That Thrill of a First Sale

A friend on Twitter recently commented about how excited she was about her first sale of a short story, and that reminded me of the thrill I had at my first major sale. I'd been writing for a couple of newspapers already, but when Lady's Circle published "A String of Pearls" and sent me a check for a whopping $125, I felt like I'd finally made it to the big time.

One of my newspaper gigs at that time was penning a weekly humor column, and of course, I had to write about the experience. The following is just a bit of that nonsense..er, week's offering. 

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When I sold my first short story to a major magazine my family joined me in the excitement, and we were all happily playing Howard Hughes around here for a while. My husband started planning his retirement. The kids started picking out houses in the country. And I had visions of never having to look at another price tag again before buying a pair of jeans. 

Meanwhile I had not even cashed the check yet. I was afraid to cash it because I knew all too soon it would be gone and besides that, it was such a big thrill to go look at it every now and then. 

I know that will pass, since it only took me two weeks to stop opening the magazine every five minutes to see my byline. Still, no other acceptance will probably ever mean as much or create quite the stir that this one did.

Someday, will discussing the terms of a sale with an editor in New York become old hat? Will I not break out in a cold sweat when I pick up the phone? Will I have to act all cool and professional on the outside, while on the inside I'm jumping up and down for joy?

Someday I won't call my best friend to announce, "You are now speaking to a famous writer person."

"Who is this? Is this some sort of a crank call?" 

We're all entitled to our glory dreams, and mine sure was fun while it lasted. But all too soon the excitement died down to a dull roar, and the rejection slips started littering my desk again. So, we had to resign ourselves to the fact that perhaps we would have to wait a while before starting to recklessly throw money around buying mink coats and hamburger.

My oldest daughter gave up her dream of a whole new bedroom set with maybe a new bedroom to put it in. My oldest son went back to mowing lawns for the money for his new mag wheels, and my second son started collecting cans to keep himself in spending money. I resigned myself to another year in the bargain basement, and unfortunately, my husband still had to get up every morning and go to work. (Someone had to keep me in typing paper and postage.)

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Following that first sale to Lady's Circle, I sold a couple of other short stories, as well as some articles to that magazine. Since they only bought first American publication rights to the stories, I was able to much later publish the stories online. "A String of Pearls"  became "Making it Home".  

Now, many moons, and many sales later, I will say that the thrill of getting an acceptance is still the same as it was for that first one. I don't think anything about the process of getting our work out there for readers gets less exciting no matter how many times we're published. 

Perhaps if we get blasé about the end result, we might get blasé about the writing itself, and that would never be a good thing. So, I told my Twitter friend to celebrate her moment to the fullest, and celebrate every other one that comes along in the future. To her question of whether to cash the check or not, I suggested she copy it, then cash it.

That's what I did after a few weeks of smiling at that first check from Lady's Circle. Since this was prior to computers and home-office copy machines, I had to go to Office Depot to get the copy. The man that took care of that for me, barely blinked, obviously not ready to toast me with a glass of champagne, like my friend did after she realized it wasn't a crank call. 

Writer friends, do you remember your first sale? Do you still get as excited at a new one? Are you waiting for that special "first" and planning a huge party? Please do share in the comments, and in the meantime Happy Writing.

Award-winning author Maryann Miller has numerous credits as a columnist, novelist, screenwriter, and playwright, and she also has an extensive background in editing. You can find out more about Maryann, her books, and her editing services on her Website and her Amazon Author Page read her Blog, and follow her on Facebook and Twitter.