Sue Cowing

Author Interview:

When and how did you start writing? Who were your childhood storytelling heroes?

My sister wrote poems starting from age six and got praise for them, so that seemed like a fun and natural thing to for me to do, too.  Playing with words and making up stories became my favorite rainy-day activity in grade school.  In fact, I was a little too good at it, because many of the stories I invented to make life more interesting (or to provide myself with great excuses) were called lies.

Some of my childhood storytelling heroes were anonymous.  I was fascinated by Greek myths, especially the stories of Hercules, Midas, Persephone, and the Amazons.  I also loved Hans Christian Anderson, and the Grimms and, later, Poe.

Can you remember the first book that made an impact on you?

Mom read to my sister and me at bedtime, and I was glued to any story with a magic object in it, a lamp or a ring or a mirror.  She would read Aesop’s fables and have us guess the morals.  And classic tales like East of the Sun, West of the Moon, The Nightingale, and especially The Snow Queen, were unforgettable.

But the first book I remember as mine to own and read was Holling C. Holling’s PADDLE TO THE SEA, given to me for my eighth birthday.  I identified both with the little canoe figure and with the Canadian Indian boy who carved him and set him in a melting snow bank. It was a kind of quest story that read like non-fiction, and I followed the canoe’s progress through the Great Lakes, down the St. Lawrence River, and out to sea.  I simply loved that book and am not surprised it is still in print.

Can you talk us through the writing of your first book? What were the key moments?

I doubt if many authors’ first published books are the first books they wrote.  I have a drawer full of manuscripts.  Some never quite breathed, some will probably always be short stories, but some may yet be books.  Way back in 2002 I thought FALL GUY was a short story and brought it to my writing group to get some help tightening and polishing it.  So I groaned when a trusted writer friend said, ‘Sorry, Sue.  I think this needs to be a novel.’ I saw she was right, and that meant I was facing at least a couple of years of hard work.  Not knowing even where to begin, I took out a kids’ book on papier maché from the library and made Drog, the puppet character from my story, so that I could hear his voice.  I had always been clumsy at papier maché in grade school, but this time I had more patience (because of course I was busy stalling), and he turned out exactly as I had pictured him! 

In the original story, Parker could actually take the puppet off but couldn’t resist for long the puppet’s demands to be put on again.  Then Donna Jo Napoli said to me at a workshop, ‘Wouldn’t it be a lot scarier if he couldn’t get the puppet off at all?’ That led to more drafts that introduced the Aikido element and brought the dad more into the story.  Then another writer friend read my ‘final’ draft and said, ‘Should you have even more about the Dad?  Isn’t this mostly about him and Parker?’ Another three drafts.  By the time I submitted the story to my ‘particularly editorial’ agent Sarah Davies, I’d finally become smart enough to welcome and consider any question or suggestion that might make this a better and more publishable book. 

Was it hard to get an agent?  Can you talk us through the process?

It was way too easy. One day Drog, the puppet character in FALL GUY, looked down from the shelf (yes, I can take him off) and said to me, ‘Sooooo.  Planning to spend the rest of your life submitting and waiting around to be accepted?  Get me an agent!’

I went prospecting on the internet and struck gold that first day.  I loved the name Greenhouse Literary and the atmosphere of the website.  Here we were in the middle of an economic downturn with veteran children’s editors being let go every week, yet Sarah was saying she’s looking for exciting new novels and if you have written one don’t worry, you are too going to the ball!

She made the process of submitting queries and manuscripts sound so simple and straightforward that I drafted a short query letter, pasted in five pages of FALL GUY, and pressed ‘send’. Sarah replied within twenty-four hours asking to see the whole manuscript.  I could get used to this!

Fortunately Sarah loved Drog, though he’s SO not her type. She read the whole story and said the kinds of things about it that an author longs to hear. She thought the manuscript could be submitted as is, but she wondered if I’d be willing to hear her questions and consider some small changes. Of course I said yes and of course the changes weren’t that small, but somewhere along the way we signed a contract and after a couple of revisions I was able to send Sarah a book that she sold in a month.

Describe your writing day.  Where do you write?  How do you organize your time?  Where do you look for inspiration? 

At 4:30 every morning, seven days a week, I go into the study at one end of my L-shaped house and write.  I’m not rigid about this and never set the alarm, but I discovered a few years ago that this is a kind of secret time, a way of adding two free hours or so to the day.  At 4:30 AM, no one contacts me or interrupts my thoughts, and no one (including me) expects me to do anything else.  The only sound I hear is the thunk of the newspaper hitting the driveway. I guess you could have the same kind of pure time after midnight, but I’m not a night owl. 

I often start out with a little journal writing or read a poem or two to get me going (my current favorite is Ted Kooser). I’ll work until about 6:30 then fix breakfast, get some exercise, read email, and get on with the cacophony of chores and amusements and demands for attention the world throws at us all each day. None of that can make me feel scattered, because I have already done the most important thing first.

On Wednesdays those two hours become eight or ten, because Wednesday is my Hermit Day. On Wednesdays I don’t speak or read email or answer the phone or the doorbell between 8AM and 4PM.  I’ve persuaded my family and friends to simply pretend I’m not home on that day and not to turn on the radio or TV in the house before four. Being able to let the rudder go for hours on end helps me get more deeply into things.  If someone asks me what I got done on a Wednesday, I just smile.  So I have a minimum of twenty hours a week to write, but that’s just the scheduled time.  I’m writing or think about writing much of the time. 

Here’s an observation for anyone who would like to try having a day like that.  Chances are that the very first week, something will come up on that day that you feel you just have to do, and you’ll be tempted to switch days that once.  It’s a little test from the universe.

Can you tell us about your next book?

I’m not sure what that will be yet, but things I’ve learned while revising FALL GUY for publication have led me to reread a couple of other manuscripts I have and see new possibilities for them. 

The most likely one is called, for the moment, LIFE WITH BRAVO.  It’s about Zach, a somewhat too comfortable, daydreaming eleven year old whose brilliant and funny dog Bravo and hard-bitten friend Gilbert show him the painful paths friendship and sharing can take - and no, the dog doesn’t die.  NO MORE DEAD DOGS!

Are there any tips you can give aspiring writers who are looking to get published?

As far as I know, the best way to get published is to have a completed manuscript in hand that you’re passionate about.  If you’re not at that point yet, set aside your research on agents and publishers and work on your book.  Write the book only you can write.  Before you submit, identify the absolute and unchangeable heart of the story without which it would not work or be yours, and then make up your mind that you will at least consider changing anything else.  Get lucky by being prepared.

Oh, and join The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.  These are your people.

Can you describe three aspects of writing craft that have been most important as you’ve developed as an author?

Voice, of course. Learning to set aside adult perceptions and listen instead for the way a child would say things. And not just a child, but that child who is your particular character, in contrast with the other characters.  I’m constantly working to build that contrast as a way of developing characters.

I love to write (and read) stories that blur the line between fantasy and reality, that contain a touch of something fantastic made to seem real, or possibly real (is it? isn’t it?) by placing it in an everyday setting. That’s a fine and tricky balance, but when it succeeds, there’s a wonderful kind of tension and leap to belief.  When it fails, of course, the rotten tomatoes fly.  I’m always trying to figure out how to achieve that balance. 

Some of the manuscripts gathering dust in my drawer take themselves too seriously and read like pre-teen soap operas.  The one thing I’ve noticed about soap operas is that nobody in them has a sense of humor.  Stories with humor in them are a lot more fun to write, and I especially like a vein of saving humor running through stories with serious themes.  Christopher Paul Curtis’s THE WATSONS GO TO BIRMINGHAM is a perfect example of this.  Someday I would like to do it all and write a humorous, character-driven, historical mystery with a thought-provoking theme.  Whew!

Which favorite authors would you invite to a dinner party?  What fictional character do you wish you’d invented?

Of course it’s always risky to invite people you haven’t met, but I would take a chance on Phillip Pullman and Katherine Paterson, and even seat them together!  Also Paul Fleischman and Brian Selznik and Douglas Florian.  Of those I have met, I’d include Kate DiCamillo; the ever elegant, dramatic, and mysterious Richard Peck; Kathleen Duey; and Karen Hesse.

I’d be in heaven if I could invent a character like Thomas, the boy from Guus Kuijer’s THE BOOK OF EVERYTHING, who ‘saw things no one else could see.’