Recently, I had to write a speech for a wedding and while bouncing the first draft off a friend she asked me about writing and the first time I submitted a manuscript to a publisher.
I’d have to say, I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember. As soon as I mastered reading, I started writing stories and illustrating them. At times, the frequency dwindled but it was something I always came back to.
I became a single parent when my children were quite young and many of the gifts they received for their birthday or Christmas were handmade. As part of that, I wrote and illustrated stories for them where we were all thinly disguised as the characters. They loved it. Even today, my daughter calls me Meha instead of Mum, after one of the characters based on me, and when I try to impart some profound advice to one of my sons (I’m an optimist. I’m convinced that one day he will actually listen!) he teases me and calls me Mummefra the Wise Woman after another of the characters I created for them.
SAME PAGE was my first novel and had a rather unique journey from its humble beginnings to its final draft. It was a love story and after I’d written approximately two-thirds I showed it to a friend of mine who is an avid reader and also gay. He encouraged me to finish it and get it published. He also talked to me about the need for more good LGBT stories. He so inspired me that I went home and, after much research, rewrote it with gay protagonists.
Perhaps, it was the fact that I was not only writing as a man, but a gay man, that I felt the need to fully develop the main characters in my head before I attempted to write their story. Now its habit. I spend a long time getting to know my characters. Regardless of who or what inspired their creation, in my mind they grow and evolve until, one day, they’re as real to me as my friends and colleagues. I know them like I know my children. It’s a wonderful feeling when I reach that point of readiness to put pen to paper because it feels like I’m about to embark on a wonderful adventure with friends with endless possibilities unfolding before us. It’s exciting.
Inspired or not, I still procrastinated about sending SAME PAGE into a publisher. It was a mixture of shyness, lack of confidence, and, perhaps, fear of my ‘baby’ being rejected that led me to detouring and uploading it chapter by chapter on an amateur author site. It was the warm welcome I received there that encouraged me to pursue a writing career.
SAME PAGE and THE RACE IS ON (it was actually one epic novel prior to being split into two books!) were, and are, incredibly important to me. It was with them that I changed the direction of my life, and I think that’s why I dipped my toe in the publishing pool, not with them but a submission about a potty-mouthed parrot called Oliver to an anthology being put together by Dreamspinner Press. That anthology – Animal Magnetism – is now out of print but I still remember as clearly as if it happened yesterday the day I, with heart pounding, hit the SEND button.
The wait time from submission to the yay or nay, I would have to say, was one of the longest and hardest waits I’ve ever had to endure. It was truly excruciating. For most publishing houses its six to eight weeks, and for some, as long as twelve weeks. I’m not ashamed to say I checked my emails every day, several times a day, in fact, despite knowing the time frame the submission process takes. It felt more like eight months rather than eight weeks before I finally opened my emails to find a message from the publishing house.
I remember shaking, and, as stupid as it sounds after having waited so long, I was too scared to open it. I procrastinated. I dealt with every other email first and each time I went back to the inbox the publisher’s email seemed to have grown in size. Even with all my emails answered and filed, I stared at that email for a long time before finally plucking up the courage to open it.
When I read the words ‘I’m happy to say that I’d like to include your story,’ I burst into tears. I was a veritable waterfall. I don’t know which emotion was stronger–happiness or relief.
And, If I’m being honest, I’d have to admit nothing’s changed—I’ve had the same reaction to all subsequent submissions.
So, wish me luck with submitting Book Three: Happily Ever After!
