I actually ended up leaving Berkley, and my first two novels were published by New American Library. Berkley had swallowed up a number of other publishers, and suddenly had too many books in the pipeline to handle. The publication date for The Chaser's Domains kept slipping until, eventually, Berkley no longer had the contractual right to publish it. (Most contracts require the publisher to bring out the book by a certain time, usually within two years of signing the deal.)

I might have kept the books with Berkley, except they never told me when they pushed back the pub date for Chaser's. The last time — and it was the last time — I learned about it secondhand from Steve McDonald, a Jamaican SF author who had spoken to Silbersack on a visit to New York. My theory was that if Berkley couldn't even let me know when my book was coming out, the chances of a long and fruitful partnership were slim.

— mjm

— mjm

© copyright 2001
Mark J. McGarry

That turned around in February 1979, when I met John Silbersack, my new editor at Berkley. In 1978 I'd mumbled something to my agents about maybe working on short stories in '79 -- and Span, of course! — and the word, had gone from them to Silbersack, who, at Boskone, took me aside. It was a new experience for me, very much In keeping with what the true writer's life should be; it was the first time I'd been taken aside.

"You really should work on a new novel for us," he told me.

"I'm still working on my old one!" I didn't say that. For one, I was not working on my old one, I was doing anything but; secondly when one has been taken aside, there are forms to be adhered to. I nodded sagely. Not because I was sage and thoughtful, but because I was trying to grasp the fact that an editor was asking me to write something for him. It was an upheaval of the tradition epitomized by those familiar little blue rejection slips from Galaxy.

He told me how salesmen for the publishers like to know there are more books in the pipline when they try to hawk an author's first novel to bookstores and distributors. Nobody, it seems, wants a novel. They want strings of successes. Berkley wanted to be sure I was a string.

"I've got an idea for a novel," I said. I had, lots of ideas for novels. "Still, I can't yet support myself from my writings, John. I also work full-time, and there just isn't the time to start anything new." I needed bread. "I hope I could expect to realize a larger advance for a new novel."

"I think we could count on that."

Wow, he not only wanted a book, he'd pay me for it! This was an experience.

I was galvanized. It didn't show right away. I drew up work schedules, sharpened pencils, budgeted the money for the new — no, the two new novels I would send to Berkley.

By March I'd told my agents that I would have the proposal for a new book in their hands by the first of April... and a proposal for another novel to them by the Nebula Awards banquet, three weeks later. It seemed that every day I was getting more, oh, professional. Here I was, making delivery dates for proposals now. I even hired a typist to help me with the drafts of the books. Which was a good thing, because one proposal ran to 35,000 words. But it was for a quarter-million-word novel that I wanted 15 or 20 grand for, so it didn't seem inappropriate.

I saw Silbersack again at the banquet, in New York City, and this time I took him aside, and told him that my agents would send along the proposals presently. I illuminated their niftiest points for him.

His reaction was such that I started to pat my pockets for a pen. I thought he was going to give me one of those six-figure contracts I'd been hearing so much about right then and there. But then he calmed down and said he'd get me an answer in a few weeks. The way I saw it, it was not a question of his accepting the books or not, but how much bread he could squeeze out of the contracts department.

What I didn't know at the time was that all editors act excited when writers tell them about new work. Maybe sometimes they even are excited. Writers have to be kept happy when a new work is in the balance. Once the contract is signed, of course, the legal department keeps that latest parcel in the string of successes coming.

Berkley saw me as one of their writers. I saw myself as one of their writers. It was neat, like being drafted out of high school to play with the Red Sox or something. Or so I thought.

I don't really remember what I did in May and the first part of June. It must have been more puttering. Puttering days run into another, as well they should.

Six weeks had passed. Editors have a curiously telescoped time sense. A few weeks means eventually. As soon as we can get to it, of course, means never, but everyone knows that by now.

At intervals, I would get vaguely apologetic notes from my agents. John was at a sales conference on the West Coast and could not be reached, but he was still interested in the books. John was on his way to ABA when they talked to him, but he wanted one or both of the books and was going to call the contracts department real soon to see what he could offer. John was in the shower and nobody at that point knew what the hell was going on.

By the last week of June I broke what had seemed like a patient silence, but which had actually been an enraged fuming, and asked my agents just what, if anything, was happening. I knew the wheels at Berkley ground exceedingly fine, but just how long did it take to put a call through the switchboard to another department in the same building?

I was tense. I admit it. A few things had happened to put me on edge, above and beyond realizing just what being on Berkley's team really meant.

I'd officially started work on Span, and immediately found that while a synopsis is sufficient to sell a novel, it isn't detailed enough to write one. I avoided the (I now realize) uncharted reaches of the last 80 percent of the novel by rewriting the first part, which had been a part of the original proposal. I wanted to cut and smooth the opening. I took a week off from work to do it, without pay, and turned 70 pages to 94 which I was not pleased with.

I had figured I could rewrite that first section during the first two or three days of my week, and then spend the next four days getting a running jump into the rest of the book. Once I got my momentum up, I'd bust right through a first draft, clean it up, and send it out well before that looming deadline, no sweat.

Friday I finished the 94-page slop, with only the weekend ahead of me. Perhaps, just perhaps, time enough.

At 4:30 a.m. on Saturday morning, the buzzer of the apartment security system intercom woke me. "'Lo?" I mumbled.

The intercom said it was Eric, come all the way from Albany to drop in. And another good friend, Robert, was with him.

Only Eric would travel nearly 200 miles to drop in unannounced, on the spur of the moment, just because he wanted to see me. Or maybe Robert would, too, because he was the one that had done the driving and paid for the gas. At any rate, it was a gesture of friendship and brotherhood that should have melted my hear.

"I'm going to kill you," I said, and then let them in. They stayed until Sunday afternoon. Sunday evening I went to a barbecue. I was available. I was a freelancer. It wasn't as if I were chained to the typewriter or anything. I could set my own hours. If writers had an induction center, those would be the slogans on the posters outside.