Francine Mathews writes:
I wrote my first book, Death in the Off-Season, as the result of a dare.
I was working as an intelligence analyst at the CIA at the time, and I was tired of wearing stockings every day, tired of having to report to duty whether the world was in danger of mass destruction or not; and I told my husband, I want to stay home and write novels for a living.
He said, “That’s a pipe dream. You should be down on your knees thanking God for your job, woman—you’re paid to think! Do you know how rare that is in America?”
When I raised the subject again, the next day and the day after that, he said, “Look: You’re not going to quit your job and write in the suburbs while you raise the kids. You’ll find yourself twelve years out with five unfinished manuscripts in your closet and a sense of shock at the way time goes.”
This was on our anniversary, in the front seat of a convertible, with the wind blowing; and thinking it possible I’d misunderstood him—we had no kids at the time—I asked for clarification. He said: “Okay. Here’s the deal. If you can write a book and sell it, we’ll talk about you quitting.”
So I wrote Death in the Off-Season after work at night over the course of the next nine months, found my agent Rafe Sagalyn (who lived down the street), and signed a two-book, hard-soft deal to William Morrow/Avon.
Then quit.
That was thirteen years and seventeen books ago.
The story makes poor Mark sound like a complete dick, but the truth is: Without his challenge, I’d still be trying to save the world from mass destruction in my stockings every day.
Francine Mathews is the author of eight novels of mystery and suspense. Her latest CIA thriller, Blown, is due out from Bantam May 1. As Stephanie Barron, she writes the Jane Austen mysteries. Jane and His Lordship’s Legacy, the eighth Austen novel, was published March 1 by Bantam.
