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weekly newspaper.
    Barry had to be up at 3:30 in the morning to make his route, so he was usually in bed and asleep by 8:30—unless one of his union meetings went late into the night. They often interfered with weekends too. Gillian filled the nights alone by writing her first thriller—in notebooks and on an old laptop at the kitchen table. Later, Barry converted the pantry into her writing alcove. He was always doing things like that.
    In three years, Gillian had written two thrillers, Killing Legend and Highway Hypnosis , and she’d started The Mark of Death . The two completed manuscripts collected a total of seventy-two rejections from literary agencies and publishers. Barry was always sneaking into the local union headquarters after hours and using their Xerox to make extra copies for her. With her husband’s encouragement, Gillian took all the literary rejection in her stride. She kept revising, rewriting, and resubmitting her manuscripts.
    Then something happened that gave them hope. A coworker told her about a literary agent in San Francisco. Her name was Marcia Tokata, and she was accepting new clients. Gillian e-mailed her with a brief synopsis of Killing Legend . The next day, Marcia telephoned Gillian and told her that the plot of Killing Legend had best-seller potential. She was eager to read the manuscript. And yes, she wanted to read Gillian’s other book too. Could she send them both overnight mail? In the meantime, she wanted Gillian to make a list of hot leading men they could approach to play her sexy-star-turned-psycho-slayer in the movie version. She had a partner at one of the big entertainment agencies in Los Angeles. What did Gillian think about Colin Farrell?
    In all the months and months she’d been trying to land an agent, this was the first time Gillian felt a connection with someone. Never had she met an agent this enthusiastic about her work—and Marcia hadn’t even read her manuscripts yet.
    Three months later, Marcia still hadn’t read her manuscripts—and she wasn’t answering Gillian’s calls or e-mails. Gillian had long since abandoned the notion of Clive Owen starring in the film version of Killing Legend . She wrote Marcia a polite note, hinting that after three months of nothing, she wanted to pursue another agent to represent her.
    The manuscripts came back the next week—along with a letter:
    Dear Gillian,
    Have read your manuscript, KILLING LEGEND, and it’s not what I expected. I had a hard time believing any of the characters, and at times, felt the dialogue was—well, just silly. I think it was written in a hurry by someone who doesn’t understand anything about plotting or pace. I didn’t even try to read HIGHWAY HYPNOSIS. I seriously think you should give serious thought to giving up writing. You will save yourself and others a lot of tedious hours and heartbreak. This may sound harsh, but in the long run, I believe I’m helping you.
     
    Best regards,
Marcia Tokata, MXM Literary Agency
     
    “She’s a moron,” Barry concluded. “And look at this sentence, ‘I seriously think you should give serious thought to giving up writing.’ Huh, got the word repetition or what?”
    Ethan had the brilliant suggestion that his mother name a nasty character in one of her books Marcia Tokata , then kill her off—painfully.
    Gillian didn’t give up writing. Barry wouldn’t let her. She sent Killing Legend to five more agents. One of them was Eve Kohner in New York. Eve thought she should revise her first chapter, and Gillian obliged her. Two months later, Eve sold the manuscript to Shalimar Books.
    In celebration, Gillian, Barry, and Ethan went out for an expensive dinner, and she didn’t nag Barry about overspending when he ordered champagne. The five-thousand-dollar advance for the book went to buy a new sofa and pay off their Visa bill. The release of Killing Legend didn’t exactly make Gillian a household name. It didn’t make them rich either. But Gillian was