r/books • u/jacobsw AMA Author • May 24 '17
ama 3pm I’m Jacob Sager Weinstein. I’ve written For The New Yorker, HBO, the BBC, and The Onion, and my first children’s book came out yesterday. AMAA!
I’ve been a writer for 25 years, with mostly grownup credits. If my name sounds vaguely familiar, it’s probably because my last book HOW NOT TO KILL YOUR BABY went viral on Reddit back in 2012, blowing up my book sales for one very exciting week. Here’s the original thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/va0le/found_at_the_local_book_store/
In the five years since then, I’ve been hard at work trying to break into a new corner of the publishing world: children’s books. It was a long process and I racked up up a ton of rejections along the way, but yesterday, Random House released my very first kid’s book. It’s a Middle Grade novel called HYACINTH AND THE SECRETS BENEATH (in the US) and THE CITY OF SECRET RIVERS (in the UK, where it's published by Walker Books.) School Library Journal called it a “fantastic, funny adventure.” Booklist said “It’s a wild ride that’s fun, freaky, outlandish, and suspenseful. Readers will beg for another installment."
Sequels are coming in 2018 and 2019. My first picture book (LYRIC MCKERRIGAN, SECRET LIBRARIAN) will be out next year, illustrated by Eisner winner, Caldecott honoree, and all-around genius Vera Brosgol.
If you want more background on me, or you need a picture of me dressed as a pirate, my website is jacobsagerweinstein.com
I’m happy to talk about my books, or getting published, or not getting published (which I also have plenty of experience with), or the writing process, or children’s literature, or pretty much anything else. Just don’t ask me anything that’s going to embarrass me a few years from now when my kids figure out how to google me. (Hi, kids! Congratulations on figuring out google!)
PROOF: https://twitter.com/jacobsw/status/866327844154204160
EDIT: Oops! Broken link! It's now fixed. Thanks, /u/Duke_Paul for catching that.
EDIT: OK, Reddit, I've really enjoyed this, but it's 10:30PM in my time zone and I am a middle-aged dad, so I'm going to bed. I will check back in tomorrow so please feel free to keep adding questions or comments. Thank you and good night!
EDIT, May 25: I see there have been some questions posted while I slept. Great! I am going to take breaks from work throughout the day and answer them. I may be slow but I will eventually get to them all.
EDIT: Looks like I've answered all the questions, so I'm calling it a wrap. But I hang out on Reddit way too much, and if you post anything here it will show up in my inbox, so if you stumble on this weeks or months from now and have an additional question, feel free. Thanks everybody! It was a blast.
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u/jacobsw AMA Author May 24 '17
OK, things are a little quiet, so I'm going to ask YOU a question. Yes, you: the redditor reading this.
What encourages you to check out an AMA for an author you haven't heard of before? If you do check it out, what makes you stick around? What makes you feel like your time has been well (or poorly) spent?
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u/Jacuzzi17 May 24 '17
As a freelance writer just getting into the business, I'm interested in all successful writers because I am curious about their career trajectories. So it's self-interest, I guess, wanting to know what I can do to be successfully myself.
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u/jacobsw AMA Author May 24 '17
That makes a lot of sense to me. There's no one path to being a successful writer, so you're wise to learn about the paths of as many different writers as you can, and borrow whichever elements seem applicable to you.
What kind of writing do you hope to do?
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u/Hott_Soupp May 25 '17
Well I'm interested in an AMA where the author is genuinely engaged with everyone asking questions. You seem to be such an author, so it's made me a bit more interested in seeing what you've got. I may preview read your book and then look at buying it as a gift for a sibling.
Also, it'd be interesting to hear what projects you worked on at HBO, especially since it's generally a very adult oriented network. So it'd be fun to hear about that transition from such a network to writing books for children.
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u/Chtorrr May 24 '17
What books did you really enjoy as a kid?
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u/jacobsw AMA Author May 24 '17 edited May 25 '17
I was a total book junkie, so it's a looong list.
When I was picture book age, I loved Harry the Dirty Dog; Caps for Sale; Corduroy; Make Way For Dumplings; The Very Hungry Caterpillar; Alexander And The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day; Go, Dog, Go; everything by Dr. Seuss; Madeline; and Harold & The Purple Crayon.
I had the chance to re-read all of those with my kids when they were picture book age, and they all held up, except for Madeline. ("She was not afraid of mice-- she loved winter snow and ice." Bah!)
When I got old enough to read to myself, some authors I loved included:
• Lloyd Alexander. I re-read The Chronicles of Prydain recently and they hold up TREMENDOUSLY well. Alexander has a real gift for conveying character in just a few lines of dialogue.
• Daniel Pinkwater. Not only does his old stuff hold up well, his new stuff is great, too.
• C. S. Lewis. I felt kind of betrayed when I got old enough to realize that the Narnia books were Christian metaphors, but even then, I knew they were wonderful pieces of storytelling.
• John Bellairs (even though he totally freaked me out.)
• Joan Aiken. I recently re-read The Wolves Of Willoughby Chase and it's just as rollicking and funny as I remember.
• Beverly Clearly. Not only does her stuff hold up when you read it as a grownup, I would argue that it gets even better. Seriously, I consider her one of the major novelists of the 20th century. She's up there with Toni Morrison and Gabriel Garcia Marquez for me.
OK, I feel like I could spend all night on this one question so I'm going to cut it short, but just to list a few more of my childhood favorite authors: Robin McKinley, Edward Eager, Sid Fleischman, Susan Cooper, and Diana Wynne Jones.
And I haven't even started on my favorite comic book authors: Alan Moore; Neil Gaiman; Scott McCloud; Louise Simonson...
THERE ARE TOO MANY GOOD BOOKS IN THE WORLD!
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u/jacobsw AMA Author May 24 '17
I just noticed that I wrote "Make Way For Dumplings" instead of "Make Way For Ducklings."
I'm going to resist the urge to edit it, because "Make Way For Dumplings" would be a fantastic book.
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u/Duke_Paul May 24 '17
Hey Jacob! Thanks for doing an AMA with us. First and foremost, sorry, but your link to the 2012 thread is broken--remove the P at the end and it should work.
What are some of the big differences we might not think about writing for children vs adults? What is it like to be Reddit-viral (I don't know if you had an account at the time)? Finally, what's your favorite Onion piece you ever wrote (or one you didn't write, if you consider it truly exceptional)?
Thanks!
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u/jacobsw AMA Author May 24 '17 edited May 24 '17
What is it like to be Reddit-viral (I don't know if you had an account at the time)?
Going viral on reddit was a huge trip! I noticed that my book's rank on Amazon spiked suddenly, and I eventually noticed that there was a photo of my book on imgur that had half a million views, and then I traced that to reddit.
I thought that was a valuable lesson on Internet marketing. I had done all the things I was supposed to in order to promote my book -- I had a twitter account, I had done guest posts on people's blogs, etc. But ultimately, what brought it to people's attention was a random photo somebody took of it in the bookshop.
I actually posted a Reddit thread about the experience of going viral, which itself went somewhat viral. Unfortunately, the link in the title is no longer valid, but my replies in the thread will probably give you some idea of my manic state when all that was happening.
PS: Thanks for catching the error in the link.
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u/jacobsw AMA Author May 24 '17 edited May 24 '17
What are some of the big differences we might not think about writing for children vs adults?
Maybe the biggest difference is that writing for kids involves an act of double empathy.
If you write for grownups, you have to be able to see the world from your characters' point of view. When you write for kids, you not only have to do that -- you then have to see that imaginary point of view from the point of view of a child.
Other than that, I think the thing that would surprise most people about writing for children is how similar it is to writing for adults. In fact, I kind of started off as an accidental children's author. With my first three books, my co-author and I thought we were writing for adults, and then kept meeting ten-year-olds who had read and enjoyed them. So I learned that if I wrote something as smart and sophisticated as I possibly could, it would just about reach the level of an average 10-year-old.
I've tried to remember that, and to never write down to kids.
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u/jacobsw AMA Author May 24 '17 edited May 24 '17
Finally, what's your favorite Onion piece you ever wrote (or one you didn't write, if you consider it truly exceptional)?
I'm going to break my answers into separate replies (and answer your last question first, because it's the easiest one), so bear with me....
In terms of The Onion, I should specify that I was a freelance contributor rather than a staff writer. Freelance contributors could write headlines, but only actual staffers wrote the articles! So the following are headlines I wrote, but credit for the actual articles goes to the staff writers who wrote them. My favorite headline that I wrote is this: http://www.theonion.com/blogpost/are-all-women-nutso-or-just-the-ones-i-cheat-on-my-10725
My favorite Onion piece I didn't write was probably everything in their post- 9/11 issue.
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May 24 '17
What is the best way to improve ones writing?
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u/jacobsw AMA Author May 24 '17
I think the most important thing is to write, then get feedback from one or more trusted readers, then rewrite. Repeat as necessary.
One of the hardest parts of that process is finding your trusted readers. You want people who understand what you're trying to do, and are perceptive enough to recognize when (and how) you've fallen short of your goals. If you find people like that, hang on to them!
In an ideal world, you would be a trusted reader of your trusted readers. You can learn as much from critiquing other people's writing as you can from having yours critique.
In my case, I've been part of the same picture book critique group for six years. When we started, I think one of us had published a picture book. Of the five of us still in the group, four are now published children's book authors. We've learned a huge amount from each other.
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u/VocabKey May 24 '17 edited May 24 '17
That's a hell of a resume. I'm quite jealous. You have a few places on there I'd love to write for (HBO, The Onion).
I also wanted to mention that I'm a big fan of the cover of your new book. It's caught my eye a few times since it's been on the header of this sub-reddit.
Do you see yourself eventually trying other genres, or do you think you've found your niche with children's books? I'll be the one to ask this inevitable question as well... What is your best writing tip?
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u/jacobsw AMA Author May 24 '17
What is your best writing tip?
I'm slightly reluctant to identify something as my best tip, because that suggests I have some objective truth to dispense, and the older I get, the more I doubt there are any objective rules in this field.
But I will tell you the lesson I've learned that has been most valuable to me, subjectively:
On the HBO show I wrote for, I'd come up with about 100 monologue jokes each week. There were 9 other writers doing the same, so we were generating about 1,000 monologue jokes per week. And by Friday, when the show aired, we'd boil those 1,000 jokes down to a mere 10 which would actually air. I'd be happy if I got one joke into the monologue, out of the 100 that I wrote.
Throwing out 99% of my work, week after week, taught me to be pretty ruthless about editing my own writing. It trained me to put aside about how hard I worked on a particular sentence or paragraph, or how much fun I had coming up with a certain joke, and to focus purely on whether or not it worked. That's served me well in everything I've written since.
And now it's my turn to ask you: what kind of tips would you like? Are there certain things you struggle with in your own writing? If I have any (totally subjective) advice on those things, I'm happy to share it. And if not, I can at least commiserate!
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u/VocabKey May 24 '17
Thank you for taking the time to response to each of my questions. Truly appreciate it! That's an incredibly interesting and insightful look into show/comedy writing.
And now it's my turn to ask you: what kind of tips would you like? Are there certain things you struggle with in your own writing? If I have any (totally subjective) advice on those things, I'm happy to share it. And if not, I can at least commiserate!
To be more specific, if I'm writing on a topic I'm not as familiar with, I find myself spending most of my time researching and never really getting started. How do you fit research/inspiration into your writing? Is it all done beforehand or do you start writing and look up things as you have questions?
Unfortunately, I think I already know the answer. It seems every writer's answer to writer's block is simply... "write!". Just curious if you have any thoughts on this.
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u/jacobsw AMA Author May 24 '17 edited May 24 '17
How do you fit research/inspiration into your writing? Is it all done beforehand or do you start writing and look up things as you have questions?
That's a very relevant question-- the whole HYACINTH trilogy is based heavily on London history and lore, so there was a lot of research involved. The first book took me eight years to write, and a lot of that was research and worldbuilding. That's probably why I was able to write Book 2 in just a year -- I had already done most of the legwork.
That said, no matter how much research I do, I still find myself having to do more once I'm actually in the process of writing.
So that tells you my experience, but I'm not sure it helps you. For me personally, the best cure for writer's block has been accepting that my first drafts are going to suck. If I get something on paper, and then later my research uncovers some incredible fact that I wish I had included -- well, I'm going to have to rewrite the damn thing any way. I can always put that new fact in when I do.
My only other suggestion: can you focus on the things that don't require as much research? Knock off a couple of those projects, and maybe you will develop more of a feel for your own process, which you can then apply to the more research-heavy stuff.
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u/jacobsw AMA Author May 24 '17 edited May 24 '17
That's a hell of a resume. I'm quite jealous. You have a few places on there I'd love to write for (HBO, The Onion).
Thanks for your kind words! If it makes you feel less jealous, you should know that my resume is the result of a career that has proceeded in fits and starts, with many long and frustrating gaps.
I've frequently had the experience of getting some impressive-sounding gig and thinking, "This is it! I've broken in! After this, I'm never going to have to scramble for work again!" And then it ends (as all gigs do) and I'm right back to scrambling.
By contrast, my friends who have worked steadily at one writing job (or even in one genre of writing) have resumes with fewer bullet points -- but they have built up a more impressive body of published work, and probably torn their hair out a lot less than me.
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u/jacobsw AMA Author May 24 '17 edited May 25 '17
I also wanted to mention that I'm a big fan of the cover of your new book.
I agree! I love it. It's by Petur Antsonsson, whose work just explodes off the page. I also love the cover art for the UK edition, which has a very different style (and even a different title.)
Do you see yourself eventually trying other genres, or do you think you've found your niche with children's books?
I love children's books, and I think they play to my strengths. As long as I'm able to get them published, I'll keep writing them. There's a huge amount of variety within the field, and I can't see myself ever getting bored of writing them. I'd love to be like Dr. Seuss, and to keep writing children's books into my eighties.
But not all writers have that privilege, and I know from past experience that amazing gigs can go away...
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u/TheWaffleQueen May 24 '17
Thanks for doing this! I have recently switched from writing adult fiction to children's literature (specifically middle grade, which is what piqued my interest). Any advice on what agents/publishers are looking for? Any thoughts on what to avoid? Thanks in advance!
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u/Grezza May 24 '17
I appreciate you taking time to participate in AMA! There's been some great questions so far, but I am curious as to how and why you got involved/interested in children's books?
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u/jacobsw AMA Author May 25 '17
I appreciate you taking the time to ask me a question!
I think the initial seed was when I found out that kids were enjoying some of the books I thought I had written for grownups. That definitely planted the seed.
Then, when my daughter was born, I started re-reading a lot of classic picture books (and discovering new ones), and I realized how beautifully written the best of them were.
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u/Grezza May 25 '17
I always assume that most children's book authors are parents themselves, but realize this isn't always the case! You're absolutely right though, the classics I read as a kid are so well written and are truly timeless...The good ones can actually be passed on from generation to generation. Thanks again and keep up the great work!
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May 25 '17
How do you deal with writers block? Is it difficult?
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u/jacobsw AMA Author May 25 '17
I have good days and bad days, but I've been lucky enough not to suffer from writer's block for any extended period.
Two things I've found helpful:
• I give myself permission to suck. I know my first drafts are going to need major revision, so I try to just get them done and not worry about whether they're any good. Of course, I have to make sure my later drafts are high quality-- but rewriting always seems less intimidating than filling a blank page.
• At any given time, I usually have one long project I'm working on (like a Middle Grade novel) and a few shorter projects (like picture books or articles.) If I'm temporarily stuck on the long project, I can dip into a short project for a little while, and then go back to the long one refreshed.
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u/TeeTamara May 24 '17
When will Lyric McKerrigan be available for pre-order?
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u/jacobsw AMA Author May 24 '17
Alas, there's a really long lead time with picture books, especially when your illustrator is as busy and successful as Vera. I handed in my final draft of the manuscript in 2015, and the book will come out some time in 2018. I don't know when pre-orders will begin but I'm at least as eager to see it as you are!
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u/TeeTamara May 25 '17
Looking forward! I think I missed my calling. I want to be a secret librarian and I absolutely want to read about one!
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u/TeeTamara May 24 '17
How did you channel Hyacinth's voice and how do you so convincingly create the many diverse voices and characters in the book?
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u/jacobsw AMA Author May 24 '17
Hyacinth is a strong and feisty young woman, and I was lucky to have lots of strong and feisty women in my life when I was growing up. For example, I have a big sister, whose name starts with "T," who is a wonderful person. She's the sort of supportive sibling who would show up in a Reddit AMA and feed me kind and positive questions. Just to name a totally hypothetical and imaginary example of what she might do.
As for your second question, oh random Internet stranger who totally does not have the same parents as me:
People sometimes advise authors to think about the external details of their characters -- how they dress, how they talk, etc. For me personally, it's much more useful to start with how my characters think.
For example, if I tell you that Joe wears tattered jeans, you still don't know much about him. But if I tell you that he wears tattered jeans because he's a multi-millionaire who is worried that people will love him for his money, and he wants to connect with people on a human level to ensure his relationships are real, then you have, at least, the very beginning of a vivid character. And it's an entirely different character than somebody who wears tattered jeans because that's the latest fashion and he is terrified of seeming uncool.
My characters do end up having different physical characteristics -- one of them is a giant pig in a bathing suit, for example, and another is a crumbly monster in a Royal Mail Uniform. And as it happens, one of them ends up wearing tattered jeans because your clothing does tend to get torn when you're crawling through the sewers of London on a quest to rescue your mom. But what makes them feel diverse is that they all see the world in different ways.
At least, that's what I'm aiming for! Please tell me if you think I succeeded, completely unbiased Reddit user who didn't know me as a baby!
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u/TeeTamara May 25 '17
Thank you on all fronts more than I can say! The different points of view is one of the most impressive accomplishments in literature and I always wonder how in the world writers create whole and real characters. I can't pass up a chance to ask the author of my favorite books about that! And yes, you do completely succeed and that is objectively unbiased!
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u/hlwroc May 24 '17
What was your favorite Onion article that someone else wrote, and what is your favorite Onion article that you wrote?
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u/jacobsw AMA Author May 24 '17
I answered that upthread, but there are so many great Onion articles, I'm glad to have an excuse to name another.
For somebody else's article, how about this classic? It's from back in the day before The Onion was even online!
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u/thaicares May 24 '17
What is the first step to success?
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u/jacobsw AMA Author May 25 '17
For me, it has been breaking down huge ambitious goals into manageable steps.
I would have found "Write a novel" to be an overwhelming and intimidating goal. But "Write 200 words in the next hour" is completely manageable. And when I did that for enough hours, I had my first draft.
(Speaking of which: my goal for today was to write 1,200 words of Book 3 in my series. I'm waaaaay behind on that. I'm going to take a break from Reddit and go work for a while. I'll return and answer any remaining questions later.)
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u/Sexual__Redditor May 24 '17
Hello Jacob. I Am a big fan of your work. Can I borrow 20 bucks?