6th Day of Christmas: Senior Editor Imogen Cooper of Chicken House

... an editor in search of golden eggs 

The Book of Never Letting Go

by Addy Farmer

So here it is. Finished. For some weird reason, I'm almost ashamed to admit that the manuscript for my 12 plus novel has been 9 years in the making and began taking shape soon after my youngest was born. However, before you decide that I must have been carving it out a word at a time, I would point out that, no, I hadn't been working on it the whole time.

I would have exploded after three years give or take.

I did manage to write other stuff and even get stuff published but the kernal of this particular story always stayed with me. So, in the interests of my sanity I thought I'd take you on a condensed journey and maybe follow it as it trundles on its way to publication and massive acclaim or... not.

At the beginning I got a great crit In Public from an editor from Penguin.
  

Who cares! I've learned to enjoy giving and receiving crit!

Then in the middle I had an exciting squeal-worthy thumbs up from Chicken House...

...before it was turned down.

I still hung on in there because I loved it and a little while later I found Cornerstones. I've been working with the wonderful Kathyrn Robinson for about two years now. Again, NOT all the time because she does have other things to do apparently. The ms had been back and forth three times before the time came to send it out for what felt like a final letting go.

Sometimes it's easier to travel in hope than to arrive

 
Tricky.  Doubt crept in accompanied by worry and yet more doubt. It wouldn't be good enough - all my love and all that support and all that work, just wouldn't be enough. I didn't want to let this story go without a struggle. It was easier to keep it and look at it again and again and again because writing, 'The End' felt a bit too final. There was always time for just one last look...

The basics - is that story arc working? The End. Well, I like the way it starts, nice and punchy with that big 'T'. It's firm, it's manly and it stomps into the beginning. The 'h', I'm not so sure about. It's wibbles about after that strong beginning and then there's the disaster of the repititious 'e'. Then it ginds to a massive halt until... oh my Lord where did that capital 'E' come from? E! All my rising tension gone! Then jumping down to that teeny rubbish, 'n' that's meant to herald the climax which it doesn't by the way. Then the 'd' which I like.

So perhaps something like this...

Tenehd


Okay, maybe one more teensy look. Yep, thought so, it's too boring now, it's predictable. That ending, there's no real twist. If I just do this...

Tenedh

Is that beginning right for the end now? There's no reflection of my unpredictable ending now in the beginning. So maybe if I just do this...

tenedh

Oh but now it's all the same! I've flattened everything. I'll just...

tenedh

It's too long...

ten

too short...

tenedhnedet

too boring...

tenedhnedet

Waaaa. Calm down.
Do I love this story? Do I love my characters? Is it the best I can possibly make it? Yes. It's in the hands of someone I trust and now I will wait (and do other stuff).  

The End.

Countdown to Christmas: Publisher Barry Cunningham

Barry Cunningham is the co-founder and Publishing and Managing Director of Chicken House Publishing, where he works with authors Cornelia Funke, Brian Williams and Roderick Gordon, Stuart Hill and Rachel Ward. Before the days of the Chicken House, Barry was the founder-Publisher of Bloomsbury Children's Books, where he worked with the likes of Roald Dahl and Spike Milligan and... oh yeah, a little somebody called J.K. Rowling.