The Boy With Hundreds Of Heads

The Boy With Hundreds Of Heads? Curious title, I know. It's not conjoined twins gone wild. It's not a bad geneticist experiment gone wayward, or a story about an unfortunate soul in the rural parts of Taiwan suffering some bizarre unheard of medical condition that causes one to grow multiple heads(it's amazing the documented cases you see on Discovery or the Medical Channel these days).

Actually, the boy with a hundred heads is the first part to my latest episode in the Sisyphus Chronicles and should have been the prelude to my first post. Okay, if this is part one, why didn't I write about this first? After all, chronological integrity in narration is something the fledgling writer should not tamper with. Well, there you have it. Maybe there are legitimate reasons why I haven't attained nirvana at the impenetrable Fifth Avenue publishing Mecca. Oh boy, first compromised chronology and now I've confused Buddhism(nirvana) with Islam(Mecca). I really do need to be a more careful writer.

The boy with hundreds of heads is actually entitled Handsome Heinz And The Balloon Heads. It's a picture book I wrote several years ago, inspired by my five year old nephew who placed his cheek on a polished wooden table and ecstatically exclaimed, "Look, I have two heads." From that gem of a quote arose a tale about an arrogant young lad who finds himself growing multiple heads, hundreds to be exact. This fits into his plan to become the town's latest and greatest legend. But things go horribly wrong.

Not thinking highly of the story, I filed it away. I wrote it too fast with very little effort. It couldn't possibly be good unless I had toiled over it for months, suffering endless sleepless nights in an effort to get it just right.

My opinion changed when my wife happened upon the rough draft, read it and nearly broke a rib from too much laughter.

Encouraged by Rebecca's unpredicted response, I polished the rough draft and sent the manuscript to such lofty meccas as Clarion Books and Penguin Young Readers Group. Both received Handsome Heinz favorably with Kendra L. Levin(Penguin) loving it to the point she took it to an editor's board meeting to share with her fellow colleagues. Although she lobbied for Heinz's publication, her fellow work mates shot her down. And so my boulder, so close to the top of the hill, rolled back down.

True to Sisyphus's nature, I quickly flexed my soft biceps and prepared to push Heinz back up the hill. This time I discovered a picture book contest in ByLine magazine. To my astonishment, I placed first out of 173 contestants.

Along with a $60 dollar check, the first time I've received cash for writing instead of accolades, they wrote this blurb in the April 2006 issue of ByLine: "After several readings I chose the first place winner because it made me laugh out loud". Wow! Now, including my wife, at least two people found Handsome Heinz humorous.

I felt myself getting closer to the summit. Surely with the contest winner on my side, the big wigs on Fifth Avenue would now take notice. I pitched a few more big publishing houses with no luck. Not wanting to stay at the foot of the mountain too long, I decided getting an agent was the next step.

I had won a contest and almost attained success with Penguin For Young Readers. An agent would leap at the opportunity, right? Actually, yes. It turns out I landed a contract with Kelly Sonnack of the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency, the most prestigious agency on the west coast, representing many lofty authors such as Amy Tan.

Man, I was really trucking now. Only a matter of time before I became the next Dr. Seuss. I could see my my picture book displayed in the front lobbies of bookstores across the nation. I saw myself on a massive book tour, signing copies for adoring young fans. Unlike Sisyphus, I was about to break the curse the literary equivalant to Zeus had placed on me.

After a year of pitching and revising, Kelly Sonnack lost steam. She said she still believed in Heinz but didn't have the energy to continue working on it. What? Was I being dumped? I felt as rejected as the awkward teen girl not being invited to the prom.

So what went wrong? Why did I find myself at the bottom of the slope once again?

After wrestling with some frustration I've concluded that Heinz is a tough sell in a market not currently geared towards 'fable' type stories, which Heinz definitely is. Heinz would be a difficult sale for any agent.

Kelly Sonnack is a good agent so I can't place any blame there. I truly enjoyed my time working with her. I noticed she sold a lot of other authors' works while I was with the agency. She even sold Down Sand Mountain which recently won this year's Golden Kite Award. That begs the question, is there something wrong with Heinz? I don't believe so. Hopefully the market will become 'fable' friendly in the future, making Heinz more appealing to the opportunistic editors of Fifth Aveneue.

My dilemna now is that Handsome Heinz has received so many face lifts that he has winded up a caricature of himself; like Joan Rivers or Michael Jackson(may he rest in peace).

So as I contemplate putting my shoulder to the boulder once more, I ponder which path to take. Do I return to Heinz's original form, the one Kendra L. Levin at Penguins found appealing, as did the ByLine contest judges or do I pursue Heinz's new direction; the chapter book it ended up being after multiple revisions?

Help me decide. Both copies are available on my AgentQuery.com profile. If you so choose, cast a vote for your favorite version. I'd really appreciate the input.

AgentQuery.com is the perfect place for publishers, agents and writers to interact. Check it out by clicking my profile link at the end of this post. Hope to see you there.

I Am Not Spartacus, I Am Sisyphus

If only I could be like the Spartacus of the literary world, fighting the giants of the publishing industry like Spartacus fought the colossal Roman Empire, winning several battles even with the odds weighed heavily against him.

Alas, I am not Spartacus. I am Sisyphus, doomed to an eternity of pushing my books uphill towards the summit where the rewards of being published await in the impenetrable ivory towers of the publishing industry, only to have the boulder repeatedly roll back to the bottom.

It's too easy to imagine some Zeus-like figure of the literary heavens, deciding I have done something to merit a punishment similar to Sisyphus. For there is no punishment more cruel than continuously coming so close to your goal only to have the bottom fall out, forcing you to start over once again.

Okay, this sounds a little overly pessimistic, but what struggling author hasn't felt similar frustration at some point?

Any journey towards publication is a long arduous task. We've heard all the difficulties most successful authors have had to endure before attaining the ultimate reward.

My latest Sisyphus moment occurred last week, when my agent, who I thought loved me, decided it was time to part ways. Only last year I sat with her in a hotel lobby restaurant in Portland, Oregon, pitching my brilliant idea of a young adult dark fantasy series pitting the world of tattooing against the world of piercing. She loved the idea, relating between mouthfuls of succulent grilled salmon, that just the week before she had conversed with a prestigious editor about the lack of piercing and tattooing stories in the YA market. Of course, piercing, tattoos and teens are a match made in heaven.

With her encouragement, I dedicated the next eight months to drafting the first book in the series that was sure to be the next TWILIGHT. Giddy with enthusiasm after completing my masterpiece, I rushed a copy to her e-mail. Weeks of silence followed. Something was not right. I could sense that as clearly as a seagull sensing a storm.

My vision of her staying up through the entire night, eagerly turning page after page to get to the thrilling conclusion, seemed less likely now. Okay, maybe she was so overwhelmed with the genius of the story that she needed a few weeks to digest the enormity of it before moving forward. Yeah, highly unlikely.

As the days passed, in which I obsessively checked my e-mail hourly for her thoughts, I finally found the nerve to send her a 'what's up?' message. Hours later I received her answer. With sweaty hands I clicked on the inbox and my deepest fears were realized.

She had given my novel plenty of thought and decided she did not feel passionate enough about it to fairly represent it. Fair enough. But my heart sank as I watched the boulder, so close to the illustrious summit, start to roll backwards.

If the aforementioned story gives the impression that I'm venting, I apologize. This blog really is about perseverance. I point to my friend and fellow writer, Sean Ellis, as a good example of this. He's been through the ups and downs; the rejections, bad agents, and through it all he's remained a prolific writer. Did he break the cycle of his personal Sisyphus hell? Well, his book, The Shroud Of Heaven is being sold in bookstores across the nation as I write this.

The Shroud Of Heaven

Like Sisyphus, all any of us aspiring writers can do is put our shoulders to the boulders once again and begin the push back up the hill, hoping this time it will actually make it to the top.

This blog is not meant to be my personal lamentation. I want this to be a call to all struggling authors to persist and persevere. Maybe after hearing my Sisyphus Chronicles, you'll see your own travails as endurable and keep on plugging away towards the dream of publication. I can only hope so. The writing dream is too valuable to throw away.

Check out the link below to AgenQuery.com. I recently joined. It's a good resource where publishers, agents and writers can interact. I hope to see you there.

Visit my writer's profile on AgentQuery.com for a preview of the prologue and first chapter of my young adult dark fantasy series Piercing Through.