Omnimystery News is pleased to welcome Elaine Macko, whose new mystery series introduces temp agency owner Alex Harris in Armed (L & L Dreamspell October 2011, trade paperback and ebook editions).
Today Elaine talks about the path she took to becoming a published author.
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I always wanted to be a writer, though I never did anything about it other than writing poems for my mom’s birthday or assignments for school. I also always wanted to travel and finally, in my early thirties, I made the trip across the Atlantic for a one-week tour of London. That one-week trip ultimately turned into a twelve-year odyssey that took me to Belgium and the love of my life. Or so I thought.
But that story is for another book.
Photo provided courtesy of
Elaine Macko
Toward the end of my stay in Europe I found myself out of a job and bored. A friend told me this time was actually a gift and that I should do something I always wanted to do. Well, that was easy. I wanted to write a mystery but coming up with a story was another thing.
One night I found myself in a café, sitting across from my partner, Andre. We had just been to the city and it was Christmastime and the store windows were filled with gaily dressed mannequins. They were quite odd looking mannequins and this became the topic of our conversation over dinner. The more we talked the more I started to think that a murder in a mannequin factory could be fun–and creepy. Just the two ingredients I wanted my books to have. So the next morning I woke up early and wrote. And then I did the same thing again the next day and after almost four months I had my first book in my Alex Harris mystery series, Armed.
Now this was in the days before the Internet really took off and people the world over turned to their computers to find anything and everything they needed. So instead I had a friend send me a book called the Writer’s Handbook. A misnomer if ever I heard one. It weighed a ton and you almost needed a podium to use it. I scoured the book looking for agents that represented mystery writers and then, naïve as I was, I sent out seventy-eight query letters based on my first draft. I was sending these letters across the Atlantic and had to include return postage. It didn’t take me long to figure out that this writing business was a costly venture.
The reject letters started coming a few weeks later, but luckily I have never been a thin-skinned person. I took this in my stride and when a request came in from a publisher — one of the only ones accepting unsolicited manuscripts — I felt elated. Someone actually liked my book and wanted to read the entire thing. For all you writers out there, you know the feeling–and then the agony of waiting to hear. Ultimately they turned it down, but it gave me the hope I needed to carry on, make the book better, and then submit it again.
And then my life turned upside down. My relationship ended and I had to return to the US. I was devastated and felt stupid because I never saw the signs. I was gob smacked as the English say, and writing was the last thing I wanted to do.
I returned home and moved in with my sister and her husband while I got back on my feet and learned how to live in America again. I spent my days converting the cost of everything into Belgian Francs so I could decide whether it was a good deal or not. I looked high and low for a loaf of crusty European-style bread. I kissed visitors to my sister’s home on both cheeks while they gave me a funny look and I flapped my arms at the man in the grocery store because I was looking for a rotisserie chicken and only knew the name for chicken in French, having totally forgotten it in English. I was a stranger in my own country saying bonjour to everyone instead of hello.
But gradually I acclimated and after a couple of years, I dusted off my manuscripts and started over again, this time joining Romance Writers of American and Sister in Crime, trying to hone my craft. I changed my series from third person to first and added new characters. I developed my protagonist, getting into her thoughts and giving her more depth and quirky habits.
There’s a piece of paper on one of my cubicle walls at work (yes, I still have a day job) and it says, “There’s a word for a writer who doesn’t give up — published.” And that sums up my experience completely. You hear about the people who write a book and almost overnight get an agent and have publishers fighting over the manuscript while Hollywood starts looking for the perfect starlet to play the protagonist. That didn’t happen to me.
But if I had given up all those years ago back in Belgium with the arrival of that first reject letter, I would never have been published and my dream of being an author would go unfulfilled.
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Elaine never forgot her New England roots and centers her books in the fictional town of Indian Cove, Connecticut. Each book includes a European connection bringing together her love of both places. An active member of Sisters in Crime, Elaine takes comfort in knowing that there are many others like her out there spending all their free time trying to come up with inventive ways to kill people. For more information about Elaine and her new series, visit her website at ElaineMackoBooks.com.
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About Armed:
When Alex Harris, owner of the Always Prepared temporary agency, stumbles over the body of Mrs. Scott, nothing will ever be the same. And when the police investigation leads right back to her, Alex decides that it’s time she took matters into her own hands before the real murderer strikes again and really ruins Christmas.
Along with her sister and partner, Samantha Daniels, and their assistant, Millie Chapman, the Winston Churchill-quoting, M&M-popping Alex probes and plods through red herring after red herring uncovering a lot more than murder.
Investigating with a bulldog tenacity that would make Winston proud, Alex doesn’t let anything interfere with her sleuthing. Not even a midnight caper in the factory and an attack from a mechanical mannequin gone berserk can keep her from finding out the truth to the deadly deeds lurking within.
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