Writing Destroying Angels

I began writing Destroying Angels in 1995 at the suggestion of my son, who said, "Mom, you’re always reading mysteries, why don’t you try writing one." The mystery genre appealed to me, because mystery writers like Sara Paretsky and Sue Grafton, to name just two, were turning the mystery genre on its head with their smart—talking, tough female detectives. I was enthralled with these female detectives, protagonists who seemed to tap into women’s power. So I decided to take my son up on his suggestion.

Because I was between teaching jobs then, I could devote uninterrupted time to my writing. Living in a semi-rural area and volunteering as a nature guide for the district’s forest preserve, I had the natural world to draw from. And unfortunately, I was also in the middle of a medical crisis, having been diagnosed with a precancerous breast disease that put me at high risk for breast cancer.

All of these elements coalesced in creating my sleuth, Leigh Girard, a breast cancer survivor who leaves Chicago, her teaching career and her husband to move to an artist’s community on the Door County peninsula to heal from her mastectomy. Because I had once worked as a stringer for a suburban newspaper, I gave her a job as a reporter for the local paper. Her first assignment, an obit, turns out to be, of course, an undiscovered murder.

It took me about a month to write the first draft, then several more months to polish it. The writing process was one of the most exhilarating I’d ever experienced—full of the excitement of writing in a new genre and creating a female character who was tough, funny and "scarred."

Getting Destroying Angels Published

If writing Destroying Angels was exhilarating, getting it published was excruciating, requiring the kind of fortitude needed to complete a marathon.

It took me ten years and two book contracts from two different publishers before Destroying Angel was published.

In 2002, I went under contract with a publisher, who ended up holding my book for two years, and then went out of business. That was my lowest point and I almost gave up.

But my family and my friends wouldn’t let me give up. My husband kept reminding me that whether this book was published or not, I was still a writer and would write other books. Some friends were there to let me vent, others were there to prod me on. But none of them lost faith in the book or in me. And I think that’s what made me persist. In the end, I couldn’t let them down.

Finally, at the 2005 Love is Murder conference, I pitched my book to Tekno Books/Five Star/an imprint of Thomson Gale. Within two weeks, I had a contract.

When I think about my long journey to publication, I realize how tenuous this whole process is and how much depends on luck, tenacity and the people in your life who support you.