MAYHEM AND A WRITER’S
LIFE
(The Story of Daisy
Gumm Majesty, etc.)
2002 was the year I was stricken with the greatest idea of what
I laughingly call my writing career: Daisy Gumm Majesty. Daisy was born in my
own home city of Pasadena, California, and still lived there with her family.
The first book was set in 1920. What’s more, Daisy earned her living as a phony
spiritualist, because she could make more money doing that than she could doing
any of the other work designated for women at the time, and she had to support
her war-injured husband Billy. I wanted the books to be historical cozy
mysteries. Amy Garvey, my editor at Kensington, told Linda Kruger, my agent,
that she and the late, great Kate Duffy, one of the big muckety-mucks at Kensington,
loved the idea for the books but that they thought the books didn’t have enough
mystery in them. Therefore, they asked me to remove the dead bodies, add a
subsidiary romance (because the heroine was already married) and they’d market
them as romances. I did, they did, and the books tanked. The books were STRONG
SPIRITS (I got a complimentary letter from a copy editor for that book) and
FINE SPIRITS.
Kate Duffy actually called to apologize for the poor
marketing of my dearly beloved “Spirits” books. I appreciated her phone call
but was crushed that I wouldn’t be able to write more Daisy novels. I’d already
begun thinking about a series featuring survivors of the Titanic disaster, which I told Kate about during that telephone
call. She was enthusiastic, so I worked up proposals for a series of three
books. Since the “Spirits” books bombed, the Powers That Be at Kensington asked
me to take a new name. It was thus that Anne Robins (my two daughters’ names) was
born.
I was in a dreadful funk over the demise of Daisy and had a
hard time writing the first Titanic
book. Amy Garvey had gone the way of all good editors (she left Kensington and
began writing her own books), and I was turned over to Hillary Sares. Hillary
was wonderful, and she helped me very much with A PERFECT STRANGER, the first
book in the series. After A PERFECT STRANGER the other books come more easily:
A PERFECT ROMANCE (which is my favorite of the series, being
in the nature of a romp. Also, the heroine of the piece was rich, a state that
was beginning to appeal to me more and more), and
A PERFECT WEDDING
I suggested A PERFECT AFFAIR and A PERFECT DIVORCE, but
Hillary didn’t think those would go over well.
About that time a writing buddy, Mimi Riser, asked if I’d be willing to pen a book or two for a new publisher, New Age Dimensions, which had been established by a friend of hers. Feeling abused and mistreated, I penned another historical cozy mystery (a MYSTERY, darn it!) set in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1923. You can see that I’d somehow managed to get myself stuck in the 1920s. It’s a fascinating era, but I’m not quite sure why I like to stick around in it so much. At any rate, PECOS VALLEY DIAMOND was published by NAD in 2005, and I also wrote its sequel, PECOS VALLEY REVIVAL. These books starred Annabelle Blue, who worked at her family’s mercantile store in Roswell, and featured Phil Gunderson, Annabelle’s erstwhile boyfriend, whom Annabelle dragged along with her into various adventures. Unfortunately for all of us who were connected with NAD, it was financially crushed by Hurricane Wilma in the great hurricane epidemic of 2005. So there I was, stuck with PECOS VALLEY REVIVAL and no place to put it.
Since I was still mourning the loss of Daisy Gumm Majesty and
was really sick of writing sex scenes, I started writing LOST AMONG THE ANGELS,
yet another historical cozy mystery, this one set in Los Angeles, CA, in 1926. Mercy
Allcutt, the heroine of the book, was kind of a consolation prize for me after the
death of Daisy. Again, Kensington didn’t think the mystery a big-enough element
in the book. They were probably right, but I was lost again.
And then true tragedy struck when Linda Kruger decided to
retire from agenting in order to care for her then two-year-old son Tyler.
What, I ask you, kind of priority is that????
I was horribly crushed and didn’t know what to do.
Fortunately, by that time I’d begun editing for Five Star, a
publisher that primarily targets libraries. Since I figured what the heck (a
recurring theme in my life), I asked if I could submit a book to then. I was
told I could, but that just because I edited for them didn’t mean I had any
special pull and that my books had to be vetted just like anyone else’s. That was
okay with me. By that time, I’d decided I didn’t exactly have my finger on the
pulse of the reading public and that it didn’t matter that I have a niftier
turn of phrase than, say, Dan Brown. Mind you, I respect and admire Dan Brown,
and even sort of liked the Da Vinci Code.
The point is that he’s rich and I’m not, so that tells you how much writing
skills mean in the overall scheme of things.
Luckily for me, the other Five Star editors, those who read
my manuscripts, seemed to have liked them, because Five Star has published:
LOST AMONG THE ANGELS,
CACTUS FLOWER,SIERRA RANSOM,
ANGEL’S FLIGHT,
FALLEN ANGELS, and
THANKSGIVING ANGELS
And then—glory hallelujah!—Five Star bought the third book
in my Daisy Gumm Majesty series, HIGH SPIRITS. Not only that, but they also
took on the fourth through the seventh books in the series, HUNGRY SPIRITS,
GENTEEL SPIRITS, ANCIENT SPIRITS and SPIRITS REVIVED.
Then, on a whim, I sent Five Star PECOS VALLEY REVIVAL,
the sole survivor of my New Age Dimensions days, and Five Star decided to publish
it! Therefore, PECOS VALLEY REVIVAL was published some time in 2011. Since the
book is set in Roswell, New Mexico, which pretty much looked in 1923 exactly as
it looked in 1883, the twenties didn’t do a whole lot of roaring there, but
Roswell’s citizens did their best. After PECOS VALLEY REVIVAL came PECOS VALLEY
RAINBOW. I don’t know if I’ll write any further PECOS VALLEY books. I’m getting
old and tired, and writing really doesn’t pay for itself. The only good thing
so far about my writing life is that I can now supplement my social security
income via my editing work for Five Star, which pays ever so much better than
writing ever did.
A caveat to that last statement: A couple of year ago,
Jeanne Glidewell, whose books I used to edit for Five Star, told me about
ePublishing Works, run by the amazing team, Nina and Brian Paules. They’ve
taken over my Daisy books, and have since published DARK SPIRITS, SPIRITS
ONSTAGE, UNSETTLED SPIRITS, BRUISED SPIRITS, and will publish SPIRITS UNITED if
I ever finish writing it. They’ve also repackaged some of my old historical
romances and my historical paranormal romances. And, what's even better, they're actually making MONEY for me! Wow. That's never happened before.
By the way, I never wanted to write paranormal books. I was
asked to do so by Berkley, and one (if one is me) doesn’t argue with one’s
publisher.
Also, bless their hearts, ePW is taking over my Mercy
Allcutt books, although there’s some kerfuffle about the rights to the last
Mercy book, THANKSGIVING ANGELS. By the way, FALLEN ANGELS, Mercy’s third book,
won the New Mexico/Arizona Book of the Year Award for mystery/suspense. I
belong to the George C. Scott school of contest-dom and don’t generally hold
with writing contests. That’s because I honestly don’t think you can
successfully judge all books in the same manner as you can, say, oranges or
lemon-meringue pie or Girl Scout cookies or whatever. I prefer Samoas. Other
folks love Thin Mints, you know? Every writer has his or her own voice. Some
folks like a particular author’s voice and stories, and some people don’t, and
there’s no accounting for taste. However, I entered the contest because it
tickled my funny bone. I mean, New Mexico? I think New Mexico has the lowest
literacy rate in the country. Whatever.
And that, as you’re probably pleased to know, is it for this
month’s blog. Whew! That was long.
If you’d like to enter my September contest, during which I’ll let you pick whatever book you want if I have it (that I’ve written, of course), send me an email at alice@aliceduncan.net. Also, please visit my web page at http://aliceduncan.net/ and my Facebook Page at https://www.facebook.com/alice.duncan.925
Thanks!
