Today, I welcome fellow Indie Chick, Anne Allen, who shares her inspiring story from
Indie Chicks: 25 Independent Women, 25 Personal Stories. Take it away, Anne!
A KINKY ADVENTURE IN ANGLOPHILIA
By Anne R. Allen
When I started writing funny women’s fiction fifteen years
ago, if anybody had given me a realistic idea of my chances for publication,
I’d have chosen a less stressful hobby, like do-it-yourself brain surgery,
professional frog herding, or maybe staging an all-Ayatollah drag revue in
downtown Tehran.
As a California
actress with years of experience of cattle-drive auditions, greenroom cat-fights
and vitriolic reviewers, I thought I had built up enough soul-calluses to go
the distance. But nothing had prepared me for the glacial waiting periods; the
bogus, indifferent and/or suddenly-out-of-business agents; and the
heartbreaking, close-but-no-cigar reads from big-time editors—all the rejection
horrors that make the American publishing industry the impenetrable fortress it
has become.
But some of us are too writing-crazed to stop ourselves. I
was then, as now, sick in love with the English language.
I had three novels completed. A fourth had run as a serial
in a California entertainment
weekly. One of my stories had been short-listed for an international prize, and
a play had been produced to good reviews. I was bringing in a few bucks—mostly
with short pieces for local magazines and freelance editing.
But meantime, my savings had evaporated along with my
abandoned acting career; my boyfriend had ridden his Harley into the Big
Sur sunset; my agent was hammering me to write formula romance;
and I was contemplating a move to one of the less fashionable neighborhoods of
the rust belt.
Even acceptances turned into rejections: a UK
zine that had accepted one of my stories folded. But when the editor sent the
bad news, he mentioned he’d taken a job with a small UK
book publisher—and did I have any novels?
I sent him one my agent had rejected as “too over the top.”
Within weeks, I was offered a contract by my new editor—a former BBC comedy
writer—for FOOD OF LOVE. Included was an invitation
to come over the pond to do some promotion.
So I rented out my beach house, packed my bags and bought a ticket to
Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, where my new publishers had recently moved into a
19th century former textile mill on the banks of the river Trent—the river
George Eliot fictionalized as “the Floss.”
George Eliot. I was going to be working and living only a few hundred
yards from the ruins of the house where she wrote her classic novel about the
19th century folk who lived and died by the power of Lincolnshire’s great tidal river. Maybe some of that greatness
would rub off on me.
At the age of… well, I’m not telling…I was about to have the adventure
of my life.
I knew the company published mostly erotica, but was
branching into mainstream and literary fiction. They had already published the
first novel of a distinguished poet, and a famous Chicago
newspaper columnist was in residence, awaiting the launch of his new book.
But when I arrived, I found the great Chicagoan had left in
a mysterious fit of pique, the “erotica” was seriously hard core kink, and the
old building on the Trent was more
of the William Blake Dark Satanic variety than George Elliot’s bucolic “Mill on
the Floss.”
Some of my fears subsided when I
was greeted by a friendly group of unwashed, fiercely intellectual young men
who presented me with generous quantities of warm beer, cold meat pies and
galleys to proof. After a beer or two, I found myself almost comprehending
their northern accents.
I held it together until I saw my new digs: a grimy futon and an old metal
desk, hidden behind stacks of book pallets in the corner of an unheated
warehouse, about a half a block from the nearest loo. My only modern
convenience was an ancient radio abandoned by a long-ago factory girl.
I have to admit to admit to some tears of despair.
Until, from the radio, Big Ben
chimed six
o’clock.
That’s six pm, GMT.
Greenwich Mean Time. The words hit me with all the sonorous power of Big Ben
itself. I had arrived at the mean, the middle, the center that still holds—no
matter what rough beasts might slouch through the cultural deserts of the
former empire. This was where my language, my instrument, was born.
I clutched my galley-proof to my heart. I might still be a rejected nobody in
the land of my birth—but I’d landed on the home planet: England. And there, I was a published novelist. Just like George
Eliot.
Three years later, I returned to
California, older, fatter (the English may not have the best food,
but their BEER is another story) and a lot wiser. That Chicagoan’s fit of pique
turned out to be more than justified. The company was swamped in debt. They
never managed to get me US distribution. Shortly before my second book THE BEST
REVENGE was to launch, the managing partner withdrew his capital, sailed away
and mysteriously disappeared off his yacht—his body never found. The company
sputtered and died.
And I was back in the slush pile
again.
But I had a great plot for my
next novel.
Unfortunately, nobody wanted it.
I was now tainted with the “published-to-low-sales-numbers label and my chances
were even worse than before.
So I wrote two more novels.
Nobody wanted them either.
Then I started a blog. I figured
I could at least let other writers benefit from my mistakes. My blog followers
grew. And grew. The blog won some awards. My Alexa and Klout ratings got better
and better. Finally, publishers started approaching ME. (There’s a moral for
writers here—social networking works.)
And finally, six years later,
another publisher, Popcorn Press, fell in love with FOOD OF LOVE and sent me a
contract. Soon after, they contracted to publish THE BEST REVENGE, too.
And this September, a brand new
indie ebook publisher called Mark Williams International Digital Publishing
asked if I had anything else ready to publish.
Just happen to have a few
unpubbed titles handy, said I.
He liked them.
So in October and November of
2011, those three new comic mysteries will appear as ebooks: THE GATSBY GAME,
GHOSTWRITERS IN THE SKY, and SHERWOOD, LTD (that’s the novel inspired by my
English adventures.) Popcorn Press will publish paper versions in 2012. THE
BEST REVENGE debuted as an ebook in December, with the paper book to follow in
February.
A fifteen-year journey finally
seems to be paying off.
Did I make some mistakes? Oh
yeah—a full set of them. But would I wish away my English adventures?
Not a chance.
*******
Links:
SHERWOOD, LTD
THE BEST REVENGE
