Wow, I can’t believe it’s been ten years since my debut novel, TOKYO HEIST, entered the world! It seemed important to mark the moment somehow, as ten years in a writing career is an important milestone.
The road from TOKYO HEIST (a YA mystery about missing Van Gogh prints in Japan and a manga enthusiast’s quest to find them while on a business trip with her dad) to TROUBLE AT TURTLE POND (a mystery about wildlife poaching and endangered Blanding’s turtles) seems incredible to me. I know at my launch ten years ago, if someone told me I’d eventually write a mystery about turtles, and that I’d be consulting with ornithologists and wildlife rehabbers to write the next book, I would not have believed it. And yet mystery has remained my steady path, even as my topics and age market shifted over time. I feel fortunate to have been able to publish two more YA mystery novels with Viking / Penguin Random House, followed by a collaboratively written adult mystery/thriller with Realm (formerly Serial Box) and Adaptive Books, and now my middle grade eco-mystery with Fitzroy Books / Regal House.
.
While two of my YA mysteries did go out of print (though are available as eBooks), TOKYO HEIST has held on in paperback. It pretty consistently hovers in the top 100 teen art fiction novels list on Amazon when I happen to check up on it, occasionally getting into the top 50 or even top 25 there. I think because it has different pathways into it – travel / Japan enthusiasts, art enthusiasts, comics and manga enthusiasts — it continues to find new readers.
.
It’s so fun to hear from some of those new readers who discover this novel these many years later. One recently reached out to me on Twitter to let me know she’d read it after a workshop I gave on mystery writing, and shared the following thoughts: “As an art historian, I can be picky about how art is treated in fiction, but you nailed it. I loved the details around print-making and conservation. Effortless, fluid, well-researched.” Whew! Researching that novel – in Seattle, Boston, and Japan, and shadowing an art conservator to understand their profession – was one of the most fun, fulfilling parts of my journey in writing that book, something I remain proud of to this day. Researching and writing TOKYO HEIST gave me the confidence to write other books about topics outside my wheelhouse (artifact smuggling, international bike racing, wildlife conservation) and to create collaborative partnerships with people in many different professions.
.
By far the most rewarding part of my writing career so far has been the opportunity to connect with young readers and the people who guide them, their teachers. Seeing my books used in classrooms, and getting to enter those classrooms (even virtually) or see student work (research projects, art, creative writing) is such a gift. It makes me realize how books have a life of their own once we launch them, and while we must give up control in so many ways (how they are marketed, received, reviewed, interpreted), we can feel that special spark when we know our book has connected with a certain reader or made an impact in some way.I looked back on my blog post – on this very blog! – from June 2012, about my launch day and my launch party at Newtonville Books. I had not read it for a decade. These opening words jumped out: “. . .[M]y brother-in-law sent me a video of a NASA rocket launch. I watched the lift-off, mesmerized, a
lump in my throat. It was the perfect video for that morning. I felt like I really was sending my book out into the world — with the aid of a highly trained crew — and now all I could do was squint at it in the distance and hope for the best.” Seeing those words again, and the friendly faces celebrating this first book – including some faces of family members who are no longer with us, my brother-in-law who sent me that launch video, and my father-in-law — was an emotional experience. My debut launch post is an important reminder to me of how many people it takes to write, publish, and sell a book, and the readers who help to sustain its journey, often in a flight pattern we simply cannot predict.
lump in my throat. It was the perfect video for that morning. I felt like I really was sending my book out into the world — with the aid of a highly trained crew — and now all I could do was squint at it in the distance and hope for the best.” Seeing those words again, and the friendly faces celebrating this first book – including some faces of family members who are no longer with us, my brother-in-law who sent me that launch video, and my father-in-law — was an emotional experience. My debut launch post is an important reminder to me of how many people it takes to write, publish, and sell a book, and the readers who help to sustain its journey, often in a flight pattern we simply cannot predict..
My favorite TOKYO HEIST launch photo, included here, is the one of the day my books arrived. My cat sniffed atthe box and walked away. My son, then five, practiced a handstand on a nearby chair; you can see his feet in the air. I clearly was so excited about my books that I permitted the chair gymnastics. The picture is an important reminder to me, against the more “glamorous” launch party pictures, that books get written amidst the swirl and chaos of real life. I do sometimes look at this “feet in the air” book picture to remind myself – when I’m in the middle of a messy draft, in a messy house, with lots going on around me — that books got written before, and I can do it again..
Do you have a milestone to mark in your writing life? Is it the one month, six month, or one year anniversary of embarking on a new project? Five years since you put a stake in the ground and decided to call yourself a writer? Seven years since your first writer’s conference? Think back in time on this very day – where were you in your writing journey? Where are you now? Where would you like to be in one year? In ten?