Angry Birds

Okay so no, haven't had any news since that email from the ed last week. And am feeling frustrated today. The progress of this story feels somewhat akin to Chinese Water Torture and I'm wondering whether in April, when they told me the story needed to be rewritten, I should have just accepted the story wasn't right and subbed something fresh. But no, I had to go and prove that I could rewrite if they wanted me to. Just to show them I could. And what did I do? I wrote a good first chapter - yeah, they liked it - but somehow, in chapters 2 and 3 I broke it. I really, really thought that whatever failings there might be with the partial, at least it would warrant a request for the rest of it. But not even that is forthcoming.

Eight months on since I first subbed the synopsis to this story and I really wish I hadn't bothered rewriting it. But because I did, I've just prolonged the agony by another four months. The VoD is, of course, telling me it's an R. The VoD is telling me I can't rewrite, and not only can I not write a story they'll want to buy, I'll NEVER write a story they'll want to buy.

Honestly, today is a 'why on earth am I bothering with this sh*t?' kind of day.

Anyway, why the Angry Birds? Okay, well, this morning as I checked the email on the iPad and realised that there was no email from the ed (again), in my frustration and in a desperate bid to NTAI, I started up a little app called Angry Birds. It's a game where you have to fire a little bird from a catapult at an edifice that protects a little pig. Your aim is to crumble the edifice and pop the pig. It's horribly addictive and quite ridiculous. Sometimes the edifices are complicated and it takes forever to pop all the pigs and complete the level. Very frustrating. You see where I'm going with this? Yes, this stupid publishing journey of mine is a lot like playing Angry Birds. No matter how complicated the edifice you have to collapse, no matter if you've popped all the pigs but one, no matter how close you are, you still fail the level. And so you have to try again if you want to complete the game.

So here I am, still trying to complete the game. And I'm going to pop all those pigs if it's the last thing I do.

The Terrified Optimist

I always thought I was a glass half empty kind of person. But just over the past couple of days, I've realised that in fact, I'm not. I'm not even a glass half full kind of person. I'm actually a glass overflowing with the sparkling Waters of Immortality kind of person. I am, deep down, an over the top, complete and utter instinctive optimist. Except the problem with my optimism is that I'm terrified of it. Why?

Because I've always been a person who has very high expectations and the problem with high expectations is that you are inevitably destined for disappointment. And I've had a lot of disappointments. So to help cope with my over the top optimism, I have developed the Voice of Doom (hmmm, could be a good conflict here. I could put this in a story. Can't switch the writer off eh?). So when I send off a sub, the over the top, incurable optimist inside me is going 'what if they like this so much, they ring me tomorrow and offer to buy it??'. But this is bad because this will never happen, so up pops the Voice of Doom with, 'Idiot. Don't even think that. You'll be lucky if they don't reject it.'. And experience has backed up the Voice of Doom so I listen to it. I'm afraid of thinking good things about my submissions in case I'll be disappointed. Because if you expect the worst, then when it comes it won't hurt, right?

Which is why, when my CPs happen to tell me my latest chapter is great or that my idea for a new story is good, I go 'Thanks. I kind of like it. But I don't know whether the eds will like it or not'. That's the Voice of Doom talking down my OTT optimist who is bouncing around going, 'Yeah! I love it too! It's instant sale time!'. The VoD also fits in quite nicely with the Kiwi way of talking ourselves down all the time, so really, I can't win. The VoD wins every time.

Anyway, long way of saying the VoD was not helpful on Friday night when I received an email update from the ed about my partial. It wasn't a bad email but it wasn't a good email either. It was a 'something's not quite working with your partial and I'm getting a second opinion' email. The VoD immediately told me it was a rejection because the last time a second opinion was had, it was a rejection. And this time the OTT optimist is in the corner, lip wobbling, going 'what? How can something so brilliant not be working?'

Yeah, well, I don't know either. I thought I had done better than that but clearly not. Of course, since I subbed the partial, I've realised that there are pacing issues that need to be addressed and probably a bit more layering in needs to be done, but surely it's not that bad that it's another rejection? Does it have to be absolutely perfect and revision free in order to get a request for a full? And what about the synopsis? The last time I was asked for the full, I had a crap synopsis and a story with no internal conflict so does this mean my current sub is worse than that? Why is the ed being so hard on me?? Wahhh!!

*small violin plays tragic music*

You can hear the VoD assuming it's an R can't you? Fact is, it's an update, nothing more. It could mean an eventual R or it may be revisions. I won't know until I hear back. But I know I shouldn't compare this ms with ones that I've subbed before, or what happens with other people, but human nature being what it is, I do. And I wonder if I've really got what it takes after all.

I should probably stop before the VoD takes over completely but you should know that the OTT optimist hasn't been squashed utterly. As I went to the conference on Saturday morning wondering what on earth I was doing there since I clearly didn't have what it takes to be a proper author, a little voice inside of me was going 'oh well, better polish up Three Days in case it's an R. That has got to be the one'.

PS: in terms of the Very Soon Sweepstake, does this mean I've 'heard'? Or should it be in the final decision, whatever that may be?

Remembering the Affair to Remember - NZ Conference

Back from my conference marathon - the NZ conference has just finished and I'm now, officially, shattered. Think this conference was harder mainly due to the fact that I was the Registrar and was running around stressing that I had everything right. Was not helped by the fact that my useless spreadsheet skills had mucked up some of the pitch times... Argh!! Anyway, highlights...

Jane Porter gave a workshop on using your own experiences in your writing and also spoke on the importance of emotion in your stories. Weren't we lucky?? She is one fabulous woman, not to mention incredibly honest about her own life. I don't know if I'd be comfortable talking about my divorce with a bunch of strangers but she made everyone choke up when she did. I overcame my shyness to say hello (oh, okay, Maisey made me) but not enough to get her to hold Hoo while I took a photo. :-)

Another big highlight was the wonderful Natalie Anderson's workshop on writing great love scenes. Now, I like writing love scenes, I've been told I do them moderately well, and I thought I probably didn't need to learn anything about them. Oh the arrogance! Natalie gives great workshop and boy did I learn some things that although I kind of knew intellectually already, I suddenly 'got' in a way I hadn't before! Does that make sense? There was a particular piece of advice that clicked for me and that was about trying to think of one word that sums up the whole love scene. I over complicate things terribly so thinking of one word made it suddenly seem a whole lot simpler. And that word is the emotional underpinning for the scene itself. Your characters don't just involve their bodies in the scene, it's thinking of how they feel during it. It's not just about desire. Are they scared? Are they anxious? Are they relieved? And if so, how does this affect the way they make love? I've been struggling with my current WIP, wanting the love scene to go in a certain way and it's been difficult because I suddenly realised during Natalie's workshop that I'm forcing them to make love in a way they wouldn't because emotionally they're not ready for it. Woohoo! Of course, it means more rewriting but that's fine. Hehe.

What else? I met the very generous and lovely Rachel Bailey who gave me lots of fabulous encouragement and advice - can't wait to read her book! I also pitched to Dianne Moggy who told me to enter the story into the New Voices comp and was very encouraging about working with an editor.

There was heaps more but my brain has reached overload point and I probably need to go somewhere quiet and have a wee lie down (not to mention unpack my goodie bag!). :-)

More on Sydney

So, did I have any goss from the Aussie conference? Not as far as hot M&B goss goes and believe me, my ears did a lot of flapping. :-) Dianne Moggy, the Harlequin VP, gave a great talk about how well Harlequin was doing and did mention a new line that had a 'broader editorial direction' but there was no further info about that. I wondered if it was Riva she was talking about. Certainly the news I heard about Riva is that no one knows quite which direction it'll head in. Which, like I said in my previous post, is actually quite exciting. As far as I can tell, the same editorial guidelines remain in place but I reckon if you make sure your hero is alpha, your conflict is internal, and your story is character rather than plot driven, that does leave you with a lot to play with.

So what else? Editors were all saying 'we don't know quite what we want but we'll know it when we see it' which is - as always - very helpful! :-) The agents there made a good case for getting one. I wasn't thinking about an agent as Harlequin's contracts are all boilerplate but then again, an agent can help a little with nudging when you've been waiting a while. Very tempting to me at this particular point in time but from what I've heard, getting an agent is even harder than getting published so I don't know.

Went to a great discussion panel with lots of Blaze/Presents/Desire authors who were just a bunch of fabulous ladies. I asked a question about settings for Blaze and whether locations other than North America were acceptable and this seems to be okay, with the proviso that Blaze sells to a primarily North American market so nothing that's way too different. I also asked another question about acceptable language when it came to - ahem - love scenes. Seems to be what one author can get away with, another can't. All up to the editor I think. Best quote about that came from Sarah Mayberry who said that if you're going to use an expensive word then make it count!
Interesting since, in my opinion, MH heroes are supposed to be younger and I don't know about you, but all the young guys I know do not say, 'oh bother' when something isn't going their way. Even damn is waaaay too wussy. ;-)

I did get to speak to some other authors though, who were all without fail very, very lovely. One newly sold author had been writing and submitting for eleven years before she made her first sale this year. Each step on the request/revise process took six months. So I stopped whining pretty quickly. ;-) But her advice? Same advice as Hoo gives out and what I tell myself the times I'm not throwing myself on the ground in a tantrum - never, ever give up.
On that happy note, I leave you with a few more piccies:

Here we are in our finery for the cocktail evening. Becca, Rach and Janette are at the back while Miss Thing (moi) there is lolling at the front.


On the right is the Leah, Janette, Rach looking very glam, and some old biddy who decided to get in on the act. ;-)




And lastly, just in case you were thinking of giving up, here is Hoo. He's got a whip and he's not afraid to use it!

PS: No, no news!

Seednee!

Or Sudnuy (if you're a Kiwi). But, anyway, main thing is, after a fabulous week away in Australia, I'm back! Was hoping to post while I was away but was seriously hampered by the lack of decent wireless. What's up Australia? It's as bad as Kiwi-land and that's saying something. ;-)

Did lots of sightseeing stuff with the family (and that was very cool) but definitely the highlight was the RWAus conference in Sydney. And the best part of that was meeting up with two of my CPs, the wonderful and very talented Rachel Johns and Janette Radevski. Honestly, these are two fabulous women and meeting in real life was just such a wonderful thing. I also got to know some other extremely talented ladies such as Becca Heath and Leah Ashton, plus a whole lot of other wonderful women who write and love category. As you can see from the rather blurry photo of Janette, Rach and myself, many martinis were drunk... ;-)

The conference was also a fabulous opportunity to meet some truly wonderful authors. I got to speak to say hello to Kelly Hunter who is one of my favourite Modern Heats authors. I asked her what she thought about the changes coming up with the new Riva line and she thought it was exciting, a chance to do something really different. Scary, yes, for those of us who have followed the guidelines faithfully but personally I really like the thought of doing something different. It's certainly a challenge - one of the big things that most people at the conference agreed was that writing category was an artform.

And if course Hoo came too - he wouldn't miss it for the world. Here he is at the dinner with Oppo, who is a great friend of Becca's. Hoo and Oppo spent all night talking to each other - couldn't drag them away.

Lastly, because there is more but I'm tired and need to go to bed, I'll leave you with a wee pic of myself in my hastily pulled together cocktail evening costume. I'd heard the Aussies go all out and since Kiwis don't really do the dress-up thing much, I thought I'd better make an effort. So after a dash around Paddy's market, I threw together a look that was supposed to reflect Fantasy Island or your own private fantasy. I don't know quite what I was trying to achieve here - Debbie Harry crossed with Jackie Collins I think - but all were agreed that the wig was a hit. :-)
Anyway, more anon...

Very Soon Sweepstakes Update

The 'Very Soon' sweepstake is nearing the end of its first week and....sorry Janet who picked the 6th. No word for me this morning. :-( So, we'll be entering the second week on Monday so fingers crossed that one of you who picked this coming week will be right.

It's not the best week to be hearing to be honest. I leave for Sydney on Monday and I'm not sure I want to know while I'm on holiday/conference. Especially if I get an R. I kind of like to lick my wounds in private and I can see it putting a huge damper on my holiday. Wahhh, poor me. Dr Jax has promised to vet my email for me just in case and I will be complaining loudly and long to Rach and Janette (be warned guys!) so that helps too.

Anyway, I have no idea what the ed will actually say, but I have come to the conclusion that Modern Heat is one of the harder categories to break into. It's not a clear cut line like some of the others and I suspect, once the line changes to Riva and they see how its selling, the editorial direction may change. Not that I know or anything, just a suspicion. They have said they want 'different'. But what is 'different'? I think the New Voices comp is an indication that they themselves don't really know until they see it. They want public input from readers about people's chapters which I guess means that they want to see what kind of stories resonate with people and which won't. Scary huh?

Well, if there's one thing that I think matters with category as it is now, it's voice. There's not much in the way of originality in plotlines in romance but the way you CAN make it original is the way you write. And of course, including what the eds have recommended like new spins on old conflicts, 21st century issues, etc , etc. The trick is to do all that within the category guidelines. Who said writing category was easy again??

POTW - Angry Young Man

Marlon Brando. At Seven Sassy Sisters. Nuff said.

How Soon Is Now (Including Hot Love Scenes)

Getting a real theme going here with song titles as blog posts. And today's is courtesy of one of my fave late 80s, early 90s bands, The Smiths. Thanks Morrissey. It occurred to me because now is not soon. And 'very soon' is not now. So sadly Lacey, you're out of the running. :-)

But the rest of you are still in there. Better think of a prize!

Alrighty, so, what's happening writing-wise? I'm still writing my soldier story and liking it very much. Though I have to say, the love scene is in its second iteration which is a bit weird for me. Usually I try and get down that first draft as fast as possible because if I fiddle with it too much, I never finish it. So if something's not going right, I skip it and go onto the next scene. But I simply couldn't go any further until I'd got this at least semi-right because it does set the emotional tone for the rest of the book. And, yes, okay, I confess, I really, really like writing love scenes. There's something delicious (not to mention hot) about making your characters vulnerable to each other and seeing how each of them deals with that vulnerability.

And speaking of love scenes, here's something to make you jealous. I'm lucky enough to be going to a session at the RWNZ Conference,taken by the fabulously talented Natalie Anderson with tips on writing hot. Now if you've ever read any of Natalie's Modern Heat, then you'll understand why this woman knows what she's talking about. She can write hot like damn and woah. Can't wait to try out some tips on my characters! Hehe.

Anyway, the thing about love scenes is that they are relative. One woman's phwoar is another's ewww. I know this is a terribly personal question but what do you like in a love scene? No, not the details, but in general. Does lots of talking turn you off? Or do you prefer joking around? Do you even like reading them or skip them entirely? Me, I like lots and lots of sexual tension initially, then a really hot scene - not too short please! Oh and it must be sensual. Can't get into it at all if all five senses are not being utilised... ;-)