Finished

Yep, finally finished the first draft of Kate and Alex. Well, when I say finished, I do mean that incredibly loosely. I got to the last chapter, wrote a couple of pages, then got entirely sick of all the explanations and arguments and put '...and then they get together, HEA'. Slack eh? Told you I was crap at endings. Anyway, the actual, professional plan is to leave the story to fester for a week or two, then haul out for a major edit and a final, proper re-write of the last chapter.

Which leaves me now with two completed manuscripts and two more halfway there. Of course, they could ALL be utter pants and in no way acceptable but sadly, the only way to tell whether this is the case would be to submit and this I cannot do until I hear... But as you all know, I am NTAI. :-)

Anyway, for those of you who are wondering at my ability to finish two mss comparatively quickly, know that the only reason I can do this is that writing is my day job (while oldest is at school and youngest is at creche) so I do tend to have the time. Plus, a great tip that I learned from doing the Nano (novel in a month), was to do a chapter plan beforehand so I know exactly where I'm going, then write without editing. This does mean an incredibly rough first draft - there are scenes that aren't finished 'cause I've got too bogged down - but at least the whole thing is down on the page. Works for me at any rate.

What about the rest of you? Where is everyone at with their current WIPs?

You Gotta Say Boots, Not Shoes.

Herewith the boots.

Yes, the picture is crap. They are black suede so kind of boring but then so is NTAI. I'm hoping that when I get the big yes/no, I'll splash out to celebrate/cry with something totally ridiculous and pretty, that I will never have any opportunity to wear like....








these.....











On the other hand, I could just continue to write lots of books. :-)

New Boots

One must never underestimate the value of retail therapy. To help me NTAI (see previous post), I went out today and got myself some new boots. With a heel. Now, I don't normally wear heels. They hurt my feet and they make me feel overdressed. But now, as I edge closer towards the big four oh, I've decided to hell with that. I don't want to be on my death bed thinking 'man, I really wish I'd got myself some killer heels'. Hence the boots. They were also going to either be my 'Woohoo I sold my book' boots or my 'Wah, they rejected my book' boots. Sadly they are neither. Today they're my NTAI boots.

Okay, I'll stop wibbling about the boots. On more important matters such as writing, I have nearly finished Kate and Alex. Again I find myself charging towards the finish line, wrapping the whole thing up in seconds flat. I think it'll take at least 5k to finish and then end up finishing in 1! What's with that? I suspect it's because I don't like endings. The whole let-me-explain-why-I-acted -so-badly explanation thing is very tiresome to me. Plus I don't like mush. I know, odd for a romance writer, but I can't stand it when things get too syrupy. And inevitably, there's always a certain amount of syrup required for an ending.

What about everyone else? Do you like endings? Or do you prefer buying boots? :-)

Not Thinking About It

Okay, sorry about the whinging last post guys. Guess the pressure got to me and I was just letting off steam. Thanks to everyone who posted encouraging comments - felt much better after reading those! I think learning to wait is the hardest part of this journey for me. I've never been good with being patient and being a newbie when it comes to submission, it's very difficult to come to grips with. Then again, I am very, very lucky that I have come this far. Being fixated on this one goal, I often don't appreciate how far that actually is. But I am appreciative. Honestly. I'm just at the point where where I want the whole drawn-out process to end one way or another.

Anyway, you'll all be pleased to know that I have stopped whining and have put up this virtual scarecrow to scare away the Crows of Doubt that have been pecking at me for the past week. This week I am not going to think about my ms or what's happening to it. This week I am going to concentrate on Kate and Alex and fixing the problem in Chapter 5 that is bogging me down. Of course that means rewriting chapters 5, 6 and 7 but am I daunted? No! I am determined to finish this so I have a third ms to fire at them if I am rejected this time.
Oh and I sent away my comeptition entries too.

So, here's to Not Thinking About It. Anyone else NTAI?

The Death of Chatterton Or Feeling Annoyed With Waiting

I feel a bit like poor old Chatterton today. Or at least, lying picturesquely on a poorly lit bed with the remains of my torn up manuscript at my side, while I overdose on laudanum is looking increasingly attractive.
It's the wait you see. I know, banging on about waiting again. It's now five weeks since I sent away my revisions. Anna told me she couldn't get to it for at least a week so I'm mentally adjusting myself to four weeks but still. Reading other people's call stories and how two days after they sent their mansucript, they were rung and given the good news. Okay, maybe not two days but two - three weeks. A month at a stretch. It's a month for me right now and nothing heard. Maybe I'm reading the wrong call stories??

So I am bracing myself for bad news. They're probably working up a nice rejection letter for me - which would be good, don't get me wrong, but obviously not what I want to hear. I know, the length of time they take to get back to you is different for everyone but I am feeling rather woeful about four weeks. I've been spoiled, I realise, by their fast responses over the New Year.

Ah well, nothing for it but to grind my teeth here. Have posted off my competition entries for the Great Beginnings Contest. And this weekend we're down south for a 40th birthday. All good distraction I guess.

Anyway, thanks for letting me complain. I'd better give myself a sound slapping for such pathetic whiney-ness. Buck up old bean and all of that. Hope everyone has a good weekend.

Here endeth the whinge.

The Best Job in the World

Right, so I'm back from the wilds of Ohope. Had a thoroughly lovely time and did not think about the manuscript - no, not once. But now I'm back with the PoD (Phone of Doom) and the IoD (Inbox of Despair), both of which were silent as the grave. Wish I was back in Ohope again!

In the meantime I have been thinking of ways to explain to people just how hard getting published is. Mainly because the one question I keep being asked is 'So, are you published yet?', like it's a diet you keep meaning to start or a place you keep meaning to go. Yes, I say to them, how slack of me to be trying full time for a year to get published and haven't managed to do so yet. How incredibly slow and dull.

I've thought that perhaps one of the best ways to describe it is telling people that getting a manuscript accepted is like applying for the Best Job in the World. You have a position that 50 thousand people apply for, and you have to be the one out of all those 50 thousand who has that something special that makes you right for the job.
Now, I don't know how many manuscripts M&B get a year and it may not be 50 thousand but that's the best equivalent I can come up with. So now I tell people that where I am now is kind of like making the shortlist but they're still considering my appropriateness for the job.
Of course it means that if I don't get the job, I'll have to begin the process all over again!

Anyway, better get my contest entries in before the deadline. What's everyone else doing?

The Alpha and Ohope

Well, cometh Easter, cometh the holiday. We're going away to Ohope Beach (see right) for four days. Nice picture eh? It's a tourist board shot so I'm sure it's not actually like that in real life - though one can hope. Anyway, it's not terribly exotic and not something I could use in a Modern Heat story (remember Huntly?), but it will be nice to get out of the city and - more importantly - away from the Phone of Doom and the Inbox of Despair. While away I shall be too busy wrangling small children (we're going away with friends), drinking chocolate martinis, and attempting to play badminton (hard while you're holding a martini) to angst about phones or email. At least, that's what I'm hoping. I'm going to bring my laptop too just in case I get some time or a wild fit of creativity and get some writing in. Probably though, I'll just end up reading the ebooks I've got on it.

I was actually going to do a post like Lorraine's about alpha males 'cause I thought it was really interesting the comment about how many people seem to have difficulty with making their heroes alpha. I've also read various reader comments on different sites about how much they don't like alpha males. And yet Presents (which is full of alphas) is a top selling category. So really, I was wondering why people have problems with writing an alpha male. Is it personal preference? Anyone willing to share their alpha problems? I had one - Alex, my hero in my competition entry, was apparently not allowed to doubt his attractiveness to the heroine. Which kind of makes sense. Doubting one's own attractiveness is not an alpha trait.

Okay, so I did end up posting about alphas after all! Ah well, can't get away from the writing. Hope everyone has a nice Easter!

Learning to Enjoy Olives

Okay, so maybe I was a little hasty in saying that synopses suck. In fact, writing synopses do not suck. I think it's like learning to enjoy olives. At first they're vile and you can't wait to spit them out, but after a little while you've managed a couple, then a couple more, and then suddenly they're delicious and you add them to every meal! Alright, got a little carried away there but you know what I mean?

I had a synopses breakthrough in other words. Thanks to Felicity for passing on the fab advice from Jenny about doing a conflict synopsis. This is especially valuable in Modern Heat which is all about the internal conflict. I did two synopses for the contest that I'm entering at the end of April and after a day fiddling with these things, I finally cured the conflict problems in both mss that I knew were there but couldn't get a handle on! It was great. Now, of course, I have to do a tonne of rewriting (deep sigh) but it'll be worth it in the end. Anyway, if you're wondering about your internal conflict, do a synopsis that concentrates solely on how your h&h work out their conflicts - if there's a problem with it, you'll soon find out.

Good old conflict. We had an RWNZ chapter meeting just this weekend about it. One of the Desire authors told me that in Desire it's best that you have as little internal conflict as possible and that it was better to have lots of external! I was surprised - which shows you just how mono-manic I've become about getting the internal stuff right. Ah well, I like to think I've learned heaps about it at least. No doubt if I ever write anything else, they'll tell me I now have too much internal conflict and not enough external!

Hope everyone else had a good weekend. We put our clocks back last night - welcome to winter. :-(

Synopses and Babies

I really hate synopses. They suck. I know most people hate them too but honestly, as a complete pantster who has only just starting doing the synopsis before writing the novel, I am useless at them. Am trying to do synopses for the Great Beginnings contest, for the two stories I'm going to be entering, and it's hard going. I keep thinking that perhaps I'm over-complicating my conflicts...or something. Whatever, I spent a whole day on one yesterday and came out with nothing but irritation. Now, if I'm not happy with the conflict, and yet people who have read it can't see a problem, is there in fact a problem? Or is it just me being too anal? Argh, now you see, right here is where I need an editor!

And speaking of which, no, no word. My best friend and very first ever CP is due with her first baby in a week or two, and I find it very weird that we're both waiting for much dreamed about, longed for news, in more or less the same time-frame. I'm really hoping my baby-news will be as good as hers - if you know what I mean! It would certainly make my year. Oh well, I'm preparing myself if it's not good news for me though. I have another full ms to fire off to them plus another two that are nearly there. One of them should get through and if they don't, I shall take myself to my poor writer's garret, dose myself up with laudanum and very bad red wine, and write copious amounts of bad poetry. That'll teach them. :-)