Dragonwriter (4 page)

BaltiCon 12 was Sharon's second science fiction convention—ever. In addition to being a newbie, she was desperately shy and scarcely spoke to anyone during the entire weekend, least of all to the Guest of Honor. It was a lost opportunity but not a tragedy because Sharon had been introduced to Anne a decade earlier. At the tender age of fifteen, she had purchased
Dragonflight
—the first, but not the last, book on which she spent the grocery money. In her opinion, it was well worth the price; her mother . . . did not agree.

As it did to so many readers,
Dragonflight
spoke to Sharon—dragons! A strong, stubborn, driven female lead! Partnership between male and female!—so, okay, the guy had to be convinced, but, he had been convinced. A hero who could, and did, think!

It was more than an exciting story with great characters and wonderful world-building, though. It was an affirmation, a promise: Girls could get published, too.

In 1968? That was huge.

And it's not a stretch to say that
Dragonflight
was directly responsible for Sharon's attendance at her first-ever science fiction convention, BaltiCon 10 . . . as the winner of the con's short story contest.

We're going to fast-forward thirty years, now.

It's 1997. Lee and Miller have been a team since mid-1979 and began writing together a few years later. They've seen published a handful of collaborative short stories and three novels set in a fictional space that's come to be called the Liaden Universe®. Their publisher, Del Rey Books—coincidentally, the publisher of the Pern novels—had cut them loose in 1989 due to low sales. They haven't sold a novel since 1988, though they've written rather a number, and—well, not to put too fine a point on it, they are washed-up writers. Their career is, in a word, dead.

In August, 1997, Sharon accepted employment as the first full-time executive director of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc.—SFWA—the professional writers organization that Anne had been trying to get Steve to join, way back in 1978.

SFWA had been used to running on volunteer power, sort of like science fiction convention fandom. As news of her hiring spread throughout the organization, Sharon received many letters from past SFWA volunteers and officers, offering congratulations, condolences, and advice.

And one day, very soon after she took up her new duties, she received a paper letter from Ireland.

The return address was Dragonhold-Underhill, County Wicklow.

Of course, Sharon knew that Anne McCaffrey was a member of SFWA, but it was still kind of . . . cool to receive a letter from that particular address. She opened the envelope, expecting a membership question or perhaps a donation to one of SFWA's philanthropic funds.

The letter began:

       
Dear Sharon Lee,

       
If I say that I am a fan of yours, will you stop reading?

Sharon blinked, flipped to the second page, and checked the signature:

Anne McCaffrey

She flipped back to the first page.

The letter went on to talk knowledgeably of the first three Liaden books, praising them in the highest possible terms. It was both stunning and warming—who were washed-up writers Lee and Miller to get fan mail from Anne McCaffrey?—and she closed, Anne-like, by mentioning that she had once been SFWA's secretary-treasurer, responsible for much of the work Sharon now had on her plate as executive director, and offering carte blanche any help she could give—Sharon had only to ask.

From this start, a correspondence grew up, migrating eventually to email.

In one of those back-and-forths, Anne wondered why there hadn't been any more Liaden novels after
Carpe Diem.
The answer to that was that the publisher had declined to continue the series, citing lack of numbers. “Numbers” is publisher-speak for “units sold.”

Anne's opinion was that sometimes it took a book, or a series, “a while” to reach full potential in terms of numbers. This was something that hadn't occurred to us in quite those terms, but it was borne out by emails we'd started to get from other readers of our first three novels who wondered, as Anne had done, What Happened Next?

There are a lot of writers who'll tell you how hard it is to write—and they're not wrong. But the hardest part of the writer's job isn't the writing—it's sending the finished manuscript out into the world. The assumption must be that it will be rejected—as the overwhelming majority of manuscripts are—so the effort seems not only futile, but masochistic. And it saps the heart right out of you.

But, now, near the end of 1997, the combination of Anne's insight and the emails from other readers gave us the courage to consider what, exactly, we might do in order to come back from the dead. After all, we had all of those books written, and readers who wanted to read them.

The result of those considerations was that, by early 1998, Lee and Miller had a publisher who was enthusiastic and willing to publish their backlist and their front list.

So it was that we had just finished polishing and submitting the fourth book in the Liaden Universe® series to our new publisher when Anne sent an email, asking what we'd been doing.

The completion of the novel was reported, and Anne immediately asked to see it, adding, “I take paperclips.”
¹

So, the manuscript for
Plan B
was duly shipped off to Ireland as an email attachment.

Now
Plan B
was supposed to have been an action-adventure novel, but there was a scene that was specifically character-building right in the middle of a very intense fight-and-flight situation. Long story short, in the final draft, that character-building section was removed and the edges of the excision smoothed out.

Remember this.

The next morning, there was an email from Anne in the inbox. She was full of praise for the novel, the characters, the world-building, but, she thought she would just mention that . . .

There was a scene missing.

And she pinpointed the spot in the narrative from which the slow character-building section had been excised.

Lee and Miller explained that, yes, there had been something there, but that it had been cut to make weight.

From Anne came the direction, “Send it to me.”

The cut scene was therefore emailed, and when the next batch of mail was downloaded, there was a return note from Anne. It was brief:

“Put it back.”

It's never wise to argue with a force of nature, or with a writer who knows story so well that she could see the place where a scene wasn't and call it out.

Anne wasn't done with us, though.

No sooner had the cut material been restored and the newly compiled manuscript emailed, with excuses, to our publisher, than another email arrived from Anne, with our former editor at Del Rey, who happened to be Anne's current and longtime editor, copied on the note.

Anne waxed effusive about
Plan B
—it was a wonderful book; she predicted that we'd have no problem selling it (though she knew it had already been placed), and she looked forward with great anticipation to the continuation of both the long-interrupted story and our careers as writers.

Lee looked at Miller; or perhaps Miller looked at Lee; and one of them said to the other, “She's going to get us killed.”

In fact, there was no reply—that Lee and Miller ever heard about—to that note; life went on; in due time
Plan B
was published, and, of course, the authors sent a signed book to Anne McCaffrey, to thank her for all her many kindnesses.

A few weeks after that, the Lee and Miller household received the second of those treasured photographs, this taken about twenty-one years after the first and on the very premises of Dragonhold-Underhill.

Del Rey Books had asked, as publishers sometimes will ask their writers, to send an updated publicity photo for use in promoting her new book. Anne had her picture taken with Pumpkin, the resident Dragonhold-Underhill Maine Coon cat, sitting in front of Anne's work computer. To one side of the computer is a large stack of books, and near the top of the stack, in line with Anne's cheekbone and Pumpkin's frown, is
Plan B,
the title on the spine admirably readable.

This time, Lee and Miller were resigned, amused, and well-delighted to receive the picture, which was promptly framed and hung.

Over the next few years, Anne's involvement in Lee and Miller's return from the dead and continuing career was active. She demanded the right to write the introduction to the omnibus volume that reissued the first three Liaden books. She bullied Lee and Miller's publisher into sending her unbound signatures of each of the then-seven books—but she refused to say why.

We soon found out.

Now, during this time, there had been a free exchange of packages between Ireland and Maine. Pine cones, puzzles, and moose may have been involved.

So, it wasn't completely unusual for Lee and Miller to return home from a convention to find a box from Ireland sitting on the porch. It was rather larger than previous boxes, and it weighed a ton.

There was a reason for that.

Inside the box were two complete sets of our books, bound in red leather, stamped in gold.

Lee looked at Miller and said, “I'm afraid to touch them.”

Miller looked at Lee and said, “Why would she do this?”

Anne's answer to that—the tone of the email a sort of half-surprised
doesn't everyone?
—was that she always had her favorite books bound in leather.

When life, health, and work get complicated, correspondence tends to fall off. So it was with Lee and Miller and Anne McCaffrey. We'd get a note when a new book came out—often before we'd gotten our authors' copies. Sharon once told her that she shouldn't ever have to buy a copy of one of our books, that we'd be pleased to send her as many as she could read.

Anne's answer was, “Writers don't make money by giving books away.”

In early 2005, though, an email arrived from Ireland.

The message was simple: “I'll be at Dragon*Con this year. So will you.”

Still too wise to argue with a force of nature, Lee and Miller packed and drove from Waterville, Maine, to Atlanta, Georgia, in all the heat of August, to see Anne McCaffrey.

It turned out that Anne was still as much a fan as a pro about conventions; she took huge delight in reading T-shirts and in admiring costumes. If she now traveled by scooter, it was a well-directed scooter moving brusquely where she wanted it to go, and woe to those who remained slaves of bipedal motion.

Anne's Dragon*Con schedule at that point was pretty hectic for a woman born almost eighty years before, but in the midst of it all, we managed to meet for dinner. The topics of conversation ranged from book plans to computers and search engines to characters to upcoming Worldcons and potential TV or movie deals. She maintained the same lively interest in new writers becoming part of SFWA and taking advantage of workshopping opportunities as she had when she'd met Steve in 1978.

Eventually the restaurant where we'd met for dinner needed our table for a reservation—and like any number of fans at any number of conventions, we parted with plans to see each other the following year.

Then the Dragonlady pulled into pedestrian traffic at a spanking pace, leaving us to find our way back on our own.