“Gimme my money!” The day I staged a sit-in at my publisher’s to get paid

There it was, nestled among the bulky, self-addressed envelopes in my mailbox that held the daily slew of rejected manuscripts: a slim white envelope with an acceptance letter.

I’d sold my first novel!

For the princely sum of $1,200.

No matter that the advance was small and the publisher had been previously unknown to me. I was living below the poverty line back then, so any money with which to feed myself and my two young kids was a godsend.

When my first check arrived – the $600 due on signing – I splurged at the grocery store: ground chuck instead of ground beef, 2-ply toilet paper, frozen concentrated orange juice I would mix with the recommended 2 cans of water instead of 3 to make it stretch. Woo hoo! I was living large!

A few months later, I proudly sent the finished manuscript for “A Falling Place” to my new publisher. By then I’d scraped together the money for plane fare to NYC—$99 round trip—and a cheap hotel room I would share with a writer friend of mine. My first trip to the Big Apple!

It was a stretch money-wise, but the second half of my advance money was due, so I wasn’t worried. I’d have the money to pay my rent and buy groceries when I returned home to Santa Cruz, California.

The day I left on my trip, the check from the publisher still hadn’t arrived. Was it lost in the mail? Had it been misaddressed? Sent by Pony Express? I was starting to freak out. I needed that money.

I had meetings scheduled with a prospective agent and my editor—let’s call her Bev—at the publishing house in Midtown Manhattan. I spent my first day in town sight-seeing. I was dazzled with a crick in my neck from looking up at all the tall buildings. I never imagined I would one day live in NYC or that my first hardcover novel, GARDEN OF LIES, would become a New York Times’ bestseller.

That evening I met with the prospective agent. Over drinks at a bar she moaned about her crisis at home: her housecleaner had quit – gasp! – leaving her in the lurch. After listening to 30 minutes of this, I knew she wasn’t the agent for me, but I considered offering her my services as a housecleaner. I was that desperate.

The next day, I got lost on my way to meet with the editor. (This was the pre-cellphone/GPS era). I arrived 30 minutes late, just as Bev was returning from somewhere. From the sheepish look she wore when I introduced myself, I knew she’d been trying to give me the slip. Fat chance, lady!

I was ushered into her office, where she explained, when I asked about the payment I was owed, about some “screw-up in accounting.” Right. I may have been a hick from the sticks, but I knew when I was getting stiffed.

Emboldened by my desperation, I told her I wasn’t leaving without my money. She looked embarrassed as she told yet another lie. “Sorry, but there’s no one in accounting at the moment to cut you a check.”

“Fine,” I told her. “I’ll wait.”

I was prepared to camp out all day if necessary—dire visions of homelessness dancing my head—but soon after I’d settled in for my “sit-in,” Bev returned holding a check for the $600 I was owed. I probably should have had it sanitized because it had obviously come out of her ass.

Triumphant, I returned home to pay my bills.

Soon after “The Falling Place” was published months later, the publishing house folded. No surprise. I’d seen it coming. Literally. But hey, I got my money – probably the last author of theirs to get paid – and a published book out of it. Somewhere I have a copy of “The Falling Place” (published under my then-married name) that all of 3 people have read, I’m convinced, one of whom was my mom.

What lives on is the memory of my “sit-in” at my publisher’s, which was the day I discovered what I was made of: one-part ink and one-part grit.

Note: Of all the characters I’ve created, the one who’s most like me is Tish Ballard, the amateur sleuth of my Cypress Bay mystery series. Clever, intrepid and at times reckless with a checkered past (unlike me, she’s a recovering alcoholic). Meet her in Book One of the series, BONES AND ROSES.