Your First Time...

[maestrowork]

(no, not that. Get your mind out of the gutter)

With so many people frustrated and discouraged about getting their first novel/stories/articles published: the endless waiting, the mind-numbing rejections.... I think it's good for us to have some "inspirational" stories here. Every author has his or her first time. Do you think we should share our stories so the "noobies" could see that publishing is not all a hopeless country club?

It doesn't have to be first novel, even though this is the novel forum.

What were the circumstances? What did you do? What did you write? How did you get your "foot in the door"? How did you feel? What other things did you have to do?

[mommie4a]

With a thread title like that, how could I not look? You're so cruel.

That aside, and the fact that I don't do novels, I agree that inspirational stories of first publication help keep us afloat.

A friend suggested I start freelance writing after I'd been working in another profession for several years. I have no degrees related to writing or journalism or the English language.

I studied the industry of freelance writing for nine months before I submitted even my first "letter to an editor" (which was published, but I don't count that now - though I did then! It was a meaty letter). But still, nearly a year after deciding to be a freelance writer, I hadn't submitted anything for paid publication. I was, however, working on two non-fiction book ideas.

Finally, in May 2002, I submitted an op-ed and it was accepted and published and paid for. My next published piece came that same month with the same paper. And then, I didn't submit anything except for two contest entries for seven months. In the eighth month, now Jan. 2003, I submitted to an essay contest and placed in the top 10, went to a writer's conference (connected to the contest, sponsored by The Writer mag) and got fired up. Four weeks later, I sent my first query (based on one of my nonfiction books) and got an assignment for four articles from one regional parenting publication. That was June 2003.

Fast forward, and I'm now a contributing editor and regular columnist for that magazine (I'm even comfortable enough to have said no to that editor for the first time ever, yesterday). And I've got a lot of other clips, credits, awards etc. AND REJECTIONS.

You just have to keep plowing through. There's a pattern here - it's called work hard, don't give up, get published. It can and will happen, but you have to make it happen.

[Maryn]

I'm still working on that first novel being published (it'd be nice to finish it!), but I vividly remember that first short story in a national market. The genre I write in, suspense, had, at the time, only three markets for short stories (now only two), and the one I thought the best fit had rejected my story, which was a first-person account of a straight guy going to a gay bar in order to meet guys, go home with them, then rob them. Unfortunately, he chose a fellow named Dahmer...

I didn't hold out much hope for the other one to buy it, but dutifully submitted it. Six weeks went by, then I saw my SASE, looking a bit worse for the wear. It wasn't thick--I was expecting my manuscript's first page rubber stamped "Not for us" (which I'd received from this magazine before).

When I opened it, of course, there was an actual personalized letter making an offer to buy it at slightly above the going rate and asking for a short bio (which they didn't use, once they learned I'd taken a class from someone whose work appeared there fairly often).

And such a rush! It's hard to liken it to anything I've felt as an adult, before or since. The closest I can come is that junior-high feeling. You remember, the one you get the moment you realize for certain that s/he likes you and you feel almost high (in a way you don't yet recognize, in your youthful naivete). You smile for hours at nobody, and when you purposefully wipe the smile off your face, it returns unbidden. The only bad thing is you're too old to skip.

I've made a few other sales since then, but never felt quite the same upon hearing the news.

Maryn, whose writing career got way sidetracked

[Christine N.]

Um.. let's see. I worked on my book for about three years, off and on, not really knowing if I wanted to publish it or not. Not really knowing if it was publishable. I started doing research on what I needed to do; write queries, blah, blah... Once the book was done, I joined Critters and had some great critiques, cleaned it up and started sending it out.

Once the agent quest went bust, I rewrote the query (thank you Maestro) and sent it to a few small publishers. All of which I researched thoroughly beforehand. Three out of three wanted to read it, and one beat the others out to make me an offer.

Since then, I've written a short story and had it put into an anthology. But I was invited to sub for that. LOL. I came up with something suitable in about... three hours.
Now I'm cleaning up another book to sub, with the sequal on deck .

And I've sold a couple of freelance articles to places like Associated Content.

[victoriastrauss]

Wrote my first novel when I was 17. Sent it around to various publishers (these were the days when you could easily get in over the transom). Got some nice comments, but no takers.

A couple of years later it landed on the desk of an editor who was about to start her own literary agency. She offered to represent it. I, knowing zip about agents but sick of packaging the thing up and sending it out, said "Sure." She has since become extremely successful--a major stroke of luck for me, as I suppose it could as easily have turned out the other way.

She sent it out--nice comments again, but no buyers. After another couple of years she'd exhausted all the markets, and put submission on hold. I, meanwhile, fatalistic and lazy person that I am, had decided I was crazy to imagine I could be a writer, and resigned myself to a life of horrid day jobs. I basically made myself forget I had an agent and stuck my ambitions so far back on a shelf that they ceased even to appear in my dreams.

But my agent was more optimistic than I (thank goodness) and never gave up. Every time a new imprint opened or a new editor moved to an imprint where she'd already submitted, she sent my manuscript out again. One day, eight years after I'd written the novel and six years after my agent took me on, I got a call: an editor at Frederick Warne (publisher of the Peter Rabbit books, then an independent publisher, now an imprint of Penguin) loved it and wanted to publish it. It was one of the most surreal moments of my life, because I had completely, and I mean completely, abandoned hope. I really thought someone was playing a joke on me.

I wonder sometimes if I'd be writing today if that call had never come. I hope I would be, but given my temperament and the fact that I don't greatly enjoy a lot of the writing process, I think it's just as likely that I wouldn't be. I also think about the years I wasted pretending to myself that I'd never REALLY wanted to be a writer (because of course I was lying to myself--it's all I've ever wanted), when I could have been building my skills and writing other novels that my agent maybe could have sold more quickly. If I could change one thing about the past, that would be it. I truly regret that lost time.

So the moral of my story isn't that your moment may come, even if you've given up all hope. It's this: If writing is what you want, you should never, EVER stop.

- Victoria

[maestrowork]

Eight years? Wow. Perseverance really paid off.

Guys, your stories are inspirational. Keep them coming!

[Tish Davidson]

I had been freelancing for about 6 months and had already published about half a dozen stories in regional magazines and newspapers when I sent a query to Parade Magazine (for those non-US readers, it is a national magazine insert to Sunday newspapers with a huge circulation). About two weeks later, the editor called me while we were eating dinner. I was so excited, I almost forgot my own name. I probably sounded like a blitherind idiot and I swear my feet did not touch the ground for days. That was when I really thought I could make it as a freelancer.

[Hidden Helper]

Great stories. Keep them coming. All you seem to hear about is how few wannabe authors actually get published. But some do, and why not us?? :)

[Jamesaritchie]

My first time was with a girl named. . .oh, wait, wrong subject.

Writing. Yeah, that's it. Anyway, I don't think there's much that's inspiration about it.

First short story sale. I was a high school drop out with a rotten job and no prospects. Then I read an article wherein Robert Heinlein said he wrote his first short story becuase he had a bill he couldn't pay. I think it was his electric bill. I'd neve rthought about being a writer, but I also had bills I couldn't pay, so I thought, "Why not?'

That same week, I found an old copy of Writer's Digest, a magazine I didn't even know existed. I read it, went to the librray and found they had back issues. Checked them out, and got myself a grammar book because I didn't know a comma from a coma. I spent three weeks reading the WDs and the grammar book, then sat down and spent two days typing out a short story of, geeze, about 8,000 words. I mailed the first draft (Didn't know you were supposed to write more than one draft!) to a magazine called Far West, and they bought it. And paid almost as much as my day job paid in a month. I quit my day job. I sold two more short stories to different magazines over the next month or so.

First novel came about two months later. I wrote the first quick couple of chapters and mailed it to an agent. I knew nothing about agents, and I picked that one because I liked her name. (Though I did make sure she handled the kind of novel I wanted to write.) Thinking I'd have months and months to finish the thing, I neglected to mention that the novel wasn't finished. Imagine my surprise when the agent called me about five minutes after I mailed that chapter and said she wanted the novel, and knew an editor who needed one just like it to fill a slot.

I told the agent I really needed to write one more draft before it would be ready. Well, I did. I needed to write the first draft. She said fine, but she needed the finished manuscript no later than the first of the next month. I said sure, no problem.

Somehow, even though I had no idea where the novel was going, I managed to write the thing in three weeks, and I mailed it to the agent, she sent it to the editor, and the editor bought it about three weeks later.

I can't see much that's inspirational about it. That first short story came about not because I wanted to be a writer, but only because I was confident to believe that what one man could do, I could duplicate. . .and ignorant enough not to realize Robert Heinlein's case was somewhat out of the ordinary.

There was certainly luck involved with the agent. I decided to write the kind of novel I read most often, happened to send it to an agent who happened to know an editor who happened to need a novel like mine to fill a slot.

[KimJo]

My first publication is one that I always forget to count as a publication.

Back in 2000, I taught special ed in a VERY small school with a VERY small budget. I needed phonics-based stories for my students, but couldn't afford to purchase any of the ones I found in catalogues. So I wrote my own, following the sequence of a phonics program developed by my college advisor. After seeing the reading skills gains in my students over the first six months of using my stories, I got in touch with my old advisor and told her about them. She was interested, since she'd been looking for reading materials to go with her program, and the company that she and her partner created to publish her program ended up publishing my 75 phonics-based short stories in two readers.

[Jamesaritchie]

Oh, and to echo Victoria, had that first short story not sold, or maybe the second, the sales were very close together, I'm pretty certain I wouldn't be a writer today. I never had the dream of being a writer, and while I found I love the process of writing, I have no doubt I would have moved on to other ways of making money had I not started selling immediately.

I'm neither fatalistic nor pessimistic, but I am the kind to move on without regret when something fails. There's always another idea, another interest, another way of making money and finding satisfaction.

[pepperlandgirl]

I’ve submitted a few short stories and poems—a handful at most—and received nothing but rejections. In the meantime, I had a few novel-length stories I wrote for my friends, and they really liked them. So I chose the strongest one, New Frontier, and started the long process of revision. I had three drafts total, I believe, and roped people into acting as betas. It is erotica, so I started researching publishers. It seemed that e-publishers seemed to be the ones most likely to publish my erotica novel, so I sent it to the most successful one, Ellora’s Cave. After six months, (and reading the full MS), they said it wasn’t smutty enough and I should submit it to their new “mainstream” imprint. I figure it’s a half-rejection. So I submitted it to their new imprint and started checking out other epublishers. And waited and waited and waited. Finally, after six months, I figure, “It’s the same editors. If they wanted it, they would have said something.” I withdrew the MS from consideration, and submitted it to Liquid Silver Books in Sep, I believe. By November they requested the full MS.



I was in Italy when I got the news that they wanted to buy New Frontier. That was about six weeks after they requested the full MS. The first thing I did as a published author was visit the Spanish Steps and the Keats-Shelley Museum.

[GWBailey]

I first got published in the late 1980s writing freelance hardware and software reviews and feature articles for Computer Shopper magazine. It started with a phone call to the editor at the time, Stan Veit, who I found to be a gruff talking guy. I pitched my article idea and he said, “Sounds good. Send it in.” So I wrote my article up and mailed in the manuscript. I didn’t hear back for a long time. One day I went down to the mailbox and got a letter that looked like a piece of junk mail. Yep, the check for the article--$75. I was thrilled! It was that feeling of…this is possible. It is possible to get published!

[E.G. Gammon]

Thanks maestrowork for this thread. It's just the kind of thing to get me motivated. Keep the stories coming!

[KTC]

My first publication was in Jan of 2002, I think...I guess the date doesn't matter much. I have been writing, literally, since I was about 7 or 8 years old. In grade 8 I had a horrible experience with an English teacher. She accused me of plagiarism. We had to write a poem and then read it to the class. She accused me and then made me go to an empty room by myself and write a new poem. She came in to check on me ten minutes later and I gave her the new poem. She read it, crumpled the piece of paper and chucked it in the garbage...then she continued to belittle me all the way back to the class. Needless to say I felt a little burned. And when you're that age everybody is impressionable. I never showed anybody my writing again until years later...and then it was only my future wife. After sharing only with her for about 16-17 years she convinced me to join the local writing circle. They have breakfast meetings once a month where they have editors/writers/agents etc come and talk and we mingle, etc. The first breakfast I went to featured the editor of one of the most popular columns in Canada...The Globe & Mail's Facts & Arguments. After the breakfast I went directly home and emailed the editor a piece I had written just a couple weeks earlier.

Sorry for the preamble...I was just filling you in on why it took me so long to get published.

The editor accepted my piece a week later and THAT was my first publication...Canada wide circulation. I could not believe it. I still don't believe it. And Mrs. LaFrance did not hunt me down to accuse me of plagiarism again! You have no idea the negative effect she had on me. Thank God for persistant spouses!

There is another piece to this first publication story. My wife, wanting to mark the occasion and totally embarrass me, took the piece to get it framed. She was telling the framer the whole story...thank God I wasn't there (You should have seen her...I was feeling just stunned but she was walking around like she had finally been validated...I think she would have had a parade if possible.). After she told the story she took out the page of the newspaper and handed it over to the framer. The framer called someone out from the back room and the two tell my wife how much the piece moved them...they read it the day before and one of them even cried. They were talking about it just a couple of hours before my wife came into the shop. <<<That was the best part of the experience...to know that not only did people read it, but they liked it and carried it with them?!

Anyway...too late to make a long story short...the framer did the job for free and I have my first publication sitting above my computer.

Still working on getting my first novel published. I feel like that is never going to happen. My fiction is not as strong as my poetry and non-fiction and I curse myself every day for that!

Sorry to ramble...you may continue!

[Pencilone]

Thanks guys, it's so good to hear such good news.

Please keep the ball rolling. This thread is an inspiration for me too...
:Cheers:

[Richard White]

My first paid writing assignment was in 1975 when I submitted my first sports article for the local paper. The editor liked my work (with a little rewrite and some one-on-one mentoring) and I wound up getting the full-time sports writing gig. I was a sophomore in High School then. By the time I was a senior, I was the Sports Editor with two other writers working for me.

After college, I joined the Army where I became an Analyst/Reporter. Completely different style of writing, but still getting paid to write. Papers I wrote were read by Senior Officers and Senior members of the Government at various times in my career, (1984-1999).

In 1992, I started writing comics, self-publishing in 1994-95. Self-publishing in comics has much less of a stigma than it does in book-publishing and I got some fairly good reviews. Unfortunately, we just missed the second B&W explosion and got caught in the market implosion that shortly followed.

However, an editor had seen my book and offered me a chance to write a short story for an "Incredible Hulk" Anthology that Marvel was doing. Steve Roman and I did Assault on Avenger's Mansion in 1998, which was my first "professional" short story sale.

Now that I'm out of the Army, I work as a Tech Writer (which some days feels like I'm writing fiction. ;) ). Not the type of writing I thought I'd be doing at this point in my life, but hey, it pays the mortgage and lets me go to SF/F conventions.

I was talking to my old editor one evening when he asked if I was interested in doing a fantasy story, since I had a degree in Medieval History. That's how I got offered the chance to pitch for "Gauntlet: Dark Legacy". Midway Entertainment liked my story, so that's how Paths of Evil came out last July (my first novel) and now the sequel Paths of Fear will be out this fall. The Gauntlet story directly led to my opportunity to pitch for the "Star Trek: Starfleet Corps of Engineers" novella that will be coming out next spring and so the story goes.

I'm still working on my first "independent" novel, which I hope to start pitching next year, but I'm finding out with media tie-ins, once you get the first work, the others slowly start to follow, especially once the editors find you can hit deadlines with minimal corrections.

[DixieChic]

About 12 years ago, I had a really bad date. The kind of date that's funny afterwards -- long afterwards -- but at the time is actually kind of scary.

I felt compelled to document this bizarre moment in my life, so I sat down and wrote a first-person piece of about 1200 words. It made several of my friends laugh, so I went to the bookstore, looked up the name of an editor and Fed-exed the complete article to him. (I had no idea what I was doing.)

The fates were on my side. I got a call from the editor the very next day, saying he wanted to publish my story in the next issue. He also offered me an assignment for the issue after that.

Eventually, he hired me as an editor on the publication and I've been happily avoiding the real world ever since :-)

I still have a Xerox of that first check for $100.

[zeprosnepsid]

I got my first freelance publication too easily really. It made me think freelancing would be easy = ) Getting gigs since then has proved a lot harder!

But there is this girl I used to be friends with. But she's always embarassing herself in public and it drives me crazy. Well, she was writing for a pretty well respected website. And I was like -- if she can do it, I can clearly do it. So I looked around for a website to write for. I was working in a comic book shop at the time and one of our regulars was a writer on moviepoopshoot.com (kevin smith's pop culture website). So I looked there. I saw what columns they had and then tried to find something to pitch to them. I noticed they didn't have anyone covering foreign films. So I wrote a crazy query and the editor was all for it. I've been writing there for over a year now.

So that was easy, but it made me think I could freelance. Later, when I got really sick and couldn't go to work anymore, I tried to become a freelancer so I could work at home (I certainly had mounting medical bills). Fortunately, I had months worth of clips from my regular column and that helped a lot. All because I thought I was better than a 'friend' of mine -- and if she could do it...

Now I'm having a blast doing entertainment journalism. I get to interview cool people and see movies for free (yea for press screenings!). But I have gone back to my regular job now that my illness is a bit better.

But freelancing, being sick and my actual job take up all my time so I've had trouble completing my fiction and getting it out there! Hopefully the next time someone puts up a topic like this I can talk about my first fiction sale.

[awatkins]

I can't remember which piece was actually published first, but I vividly remember my first acceptace letter. It was from a lit mag for a short story. When I pulled the envelope out of the mailbox and saw the return address, I nearly fainted. Then I opened it and read the letter--and started screaming and jumping up and down right there in the road. It's a wonder the neighbors didn't call the police!

Anyway, that story went on to be multi-published (and brought in multi $$). The thrill of that first acceptance...there's just nothing like it. Except maybe for the first-time thrill of seeing your words in print, in a magazine or book you can hold in your hands, and reading your name under the title!

[Lisamer]

Although I've published a few non fiction articles, I'm a fiction newbie. When I was inspired to write a fiction piece last summer, I posted it on zoetrope.com. Needless to say, people totally tore it apart. However, I took their advice to heart, and began to work on my fiction writing skills. My characters began to sound less like topics of a research article and more like real people.
Recently, my first fiction piece was accepted as a serial novel on keepitcoming.net. {see link in sig. file} Although this is not a high status accomplishment, the fact that I have to keep it as a serial until my 6-month contract runs out, has helped me develop the plot.

[AncientEagle]

My first was an unbelievably long time ago. I had been writing stuff since childhood and had been published (without pay) in a newspaper or two and a statewide magazine. Then, just days out of college, I wrote a 3000 word short story over a period of four days and mailed it out to a regional magazine. Some weeks later, I left to go into the Army (where I would spend the next three decades.) After I'd been in the Army a couple of months, I got a letter from the magazine saying my story was being held for additional consideration. After another spell, I got a check and galley proofs. Unfortunately, all this led me to believe writing fiction successfully was going to be easy. I took the inevitable rejections even harder than I might otherwise have, and tried to give up writing. It kept nagging at me. I wrote occasional stuff over the years, again without pay, for military publications, journals, newsletters, etc. Back in civilian life and working for a bank, I wrote or edited a good bit of commercial things for my employer, just as part of my job. Once I was forced to retire to take care of my invalid wife, I wrote a piece and submitted it to a national magazine; it was rejected. I sent it to the editor of the local weekly. He ran it as an op-ed piece and asked for more. I have continued, at a rate of two or three columns a month, for the past five-plus years, this time for pay. I have written columns for a couple of military journals and am currently under contract to provide one chapter of a large military history volume. I have written one "trunk" novel, am slowly working on another, and am in the final, I hope, stages of rewrite of a non-fiction work about my wife's battle with concurrent cancer and paralysis. None of this was ever as easy as the sale of that first short story tricked me into believing it would be.

Sorry to be so long-winded. I've enjoyed all the posts on this thread.

[LightShadow]

I've been writing all my life, but only seriously the last 20 years. My first time was in 1992 with one of those stupid poetry contests that everyone enters. It didn't matter that a million people was in that book. The fact that I could open the book and see a work by me made it all worth while, and drove me harder for real publication, which in my book means a novel published by a U.S. Publisher that requires an agent for submissions. When that happens, I'll let you know. I'm on the edge right now.

[ChunkyC]

Great thread, Maestro! You have to post your story too, y'know. ;)

I used to work at a movie theatre as part time projectionist. I became friends with the theatre manager, a wonderful lady named Sandy. A few years after leaving that job, the local newspaper called me at my day job. Apparently, they had been talking to Sandy about finding someone to write a weekly movie review column and for some unknown reason, Sandy had suggested me.

Well, I had dabbled with creative writing off and on most of my life, but had never been serious about it. Mostly daydreams of being interviewed after winning the Pulitzer, stuff like that. Now I was faced with actually penning a coherent 500 word critique of a movie. I submitted three examples as requested, and lo and behold, they gave me the job.

It may be a small town newspaper with a readership of less than 20,000, but I am truly proud to say that this weekend, I'll be filing my 199th consecutive column.

Though I have yet to make a fiction sale, since getting the newspaper gig I have written two novels and am nearly ready to start submitting #2 and start writing #3.

To this day I have no idea why Sandy suggested me to the editor of the paper. If I mentioned an interest in writing to her at any time while working for her, I do not remember. Because of her, my interest in writing was reawakened, and so every success I may have as a writer, now and in the future, I owe to her.

[azbikergirl]

My first (and thus far, my only) publication was non-fiction -- a tech book published in 1999. Although not fiction, it was a thrill to "be published."

I'd been a technical writer for seven years before going into software engineering. As a programmer, I had some experience using a particular piece of software, about which the publisher wanted to put out a book. The editor found my resume online and sent me an email, asking if I'd like to write part or all of it. Imagine that!

[laurenbarnholdt]

Great topic! Here's my first sale story:

I finished my first YA novel around 2001 and started querying agents. I landed one, who then left the agency right as we were getting ready to submit. I was devestated. I figured I would never, ever get another agent.

I started querying again, though, and finally did land another one. She shopped my book around, and it was rejected by every major New York publisher, along with some of the smaller ones. I cried. I swore I was never going to write again. And then I started another YA book.

I decided my agent and I might not be a good fit, and I started querying new ones. I was offered representation for my book, IN THE HOUSE, even though I only had about eighty pages finished. My new agent sent it out to a few publishers, and two weeks later, Simon and Schuster offered me a two-book deal.

It was seriously one of the best moments of my life. Every time I hear people say they're about to give up, I wish I could show them how good it feels when you finally sell. It makes everything completely worth it. I really believe that those who break through are the ones that just won't give up.

Anyway, you can read a funnier, more in-depth version of this story on my website under the "for writers" section. And if anyone has any questions, you can always drop me an email -- the address is on my website or in my profile. Happy writing everyone!

~Lauren Barnholdt www.laurenbarnholdt.com (http://www.laurenbarnholdt.com)

[maestrowork]

Congrats, Lauren!

My book will be coming out this November. So I can understand your excitement!

Perseverance. Absolutely! It pays off.

[aruna]

Found this thread and thought I'd add my story!

I left school at 18 with not an idea of what to do next. Yes, i loved reading but had never even considered writing - I didn't think I was good enough. If possible, i just wanted to go on having a good time but my mother insisted that i get a job. But what?

I happened to read an ad in the local newspaper that they were looking for trainee journalists. Now, I was good at writing so i decided to apply. Out of a couple of hundred applicants, three were chosen, myself and two young men.

I enjoyed the work from the start and did well. Soon I had my own byline. Only one thing bothered me. Every time I went to my editor's office he asked me to sit on his lap, and every time I refused.

We were on three months trial, and at the end of the trial I was dismissed. The two other guys were taken on. I don't know if they sat on the editor's lap or not. I was devastated because I loved the work; so I went around to all the other newspapers looking for a new job. I was taken on by the rival newspaper, and to make a long story short I put the editor who had fired me to shame becuase I became their leading and most popular feature writer by the end of that year!

Jump forward several decades. I was in my late forties, hadn't been writing for all this time. Married, two children, not much money, and freezing cold in winter as we had no centarl heating in our German farmhouse. All sorts of problems. And then, out of the blue, the idea for a novel. I began writing and couldn't stop. I worked on a sort of primitive word processor: it had no hard disk, but could store stuff on floppies. I had to save each chapter on its own floppy, but at least I could cut and paste (not easy when you are doing it between floppies, and you aren't wuite sure which is the right one!)

When I had a first draft I had no idea what to do, so I subsribed to a writers magazine. There I saw an article about a London agent who had just left a publishing company to start up on her own, and was looking for clients. I sent her the partial and, on her request, the full ms.

She asked me to come and see her. I was so naive at the time I had no idea what to expect; I flew over to London a bundle of nerves, fully expecting that she would say it was terrible (and had asked me to come all this way to say so!)But her first words were: it's terrific!

Her second words were: but it needs a lot of work. She wanted to help me get it right. The ms was over 700 pages long and right then and there she began towork onit with me: she crossed out page after page after page, told me al sorts of things about it, and said to send it back when I was finished. So i returned to Germany, one happy lady.

To cut a long story short, I got the ms down to 400+ pages, she liked it, and submitted it. Afte a few rejections she said I should do some more work on it, and I did (this time we met in Frankfurt, at the Book fair). This process went on for some time. All in all I worked on that book for four years, and even after all our effort - and she worked really hard for me - every publisher in London rejected it - though their words were encouraging.

I was in the very depths of despair, as things were going from bad to worse in my life, and I could do with some good news. And the agent was getting more and more distant. I remember once calling her up, and, on hearing that nothing was happening, bursting into tears on the phone.
But one day I came to my senses, dumped that project, and began writing a new book.

This one kind of leapt off my fingers, and the agent liked the first chapter. But when I sent the full ms to her, she took ages to read it. Months and months. Desperate for feedback, I turned to a freelance editor and though I didn't have much money I decided this was worth it.

She made some brilliant suggestions; I made several changes to the book and sent it back to her. Now, this editor callls herself a "scout for a leading agent" and she went on to prove this; she sent it straight to that agent, and the next thing I knew, I had another call to London. I even stayed at the agent's house. She told me she loved it, and that she had been very naughty; she had already sent it to an editor, even though I had not yet signed up with her. Well, I wasn't going to object! She said she wanted to put it to auction.

Soon after that I went on holiday and I was fast asleep recovering from jet lag when I got the telepone call that three top publishers had bid on it, and I had to choose one. So I did, (I chose HarperCollins) and the rest is history.

[aruna]

Anyway, you can read a funnier, more in-depth version of this story on my website under the "for writers" section. And if anyone has any questions, you can always drop me an email -- the address is on my website or in my profile. Happy writing everyone!

~Lauren Barnholdt www.laurenbarnholdt.com (http://www.laurenbarnholdt.com)

Read your story, Lauren, and loved it - quite similar to mine, in fact! Congratulations and good luck!

[maestrowork]

Great story, Sharon. And I look forward to reading your books -- they sound fascinating!

[aruna]

Great story, Sharon. And I look forward to reading your books -- they sound fascinating!

Thanks Maestro! I think the moral of this story, and of Lauren's, is that, sad as it might seem, it isn't always the first novel that gets published, and yet you have to put your heart and soul into it completely. I would have been devastated, during the writing of it, to know it would never find "success" - all that effort, for nothing! But it wasn't "for nothing" . All the blood sweat and tears, all the effort, went into making me a much, much better writer and it was all worth it in the end. People ask me now why I don't recycle the first one, but I never would - the later ones were better, and I want to move on, not back. The first one was really my apprentice novel, and indispensible.

[KTC]

Wow Sharon! Phenomenal story! Thanks for sharing. It gives us hope!

[LadyLazarus]

Sharon + Lauren - both inspirational stories for people like me...I'm just writing the first draft of the first novel at the moment, with the aim of getting it published one day. Thanks for sharing your stories :) fills me with a small glimmer of hope!

[KTC]

Lauren,

I read your long version on the site. Sounded like too good of a story not to. And I was right. I can see you hitting your boyfriend to shush him, as well as bursting into tears once you hung up. Very inspirational! Thanks for sharing. You offer hope.

[Zolah]

Let's see...I wrote my first story (about a rabbit and a pig having a party) when I was about eight, I think, and soon followed it up with 'The Magic Shoes', 'The Crimson Moon' 'The Ghost', 'Shadow Hands' and many others which did the rounds among my friends. At first all my stories were fantasy, for people about the same age as me, but in my teens I decided I wanted to write romance intstead and started work on my first novel.

I finished it when I was sixteen, sent it to a big publisher (the only one I really knew about) and got rejected, but with nice comments. With boundless optimism I started a new one, sent that in, and had it rejected too, this time with no nice comments. I was shattered.

What followed was a period of about three years when I was always 'working on something' but never actually writing. At the time I was miserable and convinced I would never finish anything ever again. But in fact this fallow period was the best thing that could have happened to me, because I spent it (in lieu of actually writing) doing scads and scads of research on every aspect of the publishing business - and reading more widely than I ever had before, trying to figure out what I wanted to write. At the end of that time I emerged as someone who actually had a fair grasp of the 'right way' to go about getting published, and who knew, absolutely, what she wanted to write.

I finished my first YA fantasy at the age of twenty and started sending it out. At first it was just like before - rejection after rejection, most with nice comments, but rejections just the same. Once I thought I had found a publisher, only to have the book 'orphaned' before a contract was signed. Finally the ms crossed the desk of an editor who thought that, with some work, the book would deserve publication. He and I worked together for almost six months, I think, completely re-working the book. He showed it to various people at the firm, including his boss, and they all seemed impressed. At the end of this process we were both so proud of the book, and sure it would be easy to sell to the rest of the company at the aquisitions meeting. I told everyone 'I think this is it!'

It was rejected.

Thank God I had already started on a new story, or I might have jumped off a cliff. The editor made me promise to send the new one to him as soon as I finished, and with his encouragement ringing in my ears I put my head down and wrote like a fiend (if fiends could write), finishing the new book in August that year. I sent it to the editor, and he emailed me back the same day. The first line of the email said: 'This is very, very good'. I held my breath....

And kept on holding it through September and October. Then I was invited to come down to London and 'have a chat' with the editor and his boss - who also turned out to be the Editorial Director of the fiction department. I had a very nice lunch, talked for what seemed like hours, and at the end of the day staggered home with an agreement to work on revisions for what seemed like a huge amount of money as a development fee.

While I was working on the revisions, I decided to follow the advice of the editor and look for an agent. I sent three chapters and a synopsis to one agency and got on with things. About two months later (having forgotten that I was waiting to hear back about the ms) I got a phonecall from a very posh lady - so posh that I thought it must be a wrong number and nearly hung up. She was the agent I had submitted to, and she said that she loved the three chapters I had sent - please would I send her the rest? I did. A week and another phonecall later, I had an agent.

Christmas came and went. I submitted the revised ms and waited some more - but this time with a sympathetic agent to complain to, which was a vast improvement. In January the editor emailed my agent to say that he was taking the ms to an aquisitions meeting on the 15th of February. On the evening of the 15th my agent emailed the editor and was told that there hadn't been time to discuss my book at the meeting this time - it would have to wait until the next one. When was the next one? They hadn't decided yet.

You may guess the sort of language which escaped my lips at this disclosure.

Then, a week later and completely unexpectedy, my agent phoned me up and told me that they'd made an offer for the book. She was going to negotiate for a higher advance and royalty rates. Stand by. A few days later I was the proud owner of an official offer, and could finally call up my family and friends and tell them I wasn't barmy after all. I really *was* a writer.

[La Reine]

What a great story, Zolah!

[aruna]

At the end of this process we were both so proud of the book, and sure it would be easy to sell to the rest of the company at the aquisitions meeting. I told everyone 'I think this is it!'

It was rejected.

.

Great story, Zorah! The above quote is a reminder that it's often not the editors who thwart us, its the dreaded aquisitions teams. Very often the editors themselves are excited about a book and would love to publish us; and then its thumbs down from aquisitions. It must be very frustrating.

[Zolah]

What a great story, Zolah!

Thank you. It proves that anyone can get published if they have a) a smidgeon of talent and b) the capacity to cry (and rage and scream and swear) but still keep on writing.

[Zolah]

Great story, Zorah! The above quote is a reminder that it's often not the editors who thwart us, its the dreaded aquisitions teams. Very often the editors themselves are excited about a book and would love to publish us; and then its thumbs down from aquisitions. It must be very frustrating.

And half the time we don't even know about it! We think some merciless editor has evilly rejected us - but sometimes they've done their best and then sadly had to reject it with a form letter. I sent that first book of mine to a certain publisher and didn't get it back for eight months (and in a very tatty condition) with a form rejection. What on earth had they been doing with it? I fumed as I imagined some cackling creature using it as a prop for a wobbly desk. Then I forgot about it.

A few months ago, my editor emailed me with a very funny story. He'd been talking to one of the copyeditors while they both waited at the printer (he printing out the latest version of my new ms) and they happened to start on the topic of who'd worked where in the past. The copyeditor told him that a few years before she'd been a junior at a publisher and had spent most of her time going through the slushpile.

'Ever find anything good?' My editor asked.

'Not really,' she said. "Well, there was this one book - it was called 'Blood Magic'...' and she started telling him about how she had discovered this wonderful ms (my ms!) by an unknown author (me!) in the slushpile, really liked it, and had struggled for months to try and get people to pay attention to it in the company. Eventually she gave up and sent it back to me with a form letter because she just didn't know what to say to me. AND I NEVER KNEW!

So it shows that 1) publishing is a very small business and 2) just because you get a form letter, doesn't mean your work is rubbish.

[aruna]

Zolah, that's another GREAT story! I also received a nice mail from my last editor; I had to part company with that publisher becuase of their acquisitons policy, but I always got on well with the editor and respect her; she basically said she'd love to work with me again and it's too bad it didn't work out - but she looks forward to reading me with another publisher. It's a very nice way to part company.

[Zolah]

The best way, Aruna - and yet another reason for encouraging people NOT to send nasty letters to the unfortunate editor whose name was on their rejection letter.

[icerose]

Well I would be adding something along the lines that my first two novels had been accepted and published if the publisher wasn't PA. So it doesn't count. I am still waiting for a real sale. Always hopefull it will come, but not hear yet. :)

[Cathy C]

Well, my story is a little different than most, because I HAVEN'T always wanted to be a writer. In fact, until 1995, I'd never even considered the notion. That's the year my mother died. She was an avid reader and thought I was a really good writer in high school. She wondered why I'd never tried my hand. Answer? I'd simply never considered it.


But, when she died, I thought, "What the heck! Why shouldn't I try my hand?" I was a big fan of the X-Files, and lived in a town with its own strange little legend. I wrote a book that tied the two together (i.e., Mulder and Scully visit my home town! LOL!) But it turned out that I really could write pretty well. A friend, who is now my co-author, was very complimentary about it and so I decided to see if I could sell it to the house that was producing the X-Files spin-off novels. But it was an agent-only house, so I started to look for agents. I got lots of rejections, but they weren't of the work. Nobody was interested in handling television tie-in projects. But they all suggested that if I wrote something original, to check back with them.

I also like researching history, and my husband adores westerns. He asked if I would write a short story just for him. I figured it would be a nice birthday gift, so I agreed. But when I started to research, I discovered not just a story, but a STORY!!! The fact that nobody had ever written it astounded me because it had all of the elements of a good western: intrigue, sabotage, a race where the loser would be financially destroyed, range wars, etc. And it really happened! I couldn't resist. The short story became a book, but I wasn't really invested in how long it took to write. I was having too much fun doing the research. I figured I might as well send in a few chapters to a local publisher, just because I can't stand to have anything just sitting. Man, was I surprised when I got a letter a week later, asking for the full manuscript. The publisher had one slot open for the following year, and thought it would be a perfect fit. Could I have the completed ms. to him by the end of the month? EEK! :eek:

But I sat down and gathered all of my research, found some other sources and kicked my tail so often that I ran on adrenaline and caffeine for two weeks. But I got it done, and in doing it, managed to find a terrific co-author, who helped me come up with a couple of fictional characters and subplots to insert to give the story depth. The editor loved the manuscript, loved the photos and old telegrams I found to make a center insert and the rest was history. It was a small pub, but the book has done well, and it made me realize that perhaps this whole writing thing could really be a career. The next book was likewise bought and now I'm working on the second of three for 2006, with queries from the publisher for a 2007 contract. And the X-Files novel? With the demise of the series, the books have stopped. But we're going to change the characters to different ones, and keep the plot. It's hopefully slated for one of the 2007 slots. Fingers crossed! Yay! :D

[cwfgal]

I started submitting short stories when I was 17 years old. I didn't see my first published work until twenty years later when I submitted an article to a professional magazine (nursing) and it was accepted and published. My payment was 5 copies of the mag. I didn't care that it wasn't cash -- I mainly wanted a published credit of some sort. (And like someone else, my first is framed and hanging on the wall, thanks to my mother.) I later submitted 2 more articles to the same mag and these were also published. I was paid in copies for the second one and received $75 in cash for the third one.

When my boss (the director of nursing at a hospital) heard about and read my articles, she passed them on to the marketing dept. I was then asked to write an article for the hospital's (actually it was a chain of hospitals) community mag. I did, it was published, and I was paid $250!! Woo hoo!

During this time, I was also writing novels. My first one, which was chick lit long before chick lit became popular, was sent out to 50 different agents and publishers before I finally gave up on it and threw it in the closet, where it still resides to this day (I did drag it out a few years ago and after reading the first few chapters I groaned, looked around with embarrassment to make sure no one saw me and knew this hideousness was hiding in the closet, and then tossed it back in there). With the second novel I went in a different direction and wrote the kind of book I love most to read, a suspense/thriller with a touch of the paranormal. When it was done, I started the agent queries. I made up a list of 30 target agents and sent queries out to the first five. When a rejection came in, I would send a query to the next name on the list. It took me 5 months. I had 6 agents request the entire ms, I had one agent reject me by writing "don't give up your day job" on my query and mailing it back to me, and a bunch of other routine rejections. Two of my queries were never answered at all. I had exhausted my list of 30 agents and there were still two who had the whole ms when I got a phone call at home on a Sunday afternoon. It was one of the agents (# 29 on my list) and she told me she loved the ms and was interested in repping me. First she wanted to suggest a few minor changes (she later told me that she always made her final decision on whether or not to rep an author based on how well they handled this suggestion and process) and three months later, we were ready to start submitting.

She targeted 6 publishers and two weeks later called me to tell me she had an offer from one for a $5K advance. She then told the other publishers about this offer and one of them also expressed an interest. My agent then called to tell me there would be a bidding war between these two publishers. I had some GREAT daydreams and fantasies over the next week, imagining how this was all going to play out. I considered what I'd do with the millions of dollars I was sure to get, imagined my TV and radio appearances (uh oh, serious diet time!), and thought about how to handle my coming fame. I waited eagerly for each call from my agent. The second publisher made a counter offer of $7500. A few days later the original publisher went up to $10K and offered a two-book contract. A few days after that the second publisher said, "Okay, you win."

Say what?

So much for the great bidding war.

So my millionaire dreams didn't play out, but I was pretty damned excited nonetheless. And in the meantime, my freelance writing opportunities were also growing (most of them healthcare related) and I eventually quit my day job and started writing full time. I made a nice living this way for about 6 years, despite being dumped by my publisher 4 years after selling them that first book (I sold them two more before I became orphaned). I eventually grew tired of the freelance stuff and found that writing was starting to feel like work instead of pleasure because of it. Plus, I had hardly any time or motivation for writing fiction, which has always been my first love. I also discovered I missed my old career in nursing and the many, many story and character ideas I got from my interactions with the people I encounter while working. So I went back to a "day job," gave up all my freelance writing, and turned my focus back to fiction. I've written three new novels since then, and I'm currently in search of a new agent, since my original one has now retired.

Beth

[aruna]

So I went back to a "day job," gave up all my freelance writing, and turned my focus back to fiction. I've written three new novels since then, and I'm currently in search of a new agent, since my original one has now retired.

Beth

ANother wonderful story. As for me, i am truly sick and tired of waiting for royalties and advances that come whenthey feel like coming, worrying about unpaid bills, borrowing money from friends to tide me over. I want a day job!!!! But not my old one. An opportunity has just come up, something utterly wonderful involving writing, and if it works out I'll let you know, and if you never hear from me again on the subject you can assume it was just a pipe dream and i'm still on my hands and knees searching the house for stray coins! (yes, I have done this). Give me till mid-september.

[wisedec4u]

My first time was when my university sponsored a scholarship award for oratory and literary works created by students. I was so busy with work, school, and kids that I had considered not submiting an entry at all. My English professor stayed on my back about it so I wrote a persuasive speech called, "Freedom Struggle". I didn't really think the judges would look twice at it but I ended up winning first place and recieved a cash award for $1500. I read my speech in front the whole student body and staff and it was published in an anthology that included other entry winners. I think that was the turning point for me. I had been told before that I had a talent for writing, but it was then that I started thinking maybe I do have what takes to be a writer.

[Michelle]

My story involves a case of right place/right time, but shows that it is possible to get nicely published out of the slushpile.

I always wanted to be a writer. The problem was that I never finished anything I started to write. When I turned thirty I decided to focus or I'd never get anywhere. So I wrote exactly what I wanted to: a funny vampire romance (I was mourning the cancellation of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and this was my therapy). When I'd finished, I felt it was pretty good, but wanted to go that extra step. I hired a freelance editor (one of my instructors from Writers Digest Workshops) who basically told me that it was good enough to submit.

I made my list of targetted agents. Sent one snail mail query to my top pick. Then, while I was waiting for a reply, I decided to send out a couple email queries. One responded ONE HOUR LATER asking for the full manuscript. Five days later (on the same day I got my rejection from agent #1) the emailed agent offered me representation.

After shining the manuscript up a bit more according to his comments, I sent him some copies. He distributed them around New York and twenty-four hours later we had an offer! We gave the other publishers a week to counter-offer (only fair, after all! LOL!) and I finally decided to go with Warner Books in a two book contract. My first book is out this coming January.

It has been a whirlwind experience, but I am LIVING PROOF of slushpile success. DO NOT GIVE UP! I had ZERO CREDITS to my writing resume. I knew NOBODY in the publishing business. I didn't belong to any critique groups or writer's organizations. But I did my homework by researching the internet, reading tons of books on writing, taking courses. I wrote a killer query letter and had the luck to have written in a genre that's currently popular. I give a good chunk of what has happened to me over to luck, but I am working my butt off now to keep that luck going for as long as possible!

:banana: :hooray: :banana:

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www.michellerowen.com (http://www.michellerowen.com)