Gayle Lynds writes:
I like to do things the "wrong" way. It's educational, and it's never boring. So in terms of how long it took me to publish my first novel – not long, just some three years, but it was the wrong novel.
I come from a background of literary short stories, which I felt fortunate some of the lit journals actually published. At the same time, I was writing a mainstream novel, and then a mystery. Both of which I completed. Both books were agented, but neither sold. (Thank you, God, for that blessing. They weren't wonderful.)
Then along came divorce – and two children who'd grown accustomed to eating. Since literary journals, fine as they might be, are not a food group, I jumped when given the chance to write Nick Carter novels – America's pulp answer to 007. I figured it was a way to be paid to learn to write, and I was blessed with a publishing situation in which I was allowed to get away with a lot of learning.
Of course, this was the wrong way to break into the industry because along with the few shekels came stigma. But my children were happily nourished, and I was allowed to experiment wildly in those books.
Eventually, I turned all of that knowledge into my "first" novel – Masquerade, published under my own name some ten years and 11 books later. Talk about a blessing. It never should've sold, since the Cold War was definitely over, and spy novels were passé. But heck, I was too ignorant to know I wasn't supposed to write one much less expect a house to buy it.
So if there's a moral in this tale, it's that one never knows. We follow our passions, and hope that at some point they intersect with the interests of the market – or that we simply get lucky and are found by an editor who is as wrong-headed as are we.
Gayle Lynds is a former editor with Top Secret security clearance at a think tank. She has written numerous novels, including 7 of them under her own name, the most recent of which is The Coil.
Don't miss Mystery Ink's interview with Gayle Lynds.
