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Well, I’m back in my office. Glad to be here. When I left for the business trip to Orlando and New York, the office seemed a little big and intimidating. Now, it seems cozy. There’s something about being in New York that puts things in perspective. I’ve got Revis on the player, and just listening to it helps my blood pressure go down. Soothing. It’s the music I listened to when I wrote, MICAH. I’m trying to stay positive in this blog, but God, I’m tired. I’m tired, I don’t feel well, and negativity just calls sweetly to me. “Give in, Laurell, be in that bad mood.” I’m fighting it off, but it’s hard when you’re tired. The book which might have actually been finished last week, is ashes in my hands, the fire dead. It will take days to get the momentum back up, and going. It will be the difference between finishing the book at the end of September and the middle of October. I’m still ahead of schedule, but that’s not the point. I hate loosing ground. Tomorrow is the lay down date for STRANGE CANDY, my short story anthology. We look forward to seeing you guys at the Fenton Barnes and Nobles on Tuesday. It is the only official event for this book. My editor, Susan, said at one of the meetings in New York, that it was interesting watching my evolution as a writer. For me, the short stories have been a reminder of how I used to feel about my writing.
“House of Wizards” was not the first story I sold, but it was the first piece to appear in print. I remember seeing the magazine, MARION ZIMMER BRADLEY’S FANTASY MAGAZINE, with my name under the story. It was an amazing moment. A moment that had started when I was twelve and first started trying to scribble down stories. There it was, my name, in print, my story, my world, my characters, there with illustrations and everything. I touched the print with my finger tips, delicately, as if I were afraid it would vanish if I rubbed too hard. My then husband, now ex, Gary, and I, went out to dinner to celebrate.
Every sale I made was a triumph back then, a finger in the face of all those people who told me I couldn’t do it. Hell, told me it couldn’t be done. A young girl from Indiana farm country be a selling writer, no way. It just wasn’t something they could imagine happening to someone they knew, but I could imagine it. I worked my ass off to pursue that dream. People ask when did you become a professional writer. Answer, when I received my first rejection slip, which would be at about seventeen.
The stories in STRANGE CANDY were some of the sweetest sales I ever had. Then, I sold my first book, NIGHTSEER. Let’s just say that I was no one’s darling. I was never one of those writers that some editor or publisher picked to be a star. All the success I’ve had has come through hard work, and you, the reader’s, word of mouth. It would be years before I had a publicity campaign with any teeth to it. I had an agent, and she helped sell the book, but this book editor would be the first to let me know just where a beginning writer is in the evolutionary ladder of publishing. Beginning writers are like light bulbs, if one burns out, you can always buy more. The thrill of selling that first book was amazing, and again, my then husband, Gary, and I went out and celebrated. But it would be nearly four years before the book would see print. Almost long enough for the clause in my contract to kick it back to me. It was the only book I edited on spec, speculation, which means I made editorial changes before it was purchased with the promise that if I made the changes he would buy it. He did. He was right about most of the changes, maybe all of them. The editing was easy, the rewrites were easy, hell, I’d done seven rewrites on my own before it went to my agent. It was a single book contact, and it never occurred to me they wouldn’t want the sequel. I wrote it, they rejected it. They wanted changes. I made the changes, and was finally told that there was nothing I could do to this book that would make the editor buy it. My series, the one I’d been dreaming of and making notes for since high school, was dead. The first book didn’t sell that well, they told me. It stayed in print and on the shelves a lot longer than the average first novel. I think average is about six weeks. Harsh, but true. But it didn’t sell that well. I was crushed, and thought seriously of giving up writing, getting a real job, a grown-up job. All those thoughts you have as a writer when things crash around you. Editor after editor told me that the fantasy, both high and heroic, was dead. Nobody was buying. Many of the short stories in STRANGE CANDY are heroic fantasy, they were my first dream. But then no one wanted it, and I was left with either adapting or dieing. I had this one story, it featured a character called Anita Blake. She raised the dead for a living. She lived in a world where people discussed vampires and zombies as a given. I had this one story. Everyone had rejected it, and I mean everyone. I got some of the nicest rejections, they loved the story, but they couldn’t figure out what it was. Was it horror, or fantasy, or science fiction, or mystery? Mixed genre was not popular, because they couldn’t figure out how to market it. But I had this one story, and I liked it, I liked the character, I liked the world. I thought it had possibilities.
I sat down and wrote GUILTY PLEASURES. Okay, I wrote seventy pages of it, and then lost courage. It was sooo different from anything I’d ever read. What if it didn’t sell? What if no one wanted it? So with the courage of desperation I tucked it into my bag and went to Archon 14, a local St. Louis con. I’d offered to do a reading, but they were going to schedule me in when they had time. Well, Melinda Snodgrass, who was writing on STAR TREK: NEXT GEN, was unable to take her reading, so they put me in her room. Here was the problem, most people didn’t know what she looked like, and they didn’t know who the hell I was, so I, with only maybe three stories sold, no books, walked into a packed room. A packed room, well, I’d never done a reading at a con before, I didn’t know how terribly unusual it was to have a packed room at a reading. So innocent. I walked in, sat down, introduced myself, and there were complaints about where Ms. Snodgrass was, but I started to read. And they sat back down and they stayed. People would come to the door, listen for a second, and come inside. By the time I finished reading the seventy pages, it was standing room only, all the way to the far wall. I finished, and there was utter silence. I thought, oh, God, they hate it. Then the applause started, and swelled, and yells, and cries of, when will it be published. I couldn’t answer that. Read more, read more. I didn’t explain that there was no more. I’d read the room what I had. But their reaction was one of the things that gave me the courage to finish the book. It would take over two years before PENGUIN/PUTNAM, would buy GUILTY PLEASURES. Because it was mixed genre and no one knew what to do with it. Was it horror, fantasy, science fiction, mystery, what? Same problems as the short story had earlier. But it did sale, that book, and the rest, as they say, is history.
This weekend is Archon 30, which means I wrote GUILTY PLEASURES in 1990. Wow. We’ll be there, at Archon this weekend. I admit I was seeing it as a chore, not a pleasure. But writing this, has made me remember long, long, ago, when going wasn’t a chore, but a scary pleasure. I remember how nervous I was, how scared of the crowds, and of being outted as a writer. But all of what I’ve accomplished now, twenty books, or is it more than that now? Number one New York Times Bestseller. This beautiful office, the husband I adore, Jonathon. My writing group, and so many of my friends. Most of them I met through my work. I met them, because once I had a story, that no one wanted to buy, but that I believed in. STRANGE CANDY will be the first time that this story has seen print. It is Anita’s first time on paper ever. There were no notes, no quibbling, just a story that came to me when I was living far from home by the shore of the western sea. A story that came out of loneliness, and would eventually lead me to places less lonely, and introduce me to people who loved me. Sometimes I feel like the ugly duckling, you know the story, the little swan who the ducks think is ugly, because he’s not like them. Once I thought I was a monster, ugly, and perverted, dark and unnatural in my head, such thoughts, such weirdness. Then I grew up, and found that what is ugly and monstrous to some people is beautiful and wondrous to others. That the definition of perverted changes depending on who you talk to. The inside of my head is still a dark place, but now I’m surrounded by people who like the dark, too, and help me see that there’s still light even in the deepest night. Or more like, that dark isn’t inherently bad. Deity made the dark and the light, the night and the day; it’s all good, or it wouldn’t be here. I still work at embracing all of me, and not being afraid of parts, or feeling like one piece is better than another. I try to believe that I’m a swan now, and all those ducks that told me what was wrong with me while I grew up, well, they’re ducks. I was never a very good duck, but I’m just fine as a swan.