A Writer’s Journey By Susan Specht Oram

A Writer’s Journey: How I ended up being published 

By Susan Specht Oram

In the fourth grade, when I wanted to be an author, my maternal grandmother, Gago, paid me one-dollar for every story I wrote. One day I handed in a tale about Caroline, who creeps into an attic and discovers a bloody rope and a dead body. Gago wrinkled her nose. “Don’t show me any other stories. This is disgusting.”

After a year in college, I moved to Evanston, Illinois and worked in a locked psychiatric unit of an upscale nursing home as an activity aide. Some residents on my floor were agile and alert. Why were they in the secure unit? I learned their families had admitted them. What was it like to be trapped inside a psychiatric institution and abandoned by your family? That question followed me to the West Coast.

After earning a college degree and a master’s in business, I decided to become an artist. In Seattle, I sold pottery and paintings at thirty street fairs a year and opened a studio and small gallery. Gago visited with my mother, who was enthusiastic, but left without lifting an eyebrow or saying much. A recession hit. The landlord raised the rent. Fewer customers frequented my shop.

I closed my business and stayed home to raise my three-year-old twins. While I took a shower, they skated across the floor on sticks of butter. I wrote about parenting, and my essays were published in Mothering Magazine, Twins Magazine and Utne Reader. A collection of essays submitted to a publisher was rejected; the material wouldn’t appeal to a broad audience.

Undaunted, I started writing a novel and finished it four years later. By that time, my kids were in elementary school. I wrote after they went to bed and on weekends. Early readers said the book was “well-written, but too dark.” 

Later, I worked at a biotechnology company with an office looking over Lake Union. I’d watch seaplanes land and think about the psych ward residents where I’d worked. I wrote an essay about Elsie, a white-haired resident who refused to talk after her dentures were stolen. But it fell flat, and I didn’t send it out.

In 2016, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Four surgeries and a year of treatment later, I retired early to write novels. But my brain was fuzzy. I couldn’t remember the word “cheddar” and wrote “orange cheese.” “Don’t quit,” said a woman when I left the Friday morning session in tears. 

I read novels, devoured craft books and attended online classes. I subscribed to Publishers Marketplace and read about book deals. In 2019, I queried a novel about a sailing artist and learned the manuscript needed “voice” and was “episodic.” I revised it and queried more agents. A publisher and an agent in #PitMad asked for the full. Both turned it down. After 93 queries, I shelved the novel and started a novel about Elsie, my favorite resident in the psych ward.

This time, I hired a developmental editor, Tiffany Yates Martin of FoxPrint Editing, author of Intuitive Editing. When I read her thirteen-page dev edit letter, I set it aside and went for a walk in the rain. Was I fool to try to write a book? 

When we talked, Tiffany said, “Why are you writing this?”

In a tight voice, I said, “So, she can escape and go home.”

My characters needed agency. Sol Stein in Stein on Writing book suggests picturing our main character walking in our office and speaking directly to us. What would they say?

When I did the exercise, Jacklyn Stone, the owner of a garden store, introduced herself. She was strong and could toss a bale of peat moss into the back of a pickup. She wore shorts year-round with different colored socks. I re-wrote the novel with Jacklyn as the protagonist and changed the time period to a contemporary setting. When the story slowed midway, I jumped to the last third of the book and wrote the ending.

I sent a revised manuscript to Tiffany for dev edits and revised it again. In April 2022 I queried literary agents, sending ten personalized pitches at a time. One asked for a full within three minutes of my emailing her, but rejected it two weeks later.

By the end of September 2022, I’d queried 92 agents and three publishers for Shore Lodge. One publisher said the “writing was brilliant” but the book was “between genres.” I took our dog out for a walk and thought about what I’d learned. 1. My writing had improved. A publisher called it brilliant. 2. The novel was between genres. Did I want to make changes? How could I improve the book to make it meet reader expectations? 3. Beta reader feedback indicated the beginning of the novel was slow. Readers needed to reach Shore Lodge, where Jacklyn is admitted by a family member against her will, earlier in the book. Why not cut the slow parts?

In a week, I cut eight-thousand words from the manuscript. It now fits the psychological thriller genre. Because I want people to read my novels, I decided to indie publish Shore Lodge. On October 26, 2022, the paperback was released, and the e-book was published a week later. I’m running Amazon ads and approached my local bookstore with an author copy and sell sheet. As I write this, I’m smiling because people are reading Shore Lodge and buying it online. Despite a diagnosis of disease, raising children, working a fulltime job and rejections, it was worth to learn how to tell a story and share it with others.

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Susan Specht Oram is writing mysteries, thrillers and suspense novels. The book Shore Lodge was loosely inspired by her experiences working in a locked psychiatric unit of an upscale nursing home. Her essays were published in Mothering Magazine, Twins Magazine and Utne Reader. She’s written brief business books and humorous books from a rescue dog’s point of view. Susan grew up near Detroit, Michigan and lives in a windy part of the Pacific Northwest with her trumpet-playing husband and their rescue dog. Sign up for her monthly newsletter at: www.susanspechtoram.com

SHORE LODGE

Her grief threatened to swallow her whole. When a seed of betrayal plants a devastating truth, will blood prove thicker than vengeance?
Jacklyn Stone is struggling to stay strong. Left bewildered by her husband’s death, the devastated widow feels her usually competent management over her garden shop sliding into chaos. So when her son and daughter suggest a brief vacation to help speed up her healing, she heads to the remote retreat… only to realize she can’t check out.

With her skin crawling as the so-called getaway reveals its true nature as a psychiatric facility, Jacklyn fights to establish her mental stability. But with her child determined to leave her locked in the gilded cage, she fears the tightly sealed grounds will be the permanent backdrop to her golden years.

Can she reclaim her home before it’s forever destroyed?

Shore Lodge is a pulse-pounding psychological thriller. If you like heroines with grit, tense stakes, and shocking treachery, then you’ll love Susan Specht Oram’s relentless revenge.

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Tags: featured, women writers

Category: On Writing