A monthly column about the strange (at least from the outside looking in) lifestyle of a modern, large family.
Image: Matthew Naude
As of last week, by God’s grace, I can add a new hat to my collection, and as a result, I have changed all my social media profiles to say: “Catholic, wife, mother and writer.”
I swapped out “journalist” with “writer” because I didn’t have enough characters to say “journalist and author”.
Last week, my children’s book, Dream House Adventures, was published by Penguin Random House/Lapa. A lot of people have since asked me, “Do you feel proud?” Honestly, no. If I had to give one name to the myriad of feelings that this has evoked, I would have to choose “grateful”.
I don’t think I can feel proud since the culmination of the book was never just my achievement alone. Even the inspiration for the book didn’t come from me.
Wheaty was the first one to get the ball rolling. Collaborative storytelling was one of our bedtime routines. While Mimi breastfed herself to sleep, Wheaty and I would create a story together.
I could never just tell Wheaty a story. She would always want to be involved and the magic formula to keep her happy was; she had to be the main protagonist and Mimi had to feature as the best friend or antagonist — depending on Wheaty’s mood and how much Mimi had pissed her off that day.
We'd always start the story together until she would get tired and stop interrupting, allowing me to continue narrating while she fell asleep.
On the night that Dream House Adventures was born, we started as normal, with Wheaty choosing the subject (a house) and I started to tell the story, but this night, to my surprise, a very alert Wheaty fell completely silent while I let the story unfold.
I got so caught up in the telling that I didn’t notice when Wheaty fell asleep, and who knows how long I had been telling the story to the dark ceiling when I eventually reached the end.
Wheaty was in a deep sleep by then, but I was wide awake and intrigued. What about this story had made Wheaty so silently attentive? I got up and typed out the story, smoothing out a few kinks, and I ended up writing well into the night (which isn’t that unusual for me, actually).
The next morning, I told the story to my other children, and a debate immediately started.
Suzuki (8 at the time): "So the house wasn’t magical?"
Jay (10): "No, it was. Her mom just told her that it wasn’t so that she wouldn’t be sad because the magic didn’t work for her anymore."
Rocky (5 at the time): "But why would the magic stop working?"
And on and on they went as I spectated, fascinated — and made mental notes.
I edited the story according to what interested my children and then sent it off to publishers with a prayer. Only one or two replied with the cursory “If you don’t hear from us by …” automated email, and then all was silent for months — relatively speaking.
Months later — much later than the prescribed “if you don’t hear from us by” date — I got an email from Penguin Random House’s senior editor for children’s, teen and young adult books.
She has seen something that she liked in the story, but she also felt it needed more. She asked me to make a few changes and send it back. She was careful to remind me that her email and requested changes did not mean the story would be published — just that there was interest.
What followed was many, many months (more than 12 certainly) of back-and-forthing with the editor on the other end of my email.
She made suggestions, and I tweaked. She critiqued it, and I made changes. By the end, the length of the story had changed — first getting longer and then shorter. It also had more characters, humour, identifiable landmarks and Easter eggs — but the essential story stayed the same.
All the while, she tempered my enthusiasm by reminding me that we were still in the baby steps phase. The marketing team would need to give the go-ahead before I was offered a contract.
And then I didn’t hear from her again for months — or so I thought.
As an aside, let me tell you that while all of this was going on, our family was also in the midst of one the most formative crises of our lives. I’m not being dramatic when I say that, but I won’t go into more detail because some stories are not mine alone to tell. I mention it now because I have come to the part of the story where I need to give away the biggest piece of the boasting pie — to God.
Why do I say this? Because the timing of all of this was unbelievable. While our world was falling apart and then reforming in a new shape, this whole process was going on in the background — and it gave me not only something to focus on but also hope.
Every time I received an awful piece of news, I also got another about this book’s progress that cheered me. It was a constant, unexpected rainbow amid many storms.
On one occasion, I had just been called by our former neighbours to say that our former home, which we had been trying and failing to sell for years, had been broken into and badly vandalised. Between squatters and an incompetent estate agent, the house had become a bigger and bigger nightmare and on that awful day, while I scrolled through my emails to look for the transferring attorney’s details — since this would now add another financial hiccup into the mix, I saw an email from Penguin which I had somehow missed. It was a month old, and it contained the good news that the marketing team had accepted the pitch, and I would soon be getting a publishing contract.
It was an unexpected bright light inside a whole lot of dark. To this day, I still don’t know how I missed the email when it first arrived or why it popped up in my search just when I needed a bit of hope.
This light-in-the-dark pattern continued right up until last month when I was searching for one of my old articles online for a portfolio, and the search also pulled up the book’s online listing for pre-orders.
I sat in stunned, teary silence and felt my spirits lift again. It felt like God was again showing me a tangible sign that while awful things were happening in one part of my life, he was still working in others. And this is not the only example because late last month, before the book officially went on sale, I was sitting in a depressing, compulsory online meeting when a courier pulled up.
I get review books delivered at home, so I wasn’t surprised until I saw the size of the parcel. I got goosebumps then and was almost afraid to open the package. It contained the first prints of my book.
The rest of the awful details of the meeting washed over me as I smiled at another tangible sign of hope. It couldn’t be coincidental that at moments like this, when something truly awful was going on, that I’d also get a good dose of unexpected happy news — which wasn't always about the book, mind you.
So, as I was saying at the beginning, the predominant feeling I have right now is gratitude.
I’m grateful to my children for always inspiring me. I’m grateful to the team at Penguin Random House/Lapa for mentoring me through this thoroughly new experience. I’m grateful to the artist for beautifully bringing my crude descriptions to life in adorable paintings and I’m grateful to God for always sending me signs of hope and delivering on them — always just in time.
Dream House Adventures by Lauren O'Connor-May and illustrated by Nadine Wiese
Image: supplied