The Definition Of Writing Success w/ Vikki Petraitis

So this, did you just pitch to your same publisher that you've been like working on with true? How did that work? Or was it separately?

No, because what happens when you pitch, I didn't pitch it to anybody and I, I because I was just working on it and Ellen and Owen in an article in the H I think announced there that they were starting a an inaugural crime fiction prize and it was June like I think maybe that was in the September and it was due the following I don't know April or whatever And I just said, I'm going to enter my book.

And I hadn't finished it, but it gave me enough time.

I'm going to enter my book into that prize and I'm going to win it.

And I knew that I would win it because – And it's easy to say that now that I've won it.

But I just felt really confident that I would win it because I thought I've been writing for, I don't know, at that stage,

25, 30 years.

I'm pretty good at this.

And I have taken four years to do this book.

And it is as perfect as humanly possible.

And so I even marked a date on my calendar that they said that it would be announced to the winner by the end of September that year.

And I marked a date.

I'll be finding out that I've won that prize.

I know that sounds arrogant, but I just think that imposter syndrome wasn't invented when I was young.

I never suffered it.

I never stopped long enough to think about it.

And I just thought, I'm going to win that prize.

And sure enough, on the 30th of September, I got the call, surprise, and it was Jane Palfreman, who was then at Ellen Ungwin, who's now my publisher at Simon & Schuster.

And she's like, you've won.

And I said to her, I knew it.

We both remember that.

But I just felt so certain that I would win this prize.

And then I couldn't tell anyone.

So this was a really fun bit about transitioning out of teaching was that I had signed, I had to sign an NDA.

Teachers never have to sign NDAs, you know.