It took me fifteen months to write Jimmy's Girl.
At the time, I was freelancing and on daily deadlines for various
magazines and newspapers. Come three o'clock as the school bus pulled
up to the house, I always took a thirty minute break to meet and
greet the kids and then (if deadlines persisted) went back to work
until dinnertime and then, if necessary, back to work again. Usually,
I timed things pretty well so I really could devote the evenings
to the kids.
I wrote Jimmy's Girl from midnight to three
in the morning. It might sound exhausting but it was a luxury! It
was like having a love affair or a romantic assignation: Everyone
in the house would be sleeping and I would be behind the monitor,
keyboarding away, listening to instrumental music (that my husband
and kids said belonged in an elevator) or to Sixties music to jog
my memory -- and I was never happier.
I did have an agent (and still have her!) who was
instrumental in getting the book published. Lucky for me, I found
Marcy Posner through mutual friends and originally approached her
with my column that I still write for newspapers. She loved the
columns but said that because I was an unknown, there was nothing
she could do with them. "Write a novel," she said. It didn't take
long to get the book acquired, although the two months that I waited
seemed an eternity. The publication process took one year after
that. I had no idea the process of publication would be like this.
It is exhilarating as well as stressful, and requires enormous faith
and patience.
