May 23, 2008
Writing and Other Musings
Written by Margo Maguire in Jaunty Post
Some of you might know that I was a nurse before I became a writer. Although – as some in the medical profession would say – once a nurse, always a nurse. But I don’t practice professionally any more, even though I keep my license current by taking continuing education courses every year.
What you might not know is that I worked in Intensive Care Units for most of my career – in a couple of big-city trauma units. Needless to say, I saw a lot of crazy stuff, from accidents, to suicide attempts, to murder attempts. Some of my patients were criminal suspects under police guard. Some were pediatric patients whose troubles were more complex than the pediatric ICU could handle (we had a fabulous Intensivist in our unit). Many were patients with chronic illnesses that became acute – situations they shouldn’t die from, like complications from kidney failure. Or certain kinds of heart disease.
I worked during all my pregnancies and went back to it after my kids were born. It would have seemed odd to take a hiatus from my professional life (yeah, crazy, I know!). When my youngest started school, I was working the afternoon shift two nights a week, getting home somewhere between midnight and 1:00 am. I found it impossible to come in from a stress-filled night and go right to sleep, so I started writing to unwind. I’d always been a reader, so it seemed a natural progression to try writing.
I didn’t bother with essays or short stories, or even poetry. I went directly to writing a full-length novel. Two of them, in fact. The better of the two (in my opinion) was called The Rescue, a Medieval tale of a brawny knight in hauberks and chausses (oh yeah!) and a feisty heroine.
When my tome was finished, my kids were old enough that I thought I could return to work full time. In my absolute naïveté, I told my husband I was either going to increase my hours at the hospital, or become a full-time author. (Pure dumb confidence, I guess - to think that all it required was my decision to do it!)
It was February 10th when I put The Rescue into the mail. I sent it to the editors at Harlequin Historicals, and went about my usual daily routine, working, taking care of kids, managing the household. On February 20th, I received a phone call from New York. It was a Harlequin editor, offering to buy The Rescue. At the time, I didn’t know how rare it was to sell so quickly. I didn’t have contact with any other authors, didn’t know a thing about the business. I accepted the offer and started revising the book as requested (I had to cut 60 pages), and The Rescue was released a year later with its new name - The Bride of Windermere.
I’ve learned a lot about the book business since then, and I think I’ve improved my writing skills. In the past, my nursing abilities helped to supply a lot of happy endings in the ICU, and now I get to provide a different kind of happy ending for a lot of contented readers.
P.S. Turns out we did see Indiana Jones last night and … I’m not going to spoil it for anyone. But I will say that it’s everything an Indiana Jones movie ought to be!
I’ve been busy raising three kids, and even though I’ve got two just out of college, my third has one year to go. My two sons are home for the summer, which means grocery shopping, cooking, regularly-scheduled clutter-reduction efforts.
