Turning Point

The story behind the story:

Turning Point started out as fanfic-adjacent, in that nebulous environment called real-person fic (RPF). I was inspired by some behind-the-scenes animosity on a television series and wondered “what if…” (the kernel for so many stories): What if the animosity was about unfamiliar attraction?

As a late-blooming bisexual myself, on more than one occasion, I completely misunderstood my attraction to someone as a fondness born of circumstance. What if the animosity is because they doesn’t know what to make of their emotions? That “professional fear” came about because of something personally screwed up in their head–and heart?

So, scene by scene, I wrote this crazy story. 134,000 words (first draft) in 25 weeks. My writing process was entirely cause and effect, linear, and I was sure I was writing “toward” a particular scene. That scene never ended up on the page, even when I wrote the sequel, Turn for Home, despite having been the dream that set the story idea into my head. The first short story in the collection Turning In contains a scene that is the closest to that dream sequence.

I had a few brave souls reading along and toward the end, they were suggesting I should publish. Sapphic fiction was having a rebirth as many small presses were starting up. I knew I absolutely had to change stuff to make the characters more original. So, I worked on that for several years. Finally, in 2005, I figured it was ready.

Four publishers I queried sent back rejections. The fifth, PD Publishing, said yes. Barb and Linda were wonderful shepherds at the start of my writing career. I learned a lot from my editors, like Day Petersen, as well as about cover design and layout. Taking some material I had removed from Turning Point to give it a happy-for-now ending at a more comfortable print length, I fleshed out the sequel, Turn for Home.