An Interview with Lupus Expert Marilyn Celeste Morris

Although she was raised as a Military Brat, Marilyn Celeste Morris was born in her grandfather’s house in Toronto, Texas, a small Southern Pacific Railroad Section six miles west of Alpine. Perhaps as an omen of what would be the next twenty years of her life, the railroad’s abandonment of this settlement shortly afterward left her with no “permanent” home.  Schooling consisted of Dependents’ Schools while overseas, in Seoul Korea, 1946-47 and Linz, Austria (1949-1952) and various schools stateside. A rarity for a Military Brat, she was fortunate enough to have attended all three high school years and graduated at Lawton Senior High School, Lawton OK. Further education was attained at Cameron State College, Lawton OK, Tarrant County College, Fort Worth TX, and North Texas State University. She received an AAS Degree in Mental Health in 1995.Morris began her writing career as a guest columnist in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and for ten years wrote a weekly humor/human interest column for a weekly newspaper in the Fort Worth TX area.

She has taught creative writing at Tarrant County College, Fort Worth TX, survived numerous book signings and speaking engagements; and is experienced in interviewing on both radio and television. Her first novel, Sabbath’s Room, a paranormal murder mystery was published in 2001. 

In August 2002, Once a Brat was released. Described as “part travelogue, part therapy session,” she relates sometimes hilarious, sometimes wrenchingly sad experiences of an Army officer’s daughter from 1938 to her father’s retirement in 1958.

Her other non-fiction book, Diagnosis: Lupus, The Intimate Journal of a Lupus Patient, chronicles her intensive three-year, five doctor search for diagnosis and treatment of her baffling symptoms, her struggles with God and society, her anger and frustration (“But you don’t look sick!”) vividly expressed in her daily writings from first symptoms to current remission.

All three books are available on Amazon.com or a local bookstore can order them for you.

When not writing or editing emerging writers’ manuscripts, Morris enjoys searching for former classmates and true to her Brat heritage, she has a suitcase packed under the bed, ready to travel at a moment’s notice.  

Welcome to Beyond the Books, Marilyn.  Can you start out by telling us whether you are published for the first time or are you multi-published?  

I’m happy to say I’m multi-published:  Three books in print and one in limbo right now, due to the publisher’s bankruptcy.  But that’s a whole ‘nuther story. 

What was the name of your very first book regardless of whether it was published or not and, if not published, why? 

My first book that I ever submitted, and which was accepted on the first try, is Sabbath’s Room, a murder mystery set in the Texas Hill Country.  It is, however, different from the first few drafts, the final manuscript being much longer and involved than the first, even though the plot was basically the same.  I just wasn’t sure where it was going with the first draft.   

When your first book was published, who published it and why did you choose them?  

Well, like many a new writer, I fell for the Publish America’s promises and it was published.  I had done some editing for a military brat friend in VA who had his novel, Skinny Dipping, based on his own experiences as an army brat, and he got his book accepted.  So I figured if he can do it, so can I. 

How did it make you feel to become published for the first time and how did you celebrate?  

Let me tell you:  There’s nothing quite like holding your first published book in your own sweaty little hands.  You’ve been accustomed to seeing the words on 8.5 by 11 white paper, but looking at these very same words bound in a trade paperback size, complete with cover art and a back cover, with your name on the spine, is magical.  I didn’t care about all the flap I was hearing about PublishAmerica.  By golly, I had done what some people only thought of doing:  I got my work published.  And that was good enough for me.  I celebrated by calling everyone I knew emailing all over the place, and then I contacted Barnes and Noble, which was scheduling a”New Texas Authors” night and added myself to the list of about five other new Texas authors.  That’s a great way to celebrate, and after the event, about 10 of my friends and I went to dinner.  Pretty sedate, huh?  But it was just fine with me.

What was the first thing you did as for as promotion when you were published for the first time?

I scheduled a book signing with Barnes and Noble and I felt like a “real” author then. 

If you had to do it over again, would you have chosen another route to be published?

Probably not, which may surprise those who are still smarting from the PA experience.  I’m too damned old to wait around for an agent to miraculously choose my manuscripts, and too broke to pay a vanity publisher to put my works in print.  I went with PA for my next two books, and would have gone with them for my fourth, but they declined to accept it, stating my sales were not sufficient to justify them taking on another book of mine.  I figured it was their loss. 

Have you been published since then and how have you grown as an author?

I had my second book, Once a Brat, the story of my life with my army officer father all over the world from my birth in 1938 until his (our!) retirement in 1958.  Then I sent them my third manuscript, Diagnosis: Lupus:  The Intimate Journal of a Lupus Patient, taken from my own experiences over about a five year period both before and after I was diagnosed with the disease in 1988.  When I sent my fourth manuscript, The Women of Camp Sobingo, another novel, and was turned down, I then signed with the now bankrupt Mardi Gras Publishing and it was put on line as an e-book.  I had second thoughts about this novel being on-line, as it is lengthy and involved in its story of four army wives isolated in a military compound in Seoul, Korea, immediately after the end of WWII.  I felt I had grown a lot as an author, so I considered this as an experiment and I was not happy with the idea of it being an ebook, and I told them that,  so they released me from our contract effective Sept. 1, 2007.  This was before the bankruptcy rumors got started, so I don’t believe my work will be held by the Trustee as “intellectual property.” I currently have this novel with another print publisher, waiting for their backlog to clear.  I know I’ve grown as a writer since my first novel came out, from experience and because I also freelance as an evaluator/editor for a publisher, watching for use of point of view, setting, plot and pacing, dialogue, etc.

Looking back since the early days when you were trying to get published, what do you think you could have done differently to speed things up?  What kind of mistakes could you have avoided?

I really feel like I did what I had to do to get published.  I’m getting older by the day (aren’t we all?) and I didn’t want to wait around for a miracle to happen.   As for mistakes, well, I’ll paraphrase what one agent bluntly told me:  “First novels should be taken to the back yard and set ablaze.” She was right.  I can see holes in the plot of my first novel so big you could drive a truck through them.  But it’s another learning experience, each time I work on a manuscript.  I’m learning all the time.   

What has been the biggest accomplishment you have achieved since becoming published? 

I am pleased to say that my self-help book, Diagnosis: Lupus, has been given the distinction of being listed as “Recommended Reading” by the Education Committee of the Lupus Foundation of America.  At our last symposium, copies of my book were raffled off to some in attendance.  Half the proceeds of the sales will be donated to the LFA.   

If you could have chosen another profession, what would that profession be?

I would be a teacher.  I feel like I am, sometimes, when I’m editing, and I have done some substitute teaching in our local school district.  I would have chosen to become a college level English or History teacher.   

Would you give up being an author for that profession or have you combined the best of both worlds? 

I’ve combined both my loves.  Although I must say, being an author is a lot safer and less exhausting than trying to control unruly middle school kids who may be armed and dangerous all day.  I truly admire our teachers who face these situations every day.  They aren’t paid nearly enough.   

How do you see yourself in ten years? 

Still alive. <G> Still writing.  Still being published and well-paid.  (This is a dream, isn’t it?) 

Any final words for writers who dream of being published one day?

Keep writing.  Decoupage your rejection slips on all your trash cans.  Work hard at improving your writing, because your first drafts are going to be turned down immediately as such.  Get a good editor to point out your errors before you send your manuscript off to a hard-hearted, nameless editor at a publishing house.  Start calling yourself a writer, because you are “one who writes.” Then when you are published, then you can call yourself “an author.” It can happen.  If I did it, so can you.   Marilyn Celeste Morris may be reached by email at marilyncmorris@sbcglobal.net to schedule a speaking engagement or arrange for editing services.  See also www.freewebs.com/graceworksproductions for excerpts of all of her three books.