Laurel Snyder: Up and Down the Scratchy Moutains

Title:  Up and Down the Scratchy Mountains
Author:  Laurel Snyder
Hardcover: 256 pages
Publisher:  Random House Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 978-0375847196

1. First off, congratulations on the big novel sale! Give us the elevator pitch. What’s your book about?Up and Down the Scratchy Moutains (OR The Search for a Suitable Princess) is a kind of old fashioned fairy tale that takes place in a land called The Bewilderness. It’s about a snarky milkmaid named Lucy, and her best friend Wynston, who happens to be a prince. When Wynston has to begin the “Queening” process and search for a suitable blue-blooded mate, Lucy feels left out, so she runs away from home, to look for her mother, who’s been gone for years and years. Of course, Wynston chases after her and they end up in a strange town called Torrent, where the weather runs on a schedule and the houses are alphabetized. There they learn some things about class, friendship, bad government, secrecy, and rule breaking. They also find a sniffly prairie dog and sing a lot of silly songs.

2. Most new novelists have an interesting story to tell about their journey to publication. What’s yours? Did you use an agent? Make sure to tell us about the day you found out you’d sold a book.

Oh, goodness–it’s a long story.  Basically I started this book about 7 years ago, as a bedtime story, but then it went on and on and so I began to scribble it down because I didn’t want to foget it. I had no earthly idea how to write a novel (my background is in poetry, not fiction), but at some point the book meandered to an end (of sorts), and I figured it was finished, so I sent out what I had. I got some very nice rejections, that praised the writing, but told me the book was totally unmarketable. “Too old fashioned”. (This was before books like Despereaux and Goose Girl had come out. I think they sort of paved the way for books like mine.

But after getting those rejections, I figured the book was dead.

Until I got pregnant three years ago. And since my non-profit job didn’t pay enough to cover childcare, I quit. At that point I pulled the book out, tinkered with it a little, and sent it back out. Again, it came back, damned with faint praise. But this time I decided to take all the comments and really overhaul the structure.

Then, just as I was finishing revisions (working while my kid napped) after a full year, I got an email from an editor at Random House, a delayed rejection. The editor apologized for holding it so long. She said she’d hoped to publish it as part of a fairy tale series, but that the series wasn’t going to happen. She said she loved it, but it wasn’t a big enough book to stand alone.

Well, of course I wrote back right away, and said I had a new draft, twice as long. I asked if I could send it. When I did she asked me if I’d consider revising on spec.

NOW I know that you aren’t “supposed to” revise on spec. But I also know you aren’t really “supposed to” send cold submissions to Random House. If I had known the rules back then, I doubt I’d be an author today. I did just as she asked, revised for the editor, Lisa Findlay, who was a genius, and she took Scratchy Mountains to committee.

And once I knew she was going to committee, I queried about 30 agents and explained my very exciting situation. THAT was its own week of adventure, and is a funny story of its own, but the short version is that I got some nice agent offers, and picked a truly amazing representative (Tina Wexler, at ICM). So then when Random House called, Tina negotiated the deal for me.

Whew! Long story, but people always seem to like hearing that books still get pulled from slush. They really do! My picture book was also pulled from slush!

3. Do you have another book in the pipeline? What are you working on now?

I have the picture book I just mentioned, Inside the Slidy Diner, coming out in October. About a little girl who lives in a creepy diner.

I also have another novel, Any Which Wall. It’ll be out next summer, and it’s a kind of homage to Edward Eager– about 4 kids in Iowa, who stumble on a magical wishing wall in a cornfield and get transported to all kinds of cool places. Camelot and Coney Island and so on. It’s sort of the adventure I wished I could ahve as a kid.

And then there are lots of things I want to be writing, but my little boys don’t nap nearly enough to get everything written, so I just have to be patient and make copious notes. One is about a girl named Penny Dreadful, who moves to a very strange town, and has trouble making friends.

4. What’s your writing process like? Morning writer, night writer, or something in between?

I write whenever I can find two minutes to rub together. Naptimes. Nighttime. I keep a mini recorder and note pad in my glovebox and sometimes, if the boys fall asleep in the car, I’ll work in a grocery store parking lot.

In my dream world I’d write with a cup of late morning coffee, in a silent room, with the sun streaming in through the window. I fantasize about that. About having a desk again (my office turned into a playroom). But kindergarten is coming!

5. There seems to be an unusually high percentage of writers who own cats. Here at the The First Book, we’re doing a study to find out if there’s a direct relationship between writing success and cat ownership. Do you own a cat? If so, tell us about him or her. If not, tell us what you have against cats.

I have a very cranky cat named Hassle. I rescued her from a shelter in Iowa City, IA, though I didn’t mean to. We actually went to get a dog, but when I saw Hassle she was a cmplete mess. Only 5 weeks old and a pound, but they’d spayed her, and she had reacted badly to the surgery, and was sick to death and kind of leaking. On top of that, her littermates had chewed off her whiskers (I didn’t know animals did that to each other!) because she was the runt. So she was just too ugly to leave behind. We brought her home along with Dave (the dog). And the 90 lb dog adopted this little messy ball of fluff, and carried her around the house in his mouth. It was the cutest thing.

Her name is Hassle, but my son calls her Tikken.