Throughout my career as a book editor, I was in no way a frustrated writer; I got a thrill out of helping writers express themselves. Until the moment my twin boys were born two months prematurely, I didn't have a story I felt I needed to tell. The two-plus months our sons lived in the neonatal intensive care unit changed that, and I found myself wanting to write a book about it.
After I went through the experience of moving from editor to mother to writer, I became interested in talking to other women who'd made similar transitions. Though a few of the writers with whom I spoke always knew they wanted to write, most—like me—considered their talent to be editorial rather than creative. Things changed, however, when they had a child.
Katrina Kenison, formerly of Houghton Mifflin, told me she felt much the way I did. "Through all those years working as an editor, I felt that was exactly what I was supposed to do: be a midwife." Dawn Drzal, a onetime Viking editor, told me she wound up writing because she had "misplaced my persona after I had my son. I went back to work looking for the woman I used to be, and I simply couldn't find her. I used writing as a way to find out who I was if I wasn't an editor."
When Amy Scheibe started at Knopf, she inherited a list of books acquired by Jenny McPhee, a new mother who was leaving publishing to write. Jenny told Amy, "When you have a baby, you'll want to write a book. Something happens to you when you create a human being. You have new perspective and confidence that having created this person, you can create something else. Until then, don't worry about it." And that's just what Amy did. Her first novel was conceived after the birth of her first child as a way of exploring what life as a stay-at-home mom might be like.
While motherhood was all new to me, the publishing process was at least familiar. Editors turned writers—myself included—are at an advantage because we've seen the publishing process up close. Talking to Katrina helped clarify for me how it is easier to be a writer if you've worked in the business because, as she says, "We know what the steps are. We don't look at it as a mountain that you can never climb. We have seen a three-page proposal turn into a book." By signing up my book at Knopf on the basis of just a few chapters, Jordan Pavlin made the task less daunting for me. While writing the book, I didn't think about anyone but her reading it; I wrote a long, long letter to Jordan.
Although my publishing experience—and Jordan's motherly guidance—helped me write the book, there were still many things I had to learn as an author. For 10 years I worked in various editorial departments (which are now all owned by Bertelsmann), but until the publication of my book, I was naïve as to how involved an author needs to be in her promotional campaign. By the time I turned in my manuscript, I was tired of it and insecure about whether I had done the best job I possibly could. I still am. But somewhere between bound galleys and finished books, I realized that sitting around worrying about readers' responses was not constructive; if I didn't get behind my book, no one else would.
When I was working on the book, I found I wrote best late at night while my children were sleeping. Aside from fatigue—which I would have felt anyway—writing and mothering complemented each other nicely. Now that publicity is underway, though, The Early Birds is demanding more of my time during my kids' waking hours. It has become a book, like those of my former authors, that needs hand holding, too.
Jenny Minton's memoir, The Early Birds, was published in April.
