First Sale

Published under the name, Missy Crockett
Written for the "First Sale Column"
Byline magazine, August, 1985

First Sale Produced Surprise

Eighteen years ago my husband was completing his last year as a member of the University of Arkansas National Championship Razorback football team and had just been named to several All-America teams.  One morning I received a call from the sport's editor at the Arkansas Gazette.  He wondered if I would be interested in writing an article about my life with an All-American football player.  Of course I accepted, being too young in those days to worry about consequences.  I made him promise not to print anything that was so inferior that I might be embarrassed, however.  He agreed and said that the paper would pay me a little something for my efforts.

A week later the editor again called to see how the article was coming along.  "Everything's fine," I answered.  "I'll be sending it in soon.  Just in case you have a difficult time finding enough useable material, I'll send some extra tidbits,"  I further assured him.  Obviously, my writer's ego had not had time enough to develop sufficiently.

Several weeks later I learned that the article idea was to be expanded into a five-part series.  The editor liked all the material that I had sent, even the tidbits.  "Your check is in the mail," he said.

I haunted the mailbox until IT arrived.  You can imagine the euphoria I felt when the check was for $200 instead of the $25 I had been hoping for.  A bigger pay-off was to come later, however, when I saw my words, my name, and my picture in print.  The biggest reward of all came even later when friends and strangers told me how much they enjoyed my articles.

A few months later the Crockett family was preparing to leave for Buffalo, NY.  My husband had signed a contract to play professional football for the Buffalo Bills.  Again, I received a telephone call from my editor.  This time he offered me my own weekly column.  I was to write about anything that I thought would be interesting to sports fans about family life or the playing life in professional football.  Naturally, I accepted the job.  I totally ignorant of what meeting weekly deadlines could mean.  I found out quickly enough, however, as I began to write about player's superstitions, pre-game rituals, the stories behind strange happenings on and off the playing field, the way the wives coped with winning and losing, the pressures of being a rookie, the problems of being a southerner in the north, the politics involved in who plays and who doesn't, the pain of seeing friends "cut" and "traded" like merchandise, and, of course, all the cute things the players' children and pets managed to do.

I was all ready for my third season of writing when several tragedies struck our family and changed the direction of our lives.  But I never forgot the heady excitement of being a writer.  I knew that I would return to writing....as soon as there was time.

For fifteen years The-Ghost-Of-Writing-Past relentlessly stalked me.  When I was least expecting it, he hurled pretty words, plots, and other enticements at me.  But there was always tomorrow....or the day after that.  "Get off my back, you miserable creep," I shouted at him last spring as I hurled another "somebody else's" novel across the room in frustration.

He just smiled patiently and held out a brand new, very sharply pointed pencil.  He knew my weakness and I knew the time had come.  After all, I had fifteen years to make up for and who can resist a pencil THAT sharp?