DJ: I started my first book on May 11, 1982. I was all of nineteen and ending my sophomore year of college. My summer job as a cemetery worker was waiting for me back home in Connecticut--mowing the grass, trimming hedges, and yes, digging graves. When school ended, I headed back home determined to actually finish the book I had started. (I’d started several books before that, the first when I was fifteen, but could never get any of them past 100 pages.)
Upon my return home I quickly established a routine: I would work from eight to five, eat a steak and baked potato for dinner as I watched two reruns of M*A*S*H, then write until ten or so. Whenever it rained (and it rained a lot during the summer of ’82), I didn’t have to work, so I was free to spend all day on my book, which probably explains why, even now, thirty years later, rain often plays a part in so many of my stories.
I had a draft finished by the end of that summer, so I brought
it back to school with me. But instead
of going to classes, as I should have been, I found myself staying in my dorm
room and obsessively rewriting. By the
time November came around, the book was done—a whopping 180 pages, but that was
the same length as The Great Gatsby,
so I thought I was in good company.
Shortly after my twentieth birthday I submitted my
less-than-epic manuscript to several editors at New York publishers, having
gotten their names and addresses from a library copy of The Literary Marketplace. Then
I sat back and waited for the inevitable acceptance letter, and subsequent riches. That book never sold, of course. But I had found what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a novelist. And I knew what I would have to do to make
that happen.
I would have to write and rewrite obsessively. But more importantly, I would need a confidence that
bordered on delusion. I mean, I was
twenty and sending my manuscript to Knopf.
Without an agent. What the frick?
The thing about confidence, I’ve learned over the years, is
that it comes and goes so easily. Too
easily. Over the next eighteen years, I wrote nine novels, and not
one of them sold. My tenth book, though, that one felt…different. Things were coming together in ways they hadn’t
before. I knew this was the one.
It took me over a year to complete that book, entitled The Bone Orchard. And within a matter of weeks of my finishing
it, it sold to Bantam. (ROSEMARY: Here's a snippet of one of TBO's great reviews " THE BONE ORCHARD is an exciting private detective mystery that belies the fact
that this book is D. Daniel Judson's first novel. The story line is loaded with
action as readers take a tour of the underbelly of the Hamptons.") And that, strangely enough, was when my battle with
confidence really began. I’ll spare you all the ups and downs of my career (there’s a
longer version of this essay on my website, www.danieljudsonbooks.com should
anyone want the gory details), but after ten years and eight novels, I found
myself, along with a disturbing number of my fellow midlist authors, suddenly unable
to find a publisher. Just like I had been for eighteen years.
M1 rifles, trench knives, hand grenades--these were
important, but what was crucial—what would ultimately make the difference—was
confidence. In fact, the courses
paratroopers ran during their training weren’t called “obstacle courses”, they
were called “confidence courses”.
Now, I hadn’t given up on writing, but I had stopped. My confidence was shot. Publishing was in chaos. Things were, and still are for many of us,
bleak. I had been unable to find a publisher for my last book. Did I really want to write another one? Did I even have what it took to write
another? Send it out? Wait?
Been there, done that.
And then one morning it just dawned on me: if some kid could jump into France to fight
Nazis, then maybe, you know, I could write
another book. I mean, compared to what
those who served in WWII risked—not to mention what was at stake if they
failed—what, really, was I risking?
I’m not a kid anymore, but somehow that reckless confidence
that had set me on my way—and that had carried me through eighteen years of
rejection—returned. Or at least enough
of it did. I’ve been working on a new project for almost a year now. Will it sell?
I don’t know. But I like this
one. It’s…different. And things seem to be coming together in ways
they haven’t before…
Also, it seems that traditional publishing isn’t the only
game in town these days. However you may
feel about Amazon.com, it is, right now, offering “out of work” authors like me
a chance to reach readers. A lot of
readers. And new readers, too. 
But I had two early books of mine—The Poisoned Rose and The
Bone Orchard, both published in 2002. A Shamus Award-winner and a Shamus- and
Barry- nominee. I should feel confident
about those, right? And I had a third
book, The Gin Palace—the final book
in a trilogy, actually, that had started with Rose, and that ten years ago Bantam didn’t want, then wanted, then
didn’t want again (long story).
So that’s what I’m doing.
I don’t claim to be a trailblazer here—many others have made this jump
before me. (In paratrooper terms, those
brave souls jumped into Normandy on D-Day, and I’m coming in around, say,
Operation Market Garden.) And while
those authors did it all on their own, I’m taking advantage of a new division
that sprang up at my agent’s agency—Trident E-books Operations. The theory is, TEO will do a lot of the “leg
work”—get the books up on Amazon, assist with marketing, and actively pursue all
sub rights—which will/should free me up to actually write.
Maybe that book I wrote last year and couldn’t get published
will go up on Amazon soon. Not sure
whether I’ll do it through TEO or on my own—the jury is still out on that. And maybe the book I’m working on now will go
up on Amazon as well. We’ll see.
One way or another, I’m determined to get my stuff read by
readers.
Just like I was when I was nineteen. I tend bar these days—at the same hotel, in fact, where I
was working when The Bone Orchard sold. I guess that brings me full circle. I no longer eat steak, and my work routine
has flipped; I write in the mornings instead of at night.
It’s May 2nd, 2012, which means nine days from now will be
the thirty year anniversary of the day I started my first book.
And today it looks
like it just might rain… ROSEMARY: That's a pretty inspirational story! Let's get Dan off to a good start with his Amazon promotion. (I'll be publishing with Amazon in a few weeks too!)
Read more about Dan at www.danieljudsonbooks.com
