by Peg Kehret
A child once grumbled to me, “Why do you always quit right in the good parts?”
I laughed. I do it on purpose, and I learned how by practicing day after day.
At home in LaCrosse, Wisconsin, age three.
A father-daughter piano duet.
My favorite activity, age eight.
B.J., age six, and me, age fifteen, at our house in Austin, Minnesota.
My graduation picture from Austin High School, Class of 1954.
Our wedding—July 2, 1955.
Carl and I don’t feel sentimental when we see this
picture; we laugh, because we remember what I was
saying: “Watch out! You’re stepping on my dress!”
My parents with Carl, Anne, Bob (holding George), and me in 1972.
In front of our motor home with Daisy.
It took us across the country many times, visiting
schools, libraries, and bookstores where
I gave talks or did signings.
Pete and Molly checking out the campground
from the motor home window and resting up
for the three A.M. “Cat Follies.”
When I arrived at schools to give talks, “Welcome” signs always pleased me.
Carl and me at the humane society with the January 1989 Pet of the Month.
Receiving the Young Hoosier Award (1992), my first children’s choice award, from Nancy McGriff, Association of Indiana Media Educators. What a thrill!
In my study with Small Steps and other books.
{ 8 }
Cheers and Tears
After attending a workshop at a mental health clinic, I wrote an article on how to overcome depression and sold it to Good Housekeeping. I had finally accomplished one of my magazine goals. After publishing more than two hundred anonymous stories, I liked seeing my byline in Good Housekeeping, and I did some serious thinking about my career.
By then I was averaging one anonymous story per week and selling everything I wrote. Most of my stories were five thousand words long, so I was earning a decent amount and having fun as well.
Yet I knew it wasn’t enough. I wanted to see my work in print, but I also wanted recognition. Publishing without a byline was no way to become known as a writer.
My one-act plays and skits were doing well, so I decided to try a full-length play. Two weeks of every month, I wrote stories to earn some money. The rest of the time I worked on a play with a subplot about a girl who entered contests. (Years later, I used contests again in the novel Saving Lilly.)
A local dinner theater produced my play before it was published, which was useful to me as I polished the script.
I wrote three more full-length plays and many short skits while I continued to do anonymous stories.
One of the plays, Spirit!, is about an elderly woman in a nursing home who gets in trouble for hosting poker parties and ordering pizza. Spirit! won the Forest Roberts Playwriting Award from Northern Michigan University. Part of the prize was a trip to Michigan to see the performance.
I flew to Michigan for three exciting days. The cast and director met me at the airport, all wearing T-shirts advertising my play. On our way to the campus, we passed a big community reader board. It said, WELCOME PEG KEHRET, WINNING PLAYWRIGHT. I had the driver stop on the side of the road so I could hop out and take a picture.
I sat in the auditorium on opening night, over whelmed as the people of my imagination walked around on stage, speaking the words I had written for them. The audience laughed at the funny lines and wiped away tears at the poignant ending.
During the curtain call, there were cries of “Author! Author!” As I went forward to take a bow, I thought, This is what it feels like to be a successful writer. Never again would I be satisfied to write anonymously.
If I stopped writing the stories, I would give up a steady source of income. But by then I wanted my name on my writing more than I wanted it on a check.
I asked myself this question: If you knew it would get published, what would you write?
My answer was, a novel. Fiction was fun to write, and I had especially enjoyed telling a story in more than one chapter. I imagined how it would feel to hold in my hands a book that I had written.
It took me a year to write an adult mystery titled The Ransom at Blackberry Bridge. With high hopes, I sent it to a literary agent in New York. Many writers have agents who submit their work to publishing companies for them and handle business details with publishers.
My novel came back with a letter from the agent. She said, “You write well, but your heroine seems awfully young. Have you ever considered writing for children?”
I spent another four months revising the book, turning it into a mystery for kids. I made many mistakes during this process. The biggest one was that I did not read any current young adult or middle-grade fiction; I just plowed ahead on my own. When I finished the book the second time, the agent agreed to represent me.
While I waited for her to sell my novel, I wrote another play. Soon after it was published, the agent returned my novel, along with a list of all the publishers who had turned it down.
I stood in my kitchen clutching that list while tears streamed down my cheeks. It had taken me a year to write a novel, and it was not going to be published. Maybe I should give up writing, I thought, and get a “real” job.
I had made that mistake before. Once I had gotten a real estate license. I sold two condominiums, loathed every second of it, and quit. Later I took a part-time position at City Hall, intending to work there half of each day and write the other half. By the time I got dressed up and drove to City Hall, the part-time job took most of the day, and I got little writing done. When I left that job, I felt as if I’d been released from prison.
I knew I could never be happy doing any work except writing, yet I was so discouraged over my unsold book that the next day I signed up as a temporary office worker. I was asked to type bills for an elevator company. The job lasted three days, which was two-and-a-half days too long for me. By noon on the first day, I ached to be home writing.
None of these jobs were unpleasant or difficult; they just didn’t excite me. When I write, I’m challenged, wholly engaged, and have a sense of doing important work. Hours pass without my realizing it.
There is great satisfaction in imagining people, places, and situations, and then writing about them in a way that makes them seem real to others. When I write, I pour my own thoughts, feelings, fears, hopes, and ideals into the pages. Because I write about things that matter to me, my own voice speaks from my work even when I write fiction.
After three days of typing bills, I admitted that I would forever be a writer. My novel had not sold, but at least I had written it. I had done my best, and that was better than not trying. How I use my time is more crucial than how much I earn. From then on I did the work I loved and never again took a “real” job.
I was fortunate to have this choice. Carl made enough money for our family to live on, and he enthusiastically supported my writing efforts. Even in the years when I published little, he believed in my work and encouraged me.
Writers need time to experiment with ideas and words, time to concentrate on a manuscript, time to revise, time to daydream. My husband gave me the luxury of time to write.
I longed to write a second novel for children, but decided I should stick to what I did well. I didn’t want to waste another year on a book that wouldn’t get published.
The editor of a new magazine called Woman’s World told me she would publish one short story in each issue and asked if I would like to submit something.
I wrote a story about a young woman who ignores her likable but ordinary boyfriend because she dreams of marrying the star player of the New York Yankees. When I saw “‘Major League Love’ by Peg Kehret” in a national magazine, I bought ten copies and gave them to family and friends.
I wrote many more stories for Woman’s World and all said “by Peg Kehret.” I also
wrote stories and poems for children’s magazines.
One day I got out the chart that I used to keep track of my submissions and realized that my system might help other writers. I wrote “Something in the Mail Every Friday”—and made my first sale to the Writer. Another of my magazine goals got checked off.
I never did sell an article to the Reader’s Digest, but when I opened an unexpected letter from them, out dropped a check. They had reprinted one of the verses I had originally sold to the Wall Street Journal.
I laughed as I crossed off the third and final magazine on my list of goals. It had not happened the way I expected, but that was okay. A sale is a sale!
{ 9 }
Alzheimer’s Disease
When I was little, I called him Daddy. Later he was Dad. That changed to Father when I was fifteen. It started as a joke, but the joke became an affectionate nickname that stuck, and Art and I called him Father from then on.
“Father” sounds formal and old-fashioned, while my dad was easygoing and full of fun—until he was sixty-two, and diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. This horrible disease robbed him of his memory, his personality, and his ability to care for himself. It changed not only his life, but my mother’s life and the lives of everyone in my family.
When Father was diagnosed, few people knew anything about Alzheimer’s disease. There were no books to inform families how this devastating illness progresses, so I decided to write one.
The difficult research absorbed and exhausted me. I spent days in the University of Washington medical library, reading articles intended for doctors. I interviewed doctors who studied the brain, psychiatrists, and families of patients. I visited a hospital that had an entire ward of Alzheimer’s patients, and toured nursing homes. It took me a year.
When the book was finished, I sent it to the agent who had been unable to sell The Ransom at Blackberry Bridge. She returned the manuscript. She was not interested in a book about a disease she had never heard of, and she didn’t think any publishers would want to read it, either.
I decided to market it myself. I sent it to a university press, where an editor liked it and asked for some revisions. Encouraged, I plunged into the rewrites.
Before I finished, an excellent book called The 36 Hour Day, aimed at family members who care for people with Alzheimer’s disease, was published. My editor decided there was no need for a second book on the subject. I put my manuscript away. By the time it became clear that Alzheimer’s disease was far more common than first thought, and other books on the subject would be worthwhile, my research was out of date.
I had now spent two years writing two books that did not get published. Still, I didn’t regret the year that I spent writing the Alzheimer’s book because the knowledge I gained helped me understand and care for my father.
About that time, I went to a wedding, usually a happy event, but in this case I grew uneasy as I listened to the vows that were spoken. The bride, a lively young woman with a great sense of humor, solemnly promised to let her husband be head of the household and make all the decisions. I wondered how my friend could make such a pledge.
She had spent months planning the flowers, what the bridal party would wear, and the food for the reception, but clearly she had given no thought to the most important part of the wedding: the vows.
I wish I could have written those wedding vows for her, I thought.
I paid little attention to the rest of the ceremony, for I was mentally writing wedding vows. A book idea had just been born.
Beginning writers are often told to write about what they know best. I knew about love. I knew about a happy marriage. I knew my friend should not be agreeing to let her husband decide everything in what ought to be an equal partnership. (Less than two years later, she was divorced.)
The morning after the wedding, I called my minister. “Do many couples write their own wedding vows?” I asked.
“Lots of them want to,” he replied, “but they don’t know how to go about it. Usually they end up using the standard vows. Then they’ll add a poem or reading to personalize the ceremony.”
I called a Catholic priest, a Unitarian minister, and a justice of the peace and got the same response each time. Couples want to write their own personal vows, but they don’t know how.
I checked Books in Print, a reference book that lists all books that are currently available, to see if there was already a resource for such couples. There wasn’t, so I began writing original wedding vows, along with suggestions on how couples could use my vows as a starting point to write their own. I also wrote ring ceremonies and anniversary vows. Six months later, I had a book manuscript.
Once again I sent it to the agent who had tried to sell my novel but had returned the Alzheimer’s book. She returned this manuscript, too.
“You write so well,” she said, “but I have no market for this book. None of the publishers I work with have published anything like this.”
This time, instead of crying over her letter, I got angry. They haven’t published anything like this, I thought, because it’s a new idea. Publishers always say they want fresh material, but now she can’t sell it because it’s too different.
This agent worked for a large agency and dealt with all the well-known publishing companies. If she saw no market for my book of wedding vows, I knew I had a problem.
I also knew that she wasn’t the right agent for me, and I never sent her anything else.
Contemporary Drama Service, where I had published many of my plays, is a part of Meriwether Publishing, which publishes books. I submitted Vows of Love and Marriage to Meriwether, and they decided to publish it. I still get goosebumps when I remember learning that my first book would be published.
Vows of Love and Marriage was published in 1979 and stayed in print for ten years. A paperback edition, Wedding Vows: How to Express Your Love in Your Own Words, is still in print.
Every writer looks forward to the day when the first copy of his or her book arrives. I had dedicated Vows of Love and Marriage to Carl, but he didn’t know that. It began a tradition that has continued with every book: I don’t tell who the book is dedicated to until the book is published. Then I give the first copy to that person.
I could hardly wait! Daily I imagined handing Carl that first copy of my first published book. He would be so excited and happy! Perhaps we would go out to dinner to celebrate, carrying a copy of the book to show to everyone we met. It would be a glorious, never-to-be-forgotten event.
Like so many things in life, it didn’t quite work out as planned.
I lived in Washington, and my brother, Art, lived in Minnesota. Throughout the sixteen years of our father’s illness, Art and I both went to California, where our parents lived, several times a year.
On the day my first book arrived, I was flying to California to visit my parents. The box of books came just before I had to leave for the airport.
I opened the package, admired the cover design, checked to be sure the dedication was right, and stuck one book in my suitcase to give to my mother. I left the rest on the dining room table, where I knew Carl would find them when he got home.
Later that night, by telephone, he told me how pleased he was by the dedication. We agreed it was a wonderful book, but our enthusiasm was dampened by worries over Father’s worsening mental condition. The once-in-a-lifetime moment of seeing my first book in print was not as joyful as it should have been because my father was so sick.
I have used Alzheimer’s disease many times in my writing. Anything that has such a major impact on my life will find its way into my work. The first time was my play, Spirit! One of my favorite characters, Esther, has severe memory loss. Like my father was, she is childlike and completely unaware of her former career. That play was written before my dad forgot how to feed himself.
I also used my experience in Night of Fear, a novel about a boy named T.J. whose grandmother has Alzheimer’s disease. T.J. is appalled by Grandma Ruth’s brain dis
order and embarrassed by her behavior when his friends are there. He remembers the vital, intelligent woman she was, and wishes desperately that she could be that way again.
T.J., of course, is based on me—just as all my main characters are, the boys as well as the girls. They have my thoughts and my feelings because those are the thoughts and feelings I know best.
Often in the early years of Father’s disease I shed bitter tears over the enormous injustice of this vibrant and intelligent man’s mental decline.
After eight years of caring for him at home, Mother was tired and too thin. Father couldn’t talk or dress himself. Twice he fell and couldn’t get up again. It was hard to find reliable home health care. Although it had seemed unthinkable to let strangers care for him in an unfamiliar place, it was clear that soon we would have no other choice.
I flew to California again, and Mother hired someone to stay with Father one afternoon while we looked at nursing homes. After we returned from this sad task, I sat in the den and tried to distract myself with a magazine.
Soon Father shuffled into the den. He no longer spoke to me, but I believed that he still knew who I was. He smiled a docile, little-boy smile, and I knew he was glad to see me.
As I watched him, I remembered the piano duets we had played when I was growing up. I recalled family card games with my aunts and uncles, when Father always figured out which cards everyone else held. I thought of the many times when I’d shrieked that the swimming pool was too cold, and Father had replied, with a grin, “Just like a warm bath.”
I recalled how his good humor and thoughtfulness had cheered me and my roommates when I had polio. I remembered the outgoing businessman who had invited me to the Rotary Club’s annual father-daughter luncheon, and the handsome man in a tuxedo who’d walked me down the aisle on my wedding day.