Personal Prequels and Strenuous Sequels
I have only weeks to conclude a first draft of the sequel to my feline fantasy, The Tygrine Cat. How did I get here? I never meant to write a book for children – I hadn’t even intended to write a book. In 2002, when the first inklings of the story entered my mind, I was training to be a lawyer in the City of London. I had penned various offerings at school and, more secretively, at university. But it didn’t occur to me to get a story published – that writing was something one could do ‘as a job.’ I hadn’t come into contact with writers as a child. If you’d asked me back then what they looked like, I might have described a small, goblin-like creature that lives in burrows and only comes out at night – not so far from the truth when deadlines loom.
Yet the books I read in my youth made a lasting impression on me. Michael Ende’s The Neverending Story captured my imagination: here was an ordinary boy who was transported to a land of adventure through the pages of a book. An Everyman edition of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations was my most prized possession in my early teens.
Fast forward to an unremarkable Sunday lunch in spring 2002. I was entertaining a querulous infant at my parents’ house, the son of family friends. To avert an imminent tantrum I offered the boy a book of cat breeds. Leafing with him through the images of cats I started to ponder the idea of a rivalry between ancient feline dynasties. I carried these thoughts with me for weeks before the protagonist, Mati, took shape in my mind. During weekends and holidays, I began to write. Only my sister and a couple of friends were privy to my efforts. I felt sheepish about the story. A lawyer, writing a children’s book? Daring to dream that she’d get it published? Wouldn’t people laugh?
By spring 2005 I had a finished draft. It was clear from publishers’ websites that the direct approach was discouraged. Armed only with a lawyerish tenacity and The Children’s Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook, I wrote to a small number of agents. I approached the application process with the same doggish diligence with which I prepared client memos: I researched the agents, checking their websites and poring over their lists. I ruled out any who weren’t members of the Association of Authors’ Agents; excluded those who didn’t represent children’s fantasy. I knew I had to get it right in order to give my cats the best possible chance. I had read about the slush pile and had some idea of the deluge of unsolicited approaches that most agents receive (100 a week is not unusual). I was determined to deny them the chance to reject on superficial grounds: I combed my application for spelling errors, double-spaced as stipulated and used the prescribed mode of correspondence (usually a covering letter, synopsis and the first three chapters, although increasingly agents request an initial letter asking permission to send more information).
Two or three rejections arrived with alarming speed. Then, following weeks or even months, I received some interest. Encouraged, I tried to coax myself out of the impulse to sign away everything to the first agent I met. A couple were non-committal in any event – they liked the story but wanted various changes before they would represent me. Two were less hedging, happy to take the leap straight away. After a meeting with Pat White at Rogers, Coleridge and White in the summer of 2005, I had no doubt that she was the agent for me. Her experience was considerable, her enthusiasm infectious.
Pat approached publishers with the manuscript. Walker Books stood out. They were incredibly friendly and positive; they seemed genuinely interested in my writing. Pat entered discussions with them and on 17 October 2005 I received a call: Walker had offered a two-book deal. It was one of the best days of my life.
Getting a book published was only the beginning. Since signing that deal I’ve had incredible highs and lows. On the plus side: The Tygrine Cat won the 2008 Calderdale Children’s Book of the Year Award and was short-listed for the Stockton Children’s Book of the Year; Walker’s US affiliate, Candlewick Press, published a US edition in April 2008; Walker commissioned a sequel to The Tygrine Cat; and my second book, The Bloodstone Bird, was released in October 2008. On the downside: I have torn out my hair over titles; spent sleepless nights over deadlines; and lost my bearings on the way to a taxidermy conference (it was research, I promise). I’ve arrived at a bookshop where the scheduled school group never materialised; have missed an event where the dates were ‘confused.’ I have, in short, explored the depths of my pride and found that yes: I can sink even lower than I had imagined! It shouldn’t happen to a writer – but it does.
Over the next few weeks, I hope to share with you some of the dramas of writing books for children. I urge you to post your experiences too – the stranger, the better – you’ll be in good company!
Next week – The Death of a Cat: Killing a Central Character
INBALI ISERLES is a novelist, whose first novel The Tygrine Cat is published by Walker Books. 
I think you might have forgotten to mention all those wonderful librarians you have met along the way ;o)! Looking forward to reading the next entry, with such a page-turner title!
I couldn’t possibly forget! I hope to talk a little about the importance of children’s librarians in a future column on Book Week events. Meeting librarians and getting involved with libraries is one of the unanticipated pleasures of writing books for young people.
what? Killing a main character? I don’t like the sound of the next post one bit!:P but I’m VERY curious!
To be honest, Valentina, I’m feeling quite sad about it – almost as though the death was at someone else’s hands… Which in a way it was, given that the story makes its own demands. I realise that this makes little sense. Not everything in black and white does, as they say!
No I know what you mean, you have to go where the story goes. Still though!
Hi Inbali,
Just a few words to thank you for sharing your ‘dramas of writing’.
I especially enjoyed the way you described how you started writing. So natural. I agree it takes a while to see oneself as somebody who writes for a living. Where I grew up, this things only happened in the films (and books!)but not in the real world; and it was silly to tell anyone you wanted to be a writer. It’s great to see that these things happen to ‘real’ people and that they are as surprised as you. Looking forward to your next post.
Thanks for your message, Vienna. I really relate to what you say – writers seemed very remote when I was growing up. So many of our ideas about what’s possible are dictated by our surroundings. In some ways, writers are more visible in the media these days, but that can make the dream seem even harder to realise: instead of the obscure goblins that I referred to in my column, they become intimidating; larger-than-life. Having a couple of books published hasn’t quelled my impulse to revert into a star-struck, gibbering wreck on meeting my writing idols!