Getting up and Getting Published Again

 I wasn’t sure Brilliant Disguise was going to make it into print.  You see, my publisher of my first two books accepted it back in January of 2019.  Then the Editor-in-Chief retired.  Then the company was sold.  Then it was sold again. A year passed.   But I know it takes a long time to ready a manuscript for publication.  There are several editing passes, formatting, and cover design, just to name a few hoops.  So I gave it the year.  Then two years.  Three.  And somewhere in there, communication all but ceased.  I called, I emailed more times than I can count just to see where my manuscript was in the queue.  Everything went unanswered and unreturned.  And I wasn’t the only author with this company facing these frustrations.  The website had not been updated in over a year.  Finally, after four years, I decided that if I wanted to get my work out there in the world, I had to find a new publisher.  I had my lawyer draw up a certified letter stating that rights to all of my works are to be returned to me.  

I wasn’t just a little nervous, or sad.  I was starting back at square one. I had worked for years to find a publisher and in the beginning with this one, I was happy.  I felt like they had taken great care of my work.  Now, I was starting all over.  I would have to spend hours researching publishers, writing query letters and synopses, following up with chapters.

Nerves, anxiety, and self-doubt set in as I faced the inevitable rejections.  Had I made a mistake? Should I have just stuck it out?  

No.  I carried on, even when the rejections hurt.  They’re simply a part of any creative person’s life.  I think it was Sylvia Plath that said she loved her rejection letters because they showed her she tried.  I can’t say I loved my rejections, but they did show me that I was nothing if not persevering.  

Then finally, a few months after leaving my publisher and sinking into the wallowing dark night of rejections, a star sparkled in the form of an editor saying she found my book to be one of the most intriguing she’d read in a long time.  A contract to sign with them accompanied the email.  I had to read it about ten times before it sank in.  At the risk of sounding like Sally Field, someone liked my work!  They really liked it!  

And I’ve loved them.  Communication is solid.  For the first time in a long time I feel like my work is in capable hands that will take care of it.  And now, only a few months after signing with them, my work has made it through the editing process and is now out there in the world in multiple formats:

https://www.amazon.com/Audible-BRILLIANT-DISGUISE/dp/B0DJCW4ZHZ/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2VMRKSXBWIQ67&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.qNypX24CGN4tl8VDaO5kPTMNGmRBt7WmzmNxu02ChysCEtcOt-N5w4qtsVIr_58x6nXDLhDReuA-WQQ6vcusWTtN4Btt92YzJR5Rh6reiexMsFwbosDJmPZXRUEEK6jeL79evsZsN497n9oNdrHab83XJ72ZdvJMioD8Ga-f5y6vdeLTWkInUVxiyVcqhc5Lv2rAlI3AJBalFB9uvU6vk_wppz0s3CnnBzvRfjQbQZ8.JdEjHWs6_mZF8IIHXszgE2D9Oqi50Th9gbp8alN-IJI&dib_tag=se&keywords=tanya+newman&qid=1730211897&sprefix=%2Caps%2C69&sr=8-1

Brilliant Disguise

 I hadn’t planned on writing Brilliant Disguise.  I’m not much of a direct sequel person.  I’ve hardly ever found them to be as good as the original story (Empire Strikes Back notwithstanding and okay, sometimes a third installment is improved upon–Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, anyone?).  So when I wrote The Good Thief, to me, that was it.  James and Scotlyn’s story was finished.  But then someone told me it ended on a mysterious note.  Another asked me when the sequel was to come out.  So forth and so on.  I’ve had that feeling before.  I’ll read or watch something and feel that intense craving to read or see more.  When we’re drawn into a story, we don’t want it to end.  We want to go on with the characters, to see what happens next.  And my readers wanted to know what happened to James and Scotlyn after The Good Thief.   

I went back and forth on this thought as I moved forward with working on a new story.  What did happen to them after The Good Thief?  The more I thought about that and the more I heard my readers, the more I wanted to know.  So I did the first thing I usually do in my writing process: nothing.  

An idea comes organically through characters for me.  I see them first, then hear them.  If James and Scotlyn had more to their story, they’d tell me.  I just had to sit back and listen.  I wasn’t going to force an idea (what’s wrong with many sequels).  

For a long time, they were quiet.  Oftentimes, when they are, it’s because the story is painful to tell.  But one day, Scotlyn started to speak through a few songs I happened to hear: “I Knew You Were Waiting” (George Michael and Aretha Franklin), “Waiting for a Star to Fall” (Boy Meets Girl), “I Will Wait” (Hootie & the Blowfish).

See a theme? 

Scotlyn promised to wait for James, no matter what, at the end of The Good Thief.  And waiting for someone, especially for someone completing a dangerous, deadly job, can be hell.  As I explored that in the first several pages, another character grabbed at the mike, wanting attention: an old boyfriend of Scotlyn’s mentioned in The Good Thief.  I didn’t like Raylan Hunt.  But he had something to say.  As unpredictable as he was tenacious, he wanted Scotlyn back no matter what.  No one was going to stop him.  And as James finally made his way front and center in this circle of characters, speaking quietly in that low voice of his, I knew what he had to say was going to be no picnic.  And it wasn’t.  Raylan was a criminal and the FBI needed him and Scotlyn (the only woman Raylan has ever loved) to go undercover to see what they could find out.  I didn’t know how it would turn out, but I knew that as the months passed and their story unfolded, Raylan’s obsessions and James’s intense love for Scotlyn would lead to a climax I’m not sure any one of them would survive.