My first published novel turned out to beSun Dogs, based on that novelette I sold to Analog. Second was Blank Slate, a thoroughly reworked version of The Chaser's Domains. I never did finish Span, though it will be a hell of a book if I ever do.

One of my agents dropped out of the biz and off the face of the earth shortly after I signed on. I left the other a while later; she is still doing deals for a short list of clients.

Silbersack enjoyed a long and steady climb through the ranks of publishing until this year, when he was caught in a corporate downsizing and fired as a senior vice president at HarperCollins. He's started a literary agency.

— mjm

I

© copyright 2001
Mark J. McGarry

At 2:30 Monday morning, the phone rang.

"'Lo?" I mumbled. I was too fuzzy to feel any deja vu.

"Mister McGarry, this is the Police Department. When was the last time your saw your motorcycle?"

About a half-hour before two kids pushed it away under cover of darkness, as it developed. When I went down to claim it, it also developed that I was the one who had to push it home. The pair — who, under the best of circumstances, would have been hard-pressed to plug in a toaster — had tried to hot-wire the bike. The electrical system looked like the torn newspaper they put in pet shop windows for puppies to shit on.

Monday afternoon I was told my work at my full-time job was unsatisfactory. I interpreted that as an intimation that I was about to get very hungry.

Somewhere in there I'd ordered a new IBM electronic typewriter. Not one of those Selectric Edsels, but a computerized jobbie. I was into Itty-Bitty for the balance of the payments, and into my bank for the down payment.

I also had not written anything in the better part of a week, which, on the schedule that had looked so good in November 1978, about a thousand years ago, was disastrous.

I called my agents. Where was Silbersack? For that matter, where were they?

Silbersack was rejecting — rejecting, mind you, as if I were not a pro or something! — the shorter novel. Or, maybe he wasn't rejecting it, but he didn't want it the way it was. He didn't want the other one the way it was, either, but he thought that was at least salvageable.

For Berkley.

With someone coming out of left field, both books would have been turned down out of hand. But Berkley wanted me, so they had spent a month or more waffling, for the most part trying to figure out how I could give them what they wanted. Failing that, they could word the rejections in such a way, presumably, so I would not take offense and take a walk.

"Pull the shorter book," I said. "Send it you someone who can read it, accept it, and draw up contracts all in the same year." Things were desperate. It sounded it.

Editors may have no sense of time, but they have a hell of a sense of timing.

"We'll get back to you by the end of the week and let you know what's happening with the longer books," said my agents.

"Right." I hung up. It occurred to me the toll for the call had been billed to me. Better start watching that, I thought.

Then I wondered if my agents spoke New York editorese, and then what "end of the week" translated to.

Saturday rolled around. The phone had been silent. Naturally.

§

But I still had my sales, and I still had my deadline, and my proposals. I still had my agents, and they were still getting back to me. Maybe, when I got my strength back and got my head together, I'd go back to New York and get taken aside again. I'd go to a party and another new editor would be there. I'd clink a fork against his goblet for everyone's attention, and then climb (slightly drunkenly) up on the table. "Folks, this is Mark J. McGarry. We've just given him one of our six-figure contracts. He's Made It." And there would be a polite round of applause, and later a session with some women provided by my new publisher. That was the way it was supposed to go. Or at least something along those lines.

When I Made It, there would be a humming of orchestrated Muzak, and rose petals would fall at my feet and birds alight on my dinner-jacketed shoulders. Publishers would throw money at me, and awed young writers would ask me how I'd done it.

Write? Surely one would not be expected to work, after one has made it. Well, maybe three months a year, in the Caribbean, or London, or in Spain.

But maybe, instead, I'd finish up Span. Maybe I'd work on new stories, and new novels. Maybe I'd start telling friends I had too much work to do, but then maybe I'd be a little more civil when I was able to see them. Maybe I'd start getting in touch with what I wanted now that I knew the way things were, and not how they'd look from that metaphorical kitchen so very long ago. Maybe I'd grow a little.