Barrie Summy: I So Don’t Do Mysteries

Editor’s Note:  This is the 50th and final interview of the First Book series.  Thanks to all the writers for participating, and I wish you the best of luck with all your books.  The site will remain online.  For some final thoughts, check out this post on my personal blog.

Title:  I So Don’t Do Mysteries
Author:  Barrie Summy
Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
Hardcover: 272 pages
ISBN: 978-0385736022

First off, congratulations on the big novel sale!  Give us the elevator pitch.  What’s your book about?

Thank you. And thanks for letting me on your blog. Heeeere’s the pitch: 

Thirteen year old Sherry (short for Sherlock) Holmes Baldwin wants more mall time, less homework and a certain eighth-grade boy. Instead she gets recruited by her mother’s ghost to prevent a rhino heist at San Diego’s Wild Animal Park.

A girl. A guy. A ghost. A heist. Yikes!

Meet reluctant sleuth Sherry Holmes Baldwin! 

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.

As a kid, I was a huge Nancy Drew fan. And wanted to write a Nancy Drew when I grew up. So, originally, my goal was to publish a Nancy Drew mystery.  I wrote away for the Nancy Drew guidelines (affectionately called “the Nancy Drew bible”), signed up for a local writing  class and wrote The Mystery at the Wild Animal Park. Which, fortunately, was rejected. I was unwilling to let the story go (I’m bullish that way; just ask my friends and family), and I thought it would be cool to revise the ms with a younger, sassier protagonist who doesn’t even want to solve a mystery. Then I got an agent, Rachel Vater, who had me do even more revisions. When Rachel called to tell me Random House had bought I So Don’t Do Mysteries and an unwritten sequel, I started crying. I cried so long and hard that she ended up crying too. She ended up calling me back (after I’d calmed down) to give me the details of the deal. 

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

The second in the series, I So Don’t Do Spooky, is done. Phew. I should be getting the galleys before Christmas. I have another two books to write for Random House (yay!) One of them will be the third in the series, and one will be another middle-grade book. 

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

Night. Night. Night. I’m a big-time night owl. Also, I write mornings after I take the kids to school. 

5. There seems to be an unusually high percentage of writers who own cats. Here at 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.

No cats in our house. One of our kids has asthma and a major allergy to cats. But, we have an adorable poodle, Dorothy the Dog. And a veiled chameleon. Surely that counts for something?