
M.J. Rose writes:
It took sixteen years from the time I first started writing until Lip Service was published by Pocket Books in 1999. In between, I wrote six screenplays (four of which have been optioned several times each) and five novels -- four that no one has ever seen. Or ever will see.
My fifth effort at a novel (Flesh Tones) was the one that landed me an agent in '93. Unfortunately, we couldn't sell it at the time and I put it aside to write Lip Service.
So the sixth novel I wrote was the first one published and the first novel I considered good enough to show anyone, Flesh Tones, was the third one published (2002), twelve years after I started working on it.
M.J. Rose, a marketing guru and tireless champion of the midlist writer, is the author of five novels, the latest of which is The Halo Effect.