May 23, 2006
My editor at Midnight Ink contacted me yesterday regarding the second Derek Stillwater novel (The Serpent's Kiss), discussing artwork and an upcoming editorial meeting. The first (The Devil's Pitchfork) is in galleys now and I will be working on it shortly.

Along the way she asked about a third, then said she should contact my agent.

Irene, my agent, contacted me and told me to put together some proposals, which I did.

And now we wait. And the Dancing novel is still out there, been quickly turned down by 2 publishers, which I guess is par for the course, to use a golf cliche.

The fear isn't exactly about whether we'll get a contract with MI for the upcoming books. There's some of that, and I guess it's out of my control. No, this is something new. It's called:

book advances.

I recently took on some nonfiction work and I was paid 50% upfront for small work and large work and it was the largest money I've received at one time, and it's disconcerting. I know we all dream of advances, but the fact is, you have to do the work AFTER you get paid and in order to get the rest of the money, and that can put a different sort of pressure on the writer. It also makes me very paranoid about the money because, well, it doesn't feel like it's quite MINE yet (although just let them try and get it back and see what kind of a fight they'll have on their hands :)). Clearly a different mindset at work here, and something that takes some getting used to.

But I will, I will...

Best,
Mark Terry