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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.
I’m a doctor as well as a writer. I take care of grownups all day, and write stories for kids all night…well, actually pretty much every minute of the day not spent taking care of my patients or my family. And as a doctor and a writer, there’s one thing I know for sure:
We write with our brains.

Photo by Robina Weermeijer on Unsplash
OK, not literally with our brains—writing usually involves hands. But the work of writing comes from our brains.
Duh, Rajani, you may say. We don’t need to be doctors to know that!
Aha, gentle writer, I say to you. But what part of our brains?
I’m not going to go deep into brain science here. I’m not going to delve into the workings of the cerebral cortex, the hippocampus, or the amygdala.
I’m talking about the conscious vs. the subconscious.

Photo by Christopher Rusev on Unsplash
Most of the time, we use our conscious mind. It’s the stuff we are aware of right now—the input from our senses, our actions, and our thoughts.
But there are times when the conscious mind gets stumped. You can’t figure out what happens next in your novel—all your ideas are predictable and boring. You have no idea how to make the rhyme work in a stanza of your hilarious picture book about unicorn hats. You cannot imagine coming up with thirty different story ideas in thirty-one days to start off 2020. You think, and you think, and you think with your conscious mind, and you’re coming up empty.
But the conscious mind is only the tip of the iceberg.

Photo by Derek Oyen on Unsplash
Most of what our brains do is actually under the surface of all that stuff we’re thinking about. The subconscious mind makes connections, draws conclusions, and remembers things we thought we’d forgotten. It helps us solve problems when our conscious minds are stumped. It might just be the wellspring from which all our creativity flows.

Photo by Ezra Jeffrey-Comeau on Unsplash
But how do we access the subconscious mind? How do we demand that something work when we can’t consciously ask it to work? How do we catch a cloud and pin it down?
Well, there are lots of ways.
1. Meditate. This is a tried and true practice for calming the conscious mind and accessing the subconscious more easily.

Photo by Deniz Altindas on Unsplash
2. Exercise. Getting your muscles pumping makes your conscious mind stop focusing on the problem at hand and can allow your subconscious mind to take over. I’ve gotten many ideas at the gym — including a tricky little plot point for my debut novel, MIDSUMMER’S MAYHEM, that had me laughing out loud and taking desperate notes on my phone while trying not to fall off the elliptical.

Photo by Thomas Park on Unsplash
3. Be in nature. If you can exercise in nature, even better! And if you can do it with a friend who is a good listener, even even better. Here’s my favorite friend exploring nature with me:

His name is Boomer. And yes, he’s impossibly cute.
4. Shower. I cannot tell you why, but the feeling of warm water running over your head can prod your subconscious into action like nothing else! I get ideas in the shower all the time; you can even get a special notepad to jot down ideas during your ablutions.

Photo by Chandler Cruttenden on Unsplash
5. Work on a different task that requires your attention. People often ask me how I can be a doctor and a writer. The truth is, I often feel that I’m a better writer because I’m a doctor. My day job requires intense focus, and when I take a break from it, my subconscious mind has often figured out something for my writing that my conscious mind couldn’t access.
I also like to shift between projects, especially if one project is long (like a novel) and the other is short (a picture book or essay…or, perhaps, a blog post). After I’ve finished working on one thing, I move to the other and find that the ideas are flowing again.

Photo by Joe Green on Unsplash
6. Sleep. Seriously! It gives your brain time to rest and rejuvenate. Even a nap can help. For rhyme, I find that a good night’s sleep often leads to discovering just the right turn of phrase first thing in the morning. While my conscious mind went night-night, my subconscious worked on finding the perfect combination of words.
During this Storystorm month, I hope you find your own ways to tap into your subconscious and get your ideas flowing like never before. As a parting gift, you are free to meditate and exercise in an outdoor shower while contemplating this lovely photo before taking a nice long nap:
Rajani LaRocca practices medicine and writes middle grade novels and picture books in the Boston area. In her free time, she enjoys reading, traveling, and baking too many sweet treats.
Her debut novel, MIDSUMMER’S MAYHEM (Yellow Jacket/Little Bee Books) was a 2019 Indies Introduce title and a 2019 Kirkus Reviews Best Middle Grade Novel. Her debut picture book, SEVEN GOLDEN RINGS: A TALE OF MUSIC AND MATH (Lee & Low, July 2020) is set in ancient India and introduces the concept of binary numbers. Learn more about her and her other forthcoming books at RajaniLaRocca.com and on Twitter and Instagram @rajanilarocca.
Rajani giving away a picture book critique and a copy of her debut picture book, SEVEN GOLDEN RINGS: A TALE OF MUSIC AND MATH (July 2020) to two different winners.
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Good luck!