Throwback Thursday at the Bench

I’ve decided today is Throwback Thursday at Booklover’s Bench because I thought I’d talk about how I went from never thinking about writing a book to becoming a bestselling and award-winning author. I know it sounds cliché, but it really did start with a dream.

I rarely remember my dreams, but thirty years ago, while on a business trip, I had one that I remembered vividly when I awakened. Oddly, it wasn’t about me or anyone I knew. Odder still, the dream continued each night and kept unspooling like the chapters of a book. Long story short, after returning home, I decided to write down the dream.

The next thing I knew, I’d written a 50,000-word romance that spanned thirty-five years. Because I thought I’d penned the next great American novel, I headed to the library to learn how to submit a manuscript to agents and publishers.

Unfortunately, that didn’t go well. Rejection letters began filling up my mailbox. But I didn’t give up. I’ve always been my own harshest critic. Instead of deciding these editors and agents wouldn’t know a great book if it smacked them in the face, I realized I had a lot to learn.

I went back to the library and armed myself with books on how to write a novel. That’s when I learned about various national writing organizations with local chapters that offered monthly speakers and workshops. I joined. I learned. I started another book and rewrote the dream book—many, many times.

The following year, I attended my first writers conference and met the woman who would become my agent. However, it still took nearly ten years to the day I first had that dream until I finally sold my first novel. I’ve since learned that’s not an unusual timeline but more the norm.

I also learned there are many reasons why a book doesn’t sell. Rarely (if ever) are those that garner agent representation rejected for the quality of the writing. Many factors go into an editor’s decision, and in most cases, the editor doesn’t have the final say. The book needs the stamp of approval from the editorial board. Others also weigh in, including the marketing department and the sales department. No matter how much an editor might love a book, an author may not be offered a contract because a book with a similar protagonist, profession, setting, or plot didn’t previously sell well, and the publisher took a loss on the book.

In 2005, my agent called one day with the news that I’d finally been offered a publishing contract, not for the dream-inspired book, though. After years of countless tweaking and eventually a complete rewrite, the dream-inspired book became my second sale. It had morphed from that 50,000-word romance spanning thirty-five years into Love, Lies and a Double Shot of Deception, a 95,000-word romantic suspense that took place over several months. Very little of the original dream had remained. And that was a good thing!

I had learned a lot during those ten years and had never stopped writing, but I’d always concentrated my efforts on romance and romantic suspense. Then, my agent called one day and asked me if I’d consider writing a crafting-themed humorous cozy mystery. She knew an editor looking for one.

My first sale had been for Talk Gertie to Me, a humorous fish-out-of-water novel about a young woman who goes off to New York and the mother determined to drag her back to Iowa to marry the boy next door. Plus, in my day job, I designed craft and needlework projects for craft book publishers, magazines, and craft kit manufacturers. My agent thought I was the perfect person to write a book for this editor.

That conversation changed the course of my writing life. The result was Assault with a Deadly Glue Gun, the first Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery. Seams Like the Perfect Crime is the fourteenth and latest book in the series.

What about you? Has a dream or some other event suddenly changed the course of your life? Post a comment for a chance to win a promo code for a free audiobook of any of the available Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries.

Want to know more about our author Lois Winston? Visit her WEBSITE.

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