Thoughts About How Authors Get Published

     I recently remembered when I first heard of Charles Frazier, author of the blockbuster bestseller, Cold Mountain. A friend at work showed me a newspaper article about Frazier, probably thinking that if I read of his remarkable success, I would be encouraged about my own writing. Not! I'd written three novels and only had a file cabinet full of rejection letters to show for my efforts. As the newspaper article said, Frazier spent a mere eight years writing his novel and had stashed it in a bureau drawer only to have his wife (if memory serves) secretly take it from its hiding place and virtually toss it over the transom to a friend in the publishing business. And the rest is history, so to speak.
     In comparison, I worked on my novel for going on seventeen years (okay, to be honest, I finished two other novels in that time and took time off to experience life). But there weren't any transoms around, so I did as Frazier did, put my manuscripts in a bureau drawer (I actually use a file cabinet), and let them sit, while I dreamed that someday my fairy godmother would come along with her magic wand.
     But this is where Frazier and I part company. I was seventeen years older by now. I'd been through the mill, submitting my work to agents and publishers, entering writing competitions (and doing pretty well in a couple of them), and watching writer friends all around me getting published via their own singular kind of miracle. And one day, I decided it was time to stop trying, even though I knew that everyone says the only writer who doesn't get published is the one who stops trying. But the fun had gone out of writing, and I wanted the fun back. I thought the way to put fun back in writing was to give it away free to anyone who wanted to read it. Kind of like the millionaire who received his joy by giving away his money anonymously ..... something like that. I created a blog (this one) and began to post my novel, one chapter at a time. (I have since read that the majority of readers hate to read novels in serial form, preferring to have the entire book so they can read at their own pace and not have to sit and wait for the next series of chapters.)
     And that's when it happened. Charles Frazier all over again. I ran across a friend, who had joined a publishing group, and the friend was eager to read my manuscript. There it was . . . my transom. Ready to have me throw my manuscript over it and be fast-tracked to editors.
     Okay, this is not a success story yet. The editors have to like my story enough to want to publish it. But for me, today, I feel like Charles Frazier, and I'm beginning to visualize my book in print, and Mel Gibson playing the lead role in the movie version.