|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
How does someone write their own biography? I suppose the joke goes - "One word at a time." In reality, that's how you write a book, too, or at least that's how I did. I've been a reader since I was three years old, or so my mother tells me. I do know that when I was in first grade they had to special-order books for me because the 6th grade ones were too easy. Getting labeled as a "nerd" at the ripe old age of six isn't the easiest thing to endure. I started writing not long after that. Stories, mostly, occasionally a poem, and I don't think many were chipper, cheerful pieces. I finished my first "real-book" at fourteen. Remembered Past was about a woman who was raped, beaten, and left for dead. When she awoke and started to heal, she realized that she couldn't remember anything -- amnesia was evidently cool to my teenage self -- and most of the story was her trying to figure out her past while the man who gave her the amnesia tried to finish what he started. It was written entirely in long hand, in a fat spiral notebook. A friend snatched it, read it, passed it around. I don't know how many kids read it, surely a few, but by the time I got it back the cover was ruined and the pages stained, but it was intact. Well read and dragged who knows where over its mysterious journey, but intact. People who normally wouldn't give me the time of day would come up to me to tell me that they read my book, when was I going to write another one? I don't recall the follow up, but I still have Remembered Past in the attic, somewhere. And I kept writing. For Christmas that year I got my first typewriter. Pretty cool. The remainder of high school and into college sent me through stories of vampires and hauntings (I was a HUGE Stephen King fan, still am) and gruesome little murders . Leaving my native Iowa, I started my academic career as a Veterinary Medicine/Chemistry double major (the nerd label definitely stuck) but after a year at Northeast Missouri State University I had to leave due to financial problems. My exhausted but much loved manual typewriter came home with me. Then it was community college, and darker, bloodier stories. Kidnappings. Rapes. Lovely little things they were. I couldn't seem to settle on a major, but I definitely settled on a man. After a mere three months of dating, I married Bill but the vicious stories continued flowing from my fingers. While pregnant with our daughter we got a computer and I wrote a bit of froth I called Magician's Gambit (totally unaware of the same title being in David Edding's Belgariad series). Being newly married, and blissfully happy at it, Magician's Gambit chronicled the kidnapping, rape and torture of a lord's daughter by a man controlled by a demon and the prince in disguise who set out to save her from being sacrificed. Magician's Gambit sucked wind -- and still does, so don't even ask to read it although a few select people have -- but it did give me a nice, juicy world to play in, a world where things might look good on the surface but under the painted on skin are boils and pustules and noxious vermin. It also gave me Dubric, who was a very minor character. I think he was in one scene. Time goes by, we have a baby -- she's fourteen now -- and I go back to school, as an Art major, of all things. I actually graduate with a degree in Graphic Design and I go to work for a small corporation. I write on the sly, bits here, plots there, but no real books, not even real short stories. Stress to the point of therapy makes me realize that the corporate world is not a good place for me, so I quit and take a job in a small art studio doing brochures and logos, mostly. I heal and the writing comes back. While at work on February 14, 2001 (Valentine's day -- seriously) I get this idea . Dubric needs to solve a serial crime. Ooh! What fun! But when? (Dubric's character has a long and convoluted timeline) I think about 2 seconds and decide to do it during the courtship of Risley and Nella. I get home and start writing. Six months later Ghosts in the Snow's first draft is done, an epic fantasy with mystery undertones, all whopping 247,000 words of it. As Mr. King instructed in his marvelous tome, On Writing, I set the manuscript aside for 6 weeks. As I read it again, I realized that something was amiss, but I couldn't decide what. Bill located the Del Rey Online Writer's Workshop and thought they could help me. Willing to try anything, I signed up and within minutes I met Joshua Rode who I credit for this hulabaloo I now find myself in. Josh loved what he saw (actually, he ripped my first chapter to shreds! Woo hoo!) and he invited me to join his writer's group where I met Heather Nagey and Catherine Darensbourg, among others. Within two weeks Ghosts became an Editor's Choice and won Runner Up Best Fantasy Chapter for November 2001. About that time I meet J.M. Blumer, Johnny B. Drako and Sam Godwin (She is the best and most ruthless proofreader and pre-editor I have ever met. No one, not even my editor, sees my prose before Sammie gets a chance to tear it apart). Sam introduced me to her sister Meg, who runs this site and knows many of my dirty secrets. These writers, each and every one more talented than I, are my Writing Posse. They're the best crit goup I could imagine and I love them all dearly . I get Ghosts all polished (still a whopping 247,000 words) and start agent hunting the following spring. No bites, heck, no nibbles. After about 6 months and still determined but not discouraged, I re-vamp my query letter and offer to split the story into two halves. One agent, William Reiss at John Hawkins and Associates, requests three chapters with his query. I am at a bit of a loss. Every other agent had wanted merely a letter and synopsis. We're broke, it's November (gotta think about Christmas for the kid) and I have to pay a nickel a page to print at work. Add to that the fact that JHA is the oldest literary agency in America, founded the AAR, and was waaay too prestigious for a ditz from Iowa like me, that I almost didn't send the query, but Bill said to do it, take the chance. I printed out the 100 some pages (if I remember right) plus a color mailing label, then paid $4 or whatever it was for postage (only a regular return stamp, thank goodness). We couldn't afford it, but I did it anyway . Mailed it on a Friday. The following Tuesday, my email dings. Mr. Reiss (who I almost didn't query) has enjoyed my narrative so far. Could I send him another 100 pages? Sure, I reply, then I have Bill dig through the change jar to reimburse the boss and I send out 107 more pages that night (I finished out the chapter). Friday, another email ding. Could I please be so kind as to rend the remainder through the point where I intend to split it? Yep. Scrounge up some more change and out it goes. The following Wednesday I was agented. He was the only agent to read my work, and he's fabulous. The moral of this story is, I guess, to keep your change jar full because you never know when you need to send out 240 pages like right now! Oh, and never give up or trying to reach for the best. They just might ask to see more of your narrative. Ok, agented. Bill (agent Bill, not hubby Bill) decides to send out the manuscript to three publishers the first of January. It's currently almost Thanksgiving and book publishing practically shuts down over the holidays. January 2, true to his word, the book goes out. A couple rejections, out to other publishers but no word from Bantam. In June another ding in my email. It's a forwarded and edited-to-lessen-the-blow letter from Juliet Ulman at Bantam Spectra. Essentially, would the author (me) be willing to cut out the epic fantasy and focus instead on the mystery aspects of the story? I reply back to Bill with an affirmative and offer up a couple other story ideas (one of which has become Threads of Malice). Contract negotiations ensue and I set to work. Of Ghosts' first half -- the only part Juliet has seen -- about the first quarter remains. Everything after that is tossed away and done anew . It's dark in places, funny in others, tragic and romantic and delightfully gruesome. It's the book the quarter million word behemoth was meant to be and I'm very happy with it. So here I am, published writer. I'm still delightfully married, still a ditz from Iowa, and I'm still a nerd. I learned a lot getting here and I have a lot more to learn. I couldn't be here at all without the help of many wonderful people taking a chance on me, or being simply supportive. Thank you, everyone, and thank you for taking the time to read this. Tammy P.S. Yes, Josh, this is all your fault! You were supposed to be first, not me.
|