In which The Story of Owen turns ten years old
For the life of me, I cannot remember where the idea came from.
I know where I was. It was a Saturday morning in March of 2011. I was in a Starbucks in St. Albert, Alberta. I was supposed to be finishing the novel I had started for NaNo the previous November. And then, for a reason I don’t remember, I typed the words:
Before the Thorskards came to town, we didn’t have a permanent dragon slayer.
I could see the Burlington Skyway, and I saw Lottie Thorskard standing on it with the dragon coming towards her. I knew it wasn’t her story, but I didn’t know whose story it was. Yet.
I finished the NaNo novel. I quit my job and moved back to Ontario because I was homesick. I went to Jordan for what would end up being the last time. I got two different retail jobs. And I met Siobhan and Owen.
Nothing about selling The Story of Owen was normal. My query letter was fill-in-the-blank and written by editor I ended up selling the book to. I got my agent after I had an offer on the manuscript. We had a verbal deal after four days and a contract in a month. It was a perfect example of how publishing can RUSH at something and then stall for a really long time. We signed in May of 2012, and then the real work began.
The period of time between selling a book and getting it on the shelf is extremely weird. You’re not an aspiring writer anymore, but you’re not exactly a published author, either. And you definitely don’t have money yet. It’s good practice, actually, because publishing continues to be difficult to explain the whole way through it.
But time does it thing, and eventually March 1, 2014 rolled around, and it was time to send The Story of Owen out into the world. I had longer hair, a slightly better apartment, a spine injury that meant I was in a lot of pain all of the time, and a growing understanding of what publishing meant. I had planned a party at my favourite toy store, and I really had no idea what to expect until the morning of, when my mother called. She ended the conversation with “And M and the girls have rented a van so they can pick up her sister on the way down”. That was a five hour drive. M did not drive the farthest.
The rest of the day is kind of a blur, tbqh. Emma was there and Rachel had come with cupcakes. I got my hair done and then we decided to go to Stratford early because I couldn’t sit still. We went to the chocolate store and I met my best friend’s baby (like, in, the chocolate store: we hadn’t seen each in half a decade and she threw him at me as soon as I came through the door). We had been invited to dinner with family friends and I don’t think I ate anything at all.
Then it was show time.
I didn’t realize how many people my parents had told about my book launch. But it was everyone. And they all came. We had 150 copies of the book, and all of them were sold. I signed the first one to the my aunt, and spelled “For” incorrectly. It was amazing.
Oh and also The Sister organized costumes for the niblings. Those baby dragons turn 11 this year.
The whole of March 2014 was wild. I hosted my first writing retreat. I sold four more books, two of them in an eight house auction for enough money that I was going to be safe for a while. I was accepted into a scientific study for spine surgery, meaning that I might someday be in less pain. I was an author.
It’s a strange career. A lot of people consider writing a dream job, but the truth is that any job you rely on as your livelihood is inherently stressful. It’s even stranger when your hobby becomes your livelihood. I’m definitely lucky, but it’s important not to devalue myself by pretending it’s all easy and fun. Finding work/life balance is hard. Finding financial balance is…also hard. But on its worst day (and there have been some doozies), there’s nothing I’d rather do.
Happy 10 years to the little book that could and to Andrew Karre realizing Lester B Pearson was an actual person. Here’s to a decade of texting emojis to Josh Adams (and like 3 years of him understanding them). Thank you to all my readers, and to all the other writers who have supported me over the years. And happy 9th birthday to OWEN’s sequel, Prairie Fire. Book number 15 comes out in a month and a half, and I’m hard at work on the next few after that. But today I am going to eat a piece of cake in honour of a girl who lived and breathed music and a boy who wanted to help anyone who needed it.
Yes, I still count the syllables in the haiku every time, just to be sure.
The Story of Owen and Prairie Fire are available wherever books are sold.
And you can return to the EK Johnston Multiverse on April 16th with Pretty Furious, available for preorder.
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