We recently connected with Danielle Soucy Mills and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Danielle Soucy thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Have you signed with an agent or manager? Why or why not?
Signing with my literary agent Kelly Thomas of Serendipity Lit in June of 2019 was probably one of the most exciting moments of my entire life, but there’s some fun backstory that encompasses the name of the agency and much of what I’ve experienced throughout my life: Serendipity, Synchronicity, no coincidence.
After completing my time in the Chapman University MFA program in December of 2008, the words from my professors at my final thesis meeting echoed in my ears. “This could get an agent.” And so, I went on a search for that perfect literary agent. Because I wrote both children’s picture books and novels in a genre I couldn’t quite pinpoint at the time, I struggled to find someone whom I thought might be able to represent me and my many facets—I felt as though I needed someone who could not only help with my gymnastics picture book idea but also someone who understood my deep yearning to weave metaphysical concepts into interesting fictional stories.
Serendipity Lit always stood out to me because of their name, but I never did send them a query. I hardly sent out any query letters at all, my desire to find that “perfect person” holding me back.
Eventually, I discovered a small publisher who expressed interest in both my picture book and my novel, and so I pursued that avenue. Eventually, however, things fell apart. I was led then into the world of self-publishing which was always kind of looked down upon in the arena in which I’d studied (at least at the time)…yet I couldn’t help but notice some very powerful signs that I was being guided in this direction. The synchronicities lit the way.
I’d been told by several different people to attend a Publishers and Writers of San Diego meeting with a special guest children’s author, Sheri Fink. Sure enough, I ended up following her lead, and boom, I had my very first real book!
Not long after successfully self-publishing my picture book, the crazy idea to also self-publish my novel came barreling through my brain. Looking back, it was probably not the smartest idea from a marketing standpoint, doing so so close to the publication of my first book in a completely different genre—BUT I also realized I would have never been connected with some very important people in my life–including my literary agent–had I not self-published my novel when I did.
In trying to figure out the exact path I was meant to take to release my novel out into the world, I emailed a woman who I knew wrote for metaphysical magazines. She gave me some great advice and even connected me to a few literary agents, one being Regina Brooks, CEO of Serendipity Lit. I never did hear back from Regina and moved forward anyway on my self-publication path…without even recognizing that a seed had been planted.
After being approached by a man who was beginning his own publicity company a few months before my book release in December of 2014, he connected me with a woman, amazing medium and spiritual mentor Necole Stephens, who seemed perfect to endorse my novel—not only did she live close to the area where I grew up, her mom living only 20 minutes from my mom, but she even shared that much of my story reminded her of her own life experiences. I eventually learned she was writing a book too and had been connected to–who but Regina Brooks–by a friend who lived close by to me in San Diego. Kari became a good friend too and it turned out she had gone to school with Regina in the Bronx.
A little over a year after releasing my picture book, I experienced some pretty miraculous happenings with the story “randomly” appearing in Us Weekly Magazine and People.com as a favorite of Jenna Dewan and Channing Tatum’s daughter, Everly, just a month or so before my first daughter was born…and about two years after that, being asked to possibly collaborate with an Olympian on another title.
I wrote a sequel to my first gymnastics book and through a special event, connected with Regina. My manuscript was then picked up by my literary agent, Kelly Thomas, shortly after that. Having her help to send the manuscript out to big publishers lifted a huge weight off my shoulders, especially since becoming a mom of two young girls put constraints on my ability to work as much as I wanted through all of the exhaustion. While we are still working to get more of my work out there, my past experiences have taught me that books are always released into the world exactly the way they were meant to. Timing is everything, and there are no coincidences.
Serendipity is real.
Danielle Soucy , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I grew up in a beautiful seaside city called Gloucester, Massachusetts. I knew from a very young age I wanted to be an author and a gymnastics coach. In my Montessori class, around 5th grade, my teacher gave us a blue notebook which she called our “novel” and it was then that I embarked on a journey to write a book just like my idols at the time, Christopher Pike and R.L. Stine. After that, I continued to try for more novels, but eventually realized I needed to learn more about life to write a real book.
I attempted to write a lot of different things in the years to come—children’s stories, poems, short stories—and in graduating high school told my mom I wanted to major in creative writing. She urged me not to, but similar to what happened in my literary agent story, I was always guided to the places I needed to be. I eventually ended up at Rhode Island College studying English with a focus in creative writing and competing on their division 3 gymnastics team. I won an award there for a collection of my short stories, and eventually discovered Chapman University in a google search for southern California MFA programs after a dicussion about grad school floated around our creative writing classroom.
When I found Chapman, I just knew this was it. This was my school. And I’m sure not by coincidence, a young woman whose family lived 20 minutes from my future school transferred to Rhode Island College the exact semester I needed to visit to affirm what I knew deep down: this was where I was meant to go.
On the drive cross country, I finally scrawled down inspiration for the story that would later become Tina Tumbles. As much as my mom urged me not to focus on writing for my career path, she also encouraged me in her own backward way. Being a children’s library assistant, there was no shortage of books in our house. Not to mention, she knew about the huge gap in gymnastics literature for children.
I perfected the Tina Tumbles manuscript while I wrote my novel manuscript for my graduate school thesis and continued telling the young girls that I coached to push me to finish the story. They were my inspiration because I knew they needed the story.
One of the biggest things I’m learning now is that following your dreams is one of the most important things you can do to fulfill your life’s dharma. Much of what I write is purpose-driven. I need to live life in this way. I believe we are here for this very reason—to connect to our purpose and live it wholeheartedly without fear.
I also have two stories in Chicken Soup for the Soul, Merry Christmas and Listen to your Dreams, the second story highlighting so much of I’ve been learning throughout my life—to trust in the whispers of intuition guiding us from within.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
While Amazon made it extremely easy to gain access to my audience for my picture book, for my novel it was a bit of a different story.
Guided by several online communities, I eventually began adding quotes from my books to images and was later introduced to Steven Aitchison, who had formed a group called Your Digital Formula, teaching others how he’d accrued over 3 million followers. In a year, I was able to gain over 14K followers, delving more into the creation of image quotes with words that inspired me. It very much reminded me of the scrapbooking I’d done in college–cutting out beautiful pictures and pasting on words of inspiration–but in digital form.
Lately, I’ve been using more of my own quotes and poetry, although I’d often use words of wisdom from some of my favorite spiritual teachers. While gaining a following on social media is not always equivalent to gaining an audience for books, I’m still in the process of putting all of the pieces together–linking everything to email lists and other social media platforms–especially since after my second daughter was born, I took a little bit of a break from everything.
It’s good to be back, especially as I’m able to share more of the miraculous synchronistic events I’ve experienced over the last bunch of years, leading me to pen a memoir idea which is still in the works.
Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?
Back in July of 2015 I found a book that absolutely changed my life. It’s called You’ll See It When You Believe It by Dr. Wayne Dyer, and was the source of inspiration for my Chicken Soup for the Soul story in Listen to Your Dreams, published in August of 2020.
I had heard of Wayne and followed him on social media, but hadn’t gotten too much into his work until I found that book. One of the things I loved most about his teachings was that he instructed his children to follow the whispers of their soul, to find what they were truly meant to do here on earth, no matter what—coming from a place of sheer faith, not fear as I sensed with my mom’s reasonings.
One of my favorite quotes of Wayne’s is, “I am realistic—I expect miracles.” My mom used to say, “Well, Danielle, I’m just being realistic.” In a way that made it seem like my dreams were far too out there for the real world. Through Wayne and other spiritual teachers though, I’ve discovered that we create our own reality. Our thoughts, our words, our beliefs are incredibly powerful.
Looking back, I’ve been able to realize how the more I listened to my inner voice, the more miracles occurred in my life. On some level though, I did not wholeheartedly believe in myself, in the power of my intuition, until I was fatefully led to Wayne’s book. There was always a part of me that lacked confidence, I think because I was extremely sensitive as a kid and dealt with a lot of bullying. I cared too much about what others thought of me, and so I taught myself to hide much of who I truly was, for fear that others would think I was weird. I realize though, I’m always learning, and it’s okay to take a step back, before taking a few more steps forward.
What I’ve discovered from You’ll See it When you Believe It (and Wayne’s other books and lectures) is that it’s much easier to believe in what we’re doing first. That’s how we see it come to fruition. We must believe it to see it. The Universe indeed is an amazing, wonderous place—filled with lack and limitation only if we choose that as our reality. I’ve been learning to shed my limiting beliefs to truly step into who I was meant to be—and encouraging others to do the same along the way.
Contact Info:
- Website: daniellesoucymills.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/daniellesoucymills
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorDanielleSoucyMills
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniellesoucymills/
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/dsoucymills
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_JDwnBOo3Fh8AYRuk736PA
- Other: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbaSogGTOdRXveHDc9vsnLA https://www.facebook.com/TinaTumbles