Secrets and Other Hobbies: My First Book of Fiction

This is what it took:

• Writing and revising twenty short and flash fiction stories and one novelette, 60,700 words complete, between 2016 and a few weeks ago.

• Cajoling a dozen or more writer friends into reading and rereading, and listening to me read aloud. (I abused this privilege, but paid in wine.)

• Hiring a brilliant editor for two rounds of work to analyze, criticize, suggest, slash, and occasionally—only occasionally—write “good” in the margins. Lifesaving.

• Submitting individual stories from the manuscript to literary journals to increase my publication stats. Weeks of rejections. A few days of joy.

• Hiring a patient person I call my “Quagent” (quasi-agent) to identify 24 publishers and contests suitable for my manuscript and research the material each press wants (always different enough that I couldn’t quite reuse the same stuff), and vet those I found, like Cornerstone.

• Writing requested two-page, one-page, and one-paragraph summaries of the book, plus a goofy paragraph about its “significance.”

• Scouring a dozen well-regarded short story collections to identify recent books I could immodestly pretend are “comparables.”

• Preparing thirty-five one-page queries to indie and academic publishers and contests over 10 months.

• Receiving form rejections, two “finalist” nods (one with two sentences of feedback, the only feedback in the whole process), then more rejections.

• Upping my dose of antidepressants.

• Biting the bullet by creating an outline for retooling the manuscript for Round 2.

• Wondering: Is higher dose sufficient?

• Learning on May 30 it’s a YES from Query #34: Cornerstone Press, University of Wisconsin — Stevens Point. Longtime writing teacher and Quagent feel it’s an excellent fit. I learn that two mentors from Interlochen Writers Retreat have published there. The book will be part of the Legacy Series, short fiction collections. The press favors a Midwestern flavor, the setting for nearly all of my stories and the home of all of my characters. Contract terms are settled. Many days of joy.