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Thursday, March 08, 2007

Miss Otis Regrets

Well, I 've been thinking about something.

A few weeks ago, I was speaking to a high school English class that had read my book, and one of the students asked me a simple question.

"Do you have any regrets? Specifically, do you regret anything about your book?"

I found (and continue to find) this question fascinating. I mean, I know it's not really fascinating, it's a simple question, and one that people ask all the time. But I don't think in terms of regrets. I usually think in terms of unbelievable gratitude. After all, a book deal basically fell out of the sky and landed in my lap. I've been on Broadway. I am happy in my 12 year (!) marriage and I have a smart, wonderful daughter who is brighter than sunshine. Then, someone thought my stories were worthy, they asked me to write it all down and they put in every book store in the country. I'm grateful. I don't have regrets.

But still, I kept wondering...do I regret anything? Let's be specific. Do I have any regrets about my book?

Yes. I do.

Most of my experience with the book was a joy. Some of it was funny (and slightly horrifying) like when I got a call that they wanted to call my book "My Name is Sharon Wheatley and I'm Fat." Seriously. Can you IMAGINE?? I said, "Uh, can I call you back?", had a short break down, and then came up with the current title, 'Til the Fat Girl Sings. This title is a compromise of their desire for an "in your face" title with the word "fat" in it, and my total loathing of the word fat (and belief that the word fat should NOT be in the title). 'Til the Fat Lady Sings is a common phrase and it was the best thing I could come up with. I wanted to call my book "Frozen Cupcakes" but no one liked that. Okay. I get it.

But this wasn't the biggest problem.

The biggest problem I had was a very strict word count from my publisher. I was asked to write my entire life story in 80,000 words. Trust me, when I first saw the number 80,000 on my contract I broke out in a cold sweat remembering 500 word essays for English when I'd write things like, "I really, really, really, really liked this book." And then count, 495, 496, 497, 498. Crap. Add "A lot!" Got it to 500. Whew!

But 80,000 words to get me from singing "Where is Love" in the 3rd grade to Avenue Q in 2006? Never gonna happen. Things were going to have to go. And they did. A lot of detail went down the drain.

That's what I regret, losing the detail.

When I was asked to write this book, well, there was no book. Usually, authors shop an already completed manuscript. This was not the case with me. I created an outline based on what they wanted, and I sent the book in a few chapters at a time. Maybe if I'd "shopped" a previously written manuscript, it would have gone differently, but I was asked to do it and I was thrilled (and stunned, and shocked and flattered and scared...you get the point!). (For me details on this, see the Broadway World article on the "news" page of my website.)

I had to figure out how to focus my book so I could give the publisher what they wanted, which was, in their words "A book which gives voice to the childhood obesity epidemic" while still telling my own story. I decided the only way to do it was to focus on my body--what my body looked like, what was said about my body, how I felt about my body, how my body was an obstacle, and finally, what happened to my body. My first draft came in 5 months later at about 120,000 words. We trimmed. We chopped. Entire chapters, some of my favorites, ended up gone. Major characters were whittled away. I was told, "Keep the focus on you, Sharon." Big chunks of high school--gone. Most things about my parents--gone. Somehow in the chopping, my mother's character lost her warmth and humor. I only saw that later, and I regret that. I'm
sorry, Mom.

Then for the final draft, "We need to re-vamp the end of the book. The first part is too sad, so we need to give the reader a better pay off. We need more Broadway and more about your life now." I was thrilled, I could write about meeting my husband, about the birth of my daughter. How many more words do I get? None. We have to chop things from the beginning. My grandmother, Meema--gone. The story about my Dad at McDonalds, a story my editor liked so much that she xeroxed it and sent it around the office? Gone. It was very hard to tell my Dad the McDonalds story was gone.

You may wonder why I didn't take a stand? Demand more words? I couldn't--I'm a first time author. Please refer back to "grateful" at the top of the post. I rocked the boat as hard as I could, but I didn't want to get the deal canceled, capisce?

Another kind of bizarre thing, is that the book, essentially, ends in 1999, even though I wrote it in 2005-2006. This is, simply put, because I ran out of words.

So what is my BIGGEST regret? That there is hardly any of my daughter in the book. But then again, she deserves her own book, which I have always said would be called "The Adventures of Cookie and Sally" Cookie and Sally are Charlotte's imaginary friends and they go on wild world travels and they each have dozens of kids. Cookie is made of (naturally) cookie, and Sally is made of Jello (green).

So, to put it simply, I am very grateful for the opportunities given to me, but I wish I'd been given more words. I really, really, really, really, really do. A lot.

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