On Being a Published Author

I didn’t have high expectations when I entered the women’s fiction division of the Tampa Area Romance Writer’s Contest. All I really wanted was some quality feedback on the first draft of the manuscript I had recently finished. And, truth be told, I needed a distraction.

The agent I had signed with a couple of months earlier was shopping a manuscript that I had previously written, and all those big, New York City editors reading my work was All. I. Could. Think. About.

A few weeks later (during which I had been editing said manuscript daily), I received that fabulous feedback I had been looking for—along with the news that Dear Carolina was a finalist in the TARA. A few weeks after that I also received an email that Dear Carolina had won the contest! I was thrilled, of course, but, as I continued reading, that thrilled turned into elated. An editor at Berkley Books, a division of Penguin Random House, had requested my manuscript.

My agent, of course, zipped the manuscript right over. Then we waited. And it seemed like a good time to start biting my nails if I was going to. Every time I opened my email for what seemed like the three longest months of my life, I knew that there could be a message waiting that would either make me jump-up-and-down excited or snuggle-up-with-a-pint-of-Haagen-Daz disappointed.

Eventually, with no warning whatsoever, that email appeared in my nervous little inbox. It was of the Haagen Daz variety. The editor loved the novel, but she thought the voices of the two main characters were too similar. I was completely deflated, but my agent very sagely advised that, if I could rewrite the book, he might be able to orchestrate a second chance.

Fortunately, this was a problem I knew I could solve. You see, when I was writing Jodi in Dear Carolina, the voice you read now, that very southern dialect, was how I heard her voice in my head. But, knowing that I wanted a “big five” New York publisher, I was afraid something so southern would alienate editors and readers alike. But, basically, this was my shot. I rewrote Jodi’s voice, just like I had heard it, in one weekend—and I resubmit the book.

Three nail-biting (Yeah. I finally just took it up.) months later, I heard that the editor loved it, but now the president of the publishing house had to love it also. Three more grueling months passed, and I heard that she also loved it but now the entire editorial board had to unanimously agree that they not only loved Dear Carolina but that they also had a clear vision of its space in the marketplace… Sigh.

At that point, I was thinking no one has ever agreed on anything unanimously. I had written another manuscript after Dear Carolina, but my nerves were so shot that I wasn’t even sure I could continue doing this. It was like my life hung in the balance of this decision.

The meeting where the board was to make the decision got pushed two or three times, then my book got bumped off the roster two or three times after that, but, finally, after several more months, I was told that it was absolutely the day they would make the decision.

I strolled my son to preschool, went home and, as soon as I got there, my phone rang. It was barely 9 a.m., so I felt like it wasn’t good news. It was my agent. He said, “How are you doing?”

And I answered, quite honestly, “I have no idea. How am I doing?”

He laughed. “You’re doing great.”

It was like my whole world changed right in that moment. I went downstairs, opened the fridge and, instead of Haagen Daz, reached for the champagne.

That was such a lesson to me that when you’re writing something, if it doesn’t feel authentic to you, it doesn’t feel authentic to the reader either. It’s a lesson that I carried through the writing of Lies and Other Acts of Love (Berkley, Penguin Random House, 4.5.16) and a lesson that I hope will lead to the same results as I turn in the third manuscript I recently finished.

It is inexplicable how much my life has changed in such a short few months, and, what’s more, incredible how I feel like this is what I was meant to do, being an author was where my path was always supposed to lead.

Are there easier journeys? Most definitely. Ones that are less nerve-racking? For sure. But what I’ve learned over the past year is that, if you just keep opening doors, at some point one will open—even if it’s when you least expect it.

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Tags: Dear Carolina, featured, women writers, women's fiction

Category: Contemporary Women Writers, On Publishing