[1st Books] Claire McMillan: The Gal with the Non-Flammable Manuscript

I met Claire McMillan through Twitter, in part because we are both card-carrying members of the Emily Mitchell/Last Summer of the World fan club - and Edith Wharton Fans. Emily's splendid debut novel, Gilded Age, is a bit of a House of Mirth set in modern-day Cleveland. Elle Magazine calls it "a beach read with a touch of literary pedigree … a rich romp of a read." I hope you'll enjoy it, as well as her rich romp of a story about how it came to be published. - Meg Waite Clayton

I have a novel in a drawer.

I’d never say, I have a novel in a drawer, somewhere.

I know exactly where it is.

I wrote the beginning of it when I was getting my MFA at Bennington and still practicing law. I finished it two years and a new baby after I graduated. When I was done, I shopped for an agent.

No one wanted it.

I queried maybe 25 agents, a few looked at the manuscript. Everyone took a pass.

That’s when I put it in a drawer.

I literally cleaned out a drawer, placed a copy of the draft in there, along with a copy on a flash drive, and shut the drawer.

I told myself I’d stop writing for a while, that I needed a little break. I wanted to chill with my baby.

But I didn’t really know how to start something again.

My husband gave me a first edition of The House of Mirth for my birthday that year. We give him an A in present-giving for that. He knew it was one of my favorite books, Wharton one of my favorite authors. That night over dinner, we were discussing why I like Wharton so much. I was saying that everything she was writing about, like all great authors, was universal and still happening today.

That’s when the lightbulb went on.

I was too nervous to actually read the first edition, for fear of damaging it. My paperback version from college was tattered, cover fallen off, and spine disintegrating. So I went out and bought a fresh copy.

I read it through once, and then placed it next to me as I wrote. It kept me company, which helped me. Jumping off from a great book was both easier and harder than before – easier because there was a blueprint to work with, harder because I was intimidated.

I told myself I was just messing around.

When I was done, I sent it out, and it found an agent and then a publisher fairly quickly which felt incredibly lucky and like a huge relief.

It’s been with a publisher for a year, and during that time I’ve been working on starting again.

I decided I needed to take the novel out of the drawer and burn it in order to be free of it. I grew up in Southern California and lived in Northern for a decade, I can be prone to stuff like this.

I now have two children. Their eyes were wide as I put the failed novel in the fireplace and set a match to it.

It wouldn’t light.

I got the clicker my husband uses for the barbeque.

Nope.

I have no explanation for why it wouldn’t burn – other than the obvious reason, the one that calls to me from the drawer telling me to start again.

Like I said, I’d never say I have a novel in a drawer somewhere. I know exactly where that thing is. - Claire

This post originally ran on 1st Books: Stories of How Writers Get Started, hosted by bestselling novelist Meg Waite Clayton, author of four novels, including The Wednesday Sisters and the forthcoming The Wednesday Daughters. 1st Books features award-winning writers blogging about how they got started writing and publishing, as well as other readerly and writerly delights.

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Comment by Susan Slack on July 17, 2012 at 7:57am: Yes this was encouraging. This whole site is encouraging. I have a question.

I finally gave the first few chapters to a friend, a professional editor. The book takes place over 80 years and in several different countries so I was unable to come up with anything but the omniscient narrator voice. Instead I opted for seeing each scene from each of the main characters perspectives. My friend said that was a great big no-no and that I needed to at least keep each chapter from only one point of view. Or if I REALLY needed to show two, separate the two POVs with a space between. She knows wa-a-ay more than I do, but I am checking here to see if that is the norm that everyone but me knows, and that basically I am "dark-and-stormy-night" ing it. Anyone have any advice before I go ahead a work with this wonderful editor. (Whaaa - don't want to rewrite my whole book)

Comment by Lynn A. Davidson on July 16, 2012 at 8:49am: This is an enjoyable and encouraging read. I especially find it fascinating that the manuscript wouldn't burn. Perhaps, do you suppose, there is life and a future for it yet?

I have not yet completed my first novel, the one I began in NaNoWriMo 2010 and continued in NaNo 2011, but it's not far from me as I write this. I haven't given up on it even though I'm not sure how it is going to turn out ... or where to go with it from there. There's time.

Comment by Barbara Ehrentreu on July 14, 2012 at 10:15pm: Claire, I can identify with you wanting to destroy your ms with so many rejections. I subbed mine for five years with only rejections. They said it was too much of a problem story. They said the main character wasn't strong enough. One editor even said he didn't like the voice. I wanted to scream too, but I didn't. I revised my first chapter yet another time and then decided to pitch it at the Muse Online Conference. The rest is history, since Lea Schizas, an old friend and publisher of MuseItUp Publishing, decided she wanted it!!! That is why I always tell new writers that the best thing they can do for themselves is keep on trying. Perseverance is definitely the thing every writer needs. Rejections I get now only make me want to send out whatever was rejected. It works for the most part. This summer I sent out my poems and when they were rejected I sent them somewhere else. My flash story, rejected by one magazine was accepted by another and my poems were also accepted by another place. You have to think there is someone who is waiting to accept your work!!!

Comment by Nissi Mutale on July 12, 2012 at 5:56pm: Such an encouraging post. Thank you!

Comment by Marcia Fine on July 11, 2012 at 6:39am: I loved this! Especially since we met in TX and the next theme is The Gilded Age. There's so much optimism here. Authors dream of being discovered and you were! Plus, you have a family. As one of my Basic (that's the progressive term they used when I taught English ages ago) students said at the end of a grammatically flawed 5 page story, And that the higher it could go." Enjoy every moment!

Comment by Ruby Soames on July 11, 2012 at 2:57am: Thanks for the story - it's very encouraging. I love hearing about numerous rejections before a success! And I'll take this book on holiday with me this summer. I'm a big Wharton fan. One of my favorite books is by Tama Janowitz called 'A Certain Age' which is a haunting, brilliant novel set in Manhattan and based on The House of Mirth.

Comment by Meg Waite Clayton on July 10, 2012 at 3:51pm: Glad people are enjoying the post. I confess I laughed out loud when I came to "I got the clicker my husband uses for the barbeque."

:-)

Comment by Margaret Wacker on July 10, 2012 at 9:30am: Great inspiration. I'm stuggling with my first novel. Some parts yet to be written, others revised multiple times. I know I need to get a complete draft down on paper now that I know how I want to tell the story. That is how I have come to find the missing pieces. Then I can work to revise it.

Comment by Ann Rodela on July 8, 2012 at 10:36am: Thanks for a delicious read. I am still writing my first novel and chiseling it the letting it rest. When I don't write, I think about it. Sometimes I feel guilty for not finishing it, but it is still in the first draft.

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