Five Pages a Day (5 page)

My biggest sale that first year was a six-page short story about a beloved childhood doll. It was published by a Baptist magazine,
Home Life
.

After a full year of writing five days a week, six hours a day, I had a grand total of $97.50 in my Hawaii account. Most workers who get paid less than seven cents an hour would be unhappy, but I was elated whenever a piece of writing got published, and those small acceptances made me keep trying.

For Mother's Day that year, Anne gave me a painting she had done of two palm trees on a beach—to encourage me to get to Hawaii, she said. The painting still hangs in my office, a reminder not only of the path I've walked as a writer, but also of my good fortune in having a daughter who understands my dreams.

It finally dawned on me that I might have more success at hitting the target if I narrowed my aim. I made a list of the three magazines I most wanted to see my work published in. The
Writer
topped my list. I read every word of that magazine each month, paying close attention to the advice from professional writers. Someday I hoped to be a successful writer who could give pointers to beginners.

Next on my list was the
Reader's Digest
because it published many inspirational articles of the kind I was trying to write.

The third magazine I chose was
Good Housekeeping
. My mother subscribed to it, and so did I. I enjoyed its short stories and its articles about family life.

When I sat down to write each day, I tried to aim for the
Reader's Digest
with nonfiction and
Good Housekeeping
with fiction. This helped me slant my material, but even so my Hawaii account grew slowly.

One night I saw a newspaper ad for a large department store. The ad said, “Win a Trip to Hawaii! Write twenty-five words or less on Why I Want to Go to Hawaii, and you could win a trip for two, all expenses paid.”

My pulse raced. This should be a snap, I thought. I'm a writer, and I want to go to Hawaii. Surely I could think of twenty-five words to say. I grabbed a pencil and a piece of paper. Twenty-five words? In no time I had a couple of hundred words, which is when I realized that a good contest entry might be trickier than I thought. I began the slow process of condensing long phrases into short ones and eliminating unnecessary words.

I spent that evening and all of the next day composing my masterpiece. I don't remember exactly what I said, but I know I used words like “aloha” and “beach” and “pineapple.” I copied my entry carefully on clean paper, drove to the store that was sponsoring the contest, and put it in a large box just inside the entrance. The box already overflowed with several hundred other entries. My confidence melted away. I returned home, sat at my desk, and began to write yet another short story. If I didn't win the contest, perhaps I could sell the story and add the payment to my Hawaii account.

Two weeks later, the phone call came. I had won! The trip was for only two people, but I asked if Carl and I could pay for our children and take them along. The store manager said we could.

The trip cleaned out my writing account and made a big dent in our family savings, but all four of us spent a marvelous week in Hawaii. We toured a pineapple factory and visited the Pearl Harbor memorial. We drove around Oahu in a jitney. We spent hours each day on the wonderful beaches.

Throughout that week, I glowed with the knowledge that this happened because I was a writer. My creativity had earned this wonderful vacation for us! That awareness enhanced everything I did each day and sang me to sleep every night.

When we got home, I returned to my daily writing schedule, but I wondered if there might be other contests where the contestants had to write some thing in order to win. If the prize went to someone whose name was randomly selected, I didn't bother to enter. I wanted to earn the prize with words.

Before long I read about a dog food company's contest. Entrants were asked to write fifty words about “Why My Dog Is Worth Her Weight in Gold.” Well! I had been writing about my wonderful animals ever since the
Dog Newspaper
when I was ten years old.

The first-prize winner would receive an ounce of gold for each pound that his or her dog weighed. I carried George, our part-Pekinese, part-Cairn terrier, part-unknown to our bathroom scale. Sixteen pounds. Wishing George were a Saint Bernard, I started to write.

If I won first place, I planned to stuff George with dog treats prior to his weigh-in and then use my winnings as the down payment on a new car, which we badly needed.

I poured my love for George into that entry, but the first prize went to someone else.

However, a few weeks after the contest closed, our mailman knocked on the door with a package. I tore it open and learned that I had won
second
place. I lifted out my prize: a Krugerrand, a one-ounce gold coin of the Republic of South Africa.

The Krugerrand was shiny and pretty, but I wasn't sure what I would do with it. It was barely heavy enough to be a paperweight. Still, it meant a contest judge somewhere had liked my writing, and that knowledge was the real prize.

A few days after the gold coin arrived, Carl called me from work and said, “I found a company that buys precious metal. If you want to sell your coin, they'll give you six hundred and fourteen dollars for it.”

Six hundred and fourteen dollars! It wouldn't buy a car, but I could keep myself in typewriter ribbons, paper, and postage for a long time with that much money. The next day I parted with my piece of gold.

I bought a subscription to a newsletter for people who enter contests as a hobby. Through this source, I learned of several other writing-type contests.

I won a slow-cooker pot from the American Dairy Association by writing why milk is good for you. I won a clothes dryer by writing a poem about why I needed one, and after toiling over twenty-five words about “Why I Like Shasta Pop,” I won the chance to run through a grocery store for five minutes. Anything I could put in the cart in five minutes was mine!

On the morning of my race through the supermarket, Carl stayed home from work and we kept Anne (a fourth-grader) and Bob (a sixth-grader) out of school for a couple of hours so that they could go along.

I wore my best tennis shoes. The store manager, who seemed almost as pleased as I was, greeted me with a lovely corsage of white carnations. Then he started the timer, and I was off.

“Get cases of Twinkies!” yelled Bob.

“Root beer! Candy bars!” shouted Anne.

Apparently my children thought the purpose of the prize was to load my shopping cart with all the treats I would normally never buy.

When my five minutes were up, I had two grocery carts heaped with nutritious food plus enough Twinkies, candy bars, and root beer to keep my children happy for months.

This exciting morning gave me much more than free groceries. It validated my skill as a writer.

I've always loved baseball, and so has Carl. Bob is an even bigger fan than we are. During the fourteen years that we lived in the San Francisco Bay Area, we saw many Giants' games at Candlestick Park. When we moved to Washington State in 1970, we sorely missed having a professional baseball team to cheer for, so when Seattle got an American League franchise in 1977 we went to the very first Seattle Mariners' game. We've been Mariners' fans ever since.

One April night when Bob and Anne were in high school, we attended a Mariners' game. As the fans entered the Kingdome, each was handed a printed flyer. I read mine after we were seated and could hardly concentrate on the game.

The Seattle Mariners were having a contest! They wanted people to write twenty-five words or less on “Why I Love Baseball.” The first prize, a cruise to Mexico, didn't interest me a whole lot, but there were twenty-three other prizes of season tickets to the Mariners' games. Bob's eyes sparkled as he pointed to that line. “Go for it, Momma,” he urged.

As always, I spent several hours composing my entry. Because I was a true baseball fan, I knew the lingo. This is what I wrote: “Baseball gives me steals and deals, fouls and howls, umps and slumps, beers and cheers, frills and thrills, hitters and spitters—and I love it!”

When the winners were announced, the Kehret household celebrated. My entry had won season tickets! I received my prize, as did the other winners, in the Kingdome before a game. I walked out to home plate, accepted my tickets, and had my picture taken with one of the players. I carried a baseball for Bob, and several players autographed it. What fun we had that summer, cheering for our favorite team.

A neighbor who learned of my prizes commented, “You're always winning something. You're so lucky!”

But it wasn't luck; it was hard work. Each contest entry took hours of creative effort. I wrote and rewrote jingles, I revised each sentence dozens of times, I experimented with and abandoned countless ideas. For a contest entry, every word is crucial, and a short sentence must be as effective as a long one.

One day a friend called to tell me there was a contest on the back of the Kraft Macaroni and Cheese Dinner box. The grand prize was a new car.

“Is it a lottery-type contest,” I asked, “or do you have to write something in order to win?” She couldn't remember.

Since we still needed a car, I immediately bought a box of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese Dinner. The contest was what I had hoped for: “In twenty-five words or less complete the statement, ‘I Like Kraft Macaroni and Cheese Dinner because…'”

According to the rules, winners would be chosen on the basis of “originality, aptness of thought, and sincerity of expression.” Since originality was mentioned first, I was determined to come up with a fresh, new idea, something that would make my entry stand out from the thousands of others.

I labored long and hard. My entry was different from anything I'd done before, and I used exactly twenty-five words. The concept was original, the words were appropriate, and no contestant could have been more sincere. My family really did like Kraft Macaroni and Cheese Dinners, and it was a good thing because the more time I spent at my desk, the less I spent in the kitchen.

Entries had to be received by December I, 1978. I mailed mine on September 25, to be sure it arrived in time. The rules said that winners would be notified within thirty days of when the contest closed. That meant I should hear by New Year's Eve. Maybe they'll do it a little early, I thought. What a great Christmas gift a new car would be! That didn't happen, but I still believed I would win because I knew it was the most creative entry I'd ever written.

When New Year's Day, 1979, came and went with no word from Kraft, I lost hope of winning that new car. The fresh, creative idea that I'd been so excited about had not even merited one of the runner-up prizes.

But on January 8th, I received a letter saying I was a finalist and enclosing a form for me to sign, stating that my entry was my own work.

My hopes soared as I mailed the form back.

I was jittery for the rest of the week. Each day I rushed to the mailbox as soon as the mail was delivered, hoping for a letter from Kraft.

Nine days later, I got a phone call. I had won the grand prize! I screamed and jumped up and down. I called Carl at work. “I won the car!” I yelled “I won the car!”

I ran across the street and told my neighbor. I called the friend who had let me know about the contest and made a date to treat her to lunch. I could barely wait for Bob and Anne to get home from school so I could tell them. I told George at least ten times, and he always wagged his tail.

Two weeks later, I drove home from the car dealership in my brand new white Honda Civic. How I loved that car! It was fun to drive, got great gas mileage, and represented all my hopes and dreams of being a successful writer. I drove it until Anne graduated from college; then we gave it to her as a graduation gift, and she drove it for several years more.

Here is my winning entry: I like Kraft Macaroni and Cheese Dinner because …

it solves my menu puzzle.

{ 7 }

Pretending to Be Someone Else

M
y contest prizes came over a period of twelve years. During that time, I continued to write five pages daily and submit stories and articles. Gradually, I had fewer “dejections” and more acceptance letters.

Because I love theater, I tried writing skits and one-act plays. When a few were published, I wrote more. I also kept writing both fiction and nonfiction for religious magazines such as
Home Life
, the
Christian Herald
, and
Catholic Digest
.

One summer I went to the Pacific Northwest Writers' Conference. On the first day, I intended to go to a panel on marketing but got lost on campus and ended up in the wrong building. I didn't realize my mistake until the session started.

I thought it would have been rude to get up and leave, so instead of the panel on marketing, I heard a panel on writing for magazines such as
True Confessions, True Experience
, and
True Story
. I had never read any of these magazines but since I was stuck in the wrong room, I listened to what the panel members said. I learned that these magazines publish stories written from the first-person viewpoint, as if the events of the story had happened to the narrator. Most of the stories were about family problems, the same sort of story I was writing.