IF YOU WANT TO MAKE MONEY,
WRITE A BOOK
[Forward]

Good Morning Everyone. I write contemporary romantic mystery/suspense as Chris Grover, and as Christiane France I write erotic romance--contemporary, paranormal, historical, hetero, m/m, m/f/m, and m/m/f.

Anyway, back to that day in the 1980’s. It was one of those slow mid-summer days when no one gets arrested, wants to form a company, buy a business, write a will, or any of the other fun stuff that the people who work in lawyers’ offices get to do, so I went back to my desk and I started a a contemporary romance story where girl meets boy and what happens next, and what happens after that, and so on and so on. At five o’clock when the office closed, I took my precious, partly written story home with me, and after dinner, I was back with my characters, taking them off in new directions, and on new and exciting adventures until, way past by normal bedtime, I fell into an exhausted sleep.

The next morning I took my budding novel back to the office, handed it over to my friend, and said something like, “This is really hard work. Why don’t you give it a try?”

A few hours later, the friend gave me back my baby, and said she just loved it. In fact, she thought it was so great that she’d called Harlequin in Toronto for their author guidelines.

My goodness, I was so excited I felt like I was already a success. Like I’d won the equivalent of the writers’ Oscar. Give it a week or two and I’d been on the New York Times Best Seller List for sure.

Back then, I knew no other writers, there were no chat loops, or critique groups, or any of the support we now take for granted. No computers either, I hammered out my stories on electric typewriters--an original plus two carbon copies, and heaven help me if I made a mistake. But I had the writing bug and for the next few weeks/months, every spare minute I had was spent on that story--writing, editing, refining, until I had my hero and heroine safely on the road to ‘happily ever after’. Looking back, I often wonder how I found the courage to put those 65K words in an envelope and mail them off to Harlequin’s Toronto office. If I knew then what I know now, I would probably have used those pages to line the cat’s box, and my writing career would have ended right there.

When I started writing, Harlequin was about the only publisher who accepted unsolicited work from unpublished writers. We had to mail in the full manuscript plus a synopsis, a s.s.a.e., and a reply card, and then we sat back and waited with baited breath--usually for several months.

Needless to say, the big H didn’t buy my wonderful story. As I later learned, they rarely buy first stories from first-time writers. They said it didn’t fit their current requirements or something along those lines. It was too this, too that, too mainstream, too clichéd, etc. etc. Maybe it was, but it was my firstborn and I still have that manuscript sitting in a box somewhere.

Of course, I was crushed. I was hurt. Like the song says, The First Cut Is The Deepest. Someone had told me my baby was ugly and should be put down like it was deformed or diseased, and I’m supposed to jump up and down, cheer and say thank you?

Getting over that first rejection was hard, and I know this is where so many would-be writers give up.

Getting over the second, third, fourth, is even harder. You think you learn with each one, you did what they said, you tried, you really did. And then you get the No.1 rejection letter of all time: “Dear. Ms. Grover, I regret to say your work is weak, contrived, stereotyped and clichéd, and therefore not suitable for us etc. etc. And we wish you the best of luck placing it elsewhere etc. etc.”

Weak, contrived, stereotyped and clichéd? Hello? Is this person out of her mind? How dare she say such things?

But instead of feeling crushed, hurt, resorting to tears, or any of the usual reactions most of us experience after reading such a letter, I remember I just howled with laughter. I couldn’t believe I’d managed to accomplish so much in one book. I mean, who was this person to dismiss my work in so cavalier a fashion? And why bother dissing it with four words when one would have done perfectly well?

I’m not sure if it’s a blessing or a curse, but I’ve inherited the British bulldog gene, so I don’t give up--at least not quickly and never easily. And maybe that letter was just what I needed to make me dig in my heels and keep going. After a few days, my wounded feelings gradually recovered, and I mentally composed a short note to the person who sent me that rejection letter in which I pointed out my inability to understand her failure to recognize a good story, etc. etc. Of course, the note was never mailed because in the meantime I’d put on my thinking cap and come up with a whole brand new idea.

Writing isn’t easy, but I’ve discovered certain aspects of it become a little easier over time--I’ve become better at plotting, organizing, writing myself out of tight corners, looking up facts, and all the other tricks writers learn along the way. But there are still those days when the brick wall rears up and the muse takes a vacation, and the absolute last thing I want to do is turn on the computer and start typing.

For years, I tried to juggle a day job as a paralegal, run a house, and write full-length novels, and I have a bunch of rejection letters and unpublished manuscripts to prove it.

But gradually things did get better. I met other writers, joined writers’ groups, and attended conferences and seminars. But more about all that tomorrow.

Chris/Christiane