bliss
You know what happens when I spend time alone, read a lot, exercise regularly, and stay close to home? I WRITE. It doesn’t happen right away, but after two weeks of mostly staying in and keeping to myself, I’m getting back in the writing zone and it feels SO good. Today I went out for a run, then came home and fused three unfinished poems into one. Went out for groceries again (I went to the supermarket and the farmers market yesterday) and came home to cook my New Year’s Day meal of hoppin’ John, cornbread, and pork with sauerkraut. The fridge is full, I have NO sugary sweets in the house, and the heat just came back on after being off for more than a week. Life is good! This month is going to get hectic because SAY HER NAME comes out on the 14th and I will be traveling quite a bit. But I’m really going to work at keeping every other month open so that I can get back into the routine that lets me dream and write. I finished reading GIRL, WOMAN, OTHER on Monday and as I neared the end I realized that two of my novels-in-verse are actually the same book. Just like I realized late last night that my unfinished poems were really notes for a single poem. You can’t get that kind of perspective when your head’s full of other things. Writing is 70% dreaming and I need 
to protect my dream time.
A few author friends have been posting their book covers from the past decade on social media. I can’t easily do that since I self-published so many titles in the past ten years, but I thought it was worthwhile to at least write it down.
2010: I was living in Brooklyn and was un/underemployed but still managed to become debt-free; Amazon Encore re-released my time-travel novel A WISH AFTER MIDNIGHT, which I had self-published in 2008.
2011: I tried adjuncting and was ready to give up on academia when I got a surprise last-minute job offer from BMCC. I joined the Center for Ethnic Studies and had three challenging but also rewarding years teaching community college students in Manhattan.
2012: Amazon Encore published my MG fantasy SHIP OF SOULS.
2013: I self-published THE DEEP.
2014: I self-published 9 of my manuscripts (ROOM IN MY HEART, MAX LOVES MUNECAS, AN ANGEL FOR MARIQUA, THE MAGIC MIRROR, FOX & CROW, THE LAST BUNNY IN BROOKLYN, THE GIRL WHO SWALLOWED THE SUN, THE BOY IN THE BUBBLE, THE PHOENIX ON BARKLEY STREET) and quit my tenure-track job at BMCC so I could write full-time.
2015: I self-published 5 more books for kids (LET THE FAITHFUL COME, A WAVE CAME THROUGH OUR WINDOW, I LOVE SNOW, DAYSHAUN’S GIFT, DEJEN VENIR A LOS FIELES) and fulfilled a dream by serving as writer-in-residence at Weeksville Heritage Center.
2016: I self-published 4 more books (THE DOOR AT THE CROSSROADS, A HAND TO HOLD, MILO’S MUSEUM, BILLIE’S BLUES) and served a second term as writer-in-residence at WHC; MELENA’S JUBILEE was published by Tilbury House; I found an agent and Jenn sold DRAGONS IN A BAG in a two-book deal to Random House, and A PLACE INSIDE OF ME to FSG.
2017: I self-published 4 more books (THE GHOSTS IN THE CASTLE, THE PHANTOM UNICORN, BENNY DOESN’T LIKE TO BE HUGGED, MOTHER OF THE SEA).
2018: I went to Sweden to research THE RING; I self-published THE RETURN and EVERYONE HAS A STORY TO TELL; DRAGONS IN A BAG was published by Random House; we sold SAY HER NAME to Disney; I earned as a full-time writer what I had been earning as an assistant professor.
2019: I self-published FIND YOUR VOICE; THE DRAGON THIEF was published by Random House; I moved from Philadelphia to Lancaster; I found a new agent and we sold MOONWALKING to FSG.
MOONWALKING won’t be published until Fall 2021; SAY HER NAME comes out next month and A PLACE INSIDE OF ME will be published in July. I have another picture book with Flyaway Books but I have no idea where we are in the publication process. I’ve got two illustrators working on two picture books that I plan to publish this year. I’m working on a novel-in-verse set in Central PA, and my editor at Disney is considering my half-finished dystopian novella North/South. I have a writing agenda that’s as long as my arm and twenty unpublished picture book manuscripts on my computer. It’s still a struggle to get published but this is the life I wanted—I’m living the dream! So long as I continue to get the work DONE. I’m going to NYC on Friday just for the day, just to see friends, and to have lunch by myself at my favorite tea shoppe, and to catch the Betye Saar exhibit before it closes on Saturday. Gotta feed my imagination…Happy New Year!
6 Comments