How I stuck with it....

I finally answer my own questions.

VITAL STATS:

My age when my first novel published, and the title of that novel: 43, The Kennedy Debutante

My age now: 49

How many novels have I published to date: 4

What’s my next novel and its pub date: The working title is Summer of Love, and it's due out the first part of 2026. The paperback of All You Have To Do Is Call is out August 27!

INTERVIEW:

1. How many novels did I complete before the one that became my first published novel?

I wrote 5 completely finished and revised novels before Kennedy sold. The first, a serious work of literary fiction, I wrote at the mature age of 22; it taught me how to write a novel, and a snippet of it got me into my MFA program. The second was a romance novel I wrote one summer during my MFA years, largely in revolt against the steady diet of New York Times-reviewed fiction served up there—not that there is anything wrong with those books, but I wanted to have some fun. After the MFA, I wrote a mystery that got me my first literary agent. Then I wrote a YA paranormal and a YA contemporary.

Writing in so many different genres was invaluable to me. What I learned by reading a bunch of romance, mystery, and YA novels was as essential as everything I learned in my masters program.  By the time I got to writing historical fiction, I was able to bring everything I’d learned in those genres to bear on the subject of Kathleen “Kick” Kennedy. Not a single word of those early novels was a waste, even though they were never published.

2. What kinds of jobs did I have to support myself while I wrote?  Am I still doing one of them?

When I graduated from college and sat down to write my first novel, I put together a living by working at the Community Bookstore in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and acting as a part-time nanny for a sweet 3 year old boy (and thankfully, I was able to stay on my mother’s schoolteacher health insurance in those years!).  For a little while, I also managed a big, successful gourmet store in Grand Central station, then while I was in graduate school, I worked as a personal assistant to a well-known writer of nonfiction and eventually got a fellowship to teach. 

After graduate school, the years I wrote the mystery and the first YA, I taught full-time freshman composition (the class all first-years love to hate).  For a long time, I found a tremendously helpful synergy between my teaching and my writing. I took a break from writing for a few years to launch and run YARN, a YA literary magazine, and also become a mother. When my daughter was two, and while I was writing a nonfiction book called This Is Not A Writing Manual, I stumbled on the idea for The Kennedy Debutante.

I am now back to teaching, though it’s part time and I’m teaching creative writing instead of freshman comp.

3. What was the writing routine in which I wrote the novel that became my first published? How long did it take to write that book?

I wrote Kennedy entirely in the 2-hour blocks of time I had 3 mornings a week when my daughter was in nursery school. I’d drop her off, drive home listening to music that put me in the right frame of mind, make myself another cup of coffee, and sit down at my computer. It took about three years to write and re-write the book, and in the second and third years, she was in school 4 then 5 mornings a week, and so I had a little more time. 

I never used that precious quiet time while she was at school for anything else, and as a result, I was always the mom with the toddler in Target. But it was totally worth it. I made a final push to finish a draft one summer and enrolled my daughter in “Camp Grandma” so I could write for five hours at a time while they made mud pies and paper snowflakes.

4. What was my darkest moment before selling my first novel?

I really wondered if I was cut out for writing fiction. I was a very good teacher, and I’d had more publishing success with non-fiction, but I didn’t love either of those as much as I loved writing fiction. But after not selling FIVE novels, I had to wonder.  Still, many writer friends told me to keep at it.  That it can take a very long time, and the writers who make it are the ones that never give up. No one was really telling me I was a great writer. I had to work to become a published writer, and also learn that “great” is highly subjective.

While I was writing Kennedy, I did think to myself, “Kerri, this is your most marketable idea ever. You’re writing about the Kennedy family for Pete’s sake. If you can’t sell this one, you should hang up your hat.” For the past five years, I’d felt horribly, embarrassingly jealous of my friends who were getting book deals. I felt despondent and full of ugly self-pity.

Thankfully, the book sold.  Had it not sold, I suspect I would have needed a break. Taking breaks is essential for clearing my head—it’s what I did when I stopped writing to launch the journal. But even if Kennedy hadn’t sold, I would have come back to writing.  I always had in the past, because my life doesn’t make any sense without it. Writing is how I communicate with myself; it’s how I figure things out. I need it like I need water and therapy.

5. What advice about writing helps me stick with it?

So many writers have given such great advice in this series of interviews, most of which boil down to STICK WITH IT. That’s always my first piece of advice. Look at my story I stuck with it, and it DID eventually happen.  And you know what, when that first novel sold, ALL the heartache that came before it just sort of got cosmically erased. It felt that good.

To that I’ll add FIND YOUR PEOPLE. I was only able to stick with it because of my writer-friends and teachers. Writer-friends cheer you on, give you feedback that improves your writing, and hand you the tissues when it all becomes too much. They understand the roller coaster of highs and lows that is the writing life in a way that few others can, and we need them.

If you don’t know where to find other writers, take a class (Grub Street and Gotham Writers offer online classes, and I bet your local community center offers in-person classes, too), or attend a conference in the genre you’re writing in. Be sure to get the phone numbers of the other aspiring writers whose work you like; keep up the connections by exchanging drafts and commiserating texts.  Be a cheerleader. Be a shoulder to cry on. Those acts of compassion will only come back to you in spades.

6. What is my favorite part about the writing life?

There are two parts I love equally. One is the quiet moment at my computer when things click into place, when a character or a storyline or a theme come into focus and I know that the words I’m writing will make it into the final draft.

The other is when I meet readers at events who point to those parts of the book, and say how much they resonated.  It’s hard to know when you’re writing if your favorite things will land with strangers who have never met you. It’s enormously gratifying when they do.

I’m having a similar experience with this Substack series, in fact. I love finding other writers with inspiring stories to share.  Variations on the “How I Got Published” story just never get old, even now, 6 years after publishing my first novel.

Thank you all for being here for the adventure.

—Kerri