The Joy of Reunion Stories. Not.

Still suffering from the 'mehs'. With a sprinkling of 'blahs' and some 'whatever' sauce. This is not good. It does not help that my current wip is a reunion story. This is the first one I've attempted and I gotta say it's hard! Now, back in the mists of time (a year ago), I used to find beginnings easy. Got my hook and it all came together nicely. It was the rest of the book that was the hard part. But things are different now and quite frankly, I am finding beginnings to be a pain in the butt!

So why now? I think it's the old craft thing kicking in. I know more about craft now that I ever did and that has made me aware of the things I need to know before I can start the book - before I used to dive right in and never worry about it. Conflict being the main one. For example, the couple I'm writing now have a painful past and I thought I knew what that past was but as I was writing chapter 2, I realised that in fact I didn't. Nor did I know what their most basic conflict was, the one that made their relationship fail the first time round. Or at least, I had an idea but then realised I hadn't thought about it deeply enough. Oh, yes, and of course I'd made it unnecessarily complicated again so I had to simplify it. Simple but deep.

And then there's the question about how to get across all that past, that sense of what their initial relationship was like, when they meet up again. It's tricky because the conflict that they have must happen in the present, not the past, so you can't put too much past in there. Argh!!

So, here I am, stuck in chapter 3, having rewritten the past couple of chapters 2 or 3 times and I'm still not sure I've got it right. Groan.

Anyone have any handy hints or tips for reunion stories??

Like, Whatever

Oooh, I've been a bit of a bad blogger. A week with no post! Well, the truth is I've been staying offline a bit over the past week. A case of the 'what's the point of anything?'s. Maybe it's time of the month (don't get me started about dealing with hormones and writing!) or maybe it's due to the tail end of winter hanging around here but definitely it's been a bit of a can't be bothered couple of weeks.

I suppose I should be writing more of the ms that has the first chapter with the ed, but the truth to tell is that I can't face it. After having the last one rejected at partial stage after I'd rewritten the full twice, I'm not sure I want to put in the work of writing the whole thing only to not even be asked for chapters 2 and 3. Now, this actually flies in the face of accepted advice. You should finish the ms before you sub right? This is true. However, in my defence, I will say that the ed specifically asked me for something I'd only just started. And now, having got her synopsis for something that isn't written yet, I am a little afraid of writing the rest of it because - of course - once you start writing the story, the synopsis might change! And so might the conflicts! So I don't want to have written chapters 2 and 3 and suddenly find out that the synopsis I wrote two weeks ago is suddenly not right. Sigh. Hence me leaving this story until I hear back from the ed.

In the meantime I am working on another MH idea (three actually) and - big announcement! - SOMETHING DIFFERENT. Yes folks, after two years of concentrating on MH, I am trying my hand at something else. Bout time huh? :-) It's an idea I've had floating around in my brain for years. What is it? Steampunk romance with magic! Yep, that's pretty much as removed from MH as you can get eh? I've actually started it but it's hard. In fact, it's really hard. I have to get back into external conflict, figure out world-building, put a historical spin on it... Not sure it'll be successful at all to be honest. But hey, it's a challenge and that's always a good thing, right?

Still doesn't help with me with my dose of the 'whatevers' though. Just another thing I'm 'meh' about. What about everyone else? What do you do when you just can't be bothered?

How Badly Do You Want It?

Okay, so I'm a sad case, but this is something I ask myself quite regularly. Especially this weekend as I wandered around feeling sick as a dog with submission doubt. Is my heroine acting out of character or over the top again? Is my hero way too nice? Did I keep my conflict simple enough? Is there enough of it the first chapter? Are their motivations clear?

It's kind of exhausting feeling like that. As is the rollercoaster of hope and despair that the writer's journey seems to consist of. And sometimes I think that perhaps I care TOO much about it.

I've never had a blinding ambition to be anything. I was librarian for 15 years because a) I liked books and b) I could never get into publishing. And being a librarian suited me very well because it wasn't too stressful and at the end of the day it meant I could come home and write.
Actually, when I say I never had a blinding ambition to be anything, that's a small lie. I have always wanted to be a writer. But it wasn't ever something I thought I would be. It was just one of those nice dreams.
But in the last few years, I've realised that perhaps I could be one after all. That perhaps it doesn't just have to be a nice dream. And whaddya know? It turns out I have ambition after all. And boy does my ambition want this. It wants it SO bad! It cares so deeply about it, that some days I have difficulty switching it off.

The downside of this means that I am a writing bore. I write every day and get grumpy when I don't. I think about writing obsessively. When it's not going well, nothing goes well and it's all bad. I have a love/hate relationship with my inbox and I feel like throwing up every time I get an email from the ed. When I get an R it's DEVASTATING. When I get a 'you'll have to rewrite it from the top', I'm ECSTATIC. It's exhausting.
On the upside wanting it badly, caring too much means that I channel all that drama back into my writing. Which does make for lovely, emotional scenes. It also means that giving up is much harder. And....I'm sure there was another upside but maybe not!

So I don't know, admitting how badly you want something isn't fashionable these days. You've got be 'well, whatever, I'll give it a go and if it doesn't work out, so what' kind of thing. Some days I wish I did have that attitude. It would be so much easier. But the thing is, that kind of attitude would mean that I probably wouldn't still be here on sub number 6. I'd have stopped after sub number 1.

Anyway, I've tried not to care, believe me. To make this whole process easier on myself and my family. I've tried to think, 'oh well, if it happens it happens and if it doesn't, it doesn't'. But you know what? That doesn't work. No amount of trying will make me care any less about it. So I think I'll just have to accept that I want this badly. That I care about it very much. That I'll never be a 'meh, whatever' kind of person. And that I'll just have to live with the hope and despair that comes along with caring far too much for my own good.

Lucky Dr Jax. Ah well, he always knew he was getting a drama queen for a wife. :-)

So what about all the rest of you? How badly do you want it?

Three Little Problems

Yep, have sent a chapter and synopsis to the ed. No, not the NV entry as yet. This is my soldier story (though I'm thinking of losing the soldier part since it only adds to his character and doesn't directly relate to the story). I feel paranoid and sick about it naturally. The previous two ideas haven't gone down well so I have no idea whether this will fare any better. I have tried really hard to take what the ed's been saying to me on board so whether I've managed it will be anyone's guess.

You see, here are my problems:

1. I have been writing romances since I was 12. Now these were only for myself, not for publication. So I have had over 20 years of writing stories where I could do whatever the hell I wanted and that seemed to mostly be concerned with piling as much angst as I could into it. Hey, I didn't have to please anyone but myself so why not? Flashforward 28 years and I'm still trying to stop myself from piling on the angst. Fear of failure? Sure. Why not add fear of being vulnerable too? Oh yes, and also fear of not being wanted, hating to be protected and stick an unplanned pregnancy in there too. Enough conflict for ya?

2. I HATE being hit over the head with the obvious as a reader. QED, as a writer I am not obvious enough. This combined with a fear of my characters being too self aware, means sometimes the conflict isn't obvious in the first chapter. And neither is their motivation.

3. I came late to reading romance. I only started reading a lot of it 3 years ago. Up till then, the only romance I read was an M&B binge every 6 months or so. I've been trying to catch up on the genre but up until 3 years ago, I didn't even know a romance had to have an HEA, let alone heroic, aspirational, sympathetic characters.

So these three little problems of mine have all conspired against me. Not only do I over complicate my conflicts so it's not clear, I am also not obvious about them so readers (and editors!) don't know what motivates them. Ergo this makes them unsympathetic because if you don't know what motivates them, you can't relate to them. Add to that a tendency to want to break the 'romance' mould with my characters because I want to do something different (and not knowing what's 'acceptable' and what's not), and you have a recipe for disaster. And rejection.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, it's taking me a VERY long time to both be aware of these problems and to overcome them. My latest sub I have tried hard to stick to one conflict for both my characters, made sure it's clear and have tried to follow it to its conclusion in the synop. I have also tried to make it more obvious in the first chapter. The thing I'm most worried about is my heroine. I've - again! - tried to make her different. I hope I haven't overstepped the mark. She's spiky and prickly, and kind of rude. There is a reason for this and I'd really like to think I got it across in that first chapter but...

Who knows? Only time will tell I guess. Anyway, it's back to NTAI for me! Where's everyone else at?

The Importance of Being Earnest (and Honest)

Sometimes this blog is a difficult thing. When I started it, I thought I'd just do random posts about how the writing was going and also - because I spent 10 years as a librarian and I'm firmly of the belief that knowledge is power - I wanted to share what I'd learned from the editor. From the blogs I'd already seen, not many people shared the info they got on their rejection letters so I thought I would, since the information in them was so helpful. I didn't quote the letters direct since I'm not in the business of quoting others without their permission, but I did post the gist of it.

At first this was easy. When I started submitting, I knew I would make mistakes and get rejected, and I had no problem admitting my mistakes and sharing them with people so that others might find it useful. Of course, that was then. Sharing the rejection on my revised full was pretty hard. And sharing the rejections subsequent to that has been harder still. Mainly because with all this editorial support, aren't I supposed to be getting better? Am I not learning anything?

Anyway, this is just to say that it's a very public journey I've chosen to take. And yes, it's my choice. And you should know that sometimes I hate posting my failures or mistakes up here. But I do because that's how I started and that's how I should continue. I have learned a lot and I know I still have a lot to learn, and I'm still a librarian inside, I still want to share my knowledge with those who might find it useful.

But the other thing is that I also share about how I feel about my mistakes and rejections. I know some people don't like this. It's uncomfortable. Hey, it's uncomfortable for me too. But I do it because I want people to know it's normal to feel angry, to feel sad, to feel disappointed when you get rejected or when you don't place in a contest. It's normal to cry. It's normal to want to give up. It's normal to feel jealous of those who have made it. It's normal to yell 'it's not fair'.
I have felt all of those things and probably will continue to do so. But you're allowed to feel that way, don't let anyone tell you can't. If you care about something, then you will feel crap when it doesn't happen.

I have had some lovely emails lately from people, telling me how much they appreciate my honesty on this blog. So I thought I should say that I shall continue as I have started, posting my failures and mistakes. And I'll continue to whine when I feel I'm not getting anywhere. And no doubt, I'll continue to say 'I give up' at least once a month. And if you find this uncomfortable, that's okay. You don't have to read. I'm doing it for those who feel they can't say it publically, or don't want to share, who think they're alone when they get that rejection and they feel like someone's cut out their heart with a spoon. Well, you're not alone. We ALL feel that way, no matter how many people pretend otherwise.

The truth? This blog, the people who read it, the commenters and the lurkers, and my CPs are the reason I'm still here. Yes, last week I wanted to give up. I was angry. I was disappointed. I felt ignored and I indulged myself with all those feelings. But I thought of all the people who have followed me on this journey and who are on their own roads, and I know I can't give up. I've got to keep going. So, having indulged my feelings thoroughly because that's how I deal with it, I'm putting them aside and getting on with it.

This may sound like a wah-wah, whatever post for all the battle hardened submitters and authors who have been doing this for years. Fair enough. Maybe after another few years I'll have developed the same attitude and got my hard shell. But until then, this post is really for the people who haven't been at this long and are struggling.

I pledge to you that I will continue to be honest with how I'm getting on. This will be hard for me but I'll do it. I won't criticise people or organisations, this is all about me, the drama queen writer. It's a hard, hard journey but I am not a hard person and sometimes, it's okay to admit that.

Sale Congratulations

Just interrupting the pity party to offer congrats to:

Amy Strnad for her sale to MH!! Yay, go Amy! She will now have to get herself a blog so we can all go comment. Hint, hint... :-)

Wendy Marcus for her sale to Medicals!! Go Wendy!

Well done ladies.

The whine will continue anon.

Dark Night of the Soul

Hey everyone, back again from holiday. But unfortunately coming back to a bit of a downer so excuse the ranty post. Heard from the ed while I was away and although it was a very nice, long email, it was full of all the things I'm doing wrong and not much about what I'm doing right. And actually, not sure there's anything I'm doing right at the moment. My major problem seems to be characters that aren't instantly understandable and relateable, and thus are unsympathetic. Big yays for me.

I seem to like characters that act too much like real people, with all their sad, stupid flaws, rather than aspirational characters that are flawed but ultimately act in more sympathetic ways than real people ever do. This is not bad, by the way, simply one of the requirements of the genre. Because, really, when you read romance, you do not want to read about everyday people being dumb. You want to read about fundatmentally good people who come to see the error of their ways and do the right thing in the end. Not that my characters don't do that, it's just they're not as instantly understandable as the category requires.

So, here I am, working on my synopsis for my next sub, wondering if I've made my characters too complicated again, whether they're instantly understandable, whether they're acting in extreme ways, is there too much sexual tension, is there not enough, is this even worth submitting because it's obviously a huge load of crap... Should I give up this stupid writing thing and take up macrame instead.

Sigh. I should add that in fact, there was one thing I'm okay at and that seems to be emotional scenes. Though since they don't tend to come along until a bit later in the story and as I've had two partials rejected, I haven't even had a chance to show those off of late either.

So there you have it. Welcome home, Jackie.

And no, there was no mention of my NV entry. Everyone else seemed to like it so I'm not sure what the problem with it was. No doubt something I haven't even scratched the surface of yet, that will lead to undiscovered new territories of rejection potential...

It's Not Over Yet

Thanks to the lovely Jo Dixon, I see that there are more chances to get a critique of your New Voices chapter. To enter the draw go here.

Also it looks as if the eds will be posting the names of authors they want to see more from in the next week. I'm hopeful IT Girl will be asked for though I haven't heard anything from the editor I'm working with so far. I do have another alternative to submit and - while I've been away - I've had another idea for a new story. Hehe.

Decided I'm also going to try something a bit different. My Frenchman, which was initially Modern Heat, I'm going to rewrite for Modern. It was always more Modern than MH anyway but think it might be good discipline to try a different line. I know, it's not that different but hey, baby steps.

So, what's everyone going to do with their NV chapters then?