From the story card:
Scout’s Progress, 108,000 words
Finished 9/3/1993
9/7/1993: Sent to Agent 1
9/16/1996: Sent to Agent 2, ending #2, 100,255 words
5/10/1997: Ending #3, with Tree, 100,622
2/1988: Sold to Meisha Merlin as part of a 7-book deal
2/2001: Published as part of Pilots Choice
2001: Ace buys mmp rights to all 7
* * *
. . . This story card is a monument to under reporting. In its defense, story cards are meant to track the journey of A Work from Finished to Publication-or-Retirement, not to track the trauma attending each title.
So, here, we do not see the phone call with Agent 1 in which one was roundly scolded for, basically, not writing to the market. We see the hint, but not the actuality, of the search for another agent in that three year gap; and we certainly do not see the agent search, which was heartbreaking in the extreme, culminating with the phone call from the Big Name Agent, who told me that he and his entire team had reviewed The Work and had no confidence that it was marketable, and suggested, not at all gently, that I give up this notion that I was a writer.
I did finally successfully pitch this book and Local Custom to Agent 2, changing the ending of Scout’s Progress at her suggestion. She made some submissions on my behalf, but threw in the towel at the end of the year, because “the field was difficult right now.”
In May of 1997, it looks like I read the manuscript, and wrote the ending as it now appears, then put the manuscript away in a drawer, next to Local Custom.
It’s worth noting — or maybe not — that at the time all of the above was going on, all the Real Life Stuff referenced in the Local Custom Intro was still going on, only, I think, moreso, as the government department that had come to oversee Steve’s position assigned him more tasks, while concurrently cutting his hours.
Also! In that blank spot between 1993 and 1996, I had written a mystery novel set in Maine — Barnburner — and was trying to sell it — with, predictably, no success. The list of rejections for Barnburner is … breathtaking, really. It did finally sell, with revisions, in 1998, but the publisher failed to publish within the contractually specified time-frame, and the rights returned to the author.
And, just to finish that story: In September 2001, erights were sold to Embiid, and in August 2002, SRM Publisher Ltd published a trade paperback edition.
* * *
This being The Rest of the Story.
When it came out, Pilots Choice was very well reviewed — in Romance venues, though it did place 4th on the Locus Bestseller List in July 2001.
Scout’s Progress was named RomanticTimesBookClub Reviewers Choice for Best Science Fiction Novel of 2002 (honoring books published in 2001).
And! Scout’s Progress won the Prism Award for best Futuristic of 2002 (for books published in 2001), presented by the Fantasy, Futuristic and Paranormal Chapter of the Romance Writers of America. Local Custom placed second.
