A lot of you have asked me, What is it about? I inevitably freeze. How ridiculous would it sound to say in the middle of the mall or over a cup of coffee that my manuscript is about growing pains and finding one’s self and love and loss and learning to be vulnerable? So I mumble something like, It’s about a girl named Helen…
And there I get stuck. Somehow, even though she’s already committed to paper, talking about her makes her less of a real, live girl. And she is—oh, I hope she is.
Besides, I want the world to meet Helen on the printed page. In a book that you can smell and hold in your hand and spill cookie crumbs on.
So I’ll tell you what I’ve shared in my query letters to fancy publishing folks in NYC I’m dying to hear back from. Not a synopsis, just a tiny taste. Cold, hard facts about my real, live girl:
Helen Wilfer saves the school play, survives a fall through an (almost) frozen creek, and rescues a gentlemanly hound dog from homelessness. She also unwittingly makes an enemy of the most popular girl in the fifth grade and finds an unlikely ally in a rough-and-tumble boy who teases her on the school bus. Not bad for the new girl in town.
Helen has been the new girl six times in her eleven years. She isn’t comfortable in her own skin, and her parents hope the family’s latest move to a quirky, small town in Vermont will be just the change their eye-rolling only child needs. They’re right, but not in the ways they imagined. Through adventures and trials, Helen finds friendship, courage, and a home unlike any the nomadic Wilfers have ever known.
When tragedy strikes and Helen walks in on her parents contemplating another move, she sheds any show of indifference and fights to stay.
Helen Wilfer is a 41,000-word novel for middle grade readers. I have loved living in Helen’s world, and I hope readers will, too.
So, if you run into me in the cereal aisle, you may not want to ask. Inevitable awkardness will ensue:
Q: What’s your book called?
A: Helen Wilfer.
Q: What’s it about?
A: A girl named Helen Wilfer.
Q: Can I read it?
A: If it gets published, sure.
Q: If it doesn’t, can I still read it?
A: If it doesn’t, it’s going under my bed. I will be on top of my bed, wallowing in the pain of rejection.
Q: Um, have you tried Special K’s new Protein Plus?
A: Yep. Good stuff. Have a nice day.