Behind-the-Scenes: Project Pest cont.

Penny shares her 2¢

In a recent newsletter I ended with, “I hit pay dirt in California!”

As a reminder, I was carrying out Project Pest which involved many, many, many phone calls asking . . .

“Do you know of Nan Songer?”

If you missed the previous newsletter, here’s a link.

Yes, I’d hit pay dirt by finally finding a young woman who knew of Nan Songer! But I left you with questions.

I’m here with answers as we continue to peek . . .

• Who was that young woman?

  • The the daughter of the ex-husband.

• What did she reveal?

  • That Nan Songer is definitely known in her family but that I really needed to talk to her nephew, Jason, because he’s the great grandson of Nan Songer! She knew that at one time Nan Songer’s belongings had been passed from his grandmother to him and that she was pretty sure he would still have them. After a nice visit we arranged for her to connect me with Jason.

• Did I get good news or bad news?

  • I got very good news!

• And, most importantly, would Project Pest lead me to Nan Songer’s manuscript?

  • Project Pest absolutely did lead me to Nan Songer’s manuscript! Not only that . . . Jason had papers Nan had written about her research and 104 photos!

He was excited that I wanted to tell Nan’s story and eager to share everything if I was willing to come to Oregon. He felt mailing the items was too much of a risk and I agreed!

Once more . . .

One of my sisters, Janna, packed her bags and made the trip with me. We flew into Bend.

And road-tripped it north to meet Jason and his wife, Jonell.

What amazing hosts! They set us up in a room with a long table so that we were able to easily sort through everything. We had access to a copy machine so I’d have a copy of the documents. Of course I wanted to read (or at least skim) the papers and the manuscript. In the meantime, Janna helped by capturing the old photographs of Nan Songer and her work on my phone. Quite a few of the photos had helpful details written on a card attached to the back. Once I’d organized the papers, Janna copied those. She was a huge help and it would’ve been overwhelming without her.

Excitement built as I went through the materials. To be honest, much of the manuscript was tedious. Pages and pages went into exhaustive detail on each of the many spider species she studied in her area. She had to know the details for her work but they would be overwhelming to readers.

Personally, I believe Nan just ran out of time before she could cut the tedious details and get her manuscript published. Since the demand for spider silk continued after the war, she was still busy raising spiders and harvesting their silk until she died suddenly from a head injury at the young age of fifty-three.

Take a look at these two paragraphs where Nan shares her thoughts as she collects insects to feed her spiders.

In these two paragraphs, her personality and sense of humor come through as readers get an evening-in-the-life look at Nan Songer. Mixed in with the tedious, detailed paragraphs were many paragraphs like the two above. I feel if she’d been able to finish her manuscript it would’ve made a good book. For me it was a gift to get a sense of Nan through her writing. The success of Project Pest provided rich details that took my manuscript to a whole new level!

Next up was comparing my earlier research to Nan Songer’s papers.

— Two folders stuffed with previous research.

— Fat bundles of papers from Nan Songer.

(I loved that I got to see her handwriting as she revised parts of her papers.)

All combined, it was a lot to digest! But I was excited to get back to the drawing board. Or rather, back to revisions!

My editor, Carolyn Yoder, taught me a lot throughout the editing process. She strongly suggested I paginate my manuscript. Pagination is numbering the spreads as you think about pacing, rising tension and page turns, three important things to keep readers engaged.

I’d paginated in the past but never for an editor’s eyes so I took it more seriously than in the past. It paid off in a big way. The manuscript was much closer.

Next, she strongly suggested I make a physical dummy. I resisted at the time telling her that I hadn’t made physical dummies with my previous books and that it seemed like paginating was about the same thing. I also told her I’d made a digital dummy with PowerPoint. But she urged me to make a physical dummy, telling me I would learn from it. She said the dummy would help me to notice spreads that might be text heavy and that it would further improve my pacing and page turns. So I made a paper book, cut the paginated manuscript apart and glued it onto the spreads.

What a HUGE difference! Things just jumped out at me. I marked it up and cut nonessential words. In fact, the physical dummy was so beneficial that after applying the revisions to my manuscript, I made a second dummy and then a third!!!

Thanks, Carolyn Yoder, for pushing me to do these two exercises. I now do both with each manuscript I write.

One last peek . . .

Since I’m not a spider expert, I was responsible for finding an expert to vet my manuscript. I reached out to Dr. Linda S. Rayor from Cornell University. I called and expected to leave a voicemail but she answered. She was in the lab feeding her spiders. We had a great conversation and she agreed to give feedback on the text and illustrations.

She is the current president of the American Arachnological Society and hosted Monster Bug Wars.¹

She provided feedback on text, black and white sketches and final art. Her feedback was essential and super beneficial.

One of my favorite things — in return for her feedback, I sent money for her to buy crickets to feed her spiders. That seemed so perfect!

I hope you’ve enjoyed peeking . . .

As promised, here is a link to preorder copies from Texas Star Trading Co. These copies will be signed for you and personalized if you like.

Links to preorder from other booksellers can be found here.

Tuesday, May 6th, 4:00 – 6:00 pm
Texas Star Trading Co.
174 Cypress St.
Abilene, TX

Until next time …
Penny

1. The scientific television series, "Monster Bug Wars," provides a ringside seat to some of nature's deadliest encounters: From creepy crawlers devouring other creatures alive, for example, to the struggle of a bull ant using its lethal stinger to survive the suffocating silk of the redback spider, it is all in high-definition, super-magnified videography.

The series combines the fun of a classic 1950s monster movie -- depicting insects, spiders, scorpions, centipedes and killer ants -- as lethal predators striving for survival, supremacy ... and supper.