full-length plays and many short skits while I continued to do anonymous stories.
One of the plays, Spirit! , is about an elderly woman in a nursing home who gets in trouble for hosting poker parties and ordering pizza. Spirit! won the Forest Roberts Playwriting Award from Northern Michigan University. Part of the prize was a trip to Michigan to see the performance.
I flew to Michigan for three exciting days. The cast and director met me at the airport, all wearing T-shirts advertising my play. On our way to the campus, we passed a big community reader board. It said, WELCOME PEG KEHRET, WINNING PLAYWRIGHT. I had the driver stop on the side of the road so I could hop out and take a picture.
I sat in the auditorium on opening night, over whelmed as the people of my imagination walked around on stage, speaking the words I had written for them. The audience laughed at the funny lines and wiped away tears at the poignant ending.
During the curtain call, there were cries of âAuthor! Author!â As I went forward to take a bow, I thought, This is what it feels like to be a successful writer. Never again would I be satisfied to write anonymously.
If I stopped writing the stories, I would give up a steady source of income. But by then I wanted my name on my writing more than I wanted it on a check.
I asked myself this question: If you knew it would get published, what would you write?
My answer was, a novel. Fiction was fun to write, and I had especially enjoyed telling a story in more than one chapter. I imagined how it would feel to hold in my hands a book that I had written.
It took me a year to write an adult mystery titled The Ransom at Blackberry Bridge . With high hopes, I sent it to a literary agent in New York. Many writers have agents who submit their work to publishing companies for them and handle business details with publishers.
My novel came back with a letter from the agent. She said, âYou write well, but your heroine seems awfully young. Have you ever considered writing for children?â
I spent another four months revising the book, turning it into a mystery for kids. I made many mistakes during this process. The biggest one was that I did not read any current young adult or middle-grade fiction; I just plowed ahead on my own. When I finished the book the second time, the agent agreed to represent me.
While I waited for her to sell my novel, I wrote another play. Soon after it was published, the agent returned my novel, along with a list of all the publishers who had turned it down.
I stood in my kitchen clutching that list while tears streamed down my cheeks. It had taken me a year to write a novel, and it was not going to be published. Maybe I should give up writing, I thought, and get a ârealâ job.
I had made that mistake before. Once I had gotten a real estate license. I sold two condominiums, loathed every second of it, and quit. Later I took a part-time position at City Hall, intending to work there half of each day and write the other half. By the time I got dressed up and drove to City Hall, the part-time job took most of the day, and I got little writing done. When I left that job, I felt as if Iâd been released from prison.
I knew I could never be happy doing any work except writing, yet I was so discouraged over my unsold book that the next day I signed up as a temporary office worker. I was asked to type bills for an elevator company. The job lasted three days, which was two-and-a-half days too long for me. By noon on the first day, I ached to be home writing.
None of these jobs were unpleasant or difficult; they just didnât excite me. When I write, Iâm challenged, wholly engaged, and have a sense of doing important work. Hours pass without my realizing it.
There is great satisfaction in imagining people, places, and situations, and then writing about them in a way that makes them seem real to others. When I write, I pour my own thoughts, feelings,
One of the plays, Spirit! , is about an elderly woman in a nursing home who gets in trouble for hosting poker parties and ordering pizza. Spirit! won the Forest Roberts Playwriting Award from Northern Michigan University. Part of the prize was a trip to Michigan to see the performance.
I flew to Michigan for three exciting days. The cast and director met me at the airport, all wearing T-shirts advertising my play. On our way to the campus, we passed a big community reader board. It said, WELCOME PEG KEHRET, WINNING PLAYWRIGHT. I had the driver stop on the side of the road so I could hop out and take a picture.
I sat in the auditorium on opening night, over whelmed as the people of my imagination walked around on stage, speaking the words I had written for them. The audience laughed at the funny lines and wiped away tears at the poignant ending.
During the curtain call, there were cries of âAuthor! Author!â As I went forward to take a bow, I thought, This is what it feels like to be a successful writer. Never again would I be satisfied to write anonymously.
If I stopped writing the stories, I would give up a steady source of income. But by then I wanted my name on my writing more than I wanted it on a check.
I asked myself this question: If you knew it would get published, what would you write?
My answer was, a novel. Fiction was fun to write, and I had especially enjoyed telling a story in more than one chapter. I imagined how it would feel to hold in my hands a book that I had written.
It took me a year to write an adult mystery titled The Ransom at Blackberry Bridge . With high hopes, I sent it to a literary agent in New York. Many writers have agents who submit their work to publishing companies for them and handle business details with publishers.
My novel came back with a letter from the agent. She said, âYou write well, but your heroine seems awfully young. Have you ever considered writing for children?â
I spent another four months revising the book, turning it into a mystery for kids. I made many mistakes during this process. The biggest one was that I did not read any current young adult or middle-grade fiction; I just plowed ahead on my own. When I finished the book the second time, the agent agreed to represent me.
While I waited for her to sell my novel, I wrote another play. Soon after it was published, the agent returned my novel, along with a list of all the publishers who had turned it down.
I stood in my kitchen clutching that list while tears streamed down my cheeks. It had taken me a year to write a novel, and it was not going to be published. Maybe I should give up writing, I thought, and get a ârealâ job.
I had made that mistake before. Once I had gotten a real estate license. I sold two condominiums, loathed every second of it, and quit. Later I took a part-time position at City Hall, intending to work there half of each day and write the other half. By the time I got dressed up and drove to City Hall, the part-time job took most of the day, and I got little writing done. When I left that job, I felt as if Iâd been released from prison.
I knew I could never be happy doing any work except writing, yet I was so discouraged over my unsold book that the next day I signed up as a temporary office worker. I was asked to type bills for an elevator company. The job lasted three days, which was two-and-a-half days too long for me. By noon on the first day, I ached to be home writing.
None of these jobs were unpleasant or difficult; they just didnât excite me. When I write, Iâm challenged, wholly engaged, and have a sense of doing important work. Hours pass without my realizing it.
There is great satisfaction in imagining people, places, and situations, and then writing about them in a way that makes them seem real to others. When I write, I pour my own thoughts, feelings,
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