This post was originally sent through my author newsletter on May 6, 2022. To subscribe to my newsletter and receive up-to-date news, musings, and more, use the form on my homepage: KathrynHolmes.com.
My daughter has a lovely picture book called What Do You Do With an Idea? It was a baby gift from a friend from college, a talented dancer and choreographer who is now a mom of two herself. In the book, written by Kobi Yamada, the narrator suddenly has an idea—drawn by illustrator Mae Besom as a golden egg, with legs, wearing a crown.
At first, the child tries to walk away...but the idea follows. It grows, especially once it is nurtured: fed and played with and given a house, "one with an open roof where it could look up at the stars—a place where it could be safe to dream." Eventually, the idea hatches and flies into the sky. Now, it belongs not only to the child who conceived it, but to everyone. "I realized what you do with an idea..." the narrator finishes. "You change the world."
As someone with a new book out last month, I certainly relate to the feeling of holding an idea close for so long and then finally letting it fly free. It's strange and gratifying and terrifying and wonderful to have people read a story that I dreamed up and carefully crafted and kept to myself (and my editor) for so long. Perhaps David Dixon's Day as a Dachshund isn't world-changing literature...but it could matter to the right kid at the right time. That's huge.
And yet, in this moment, I'm relating even harder to the part of the story where the child has a brand-new idea and they don't know what to do with it. They don't know if it's any good. They don't know what people will think of it. They can't see its potential.
With my first finished novel, I saw nothing but potential. It was my grad school thesis, a young adult fantasy about magical subway trains in NYC. I grabbed onto this idea with both hands and held on for dear life as it careened down the tracks toward what I was sure was an inevitable destination: a book deal. (And then awards and movies and merchandise; pre-publication writers are big-time dreamers.) I completed the book. I revised it. I queried agents. I was rejected. Eventually, I realized the book worked better as a middle-grade, so I rewrote it with a younger protagonist and queried agents again. I was rejected again. I did more revisions. And round and round and round...
Until one day—after more than three years of working on this same book, growing more and more frantic and certain I'd wasted my time and money getting an MFA—I got a new idea.
When it arrived, it was nothing more than a seed. A germ. A tiny golden egg balanced on twig-like legs, wearing a crown.
The idea was this: a 16-year-old girl named Hallelujah Calhoun.
I was still revising the magical subway book, but this new idea grew in the background. It asked questions: Who was this girl? Why was she named Hallelujah? What did she need to have happen to her in order to become who she was meant to be? By the time I set the subway book aside, I was desperate to write about Hallelujah, and I first-drafted feverishly. I didn't know what people would think of this new book—a realistic survival story that also explored identity and faith; so different from what I'd been writing before—but I knew I had something.
Spoiler alert: that something became my debut, The Distance Between Lost and Found.
Ideas don't all become something—especially in an industry like publishing, where believing in a book with your entire soul doesn't mean it will ever find its audience. After my second book came out, I went back to the magical subway book and did a from-scratch rewrite with my literary agent, transforming it into a broader magical NYC story. It still didn't sell. I also poured my heart into a YA ghost story set in Venice, Italy, about sisterhood and grief and first love and forgiveness...and it didn't sell. Unless I decide to self-publish down the line, it's unlikely either of these stories will ever be widely read. Their golden eggs may never hatch.
Does that mean the time I spent nurturing them was wasted? Of course not!
It hurt when those books I loved didn't find a publishing home. It absolutely hurt. That said, those two "drawer books" (a.k.a. manuscripts I have now filed away in a metaphorical drawer) made me a better writer. Those ideas nourished my imagination and my creativity. They each challenged me in new ways. They also paved the path to new projects: certainly some of the fun magic of the subway book made its way into the Class Critters series (as well as something else I'm very excited to tell you more about soon). I may not have made it to where I am today without writing those two unsold books.
So, what do you do with an idea? You change the world, sure.
But also, you change yourself.
Nurturing your creativity (even without external validation or rewards), trusting your instincts, tuning out dissenting voices that aren't helpful to you, marinating in possibility, paying attention to what piques your interest, what gets you feeling inspired...all of that has value, whether you are a writer or a dancer/choreographer or a visual artist or not in a creative field at all. That's why, as my daughter grows, What Do You Do With an Idea? will stay on her bookshelf.
Many paragraphs ago, I said I could relate to the child's uncertainty at the start of the story. Why is that? Well, where I am right now in my writing journey, most of what I'm working on is quite far along in its growth and development. The third Class Critters book has been sent to print, and I'm waiting to hear if the publisher will accept proposals for more. (Even if they do, the concept and ideas are already fleshed out, so I'm not starting from scratch.) The "something else I'm excited to tell you about soon" I mentioned above has been in the works for years. I have another manuscript that I've also been working on for years, between other projects, and it's finally coming into focus. The only new ideas I'm having right now are for picture books; if there's another novel inside me, I don't yet know what it's going to be.
That's scary. But maybe it's also exciting? All I know is, I'm trying to stay open, so that when the next idea arrives—when that little golden egg with spindly legs and a crown poofs into existence and starts following me around—I'm ready.
What I'm:
Reading: I bought Emily Henry's newest rom-com, Book Lovers, on Tuesday—its release day. I'd finished it by lunchtime on Wednesday. Book Lovers is about two NYC publishing rivals, a sharklike literary agent and a hard-to-impress editor, falling for each other in his small North Carolina hometown. If you love smart, emotional, funny, swoony books, don't hesitate to pick this one up.
Writing: An alphabet-themed picture book! Also, I just turned in a Dance Magazine article about fostering an emotionally healthy approach to competition; you'll be able to read that in August.
Watching: "Magic for Humans" on Netflix. (If you saw "magic" and wanted to run away screaming...hear me out.) The magician is Justin Willman, who also hosts a bunch of competitive baking shows ("Cupcake Wars," "Baking Impossible"). In this series, he does close-up magic tricks for regular folks all over Los Angeles. Some of the illusions are truly astonishing—as in, they made my 40-year-old husband squeal with delight. A great comfort-watch.
Playing: Two Dots on my phone. I'd weaned myself off it for a while, but now I'm firmly back on the Two Dots train. Level 3437 (as of this writing), baby!
Loving: My daughter's bug obsession. She received a "bug collection" from my parents for Christmas and is currently enamored of digging for worms in the damp springtime playground dirt. (Also, if you have a bug-loving kiddo, I must recommend Elise Gravel's adorable nonfiction picture book series about creepy-crawlies! So far, we've read The Spider, The Worm, Head Lice, and The Mosquito...)
