Michael Palmer writes:
Robin Cook and I went to Wesleyan at the same time and later trained at Mass General Hospital at the same time as well. Spurred on by his success with Coma, I decided to see if I could write a book. A page or so a night, I did. When I had finished, friends who read it started encouraging me to "do something." I knew that an old high school chum was in New York and had (according to my mother) "something to do with books." Little did I know that the "something" she referred to was that Jim was one of the most revered editors in the business, about to become the president and publisher of William Morrow.
After a slightly strained phone call, my high school friend agreed to read my book with two provisos. (1) If it sucked (his word), I had to be ready for him to tell me so, and (2) I had to know in advance that it was going to. Jim hated my book. However, he told me, courses and editors and practice can teach people how to write. What they can't teach people is a sense of what's dramatic, and he was picking that sense up throughout my book. He referred me to three agents, and the first one on his list decided to sign me on provided I was willing to trash my book and start over. With her help and guidance I began work on what turned out to be an 80-page outline of The Sisterhood.
It took me almost a year and many tries to complete the outline, but my agent was able to sell it to a wonderful editor and teacher named Linda Grey at Bantam Books. She used several drafts of the actual book to teach me the nuts and bolts of writing a thriller. Finally, after about 5 drafts, the book was published (soft cover only), sold well over a million copies, got translated into 32 languages, spent two months on the Times List, and is now in its 36th printing.
So, that's how it happened. No pink slips . . . no rejections.
What have I learned after all these years? People who talk about the book they want to write don't ever get published. People who actually write their book sometimes do.
Michael Palmer, M.D. is the author of 11 novels, the most recent of which is The Society. He trained in internal medicine at Boston City and Massachusetts General Hospitals, spent twenty years as a full-time practitioner of internal and emergency medicine, and is now an associate director of the Massachusetts Medical Society's physician health program.
