Do You Have Your Ducks in A Row?

Congratulations DianeR, last week’s winner of Leslie Karst’s MURDER FROM SCRATCH. Diane, send your mailing address to Leslie at lesliekarstauthor “at” gmail dot com.

 And the winnners of Jeff Siger's Murder in Mykonos are  (US only please,...let me know if that's not you) Jana Leah B. and Robin!  Email me at Hryan at whdh dot com 

Hurray!  

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Talk about the universe aligning. Yesterday morning, I looked out the backyard window and saw--SEVEN ducks. In a row. On the edge of our pool. A seven duck day--remarkable!

 And so when I read the amazing Cindy Callaghan's post for today I though--ducks in a row! And the karma is good all around.

Cindy is a treasure, and we go way back, and she has such a wonderful and inspirational and educational story--I've just gotta let you read it. 

 In writing and in Life:  

            Make Your Own Luck

     by Cindy Callaghan

As a writer and reader, I spend a lot of time in my head.  I imagine, daydream, and as Pooh says, “think, think, think.”  Perhaps you share a fondness for deep thinking?

I get excited for long car rides to plan plots, characters, or scene sequences.  (And to sing very, very loudly to the radio.  I’m a chart-topper in the car.)  At those times when I’m in my head, I manipulate the destiny of my story in any way I want.  In this respect, fiction writing is a great career for a control freak like me.  However, the business of fiction writing can be challenging for those of us who like every duck in a neat row. 

My book Lost in Ireland was originally launched under the title Lucky Me.  When I’d sign that book, I’d add a message to my ‘tween reader:  Make your own luck.  I believe that in writing and in life we make our own luck, but the business end of writing holds variables that, despite our best-laid plans, are out of our control.  I’m referring to things such as:

·      Will critiquers be honest about what’s working and what’s not? 

·      Will the cover be appealing to my target market? 

·      Will I submit the same time someone else is submitting a similar premise?

·      Will a huge competitor launch a similar book at the same time as mine? 

·      Will a bookstore stock its shelves? 

·      Will it snow on the day of my big launch event?

For Type A personalities, these uncertainties can be maddening.  For sanity’s sake, I’ve practiced being laid back, which for me truly takes effort.  But, it was at one of these trying moments when something magical happened.   

Circa 2003 my daughter, about nine at the time, and her friends were baking in my kitchen - flour everywhere, icing in hair and on counter tops - you get the idea.  I was twitching, but trying to be chill.  I exhaled and let them go.  In that moment I saw how much they loved it.  

Think, think, think. 

I began to imagine a cooking club for tweens.  That’d be fun, right?  In fact, that’d be a cool idea for a book. 

Think, think, think.

What if it was a secret cooking club?  And at that moment the idea for Kelly Quinn’s Secret Cooking Club was born…you may know it as Just Add Magic.  (Original 2010 cover and revamped 2016 cover)

         

In Just Add Magic Kelly Quinn and her besties stumble on an old recipe book in Kelly’s creepy attic.  When they make the recipes strange things happen around town. Thus begins the girls’ quest to understand the rules of the magical potions and the book’s history…a history that involves Kelly more than she ever imagined.  

I would go on secure literary representation who would sell this book to Simon & Schuster, and in 2010 Just Add Magic hit the shelves.  But that book was only the first half of Kelly Quinn’s story; there’s untold backstory and loose ends that aren’t tied up in book one.  I not only wanted to tell readers the rest of the story, but I also wanted them to see Just Add Magic.  But uncontrollable factors played out.  

In 2011, my agent and I separated, putting my aspirations for both a sequel and screen adaptation out of reach - my ducks had fallen out of row.

But my story continued:  About this time I connected with a college friend.  We lunched, and she suggested I send the book to a friend of hers for film/tv tips.  Making a long story short, that friend turned out to be a film agent who repped the book and sold it to then new-on-the-block Amazon Studios.  Starting in 2016 and each year thereafter a new season of Just Add Magic has dropped.  What a thrill! 

In light of the show’s success, I hoped the book sequel, which had been pitched many times over the years, would happen.  After several years of “no,” my magical agent sold Potion Problems (2018).  Even more recently the book was nominated for an Agatha Award for Best in Children’s/MG/YA Mystery.  It makes me giddy that readers can now know what only I’ve known - the previously untold backstory and ending, which holds many surprises.  After years of waiting, the ducklings are aligned.

The point I want to make in this piece, my friends, is this: 

In writing and in life make your own luck.  That is, do the work, take control of your ducks, your career, and your future.

BUT, when despite your efforts, you find yourself in a floury mess or otherwise detoured from Plan A, just maybe, something magical can stir.

So, tell me, are you a planner and how to you manage when things derail?

Hank: I had a little discussion with myself yesterday about that very thing--I realized: If I stoped spending time worrying about how my plans might not work, I'd have more time to think about the other possibilities. So I try not to think about fail as much, and instead think: plot twist! 

How about you, Reds and readers?


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About Cindy Callaghan: Cindy Callaghan is the award-winning author of two ‘tween series: The mega-popular Just Add Magic and Just Add Magic 2: Potion Problems, the five Lost in books: London, Ireland, Paris, Rome, and Hollywood, and two stand-alones: the award-winning Sydney MacKenzie Knocks ‘Em Dead and Saltwater Secrets (2020).

Cindy’s first book, the much-loved Just Add Magic, is now a breakout Amazon Original live-action series in its third season.  And the upcoming Saltwater Secrets is set up at a major studio.

Cindy holds an MA and MBA and has over twenty years of business experience. The Delawarian (by way of Los Angeles (USC)) is a Jersey girl at heart. She lives in Wilmington and escapes to her PA mountain retreat whenever time will allow.

www.cindycallaghan.com

A Visit from Serendipity

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Whatever you call it--the universe, serendipity, luck, chance, whatever--there are things we cannot control and cannot imagine our lives without. I am not going to yammer any more about his, because--what if I hadn't met Cindy Callaghan at Pennwriters a couple of years ago? I'll tell you what if. We wouldn't be reading this blog today. And Cindy's story is amazing. 

But please note: The second paragraph has a bombshell, which, Cindy being Cindy, she just barrels right by. So let me give a headline: Her new book is now an AMAZON TV pilot. Whoa. 

How my First Book Became a TV Pilot

(And the role of serendipity)

by Cindy Callaghan

          Once upon a time there was a newbie writer (me) with an idea:  Freckle-faced Kelly Quinn and her Secret Cooking Club. 

I’m going to uber sum up several years of toil, tears and cheers to give you a glimpse into the stream of events that led me here:  The Just Add Magic pilot on Amazon, which BTW is now available.

          Kelly Quinn’s Secret Cooking Club, retitled and published Just Add Magic, landed me a literary agent and first book contract.  Shortly after its release my agent and I went our separate ways leaving Just Add Magic unrepresented and all rights reverting to moi.

But lightning struck twice when I signed with a like-minded agent who saw promise and passion in me.  Hallelujah!  Together we’ve sold four more books to Simon & Schuster.  YAY!  However, I continued to believe that Just Add Magic had more in its future - the screen.

Enter: College Roommate.  Like everyone, I friended my freshman college roommate on Facebook.  We’d gone to University of Southern California to be film writers, but…yadda yadda…I got an MBA and have worked for twenty years in pharmaceuticals. You’ll find more on my background here.  Anyway, she wasn’t living far from me, so we lunched and I learned that she was transitioning from an animation writing career. She’d said, “Talk to my agent and see if she has some advice for Just Add Magic.”

Months passed.

One day I get a call from California, “I’d love to represent it.”

I texted a pal, “Who has two thumbs and a film agent?  This girl!”

My film agent submitted Just Add Magic to studios.

Weeks passed.

I was at the International Thriller Writers meeting in New York City. Michael Connelly, the author whose work first encouraged me to write, spoke about his detective Harry Bosch and “exciting stuff coming soon.”  In the evening, I attended a session called “Book to TV,” (hello, Irony) when my cellphone rang again from California.  (FYI, ALWAYS take a call from California.)  My film agent said, “Amazon wants to option it!”

So, now I’m totally freaking out.  Totally.

Months pass. 

Drafts are written and sent up the Amazon ladder waiting for the green light.  It was also during these months that I learned Michael Connelly’s “Bosch” pilot was coming out from Amazon Studios.  This made Connelly and I “Amazon siblings”; only he doesn’t know we’re related.  (It’s cool, nonetheless.)

One night I was at the local coffee joint debating semi-colons with my writing group when a call comes in from you-know-where.  They say, “Can you come to LA?  We’re moving ahead.”

Everyone at the coffee joint got to see my happy dance.  (Poor folks).

To LA I went.

What did it feel like?  Mostly this:  The school where we filmed was filled with people – actors, extras, cinematographers, directors, security, food service people, set and costume designers, make-up artists, etc. etc.  They were all there for something that was in my head, an idea of freckle-faced Kelly Quinn and her secret cooking club.  Does that thought give you chills?  It does to me.  Every time. 

So, serendipity:

What if my first literary agent hadn’t let me go?

What if my roommate wasn’t on Facebook?

What if we’d never met for lunch?

What if interplanetary alignment hadn’t been exactly as it was at every point in time over those years?  The cosmic sequence of events would’ve been totally altered and instead of a movie deal, there could’ve been a zombie apocalypse …..come on, I’m a writer, this is how I think.

Please watch the Just Add Magic pilot, rate it, review it.

I will be posting filmy type stuff all month, so please visit me on my website.

And if you see Michael Connelly, give him my best.  After all, we’re practically related.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Oh, my gosh. I am in AWE. Fabulous.  What if I hadn't met Hallie at that writing class in 2004? What if I hadn't interviewed Sue Grafton in 1999? What if I hadn't gone to Nantucket that weekend in 1997?  What're your what ifs, dear Reds?  And don't forget to watch Just  Add Magic!  YAY, Cindy! 

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Cindy Callaghan grew up in New Jersey and attended college at the University of Southern California before earning her BA in English and French, and MBA from the University of Delaware. Cindy is the author of JUST ADD MAGIC (2010), LOST IN LONDON (2013), LUCKY ME (2014), LOST IN PARIS (March, 2015), and LOST IN ROME (June, 2015).  All of Cindy’s novels are published by Simon & Schuster’s Aladdin M!x.  Cindy is also working with Amazon Studios on an original series based on her debut novel, Just Add Magic.  She recently exited corporate America after nearly twenty years, and is now fully entrenched in writing, and family.  Cindy lives, works and writes in Wilmington, Delaware with her family and numerous rescued pets.