The Book That Almost Wasn’t
Gray Horse at Oak Lane Stable (Book 2), the second middle grade horse book in the series, almost wasn’t written. You see, I was going to quit writing. Mystery Horse at Oak Lane Stable (Book 1) wasn’t selling well despite trying to reach a larger audience, and its road to being published had been disappointing to say the least (Read Blog Post: Rejections and More Rejections for the story). Was I ready to go through all of that again? I wrote maybe the first five chapters (about 2,000 words) shortly after Mystery Horse was released, but shoved it into a dark hiding spot because life had other things that needed my immediate attention (which was really just an excuse to avoid a possible heartache all over again).
In March of 2019, I had written a 1,200 word nonfiction piece for The Lakefly Writers Contest (in conjunction with their spring writers conference). Since I wasn’t working on the second novel, I thought I could at least write something. I had my eye on entering the Write On Hal Prize, but had to wait to see if I had placed in the Lakefly writing contest, which I had submitted to in late March. By late April, I learned that I hadn’t won anything, so I rewrote the piece as a double-strand braided essay, added an extra 798 words to the 2,000 word limit, and sent it off to the Hal Prize on April 30th, one day before the May 1st deadline. To be perfectly honest, I actually forgot I had entered the contest.
I attended the Lakefly Writers Conference in May of 2019. I considered practicing pitching Gray Horse to an agent/publisher with only five chapters written (I wouldn’t suggest doing this, although that’s exactly what I did with Mystery Horse), but decided against it. A very good friend of mine, who was also at the writing conference, practically dragged me over to sign up for the pitch practice. As fate would have it, I ended up with an unexpected slot opening that had just occurred. I presented first to a small publisher, who I learned was also a former equestrian. She told me to send her the manuscript when it was finished writing it. I thanked her, we shook hands, and I walked out the door, thinking that was that. She’d told me she wasn’t taking on any new authors, so I let it go.
Writing came to a complete halt after that. At the time, I worked as an assistant to an interior designer, which kept me busy for the summer. I was ready to take down my author website, let my domain name expire, and move on. Mystery Horse still wasn’t doing well despite my best efforts. I wasn’t up for any of this author business anymore.
In early July, I received an email while at work saying congratulations for winning the Hal Prize in Nonfiction. I was shocked. I had won this award out of all of the other entries? I let the news sink in before getting back to work. I had won a significant writing award! Embers suddenly glowed from deep inside. It wasn’t instant, but my passion for writing slowly returned. By November of 2019, I was ready to work on Gray Horse again, pulling it out from under a stack of shelved work. I joined the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and wrote over 38,000. I didn’t complete the novel in the month, but I was well on my way to finishing the second book in the series.
In May of 2020, after I had finished writing and editing Gray Horse, on a whim I submitted - almost to the day - the manuscript to the small publisher I had met at the Lakefly Writers Conference the previous year. I was sure she’d forgotten all about me, but within 12 hours of contacting her I had a contract for the publishing of the novel - she loved the story and then eventually the other two books in the series. Gray Horse was sent out into the world.
It would have been easy to quit writing. I could have folded up like so many writers I have known, but something inside keeps me going. I have an in-born passion for words, stringing them into beautiful sentences, then paragraphs, then pages, then eventually a completed novel. I get grumpy if I haven’t been at my writing spot in a while (which rarely happens anymore). Writing takes precedence in my life. I’m amazed at how far I have come, but there is so much more to write about. I will continue to discover more about this passion for life.
