How
I Got My Start in Publishing
Tracy Comstock, Murder
Is Our Mascot
My success story is a dream-come-true one. All my life, I have dreamed of being
published. But I was so afraid of
failing that I never really tried. While
I was in graduate school, pursing my Masters degree in literature, I wrote a
journal entry that one of my professors hit on. She pulled me aside and said it
was obvious that I wanted to write. She wanted to see something I had written,
but I didn’t really have anything finished that I wanted to show her. She wouldn’t take no for an answer, however,
so she reconfigured one of our assignments to be a creative piece. I had to
write a short piece in the style of Flannery O’Connor. When my professor read it, she took it to one
of the creative writing instructors and got me enrolled in her course. I thoroughly enjoyed that creative writing
class, the first one I had ever taken. I
had one short story that won a women’s fiction contest and one that was
published in the school’s literary magazine.
But I didn’t continue with the creative writing courses because I didn’t
want to change my course of study that late in the game. But my friends and family weren’t ready to
let me forget about my dream again.
I had
subscribed to Gemma Halliday’s newsletter and I was reading it aloud to my
commuting buddy when she announced a writing contest for both published and
unpublished writers. My buddy insisted I
enter. I went home and dug out an idea
for a novel I had noodled around with in 2002.
I wrote out the prologue and first chapter, but before I submitted it to
the contest, I sent it to my professor who had first encouraged me to
write. She got back to me almost
immediately and told me to scrap the whole thing and try again. I was ready to give up, but my grandma, who
had always told me to pursue my dream of writing, wouldn’t let it drop. I had stopped by to see her before picking my
boys up from summer school and she forced me to sit at the kitchen table with a
notebook and pencil, telling me I couldn’t leave until I wrote something. I tried again, and this time, my professor
told me to submit it. So I did. Unfortunately, my grandma passed away around
the time that contest winners were to be announced. It wasn’t until I got the newsletter
announcing the winner that I even gave the contest another thought, too mired
in grief to think of much else. The
announcement said we could email for our score on our entry. There would be no
feedback given, but a number from 1-10.
Not wanting to let Grandma down, I asked for my score.
A
couple of days passed, and then I got an email from Gemma Halliday
herself. I was in awe, as she has always
been one of my favorite authors. But she
said she couldn’t find my entry. I
figured that was answer enough, so I was ready to let it drop. But Gemma kindly said she would look at my
entry again. I sent it to her, still in
awe I was communicating with one of my favorite authors. The day of Grandma’s final interment, I came
home and was lost in sorrow. Trying to
distract myself, I checked my email.
Gemma told me that she had found my entry; it had been placed in a
folder by her assistant, who thought Gemma might be interested in reading more
of it since she had just started her own publishing company with a couple of
other authors. I was over the moon, but the problem was, I didn’t have any more
to show her. With this encouragement, I
got to work and finished the novel. The day I started back to teaching at two
of our local colleges, I got a response from Gemma saying she wanted to publish
my book. And that was the beginning! I know that this dream would never have
come true if not for my guardian angel, my beloved grandma.
*****
Murder Is Our Mascot
Schooled
in Murder Book 1
Tracy
D. Comstock
Cozy
Mystery/Light Romantic Suspense
Gemma
Halliday Publishing/65k
Murder is the new mascot at
Ellington High...A murdered coach and a missing counselor has thrown the school into a foreign curriculum of anger, fear, and suspicion. English teacher Emily Taylor is determined to prove that her missing friend is not a murderer. But if she's not, then who is? And where could her friend be? Against the advice of fellow math teacher and former crush Tad, Emily and her best friend Gabby dig into the dead coach's past. But someone doesn't want Emily unearthing their secrets and is determined to see that she gets a failing grade in the sleuthing department. Soon, Emily finds herself scrambling for a new lesson plan to solve the murder...before the killer sets his own deadline!
Available now !!
Excerpt:
The clack of Emily Taylor's high
heels echoed hollowly in the deserted high school hallway. Normally, she loved
the sound her heels made on the tile floor. Her obsession with high heels began
when her height topped off at a gargantuan five foot one inch, and their
authoritative tapping sound typically made her feel confident and in charge.
But not this morning. The click-clack reverberating off the rows of metal
lockers seemed ominous, a warning of some kind.
Letting herself into her classroom,
she decided that the school seemed somewhat sinister because she was unused to
being there that early. Her great love affair with her snooze button meant that
getting to school before it was filled with a mass of hormone-fueled teenagers was
a rarity for her, but she had needed to get in early today in order to prep for
a special before-school meeting with a student's mother. Stevie Davis was new
to Ellington High and was really struggling in Emily's junior-level English
class.
Something about Stevie tugged at
Emily. He usually hid his eyes behind his fringe of bangs, causing Emily to
fight the urge to grab her scissors and hack away at his curtain of hair so
that she could see what was going on behind it. The few times he had tossed his
hair back with the irritated shrug that was his typical answer to any question,
his eyes had seemed sad, lost, or…something. Emily wasn't sure what that
something was, but she was hoping that this meeting with his mother would shed
some light on his issues.
Her cantankerous old computer whined
to life as Emily flipped on her desk light. Dark, swollen clouds crowded the
sky, swallowing her early morning classroom in shadows. Emily felt jumpy and
spooked, as if those dark clouds were pressing down on her, enshrouding her in
their gloom. Must be an allergy medicine-induced hangover making her feel
strange this morning. Nothing like fall to get her sinuses going. As soon as
she got her notes together for her meeting, she'd grab a cold shot of caffeine
from the stash of sodas she kept in the teachers' lounge fridge. That would
help clear her head. Or at least it would if Tad, the conference-hour-sharing,
next-door math teacher and fellow soda junkie, hadn't depleted her supply.
As she pulled out samples of
Stevie's writing and wrestled her computer into spitting out a copy of his
grade report, the lights flickered. Glancing out the back wall of windows,
Emily watched the increasing wind whip the trees into a frenzy. Multicolored
fall leaves rained down like confetti. She usually loved the electric feel in
the air before a good thunderstorm, but a loss of power would ruin her day's
plans. Figuring she better make her copies before the ancient, temperamental
copy machine went on the fritz, she began sorting through the piles on her desk
for the paper she needed. They were organized piles, of course. Oh, who was she
kidding? Trying to find the one thing she needed on her messy desk was like
trying to isolate a single snowflake during a blizzard. Shuffling papers and
files, Emily jumped at the first boom of thunder. The accompanying flash of
lightning happened to spotlight the copy of the quiz for which she was
searching. Hoping to entice Stevie into becoming more involved in class
discussions, she was starting a unit on mythology since he had shown some
interest in legends. Today's quiz was over the gods and goddesses of Mount
Olympus, or it would be if she got her copies made in time.
Tucking all of her information for
the meeting with Stevie's mother into a stray file folder, Emily grabbed up a
fresh legal pad and pen and headed out the door. Halfway there, she turned on
her heel to go back for the quiz she needed to copy. Yep, she definitely needed
that soda. A glance at her vintage Strawberry Shortcake watch showed she was,
as usual, cutting it close on time. But first things first.
Popping the top on the last soda in
the fridge, Emily silently thanked whoever was the God of caffeine for their
nectar as she took her first icy sip of the sugar-laden soda. No diet drinks for
her, no sir, as the extra ten pounds on her hips could attest. Tad had tried to
hide the last can behind a pitcher of green tea, knowing Emily would never
touch that, even if it might benefit her hips. She, however, was on to his
nefarious ways. Practicing her evil victory laugh, she click-clacked her way to
the copy room to get her copies started before the meeting. Another crashing
boom of thunder rattled the windows as Emily threw the door wide, propping it
open with those cursed hips while she flipped the light switch. Nothing.
Scanning the hallway confirmed her suspicions. The power was out. She took a
step backward, thinking she would head downstairs to consult with Principal
Matthews. Rain began to lash the windows over the stairwell, making the darkness
of the hall seem even more complete. She fumbled her way a few feet down the
hallway until the lights flickered back on again. Not wanting to waste a second
in case the power decided to blink off again, Emily dashed back to the
partially open copy room door. Hitting the light switch again with one hand,
she rushed toward the hulking machine on the far wall. That was when papers
went flying and sticky, syrupy soda sprayed everything in its path. Emily went
airborne. Throwing her hands out in front of her to break her fall, Emily
winced as they skidded through sticky wetness. The picture of grace she was
not, so finding herself flat on her face was actually not uncommon for Emily.
She could trip on a completely flat surface. The lights flickered again as she
clambered to her feet, worrying about getting the sticky mess cleaned up before
someone else slipped. Glancing down at her hands, she was busy cursing her lost
lifeline, her last caffeine hit, when she realized that the sticky substance
covering her hands was not soda. It was something thicker, and redder. Finally
looking back to see what she had tripped over, Emily saw what appeared to be a
head protruding from behind an office chair. Taking a cautious step closer, she
could see that the head was surrounded by what looked like a puddle of
congealing blood and was, thankfully, attached to a body. Unfortunately, it
appeared to be a dead body. And
that's when Emily began to scream and scream.
About the
Author:
Tracy Comstock is a small-town girl
from Missouri. She lives in a home where she is outnumbered 3:1 by the males in
her life: her husband and their two extremely adorable, but terrifyingly ornery
sons. She has no pets as all living things, besides humans, of course, come to
her house to die, including the victims in her books. All her life Tracy
devoured books. Her parents' most effective punishment was grounding her from
reading. Although she has a B.S. in Education and a Masters in Literature, she
was nudged down the path to publication by encouraging (and sometimes
threatening!) family, friends, professors, and students. When not working on
Emily's adventures, Tracy is an adjunct instructor for several local colleges,
where she gets to teach others about her greatest passion: writing.
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