Q: How long did it take to write?

A: If you took a look at the other books I had written before Frindle , you'd see they were all picture books. So when I got the idea for Frindle , I tried to write that story as picture book, too. And I did it. It was only three pages long, and it was called Nick’s New Word . In just three pages I told the entire story.

And during the next six months as I sent the three page picture book story to five different editors at five different publishing companies, they all told me basically the same thing: “It needs to be longer, don’t you think? It would be so much better as a chapter book.”

Well, after hearing that again and again, I finally got the message, and I wrote the manuscript for the novel. It took about four months of steady work to write, and I ended up with the longest manuscript I had ever written. And when I finished and read through it, I thought it was pretty good—remember, Frindle was my very first chapter book, so I didn't have a lot of experience to draw upon.

So I began sending the manuscript—that's the stack of paper before it gets made into a book—to editors at different publishing companies. Four different editors said "No thanks." Then one person, an editor named Stephanie Owens-Lurie, said yes. And I thought, "Hurrah! I'm done! I've written a chapter book!" Wrong. I had to go through at least five more months of rewriting—but gratefully, I had so much good advice and guidance from my wonderful editor.

And finally, we got the story just right.

Here are some documents showing the early stages of Frindle:

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