Miles McTavish, 15, is undersized and inoffensive. He likes old bicycles, new music, and (don’t say it too loud), model railroading. He also has to travel back in time to 1928, across the sea to England. Once there, he is to find “a girl with a gift, a girl born out of her time” and a “secret that was not meant to be” and then return home with them both. Miles' quest carries him from a great estate in England's beautiful countryside to London's jazz-age cabarets, and from terrified boy to heroic young man.
How'd
You Get the Idea In the First Place?
As it happens, I can tell you!
I was listening to my iPod, Adele’s first
album as it happens, one spring morning in 2007 as I was walking along the
Stowe, Vermont Recreation Path. It’s a
beautiful path that follows a rocky stream through woods and fields with the
Green Mountains in the long view. I had
recently gotten a half-time job (I’m a government lawyer by day) and I had two
kids in school. This meant I had a
little mental space and time with which to work for the first time in
years. I had been a writer before law
school, for local newspapers and in a college PR office, and I had continued
writing (for fun) on a blog that I have kept since 2006. I mention this because I was in the writing
habit, which helped, I think, to keep ideas coming. The walking part is important too. I walk every day if I can. I got to thinking that day as I listened to
Adele sing about how important it was for gifted people to arrive at the right
place and time if their gifts are to be realized.
I've always been a reader, of course, and
my major in college was English literature.
So when this thought flitted across my mind, I immediately thought of
Thomas Gray’s famous poem, ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,’ which
includes this notion as one of its major themes. That is, it contemplates those whose talents
never stood a chance, given the time and place in which they were
deposited. I wondered what if some
exceptional people weren't constrained by the circumstances of their birth? What if the Universe had a way of, very
occasionally, correcting these mistakes?
Of shifting people born in the wrong time and place to the place where
they and their talents could flourish?
What about, a time travel story, I thought,
with a cossetted but basically good American rich kid at its center? How about a rescue mission – where our hero
has to find a girl born out of her time and a secret not meant to be and then
get home with them both?
It was my own small “J.K. Rowling moment” –
you know, the one we’ve all heard about, when Ms. Rowling was riding on a train
and suddenly had an idea for a story about a school for young wizards? She recognized it as the best idea she ever
had and was off.
I’m no J.K. Rowling, but I think I
experienced something of the same thrill.
I knew such a story would allow me to braid together many disparate cords
of my lifelong interests in English language and literature, social history,
especially women’s history, the differences between English and American
culture, as well as their similarities, and about how we all must meet the
challenges that life throws at us. I
could also write about fun stuff (for me) Staffordshire pottery, London in the
twenties, the English countryside and English country living at its last gasp
between the wars (a period that has always fascinated me). I could include three-speed bicycles and manual
typewriters and dogs and old buildings and old songs and new music and stranger-in-a-strange
land and all of that!
The book unfolded itself right there.
Well, sort of. I then had to spend the next five years
working it all out.
It wasn’t all joy, working on the book. But it did a great deal for me personally. I enjoyed the research, writing the
characters into being, and working out the plot lines. Mostly I was trying to write the book I
wished was out there for me to read when I was growing up. We’ve all had that bit of advice, right? So there you have a chestnut for your trouble
reading to the middle of this post.
(Normally, my only advice to people is “drive slow in parking lots” and
“take Latin.”)
That’s
It? No Other Pearls of Wisdom?
I’ll venture this much more: writers should
read good writing and stand up for it. I
am dismayed that there are readers out there, by the millions, apparently, who
don’t care much about how a story is
written. For a writer to take that attitude seems almost criminal. (Believe it or not, there are such people). I’m perfectly willing to be the finger
sharpener in the corner who will not stop saying that good writing matters and
bad writing, at least when offered to the public for sale, deserves censure.
I don’t want to be too scoldy, though, and
I’m here to make myself useful if possible so I’ll add a few more tidbits about
my writing/publishing experience for what they may be worth. I am self published and happily so. Not because I’ve been made rich and famous
but because I deployed my time in a way that meant I now have a book to show
for it. I sent the manuscript around to
about 25 agents when it was done. I got
one nibble from an agent who then passed.
Submitting was a lot of work. How much time do we have? I wanted it done and, as time went on, I
wanted it done my way.
Finally,
Looks Matter
My way was OK, but one mistake I made was
in the packaging. I have a background in
public relations and have worked on a few magazines and I developed a cover
that I liked pretty well. It wasn’t
terrible. One or two readers commented
that the book was better than its cover.
Hmm. About a year after the
book’s initial release, I heard from a potential audio book narrator who is
also a hardheaded businessman. The cover
was not good enough, he said flatly.
People do judge books by their covers. I got the message. I went looking
for an artist who could convey the romance of the 1920s – someone who could do
with light what Maxfield Parrish had done.
I found him in Juan Wijngaard. I
came across Juan’s work at the website of the well-known art gallery The
Illustration Cupboard, in London. I
approached him very sheepishly because he was a real Artist and I had no idea
how one approaches real Artists. It
turned out he was very nice and he had some interest – if he liked the book.
This last bit was key for me too. I had approached at least one other book
designer by then whose work I liked. I
asked if he would read my book and he said “no.” He simply did not have
time. I even offered to pay more and he
still said no. I appreciated his candor,
but this was a deal breaker. I felt
strongly that a cover is a collaborative effort. Juan and I found quickly that we had lots of
common ground. (He’s Dutch, which is what
you want in a painter, correct? And he
loved bikes (see reference to “Dutch”) and music, which is a key story element.
He had lived in England and trained at the Royal Academy. There was a lot of synchronicity at
work. The Universe, in its way, seemed
to have matched us, or so it seemed to me.
He created a beautiful cover and I relaunched the book with his cover
and just a few corrections to the text this fall.
I invested some money in Juan, and in the
excellent book designer Scarlett Ruger, but not a crazy amount. I don’t have crazy amounts. I reasoned that even if this investment were
never repaid monetarily, it would be repaid by posterity. That is, my kids
could show their kids and be proud. That
was enough for me.
If I had things to do over again, I
wouldn’t have tried to skimp on that first –round cover. I had put six years of my time writing into
the book and that was justification enough to invest in what lay beyond my
skill. The cover realized an inward
vision for me and I hope it will draw in readers who will not be disappointed
in what they find behind it.
Kim Velk
# # #
About the Author
Kim Velk lives in Stowe, Vermont, with her two teenagers, a husband/COO and a rescued terrier. She where she works as a lawyer - and also operates laundry and taxi service! As well as Up, Back & Away, Kim is also the author of The Tiny Confinements Miscellany Visit her blog
http://quartersessions.blogspot.co.uk/ and follow Kim on Twitter
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