Chapter 1

“Erika, I don’t know how much longer I can take this job. I can’t stand it. There’s no creativity; it’s the same old thing over and over again. Tick this, double check that, foot these columns of numbers and if I have to do one more bank reconciliation, or post another general ledger, I’m going to go out of my mind. I knew I should never have promised my mother that I would become an accountant. The only reason why she wanted me to be one was because she saw the guy up the street, a partner in a CPA firm, buy a new car every couple of years and be able to afford to buy a new house up in the ritzy section of town.”

“She just wanted you to make more of yourself than they had done.”

“But it’s killing me.”

“If you weren’t an accountant what would you want to be?”

“I don’t know; something creative; something I don’t have to follow rules to do.”

“Jim, I’m nearly done with my degree in English Literature. When I finish, I’ll be able to go to work, you won’t have to stay there; you can do what you really want to do.”

“Where’s Kristin? She’s not asleep already, is she?”

“No. I just got her into bed; she’s waiting for her Daddy to come in and tell her a story.”

Jim took off his tie, and headed for his daughter’s room.

“Aren’t you going to get one of her books?”

“No, I don’t need one; I’ll just tell her a story.”

“I’ll get your supper ready.”

While Erika was warming his plate of leftover spaghetti, she couldn’t help hearing the story Jim told their daughter. It was an elaborate tale of Princesses and Princes, evil dragons and ugly witches. The story seemed to go on and on, and although the characters were familiar, the story was entirely new to her. As she peered into the room, Erika could see that Kristin was enthralled with the tale. Although she was fighting hard to combat it, she was losing the battle against sleep. Amazingly, Jim continued the tale after Kristin was asleep and only reluctantly stopped when Erika came into the room and dragged him off the bed and out of the room.

“That was a wonderful story, but I’ve never heard of it before; what’s the name of it?”

“Of course you haven’t heard of it before, I just made it up.”

“You mean it’s not a book that you’ve read or a story your mother read to you as a child?”

“Nope, it’s from up here,” he said pointing to his head, “from ‘Jim’s encyclopedia of nothing,’ as one of my high school teachers used to tell me.”

“Jim, that’s it; that’s what you could do. You could become a writer.”

“I don’t know Erika, we could starve to death before I could complete a book, much less get someone to publish it.

“You’d have to keep your day job and write at night and on weekends. I could get a part-time job until Kristin starts school. I know we can do this; I can feel it in my bones.

“I just wish I paid more attention in all of my English classes. I don’t have a big vocabulary; I don’t use fancy words.”

“You won’t have to worry about that; that’s going to be my job. I’ll be your editor and I’ll help you with your vocabulary, too. Besides, you don’t have to use fancy words to get people to read your stories; in fact, today it’s probably just the opposite.”

“We’ll have to get a personal computer and a good word processing program and a printer.”

“Jim, I was going to suggest that anyway, Kristin will be going to school soon and she’s going to be using a computer her entire life. We would be bad parents if we didn’t get her started as soon as possible.”

It took a while to set up a routine. Jim, being a fairly good typist himself, was able to create a first draft of each chapter. Sometimes he could see clearly where the plot line was headed, other times he just let the story form as he went along. Erika, for her part, would proofread Jim’s previous day’s work, correcting his grammar, choice of words, and spelling. Some nights they would sit together reviewing her corrections. Erika would ask questions pertaining to the plot of the story and make suggestions about where she thought the story could be improved. Jim had final approval on the story line and Erika controlled the final output. A little over six months later, Jim and Erika completed his first story.

The next and hardest step was to find a publisher willing to take a chance on an unpublished, fledgling author. Erika sent a copy of the manuscript to all of the big publishing houses. As the pile of rejection letters began to grow, she changed her tactics. She found a fledgling publisher, called the company and asked to speak to the book editor who had the least experience.