Part II - My Masterpiece

Clutching my new-and-improved manuscript (now about 200 pages), I nervously stood in line at the post office. I was sending my story--hot off the press... ehm, home printer--to CH, a college friend. At that same moment, she was sending me her completed manuscript, too, because we had had this brilliant idea of proofing each other's pieces.

I should have been excited and confident. Instead, I was anxious and mousy. I was ready to take my story home and hide it in a drawer.

You see, up to this point, others had heard about my story, but no one had actually READ it--aside from HT, who's been with me since its conception. She was the only other one who knew these people. And yes--to me--they were real people. She knew them inside and out, and I was convinced that no one else could ever know or love them like we did.

Could I risk showing them to others? Was it possible that someone else could enter a world that I had so lovingly and painstakingly created (for almost a decade at this point) and understand it? Embrace it? Think about it long after the book was closed?

The possibility of rejection was almost enough to make me leave the post office with my hugely thick story--which, by the way, I had accidentally printed on card stock paper, so it was twice as thick as it should have been, and I was so distracted by the anticipation that I hadn't even bothered to put it in a binder of any kind. (One slip, and I'd never get those pages back in order!)

But I had no choice. CH had already mailed hers. I couldn't back out now. I couldn't pretend it got lost in the mail. Even if it did, she'd eventually expect a "new" copy. So I stuffed my manuscipt into a manila envelope--carefully, so as not to bend any pages--and handed it over to the postmaster. I felt like a mom on the first day of kindergarten, sending my sweetheart out into the world, hoping she'd make friends and that others would play nice with her.

There was no time to think about that now. My story was on its way, and CH's was waiting for me at home in a neat little binder and on regular, normal printer paper.

There were only a few weeks before we'd see each other at a college reunion and give the manuscripts back.



If you've missed the beginning of my journey to publication, check out the first post "Always".

Part I - My Masterpiece

I'd like to quote Jo March in the 1994 movie edition of Little Women.

"Down at the Eagle, they pay $5 for every story they print. Why, I've got ten stories in my head right now!"

That's how my mind looks. A bustling hob-glob of characters milling around. There are pioneer women, medieval royalty, fantasy creatures, Civil War soldiers, farm boys, rail riders, gold prospectors, ranchers, farmers, bankers, teachers.... it's a wonder they don't all know each other and appear in each other's worlds from time to time!

I know each by name and by heart, and I'm excited to one day share them with you.

The first and only characters who have lived their story beginning to end outside my mind are from the Civil War era. Remember my friend HT from the first post? She and I dreamed these guys up when I was eleven. The first draft was 100 pages long exactly!

...Okay, that was with about 16-point font.

But I was SO proud of it. I could just see publishing houses clamoring at my doorstep to get their hands on this masterpiece!

I had a lot to learn about writing a novel...