Mary J. McCoy-Dressel ~ Contemporary Romance

Sorry to have missed last Friday’s topic about planning a dream wedding. I was too busy planning a fictional wedding.  ❤  I did write the post though so maybe one day I’ll post it anyway.

Week 26: How getting the call (or acceptance) changes lives.

This really isn’t the topic for me though I’ve received the call of acceptance twice. Years ago, when publishing was soooo different, I turned down one call of acceptance. Yes, they actually called. Turns out, they wanted more money for editing than what they’d pay me. Yes, they made money on editing over publishing, though they called themselves a publisher.

LISTEN TO ME if you’re just starting… Stay away from them. They should pay you not the other way around. I’m glad I had enough smarts to walk away.

Another time, well, I can’t say I had a call of acceptance, but an editor at one of the biggest New York publishing companies had requested my complete manuscript. He suggested changes in the manuscript and then to send it back to him. That’s a big deal. It was a big deal!

The way my luck runs, I shouldn’t have been surprised. #WritersLife Hah! I had finished with all his suggestions, and my manuscript had been ready to go, but I learned that he had moved to a different publishing company. OMG. Lickity split. He’d left me. Ha-ha. It felt like he’d left me.

I still sent it to a different editor there and explained my plight, but two years later, after I had contacted them, they sent my manuscript back with a rejection. He or she, I don’t remember now, didn’t like my story as much as the first guy. Sigh.

In the interim of searching for an agent and a publisher, I had received many rejections, requests to read more of my manuscript, and more rejections.

Keyword here: I didn’t give up. Don’t give up.

• I kept writing.
• I continued submitting.

However, I got another call some YEARS later and should have walked away then too. I didn’t, but it was my opening—my beginning, and how it changed my life. My new beginning wasn’t with them because later, I paid them to get my rights back to two books they’d published. I say it was my beginning because I left them to make my own dream come true.

Did you pay attention? To make my OWN dream come true. Kindle Direct Publishing came around at the perfect time for me. I didn’t know anything about publishing on my own.

• I learned.
• I’m still learning.
• I have a lot more to learn.

Back then, and even now, some turn their noses up at self-published authors. Whether anyone wants to face it or not, it’s true.

So, yes, I’ve received the call a couple times but I don’t like to talk about those times because as I said above: I made my OWN dream come true.

Each of us has to do what works best for us. Me? I’m too old now to wait for others to make decisions about my writing career, and I’ll be even older on Saturday.  🎂

Thanks for stopping by to read another #MFRWauthor post in the blog hop. Find links to the other authors in the hop, HERE.

Enjoy your weekend!

I’m excited over recent news– My November release has been edited and is with the proofreader now.

A brand-new heartwarming Christmas Novella moments ago came back from my editor and a cover is being made for it. Yay.

And two weeks ago, a frightening call-back to have a test redone freaked me out. It came back fine. How scary and stressful that previous week had been.

Last but not least, my daughter-in-law has been in town this week for work, and she took me out for a birthday dinner last night. How sweet! (They live out of state.)