How it all started

How it all started:

I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember. In grade school, I wrote a poem which was printed in the missalette for years. In the sixth grade, I started writing short stories. One of those short stories I’ve since re-written it as an adult from memory. It’s one of 2 junior mysteries within the 33 books.

The 17-year pause.

I gave up writing for 17 years. During this time, I used every creative outlet I could to fill the void. I did crafts, refinished furniture and in the process; became obsessed with interior design. This obsession started in my early 20’s and is still just as potent today as it was back then. I also did photography & eventually in later years; videography.

The return to writing

After a terrible year where everything that could go wrong did; I returned to writing. It happened in tiers. First, for work, I wrote seven training manuals that were over 200 pages each, one after another. Then almost immediately after, my daughter came home from school needing help with an assignment for her to write her own short story.

Helping her write her story, got the juices going in me to write my own short story, or rather; re-write one that I had wrote in grade-school. So, I did. It went from a short story to a book. It took me 2 days. Before I knew it; I was writing again. I wrote 5 before I told anyone (besides my husband and daughter) and I wrote 13 before I started rewriting them and that was all in the first year.

The Readers

A readership had developed naturally around me. At the time, I was surrounded with supportive people with open minds. Because of that; I wrote book after book and eventually; I was writing 2 at a time. By the time I was published; I had 53 readers from all ages, sex, religion, geographical areas and walks of life. Some of the readers knew each other, but most of them didn’t. Each book was logged in and out and everyone signed a NDA.

The feedback

I took everyone’s responses to my questions and I tracked them on an excel spreadsheet. I used the information to make my books better. Once I’d rewrite a book, I’d give it to the next set of readers and start the process all over again. Most of the first 24 books have been rewritten up to eight times. Onions I rewrote the most, roughly 20+ before the editor got it and then three times since then.

The Agent

In the beginning, I had attracted the attention of a literary agent in Toronto. She read my top five books & picked Onions as the best. Her feedback and guidance helped mold me into the writer I am today. She instructed me to take Onions to a professional editor and get it edited so that she could take it to a publisher. She explained what others already had; which is the industry had changed & so did the standards on what agents could submit to publishers. In other words; had I started writing eight years sooner; I would have landed a traditional deal with a literary agent or traditional publisher. Since I couldn’t change my return date to writing; I had to hold faith that it would all work out.

The Editing

The cost of professionally editing a manuscript is expensive. Since I didn’t just have the money readily available; I had to do it in chunks over the course of a year. By the time I submitted it completed to the agent; she had gone on a leave of absence and left the country. Despite the set-back, I didn’t fret; because I knew it was going to happen when she returned. I just had to be patient.