It’s Never Too Late

When it comes to writing fiction, I’m a late bloomer. Like, really late. I wrote my first historical romance novel when I was forty-six.

So, what the hell have I been doing all those years?

I like to think I was busy becoming a writer—I just took the looooong road. Or maybe just a really twisty one.

I moved to the US in 1976 with my parents. Like many immigrants, they wanted something better for their kids. Better meant a career that didn’t require back-breaking labor—bonus points if it came with a bit of status, like being a doctor or lawyer.

You certainly didn’t go to college to become a painter or actor or writer. Those weren’t career choices—those were hobbies, things you did after work.

I spent twelve of the twenty years after high school going to college. I worked dozens of jobs to support myself: reader for the blind, bartender, ice cream manufacturer, house painter, beer reviewer, hotel maid, delivery driver, and more. I completed a graduate degree in history and a law degree. I taught college history and became a criminal prosecutor

By 2007 I was tired of the law and looking for something new when my husband suggested moving to rural New Mexico to operate a bed and breakfast.

It’s no secret that inviting strangers into your house is the worst possible job for an introvert, but I hung in there for eight long years.

We closed the b&b in October 2013 and I took some time to hibernate, heal, and consider my future. I did a lot of reading and somewhere in those months I read an historical romance by Tessa Dare. I’d read Heyer and Holt and Stewart in high school, but nothing written after 1985.

I was thrilled by her cleverness, wit, and humor. It was history, but with sex! I had to write my own.

I completed the first draft by the end of December. And then I wrote another. Between Fall 2013 and the end of 2015 I completed eight books. It was the most fun I’d had without cocktails, hot guys, and designer shoes.

At some point during 2015 my husband asked if I had any plans for all these books.

It sounded like a hint, so I did some research. That’s when I encountered the words ‘query’ and ‘letter’ together. It was a forehead smacking moment. How hard could it be? It was just one eentsy weentsy letter.

A year later I still hadn’t written a query. I simply could not write a letter that didn’t suck.

I used my sneaky lawyer brain and figured there had to be another way.

Then I discovered contests.

The Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers was the first time I sent my writing to strangers. I was terrified, but excited, and entered two historical romances and a science fiction novel.

My two HRs didn’t make it but I took first place with the science fiction. The agent who’d judged asked for more. “Send it along with a query letter,” she said.

A query letter.

I put the request aside and looked for more contests.

And then I discovered RWA.

I’d done far better with my sci fi than my HR but I couldn’t resist the lure of all those beautiful contests. I began entering and started winning—which led to more requests, some of which required a query.

By February of 2017 I had requests for completed novels that I’d never submitted to agents or editors because I still didn’t have a letter.

Finally, my two fabulous beta readers (whom I’d met during my journey) forced me to pick one book and query it.

I hated them for it.

I complained and complained and complained. And then I polished and polished and polished. I was like a raccoon with a cracker. Luckily my betas snatched away my cracker before there was nothing left.

At the end of three weeks I had my svelte, sexy, streamlined query.

My theory has always been “Go Big or Go Home” so I sent my letter to my top five picks.

A few days later I received some soul-crushing news: I’d come in third in an important contest. Not only that, but the judging agent requested material from the two other contestants, but not me. It was the emotional equivalent of being kicked in the face with a Doc Marten.

I’d lost contests before, agents had rejected me before, judges had disliked my writing before. But, for some reason, this just knocked the wind out of me.

For the first time since I’d begun writing almost four years earlier, I thought about quitting. I spent the next weeks searching the internet for other authors’ stories—and boy did I find them. Writers like Chuck Wendig were a revelation and salvation. I wasn’t alone, but only I could decide whether I was tough enough to survive such a career.

And then the impossible happened. Three weeks after sending off my first batch of queries I received a phone call from my dream editor at Kensington Press. She loved my book—and did I have any others?

It’s almost ten months later and I still can’t believe it.

Next year I’ll turn fifty and my novel Dangerous will debut with Kensington.

More-experienced writers have been quick to tell me getting a book published isn’t the end of the struggle—just the beginning of a new one. That’s okay, it means my journey isn’t over yet. I’m excited to know what is waiting around the next bend on my long and twisty road.

—

Minerva Spencer is a Canadian transplant who now lives in the mountains of New Mexico. She began writing in 2013 after closing her 8-room bed and breakfast (a subject she will never write about. . . ) Minerva has been a criminal prosecutor, college history professor, and bartender, among many other things. She currently writes full-time and operates a small poultry rescue on her four-acre hobby farm, where she lives with her wonderful, tolerant husband and many animals. When Minerva isn’t writing or editing she’s playing with birds and dogs or doing a little DIY.

Follow her on Twitter https://twitter.com/MSpencerAuthor

Find out more about her on her website  https://minervaspencer.com/

About DANGEROUS

What sort of lady doesn’t make her debut until the age of thirty-two? A timeless beauty with a mysterious past—and a future she intends to take into her own hands . . .

Lady Euphemia Marlington hasn’t been free in seventeen years—since she was captured by Corsairs and sold into a harem. Now the sultan is dead and Mia is back in London facing relentless newspapermen, an insatiably curious public, and her first Season. Worst of all is her ashamed father’s ultimatum: marry a man of his choosing or live out her life in seclusion. No doubt her potential groom is a demented octogenarian. Fortunately, Mia is no longer a girl, but a clever woman with a secret—and a plan of her own . . .

Adam de Courtney’s first two wives died under mysterious circumstances. Now there isn’t a peer in England willing to let his daughter marry the dangerously handsome man the ton calls The Murderous Marquess. Nobody except Mia’s father, the desperate Duke of Carlisle. Clearly Mia must resemble an aging matron, or worse. However, in need of an heir, Adam will use the arrangement to his advantage . . .

But when the two outcasts finally meet, assumptions will be replaced by surprises, deceit by desire—and a meeting of minds between two schemers may lead to a meeting of hearts—if the secrets of their pasts don’t tear them apart . . .

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: Contemporary Women Writers, On Writing