Aspire To The Heavens
Higgins Clark's initial contract to be a radio scriptwriter obligated her to write 65 four-minute programs for the Portrait of a Patriot series. Her work was good enough that she was soon asked to write two other radio series. This experience of fitting an entire sketch into four minutes taught Higgins Clark how to write cleanly and succinctly, traits that are incredibly important to a suspense novel, which must advance the plot with every paragraph. Despite the security offered by her new job, money was tight in the beginning as she strove to raise five children aged five to thirteen alone. For their first Christmas without Warren, Higgins Clark's only gifts to her children were personalized poems describing the things she wished she could have purchased for them.
By the late 1960s, the short story market had collapsed. The Saturday Evening Post, which in 1960 named Higgins Clark's short story "Beauty Contest at Buckingham" one of their ten best of the year, had decided to stop publishing fiction, and many of the popular ladies magazines were focusing on self-help articles instead. Because her short stories were no longer able to find a publisher, Higgins Clark's agent suggested that she try writing a full-length novel. Leveraging her research and experience with the Portraits of a Patriot series, Higgins Clark spent the next three years writing a fictionalized account of the relationship between George and Martha Washington, Aspire to the Heavens. It is also about George Washington and the love for his house. The book did sell, and although the advance was small, it gave Higgins Clark confidence that she could indeed finish a full-length book and find a publisher. The novel "was remaindered as it came off the press," and, to make matters worse, four months after the publication of the novel, Higgins Clark's mother Nora Higgins died.
Read more about this topic: Mary Higgins Clark