Romance novel lands book deal for local author

SANDPOINT — Every writer has a different vision of how the fantasy would play out, but the ending is pretty much the same. It starts with a trip to fetch the mail. After pulling out the usual bundle of bills and junk correspondence, one envelope stands out from the rest.

It’s the one with the publisher’s name and return address in the upper-left-hand corner. Without waiting to get back inside from the mailbox, one finger tears a slit along the top of the sealed letter and a crisply folded sheet of paper is pulled free.

Writers who have made the trip before know that this is The Moment of Truth. Expecting the worst — another impersonal “thanks, but no thanks” rejection letter — and hoping for the best — a personal note from the publisher stating that your work has passed muster and a contract is on the way — the recipient unfolds the contents and waits to be either hammered or heralded by the words inside.

Local author Kathleen Mulroy picked up her mail last month to find that a publisher not only wanted to print the romance novel she had submitted, but also wanted her to get right to work on producing a sequel to the text.

“It’s like when the fairy godmother taps you on the head and sparkles fall all around you,” she said, describing her reaction to the acceptance letter. “I had to read it three times before I could believe it.”

Mulroy’s novel — a Christian historical romance aimed at young adult readers and set in Wallace, Idaho, circa 1890 — is titled, “The Silver and the Cross.”  Her elation over the publisher’s vote of confidence in her 22,000-word first draft was immediately tempered by the request that followed that news. We like the story and we love the characters, the publisher wrote. Please make it twice as long. And while you’re at it, get started on a book to follow on the heels of this one.

Mulroy, who works in the Title 1 program for the Lake Pend Oreille School District, last year shifted to part-time status in order to spend more time at her writing desk. The extra time at her craft has become a necessity, based on the contract she signed last week with Comfort Publishing, but the cast of characters she created for the fictional world found inside her books is also demanding more of her attention.

At their own whim, not the writer’s, they strike up the most interesting conversations or embroil themselves in the most compelling situations.

Mulroy has no choice but to try and keep up with them.

“I’d always read that, when you’re writing a book, the characters take on a life of their own,” she said. “I thought, ‘That’s just silly.’  But it’s true — they really do. I made them up and now they’re alive.

“It’s sort of addictive,” the author added. “You can’t explain it to someone who isn’t a writer, but if it’s flowing, you literally can’t stop writing.”

The manuscript for “The Silver and the Cross” covers a young romance that takes place in the boom years of the late-1800s. The sequel, which keeps its roots in the Silver Valley, will follow one of the peripheral characters into a new story and a new century, beginning in 1902 and culminating with the historic Great Fire of 1910. Mulroy said she works from news clippings to get her history straight and fleshes out her characters with material gleaned from chance encounters and ideas that pop up throughout the day.

A supportive husband, she explained, makes it possible for her to chase down those ideas and capture them in words. The astute editorial eye of her 13-year-old son, meanwhile, helps the writer keep it real for the younger readers she hopes to attract.

“He’ll look at something I’ve written and say, ‘No, Mom — that doesn’t work,’” the author said. “Or, more often, he’ll tell me, ‘You need more action.’”

As 2008 drew to a close, Mulroy had amassed about a dozen rejection letters and was still dreaming of becoming a published author. After last month’s fateful trip to the mailbox, she is fully engaged in the writer’s life, finalizing a book title, choosing cover art and writing a back-cover synopsis for one novel as she works simultaneously on both its follow-up story and the first installment in a fantasy trilogy that is finding its way onto the page.

Past experience as an editor for a publishing company and the writer of numerous freelance articles readied Mulroy for the discipline of writing. But nothing, she said, could have prepared her for the rush that comes from spending a large part of each day stepping in and out of a fictional world of your own creation.

“This was a pretty big leap — and pretty scary,” the author confided. “It never occurred to me that writing could be a career. It just wasn’t one of the options the high school counselors talked about.

“The hardest thing for me is being able to say, ‘I am a writer, that’s what I do,’” she added. “Now I can say that and feel good about it.”