Being Thankful for…Rejections? Why I’m Grateful to the People Who Rejected My Early Work

On our writers’ blog, Ruth Harris and I say we made the mistakes so you don’t have to. And I sure made my share. Maybe more than my share.

I got an agent with my first query!

When I started querying agents, I scored the pot at the end of the rainbow with my very first query. I was such a newbie, I didn’t even know how impossibly lucky this was.

I was still a working actress in Southern California when I sent off a very early draft of The Best Revenge to an agent who was referred to me by a friend in the business. It was a prestigious agency in Los Angeles, and I didn’t think I had a snowball’s chance in Hades.

But a couple of weeks later, I got a phone call. Yes, an actual call, from a delightful man with a British accent who said he thought the book was hilarious and he wanted to “send it around.” No mention of a contract. That should have been my first clue.

And then I heard nothing. For weeks. And months. I’d read in Writer’s Digest that you’re never supposed to phone an agent, so I didn’t call. After about six months, I sent a “follow-up” letter. (This was long before email.)

Two months later—a full eight months after my “acceptance”— my manuscript, in its stamped, self-addressed manuscript box, landed back at my house. I can still remember the sound of “thump, thwack, slide” as it skidded across the concrete patio.

Inside was a scrawled note. “John has left the agency and we understand he has moved back to England.”

Boom.

I was devastated. I felt hollowed-out and dead inside. It was like the time in 7^th grade I found out that my first love, Chip Bessey, had asked Katrina Jagels to the Spring Hop instead of me.

I gave up writing for almost a year.

I Finally Get a Real Agent

Meanwhile, I wrote a play and had it produced and won some awards. I was having the success in the theater I thought I could never have in publishing.

But I also found the theater didn’t thrill me the way it used to.

And my itch to write novels was still there. I finally sat down and reread my manuscript and saw hundreds of flaws. I went back to my critique group and asked them to help me polish it up.

 

Jeff Herman's Guide was our Bible

I researched agents in a pricey copy of Jeff Herman’s Guide to Literary Agents—the only way you could find out about agents in the pre-Internet era.

I found one that looked good. Young, eager for new clients, and she had worked for the same agency with my sort-of agent from L. A.

She wrote back and asked for the full manuscript. A few months later I got the call. She wanted to rep me!

Meanwhile, I had a major tragedy in my life. My beloved Dad died. I also turned 40.

My mother reminded me that when I was small, I always used to say I wanted to live in a little cottage by the sea and write books.

So I pulled up stakes, sold my SoCal condo, and moved to the sleepy Central Coast. I bought a little 900 sq. ft house three blocks from the waters of Morro Bay.

I had an agent. And my cottage by the sea. I was going to be a real writer.

I started working on my magnum opus. This was the literary novel that was going to find me a place in the literary firmament.

You’re probably all laughing now. That’s not exactly how the publishing industry works.

Fear of Success…

Six months after I moved to the Central Coast, my new agent dropped me. Again, I was devastated. I managed to get some freelance writing work while I clerked in a couple of bookstores and sold antiques.

 

I put The Best Revenge in a drawer and worked on that “big book.” And then wrote another, lighter one.

I started sending them out. And sending . I got rejections by the ton. Sometimes in return mail.

I did everything you shouldn’t.

·       I sometimes queried all three books at the same time.

·       I wrote my synopsis in a tiny font so it fit on one page—since so many agents asked for a “one page synopsis” in those days. (Who did I think I was fooling? I was only making it harder to read.)

·       I queried agents who didn’t represent my genre (s)

·       I didn’t even know what genre to say I was writing, so I improvised according to what the agent was looking for.

·       I wrote terrible query letters. Not enough hook & way too much about me and all the nonfiction articles I was writing.

·       I faked personalizations, once even saying I was going to a writers’ conference where the agent was slated to speak—even though I had no intention of going.

Is it any wonder the rejections stacked up?

I think I had a fear of success.

But I think that was because I knew, deep down, that I could do better. And that took time. I think my freelance writing helped me improve. Plus all the research I was doing on agents also taught me about the publishing industry and how it works.

I was collecting lots of rejections

Without that time to grow and learn, I don’t think I would have succeeded in this business. I was too naïve and would have got myself in all kinds of trouble.

Two more Agents!

Finally  I started doing some things right.

·       I went to writers conferences,

·       Joined a local critique group

·       And a writing club.

·       I kept learning from what I’d done wrong the last time.

·       I placed short stories and poems in literary magazines.

·       I even won some contests, one for a story and one for a poem.

Finally, it worked! I got another agent.

She sent my “big book” out on submission for a year.

She couldn’t sell it. In fact, she couldn’t sell much. She ended up leaving NYC and gave up agenting altogether and moving back to Texas.

But I was better at getting agents by now. So I got another one.  She liked Food of Love but made me do lots of edits to dumb it down and make it more of a romance.

I Fire my Fifth Agent

While my romanced-up version of Food of Love was making the endless rounds with editors, I got an email from one of the magazines that had accepted a story months before. The editor said the magazine was going under, but he had taken a job at a small press in the English Midlands. He was in charge of acquisitions— did I have any novels looking for a publisher?

I sent him Food of Love. A month later I got a call from the managing editor of the company—a former BBC comedy writer—with an offer of a nice advance. He also offered me a place to stay if I wanted to come to England to launch my book.

Do I have to tell you how fast I bought a ticket to London and fired my agent?

I was off to England!

I’m not going to tell you that everything was beer and skittles after that. (Although there was a lot of beer involved.) But I embarked on the adventure of my life (which inspired my comic mystery Sherwood, Ltd.) And got to see two of my books in print. I got to go on a book tour and live out my fantasy.

But I also had to deal with some strong criticism and major changes from my UK editor. I was finally mature enough as a writer to understand what he wanted and why my book needed the changes.

A few years before the edits would have made me sad. So would the book signings where only three people showed up. But I finally knew enough about the business to take it all in stride. All those years of rejection had taught me a lot.

And so, in a way, I’m grateful to them. They gave me the time to learn and grow into a confident, professional writer.

Did my magnum opus make it? Nope. It took another, fiercer editor to whip that puppy into shape…but that’s another story.

What about you? Did you collect a boatload of rejections before you found a publisher? Are you still on the query-go-round?

BOOK OF THE MONTH

SHERWOOD, LTD: Camilla Mystery #2

Suddenly-homeless American manners expert Camilla Randall becomes a 21st century Maid Marian—living rough near the real Sherwood Forest with a band of outlaw English erotica publishers—led by a charming, self-styled Robin Hood who unfortunately may intend to kill her.

When Camilla is invited to publish a book of her columns with UK publisher Peter Sherwood, she lands in a gritty criminal world—far from the Merrie Olde England she envisions. The staff are ex-cons and the erotica is kinky.

Hungry and penniless, she camps in a Wendy House built from pallets of porn while battling an epic flood, a mendacious American Renfaire wench, and the mysterious killer who may be Peter himself.

Available in ebook from:

Apple Books

also:

 All Amazons GooglePlay Scribd  Kobo  Nook Smashwords

Available in paper from:

 Amazon Barnes & Noble

What is it REALLY Like to be a Full Time Author?

Oh, the glamorous life of an author! Meeting with the intellectual and artistic elite in the cafés of Paris, dining with the rich and famous, the vacations on the Riviera, the wild champagne-fueled parties… and of course, running around solving murders like Richard Castle and Jessica Fletcher…

 

Not exactly.

I don’t know how those famous writers had time to get up to all those antics in the past (or even in fiction.)

But most writers today have no time to do any of that stuff.

Well, okay, my friend Catherine Ryan Hyde did fly off to Lapland a couple of years ago to have an adventure driving a dogsled and seeing the northern lights. But that was just for a week. Mostly she works a lot of hours and has her adventures on paper.

Just like me.

It's amazing how many people think authors have a lot of free time. Well, if they'd watched Castle or Murder She Wrote, they could be excused for thinking that. 

But the truth is my life is all about butt-in-chair in my office at 8 AM every morning (after stretching and eating a sensible breakfast.) I break for lunch and exercise at noon and work again from 2-5 and if I’m working on a deadline, probably back to work from 7-9. I try not to work past nine, or my brain is still generating ideas when I’m trying to sleep…not a good plan.

That’s seven days a week. Yes, I do take off time on weekends to be with other humans and sometimes go out and play. Catherine and I meet for Thai food at regular intervals and I get together with other writers in the local Sisters in Crime chapter and our local Nightwriters Club.

 

Jessica Fletcher only typed during the opening credits

Of course there are always the medical appointments and investment decisions and cleaning and cooking and shopping and other things that people do to keep ourselves alive in this increasingly complex world.

But mostly I work. A lot of that work is marketing: social media, answering emails (endless emails: when you have a popular blog, everybody on the planet wants something from you.) Then there’s writing posts for my two blogs, answering comments, and composing guest blogposts.

And some authors put out newsletters too. I draw the line there. I hate getting newsletters, so I don’t inflict them on my readers. It’s just as easy to subscribe to a blog, and a blog draws new readers, too.

And don’t forget personal appearances. And bookstore events and other local sales opportunities. Plus presentations at writers’ conferences and other workshops, which require a lot of preparation.

Then there’s the desperate slog of trying to get reviews…no, I don’t even want to go there. I’ve recently seen the statistic that most writers get one review for every 1500 sales. Sounds about right. Ack!

And then, of course we’re pressured to put out at least two books a year. I know some writers who put out six or seven.

But when I sit down to write, and characters and stories start to flow onto the page and the magic happens…then I realize it’s all worth it. It’s still one of the best jobs in the world.

Even without the Paris cafés.

What about you? Are you a full time writer? Do you hope to be one someday? 

Okay, I didn't tell the truth entirely. I did have some sort of exciting adventures as a writer. When I went to England to promote my book with my first publisher. Pretty wacky. I used the experience as fodder for the second Camilla book, Sherwood, Ltd. 

***

SHERWOOD, LTD: Camilla Mystery #2

Suddenly-homeless American manners expert Camilla Randall becomes a 21st century Maid Marian—living rough near the real Sherwood Forest with a band of outlaw English erotica publishers—led by a charming, self-styled Robin Hood who unfortunately may intend to kill her. When Camilla is invited to publish a book of her columns with UK publisher Peter Sherwood, she lands in a gritty criminal world—far from the Merrie Olde England she envisions. The staff are ex-cons and the erotica is kinky. Hungry and penniless, she camps in a Wendy House built from pallets of porn while battling an epic flood, a mendacious American Renfaire wench, and the mysterious killer who may be Peter himself.

Sherwood, Ltd. is available in ebook from all the Amazons and Smashwords. And in paper from Amazon and Barnes and Noble

Sample Reviews:

"A wily tale of murder, deceit, and intrigue that can stand with the best of them. Her characters are all too real and her dialogue took me from laughter to chills" David Keith on Smashwords

"Smartly written and nearly impossible to put down, I found myself counting the hours until I could leave work and get back to reading! Well done!" T.L. Ingham on Smashwords

I've just finished Sherwood Ltd and I loved every scabrous word. It's an hilarious lampoon of crime fiction, publishing and the British in general. Anne Allen gets our Brit idioms and absurdities dead to rights. Whether you enjoy crime suspense, comedy or satire - or all of them together - you'll have enormous fun with this cleverly structured romp. Highly recommended!...Dr. John Yeoman
***

This piece, in slightly different form, first appeared on the blog of South African author Ronel Vanse Van Vuuren in April 2018.

Carbon Monoxide: Poisoning People for Fun and Profit—Part 35

Carbon monoxide (CO) is a gas that’s odorless, tasteless, colorless, and slightly less dense than air. 

A Carbon Monoxide (CO) molecule

It is also deadly. Some people call it the “Silent Killer.”

The gas has an unfortunate affinity for hemoglobin, the oxygen-carrying molecule in our red blood cells. CO binds to hemoglobin much more easily than oxygen does, so oxygen gets displaced and the victim suffocates.

According to the Center for Disease Control, it’s responsible for at least 20,000 trips to the emergency room per year in the US. At least 400 of them die.

The first carbon monoxide poisoning symptoms are described as “flu-like”: headache, dizziness, weakness, upset stomach, vomiting, chest pain, and confusion. But people can die of it without feeling symptoms if they’re asleep, drugged or drunk when the gas is released.

One of the tell-tale signs of CO poisoning is that the skin turns a vivid pink and the blood is a bright cherry-red. Other forms of suffocation leave the victim pale. 

CO victims have cherry-red blood

Carbon monoxide detectors are required in 26 US states, and many countries. But even when not required, sensible people should install them. Any heating system can get a glitch that releases CO into the home.

Sources of Carbon Monoxide Poisoning

CO is found anywhere people burn fuel. That’s in vehicles, generators, stoves, fireplaces, grills, furnaces, etc. It can build up indoors and poison people and animals who breathe it.

But it also can affect people in open spaces. There have been cases of people dying while working on their cars in a driveway, if they’ve been working close to car’s exhaust pipe .

Powerboat exhaust can also poison swimmers and water skiers who spend a lot of time on the back of a powerboat with an idling engine.

According to the EPA, the most common sources of CO poisoning are

• Unvented kerosene and gas space heaters

• Leaking chimneys and furnaces

• Back-drafting from furnaces

• Gas water heaters, wood stoves and fireplaces

• Gas stoves

• Generators and other gasoline powered equipment

• Automobile exhaust from attached garages

• Tobacco smoke

Cigarettes produce CO

Recent High Profile Deaths from Carbon Monoxide

A number of high profile deaths have happened in recently from badly ventilated rooms in hotels and apartment buildings where the heating or plumbing systems were compromised.

In March of 2018, an Iowa family that had mysteriously disappeared while on vacation in Mexico turned out to have been killed by carbon monoxide poisoning in their rented vacation condo.

In 2013, a series of mysterious deaths in a North Carolina hotel room had people speculating about curses and homicidal ghosts. But the death of all three people who had stayed in that room were found to be caused by CO poisoning.

In January, 37 people in New Jersey got sick and one died when a heating system went wrong and In June 2017, a NYC apartment building was evacuated after 32 people were poisoned with CO.

Everyone is at risk for CO poisoning, but small children, the elderly, and people with chronic breathing problems are more likely to die if exposed to CO.

Celebrity Deaths from Carbon Monoxide

There have been many famous deaths from CO—mostly from suicide. Breathing gas from an oven or attaching a garden hose to a car’s exhaust and directing it into the interior of the vehicle were the most common methods.

Thelma Todd died of CO--was it murder?

Writers especially seem to choose this method to check out. Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, John Kennedy Toole, William Inge, Amy Levy, Nobel winner Yasunari Kawabata, and Pulitzer prize-winning photojournalist Kevin Carter are some high-profile writers who chose that way out.

Emil Zola is thought to have died of CO poisoning which was accidental.

But it’s not just writers. Brad Delp, of the rock group Boston killed himself by lighting two charcoal grills in a bathroom with no ventilation. Politicians Dan White and John Porter East chose the garden hose in the car-exhaust method, and Hollywood stars Libby Holman and Thelma Todd went that way.

Although some thought Thelma Todd’s death was simply accidental. And over the years a lot of people have speculated that the actress was murdered, perhaps on the orders of mobster Lucky Luciano. 

Murder by Carbon Monoxide

Although it’s best known for suicide, CO isn’t an uncommon weapon of homicide.

The drugging-and-car-exhaust method that may have been used on Thelma Todd can be pretty foolproof. A drugged or drunk victim usually isn’t aware of the gas until it’s too late..

And unless the victim has been subdued by force, it can be pretty hard for authorities to detect a homicide by CO, since many suicides will drink or take a drug to hasten death

In the Gaslight Era, lots of people died of CO poisoning when their lighting fixtures developed leaks. 

The Gaslight Era gave murderers a tempting murder weapon

This gave murderers a tempting method for fairly undetectable homicide.

One man killed his victim by forcing a gas tube into his mouth until the carbon monoxide killed him. He then put the body in a bathtub and reported the death as an accidental drowning. Unfortunately for him, the autopsy revealed a curious lack of water in his victim’s lungs.

Another man of the Gaslight Era suffocated his wife with a pillow, then filled the room with gas after breaking apart a gaslight fixture.

But he was caught when the coroner noticed the woman’s face was deathly pale, not pink. Further investigation showed no CO in the victim’s blood.

More recently, a UK college lecturer killed his wife by using the gas from a cylinder from the college lab. He got her to spend the night alone in their travel trailer and fed a tube from the cylinder in through the window of the trailer while she was asleep. He blamed her death on the faulty stove in the trailer’s galley. But the coroner found the level of carbon monoxide in her blood was too high for it to have come from a faulty stove.

There are also some tragic stories of murder by CO that turned out to be suicide pacts gone wrong. 

Hemoglobin prefers CO to O2

In 2014, A 30 year old PA man was found disoriented but alive in a house full of gas, lying by his mother’s corpse. She had left a suicide note saying they were going home to God because they couldn’t afford their medical expenses. He was charged with murder, but later dismissed with probation and time served.

Treatment for CO Poisoning

The treatment for carbon monoxide poisoning is oxygen. In the emergency room, the patient is given pure oxygen to breathe. If the poisoning is severe, they are put in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber.

Most victims recover if they get out of the contaminated space and into the emergency room in time.

But people who survive carbon monoxide poisoning can develop long-term health problems associated with brain injury.

The brain is extremely sensitive to lack of oxygen. Symptoms of brain damage may not show up for several weeks. The most common injuries from CO poisoning are chronic headaches, memory loss, blindness, confusion, disorientation, poor coordination, and hallucinations. 

Not a good gas for humans. Get one of those CO detectors if you don’t have one yet.

Do you know of any famous mystery novels or films where CO is used as a murder weapon? 

Here's a list of all the poisons in this series

Part 1: Digitalis

Part 2: Wolfsbane

Part 3: Hemlock

Part 4: Poison Dart Frogs

Part 5: Arsenic

Part 6: Oleander

Part 7: Cyanide

Part 8: Belladonna

Part 9: Botulism

Part 10: Castor Beans

Part 11: White Snakeroot

Part 12: Strychnine

Part 13: Datura

Part 14: Mandrake

Part 15: Seafood Poisoning
Part 16: Antifreeze

Part 17: Visine

Part 18: Polonium

Part 19: Rosary Pea

Part 20: Thallium

Part 21: Henbane

Part 22: Halloween Candy

Part 23: Poison Rings

Part 24: Daffodils

Part 25: Yew
Part 26: Toxic Relationships

Part 27: Warfarin

Part 28: Mustard Gas
Part 29: Antimony
Part 30: Lead
Part 31: Opium Poppy

Part 32: Mercury

Part 33: Nerve Agents

Part 34: Gelsemium

***

BOOK OF THE MONTH

On Sale on Amazon from May 25--June 8

99c at All the Amazon Stores! 

SHERWOOD, LTD: Camilla Mystery #2

Snarky, delicious fun! The Camilla Randall mysteries are a laugh-out-loud mashup of romantic comedy, crime fiction, and satire: Dorothy Parker meets Dorothy L. Sayers. Perennially down-and-out socialite Camilla Randall a.k.a "the Manners Doctor" is a magnet for murder, mayhem and Mr. Wrong, but she always solves the mystery in her quirky, but oh-so-polite way. Usually with more than a little help from her gay best friend, Plantagenet Smith.

Sherwood Ltd. takes aim at the world of small press publishing and all things British. It's a madcap tale of intrigue, romance and murder set near the real Sherwood Forest in the English Midlands.

After discovering a dead body near the dumpster where she's been diving for recyclables, down-on-her luck socialite Camilla Randall escapes to England, enticed by the charming Peter Sherwood—a self-styled Robin Hood who offers to publish a book of her etiquette columns at his unorthodox publishing company. Suddenly-homeless American manners expert Camilla Randall becomes a 21st century Maid Marian—living rough near the real Sherwood Forest with a band of outlaw English erotica publishers—led by a charming, self-styled Robin Hood who unfortunately may intend to kill her. 

Sherwood, Ltd. is also available in ebook from iTunes, GooglePlay Scribd, 24Symbols, Inktera, Kobo, Nook, and Smashwords. And in paper from Amazon and Barnes and Noble

Poisoning People for Fun and Profit: Deadly Daffodils

Those pretty golden daffodils and their cousins, paperwhites, jonquils, and all the other members of the narcissus family are as dangerous as they are attractive.

Sort of like human narcissists.

 

Echo and Narcissus by John Waterhouse

All parts of the narcissus are poisonous to humans—also to lot of animals, and even other flowers.

The symptoms are usually fairly minor allergic reactions like runny nose, itchy eyes, breathing difficulties, rash and hives, but in concentrated doses they can cause a numbness of the whole nervous system and eventually, paralysis of the heart. 

Because of the numbing effect, the ancients used narcissi as an anesthetic for wounded soldiers, but since dosage was unpredictable, Socrates was said to have called them, 'Chaplet of the infernal Gods'. You might feel better, but your heart could stop. Other cultures even believed they could cure baldness or serve as an aphrodisiac. (Maybe for people with zombie sex fantasies? 

Sounds like a really bad idea.)

Jonquils

The flowers contain some nasty alkaloids including masonin and homolycorin. These, together with calcium oxalate crystals cause nasty sores. People in the flower-growing and fragrance industries have to be very careful when dealing with them.

Florists can develop a kind of dermatitis they call "daffodil itch" from contact with the sap in the daffodil stems (which contain a concentration of calcium oxalate.) Doctors usually recommend a steroid cream or ointment for temporary relief, but suggest florists wear gloves to keep from re-infecting themselves.

But the most dangerous part of the plant isn't the flowers, but the bulbs. When eaten, the bulbs can cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and abdominal pain as well as severe irritation of the mouth.

They are not good for livestock, either. In the Netherlands during the Second World War, starving cattle were fed daffodil bulbs and fatally poisoned.

Mostly people don't die of daffodil poisoning, but they do suffer severe symptoms. Daffodil poisoning generally happens when people eat the bulbs by mistake, thinking they were onions. Unfortunately, they're fast acting and you don't need to eat a lot of them to do severe damage. 

Narcissus

The UK website The Poison Garden has dozens of stories of people poisoned by daffodils after mistaking the bulbs for onions, occasionally on purpose.

Like the student who was so terrified he'd fail and exam that he ate a daffodil bulb so he'd get sick during the exam and was able to re-take the exam when he was better prepared.

And there's the story of the daughter in law who was pleased to find a bag of onions her mum-in-law had left, so she cooked them into a family meal. It wasn't until after dinner she listened to her voice mail where her mother in law asked if she'd planted the "daffs" yet, that she realized she felt a little queasy and maybe they should all

 make a visit to the hospital.

Paperwhites

In 2009 an elementary school in the UK used onions grown in the school's own vegetable garden to make soup in a class project. Unfortunately, a daffodil bulb got mixed in and most of the children got sick. Twelve children taken to hospital and others were treated at the school but they were all well enough to go home later the same day. But that was only one bulb.

I couldn't find any contemporary stories of people who died from eating daffodils. Mostly they just suffered a lot of unpleasant symptoms. There have been reports of dogs dying from ingesting daffodil bulbs, although this is rare.

But if you wanted to kill off somebody who was already frail, a daffodil or two in the stew might do the trick.

Here's a list of all the posts in the poison series

Part 1: Digitalis

Part 2: Wolfsbane

Part 3: Hemlock

Part 4: Poison Dart Frogs

Part 5: Arsenic

Part 6: Oleander

Part 7: Cyanide

Part 8: Belladonna

Part 9: Botulism

Part 10: Castor Beans

Part 11: White Snakeroot

Part 12: Strychnine

Part 13: Datura

Part 14: Mandrake

Part 15: Seafood Poisoning
Part 16: Antifreeze

Part 17: Visine

Part 18: Polonium

Part 19: Rosary Pea

Part 20: Thallium

Part 21: Henbane

Part 22: Halloween Candy

Part 23: Poison Rings

SHERWOOD, LTD: Camilla Mystery #2 (But it can be read as a stand-alone)

Ebook only $2.99!

Suddenly-homeless American manners expert Camilla Randall becomes a 21st century Maid Marian—living rough near the real Sherwood Forest with a band of outlaw English erotica publishers—led by a charming, self-styled Robin Hood who unfortunately may intend to kill her.

When Camilla is invited to publish a book of her columns with UK publisher Peter Sherwood, she lands in a gritty criminal world—far from the Merrie Olde England she envisions. The staff are ex-cons and the erotica is kinky. Hungry and penniless, she camps in a Wendy House built from pallets of porn while battling an epic flood, a mendacious American Renfaire wench, and the mysterious killer who may be Peter himself.

Sherwood, Ltd. is only $2.99 in ebook at all the Amazons, iTunes, GooglePlay Scribd, 24Symbols, Inktera, Kobo, Nook, and Smashwords. 

It's also available in paper from Amazon and Barnes and Noble

Poisoning People for Fun and Profit—Part 23: My Past Life as a Poisoner

This poison series was sparked by my research for my WIP, The Queen of Staves, #6 in the Camilla Randall humorous mystery series, which will debut in June 2017.

     

Lucrezia Borgia

Yes, it was originally scheduled for last June and it's way overdue to my publisher. I'm making progress, but it's slow. I have a terrible habit of taking on new challenges, like learning about the Tarot. And poisons.

Research about poisons led to starting this series. Then I let myself get led astray by all these fascinating ways to get away with murder.

I've been intrigued by poisons ever since I had a bizarre experience under hypnosis twenty-five years ago when I was quitting smoking.

I went through a series of hypnosis sessions, and one involved going back in my memory to recall the first time I ever wanted a cigarette.

But the hypnotist's time machine apparently had a major glitch.

I didn't go back to that time at Girl Scout camp when three of us shared a Parliament pilfered from a camp counsellor's locker and I almost didn't throw up.

Or further back to when my kindergarten friends and I bought a pack of candy cigarettes at the corner market and came home to play dress-up in somebody's mom's old formals and high heels so we could pretend to be grown-up ladies. All the grown-up ladies we knew smoked cigarettes.

The Palazzo Farnese in Rome

No. I somehow I zoomed all the way back to the 15th century. So it wasn't exactly a memory, unless you believe in past lives. Which I didn't, until that moment.

Seriously. I'm not making this up.

The hypnotherapist asked me what I was wearing and I could feel a horrible corset thing constricting my torso and lots of stiff clothing weighing me down. My hair hurt with heavy jewelry and netting.

I was in a smallish room in an Italian palace.

Now I know my Italian palaces because I majored in Art History. Mostly so I could spend a lot of time in Italy looking at all those palaces that used to belong to families like the Borghese, Farnese, Barberini and of course, the infamous Borgias.

And there I was in my hypnotic state, standing in one of those palazzi.

But I wasn't enjoying myself in spite of the gorgeous setting. I felt cold. And anxious. Footsteps echoed in the hallway outside. I was awaiting the arrival of a man. My fiancé. He was returning from some battle and I was going to get hurt. So were a lot of other people. 

The man and I were enemies and my side had lost.

He stomped into the room—tall and handsome, with fierce, dark eyes and a thick beard. I gave him a big kiss and offered him some wine from a silver carafe. 

Alfonzo D'Este, Lucrezia's Husband #3

He drank and said something cruel and insulting, then drank some more. He kissed me again. I let him. Then I watched as he sat heavily on a brocade chair. 

I gave him more wine and started to feel less afraid.

I pretended to be worried as his face went pale and he grabbed his throat, which made a choking, gurgling sound.

He called for help, but his voice was weak. I pretended not to understand and started to smile as he tried to get up, but couldn't. My sense of relief was overwhelming.

I realized I was witnessing the last battle of whatever conflict raged between his people and mine.

And I was just about to win the war. 

I laughed while I watched the fury in his eyes turn to fear as life drained from his body.

The therapist brought me out of my trance. She looked distressed.

She said she'd just heard me give the most evil laugh she'd ever heard. The voice she'd heard laughing sounded nothing like mine.

I had no idea I'd been laughing out loud. 

She said nothing like it had ever happened in a hypnosis session and she'd been conducting them for twenty years.

There are people who would say I'd experienced a past-life regression. And that maybe I was somebody like Lucrezia Borgia in that past life.

But, as I said, I'm not sure I believe in past lives. And I certainly don't believe we were all famous people like Cleopatra and Ms. Borgia the way those past-life regression stories always go.

Besides, nobody knows that Lucrezia actually poisoned anybody. It's true that her daddy Pope Alexander VI was known for using poison to get what he wanted, which was pretty much everything in Southern Europe. 

Lucrezia was rumored to wear a poison ring, with a hollow space under the stone just right for a dose of the Borgias' favorite poison, arsenic. The symptoms I saw in my hypnotic vision would have been consistent with arsenic poisoning.

Replica of a Renaissance poison ring

But poison rings were probably something of a fashion statement in Renaissance Italy, so we can't be sure. (They were actually designed to hold holy relics which were thought to protect the wearer from evil spirits.)

Many women of Lucrezia's station were known to use poison to get rid of the occasional inconvenient rival or unpleasant spouse. In Italy it was a tradition going back to ancient Rome, when poisonings were rampant. Women passed down poison lore from mother to daughter, and it gave them great power.

At that one moment in my trance, I felt that power. I have to admit it was exhilarating. I don't know when I have ever felt so powerful, before or since.

I have no idea what exactly I experienced. It wasn't as wildly surreal as a dream, but it was far more vivid, say, than envisioning a scene when I'm writing, even when I'm deep in "flow".

There was no control. I could only watch and hang on as I felt the emotions of this person—this psychopath, I suppose you'd call her—who certainly wasn't me. 

It was a little like being an actor achieving that moment when you totally inhabit your role and lose your sense of self.

Only I'd never read the script and had no idea what the character would say or do next. The actor's nightmare in reverse.

A week later, I quit smoking.

Do I have Lucrezia Borgia to thank for the fact I finally stopped poisoning myself with nicotine? I don't suppose I'll ever know.

What about you, readers? Have you ever had a "past life" experience? Do you think you could poison someone if the situation were dire enough? Do you think poisoning an enemy is more evil than shedding blood if you are mismatched as physical opponents?  

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Suddenly-homeless American manners expert Camilla Randall becomes a 21st century Maid Marian—living rough near the real Sherwood Forest with a band of outlaw English erotica publishers—led by a charming, self-styled Robin Hood who unfortunately may intend to poison her. 

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Sample Reviews:

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Here's a list of all the posts in the poison series

Part 1: Digitalis

Part 2: Wolfsbane

Part 3: Hemlock

Part 4: Poison Dart Frogs

Part 5: Arsenic

Part 6: Oleander

Part 7: Cyanide

Part 8: Belladonna

Part 9: Botulism

Part 10: Castor Beans

Part 11: White Snakeroot

Part 12: Strychnine

Part 13: Datura

Part 14: Mandrake

Part 15: Seafood Poisoning
Part 16: Antifreeze

Part 17: Visine
Part 18: Polonium
Part 19: Rosary Pea
Part 20: Thallium
Part 21: Henbane
Part 22: Halloween Candy