After writing Till the End of Time, I turned to a subject I had been thinking about for some time, the Titanic. This was several years before the modern movie came out, when most of the interest in the ship was restricted to history and maritime buffs.

The question that kept nagging at me, was, what would it take, if you knew what was going to happen when the ship met the infamous iceberg, to get you to walk up the gangway and board the Titanic? I knew the answer, at least if the person in question was Alex Balfour. He'd climb aboard if he saw the love of his life, and his link to the present, Molly, getting onto the ship ahead of him. That was the vision I had: Alex standing on the dock, watching the Titanic load, seeing the flash of Molly's red hair as she went aboard.

 

How could he not follow?

 

I presented a proposal for this the fourth in the series to Doubleday, which they bought. I wrote the book over the course of a year, during which time the editor who bought the book left the company, (this happens all the time in the book business) and I was assigned a new editor who, it was clear, didn't give a damn about the book. And now comes the interesting part of this cautionary tale.

 

I always do at least 7 complete drafts of every book I write. Sea of Time was no exception. But I have learned that you never delete early drafts as there may be material there that you need for later drafts or even another book. So files and folders abound, often with confusing identifying labels. Most writers have this same problem, so we end up with files with confusing labels like -- final.doc, final 2.doc, final final.doc, really final.doc, no shit really final final.doc, etc. No kidding. Ask any professional writer. So after a year, one late night I finished the 7th draft, and, exhausted, I printed out three copies, boxed one up and the next day sent it to my editor at Doubleday. Three days later I had a letter back from him saying the manuscript was unacceptable and they wanted half their advance back and they weren't going to pay me the rest of the advance. Stunned, I called the editor who was distant and rude, saying he hated the book. No rewriting, no further explanation, no appeals. I told my agent everything that had happened. He asked to see the manuscript, I sent it to him, he didn't like it either. He said not to send back the advance, but that we wouldn't press the issue of the unpaid advance because "we have to work with these guys in the future," so we didn't want to make them angry. Still stunned at the loss of a year's worth of work and the the advance that I was counting on, I reluctantly agreed, put the book on the shelf and set about trying to figure out what I was going to do next.

 

Most folks would just assume that I would go back to the book, try to fix what was "wrong" with it and attempt to sell it elsewhere. My agent suggested I just write another book, but not an Alex Balfour adventure because they hadn't ever sold very well anyway. This is when I turned to what became my successful series of parenting books, beginning with From Father to Son.

 

Years went by. I was gratified, slightly, to read an article in Publishers Weekly that explained that Doubleday dumped 200 other backlist, midlist authors from their roles at the same time I had been dumped, which sort of explained what had happened to me. But it still rankled. Occasionally I would get a letter from a fan who had read all the Balfour books and wanted another, so I began sending out my one, coffee-stained copy of The Sea of Time. Readers seemed to appreciate it. Doubleday sent letter after letter demanding their advance back, letters that I ignored. One of the Sea of Time readers made a copy of the manuscript and I began sending it out two at a time. I paid the postage to send it, the readers paid the postage to return it. Just dealing with the mailing and managing the list was becoming a pain, so I thought about printing copies of the book and selling them or putting it up online. I had never actually looked beyond the cover page of the manuscript; one day I sat down to read it. With growing horror as I turned the pages, I realized what had happened. In the fog of exhaustion, years before the night I had finished the book, I had printed out not draft number seven, the final draft, but draft number three. Neither the Doubleday editor or my agent had ever seen the final draft. By the time I realized this, the book was so old I had gone through several computers since I had written it. The original computer was an Atari, a company that had gone out of the computer business by then. I found a set of floppy discs that may well have been a final draft, but they would not run on my computer.

 

And still, more and more requests came in for a new Time Travel adventure. Finally, I wrote a letter to the original publisher, Carroll and Graf (which by now had been sold to Avalon Publishing) and asked if anyone there had any interest in a new Alex Balfour adventure. To my surprise, the new editor at C&G, Philip Turner, answered my letter and said he was interested. Rather than resuscitate the Titanic book, I suggested I write a Civil War book, a period I had always been interested in. Philip agreed, and so was born In Time of War. (For a more in-depth discussion of that work see the essay in the Thoughts section entitled In Time of War: The Last of the Series?)

 

Now that I realized what had happened, I stopped sending out Sea of Time. After all, it wasn't a finished draft. Several years went by and still more requests came in to read the unpublished manuscript, so I started sending it out again with an explanation. As long as everyone understands that it's not a finished book, (there's a character in who struts onstage at one point and then disappears forever) that there's stuff that would never had made it into the final draft, well, then they're welcome to read it. Especially since there will probably never be another in the series. But that's another story. (See above.)

 

So I'm still sending out Sea of Time (Third Draft), at least I figure out what I'm going to do with it. Send me an e-mail and I'll put you on the list if you're interested.

 

And remember: Always check your hard copy before sending it out. I think Doubleday would still have dumped me even if they'd had the final draft of my manuscript, they were just looking for an excuse. And yet...and yet...