Keeping fingers crossed that this blog will work out better than the last one… *g*

Some of you may have had a chance to take a look at the interview Haven did with me and posted on her website recently. If so, you saw that I commented on the worst advice I’d ever received in terms of my writing career.

However, I have another little anecdote from around the same time - a little earlier than that disastrous incident, in fact - where I did listen to my instincts with some great results, even though I was still nervous and afraid in the process of it. It’s as powerful an example of following your instincts as the one detailed in the interview, only showing the positive things that can come from following your instincts (which I think is only fair). *g*

I was attending my first RWA National Conference in 1994, and boy, was I star-struck! I was surrounded by thousands of other romance writers and catching glimpses of authors whose books lined my own shelves at home (Barbara Samuel, Anne Stuart, Nora Roberts, Susan Wiggs, etc. I even had my picture taken with Diana Gabaldon, who was still attending RWA at that point in her career). Better still, I was able to attend “Spotlight On” workshops for the publishers I’d recently begun to target as most desirable for my own writing submissions; at the top of the list at that time was Bantam, the publisher of my absolute favorite author, Teresa Medeiros. A whole panel of editors from Bantam was there, along with Bantam Publisher Irwyn Applebaum and several other higher-ups from the company, since the conference was right in NYC and easily accessible for all of them.

I sat and listened avidly through the presentation, excited when they put on a slide show that gave everyone glimpes inside the Bantam offices, and trying not to get discouraged when they showed the room at Bantam dedicated solely to slush pile submissions, stacked waist-high all around with manuscripts and partials sent by hopefuls just like me.

Finally, after a question and answer session, the workshop ended, and people were milling around. It had been heavily attended, and there were at several hundred conference-goers all stretching, approaching some of the panelists, or heading out the doors to the next workshop on their schedules. I looked up, still overwhelmed by all that I’d seen and heard, and I saw that one of the Bantam editors wasn’t being mobbed by anyone. She was standing and shuffling through her papers, in preparation to leave the room. I felt a tingle of nervousness combined with a positive rush of feeling (my gut instinct) as I stood and prepared to approach her to ask the question I’d been too shy to ask in front of everyone during the question and answer session - a question I believed would be a great lead for me and my writing career, if I could get someone “in the know” to answer it.

Now, keep in mind that I was a young, naive, and inexperienced conference-goer, not to mention a brand new writer, having just begun my first manuscript about a year earlier. The question I asked wasn’t inappropriate, exactly, but it was probably a more direct question than any this big-time editor had ever had tossed at her before by a pip-squeak like me.

I marched right up to the to slightly raised dais and the table there where she was standing and told her I was an aspiring author who would love to write for Bantam books. Then I asked her if she could recommend any literary agents with whom she liked to work.

For an instant, she stared at me like I was from another planet, startled, I’m sure. Then this sort of half-smile quirked her lips, and her eyes warmed up. She exchanged glances with an assistant editor who’d come up next to her as I’d approached, murmured for her to hand her a pen, grabbed a piece of the hotel’s notepaper - it was Marriott Marquis letterhead - and scribbled five names in a list for me. With another glance by the assistant and a few murmurings between them, the editor handed the paper over to me, smiling even more deeply when I stumbled over myself thanking her before backing away in a daze.

I still have that paper, tucked away safely in my files - and I’m also represented by one of the agents/agencies on that list, though it was a long, hard road getting there (five years later, to be precise).

But that incident and that piece of paper remind me that it’s always right to follow your gut instincts when it comes to this writing life - just as it’s always a bad idea to ignore them.

And now, my question for the day, toward the prize being offered this week, is: what alternative career did I consider before settling on writing and teaching? (the answer can be found in the “Meet Mary” section of my website).

–MRM