With a little help from my friends....

...

My first novel, Unraveling Ada, is finally published.

But getting there was a saga--and it began when I was somewhere between eight and ten years old. I thought for those of you who have discovered this blog through my book I would answer some questions you might ask about my work. (The rest of you might want to visit my Blinks.)

First question you might ask me about my writing is “why?” (as in where, when, how...) And I can only answer by saying "always."

I wrote my first full novel when I was in my twenties. I remember it being a science fiction, but I don't remember the title. I remember being politely rejected by one publisher (you could actually submit your full manuscript directly to a publisher in those days). I threw it in the trash on Gum Branch Road. Tore it into quarters first.

My second book was a horror…both literally and literarily. I called it The Black Box. That was in my thirties. After one rejection I stuck it in a drawer.

And my third was a fantasy novel called Fear Beast. That one is in the same bureau drawer with The Black Box.

Then I wrote some short stores, finally deciding I should begin at the beginning as in start small and work my way up. I tried publishing a few of them in magazines. More rejections. You can take just so much rejection, so I gave it all up.

After my mom died I began going through the boxes of her personal affects. (They'd been hiding in our basement for a few years so I wouldn’t have to deal with them.) I found a treasure trove of love letters from my grandmother Ivy to her husband Carl. And letters from Ivy’s sister Luella when Ivy was only five years old. And later, a letter from Ivy’s brother Charlie. I have a story to tell someday about Luella, who died or disappeared quite young, and her brother Charlie. But not now.

Anyway, it was in one of those boxes that I found a four page (smallish pages) short story written in a young child’s messy handwriting--that I’m very familiar with. I still scribble like a seven year old. (Or am I insulting seven year olds?)

It was an undated murder mystery, and my mom had kept if for me to find. The next week I sat down and began my fourth full novel. That was six years ago.