February was a difficult month for me. Turning fifty (!!!) while taking the kids to visit my father was fun, but for the rest of the month, if I wasn’t sick, then at least one of the kids was. My family seems to have gotten through it finally, and all the while I managed to keep up on my teaching responsibilities, do a little mathematics research, and write a few more chapters of the first draft of Blood Game.

But it was a tough month. Spring Break starts this week-end, and it couldn’t have come with better timing. Phew!

I was at the drug store last week waiting on an antibiotics prescription, and to kill time I wandered over to the paperback rack. Not much of a selection. I grabbed the book that most looked like my genre (thrillers) and did what I always do. I estimated its word count.

It’s just a habit that carries over from back when I first started thinking about writing a book. I knew I had great characters and several books worth of good stories. But the only thing I’d ever written over 30,000 words was my doctoral dissertation (a linear algebra textbook). I honestly didn’t know if I could do it.

I decided then that my definition of “success” would be if I could produce a 75K+ word book, with a complete story, that I felt proud enough to pitch to agents. I did the research, storyboarded, outlined, wrote a 28K word “draft zero,” and finally an 88K word first draft that ended up shrinking a little during revision. Success!

I think that’s why the querying process never got me down. Querying is a tough and frustrating thing most debut authors have to go through, because most of us experience long waits and numerous rejections. I was no exception. But it didn’t bother me, because in my mind I was already a “successful writer.” I was playing with the house money, so to speak.

Was that too low a bar to set for “success?” Didn’t feel like it at the time. I think success might be one of those end-of-the-rainbow type things. It just means hitting your goals. And as soon as you do, it’s time for new goals.

Burn Card is now on submission to selected publishers’ representatives, and I’m waiting to see what offers my agent gets from them. And just as with querying, the waiting is the hardest part. Luckily, I have three awesome kids, my current work in progress, and a terrific girlfriend to distract me.

I guess it’s time to redefine “success” again. You know, I have this fantasy where I’m walking through an airport, heading out to my next signing, and I see my latest bestseller well-placed at the newsstand. I see a couple guys taking copies up to the cashier, so I walk up and offer to sign their books for them. They turn out to be Lee Child and Stephen King.

On second thought, I should probably set my next writing goal quite a bit lower than that….