• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to secondary sidebar
Women's Fiction Writers Banner
  • Home
  • About Amy Sue Nathan
  • About WFW
  • Amy’s Books
    • The Glass Wives
    • The Good Neighbor
    • Left To Chance
  • Amy the Writing Coach & Editor
You are here: Home / Ann McCarthy Strauss—A MEDICAL AFFAIR / Guest Post: Author Anne McCarthy Strauss Says Sometimes Dreams Come True Later Than We Think

Guest Post: Author Anne McCarthy Strauss Says Sometimes Dreams Come True Later Than We Think

May 15, 2014 11 Comments

bookcoverJourneys to publication are always inspiring—so please welcome Anne McCarthy Strauss as she shares her own, as well as solid and heartfelt advice, on Women’s Fiction Writers today.

Amy xo

Sometimes Dreams Come True Later Than We Think

by Anne McCarthy Strauss

bookcoverIn 1970, Richard Boles wrote, What Color is Your Parachute?, a guide for job seekers, a book so popular that it has been revised every year since 1975.   Although a terrific book, I could never understand the need for it and for countless other career guidance books.  I’ve known I wanted to be a writer since my parents read me my first fairy tales.  What could be better than creating characters with all their nuances, thoughts, hopes and dreams and placing them in stories that would take readers to places they’d never otherwise have gone?

Throughout my school years, I loved to read and, unlike most of my peers, I loved to write term papers and essays.  The less I knew about the topic, the better, because it gave me the opportunity to do research.  Even back in the days when research was performed on microfiche at the local library, it was next only to writing on my favorites list.

I wrote my first “newspaper,” The Princeton Street News, when I was seven.  I wrote of the comings and goings of the people who lived on the street where I grew up.  Headlines included, “The 6:15,” a piece about my mother’s evening excursions to pick my father up at the train station when he returned from work in New York City, and “Nine O’clock Mass,” an article about how the family across the street piled into their wood-sided station wagon every Sunday morning and headed to the local Catholic church.  Each of the female members wore a black mantilla, secured to her head with a bobby pin.

Later, I was a regular contributor to my high school and college newspapers.  But I longed for the day when I could put my writing focus on creative writing instead of non-fiction.  Then, I’d be able to create my own facts and express them in the voices of my characters.  Fantasy, fiction and fairytale were in my future, and doing anything else for a living never crossed my mind.

Always the realist, I majored in Journalism in college, backing it up with credits in creative writing courses.  I knew you could get a real job with a steady paycheck working for a newspaper.  Work in the creative writing field was more elusive and almost exclusively freelance in nature.  I expected to marry a man with a good job after college who would support me while I wrote Great American Novels and raised his children.

But, as it does for most of us, real life intervened with my expectations, and I found myself the single mother of a baby boy at the tender age of 25.  I had an excellent job in public relations, a field that allowed me to write such missives as press releases, articles for trade magazines, white papers and sales proposals.  It certainly wasn’t what I wanted to write, but at least I was writing.

During sixteen years as a single mother, I managed to eke out two novels, written on weekends and at night while my son was asleep.  I marketed them to agents and, although I came close to getting agent representation, almost getting an agent is akin to being a little bit pregnant.

Eventually I married and my son went off to college.  Through reading, research and intimate chats with other women, I became aware of a problem that is epidemic in our country.  The problem is medical doctors who have affairs with their female patients.  The more I asked women if they knew of anyone who had ever experienced such an episode, let alone experienced one herself, the more enraged I became.  What I learned was that nobody talks about it, but it happens all the time.  Indignant at the thought of yet another professional (think teachers, priests, etc.) taking advantage of someone he’s tasked with caring for, I was fueled to finally write the book that would have the fire it needed to be published.

A Medical Affair took six years of research, writing and editing to be completed.  But it was accepted by the second agent I sent it to.

Although it took me far longer than I’d hoped to achieve publication, I know I am in fantastic company.  Just two of the many thousands of writers who achieved great success after multiple rejections are Anne Frank and Agatha Christie.

Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl was rejected sixteen times before becoming one of the best-known holocaust stories and selling 30 million copies around the world. Agatha Christie endured over 500 rejections spanning just four years, before landing a publishing deal for her first book, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, and launching a brilliant writing career.

As an author who was published after decades of trying, I feel qualified to suggest just a little advice to struggling writers.  It is this:

  1.  Hold onto your dreams and continue to work toward them.  Sometimes dreams come true later than we think.
  2.  Unless the subject fuels your emotions, don’t expect it to fuel those of your readers.
  3.  Let the words of the Rolling Stone’s Ruby Tuesday be your mantra as they are mine.  “Lose your dreams and you will lose your mind.”

headshotanneAnne McCarthy Strauss lives on Long Island, New York with her husband, Mel, and their two Cavalier King Charles spaniels, Cookie and Ollie.  She is proud to be a native New Yorker who never left town.  Anne invites her readers, other authors, and prospective readers and authors to email her at annemstrauss@gmail.com and to visit her website at http://www.annestrauss.com.

Facebook:   https://www.facebook.com/pages/A-Medical-Affair/351712871626125

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/annestr

Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18962046-a-medical-affair?from_search=true

A Medical Affair on Amazon:   http://www.amazon.com/Medical-Affair-Anne-McCarthy-Strauss/dp/162015174X/ref=sr_1_1_bnp_1_pap?ie=UTF8&qid=1388527945&sr=8-1&keywords=a+medical+affair

A Medical Affair on Barnes and Noble:  http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-medical-affair-anne-mccarthy-strauss/1117005363?ean=9781620151747&itm=1&usri=a+medical+affair

 

 

 

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Email

Filed Under: Ann McCarthy Strauss—A MEDICAL AFFAIR, Guest Post

Previous Post: « Guest Post by Author Kaira Rouda: Author Branding And The Real You
Next Post: How Editing A Novel Is Like Carrying A Big Purse »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. gemwriter2013 says

    May 15, 2014 at 4:35 am

    What an inspiring post – yours was a long journey to achieve your dream, but doesn’t that make it all that much sweeter when it happens? Best of luck in your writing career, and thank you for sharing your journey from another whose own long road, finally, may have a signpost within view.

    Reply
  2. Elaine Stock says

    May 15, 2014 at 5:45 am

    Anne, thanks so much for this encouragement. I especially love the Rolling Stones quote–I write to hold onto my sanity! Among other things.

    Reply
    • Anne Strauss says

      May 15, 2014 at 9:57 am

      Hi Elaine,
      Thanks for the comment. That quote is the best – it applies to all our dreams. What is your writing history?
      Best,
      Anne

      Reply
  3. Patricia Yager Delagrange says

    May 15, 2014 at 9:12 am

    I love your story of the road to publication. It sure can wend its way through some unexpected paths, eh? Congratulations! Your book sounds so great.

    Reply
    • Anne Strauss says

      May 15, 2014 at 9:59 am

      Hi Patricia, Thanks for your comment. I thrilled about publication because, of course, I have a book published but also because the subject of the epidemic of doctors who have affairs with their patients is one that every woman should know and so few do.

      Reply
  4. Patricia Yager Delagrange says

    May 15, 2014 at 9:13 am

    Just bought your book for my Kindle! Yay!

    Reply
    • Anne Strauss says

      May 15, 2014 at 10:00 am

      Enjoy! I’d love to hear your feedback.

      Reply
  5. Ruth Mancini says

    May 16, 2014 at 6:42 am

    This is a great article. I can really relate to it – I too love the research as much as the writing and remember having to visit the local library and trawl through microfiches when I wrote the first draft of my novel. It makes me smile still that you can now find everything you need at the click of a mouse! It must have been even harder for Anne Frank and Agatha Christie. I’m looking forward to reading ‘A Medical Affair’.

    Reply
  6. Mary Rowen says

    May 16, 2014 at 10:56 am

    Really interesting interview, Anne! I hear you on that long road to publication. IMO, however, waiting a long time to get published makes us stronger. Best of luck with the book. I’m really looking forward to reading it.

    Reply
  7. eleanorparkersapia says

    May 16, 2014 at 10:59 am

    I love reading about author’s roads to publication! Congratulations!

    Reply
  8. Mary Gottschalk says

    May 29, 2014 at 8:44 am

    Anne … very interesting story … was particularly struck by how you came to write A Medical Affair about something that happens all the time, but no one talks about. That was a significant factor in my recently released novel … the number of women who have a same sex relationship after a bad marriage, but never talk about it because they are not lesbian and don’t want the label. Good luck with your book … it’s an important story.

    Reply

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

Get Updates by Email

Enter your email address to receive notifications of new posts by email.

Award-winning 2015-2018

Search for a post

Posts by Topic

Secondary Sidebar

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

My Novels





Copyright © 2021 · Women's Fiction Writers Blog

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.