Murder She Writes

 

 

Literally.  I have to unplug every electronic leash attached to me and focus solely on my story right now.  I am woefully behind.  So, I have elected not to blog about anything today because if I do, I’ll have to come back and chat when I must write.  I must stave off all distractions.  It’s not going to be easy.  I love my bi-weekly Fridays here. 

By not blogging, I feel bad, like I’ve let everyone down, but I MUST write. It’s all my fault, I’m easily distracted.  Dangle anything shiny in front of me, and well, you have me.  So, sadly, my shiny lovelies, I have to completely close my eyes, cover my ears and refuse the urge to log on!  

Can I do it? 

I know I can’t.  I’m addicted.  I’m having withdrawal anxiety already and I haven’t even shut off my computer!  It’s a sickness, an addiction and I—I’m—an addict!

 There, I said it. I’m an addict.  Isn’t that step one in the twelve step program? A lot of good it’s going to do me.

I need a cigarette, but I don’t smoke anymore.  I need a drink but then I won’t be able to write.  Geez, I need to just sweat it out, yanno, fight it.  Fight it hard.  Yeah, that’s the ticket, detox.  I suppose I should pad my room.  This is going to be a lot harder then I imagined.  This addiction, it snuck up on me. But I can beat it.  I’m stronger than email and Twitter and Facebook and blog hopping. 

Oh, stop your smirking.  Look at you!  It’s what, early a.m for you? You probably haven’t even had your coffee yet coz you couldn’t wait to log on.  Hah! 

 <Banging head on keyboard>  We’re all addicts. 

 I’ll see you when the screws let me out of my rubber cell. 

 xoxo

Krazy K*

1  1

I’d never really been the kind of person who believed in ghosts until I lived with one.

Years ago, we bought our first house from the family of a woman who’d died there. That family had been the original owners back when that particular long-established neighborhood was nothing more than a field, and the city of Baton Rouge barely had electricity. The woman had grown up there as a child, married, lived there, had one daughter, and died there. By all accounts, she was a sweet old woman who loved children and was broken hearted to have not been able to have more. Her daughter had not been able to have any, either, and this was a constant source of sadness to her.

When we moved in, the house needed tremendous work, as it was still lodged back in the 30s and 40s. (I am not exaggerating, people. I saw wiring there that even antiques would think was antique.) We worked on the house while I was pregnant with our first kid, and I never really thought much of the fact that if I mentioned something was missing, it turned up a few minutes later in plain sight. I just thought, “hormones” and that I was overlooking easy stuff.

After Luke was born, a strange thing started happening–well, there was more of the finding things, but the rocking chair in the living room would just start rocking, all on its own. It would be different rhythms at different times–sometimes leisurely, sometimes a bit frantic. There’d be no one else in the house but me, Luke and that chair. I’d move the chair to other parts of the room, and then other rooms in the house, thinking that the rhythm of me walking across the floor was setting the thing into motion. Nope. I actually tried using walking across the floor to set the thing in motion and the damned thing remained stock still.

Cue Toni wondering about her sanity. (Sadly, not for the last time.)

Luke had colic, pretty awful, actually, and there were a lot of sleepless nights and catnaps caught whenever I could, because he was miserable. This went on for nine months, at which point I was pretty sure I had lost my mind back in month 6 and no one had bothered to tell me. All through this, the chair kept rocking, things kept turning up as I needed them. The mailman started asking after my ‘grandmother’ who he sometimes waved to when he was delivering the mail. I thought he meant my husband’s grandmother who lived across the street and visited often, but he actually knew her by name and said, “No, the other lady. The tall one.” I had exactly zero tall grandmothers present.

I took all of this in stride because frankly, I was so exhausted, that “crazy” wasn’t really all that far to go, and I figured that if I started talking about ghosts and rocking chairs and imaginary grandmas and things turning up, someone was going to come quietly take me away and I didn’t want my kid to know his mom had gone looney. (Poor thing has no choice now. But he’s old enough to handle it.)

One night, I heard Luke crying and I was so weary, I stumbled down the short hall to his room, looked in as I approached and the moon was shining through his window, illuminating an old woman bent over his crib. I screamed bloody murder. It is the one time in my life I am ashamed to say I didn’t act, didn’t move forward, just screamed. I scared the living hell out of Carl, who flew past me to see what was wrong, and the woman was gone. (We were blocking the only exit.) Luke, on the other hand, was sleeping for the first time in days, and continued to sleep, in spite of my freaking out. [As an older kid--when he was about six, he commented once on the old lady that came to visit him sometimes.]

There was a particular stint, though, where Luke seemed to get worse instead of better and the doctors just kept assuring me he’d grow out of it. I think it had been about three or four days with only two hours of sleep here or there, and I was just so cranky and tired, it wasn’t funny. I hadn’t bathed, I don’t think I ate anything healthier than days-old pizza, and that damned rocker just kept going off and rocking frantically. The more Luke cried, the more the damned thing rocked, and finally, middle of the day, Luke screaming at the top of his lungs, the rocker going ninety-to-nothing, I snapped. I turned to the rocker and yelled at it and said, “Could you just stop it! You’re driving me nuts!”

And it stopped. Right there. Mid-rock. Just stopped.

The evidence of her presence didn’t go away–but it wasn’t as scary dramatic after that, which I greatly appreciated.

Later, we moved (I took the chair with me–it has never rocked on its own elsewhere). I had kinda forgotten about the ghost, but one day was visiting my sister-in-law who now lives on the same block as that old house. I commented on all of the improvements they’d just made, and she said they were moving out. Suddenly. She said, “the wife claims the house is haunted and won’t live there.” The woman told another neighbor that the ghost apparently didn’t like her husband much because his keys constantly went missing, even though they would put them in a place where the kids couldn’t reach them. His stuff was constantly falling off shelves and breaking. Buttons missing from shirts. But the crowning moment for them was when he was yelling at the kids and his keys came flying across the room and smacked him on the head–and there was no one standing where the keys had originated from. They swore they saw an old woman at times, and I wouldn’t be a bit surprised.

I have to admit, I’m really curious if the new owners have experienced the same thing, but I haven’t been brave enough to go knock on the door and ask. How do you explain that sort of thing without them calling the police and having you carted off?

So, how about you? Ever run into any ghosts? Know of a good ghost story? Believe? Don’t believe?

Ghosts, goblins, and ghoulies will out be soon. Not to mention vampires and rock stars, princes, princesses, Jedi warriors and more. Halloween.

It’s a fun holiday! It’s a religious holiday! It’s just the scene in Chinatown, it’s both, especially when you slap it all around.

For many of the ancient peoples, it was already a holiday. Especially in Great Britain, Ireland, and northern France, where pagan Druid and cultures and others similar were very real. The night, for them, was sacred to the harvest, the gods and godesses of harvest, and a Celtic festival known as Samhein. (For those of you, like him, who call this sam-hine, it’s closer to sowe-in.) It marked the end of one year, and the beginning of another. To honor that passing and beginning, the people dressed up in animals skins and other such array. They believed that the spirits of the dead came back on this night, and the priests and priestesses could better foretell the future, and help the people through a hard and lonely winter. The had great bonfires and sacrificed animals (animals, I can’t find a reference to people, though we kind of do know because of peat bodies that they did offer up human sacrifices!)

Ahha. Along came the Romans.

Feralia and Pomona! Let’s face, one did not conquer the known world by being stupid. The Romans wanted to keep control of subdued people who learned to co-abide. It was really difficult, you see, to instantly repopulate the known world with Romans. Feralia was a holiday that celebrated the spirits of the dead. The second of the imported celebrations, Pomono, celebrated fruit and the bounty of the earth.

Hey, folks, let’s have one holiday that we all acknowledge. And thus, from this, the concept of bobbing for apples became part of the holiday as well.

By the early eighteen-hundreds, Christianity had replaced what had come before–almost. In the collective soul of many of the people, the old holidays still existed. The pope was a bright man, too. He decreed that all Hallow’s Eve might be the eve of All Saints day, and therefore, all together in a holiday that was religious–and still one that celebrated the secrets of the human mind.

Some Christians dressed up as saints, angels, and demons. Others were still dressed up as animals. Trees, maybe Roman soldiers, Celtic priests and priestesses, and more.

Now, you will still see animals, saints, angels, trees, and demons. You’ll see warlocks, witches, and vampires. You might just bob for apples, though in these days of terrible flu strains, it’s unlikely!

But you will see a few handsome fellows from Twilight now, Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtles, a few rock stars, and more. There’s always my favorite. Dropping by church one night, I saw a wolfman and a vampire walk in together. Luckily, I attend a university church, and the Father–dressed in his favorite Dolphin colors–went on with the rite of communion though his church was filled with costumed creatures–and then warned everyone to be careful!

So, whatever your mode of celebration, go forth and enjoy–and just be careful. As the good Father said, “We don’t need to be adding any more souls in for next year, we’ve plenty to honor as it is!”

Heather Graham

It’s my pleasure to welcome CJ Lyons! CJ is a dear friend and a great writer. But, like most of us, CJ once had a “day” job. As a pediatric ER doctor, CJ has lived the life she writes about in her cutting edge suspense novels. Her debut, LIFELINES (Berkley, March 2008), became a National Bestseller and Publishers Weekly proclaimed it a “breathtakingly fast-paced medical thriller.”  The second in the series, WARNING SIGNS, was released January, 2009 and the third, URGENT CARE, is due out October, 2009. Please give a warm welcome to CJ Lyons!

I want to thank Deb and everyone here at Murder She Writes for inviting me to join them here this week.  I’m CJ Lyons, a pediatric ER doctor who has turned to a life of crime. My crimes take place in and around Pittsburgh’s Angels of Mercy medical center, a place where no one is immune to danger.

Caught up in my murder and mayhem are four special women:

Lydia Fiore, a street-smart newly fledged emergency medicine attending who lives her life guided by the first law of the ER: trust no one.  She’s new to Pittsburgh and quickly overwhelmed not by her new job of saving lives, but rather by the people who invite her to join their family—the men and women of Angels of Mercy whose lives she now feels responsible for.  She starts her new life at Angels of Mercy on the most dangerous day of the year, in LIFELINES.

Amanda Mason, a medical student, the first in her family to leave her rural home and go to college.  Her family means everything to her, yet she’s still compelled to break away and find her own path—something they see as a betrayal. Alone in the big city, far from home, Amanda finds friends who become her new family, but more importantly she learns that she is smart enough and strong enough to do anything she wants with her life.  But even that knowledge isn’t enough to protect her when she begins to investigate patients’ mysterious deaths and then experiences their same deadly symptoms in WARNING SIGNS.

Nora Halloran, ER charge nurse, embodies the best of all the nurses I’ve been privileged to work with during my seventeen years in pediatrics.  She’s compassionate yet tough; fair but understands that there are good reasons behind the rules she enforces; she can multi-task yet still slow down to care for a patient; and she is fiercely protective of her patients.  Nora has a secret—one that will return to haunt her with devastating and deadly consequences in URGENT CARE.

Gina Freeman is an emergency medicine resident.  Because they have “MD” after their names, residents have all the power of being a doctor.  But because they’re still in training, they’re treated as if they have no power.  Internship and residency is a lot like going back to high school—that terrible state of knowing what you want but not being allowed to have it.  And yes, Gina acts like a typical adolescent: cocky, scared but defiant, in denial about what life is really about, and focused on superficial things like clothes and her place in the ER’s pecking order.  Gina has a lot of growing up to do.  It’s painful, not easy, but in each book she takes a step further along her path.

If it sounds like there’s a part of me in each of these characters, that’s because there is. Like Lydia, I’ve lived all my life on the edge of the bell-shaped curve.  If I believed in the laws of averages or played by the rules of statistics, then I’d be living a very different life than the one I have now.  Instead, I’ve chosen to break those laws and ignore the rules.

It hasn’t been easy—from deciding to go to college (none of my siblings did) with no money to pay for it (but some scholarships, thankfully) to further deciding (oh, the impertinence!) to go to medical school and apply to some of the top (and most expensive) schools on the East coast.  Just like Amanda, after leaving my rural hometown at the age of seventeen, I was on my own, forging my own path.

For my pediatric internship and residency I returned to my home state of Pennsylvania and my favorite city, Pittsburgh.  During my internship year, something happened that would change me forever. One of my fellow interns was killed.  Murdered.  In the most heinous ways imaginable. His death hit us all.  We were all very close, the twelve—now eleven—of us.  We had to be—no one else understood what we were going through that first year as a doctor when you hold life and death in your hands and have no experience to follow, forced to trust your gut and your heart to make the right decisions.  No one else worked our crazy hours, no one spoke our short-hand, stressed-out, sleep-deprived language.

Then we were twelve no more.

His killer was caught—thanks to the hard work of several law enforcement agencies.  Four days later we were all back to work.  He was gone. But not forgotten, never forgotten. We each found our path out of the darkness.  Just like Nora finds her way in my new book, URGENT CARE.

For me, my path was through my writing.  I put aside the science-fiction and fantasy I wrote in school and turned to the gritty, dark world of crime fiction. I didn’t write for publication—not back then—but for myself.  To break out of my numbness.  To feel. What it felt like to be a victim of crime. The exultation of being a criminal, getting away with murder.  The triumph of bringing a killer to justice—and the price justice exacted from hero and villain alike.

Writing has always been an addiction for me—my spiritual comfort food.  It’s not something I want to do, it’s something I need to do.

As time went on and it became harder and harder to carve time for myself out of eighty-hour work weeks, yet I still found time to write.  Creating new worlds, being able to change things for the better in them, was intoxicating.  I decided to see if my stories resonated with anyone else and began to pursue writing as a second career—since practicing medicine was a dream come true, I guess you could say I dared to try for a second dream come true.

What hubris!  Leaving an established (although exhausting!) career with job security to jump off the cliff and trust my future to the whimsy of the publishing industry?  Insane! But oh so much fun!  I can’t describe the thrill of seeing other people reading my books—total strangers, immersing themselves in worlds and characters I created! Or the fan mail—wow, what a rush!  So many of you have written to tell me how much you’ve enjoyed spending time with the ladies of Angels of Mercy.  Most touching are the ones that describe how you’ve been inspired or empowered by the books—my books. I’ve heard from cancer patients unable to sleep because of their pain but who felt comforted by escaping into my books for a few hours.  Women who have faced struggles I can’t even imagine but who write to tell me they aspire to be as brave and bold as my characters.  Men and women working the frontlines of EMS, police, and medicine who write to thank me for “telling it like it really is.”

You are all my heroes.  Thank you for joining me and the women of Angels of Mercy in my life of crime! Most of all, thanks for reading! Have you made a career move? I would love to hear from you with your own career story or any questions you have for me!

2  1

I need your opinion. Am I too cranky?

Last week, I was vacuuming when I was rudely interrupted. I hate housework, but when I am doing it, I just like the world to stay out of my way so I can get it done. Over. Finished.

But two young men thought I needed to be interrupted. They pounded on my front door repeatedly. Loudly. I shut off the vacuum and opened the door.

The man holding a clip board stuck his hand out.

Yeah right. No idea who this guy is and I’m not shaking hands. Yes, I am that cranky. But I don’t know where that hand has been and I hate DDSCs (Door to Door Sales-Crazies) on principle.

“What can I do for you?” I asked, struggling for a tone that was just this side of a cat screech.

Big fake stupid smiles and “Mrs. Apodaca, we’re here to find out why you haven’t signed up for Verizon FIOS!”

First, I had major creeps that they knew my name. Yes they had nifty shirts with Verizon stamped on them, and a fancy smancy clipboard, but I am not a trusting woman. Not when it comes to my safety or my personal information. I say, “I am not interested.”

And there it got rather ugly. This man insisted that Verizon wanted to know why I had not taken the opportunity to sign up and more crap until I finally slammed the door and locked it. At which time they made rude comments on the other side.

I was furious. I have no idea if they were Verizon drones or just sent from hell to annoy me. I don’t like being forced to act in a rude manner, but they left me no choice. And damn it, this is MY home and I feel like I’m being accosted.

It really got me to thinking, does door to door sales even work anymore? The only time I buy anything from the door to door folks is either 1) Girl Scout cookies or 2) neighbor kids selling candy for fundraisers. That is it.

So I’m wondering, what’s your experience with DDSCs? Do you ever buy from door to door salesfolks? Do you think I’m unreasonably cranky?

To celebrate the release of SOUL MAGIC, which will hit the stores tomorrow, I’m going to give away one copy of the first book in the series, BLOOD MAGIC, to one commenter. I’ll announce the winner over the weekend on the blog.

First, the winners from two weeks ago . . . Shanae, Deb C. and Sabrina!!! If you’d like a copy of FEAR NO EVIL, email me (allison @ allisonbrennan.com) your mailing address. If you have a copy, and want to send one to a friend, send me their name and mailing address and I’ll send it to them and give you credit!

Okay, this is a quickie. Sorry! I’m off to New Jersey in the wee hours of Thursday morning to speak to the New Jersey Romance Writers conference. I’m very excited about this conference because I’ve heard fabulous things about it. I’m presenting two workshops, in addition to my speech–one on “Breaking Rules to Break In or Break Out” and the other with Mariah Stewart on the state of romantic suspense.

So because I’m rushing off and 1) wrote a speech (in which I called Rocki a bad angel, but she’ll have to hear about it from someone else because I don’t want her to hunt me down . . . ) and 2) I’m kind of wiped out; I thought I’d do two things.

First, a couple good blogs this week:

Tess Gerritsen on how you can’t please all the people all the time.

Our own Toni McGee Causey’s brilliant post for writers on writing.

Kristin Nelson’s blogs on Royalty Statements (you need to scroll down to catch them all.)

Now, an exclusive excerpt from the upcoming ORIGINAL SIN. (I just sent back my copyedits–woo hoo!–and am both very excited and nervous as hell about this book.) This is a snippet from Chapter Four:

Moira had told Lily to stay away from her cousin, to let Moira know if there was anything strange going on, if Abby confided in her. She’d damn well learned her lesson—rely on no one else—and she prayed Lily was alive.

“We’ll just look around the ruins for ten minutes,” she said. “I’ll know if the coven was here. Maybe we’re not too late.” She said it to give Jared hope; she didn’t believe it.

A reluctant Jared followed her into the night. He had his own flashlight and a cell phone, which he used now to call Lily for the twelfth time since they left Moira’s motel room twenty minutes ago. Once again, his girlfriend didn’t answer. Now her message box was full.

Almost as soon as she’d stepped from the truck, Moira smelled evil. A subtle aroma on the edge of the ruins, growing with each step she took. Incense. Poisoned incense. Strong herbs and odors to control spirits. But it was the sulphuric stench of Hell itself that raised the skin on her arms and made the scar on her neck burn. As Moira neared the midpoint of the spirit trap, she slowed her pace, her feet heavy as lead. Slower. Slower. She wanted to run back to the small, safe island off Sicily and lock herself inside St. Michael’s fortress. She didn’t need this, didn’t want it, but she could not shirk her responsibility.

All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men—and women—to do nothing.

As Moira approached the wide circle painted in white on the ground, it became clear that the ritual had been interrupted. There were signs of violence—overturned candles, disturbed earth, a feeling of unrest, of commotion. While no candles burned, the scent of extinguished flames hung in the low-lying fog.

There, in the middle of the circle, was a dead body.

Comment (even just hi, have a safe trip, break a leg, don’t choke at the podium) for a chance to win a copy of the novella that is the prequel to ORIGINAL SIN–and also has absolutely FABULOUS stories by our own Roxanne St. Claire and Karin Tabke. And if you have a question, go ahead and ask–I’ll check in when I land on the East Coast!

I had a different post scheduled for today, but I couldn’t resist passing this article along. A friend sent it to me this morning, and it SO depicts the state of publishing, authors, and marketing that I had to share it!

Shouts & Murmurs
Subject: Our Marketing Plan
by Ellis Weiner
October 19, 2009
Large Text Print E-Mail Feeds Keywords
Interns; Book Publishing; Promotion Department; Blogging; Internet; Authors;

Facebook Hi, Ellis—

Let me introduce myself. My name is Gineen Klein, and I’ve been brought on as an intern to replace the promotion department here at Propensity Books. First, let me say that I absolutely love “Clancy the Doofus Beagle: A Love Story” and have some excellent ideas for promotion.

To start: Do you blog? If not, get in touch with Kris and Christopher from our online department, although at this point I think only Christopher is left. I’ll be out of the office from tomorrow until Monday, but when I get back I’ll ask him if he spoke to you. We use CopyBuoy via Hoster Broaster, because it streams really easily into a Plaxo/LinkedIn yak-fest meld. When you register, click “Endless,” and under “Contacts” just list everyone you’ve ever met. It would be great if you could post at least six hundred words every day until further notice.

If you already have a blog, make sure you spray-feed your URL in niblets open-face to the skein. We like Reddit bites (they’re better than Delicious), because they max out the wiki snarls of RSS feeds, which means less jamming at the Google scaffold. Then just Digg your uploads in a viral spiral to your social networks via an FB/MS interlink torrent. You may have gotten the blast e-mail from Jason Zepp, your acquiring editor, saying that people who do this sort of thing will go to Hell, but just ignore it.

The vi-spi is cross-platform, but don’t worry if you think you’re not on Facebook, because you actually are. Jason enrolled you when you signed the contract last year, or at least he was supposed to, and he told Sarah Williams he did before he had to retire and Sarah left for nursing school. You currently have 421 Friends, 17 Pending Requests, 8 Pokes, 5 Winks, and 3 Proposals of “Marriage.”

I’ve attached a list of celebrities we think would be great to blurb your book, so find out their numbers and call them up. Be sure to do all this by Monday, because Sales Conference starts Tuesday. We come back Friday and then immediately on Saturday (!) all of editorial (Janet, plus probably Michelle, her assistant) and I go to the Frankfurt Book Fair for a week. During that time the office will be closed, although to help cover the costs of the Germany trip it will actually be sublet to the John Lindsay Elementary School P.T.A. as a rehearsal space for this year’s fund-raiser production of “The Music Man.” I’m told that this was one of the things that Jason didn’t understand and which contributed to his “condition.”

Once we get back from Frankfurt, we’d like to see you on morning talk shows like the “Today” show and “The View,” so please get yourself booked on them and keep us “in the loop.” If I’m not here—which I won’t be, since after the book fair I go on vacation for two weeks—just tell Jenni, my assistant, when she gets back from jury duty.

Remember in your blog to tabskim your readers’ comments. You can use Twitter, Chitt-chaTT, or Nit-Pickr. When you reply to comments, try to post at least one photo per hour of you doing everyday tasks around the house, such as answering comments and posting photos. Please make sure they’re pre-scorched. Let me know, when I get back from Retreat a week after my vacation, if self-surging is a problem.

As re: personal appearances, to cut down on travel expenses we’re trying something new this season called RAP, or Readings by Author by Proxy. We’re asking authors in certain key areas of the country to stay “close to home” and give readings at local bookstores of both their own books and a few of our other new releases. We can send you a list of bookstores in your area once you fill out the My Local Bookstores list on your Author’s Questionnaire. You’ll be reading not only from your book but from “Code Blue Stat,” a new medical thriller we’re really excited about, and “Fifty Great Pan Sauces,” a cool new cookbook. Their authors, Dr. Steven Rosenthal and Gail Freenye, will stay in Chicago and Boston, respectively, and read from each other’s book and yours. This idea, apparently, is what made Jason take his clothes off and lock himself in a supply closet.

F.Y.I., we’ve migrated all the photos out of your book and onto the Web page. It makes the hard-copy version cheaper to produce (fewer pages; no photos) and the e-text more “Kindle-friendly.” Sometime next week, call Christopher over an ISDN line and say your name, as distinctly as possible, at least two hundred times, so we can dub it as an AudioAutograph onto the podcast edition. (You may already have done this for a previous book, but somehow Jason managed to delete all the audio files before Security escorted him from the building.)

Don’t hesitate to try to contact me if you have any questions. I sort of have my hands full, promoting twenty-three new releases this fall, but I’m really excited about working on your book, and I look forward to collaborating with you to make “A History of Moorish Architecture, 1200-1492” the biggest success it can be.

Best regards,

Gineen Klein ♦

1  1

As I write this blog entry, it is very late on Monday night. Okay, somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, it is actually Tuesday morning. Gulp. Normally, I write this post on Sunday afternoons, sometimes after I’ve been to the beach with a little time to mull on a topic, or maybe during a weekend/workday that I use to focus on non-writing tasks. In a little more than a year of enjoying this every other Tuesday at MSW, I’ve never been late or missed a blog. But I’m in the throes of a deadline the likes of which I’ve never experienced before. Maybe next time, I’ll tell you the long, ugly story of how I thought I’d made my deadline only to realize I had a huge hole in my story. Huge. Major. Grand effing Canyon sized. My editor, bless her ever-lovin’ heart and all of her offspring for generations to come, generously gave me a wee more time. So I am writing my fool head off now…and the last thing I’ve thought about since, well, two Tuesdays ago…is my blog.

Until tonight, when I fell flat on my face slobbering with exhaustion climbed into bed, kissed my husband and my dog (maybe not in that order) and then yelped, “Oh, sh…ugar, my blog post is due!” Pepper barked at my turmoil, but my beloved husband wisely suggested that I consider recycling something I’ve already written. Perish the thought! But then I looked at the clock…and remembered I have the “Snoopy Article” that’s been buried on my web site for a few years, but still gets the occasional “wow, thanks for the inspiration” from readers and writers. So, with deference to my deadline and a nod to another great dog, here is…

File It Under H: Heartbreak, Hope & the Holy Grail of Publishing

Something sent me to my old file drawer today; I was looking for an address of an agent for a friend, and I knew I’d queried that agent in the past. In my files, I pulled out a dog-eared, overstuffed, tear-stained file folder.

I remember creating that file, when I sent out my initial three agent queries for my first manuscript. I’m a fairly organized person, but for some reason I didn’t take the time to type out a label. This file folder bears one Sharpie-squiggled word on the tab: QUERIES.

And in it, I shoved a heck of a lot of heartbreak. But that’s not all that’s in that folder. There’s something else between those tattered edges. Something magical, something elusive, something that begs to be shared.

I started querying editors and agents in the early months of 2000. A copy of every one of my letters can be found in that file. So neat, and, yes, so overwritten. In the beginning, my manuscript was called STARSTRUCK. How appropriate. Here I am, agents, your next star! It’s all there…the clever opening line, the pithy one-graph storyline, the take-me-seriously bio, the plea.

The letters are individualized and customized; they are typo-free, right-hand justified, and oozing with optimism. As the quantity of queries increases in the file, the letters evolve. I changed the title of the book. I re-ordered the paragraphs of my query. I stopped comparing myself to other writers and started referring to our recent meeting at a conference. I boasted about contest wins. I tried funny. I tried dry. I tried straightforward and businesslike. I tried. I tried. And I tried. I tried so freaking hard it hurts to remember how hard I tried.

Behind all those copies of my letters, separated by lists of names and notes, is the big fat section of real heartbreak.

The letterheads vary, and the quality of the type is sporadic. Some are sloppy copies, and some are clean originals, but the message is consistent: Not at this time…your story is original, but not for us…thank you but we regret that…we are not seeking unpublished clients…not sufficiently enthusiastic….pardon the impersonal nature, but…I’m afraid I’ll have to pass on this one…and my favorite – arriving two years and seven months after sending the query…sorry for the delay in responding.

Let me tell you something, writers. I loved going through that file. It was a snapshot of my tenacity, a testament to persistence, a two-inch think monument to one woman’s stubborn refusal to take no for an answer.

Just behind that file, hanging so close that the two pendaflex folders practically kiss, is another neatly tabbed section of my life. This typed label says: contracts. In it, dated twenty-seven months from the date of my first query letter, is my very first contract. Behind that juicy legal-sized document are several more just like it. All signed. All sold. Money sent and (you can bet) spent.

So, this afternoon, I sat on my office floor and read every one of those rejection letters again. The vast majority – about thirty – were from agents. All were in response to a manuscript which has yet to sell. (Big lesson there.) Tears threatened to dislodge my contacts, as the old ache returned. Like when I occasionally read a passage from Morning Glory, just to revel in the emotion of LaVyrle Spencer, just to feel that tug at my heart and know I’m human. Yes, I cried. I cried to remember how it felt to stand in my driveway, ripping open an envelope that I had typed, but a nameless secretary mailed. And the words were just too familiar. Thank you for your submission, however…. That knot in my throat would strangle me as I sweat in the afternoon humidity, the relentless Florida sun grinding me into the asphalt like some giant, imaginary heel …you can’t do this…you can’t achieve this…you’re dreamin’, girlie.

And every time, I’d return to the air conditioned comfort of my home to quietly slip the rejection into my QUERIES file. And I’d seek my solace. I’d turn to my husband and my kids for humor and comfort, to my friends for validation of my skills, to my work in progress for a distraction. At night, alone, I’d release the tears, but never the confidence that had gone with that original query. Never, never my dream.

The next day, I’d write another letter and slip in one more ounce of optimism. The supply, I learned, is never-ending.

One day, my self-addressed envelope didn’t boomerang back at me. Instead, I received a call; an agent heard my voice. And liked it! And nearly a year later, I answered another call. The one that I’d imagined. The one that I’d role-played a thousand times. The call I knew would come if I continued to write and work and believe. The QUERY file was closed.

Until today, when I had reason to open the file and retrace my steps over that steep, dangerous, winding, poorly-marked, but irresistible road to publication. Revisiting that brief but difficult journey made me want to share that experience with my chaptermates and friends. It made me want to repeat – no, no, to holler at the top of my lungs – my mantra: Persistence and determination and tenacity and sheer bulldoggedness are as important as talent in this business.

Did you hear me?

In the back of the file, I found a yellowed cartoon I’d clipped from the newspaper. It’s Snoopy, at his mailbox. Dear Contributor, states the letter he reads. We are returning your stupid story. You are a terrible writer. Why do you bother us? We wouldn’t buy one of your stories if you paid us. Leave us alone. Drop dead. Get lost. In the last square, Snoopy rests on his doghouse. Probably a form rejection slip, he thinks.

Oh, yeah. Snoopy knows where to file that rejection. His dream is protected, his heart is in tact. File that letter under H for Hope, that dream-sustaining elixir, the Holy Grail of publishing.

Here’s to hope! What keeps yours alive when a form rejection comes in? What protects your dream, whatever it may be? And while we’re thinking about hope…I hope that by next time I write, my deadline is met and the manuscript is finished!! To thank you for letting Snoopy pinch hit today, I’m giving away one copy of Hunt Her Down! Leave a comment about hope…and I hope you win!

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