Trios: Beachcombing, by Maggie Dana: My Potholed Path To Publication

Maggie Dana, author of Beachcombing, comments regularly on this blog; she wrote a wonderful piece about typesetting for me a few weeks ago, which resulted in a spectacular spike in my reading statistics; and she's recently had her first grown-up novel* published. Here's her own account of her tortured path to publication, in which she demonstrated dedication in the extreme. Following pieces in this particular Trio will come from her editor Will Atkins, who will discuss the success of Macmillan New Writing and explain what he looks for in an author—and it's not just the writing.


When asked what got them started writing, quite a few authors will say they were bitten by the bug at an early age, six or seven, or even as late as twelve. But not me. I was a ripe old thirty-nine before I began writing, and only because my job for an absentee boss at a U.S. children’s publisher left me with little to do. So, to keep boredom at bay (and to look busy), I wrote a kid’s book—on their time, their paper, and their typewriter, and then (oh, sweet irony!), I turned around and sold it to them for $1,500, a decent chunk of change back in 1979, especially for a single mum with three teenagers, a dog, two cats, and a horse to feed.

After writing five more books for children, life intervened and it was another fifteen years before I got back to writing again. Women’s fiction this time. I’d had no trouble finding a publisher for my kids’ books; how hard would it be to find one for a novel? (Do I hear laughter? Snorts of derision?)

A year later, my first effort weighed in at 180,000 words. Feeling rather pleased with myself, I fired off a handful of query letters and landed a New York agent who, while full of enthusiasm for my novel, told me cut it in half. I protested, vociferously, but she put her foot down and deleted the first ten pages while telling me, firmly, that my story began here, at the top of page eleven.

I spent another year cutting and rewriting, and cutting some more, till the story was a manageable 90,000 words and my agent declared she was ready to submit… the day before 9/11 turned the world upside-down. Months and months went by, and my agent dragged her feet, saying the time wasn’t right, that publishing was in disarray and editors were freaking out over the anthrax scare, that nobody was buying fiction, let alone women’s fiction. Discouraged, I stuck the manuscript in a box beneath my bed, and went back to writing for kids.

Picture books this time. I found another enthusiastic agent with an impressive client list, but her personal problems got in the way of her professional life and she wound up dropping the ball as well. Even more discouraged, I stuffed my four picture books into the box with my novel and decided I wasn’t cut out to be a writer after all. Besides, I had a living to earn. I couldn’t afford to waste time writing stuff nobody wanted to read.

But a good friend, another writer, disagreed. She nagged and cajoled, encouraged and threatened, till finally she convinced me to blow the dust off my novel and begin all over again with a different tense, a different point-of-view, and a different title. Using my original version as a detailed outline, I spent ten months writing from the ground up and having more fun than I expected. Layers of stodgy writing fell away, a fresh voice emerged. Maybe I was a writer after all.

More queries went out and a third enthusiastic agent entered my life, but after coming close with a couple of New York editors and being turned down by a handful more, my agent told me to write another novel and she’d sell that one instead. So I did, but the result didn’t sit well with her. At first, I was angry and indignant; then apathy set in. I withdrew from my online writing group, parted company with my agent, and added yet another manuscript to the box under my bed.

Time to think seriously about giving up altogether.

But that determined friend wouldn’t hear of it. She insisted my novel would appeal to readers in England, given a huge chunk of it is set in London and Cornwall, and why didn’t I try submitting it myself to publishers in the U.K.? So I did, and wound up in the capable hands of Will Atkins, my brilliant editor at Macmillan New Writing.

Time elapsed from that hefty first draft to publication? Ten years, almost to the day. So when authors say that getting published is all about the three Ps, passion, patience, and perseverance, I’d like to remind them there’s another P in that path to publication: potholes.

* I'd originally referred to Beachcombing as Maggie's first adult novel but it's been pointed out to me that an "adult novel" has certain connotations, particularly in the USA. So I've changed it to "grown-up novel" now, which sounds slightly Playschoolish to me: if anyone would like to suggest a better phrase, I'd be happy to hear it!