Sunday, May 13: The A.D.D. Detective
FIRSTS
by Leigh Lundin
This is a column of firsts. It is a first column by a first-time writer, writing about first experiences. For those of you as new as I am, I’ll tell you first impressions of my first ever MWA banquet and Edgar awards.
First, I’ll tell you a little about myself. Once upon a time, I was a software designer and programmer manager specializing in operating systems, languages, telecommunications, and utilities that the geekiest of computer geeks use, all bits and bytes and binary code. I worked for IBM on Wall Street, contracted with Westinghouse in Europe, and had my own tiny company in Florida. The wonderful thing was that I got to travel and work around much of the US and Europe.
I also became a kind of detective, consulting and solving computer fraud cases. (More about that in the future.)
All things come to and end, and a combination of dot.com collapse, the giving away of our computer technology to India, and refocusing after 9/11 brought America’s software industry to its knees. Personally, I was also hit hard by Hurricanes Charlie, Francis, and Jeanne that devastated central Florida.
Since I was already going hungry, I began to write.
First Story
Several years earlier, I had taken writing classes and met with a critiquing group. Both proved invaluable. Initially, I didn’t know how much I didn’t know until lessons and criticisms began to sink in. I submitted a few stories and received an equal number of rejection slips, deservedly so.
I’ve always had a fondness for mysteries and I loved figuring them out. The two remaining mystery magazines in America are Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock, both Dell Magazines publications. Ellery Queen features a Department of First Stories through which they actively seek out first time writers. Since I’m an aspiring author, I sent stories to the magazine. They sent them right back, deservedly so.
I persisted.
One day, I discovered a phone message on my answering machine from Janet Hutchings, chief editor of Ellery Queen. She apologized about taking longer than usual to respond, but said they had liked my story, Swamped.
I was speechless.
Aware that monthly magazines typically plan issues nine months to a year in advance, I was surprised to learn that Ellery Queen has projects mapped further ahead than that. I wasn’t surprised that a royalty check arrived closer to the publication date rather than the date of acceptance, but the wait seemed excruciatingly long. Finally, in August 2006, the story appeared.
A pleasant surprise was that the editors had made very few changes to the text, just a word here and there. In some technical pieces I’d had published, editors had slashed and burned until the intent and meaning of the article was lost. However, I respected the light EQ touch. My one quibble was only that, a shading of meaning that might not have been terrific to begin with.
But, back to the story…
The holiday season was looking pretty grim: Insurance companies were dug in refusing to settle hurricane damage, my house remained roofless, my financial situation could not have been charitably described as precarious, and the term ‘love life’ had become an oxymoron.
But lo, an angel of Christmas left another phone message asking me to rush Ellery Queen a photograph: Janet Hutchings explained that I stood a good chance of placing in the top three for the EQ Readers Choice Award.
Scurrying, I got a haircut and a photograph. (Ignore those cynics who claim I reversed the order.) Then came the wait as the magazine allowed time for postmarks delayed by Christmas mail.
In a fit of anhedonia, I was leery about getting hopes up. A few days after Christmas, I called Janet’s assistant and hesitantly enquired how the results turned out. Angels do work out.
She told me I won first place, but moreover, it was the first time a first writer had been voted first amongst readers. What an astonishing honor, particularly among such distinguished company as Ed Hoch, Doug Allyn, and Lawrence Block.
Weeks later, I found myself sitting in traffic marveling to myself, “They liked my story. They actually liked my story!”
I still say that.
But I misjudged: I knew what the honor meant to me, but I failed to understand that it was a professional milestone in the eyes of others.
For the first time, I was welcomed as a professional.
Mine was an e-mail from Janet, and not a call, but the effect, I imagine, was the same. I think you have to be a little out of your head to expect your first professional credit to be in EQMM; I, for one, sure didn’t. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to find out you were being considered for a Reader’s Choice award, or for that matter to win. I suspect, though, that it was an awful lot like getting that first call all over again.
Winning the EQMM Readers Choice Award with your first trip to bat is incredibly impressive, but it’s not the reason you were accepted as a professional. You were accepted as a professional because you’re a published author, and that’s the definition of a professional.
Where exactly is Anhedonia, anyway? Wasn’t it in ancient Greece?
Is this this the ‘World Behind’ Chris Holm? If so, I haven’t finished your story yet, but I already like your writing.
I AM a little out of my head but it may have had more to do with persistence than brain cells. And you’re right, it was like getting the first call again but more immediate and intense.
Like me, I suspect Dylan Powell (in AHMM) was in a similar position, not quite internalizing the thrust into the spotlight with other well-known writers. We talked that our biggest fear was worrying that we’ll never write a story anyone else will like, whereas the seasoned pros KNOW they can do it over and over again. It’s been people like James Warren who reminds me and other freshmen that he knows we can– and will– do it again.
I suppose I am the “World Behind” Chris Holm, though it’s strange as hell to think in those terms. And it’s that gift of the seasoned pros to engage an audience again and again that brought me here the second I heard about this blog (man, that word always seems to be begging for an apostrophe, does it not?) — so rarely do you hear masters of short fiction speak about their craft.
Very inspiring story to say the least. I was ecstatic with my first contest win which got me a contract and still am (the piece was just published the end of January this year) and although it is an ebook and the cost is low, I still consider myself published and a professional author (have a second story contracted to be due out this month I hope). I look forward to being up there with more pieces contracted to be published and published. E
Elysabeth, you ARE published and in the new medium of this century. I invite you to post a link to your eBook here for others to pick up. You may be giving someone else a chance to grab your story to read tonight or entertain themselves on a plane in the morning.
Thanks Leigh. My stories are very short (less than 5000 words). The one that is out now, The Tulip Kiss, can be found at http://www.echelonpress.com or http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/ElysabethElderingBooks.htm. My next one coming out this month, Butterfly Halves, will be a YA and should be available on Fictionwise (I’d think Echelon would have it as well but there has been a glitch in the webstore page and it feels that Karen has moved all the newly published stories directly to Fictionwise.
I hope to submit a few more short stories to Karen to get contracted before I dive into my YA submission and work on my middle grade mystery (A 50 states mystery using facts, wacky facts, clues, finding two landmarks in each state, and probably some activities in the book as well – like mazes, search-a-words and the like). I also have one mystery (which won a shared second place on http://www.armchairinterviews.com) that was the inspiration to do the 50 states stories and the other shared second place winning story is still on the same website – was an April Fool’s Day contest – so it’s not a mystery but it was fun to write.
Thanks for asking me to post my story links – happy reading ya’ll – see you all in the posts – E
Leigh — Nice piece! When my story was accepted by EQMM Janet sent me an email. I still go back and read it every couple weeks. What a high! Ensuring its continuing existence is one of the main reasons I regularly back up my computer! — Dale
Dear Leigh, I thoroughly enjoyed reading ‘Firsts’ and that you have overcome so much as well as continued the parallel writing journey is something I certainly understand well…Simultaneously, the depth of experience from which you are now able to draw is a well-spring that will continue to tap your subconscious mind and enrichen your writing no matter how subtle.
‘The true man knows both ways – he begins again.’ If you will pardon my use of a cliche. The complexity of complimentary opposites – loss, grief, sorrow – discovery, success, joy et al…mirrors the depth of that changed and changing reality derived from adversity.
Re: ‘Professional’ (writer)?
My recently acquired awards or credits are :
Two Commendations (The Dean’s Letter/s of Commendation for Outstanding Performance (in Creative Writing)
These following High Disinctions and Distinctions (within the Academic structure of Uni) in which the content of one small section of the work awarded is now a published ‘poetry’ book, although having said that, it’s not the easy-reading typ of poetry that many people seem to associate with a typified notion of what Poetry is (or is not).
One of my poems was published in a Literary Magazine
so what I am asking I suppose is, ‘Does this make me a Professional?’
I have been writing – for myself – for many years but until recently kept my writing close to me…
One thing that I have noticed over a period of years is that, while I am never happy with my writing, others are usually quick to point out how well it (usually)works etc. I can’t see it in such a light which is probably a good thing?
I think too that what I am finding is that my writing is beginning now that I am gradually seeing fit to enter into some sort of public dialogue no matter how small…It is indeed my hope that, one day, I will have practical writing experience to back me.
All the best with your writing,
Jane
Why Mr. ADD Detective, this chapter on your journey to much-deserved publication has such a happy ending! You motivate me to believe that I, too, can have my publication dreams come true. Your power to motivate, which takes many forms, is substantial. Your writing improves each time I read it. And the cowboy hat is SUCH a great touch!
Thank you, Sherry and Jane. In a way, it’s good not to be happy about your writing from the standpoint that part of you strives ever upward. On the other hand, don’t let doubts keep you from submitting because one day the right words will land on the right editor’s desk on the right day.
Dale Andrews just above Jane’s note is the writer of the most recent Ellery Queen pastiche called The Book Case, a great guy with the biggest 200 watt grin you’ve ever seen. As she said, that first acceptance is quite a milestone and as I learned at the MWA, even seasoned writers still get occasional rejections.
Jane, you are already published and that also makes you a professional, and if you have a Dean’s letter, that’s additional gold dust on your credentials. You’ve given me an idea for an upcoming column, about a collaboration between writers and poets.
Sherry, thank you for the note you sent. I know you are close to being published, and I look forward to seeing you in print.