Keep On Keepin’ On

You can’t make this up.

I mean, my head is still spinning.

Twenty-three years ago I wrote a novel called Killer Source. This was my fourth completed novel. I loved the concept. In fact, the idea came to me whole. I was driving on I-25 near Broadway, heading north, the moment it happened. I saw story arc, characters, and the whole thing in about ten seconds flat.

At that point, I had been represented by three well-known literary agents for each of my first three novels (though no sale). Three projects, three different agents. Lots of hope, nothing to show for it. But I thought for sure this new idea was the winner.

No such luck. I got one strange offer of representation from a fringe agency with weird terms and that was it. I declined. And I shoved the novel in a drawer.

A few years later, in 2007, my first book came out from a small publisher. I had no idea at the time but it was the beginning of the five novels in the Allison Coil Mystery Series. That series included a two-book contract with Midnight Ink (books three and four) and I had written book five (The Melancholy Howl) before Midnight Ink dropped me and later closed its doors.

What to do?

I pulled out this old novel, Killer Source. This was 2015. I mean, I’d learned a few things about writing over the past 15 years and what if I rewrote the novel and applied what I had learned to this story of a defrocked television reporter and a retired serial killer? Oh, and I would need to research what had changed in the world of television news gathering (because so much had changed in the technology). 

Well, the story didn’t stink. I mean, it was okay. The story still grabbed me.

I went to a party for Colorado Gold volunteers at the home of longtime RMFW member Betsy Dornbusch. September, 2015. There, I chatted with Danielle Burby, a literary agent from New York. I told her about the story and later sent her the manuscript. Many months later, shhe offered me representation.

Huzzah! My fourth literary agent. A charm?

Right? Wrong. After working on the novel for a few months, Danielle announced that she was no longer repping crime fiction and that she was shifting her focus to YA. Danielle said she would give the novel to one of the agency’s partners, Josh Getzler, but that he was under no obligation to keep me on.

Well, Josh liked the book and offered to rep it.

Phew.

Somewhere in here, a year or two vanish in the timeline. I ended up self-publishing The Melancholy Howl in 2016 so I was pretty distracted by that project and thought at some point I’d bear down, with Josh’s help, on selling Killer Source. But in the summer of 2018, I came up out of the blue with an idea for a novel set in the world of baseball. Josh loved that idea so much that he said that Killer Source would wait.

Eighteen months later, I sent the baseball novel to Josh. In February of 2020, we took The Fireballer out to market. Thanks to the pandemic of 2020 and all the upheaval in the publishing business, the book did not sell until December of 2021—twenty-two months later.

It sold, however, with the request that I also write another non-crime fiction novel – something about the “human condition.” 

I had an idea for a story set in the world of rock and roll and wrapped that up in 2023. Josh liked it. I liked it. Friends liked it. Writer pals liked it. But the editor who bought The Fireballer had been promoted and no longer bought books.

And her replacement declined to buy it. We got word about the rejection in early April.   

But Josh had also sent the new editor Killer Source.  By that point, I had re-titled No Lie Lasts Forever. I had worked on the book so much I also changed the name of the main female protagonist (the television reporter), too.

On May 2 (three months ago), that editor emailed Josh. She “loved” No Lie Lasts Forever.

In the end, after 23 years of work and waiting, she was the first editor to read the book. But, wait, there’s more. The editor saw the possibilities for a sequel and for the first time in my career I’ve signed a contract for a book I have yet to write. And, more likely, this will be a trilogy.

So No Lie Lasts Forever will come out in April 2025.

Truly, almost a quarter-century.

Why tell this story? Because the novel got better (and better) with all the writer pals who weighed in, especially Danielle and Josh but also a good friend in the television news business who helped me, in 2018, with some key insights about the business. I feel as if with every rewrite that the story grew tighter, more focused. And now I’m going through developmental edits and finding even more ways to nail down the story’s essence.

There’s really no downside to the old idea: keep on keeping on.