Suja Sukumar's Blog

So, I'm a primary care physician at a busy practice and last Wednesday was a typical day for me, with the normal chaos at work. Midway...

Getting the call

I don’t remember much of the day I was told I had breast cancer. There are so many emotions associated with receiving a potentially fatal diagnosis. As a doctor, I’ve unfortunately had to call my patients with such diagnosis, but this was the first time I’d been at the receiving end. It was shocking to say the least, to hear I had stage 2 breast cancer at the age of 45, with no immediate family history and no other major risk factors. Plus, I’d had a normal mammogram the previous year.

Acceptance & finding my support circle

It took a while for my husband and I to accept the truth. Once we did so, we decided to make sure our kids’ lives and schooling continue as normal. My daughter was doing her undergrad at college and my son was in high school, and we decided to keep them insulated and protected as much as possible from our stress. I also decided to take a break from my work and focus on just getting better. In this I was supported by my colleagues who not only took care of my patients, they also shielded me from work stress and sent me encouraging and positive messages. Since I didn’t have to worry about work, my husband and I could focus on getting through the surgery, chemo treatments and radiation therapy. I also lucked out in having a great medical team on my side.

It was tough, not saying it wasn’t, but the bad days — usually the second week of a chemo cycle when the blood counts would plummet— made me appreciate the good days all that more. And there were more good days than bad. Days where I could leave the house, catch a cup of coffee with my husband, or just walk around the block. By the time I got to my last chemo treatment, spring had arrived and the trees and gardens around our neighborhood were in full bloom, and I was beyond grateful at the chance to stay on and enjoy all of nature’s beauty.

A new way of life

There are several things I’ve been left with following this experience. One, I can now fully empathize with my patients, knowing how it feels to be on the receiving end. Cancer also taught me not to let my work consume me. I now allow myself to set boundaries and allocate time to have fun, to relax, to write and read, to do whatever I want to do.

My experience also left in me a sense of guilt and deep pain for the colleagues and friends, some younger than me, who were diagnosed when I was but weren’t able to survive. I will always remember them, my heart will always hurt for them and their family, and in that remembrance I will do my best to be to never take the days I have left for granted.

Disclaimer:

Let me start by clarifying that any tips/advice I impart in this post are behaviors I learned from my own writing experience.

The most useful bit of advice I received was to curb the natural tendency we have as humans to compare. As a querying writer, as an agented writer, as a to-be-published writer, I've been through the chaos brought about by comparisons, and its companions, discontent and a massive sense of failure, though I hadn't even started yet.

When our writer friends start with the googly eyes emojis and anticipatory posts, we know what's coming and we brace yourself. We see these posts about agent signings and book deals and feel a twinge of envy, which is perfectly natural.

PS: it's okay to be envious. It just means we're human.

But what we often don't see are the months, years, of toil, of persistence, of sweat and tears these writers went through before they were able to break out with their celebratory posts. We see the shiny veneer of success, the dazzling sheen of instant celebrity status, but miss the struggles and sheer grit that lead to it.

Recognizing these truths have helped me transition from any envy to a feeling of pride, of joy and happiness for them. These posts have also given me a renewed sense of possibility; it meant I have a chance, too. Maybe not of achieving any massive level of success, but a modest chance of readers finding my book and reading this story that has been so close to my heart.

Here's my heartfelt wish for all my fellow writers to achieve the success they want, so I can get to read all their lovely stories! (and I apologize for all the GIFs :) )

Love you all!

Hi, dear friends,

So, now that my deal has been announced, I thought I'll summarize what happened during the time my YA thriller, WHEN MIMI WENT MISSING, was out on sub (and also add a few writing tips along the way). Buckle in because this isn't one of those instant success stories of a deal landing within days or weeks of submission. This book went through several tortuous rounds of polite rejections, regretful rejections, rejections packed with lovely feedback, multiple reads. Until finally it died on sub.

WHEN MIMI WENT MISSING is fourth in line among my completed manuscripts and the one that got me my agent. The process from book one to signing with my agent is detailed in the previous blog post, so I won't regurgitate the entire backstory here.

Writing tip. Writing backstory is a fine art. It involves walking that thin line between info-dump / boring your reader out of their minds, and providing too little information / confusing the heck out of them.

I'm still learning how to walk this line btw.

So, anyway, the thriller started off over five years ago as a young sapling, a general mishmash of all the ideas crowding my brain. A pinch of romance, a dab of horror, sprinkling of humor, a generous helping of family drama and angst, and most of all, huge chunks of mystery (my favorite genre).

Which leads me to my 2nd writing tip: avoid juggling too many apples at once (or something similar).

Or in other words, however convoluted your story is, be prepared to describe the entire 300 page plot in one SINGLE sentence magical enough to grab attention (and the right agent).

So I streamlined the plot with the help of awesome CPs and my AMM mentor and was agented in Nov 2018. My thriller then went through several cycles of rewriting and revising until it rolled out, brand new and shiny, on its first round of submission in April 2019.

It was querying all over again, but I had my agent on my side (which made a huge difference). But then the rejections started rolling in. It was disappointing (anguishing, depressing, heartbreaking), but then... a stroke of positive news! One editor loved it! She's taking it to her boss. So, we waited while using the feedback from the passes to revise and send out round two in October of 2019. During this time I did what I usually do to avoid obsessing; I started plotting another book.

Sub round 2 fizzled out with several editors responding with regretful passes, but passes nevertheless. The one thing that kept me going was my agent's complete and fierce belief in this story and his constant refrain that we just need to find that right editor. So, after another set of revisions, round 3 was initiated. This was done in several stages between Jan - June 2020, with a small list of editors each time. This was to be the last round.

The passes came in, some quick, some sluggish. One went in for second reads.; one editor replied saying she's halfway through and loved the book. But both then ended up passing.

By now it was Nov 2020, almost a year and a half since we started subbing and this book was dead. But I'd shifted attention to an adult horror which had already gone out on round 1 and was receiving some positive feedback.

Which takes me to another writing tip: write something else while on submission so you can focus your attention on it. Your writing is under your control, but the editors' responses are not. You can also use the feedback received from any previous passes to hone your plotting skills (thus turning a negative into a positive). One constant refrain in my passes was the MC's internal monologue; there was either too much or too little of it. So, I researched crafting ideas and tried to implement them.

Anyway, with the YA thriller put to rest, I was full into Book 2 when in July 2021, we received an email from the round 3 editor who'd loved the book but ended up passing. She had my writing on her mind and wanted to know if I've written any other manuscripts. Since she didn't take Adult, I created a few plot outlines for story ideas I'd had in mind for a while. My agent sent her the pitches.

And then I waited, hoping against hope. Soon after, we received an email from her. She liked the pitches, but kept circling back to my YA thriller. She wanted to know if I was willing to undertake some big dev edits on it.

For which I was like...

So, that ended up in this:

In short, ultimately, in my opinion, It is about finding the right editor, the one who loves your story, who can't let go.

Which leads me to my last writing tip for now: write what you love, write for yourself. And build your writing community, lifting other authors, encouraging and promoting their writings. They're your support, they get you. The submission process in itself is largely out of your control, but there's so much within you.

For my dear author friends, keep writing beautiful stories so I can build my TBR list.

Thank you so much for reading! Please let me know your thoughts and if you want to read further about my book, WHEN MIMI WENT MISSING, and add it to your "want to read" list, please click on the button to get to my Goodreads page.

Love you all,

Suja

This is a long delayed post, but sit down and buckle up for a loooooog ride!

Though an avid reader and storyteller (to my kids), I wasn't aware I could write (or that I wanted to) until my sister got me into a short story competition over seven years ago.

That went nowhere, but, bitten by the writing bug, I plunged into a middle grade mystery.

Enid Blyton was my favorite author as a kid growing up in India and I crafted the mystery echoing her style.

Then, awed by my own "skill" and having no clue of the terrible mistake I was making, I sent it out to agents.

I still can't believe how polite the rejections were.

Then I switched to a YA mystery and joined an online group called Critique Circle, one of the best decisions I've ever made.

There, I met some wonderful writers, three of whom stuck with me.

They offered so much of their time, reading the mystery, then a YA paranormal, then my fourth novel, the YA thriller which ultimately caught the eye of my agent.

They also offered me some much-needed advice, that I need to stop giving up on my novels. Stick with the story, get critiques, revise, rewrite, revise again. Tear the story apart if need be and rewrite it again.

And so I did. I revised the thriller and the YA mystery and set out to find an agent who'll get my stories.

After reworking my query using help from another awesome online group, AgentQuery, I tried out for pitchwars. You could've knocked me down with a feather when the mentors I submitted to requested fulls.

I wasn't picked, but the requests were a huge morale booster. The response to the cold queries I'd been sending out were slowly but surely changing from "Dear Author" rejections to personalized feedback.

Then the bottom fell out and I was diagnosed with breast cancer in October of 2015.

Fast forward through surgery, chemo, and radiation, and I was back in the game.

In 2017, I was picked for pitchmadness and then for the Writing in the margins mentoring program, where the fabulous Justine Larbalestier mentored my book.

Some of the earlier cold querying had resulted in three R & Rs.

While reworking my thriller, I decided to enter Authormentor match round 4, and by a huge stroke of luck, was picked by Dana Mele. Dana is a wonderful thriller writer and the perfect editor. She helped me beyond what I could've ever asked for.

Oct 2018, DvPit came along. I pitched the following tweet:

All Tanvi remembers from the day her cousin vanished is waking up bruised & muddy. Then Mimi returns & frames her for murder. Now Tanvi must fill in the missing gaps & find the real killer or she'll be the one serving the sentence. #Dvpit #YA #OWN

I submitted materials to the agents who liked the tweet.

Then I received this:

Dear Suja,I have read your query for TARNISHED and I love the voice! Please follow the instructions below to upload your full manuscript. I'm looking forward to reading it.

Then this:

I just finished reading TARNISHED and I couldn’t put it down! Would you be available for a phone call later this week?

During the phone call, I realized I'd found someone who loved this story as much as I did.

Finally, in Nov of 2018, I signed with Zabé Ellor of JDLA.

Yay, happy dance!

Bottom line, keep writing if that's what YOU want to do. Because when you're a writer, the fun lies in the journey.

There'll be roadblocks and frustrations and huge impostor syndrome lurking around, but ultimately, we're all storytellers.