DYING TO GET PUBLISHED, the first in The Jennifer Marsh Mystery Series, is a dark comedy. To anyone who's had any experience with the publishing world, it's a laugh-out-loud send-up of the industry and the difficulties in getting an editor to notice an author in a sea of aspiring writers. Most people who read it, whether they're in the industry or not, find it very funny. Readers who've ever had a dream of any kind can't help but relate to Jennifer, a kind, gentle young woman, who just happens
to write murder mysteries and who will do almost anything to get them published. The books that follow in the series have much more traditional cozy mystery plots, but they retain the same quirky characters and fun that distinguished the first one. The difference is that DYING TO GET PUBLISHED contains a joke within a joke.
Every now and then, out of all of the wonderful reviews this book has garnered, I've gotten, and continue to get, a review in print or posted on Internet sites that is, shall we say, less than stellar, criticizing the book for being over the top. One or two have
included the word "ridiculous" describing the plot. What those reviewers have missed is the joke within the joke this book contains.
DYING TO GET PUBLISHED was the first book I ever sold. It was the third book I'd written. The first two were traditional mysteries—good, but books that followed the formula laid out many years ago by Agatha Christie and her contemporaries as to what makes a cozy mystery: an intelligent, insightful person somehow becomes involved in the solving of an intriguing crime and is able to piece together a cerebral puzzle that eludes the officials. Both of my first books were good, solid reads (one
finaled in a national contest), but that was the problem. Editors were looking for something different, something they'd never seen before. That's a tough order for any newbie trying to break into the field, especially when editors and agents receive thousands of submissions a year. I heard one well known editor boast at a conference that she gave new writers one page to get her
hooked. One page. What in the world could I, or anyone, write on one page that would wow this woman so thoroughly that she would go on to page two? It seemed an impossible task, frustrating beyond belief. I mean, really, couldn't she at least give me five pages? My fellow wannabe writers were experiencing the same thing with their books in their genres.
I rolled all of that frustration—theirs and mine—into DYING TO GET PUBLISHED. But here comes the joke within the joke. When the book opens, Jennifer has just finished a book about Jolene
Arizona, "a left-handed, blind-in-one-eye, bare-back riding circus performer turned Hollywood detective who took stunt gigs on the side when her client list dwindled. And she slept with all of them—every single client—employing a few tricks she'd learned on the circus circuit." It's so sleazy Jennifer has to take a shower after she's finished writing it. But really, an editor would HAVE to
read page two of that book, right?
Jennifer is my Jolene Arizona, only without the circus tricks, the sex, and the sleaze. She has named her firstborn child, currently an unfertilized egg, Jaimie. And she talks to it. ON PAGE ONE. It made me laugh. It still does. Because, well, because it IS ridiculous. It's the sort of quirk many people have and don't want anyone, anywhere to know about. The whole gender ambiguity with the name and Jennifer's friend Dee Dee insisting that Jaimie NEEDS a pronoun—he or she—is funny. At least I think it is. And the fact that Jennifer concludes that murder may be the only way anyone will EVER take notice of her and her work is funny, too. Actually, it's ridiculous.
I didn't write the Jolene Arizona book. (I'm afraid it might have sold and I would be the one having to take a shower after I'd finished it.) Instead, I wrote Jennifer, who wrote Jolene. So, now, those of you who might not have seen it before, do you get the
joke?
I love Jennifer as a character. She's very real to me. She's fun, impulsive, dedicated, kind, honest, and the best sort of friend anyone could hope to have. She's ambitious without being
selfish, occasionally thoughtless, and far too dedicated to her craft to have a rounded, fulfilled life. She loves her dog and she has some important life lessons to learn. She'll put a smile on your lips as she does some pretty "ridiculous" things that only demonstrate how very human she is. She grows over the series and the mysteries she solves touch her personally. Despite the fun along the way, Jennifer never loses sight of the fact that someone has died or suffered or felt loss.
So when you read the first one, get the joke. It may not be obvious to everyone, but it's there. And it's WHY that book got published.
to write murder mysteries and who will do almost anything to get them published. The books that follow in the series have much more traditional cozy mystery plots, but they retain the same quirky characters and fun that distinguished the first one. The difference is that DYING TO GET PUBLISHED contains a joke within a joke.
Every now and then, out of all of the wonderful reviews this book has garnered, I've gotten, and continue to get, a review in print or posted on Internet sites that is, shall we say, less than stellar, criticizing the book for being over the top. One or two have
included the word "ridiculous" describing the plot. What those reviewers have missed is the joke within the joke this book contains.
DYING TO GET PUBLISHED was the first book I ever sold. It was the third book I'd written. The first two were traditional mysteries—good, but books that followed the formula laid out many years ago by Agatha Christie and her contemporaries as to what makes a cozy mystery: an intelligent, insightful person somehow becomes involved in the solving of an intriguing crime and is able to piece together a cerebral puzzle that eludes the officials. Both of my first books were good, solid reads (one
finaled in a national contest), but that was the problem. Editors were looking for something different, something they'd never seen before. That's a tough order for any newbie trying to break into the field, especially when editors and agents receive thousands of submissions a year. I heard one well known editor boast at a conference that she gave new writers one page to get her
hooked. One page. What in the world could I, or anyone, write on one page that would wow this woman so thoroughly that she would go on to page two? It seemed an impossible task, frustrating beyond belief. I mean, really, couldn't she at least give me five pages? My fellow wannabe writers were experiencing the same thing with their books in their genres.
I rolled all of that frustration—theirs and mine—into DYING TO GET PUBLISHED. But here comes the joke within the joke. When the book opens, Jennifer has just finished a book about Jolene
Arizona, "a left-handed, blind-in-one-eye, bare-back riding circus performer turned Hollywood detective who took stunt gigs on the side when her client list dwindled. And she slept with all of them—every single client—employing a few tricks she'd learned on the circus circuit." It's so sleazy Jennifer has to take a shower after she's finished writing it. But really, an editor would HAVE to
read page two of that book, right?
Jennifer is my Jolene Arizona, only without the circus tricks, the sex, and the sleaze. She has named her firstborn child, currently an unfertilized egg, Jaimie. And she talks to it. ON PAGE ONE. It made me laugh. It still does. Because, well, because it IS ridiculous. It's the sort of quirk many people have and don't want anyone, anywhere to know about. The whole gender ambiguity with the name and Jennifer's friend Dee Dee insisting that Jaimie NEEDS a pronoun—he or she—is funny. At least I think it is. And the fact that Jennifer concludes that murder may be the only way anyone will EVER take notice of her and her work is funny, too. Actually, it's ridiculous.
I didn't write the Jolene Arizona book. (I'm afraid it might have sold and I would be the one having to take a shower after I'd finished it.) Instead, I wrote Jennifer, who wrote Jolene. So, now, those of you who might not have seen it before, do you get the
joke?
I love Jennifer as a character. She's very real to me. She's fun, impulsive, dedicated, kind, honest, and the best sort of friend anyone could hope to have. She's ambitious without being
selfish, occasionally thoughtless, and far too dedicated to her craft to have a rounded, fulfilled life. She loves her dog and she has some important life lessons to learn. She'll put a smile on your lips as she does some pretty "ridiculous" things that only demonstrate how very human she is. She grows over the series and the mysteries she solves touch her personally. Despite the fun along the way, Jennifer never loses sight of the fact that someone has died or suffered or felt loss.
So when you read the first one, get the joke. It may not be obvious to everyone, but it's there. And it's WHY that book got published.
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