A Story No One Has Ever Heard Before Part I

Until Now

Dec 26, 2023

Hi All!

If you want to take a peek behind the scenes of what it’s like to write a children’s book, keep reading! I hope I can shed some light on the ups-and-downs of writing, illustrating, and marketing a children’s picture book, and in the creative process in general. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that there’s still so much I don’t know about any of this. But I know more than I used to know! Is that something?

Either way, here’s what happened…

My story starts, as many stories do when you’re a kindergarten teacher, with pink eye. I was minding my own business one cold and dreary December when my eye turned red and itchy. Either I was allergic to short, gloomy, days, or the side effects of wading through a sea of humanoid germ-containers had finally caught up with me.

At least it’s not in both eyes, I said.

Ah, there we go.

Now, I didn’t know this at the time, (they should cover it in grad school) but there are two types of pink eye. One is bacterial, and you take eye drops and are fine in a day or two. The other is viral, and you miss two weeks of work and burn through all your vacation days. I got the viral.

So there I was, guiltily taking my days off while my co teacher was carrying the heavy burden of teaching what are basically five-year-old kittens how to read and write, when I had a thought: I have this time. I didn’t ask for it. But I should use it!

For years, I had been toying with the idea of writing a children’s book, but I didn’t know what to write about. So I never wrote one. But that didn’t stop everyone from telling me, “Hey, you teach. You draw. You should make a children’s book!”

“Oh,” I would respond, and move on with my life. But now I was captured in a moment in time like a fly in amber, and I figured I should make it count for something. So I sat down with a coffee and said, “OK, Steinberg, let’s do this.”

I brainstormed. I doodled. I thought about children’s books I liked, children’s books I would want to write, children’s books I might actually be able to write, and it hit me. I loved the kinds of meta, interactive children’s books that engaged the reader. What about a story that gets kids to tell a story! It’ll write itself!

It didn’t. But I had an idea, it was a start. A couple days later, with two clear eyes, I enthusiastically returned to work while still mildly mourning those spent vacation days.

Then, the pandemic hit, and those spent vacation days, as well as days in general, lost all meaning.

Between teaching kindergarten over Zoom (don’t ask) and learning to play the ukulele (really don’t ask) I continued to write. And write. And write some more. And here’s how it went.

My first draft lacked just about everything an editor might want in a story: characters, plot, anything even remotely marketable. Here, take a look:

And so on and so forth.

But don’t worry, after shopping it around to a couple of agents and getting nowhere, I pivoted towards an even more esoteric direction by anthropomorphizing the book itself! Sigh.

I’m just gonna stop there.

I floundered for a bit, and then one fateful day, a dentist friend of mine was chatting with a patient while waiting for his assistant to bring a hammer or chisel or whatever tools dentists use but pretend is normal. It turned out this wonderful patient sitting in his chair was a children’s book agent.

“Would she chat with me?” he asked.

“Sure!” She said, and then I assume he got to chipping away at enamel. (Now he does lasers. It’s awesome. I’m not kidding.)

The agent reviewed my manuscript, gave me copious notes, and spoke to me on the phone for almost an hour. I was amazed and so grateful. She suggested that my book be less “didactic” and more “fun/silly.” Maybe the narrator can get more and more carried away? Maybe some characters can guide us through each step? She also told me to take a look at the “page turn.” There’s a rhythym to stories. A page turn is a pause, a moment of anticipation, a reveal!

Well, I got rhythm, (I don’t), and I’ve got silliness (I do), so I got to work. Again.

Here’s a part of a brainstorming session of mine:

These were some of the new pages:

Much better! It had some humor. Some rhythm. Some life. Was this finally it? Although the agent had been so giving and helpful, she hadn’t been ready to represent me - my book wasn’t anywhere near done. If I reworked it, she’d be glad to chat. So when I had rewritten and redrew the manuscript, I eagerly sent it to her. Waited. And never heard back.

I was disappointed and confused. Why give me that time and energy to just ghost me in the end? But, I told myself, I didn’t know her schedule, her life, or really anything at all. I had to just take the gift she gave me and move on. I still had the new manuscript.

I sent it out to some more agents that represented children’s book authors that I admired. Nothing.

A few months later, I was chatting with the talented writer, Irving Ruan, who I’ve collaborated with over the past few years. Check this out. Or this! Or this! When I mentioned that I was looking for an agent, he suggested I talk to Danielle, his agent, and connected us! Turns out she saw something in my book and maybe in me. We exchanged some emails and phone calls, went back and forth a bit, and I took the plunge, signing with Danielle at the Levine Greenberg Rostan Literary Agency.

And so I began a completely new process of reworking the book again with her help and sage advice. I made ideas crisper, added some more details, and even included a treasure map!

And then, when we felt it was ready, I began a whole new round of rejections. We sent it out to editors and got no after no. Well, one editor wanted to speak with me, but it was a confusing conversation where he didn’t have much to say other than he wasn’t sure what my book was about. My agent was confused, I was confused, and we both thanked him for his time. But then…

One editor, Joy, at Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers, expressed some reserved interest. She liked what I had, but it wasn’t a story. She was wondering if I could create a narrative out of some of the one-off characters scattered throughout my manuscript.

Never one to make things easy for myself, I couldn’t just pick one character, so I picked three.

And, well, things got complicated. I sent her an updated draft. Not there yet, she said. I tried weaving all the narratives together.

Too complicated.

I rewrote it and sent her another draft.

No rhymes, she said. Definitely no haikus. (What is wrong with me.)

At this point, my agent sat me down (over the phone) and said that usually editors don’t ask for so many rewrites without either offering a contract or saying “no thank you.” Did I want to keep going? We could send the manuscript out to some other places.

I didn’t think about it long. I had an editor interested, and that was more than I ever had before or might ever have again. It was my window. So I kept going.

I trimmed, I streamlined, I rewrote, I edited, and came up with a new draft containing the best of what I had and the best of what I could come up with.

And they liked it.

First, I was stunned. Then, I laughed, I cried, I celebrated! (And I called my parents.)

My journey was complete!

It wasn’t.

In part II, I want to tell you about how I made the final manuscript and illustrations for my book, A Story No One Has Ever Heard Before.

Sneak peek: they asked me what my general vision for the book’s color palettes might be. What’s a color palette?! I draw in black-and-white for The New Yorker! I think in black-and-white too! Oh no!

If this was interesting, helpful, enjoyable, or any combination of the three, please subscribe and even share! And tell me what you think, what you’re curious about, and what a color palette is!

Also, here’s my book!