In 2004, three years after passing the half-century mark, I took stock of my life and realized that I had abandoned my first love, writing fiction. With a grown son, a teaching job, and the summer beckoning me, I told my husband that I was going to Florida for a month to write. Dumbfounded, he nodded acceptance—then realized that meant he would be alone in Maryland for an entire month. After negotiations, we agreed on a schedule that would enable him to be with me for fifteen out of the thirty days I would be away. Not the life of a writing recluse, but the space I needed to begin.

My sister and friends in Florida greeted me with open arms—and an open bar. At five in the evening, on the third day of my feverish clacking away at the keyboard, I read them my first chapter. They laughed, they clapped, they asked for more. They, along with my patient husband, became my first critique group. At this point in my new adventure, I needed the kind and gentle reinforcement of family and friends to keep me away from the whirling eddies of self-doubt and the undertow of my internal editor screaming “YOU SUCK!” At the end of the month, I returned to Maryland, the start of a new semester and the routine of the day job. The cheering section from Florida continued to send me emails asking for chapters, giving me the encouragement to continue to write. I began an email list with my founding “members,” then added others as more of our friends began to read my work. After a year, I completed the first draft of my novel, which was subsequently rejected by eighty-two agents and several publishers. The only agents and publishers interested in my “baby” were ones who were denounced in large red print on numerous websites.
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