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[1st Books]: Cathy Marie Buchanan: Finding the Writing Life
Earlier this year, when Cathy Marie Buchanan asked if I'd read her new novel, The Painted Girls, I jumped at the chance. I loved her debut, The Day the Falls Stood Still, and this new one ... Sisters, dance, art, ambition, and intrigue in late 1800s Paris - what was there not to like? I'm just delighted to see how well it is doing now that it's out: it's a People Magazine Pick, a Good Housekeeping Book Pick, an Indie Next pick, a USA Today New and Notable selection, a Barnes & Noble Staff Pick, and an Entertainment Weekly Must List pick - and already a national bestseller in Canada! And she's one of that rare breed of writers: someone who didn't want to be a writer from the time she was in diapers. Or one of us who is willing to admit she took some time to settle into the writing life. - Meg
I’m often asked if I always wanted to be a writer, and my answer is a definitive no. My teenage years were spent disgracing myself in high school English, often getting upwards of twenty percent deducted for spelling mistakes on exams. When it came time to head off to university, one of the criteria I used for picking my courses was that no essay writing?that is spelling?was required. I ended up at Western University and graduated with a degree in biochemistry without writing a single essay. Afterward I went on to do an M.B.A.
I spent the bulk of my non-writing work life at IBM—ten years, in fact—at first in finance and then in technical sales. It was while I was at IBM that spell-check started to be commonly used, and all of a sudden my world shifted. Shocking though it was, I became the departmental wordsmith, the person who would give the proposals the final read through before they were sent off to the customers. Still, I suspected this supposed ability to write had more to do with the fact that I was mostly working with engineers, and math and computer science grads. It wasn’t so much that I could write but that they could not.
Given my education and early work life choices, you probably would not suspect it, but there was lots of evidence early on of my creative leanings. In high school, I was quite serious about classical ballet, spending four or five nights a week taking class or performing, and I sewed and designed most of my clothes. I think now that I was able to satisfy my creative yearnings through the dance and the sewing. 
While I was working at IBM, I was always enrolled in a continuing education course, always something with an artistic bent, no doubt an effort to fuel my creative side. I took drawing and painting and art history and woodworking and interior design. Eventually I hit on creative writing but taking that first course was more of a whim than anything else. I had a continuing education catalogue at home and was flipping pages and thought, well, why not give creative writing a try? Right from the first class, though, I was smitten. Long last, I’d found what I was meant to do. - Cathy
This post originally ran on 1st Books: Reading, Writing, and Travel, hosted by Meg Waite Clayton, author of The Wednesday Sisters (a writing group novel), the forthcoming The Wednesday Daughters, and other novels (all available from Random House/Ballantine). 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 Cathy Marie Buchanan on February 4, 2013 at 1:49pm -
Pamela, I count the day my agent took me on as the day I was hauled from the murk of the woods onto the lit path.
I got my agent through the standard query letter process. I had quite a few publishing credits with lit fiction magazines and also mentioned that the book had been critiqued by several published authors (I named them) in the query letter. I assume this was helpful in encouraging my agent to ask for the first few chapters.
Once I had the agent (she is very highly regarded) and had done a further year's worth of rewriting with her guidance, she handled finding a publisher. That part only took a few days. Moral of the story: an excellent agent is key!
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Comment by Miranda C. Spencer on February 1, 2013 at 3:26pm -
Thanks, Meg. Actually my second post here was responding to Pamela Olson. I'll post on the original blog as well. As I say, when I as an editor try and help first time novelists, the "nobody knows who you are and you don't have a platform or training as a writer" thing frustrates them even though their work may be good. It's heartening to see that this can be overcome.
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Comment by Pamela Olson on January 31, 2013 at 8:34pm -
Miranda, the journalism gave me credibility, but I often wrote anonymously because of the sensitive nature of what I was covering, so I wasn't very well known when I started writing the book. But by then I had a blog that I poured a lot of effort into and a mailing list of a few hundred people, and I had given talks in a few universities and at Google. Still, my first agent wasn't able to sell the book. I had to move to NY, finish the book, network like crazy, and sell almost 3,000 self-published copies before I got another agent (I met her through one of her authors, whom I met at BEA) and then a publisher. It all happens in a million different ways.
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Comment by Meg Waite Clayton on January 31, 2013 at 7:21pm -
Pamela, that was the way I was as well (although not in Oklahoma). That right answer thing was a weight, and I am so glad to have shucked it off. Well, mostly shucked it.
Miranda, the 1st Books posts come from my blog, and are not necessarily shewrites authors. If you want to post your question on the original blog, I can make sure Cathy sees it. That's at http://www.megwaiteclayton.com/1stbooks
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Comment by Miranda C. Spencer on January 30, 2013 at 8:58pm
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So you did have a platform as a writer, then? Your background in journalism got you in the agent's door?
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Comment by Pamela Olson on January 30, 2013 at 11:37am
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I'm another techie who was initially terrified of writing. If there was no obvious "right answer," how on earth was I supposed to have any control over my grades? How could I leave it up to someone else's subjective impressions? Plus I grew up sheltered in small town Oklahoma reading Nancy Drew books, so a lot of literary and historical allusions and references to certain aspects of human nature went right over my head. I felt out of my depth.
But I always loved writing just for fun, so I did that. I loved politics and travel, so eventually I started writing about that, and to my shock ended up with a job in journalism. After a few years of that I had more than enough material for a book but not enough maturity to write it. Finally the time felt right, but it was still a battle and struggle to find the right agent and publisher. Five years later, it's finally coming out this spring...
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Comment by Miranda C. Spencer on January 29, 2013 at 3:25pm
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What a great success story! I'm wondering how Cathy, as a first time novelist whose background was in a totally different field, managed to capture the attention and faith of an agent and then a publisher. Time and time again we hear that talented newbies have it tough, because publishers can't risk "discovering" and marketing a new voice, and don't want to sign an unknown with no previous publications. What was her secret?
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