The other contact emailed me to let me know that when I was ready she’d send her contacts my way.

More months passed and the illustrator had to pull out of the project officially as she had too much on her plate. But again, she had given so generously of her time and information and contacts. The other woman, the “big deal” didn’t return my emails for a while and because she was a busy women with a lot on her plate, I didn’t want to bug her.

Undeterred, I set out on my own. I spent days researching how to pitch a children’s book. I made spreadsheets of publishers and literary agents who would be good people to send my manuscript to. I learned that it’s called a manuscript. I joined the SCBWI. And obviously at this point I readjusted my expectations. But I didn’t give up.

I came to believe that the purpose of those exciting contacts and coincidences from Alt were not necessarily the doors through which my book would get published, but they were the fuel that built the excitement in me to actually do this thing. So I kept slogging away. Eventually, my other contact–the “big deal”–did write me back (turns out she had been ill) and she did send those contacts my way. Again, none of them panned out to be “the one” but many of them were super helpful and gave me a lot of great advice. And, most importantly, continued momentum. I sent out query letters to agents and publishers and I started receiving my first rejection letters which were quite exciting! People were reading my manuscript! With time came lots of rejections and lots of waiting.

I had mostly kept my book a secret and told very few people. I didn’t want to tell too many people in case it never happened. It’s one thing to not write a children’s book when no one ever expected you to, but it was another thing to be the girl that told everyone she had written a children’s book and then it never actually gets published. I didn’t want to be that second girl.But the time kept passing and in between query letters and lists, I just kept blogging and doing my thing.

Then one day last April,  I wrote a blog post that I was really proud of.  I talked about the need for more representation of people with disabilities in the world around us. I talked about this lack of awareness and how it impacts our family and daughter personally. I wished for more movies, ads, media and children’s books where kids with disabilities were represented. And I published the post.

Then, once again, the Universe tapped me on the shoulder and told me that I had to stop keeping my book a secret. If I wanted to get it published, I needed to release it out into the world, come what may. So I opened the post back up and I added the following:

“I want to see more disabled bodies in the world around us doing everyday normal things. I want to see them in magazines, on TV (thank you Speechless), in children’s books, in movies (preferably not committing suicide because they’re disabled), in music, in plays, in school, in day-to-day jobs and in places of business.