SCBWI Success Story: Mika Song

by Mika Song

I was in my mid-thirties when I decided to quit my job of 7 years to give myself three months of dedicated focus to write three picture book drafts, try to get an agent, and/or get a book deal. I had cleared my college debt and saved enough money to not have to work for 3 months, and though I had been able to write some dummies while working full-time, I had an intuition that I was missing out on the momentum from each separate session to get to the next level in my artwork. I reasoned that I had low overhead, no kids, and no health issues, and I could always go back to my old job. 

Still, when I told people my plan, everyone seemed doubtful. But once I did it, I felt better instantly. For years my work days had been countdowns until the next time I could work on my own ideas. So, for the first time, I just felt the calmness of being in the right place--my desk in the corner of my bedroom. The hardest part was sticking to my plan of not working on anything but my art. Distractions came in the form of offers for freelance work that I could have easily done in a few hours in the evening. This was tempting, easy money but I would be deviating from my original plan, which was to allow myself three months of total focus on making picture books.

I had cleared the way for my spaghetti-throwing phase. I had two weekly in-person crit groups and I was working on different picture book dummies for each one. I was already a member of SCBWI and diligently followed the roadmap to publication outlined in The Book (now known as The Essential Guide to Publishing for Children). I queried agents and I wrestled with developing my own style. I started my instagram (now deleted) and began posting drawings regularly. Most of the time I was just at home working on my portfolio or on a picture book dummy for my next crit group session. But every day was exciting and full of signs and a feeling of possibility, even though all I was doing was drawing at home or going to the library. I got a few emails of rejection, which was also somehow very exciting! Of course I would get offended but even that seemed fun.

And then one day, I got an email from SCBWI saying that the drawings I had submitted would be included as spot art in the next SCBWI Bulletin. It was still a printed magazine back then and to see a drawing from my desk at home, printed in a publication for the first time, was such a surreal moment. The next day I received a few emails from agents, two of whom I had previously queried but not heard back from. And really the fun hasn’t stopped since.

Ten years later, my newest children’s book, a graphic novel called Night Chef, is coming out. Though it's about a solitary raccoon hiding in a kitchen that dreams of being a real chef, it is really about leaving your comfort zone to go on the adventure of following your dreams. As Night Chef says, “A chef will follow her nose!”