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3 This Writer’s Beginnings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I started writing my first book when I was in the seventh grade and finished it shortly before I entered high school. It was a nonfiction book about old-​ time film comedians, and I spent a great deal of time sending letters to anyone who had ever been in movies with, or who had personally known, Abbott and Costello , Laurel and Hardy, the Three Stooges, Charlie Chaplin, or the Marx Brothers. I was stunned when people actually began to respond . Margaret Hamilton, whose most famous role was the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz but who also appeared in an Abbott and Costello movie, sent me a polite, handwritten note along with an autographed photo of herself. Charles Barton, who directed a number of Abbott and Costello movies, including Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, sent a letter with his phone number, asking me to call him. (Afraid my voicewould reveal I was a child, I nevercalled.) Lou Costello’s daughter, who had recently written a book about her father, sent a letter wishing me luck on my project. Moe Howard’s son-​ in-​ law wrote back warning me not to use the name “The Three Stooges” in my book’s title. Moe Howard’s son-​ in-​ law! Never mind the menacing threat of litigation. I was beside myself. I alsowrote to a numberof authors to ask technical questions, and, amazingly, they wrote back, too, including Leonard Maltin, who had yet to gain fame on Entertainment Tonight. I wrote to movie studios to inquire about permissions fees to reproduce photographs for my book; envelopes stuffed full of contracts began appearing in my parents ’ mailbox, and although the studios were asking for too much money, I was excited nonetheless to be receiving daily mail from Universal Studios, MGM, and even the defunct Hal Roach Studios, which must have been nothing more than a rented office in L.A. During breaks from pounding out manuscript pages on the cast-​ iron Royal typewriter I had bought at a flea market in the sixth grade, I wrote to every major publisher in New York and asked for their guidelines. I sent letters to publishers in Illinois, too, figuring that I had an in with them since, minus three miserable months in Houston, I had lived my entire life just outside of Chicago. In no time at all, envelopes bearing the names of famous publishing houses 4 The Decision to Become a Writer began appearing in our mailbox. It was as if editors had been doing nothing but waiting for a letter from me! Using their royalty rates as my guide, I calculated how many books I would need to sell before I could buya house for my parents. I tried not to let anyone know what I was doing, but a few days before graduating from eighth grade, I couldn’t help telling girls I’d had crushes on, and so in my autograph book they wrote, “I can’t wait to read your book!” and “Don’t forget me when you’re famous!” Oh, no, I thought, I won’t forget you. Ever! I finished the book during the summer of 1979 and promptly began writing query letters to publishers, asking if they would care to see my book. I imagined bidding wars; I imagined my photo on the cover of People with the headline, “Young Author Secures Enormous Advance”; I imagined all those girls in grade school who’d ignored me calling me up to apologize for dismissing me as a snide, fat kid instead of seeing me for what I really was—a sensitive, misunderstood intellectual with a love for words. (In truth, I was a snide, fat kid, but I was willing to play the sensitive misunderstood intellectual role, if necessary.) What I hadn’t imagined were letters from publishers telling me that they did not accept unsolicited manuscripts, and yet this was what I received, day after day: form letters (not even personal responses ) informing me of their companies’ policies. Having no idea what “unsolicited” even meant, I looked it up in the glossaryof one of my books on publishing: “A story, article, poem or book that an editor did not specifically ask to see.” Unsolicited? If publishers didn’t want to see my book, why were they so damned eager to send me their guidelines? Before full-​ blown despair crushed me, a letter arrived from an editor at Harmony Books, asking to see...

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