Titles that Suck

Yes, it's true, the title of my ms sucks. No, I shall not reveal it on grounds that it might incriminate me when the time comes for it to be taken to the Bad Titles Tribunal and judged as to its overall suckiness. Sadly I am useless when it comes to thinking of titles for my stories. I either know it immediately or I don't and I end up with something embarassing. Part of me doesn't care since if it gets bought (oh please, please, please!) they'll give me a title anyway.

One thing is for sure, at least, if it does get bought, I won't have a cover as bad as these ones. A couple of them appear to be Harlequins sadly.

Anyway, hope everyone had a good Christmas and that their New Year is just as good.

Not Looking

Nope, not looking my manuscript until next week. I am officially sick of it. I wonder if published authors feel this way just before they send off something?

Anyway, Christmas will be the perfect break - especially as we are going to up north to the family holiday home, which is on the beach (see picture right). It would be nice, just once, to have a white Christmas but unless the gods of weather have a complete and utter fit, it'll be sun and sand for Christmas Day.

Happy Christmas everyone.

Second Draft Complete!

I wasted precious hours today reading a manga romance online (damn you Smart Bitches!) . Apparently Mills and Boon publish some their romances in Japan as Manga but this was definitely not one of them. Though it was very Presents with an arrogant boss and a shy secretary. Boss turned out to be a vampire though so it was kind of a weird love child of Presents and Nocturne. Very strange but oddly addictive.

Anyway, as I said, hours wasted! Hours of precious non-kid writing time! Argh! But, still I finished the second draft. Only have cut a measly two thousand words now to get it under the 55k limit. Easy. Ha.

Pulling on My Waders

So I can wade through the rest of this damn book! My word count is sky high and will no doubt get longer. The doubts are also setting in. In particular, I'm worried my hero's conflict is too complicated - I'm a terrible complicater when it comes to emotional conflict, adding bits to it, more strands. Another result of starting off with a great set-up and then trying to mould the conflict to fit it. Number one golden rule from now on: conflict first! You'd think I would have learned by now...

Anyway, getting this thing done proves again a nice piece of advice that Felicity (one of the other Modern Heat runners-up) gave me, that was given to her by another author: enjoy the time before you get published because you will never have the freedom to write what you want once you do. Certainly the further along the path you go, the more stressful it is and the less freedom you have to abandon a project that's been requested if you don't like it (though you could I suppose). I was certainly less stressed when I was writing for my own amusement!

Then again, writing is what I've been wanting to do since forever so I'm certainly not stopping now. And if you need another reason, see here. The rest of the literary herd may look down on us romance writers but I betcha we sell more than they do!

Bogged Down

Knew it would come to this. Doubts already and I'm only up to Chapter 4! And I'm finding myself unnecessarily sensitive when it comes to criticism of my baby. Normally I don't have a problem with people telling me what works and what doesn't but it feels different now that this one has been requested. Probably due to the five week deadline, which doesn't leave a lot of room for lots of rewriting! Okay, have to tell myself that I can't please everyone and that there will always be people who won't like my writing or a particular story. Fact of life. Just have to go on with what feels right for me and my characters I guess.

Not that I don't have fabulous CPs! Guys, just so you know, it's me not you.

Finally! Consultation Achieved

Okay, so I got my call from Anna last night. Woohoo! She was very, very nice and we had a great chat - after the initial weirdness of long-distance calls between complete strangers! Basically she just asked me if I had any questions about the comments she had emailed me earlier and I did, but not as many as I thought I should have. Does that sound odd? It's a bit like swotting for an exam - you don't know what you don't know until you're right in the middle of it and then your mind goes blank!
Anyway, the upshot is that although they thought I had done a good job with revising my contest entry, it still wasn't enough to support a whole ms. I'm good with that, it means I don't have to write the damn thing. But the best part is, Anna wants to see the full of the other partial they were considering! Yay, huzzah, and all manner of cheering nonsense! Good thing I've actually got a full for this one eh? I made her give me a deadline because otherwise I'll be fiddling with it for months so I am to send it to her on the 15th of January. Got heaps of revising to do and suddenly the pressure is on. But she did tell me to email her with any questions so I'm really happy with that - I'll try and keep questions to a minimum of 5 a day.
So, looks like I'm going to have a busy Xmas! Forgive me for having a tiny moment of smugness when I say that she said some very, very nice things about my writing (it was a pleasure to read she said) and that I definitely had 'something'. Now it's up to me to get that 'something' into a sale.
No pressure though.

The weight of the wait...

Sorry, sad play on words there. Two days to go and am editing my Nano. Aren't I a good girl? However things have been made more difficult by the crash of our home backup server. Along with many WIPs, my working copy of Kate is now inaccessible. I am stupid. I should have backedup the backup! Anyway, my husband is now under sentence of death unless he can extract all the data. With any luck it won't be corrupted and all will be well. On the bright side, it means that I can't get out the document, look over it and agonise over all the things I could have done better...

On that happy note, and in the interests of time-wasting, here is an adorable link to Pride and Prejudice told by Facebook newsfeed. Weird huh? But very cute. And here, also, is Hamlet.

And if that doesn't provide at least a couple of seconds of amusement, you can always play dress up with your own Regency hero or heroine (links thanks to Smart Bitches - a fab blog if you like your romance with a healthy dose of snark).

Wating, waiting...

Waiting until Thursday (the call, though not, sadly, The Call). Apparently I will be emailed some 'points to consider' before then but until that happy day, I am waiting. I could polish my Nano WIP which is in desperate need of attention or I could...play with my blog instead!

To that end, and getting inspiration from my favourite online read The Guardian, I give you Writers Rooms...or at least, this is my study. The unearthly glow is not divine inspiration (alas!) but the window getting in the way of my shot. You can compare my terribly unminimalist space with Jane Austen's...

Maybe greatness is acheived by having less crap...

Can you think of a title?

For the cover of this Mills and Boon book? The Guardian is running a title competition and the prize is The Art of Romance, a book full of Mills and Boon cover art. The Millionaire Pilot's Innocent Virgin Stewardess anyone??

Consultation Date Delayed

Welcome to the wonderful world of publishing! My phone consultation is not going to be today (tonight NZ time), it's now going to be next Thursday to give Jenny Hutton a chance to go over my other partial (the non-competition one)... Sigh. But I'm okay with it. Definitely want to have Jenny's comments about both partials so I know what's working and what's not. If they could only have given me just a teeny tiny hint about which one they wanted me to continue with (because they do want me to go on with one of them) then I would be completely happy. Problem is one story is written and the other isn't. Betcha they want me to go with the one that isn't...

Consultation Date Set

Yep, Anna from M&B emailed me to say that she's going to ring me on Thursday (pending consultation with Jenny Hutton)! Yay! Either that or next week. Sigh. Still, want to get the best advice possible so I'll wait till kingdom come if I have to (but I hope not that long).

Still wish they'd given me just a little hint about which partial they want me to continue with - my contest entry or the other one. Oh well, I'll find out soon enough I suppose...