I’d like to welcome my guest Karen McCullough. Karen has written and published nine novels in the romantic suspense, mystery, and fantasy genres and won numerous awards, including an Eppie Award for fantasy. She’s also been a four-time Eppie finalist, and a finalist in the Prism, Dream Realm, Rising Star, Lories, Scarlett Letter, and Vixen Awards contests. Her short fiction has appeared in several anthologies and numerous small press publications in the fantasy, science fiction, and romance genres.
Her most recent publication was a Christmas paranormal novella, VAMPIRE’S CHRISTMAS CAROL, published by Cerridwen Press in the anthology BENEATH A CHRISTMAS MOON. Forthcoming releases include a Gothic novella from Red Rose Publishing, which will be part of the SHADOWED HEARTS anthology, and a mystery novel, A GIFT FOR MURDER, from Five Star/Gale Group, with hardcover release scheduled for January 2011. A member of Mystery Writers of America, Romance Writers of America, and the Writers’ Group of the Triad, she is currently serving as president of the Southeast Chapter of Mystery Writers of America.
KAREN: Twenty-five years ago today, in 1985, I was learning how to write a novel. In fact, I was just finishing up the second novel I’d ever written, a romantic suspense story titled A QUESTION OF FIRE. I’d been writing short stories and nonfiction pieces for a while, but I’d only recently worked up the nerve to embark on writing my first novel. I did it, though, and I enjoyed it. But that first novel was a learning experience. Even I recognized that it had some… well, problems. Okay, to be perfectly honest…it sucked. It was really, seriously bad. That manuscript is now somewhere in a box in the attic with a sticky note on it saying, “Burn Me!”
I was pretty sure that I had a better idea how to do it with my second novel. It took me almost a year to write, and it was much better. Unfortunately ‘much better’ still meant I had a long way to go. I sent it out to editors and agents and collected a nice batch of rejections, although several of them did say encouraging things about my writing. A couple even said this was a “near miss” for them, but they didn’t think they could market a romantic mystery at the time.
Encouraged by the nicer rejections, I kept writing more novels, and submitting them, and worked through the depression of rejection after rejection, until I finally got THE CALL a few years later. It wasn’t for that second book. Or the third. The first book I sold was actually the sixth complete novel I had written. Persistence paid off.
Still, I knew I had a good story in A QUESTION OF FIRE, even though it had problems, so I rewrote. Then I rewrote it again. And again. After a couple more rewrites, the book actually sold and was published. Then after too short a period on the shelves it went out of print. I recently put it out in an electronic edition for the Kindle. More persistence paying off. In the immortal words of Jim Valvano: “Never give up. Don’t ever give up.”
Karen invites visitors to check out her web site. Also check out A QUESTION OF FIRE on Amazon. When Cathy Bennett agrees to attend an important party as a favor for her boss, she knows she won’t enjoy it. But she doesn’t expect to end up holding a dying man in her arms and becoming the recipient of his last message.
