Threads of Peace Bound Galleys!
Nothing like the arrival of a box of bound galleys on your doorstep to yank you out of reality and place you in the slow, unfathomable timeline of the book's creation.
This book has been six years in the making, and that's just from contract through galleys.
I have learned the lessons of a lifetime from all that it took. Here's what that plot looks like, thinking back:
2010-ish: the first dawning of an idea--a picture book, surely, on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King's trip to India in 1959
2011: a tentative draft that never quite sat right in its little 32-page container
submission and editorial feedback--interesting, but this isn't a picture book. Middle grade nonfiction?
2012: a proposal--reach big. Why not? The transnational diffusion of Gandhi's methods to the US civil rights movement?
acceptance, followed by terror at having to write something that felt beyond my capability
2013: the first ragged draft
six rounds of rewriting--throwing it all out and starting over
2015-2018: three rounds of edits. Editorial letters provided obligatory encouragement while urging me to write boldly, to claim my role as the teller of this story
2019: revising, revising, revising
uncounted rounds of reading, questions, and comments from my patient, thoughtful critique group
2016-2019: three years of searching for photographs and navigating permissions mazes
2020: three--did I count them correctly?--rounds of keen-eyed perusal by the copyediting geniuses at Atheneum
2020-21: inviting comments from three generous, knowledgeable content readers and addressing every single one of their responses
checking every quoted line at least three times
checking sidebars, source lists, photo credits, everything
2021: letting go...reluctantly, understanding that writing this book has changed me
Now I am not sure what I'm meant to do with my days.
I'll get past this. I'm sure the reviews (gulp) will help me face reality. For now, I'm grateful to be in the twilight zone of bound galleys.
