Suspense Your Disbelief

I was very pleased when author Carl Brookins wrote me because I’ve long enjoyed his posts on listservs such as the great DorothyL. Carl always has an interesting, no-nonsense viewpoint, and his approach to making it in this business reflects the same. Plus, Carl’s Moment brings in some ways the best thing of all–an undiscovered body of work yet to read!

It’s an interesting question, Jenny.

I always knew I’d be a writer. Then I sold my first piece of writing. That was more than 60 years ago when I was in the seventh grade. I wrote a short story to submit to a pulp magazine that featured only western tales. I had never been west of the Missouri and had yet to discover Louis L’Amour or the other western writers, except for Jack London. But I did know the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew. Imagine my delight when the magazine sent me 50 cents for the story!

Writing, fiction and non-fiction has always been a major part of my life. In high school I discovered that writing essays was better for me than short answer or multiple-choice tests. Every job I’ve held since high school has included a writing component of larger or lesser degree.

So, I’ve had many “made it” moments. One occurred when a piece I wrote on driving safety was published, without a word being changed, in the Triple A magazine. Another occurred when my first script for a televisions series I later produced was accepted for production. I knew I’d “made it” again when an international magazine aimed at professional broadcasters accepted my article on the founding and development of the tiny public television station in Fargo, North Dakota, a station I headed at the time.

My fiction writing career began when I made it as the author of “Inner Passages,” my first sailing adventure story, from Top Publications and again with my latest in that series, “Devils Island.” That novel is particularly satisfying because it represents the evolution of perhaps my strongest character, Mary Whitney, a bright, resourceful woman of charm and grace, with the athletic and mental skills to deal with her powerful but deranged ex-husband.

But you know, I’ll have the satisfaction again of having made it this far with the publication of my next novel or short story, or article. I’m a work in progress and I’m having a lot of fun getting there.

I’ve had many jobs, all related in some way to public communication. They include highway safety, public television, cable television and higher education. I love writing and almost everything that goes with it, including revising! I live in a suburb of the Twin Cities of Minnesota with my wife, a retired publisher. I’m a member of Sisters In Crime, Mystery Writers of America, Private Eye Writers, and Minnesota Crime Wave.

I’ve been following author Karen McQuestion’s (great name, right?)journey avidly. I first became aware of Karen through Joe Konrath’s blog. Joe talks about his move away from mainstream publishing and to Kindle and Amazon’s new publishing arm, Amazon Encore. He’s at the forefront of a movement that could eliminate  part of the publishing chain, putting the author at one end and the distributor at the other. Karen had never been published traditionally and thus didn’t have Joe’s following when she began doing the same thing. Could she possibly succeed? As you will see below, her results have surpassed all expectations, making Karen also a pioneer in this brave new world of book creation.

As a writer I felt I’d “made it” when I got a complimentary email from a woman I’d never met.

My story is like so many others. Being a writer was a lifelong dream of mine, but I didn’t approach it seriously until my three kids were all in school. Once the youngest went off to kindergarten, I kept a disciplined writing schedule, attended critique groups and workshops, and over the next seven years managed to write five novels, none of which were ever published.

When I discovered that manuscripts could be self-published as e-books on Amazon’s Kindle, I was intrigued by the idea. Initially, I uploaded two of my books, just to see how it went. I had no expectations, so when they started selling, I was thrilled. Still, without feedback, I didn’t know if anyone liked them, or even read them, for that matter.

A few weeks later, I got an email from a woman named Kimberly who lived in Las Vegas. The subject heading said, “YOU ARE HILARIOUS!!!!” Her email was as enthusiastic as her heading, and just as full of exclamation points. She loved my books, and wanted to know if I had others. I was overjoyed. I printed her email and read it over and over again, then made my husband read it (he was happy for me, but not nearly as emotional about it).

This was a turning point. Hearing that a complete stranger connected with my stories convinced me to upload my other books.

Since that day, I’ve heard from other readers, gotten some terrific reviews, and sold thousands of e-books. One of my novels, A Scattered Life, was optioned for film and will be published in paperback by AmazonEncore this coming August. There have been many validating moments, but Kimberly’s email was the first of these, and I still get a thrill thinking about it.

Karen McQuestion’s essays have appeared in Newsweek, Chicago Tribune, Denver Post, Christian Science Monitor, among other publications. She is the author of six books self-published on Amazon’s Kindle, one of which, A Scattered Life, caught the attention of an L.A. based production company and became the first self-published Kindle book to be optioned for film. It will be published by AmazonEncore, Amazon’s new publishing division, on August 10, 2010. McQuestion lives with her family in Hartland, Wisconsin.

Some of you know about JA Konrath’s blog and his recent departure to points Kindle. (Or points Amazon.) In a week or so a commenter from JA’s blog will post a Moment here about her own forays into those uncharted waters–only she didn’t have JA’s platform and history of sales. But today we feature a Moment by an author who is exploring the same Kindle landscape. Read on, because I have a feeling there may be more of these on this blog as  the literary clime continues to evolve.

I’m not sure I feel as if I’ve made it yet. Writing is a journey and I’m evolving as I go. I used to dream of writing a children’s book and illustrating it. I loved to draw and paint. But I also wanted to join the military. So I chose the armed forces over college, I set up house and had kids. Then I homeschooled for a bit, but I still wanted to write.

While my kids were little, I read to them a lot. It stirred my passion again. I tried to write a picture book, but nothing really clicked. It wasn’t fun, and I struggled. I decided to give up. And I did. But I still yearned to write. I switched gears and wrote a few romances. My son got tired of never being able to read my stories, so I wrote a mystery for him. And it was good.

Now, I still write romances, and they’re where my heart is. I’ve seen my growth and my writing strengthen with every critique I’ve gotten. I cringe thinking about how many hours some writing friends of mine took just to teach me POV. The endless blue marks, line after line, have thinned out to a few here and there. My husband even enjoyed reading my latest romance manuscript I’m marketing.

I think for my mystery and YA writing, I’ll feel like I made it once I hold my story Pieces of the Star in my hand in graphic novel format. The combination of a good story, written for kids added with pictures, that will hit the dream spot and give me the, I achieved my goal, sigh.

Country girl born and raised, KJ Roberts has been writing for longer than she can remember. It’s a natural part of life to her. Indiana native, her stories are usually set in the Hoosier state. After a ten year stint in the military, she moved to Mississippi with her husband and two kids. She loves reading, listening to her son play guitar and watching her daughter dance.

Happy release day, Emily Winslow! Not only does Emily’s book look great–I’m off to buy it as soon as I get done posting this–but her Moment is full of enough thrills to make every writer tingle. Check out her psychological mystery, also guaranteed to deliver some tingles.

There’s a fantasy that the getting of an agent or book deal will be celebrated over lunch in a New York restaurant, with mutual toasts and a deferential waiter. The truth, though, is that many writers don’t meet their agents or editors in person. They work quite happily apart, sending manuscripts back and forth over mail or email, and hashing details out over the phone. New-York-area writers may get a meal, but it’s not the standard.

So I was pretty stoked that circumstances have allowed me to enjoy FOUR such milestones over the past two years.

I don’t live in NYC; in fact, I live in England! But I grew up close enough to New York that a friend and I would cut school once a year to catch a commuter train into the city for the day. I still have lots of close ties train-distance from Manhattan. So when I signed with my agent, marvelous Cameron McClure at the Donald Maass Agency, I was quick to point out that I’d be traveling for a family wedding soon, and would love to “pop into” the city to meet her. I took Amtrak from Rhode Island, just like my grandfather used to for work. Normally, when someone else is paying, I try to order with restraint. But I felt so celebratory that I bookended the entree with appetizer AND dessert. The restaurant had a bustling business-y atmosphere, and the sink in the bathroom was filled with lovely, smooth river stones.

She sold my book a few months later, and a couple months after that both she and the editor who bought it headed to the London Book Fair. I live nearby, so that was chance number 2. We met at Bibendum, a fancy London restaurant. It has a unique stained glass window of, of all things, the Michelin Man. Hilarious stories of misbehaving authors were shared without naming names. Plans for future books were discussed. I skipped appetizer, but got dessert again.

About eight months later, I was in New England again, for family and business reasons. I volunteered to catch the train from Boston to meet the editor who would be editing my book (he works under the acquisitions editor I met in London). I assume that what they set up was done so for efficiency but to me it seemed the peak of luxury: eating in a private dining room in the Random House building. It was pretty much a meeting room with a waiter thrown in. The waiter was so formal and intimidating that I could only nod whenever he asked me if I was finished with a course, whether I was really done or not. It turned out that both my editor and I had been theater majors in college. We got along great.

The most recent lunch came at the transition between the editing phase and the publicity phase. I wanted the chance to meet my publicist, and make a good personal impression. I had no nearby obligations as an excuse to “drop in,” so this time I had to make a dedicated effort to get there. My husband travels a lot for business, so I was able to make use of all those accumulated air miles to travel from England for free. The most amazing thing? THERE WAS A SPECIAL OFFER ON THAT ALLOWED ME TO TRAVEL INTERNATIONAL FIRST CLASS. Apologies for the all-caps, but you have to understand–I have never even SEEN the inside of a proper first class cabin. They have these sort of personal pods where you can lie all the way down, or you can swivel your seat to face a desk, and you have a pop-up TV screen with a ton of recorded shows, and they just keeping bringing you food and alcohol for basically the entire flight. Wow.

This time we went to a Greek restaurant, with a large group: agent, editor, acquiring editor, and publicist. I handed out presents, including a lovely winter scarf for my editor. He wrote me a thank-you note weeks later, signing it with a stick-figure drawing of himself, scarf billowing behind, and my book in his hands. He drew a huge smile on his face. I keep that note as a bookmark. That’s my “made it moment.”

Bio: Emily Winslow is an American living in Cambridge, England, where her debut novel THE WHOLE WORLD is set.

I am very glad to feature Lois’ Moment  because not only does she elaborate on an oft-appearing theme–the fact that your definition of making it changes as you in fact do make it–but she also has both feet–and one more besides–in some very interesting worlds in addition to writing.

When Jenny asked me to write a blog on “How I Knew I Made It,” my first thought was, “Define it.” Did I make it after I sold my first book? Lots of authors sell one book and never sell another, winding up as one of those {shudder} One-Book-Wonders. No, I definitely didn’t feel like I made it after selling my first book. However, for some authors selling one book would be enough for them to feel they’d made it. For others,it comes after the second book. Still others, not until they’ve signed that first multi-book contract. Or their first 6-figure advance. Or hitting a national list for the first time.Or being able to kiss that dreadful day job good-bye.

Making it means different things to different writers. For me, making it happened the day my agent told me she thought I was funnier than Author X. And no, I’m not going to tell you who Author X is. This was one person’s opinion and one person only. Author X happens to be one of my favorite authors. She’s definitely made it; she has the fame, fortune, and awards to prove it. I, on the other hand, will most likely never reach the pinnacles of success she has reached. Few authors do. However, being compared to her and coming out on top made my day that day and saw me through a long dry spell when no other editor seemed to feel the same way about my writing.

So to me, making it was the day that I realized a compliment from the right person could mean as much as a contract. It kept me writing, and eventually that multi-book contract arrived. Maybe someday I’ll see that 6-figure advance and my name on the NY Times list. Meanwhile, I never forget that at least one person, and now maybe more, believes I’m funnier than Author X.

Lois Winston straddles three worlds and is a long way from giving up her day jobs. She’s both an associate with the Ashley Grayson Literary Agency and an award-winning author of romantic suspense and humorous women’s fiction. Lois is also an award-winning designer of needlework and crafts projects. In January 2011 Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun, the first book in her Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series will debut. Visit Lois at http://www.loiswinston.com and Anastasia at Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers (http://anastasiapollack.blogspot.com/)

I heard about Erica’s wonderful, original, well nigh unique book in the thorny jungle of a writing contest. (The book was already published. Had already Made It.) Erica stood out amongst all of us clamoring souls because of that book. This Moment contains a hefty spoonful of the writing life, a dab of kids–in short, everything that makes this blog what it is. And read her bio. It’s a story–if not a Moment–in of itself.

My novel, The Wet Nurse’s Tale, was published by Putnam in August of 2009. I’m a bookseller by trade and the news of my contract—which I received over the phone behind the bookstore counter—so stunned me that my colleague had to practically administer smelling salts to restart my breathing. I remember riding my bike home from work that day: it was summer, I was flying along, and for a moment I was filled with a gasp of total joy. I’ve never skied, but I figure that’s what it feels like.

But maybe it’s because I am a bookseller that, soon enough, I found the grain of salt in the good news. My office, after all, is paved with publishers’ catalogues, each describing hundreds of new books. I see thousands of books arrive at the store and then (alas) get returned to the publisher when they haven’t sold.

I know all too well the odds against which my book stands. To wit: will my readers see what it was I meant to do? (Yes! They’ve understood that my novel’s no romance, but rather is about class and gender and a whole lot of bodily fluids!) Will the publisher spend the bucks to send me on a tour? (No, dang it.) Will my book get reviewed happily? (Yes! The Washington Post liked it! New York Magazine likes it!) Will I shrivel at the less than happy reviews? (Apparently not. Thick skin, I guess. ) Will I be totally frustrated that the local B&Ns keeps selling out (despite the fact that people KEEP going in and asking about it)? (Uh, yeah. Totally frustrated. Dumb chains. )

In the end, I guess my Made It Moments are just exactly those: instants which flare up and then die away again. What’s important is to find them in the work, of course, as you put two words together to say exactly what it is you’ve meant to say.

Erica Eisdorfer, born in Durham, North Carolina, was the first of the three children born to her parents, who had moved down south from the great city of New York and lived for some years in culture shock. The family rented a wonderful house edged by forest and she and her two younger brothers spent a great deal of time playing in the trees where she, due to her birth order and general bossiness, was constantly the admiral of the ship, the mayor of the town, the principal of the school. This sort of innocent play lasted only until her brothers, in what must have been a co-epiphany, realized that they didn’t have to take it anymore and went off by themselves to play with their trucks, leaving her alone forever. This is when she discovered reading.

After having graduated from Duke University, she considered, then rejected the idea of further schooling and went to work at the Bull’s Head Bookshop, where she has found gainful employment for the last thirty years as buyer and manager.

I am proud to present Ken Kuhlken’s Moment, or Moments–they range from A to, well, W–including one that will give all us emerging writers reason to never say die. There are some biggies here, some even touching ones, but in the end this Moment is about there never really being an end.

A couple years after college, I entered an MA program in Creative Writing at San Diego State University, and the program helped me
persevere and actually finish a novel. When I typed The End, that was a made it moment.

A professor sent my novel to some contest. An agent with William Morris asked to represent me. When I found myself talking to this agent in a New York highrise office building, that felt like a made it moment. But it came to nothing.

A few years later, a Viking Press editor called me, a year after I had submitted a manuscript of Midheaven. That was a made it moment.

And there was the time my mother told me about calling a certain school administrator who had prophesied I might end up as “a bum in the gutter,” and telling him about my new novel and an award it won.

I’ve won several awards. But I never got the rush I knew would come with the made it moment. The one that assures I had picked the right career. The one that would free me from day jobs, debts, and budgeting, give my family a swell vacation, and might even allow me to believe that after I died my stories would remain.

I have at times made my living writing stories. I have friends who’ve struck it rich. But from things they say I infer that they still feel just short of their true made it moment, because other people have struck it richer.

So I have adjusted my attitude.

For a dozen years or so, I have worked on a series about a detective. The series has gradually morphed into a rather epic tale of Tom Hickey’s journey from beginning to end. I call it the California Century novels, because it chronicles the transformation of the state through the 20th century, from latter day promised land into a prototype for the rest of the world, largely through the power of Hollywood.

My new book, The Biggest Liar in Los Angeles, is number one chronologically, though it’s the sixth in the series. I mean to wrap up the series after nine or ten novels and a collection of short stories.

The made it moment will come when I type the final The End.

Ken’s stories have appeared in Esquire and other magazines, been honorably mentioned in Best American Short Stories, and earned a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. He has been a frequent contributor and a columnist for the San Diego Reader.

Ken’s novel Midheaven was chosen as finalist for the Ernest Hemingway Award for best first novel and the sixth in his series, The Biggest Liar in Los Angeles, comes out this May.

I’ve been lucky enough to get to know author Peggy Ehrhart in a few ways, which might be why I hear her writer’s voice in every word of this Moment. But I don’t think that’s the only reason. I relate very deeply to Peggy’s prime reason for writing–and for knowing she made it. Stephen King (my all time Master, at least in terms of things writing, as some of you already know) would too. Read this and see if you agree.

I was bringing in the paper. My neighbor, Mitchell, was hurrying toward his car. But he stopped when he saw me.

“I finished your book,” he said. “It was great. Now my girlfriend is reading it. But she doesn’t like to pick it up at night because once she starts she can’t stop—and then she’s tired all the next day.”

Bingo! That was when I knew I’d made it.

Was it my goal to keep people up past their bedtimes? Unashamedly—yes.

I was a mystery addict for years before I started writing them. All my friends read mysteries too. We were graduate students in the English Department at the University of Illinois, and mysteries offered the perfect diversion after a day spent poring over Beowulf or Paradise Lost.

I still remember a magazine article about the lure of mysteries one of my friends passed along to me back then, particularly this one line: “Here I am, with several advanced degrees and a professional career, and yet I’m up at two a.m. because I can’t put down The Corpse Wore a Puce Peignoir.”

That’s power, I said to myself, and I want it.

Of course I also wanted to tell stories. And bring readers into a world I found utterly fascinating—that of a struggling blues band. And introduce quirky characters that were amalgams of quirky people I’d known.

And if there’s an overarching theme to my work, it’s that creative people create because they’re driven to create—and they’re willing to sacrifice a lot to pursue their dreams. Yes, there’s quite a bit of me in my amateur sleuth Elizabeth “Maxx” Maxwell, though she’s a blues singer and I’m a writer.

But I also really really wanted to keep readers up past their bedtimes.

Peggy Ehrhart is a former English professor who now writes mysteries and plays blues guitar. She holds a doctorate in Medieval Literature, and her publications include a prize-winning nonfiction book.
Her stories have appeared in FMAM, Crime and Suspense, Flashing in the Gutters, Spinetingler, Crime Scene: New Jersey 2, Murder New York Style, and several other venues. As a guitar player, she has performed with numerous bands in the New York City area.

Her blues mystery, Sweet Man Is Gone, was published by Five Star/Gale/Cengage in 2008. The sequel, Got No Friend Anyhow, will appear in January 2011. Visit her on the web at www.PeggyEhrhart.com.

This Moment, the first ever penned by a writing team, has one of the best analogies for success in publishing that I’ve ever read. Take one graphic artist, and a piece of household hardware…OK, I won’t spoil things by saying anything more, but if Mary and Eric’s books are anywhere near as clever and well written, we’re all in for some wonderful reads, as well as some insight into this wonderful, crazy business.

As writers, how did we know we made it? A difficult question. Are we even sure we have made it? It depends on one’s definitions. If “making it” means sitting atop the New York Times bestseller lists, we have a long way to go.

It might be best to think of a writing career as a series of steps on a ladder, though sometimes one that must surely have been made by Escher. A ladder without any obvious beginning or end, where you can be going up from one perspective and down from another. At this point we can with all modesty say that we are climbing the ladder, or at least clinging to the rungs.

We knew we had got our collaborative feet on the fiction writing ladder when we sent “An Obo Mystery” to Ellery Queen Mystery magazine and rather than the usual standard rejection slip there arrived in our mailbox an acceptance.

We reached another rung in 1998 with the sale of our first novel, One For Sorrow, to Poisoned Pen Press. Having an actual book published seemed so astonishing that we’re not sure we actually knew for certain we had made it there until we had the hard cover copy in our hands, or perhaps it was on Christmas Eve, the year before publication, when our publisher emailed us a .jpg of the cover.

Now we are a few steps from our beginning and hoping to sell a new mystery series set in Victorian London. Poisoned Pen Press, with typical generosity, encourages us in this new endeavor, so perhaps we shall go up another rung soon. But as for the top of the ladder….who can say where that might be?

And what if we were selling millions of books? Maybe we still wouldn’t have reached critical acclaim, or won the Pulitzer, or if we had won the Pulitzer, the Nobel. Or maybe if we’d have won over the critics and prize judges but hadn’t made the bestseller lists, we’d be wishing we could sell more. But, of course, the Nobel comes with a cash prize. But then again, have you really made it, in any field, if you don’t have your own reality television show?

The husband and wife team of Mary Reed and Eric Mayer began writing together in 1992. After publishing several short stories in anthologies and in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, their first full length novel featuring John, the Lord Chamberlain to Emperor Justinian appeared in 1999. The American Library Association’s Booklist Magazine has named the novels as one of its four Best Little Known Series.

I didn’t know about Douglas Corleone’s prize-winning debut until I was contacted by his wife. Now that its release day has come, I am planning a stop by my local independent today to buy a copy. Another voice in the legal thriller genre! I can’t wait. Once you read this Moment, you might be pretty psyched yourself.

My “Made It” moment occurred when John Grisham accepted my Friendship Request on Facebook.

Sure, John probably accepts every Friendship Request he receives. We are, after all, his fans. And John doesn’t share anything on his Facebook page about himself or his career that you can’t quickly discover yourself by running a simple Google or Wikipedia search. But still. I like to think John sat at his computer one evening, heard my name calling out to him from his Inbox, and said, “Yes, I would very much like Douglas Corleone to be my Facebook Friend.”

Seriously though, there are all kinds of “Made It” moments on the road to publication, and each one seems shorter than the last. There was the brief thrill of finishing the first draft of the novel that would come to be known as ONE MAN’S PARADISE. That brief thrill was followed by another, even briefer thrill, when I thought the novel was actually completed. Then came the thrill of signing with a reputable New York agent, of having copies of my manuscript sent out to some of the most celebrated editors in Manhattan. Of having those editors actually praise my work. I made it!

Until the first rejections started rolling in. Oh, each of them were kind in their own way, admitting “a unique voice,” even conceding “an extraordinary talent.” But each, of course, ended with some variation of the words, “We’ll have to pass.”

Then, one day, well after I’d already begun to hate my protagonist Kevin Corvelli for failing me, an email arrived. The Executive Editor at St. Martin’s Minotaur wanted to speak to me regarding my submission to the Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel competition. I had since moved from Florida back to Hawaii, and so they didn’t have my current telephone number or mailing address.

I returned the email immediately but it was well past 7 p.m. in New York and I didn’t expect to hear back from her that night. So, wondering what this was all about, I started drinking. A few beers, then a few more. Then my cell phone rang.

A month later I was back in New York City, where I’d practiced law for several years, to attend the Edgar Awards. There I received from the Publisher a small Lucite trophy with my name engraved on it, and more importantly, a promise that my novel would be published approximately a year from that day. I made it!

Well, not quite. As I write this I am but a week away from the release of my debut novel. It’s received some great reviews. Library Journal, in fact, states that “Fans of John Grisham…will enjoy [ONE MAN'S PARADISE] for the sheer pleasure of seeing a master defense attorney at work in the courtroom.” I can now, whenever I want to, hold my very own book in my hand. But I don’t feel as though I made it.

No, maybe someday I’ll be able to look back and define my “Made It” moment, but I hope that’s decades and dozens of books away. Because what comes after you’ve made it? Can you make it again? Or is it more like your first weeks in college, where now all you can do is look back upon them with fondness and wish you could live those days over and over and over again. I prefer to look forward. So as soon as I make it, you’ll be the first to know. After I Instant Message John Grisham, of course.

Douglas Corleone’s debut novel ONE MAN’S PARADISE is the winner of the 2009 Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Award. A former New York City criminal defense attorney, Corleone now resides in the Hawaiian Islands where he is at work on his next novel. Visit the author online at douglascorleone.com.