Fate Anyone?

One man's Fate is another man's coincidence. I've never really bought into Fate because I don't like the idea of relinquishing that much control of my life, but I do occasionally find myself marveling at the way the universe works. My path to publication was a series of seemingly blind turns and unexpected connections that have left me wondering - was the hand of Fate at work here? You be the judge.

In the November of 2004, I went to visit my best friend in D.C. That weekend, through a series of unplanned events, we ended up spending an afternoon on her high school sweetheart's father's yacht, listening to her former honey and his buddies brag about their trust funds. During that long and excruciatingly awkward afternoon, I entertained myself by imagining what could possibly make being trapped at sea aboard a floating yuppie-fest any worse... Add in a few memorable characters from my college days, some intrigue, some murder, some mayhem, (and, of course, a little romance) and voila! Easy Money was born. I went home and churned out the first draft in less than two weeks. (FYI - Two weeks is not a normal or healthy amount of time to spend on a 100K word manuscript. I only survived it because I was between dayjobs and had a loving family member on hand to force me to eat at regular intervals.)

I shelved Easy Money for a while, working on other projects, writing without any real sense of purpose or focus. Then, in spring of 2007, when I decided it was time to buckle down and get published, I took it down, dusted it off, tightened it up, whipped up a synopsis and submitted that puppy to the first contest I tripped across - the Georgia Romance Writers' Maggie Awards. And would you believe it finaled? Someone (who was not forced to love me through an accident of genetics) actually liked my book!

The Moonlight & Magnolias Conference (where the Maggie Awards are presented) was a trip. My first contest, my first final, and my first conference. I had no idea what I was doing. I stumbled along, intimidated by the authors I loved (I can't stand next to Sherrilyn Kenyon! She'll see right through me with her laser vision and be able to tell that I have one of her books stashed in my bag to read between workshops! I can't speak to Roxanne St. Claire - she'll know that I compared my Easy Money to her French Twist during my pitch session and smite me for being so presumptuous!), terrified of the editors and agents (who were surprisingly human and did not, in fact, look like they drank poor unpublished authors' blood for breakfast), and generally behaving like a pathetic nervous wreck - which I firmly believe is every writer's right at their first major conference.

I didn't know anyone going in and the M&M Conf probably would have gone down as one of the single most nerve-wracking experiences of my life if not for the fabulous group of ladies I met there. Everyone was nice. Everyone was wonderful. But there was a particular group of fellow unpubbed authors who took me under their wings and kept me sane. Two of them were up for Unpubbed Maggies themselves in the paranormal category (I was Single Title). They ended up coming in first and second and one of them had a full requested! My dreams of having a contract handed to me on the spot and skyrocketing to success (hey, they're dreams, they don't have to be realistic) were not realized, but I had a few partials requested and things were looking good. I went home, wrote like a fiend on my next madcap romantic caper (Picket Fences), and submitted, submitted, submitted - all the while maintaining email contact with my M&M goddesses.

For the next chapter of my quasi-Fated tale, we skip ahead to the spring. One of my M&M goddesses had just released a novella in an anthology with Samhain Publishing (Kaye Chambers, Tiger By the Tail) and she was encouraging me to do the same. Up to that point, E-publishers hadn't even been on my radar (I confess, I'm a paperback slut. Turning those pages really turns my crank. I don't even have an e-reader.), but I decided to check out the all-call for the next anthology. It was Tickle My Fantasy and it sounded like too much fun to pass up. The requirements (funny, paranormal, romantic, short) didn't match anything I had in my Idea Vault, so I decided to start from scratch. I read the notice again. Vampires? No, thank you. I've read far too many vampire books lately and if I tried to write a funny one I would probably end up doing a pathetic plagiarism of Christopher Moore's Bloodsucking Fiends (read it, that man is seriously bent in the best possible way). Werewolves? Again, I feel like everything I'm reading these days is about shifters and vamps. What else have we got? Ghosts? Huh. I could do ghosts. Sexy ghosts. Or maybe just ghosts who think they're sexy.

So I sat down and wrote The Ghost Shrink, the Accidental Gigolo, & the Poltergeist Accountant. Then I twiddled my thumbs for a month and debated whether or not I should submit it. (It should be noted that I am a coward.) I showed it to my M&M Goddess and she harassed me to submit it (for which I will be eternally grateful). I sent it. They bought it. No, really, they did. I couldn't believe it either at first.

So the question is: If I hadn't gotten on that boat with Richie Rich that November afternoon, would I now be only months away from my first release date? Is that Fate? Or just life?