THE MORAL OF THIS STORY?

I was recently informed by my editor that my debut novel, Whistling in the Dark, a surprise New York Times bestseller and Midwest Independent Booksellers Association Choice Award Winner, was about to go into its 16th printing! Besides feeling ridiculously lucky (Do you know the number of sensational books that never get a second glance?) and outrageously grateful (Thank you...thank you...thank you...is a good bedtime prayer) not a day goes by, that I don't think about Whistling's inauspicious beginnings. Got a sec?

Shortly after my daughter flew the coop to attend college many miles away from my nest, I began wondering, as I imagine many moms do---Did I teach her everything she needs to know? How fast can I get to Virginia if she needs me? Are twenty pair of underwear enough? And then I began feeling a little sorry for myself. Started thinking about how hard it is these days to be a mom compared to when my mother raised me in the 50s. Self-esteem hadn't been invented yet, a healthy meal was a Swanson's TV Dinner, and the worst weapons were switchblades wielded by "greasers," which also brings to mind "oleo." In so many ways, they really were, "The Good Old Days." I found myself missing them. And my ten-year-old self. Before I realized what I was doing, I began to peck out memories of living in a blue collar neighborhood on the West Side of Milwaukee back in the day.

Once I'd completed the story, I thought, Hey, this is pretty good. Think I'll try to get it published! (This is somewhat akin to Judy Garland and Andy Rooney saying to one another, "Hey! Let's put on a show!") I didn't have the slightest idea how to go about this, so I headed over to my favorite book store and did a little research. Turned out I needed a literary agent who would act as a go-between me and a publisher, and to get one of those, I had to write something called a query letter, which sounded an awful lot like a pitch letter. An agent? Easy peasy! I'd been actress for over thirty years and had never had a problem finding someone to represent me. A query letter? A snap. 

I then proceeded to send this query letter via e-mail to agents in New York City because that's where most of them hang out. My quickest rejection was under a minute. Like Mr. Big Apple had just been waiting to shoot down the hopes and dreams of a middle-aged midwestern writer who contacted him. The longest rejection took two month. Some agents asked to see some pages and then rejected it. Two asked to read the whole manuscript and wrote back, "Thanks, but no thanks. It's just not right for us." When I received my 156th rejection, I laid in a hot bath for a week, cried, eyed the plugged-in hair dryer on a nearby counter, and wondered how bad electrocution hurt.

Two days later, wrinkly me received a nice e-mail from an elderly gentleman from a prominent NYC literary agency who wrote, "I find this story delightful and would like to represent, "Whispering in the Dark." He never did get the title right, but he did find an editor at NAL/PENGUIN who felt the same way he did, and I will always be grateful to the both of them for putting me out of my misery.

The moral of this story? Magical stuff can happen when you least expect it, so it's a pretty good idea to believe in yourself when no one else does, and never throw in the towel that's sitting awfully close to that hair dryer.