Authors' Journeys

Kate Douglas

How to become an overnight success in twenty years. give or take a decade or two.

Way back in 1976 I read my first Harlequin Romance. It was Leopard in the Snow by Anne Mather. I still remember that book, not so much for the content but for the light bulb flash of inspiration that I, too, could write a romance.

Some day, when the kids were older.

By 1985 my babies were rotten little kids with lives of their own and I was free to indulge myself in that secret dream I'd carried for almost ten years.

I started my first book.

I still have it-Rite of Passage. It's horrible. It's filled with every conceivable romance cliché, but it's category length and has a beginning, a middle and an end. What it doesn't have is a cohesive plot, decent dialogue or anything remotely resembling proper point of view, but it's still a book and it's all mine. I entered the first three chapters-all I had completed at the time-in a contest in 1987 and won first place. Obviously I was on my way to a fulfilling career as a rich and famous romance author.

Right. The first place plaque is practically an antique. Twenty years later, I'm beginning to see the glimmer of success, but the rich and famous part is still around that ever-evolving corner.

I was a newspaper reporter during the '80s, and my creative juices went into stories about drug busts, forest fires and high school football games. Still, the dream persisted and I finally finished writing my book and started submitting it to New York publishing houses in 1992. When I say I could wallpaper my office with the rejections I received, I'm not exaggerating. My files are a "who's who" of the romance publishing industry in the mid 1990s, and not a single one of those wonderful editors wanted my story. The advice was always the same-write the best story you can write. Write your own story, the story of your heart.

I thought that's what I was doing.

Obviously, I needed help if I was ever going to reach my Holy Grail-that elusive New York publishing contract. I joined Romance Writers of America, entered more contests, read everything I could on writing novels, took creative writing classes and continued collecting rejections. I put the first book away and wrote a second, then a third. My writing grew stronger with each attempt, as did my ability to handle rejection from every editor on the face of the planet.

The reasons they gave for rejecting my stories were varied, but most of them could be listed under the "not what we're looking for at this time" category. A few editors asked me to revise and resubmit, but that's as far as I got. I told myself they weren't rejecting me, merely this or that particular story, but that didn't make it any easier to file the letters in my fat little folder. One thing I didn't do, however, was quit. I kept writing. I kept submitting and I kept improving my craft. I found critique partners who had strengths where I was weak. I trusted their skills. I listened and learned.

I continued to write. I continued submitting my stories.

I continued filing the rejections, one after the other.

Then I discovered epublishing and suddenly I had a book coming out. Of course, the problem then was answering the "So, when are you going to write a real book?" question, but I didn't really care. I was published, I was getting terrific reviews and suddenly, much to my surprise, I got an agent.

Obviously, success was right around the corner-New York, mass market publication here I come!

Or not.

I began to stretch, writing stories that were more involved, a little bit hotter, a whole lot edgier. Late in the year 2000 I discovered Ellora's Cave and realized I'd found my match-a publisher who wanted the edgy, sexy stories I'd been writing. The company might be located in Ohio, not New York, but I finally felt as if I'd found my spot in the writing world.

A couple years later I added Changeling Press and Loose Id to my résumé, both small presses publishing stories for the growing online erotic romance audience. To my surprise, at some point during the year I realized that New York contract had ceased being my Holy Grail. I loved what I was doing and felt comfortable in my niche, writing very successful paranormal and s/f series for both Ellora's Cave and Changeling Press. New York was perfectly welcome to reject someone else.

What's that saying? Ah, yes.don't get too comfortable. I sent my epublished serial, Wolf Tales, (which had its origins as a "freebie" for readers on a chat list) to my agent, Jessica Faust of BookEnds. In spite of my overwhelming lack of success, she hadn't dumped me by the side of the road and I thought the kinky, sexy, romantic series I was currently writing for Changeling Press would, if it didn't frighten Jessica away altogether, possibly shock some unsuspecting editor into an acceptance.

Hopefully, Kensington editor Audrey LaFehr has fully recovered from that first read. Imagine my surprise when the series I wrote for myself, the stories I had never expected to see in print, found a home with Kensington Books. Though the entire process still has a surrealistic feel to it, I am absolutely thrilled to say that twenty years of writing, of critique groups, writers' conferences, seminars and classes have finally resolved themselves into my own, personal success story. Not overnight or even close, but I wouldn't trade the journey for anything.

When you love writing, when you love the words-the process as much as the finished product-it comes down to a very simple truth. The New York contract isn't the Holy Grail. The Grail is not the advance or even the royalty checks. Writing-the process, the personal growth, the overall mind-blowing experience of writing-is what makes it all worthwhile. When I allowed the quest for a NY contract to become more important than the process of creation, I failed.

When I wrote the stories I wanted to write, the way I wanted to write them, when I finally stayed on a path that led to my own satisfaction, the Grail fell softly into my lap.

Kate Douglas is currently writing the eleventh title in her Wolf Tales series with Kensington Aphrodisia. She is contracted for eighteen novels and novellas in the series.