Rajani LaRocca Gets to the Heart of Her Story (plus a SEVEN GOLDEN RINGS giveaway)

by Rajani LaRocca

Tara, thanks so much for having me on your blog. Today is exactly two weeks before my debut picture book, SEVEN GOLDEN RINGS, releases!

Set in ancient India, SEVEN GOLDEN RINGS is about a poor boy named Bhagat who wants to improve his family’s life by earning a place in the rajah’s musical troupe. Bhagat travels to the rajah’s city carrying his family’s entire fortune: a single coin and a chain of seven tiny golden rings. To stay at an inn, he needs to pay one ring per night in advance, but he doesn’t how long he will need to stay and doesn’t want to overpay. With his single coin, he can get one link broken. How can he separate the rings, pay one per night, and not waste any of them? Bhagat solves this conundrum and succeeds in an unexpected way. An author’s note explains the basics of binary numbers, how they’re related to Bhagat’s solution, and how they’re also related to modern-day computers.

Today, I’m going to talk about:

Persistence
Time
The heart of your story
Magic

1. I wrote the first draft of SEVEN GOLDEN RINGS back in October 2013. At the time, I had an idea for a novel (which would later become my MG debut, MIDSUMMER’S MAYHEM) and I’d written a couple of picture book texts. SEVEN GOLDEN RINGS was born from my memory of a logic puzzle I’d heard when I was a kid visiting my family in India. I took that puzzle, made it more complicated, and created a character who loved music and math (like my son) and who needed to solve this puzzle in order to save his family.

I then proceeded to revise this story almost 70 times before it sold. Let me emphasize that: SEVENTY. I revised it over four years, sometimes taking as much as six months between drafts because I was working on other projects (or perhaps doing other things, like my day job and raising my kids). The right ending for this story kept eluding me. I kept working on it, learned as much as I could about writing, and showed it to my critique partners over and over.

I started querying this book. And I got rejected. A lot! By agents who loved the folktale-like quality of the story but didn’t like the math. By those who loved the math but didn’t think they could sell something that felt like a folktale. By one who thought it was “too depressing” (which it is not) and others who never replied. Several agents did like it but didn’t like my other work enough to offer representation.

As many people will tell you, the path to publishing is a marathon, not a sprint, and the difference between those who get published and those who do not is all about persistence. So I kept going. I kept writing and writing, and over time I accumulated five picture book manuscripts that I thought were ready for agents’ eyes. And I finished revising my middle grade novel.

And then, in November 2017 I received multiple offers of representation for that middle grade novel. I shared my picture book manuscripts with the offering agents and got their take on them. And I made my choice: my fantastic agent, Brent Taylor of TriadaUS. Brent loved my novel and my picture books. My persistence had paid off.

In 2018, we submitted my novel and some picture books to publishers. And my books were rejected. A lot! (Do you see a theme here?). But we kept going, and I did revise and resubmits (R & R’s) when requested. We kept submitting. And what happened? SEVEN GOLDEN RINGS found the perfect editor and publisher: Cheryl Klein at Lee & Low books, who appreciated both the folktale-like quality and the math in the story, and who loved it enough to work on it with me to make it the best it could be. And friends, we sold FIVE books that year—my debut novel and four picture books!

2. You know how I wrote almost seventy drafts over four years, sometimes taking up to six months between drafts? When you step away from a story for long enough, it feels new when you read it again, and you can more easily see its flaws and find your way through what’s been confounding you.

It wasn’t until three years after I first drafted this story that I recognized the connection between the solution to Bhagat’s puzzle and binary numbers. So I wrote an author’s note that explained this connection, and why we care about binary numbers at all.

And the “right” ending to this story finally came to me almost four years after I first drafted it.

Sometimes time is exactly what we need to make a story right.

3. Through my revisions, some plot points changed. Words changed. But the heart of the story remained the same: a boy who loves music who sets out to save his family and must solve a math puzzle in order to do so.

When you are a writer, you’re going to get a lot of opinions on your work. Some will be helpful, and some not. But remember: YOU are the creator, and you decide what to keep and what to change. Develop your ability to recognize the heart of your story, what you really want to tell the world, and hold on to it, because that is what makes your story uniquely yours.

4. And after you’ve persisted and spent time working hard? When you find the right agent, editor, and publisher who also love the heart of your story? Friends, then it just feels like magic.

Thank you, Rajani, and best wishes with SEVEN GOLDEN RINGS!

Blog readers, you can win a signed copy of the book, just leave a comment below.

A random winner will be selected in a few weeks.

Good luck!

Rajani LaRocca was born in India, raised in Kentucky, and now lives in the Boston area with her wonderful family and impossibly cute dog. She is a writer of stories for children, doctor of adults, and baker of too many sweet treats. Her debut middle grade novel, MIDSUMMER’S MAYHEM, was an Indies Introduce selection, an Indie next pick, a Kirkus Best Book of 2019, and a Massachusetts Book Award Honor title. Her debut picture book, SEVEN GOLDEN RINGS: A TALE OF MUSIC AND MATH, is set in ancient India and provides an introduction to binary numbers. Her virtual book launch will take place on October 27 at 7 PM EST with Silver Unicorn Books. You can register by clicking here.