So You Think You Can Wait

I still haven't heard re SYTYCW. If it wasn't for a bunch of other people who haven't heard either, I would be REALLY paranoid now that my entry was lost. It still could have been for all I know. Sigh. The most annoying thing of all is that now I have to wait until Tuesday NZ time which is aaaaages away! *whines*

I think I must be the only person (apart from Maisey) who hates weekends. :-)

Ah well, in lieu of news, have another round of drinks on Hoo. Elissa mentioned eye candy so here's a bit of David Gandy for you too. He's currently - or this picture in particular - the inspiration for my chess grandmaster. Now, look at that and tell me that's not sexxxayyy!

Still Waiting....

I'm still waiting to hear back re SYTYCW. It's like waiting for the firing squad to get to you. They've shot everyone else, there's only you left. Groan! And it's worse for me because normally my news comes while I'm sleeping due to the difference in time zones between the UK and NZ. Yay for sleeping! This time it looks like the news is coming from Toronto and the difference in time zones is different. I'm awake during their work hours and it's horrible! Wish I was still asleep.

Alright, so, while I am waiting, pull up a chair and share your SYTYCW stories. Got an R you want to vent about? Some feedback you can't understand? Still waiting like me? Share! I'll get Hoo to mix some drinks...

And while he's at it, check out the Sisters' blog and the awesome post Maisey has written re strengthening that first chapter.

So You Think You Can Write? Or Does My Butt Look Big in This? (Plus Congrats!)

Who else is feeling like they can write? I should clarify, this is for those of us who are taking the SYTYCW trip and are expecting to hear back this week. Are you excited? Nervous? Couldn't care less? NTAI? Personally I'm feeling like I can vomit.

I actually thought I would be okay with this. Mainly because I subbed something different to what I normally write and so therefore if it gets the old heave ho, I can safely say to myself, 'Oh well, it was my first sub for this line and it's not what I wanted to write anyway." But you know, I don't think I am okay with it! I'm bl**dy nervous! My poor old Frenchman is subbed as a Modern/Presents and I am quite concerned. Writing MH/Riva is like an old pair of comfortable, flattering jeans. I love wearing them and I think I look good in them. Modern/Presents is a pair of new jeans with stiff denim and in a style I'm not sure suits me. Does my butt look big in this?
I do NOT want to hear 'Of course your butt looks massive. What were you thinking?!'
What I DO want to hear is 'Darling, you look fab. Have you lost weight?'

Really, waiting and anticipating NEVER gets any easier. And I'm sure the pubbed authors among you will say the same thing. I've been doing this for three years now (I know, I'm just a baby submitter) and the Inbox of Doom remains the Inbox of Doom and not the Inbox of Win. On that happy note, at least it's certain that news of some kind will make it's way to me at some stage during this week (Will they let us know on the day? The week before? Who knows??).

Anyway, the most annoying thing about all of this is that I am letting my NTAI nerves paralyse me. I don't know what to keep writing. There is the Frenchman whom I'm certain will get the thumbs down (SYTYCW), there's the Hammer Pants ms which I actually love and want to keep editing but simply don't know whether to keep doing so or not. And lastly the soldier story (remember that?) which I subbed in October last year. In my handover email from the ed, she told me she'd read the soldier and also the my winning High Five entry (Hammer Pants) and had had a chat with the ed I am now working with about 'which one to proceed with'. But she gave no hint as to which she liked! Which she wouldn't of course but still! Anyway, I guess 'which one to proceed with' does seem to indicate that one will be proceeded with. But which one??? Just my luck it won't be the one I want to proceed with...

Right, that's enough of my ramblings. Wanted to say HUGE CONGRATS to Susan Wilson for her sale to Medicals!!!! You rock, Susan!!

So how's everyone else holding up for SYTYCW? Got any NTAI strategies you want to share?

The Van Gogh Process

Doubt crows be circling today. Pesky things. When will they ever leave me alone? Aaaanyway, I have finished the Hammer Pants ms. Need to rewrite the last chapter - again - but yeah, it's done. While writing it though, I was chatting with the CPs and happened to let slip that I had done six drafts of this particular ms. They were aghast. Hehe. It's seems quite a lot, I know, but it doesn't mean I have rewritten the ms six times or anything.

You see my process works with me writing a very fast quick and dirty draft. I have to do this because if I stop and agonise over every word and plot and whatnot, I will become stuck and won't finish the story. So I have to push myself to keep going and get it down quickly. Then I go back and edit, rewrite, change stuff etc. And because I like to keep old versions just in case a change I make doesn't work, I make it a new draft every time I change something major.

It may sound odd but it works for me. And this ms is a tricky one because it's one I wrote a year or so ago before I'd really got to grips with conflict, and it's a reunion story and I think reunion stories are actually quite hard! I've changed the conflict about five times, the beginning at least three, the ending twice, and all the bits in between more times than I can count. It's kind of like painting a picture or something, you sketch out what you want to paint first, then the rest of the process is filling it in with colour, painting out some bits or emphasising others. Or in this particular case it's like scrapping three canvases and starting all over again each time. :-(

Anyway, six drafts is pretty much par for the course. I do a lot more plotting now than I used to and this helps with changing things but I'm still a pantser at heart and like to give the characters their head when the opportunity presents itself. You may - or may not - be interested to know that I have a deleted scenes document for bits I've taken out and that word count on that is....wait for it...60k. The ms is 47k. :-)

So what's everyone else's process like? Do you do take the Van Gogh approach like me? Or are you the one draft sculptor type - you carve it out and once it's carved it stays carved?

I Do Not Know What I'm Talking About

I know, I know, you're all finding it absolutely incredible to believe but it's true. Jackie does not know what she's talking about. This post is mainly for people searching for writing advice or any clue on how to get ahead in this hell we call the publishing business, or indeed anyone who may be under the terribly mistaken impression that because of the stuff I post on my blog, I must know what I'm doing.

I don't.

Firstly - and most importantly - I am still unpublished so there's obviously something I'm not doing right. Secondly, I don't think I'll EVER know what I'm doing since the day I admit I do know, will be the day I stop improving and learning. Thirdly, I am still learning so the things I think I know today, may be the things I'll prove to be wrong about tomorrow.

However there are some things about writing category that I can assume are correct since I got them in rejection letters:

1. Conflict must be simple, clear and deep.
2. Sex must have an emotional connection.
3. The conflict (for MH/Riva) can't be too dark.
4. The characters must grow and change.
5. Characters must be well rounded people, but keep it simple because real people are far more complicated and messy than you can fit into a category length book.
6. Category romance is all about the fantasy and escapism (and must include actual romance!).
7. No stereotypes please.

All the rest of the stuff I talk about on this blog is just supposition and assumption really, and you shouldn't take anything I say as gospel. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that I am wrong about a LOT of things. :-)

But, that being said, here are some things I am not wrong about. Prepare yourselves.

1. If you don't write, you won't be published.
2. If you don't submit, you won't be published.
3. If you give up you won't be published.
4. The day you think you know what you're doing is the day you'll find out you don't.
5. Rejection doesn't kill you.
6. The tiniest success goes a loooong way.
7. Drinking helps ease the pain.
8. Over-thinking will kill your story stone dead.
9. Taking risks sometimes works and sometimes it doesn't.
10. Loving your writing is the first step.

Anyone got anything else they're NOT wrong about?

The Trouble with Riva

Ahem. You know what I said a couple of days ago about the need to keep conflict simple? Well guess what I did?? *shakes fist at ms*

Sigh. Figured out that I have too many things going on for my heroine. I have two major problems with her and really, I should just have one and go a bit deeper with it. I should have realised a couple of weeks ago when I was writing a major scene for her, where her conflict starts to get resolved, and I could not seem to make it so that the two issues were dealt with at once. I ended up dealing with one and leaving the other for the black moment. But the other one is a biggie and...it's just not going to happen in the word count! So, I need to get rid of it. Of course this brings me to the main point of this post: the trouble with Riva.

It's a feel-good, fun, flirty line. Contemporary, with a 'young' voice. But the problem with feel-good, fun and flirty is that it's very hard then to get conflict that's deep and yet isn't too depressing or dark. Groan. My feeling is that the most emotional storylines come from tough conflict but how you do that and still make it feel-good and fun?? Double groan. And it doesn't help that I like angst but my voice is Riva (my secret love would be Presents/Modern conflict with a Riva voice).

The big thing is that I don't know if my conflict is too dark or not. My poor old bad boy has had a pretty dark, depressing past and I wonder if that's too much. But then, if he's a bad boy, he HAS to have had bad stuff in his past, right? I've tried to keep this out of the present as much as possible but now I'm getting into the later stages of the book, it's feeling pretty angsty. The pay off will be an emotional ending but have I gone too far? Same with my poor old heroine. She's got two problems now - physical scars and guilt. But I have to choose one. Which one? Scars or guilt? And are they too dark? Too real life? The other sub I have in at the moment - the soldier story - again, there's some depressing stuff in both my characters' lives. Not in the present, in the past, but still, it's there. Will that be a problem? Is it worth even writing the rest of that one?

I don't know And the only way to know is when I hear from the ed. But I'm beginning to think that this is another thing that's all in the execution. Some conflicts, no matter what you do with them, will always be too depressing otherwise you risk making light of them. Yet with others, maybe it's possible if you don't dwell too much on the depressing parts. Like if it's death, you don't dwell on the grief and loss, or you make it happen in the distant past so it's not an issue in the present. Fundamentally though, who knows? I'll find out eventually about mine when I hear back. Until then...not sure what to do really.

Maybe I'll just give up the present WIPs for my new idea which was inspired - don't laugh please - by the song One Night in Bangkok (oh, okay, you can laugh). Hehe. Can anyone say cheesy? I'm aiming to bring the sexy back to chess!!

So, what do you reckon about conflict that is light and happy, fun, feel-good, and flirty, and yet is deep enough and emotinal enough to last 50k? Any ideas?

PS. If you don't know the song, here it is. Go Murray Head!

All Hail Internal Conflict - A Long Muddled Post In My Usual Rambling Way

Am I mad? Quite possibly. You see, the thing is, *whispers* I love internal conflict.

There, I've said it. I know, I know, it's something that's terribly difficult to get right and is the bugbear of many a wannabe writer, me included, but I. Love. It. Which is partly why writing for M&B is something I particularly want to do because their stories are driven by internal conflict. Not car chases and guns. Not bombs. Not even star-crossed lovers kept apart by their families. Just two people who are perfect for each other but have to change themsevles in order to get their HEA. And what could be more emotional than that? What could be more difficult than changing yourself?

Anyway, I fully admit that for all my love of internal conflict, I have yet to get this sucker right. Now the main problem (for me) is that the conflict required for M&B needs to be simple and yet deep. Kate Walker has lots of really good advice about this so get along to her site to read about it but I have to confess it's this simplicity that has been eluding me for a while now.

Why? Well, my history of writing romance is twenty years of writing for my own pleasure. The last romance I wrote that wasn't for M&B was 300k. Yes, you heard that right, 300k. I didn't plot, I pantsed the whole thing, just chucking in whatever was going to make my characters suffer the most. Especially the hero because a tortured hero is my favourite thing in the world. So of course there wasn't just one simple conflict, there were many, many conflicts. It was awesome. But nowhere, on this planet, would this book have been published, least of all by M&B. However, it was ALL internally conflict driven which was great training, but was it simple? Give you three guesses...;-)

I do not do simplicity. I tend to chuck in lots of conflict strands to up the tension and the angst. So, say my hero's internal conflict is that his parents had a messy divorce and he was used as a pawn by both of them to hurt each other. As a consequence he might feel like he's not good enough for love, guilt at letting himself be used, betrayed by people who are supposed to love him, etc, etc. All good stuff but I find myself trying to explore ALL of those emotions at once. Which complicates it. Because guilt might make you act in a certain way, anger might make you act in another, betrayal a third. Now, because you only have 50k in an M&B romance, you just can't explore ALL of them and the consequences (hear that Jackie??). You have to choose ONE.

*gets out the flow chart*

He feels guilty for letting himself be used ----> which leads to him vow that no one will ever use him like that again ----> which makes him decide that he needs to stay in control of his life and himself ----> He MUST have control in order to feel good about himself.

There you go. Pretty clear what kind of thing his character needs to learn eh? Now, say this is a Jackie ms.

He feels guilty for letting himself be used. Also that's he's unworthy. And also betrayed. ---> which leads him to vow that he won't be used again (adds girl who used his bad boy image to annoy her parents), no one will make him feel unworthy again (adds teacher who told him he was useless), and people who are supposed to love you suck (add divorce) ---> which makes him decide he needs to stay in control, he IS the best, and he won't fall in love ---> He MUST have control, he MUST be successful and love is for suckers.

Not so clear right? He has to learn not just to give up his control, but also that success isn't everything and people who love you won't betray you. All okay but not in 50k (there are also layers in which case anger might be a layer but I won't mention that since it's complicated enough as it is!).

So, how do I keep it simple? I make sure I decide my conflict first and then settle on ONE way that conflict might make my character feel, how that ONE way impacts on the way he lives his life and what he needs to do in order to resolve it. And I write that at the top of each ms to help me keep on track and to stop myself adding any more conflict strands.

Easy, peasy, lemon-squeezy.

BTW, there is a movie that is great for considering the layers of conflict - Inception. It's kind of like internal conflict made external. Awesome.

Anyway, how do you feel about internal conflict? Hard? Easy? Put it up against the wall and shoot it?

Jackie Is In the House

Back again from the hell that was the beach with no internet access.... Okay, so it wasn't entirely hell but being separated from my lovely net was definitely no picnic. At least I had the iPad. You do know how much I love this thing right? I'm calling it Brad on Twitter since every time I actually mention the word, 'iPad' on Twitter I get inundated with spam. So, Brad and me...well, we go together like toast and jam. I extolled his virtues to all who would listen and indeed, I even got a sale. I should work for Apple really.

But anyway, the really good thing is that Brad is a joy to write on. I have a special keyboard I plug Brad into and Robert's your father's brother. You just write, you don't even have to save because it saves automatically. No worries about stupid technology crashing. It's awesome. And the games...

Ahem, sorry, I didn't want my first blog post to be about Brad. What I meant to say was that the Hammer Pants ms is now a complete ms should I have a request for more. I probably shouldn't have written it because the Voice of Doom keeps telling me they won't want any more but hey, the OTT optimist told the VoD to stuff it. And I wrote it because I was having fun writing it. Which leads me to the point of this terribly rambly post.

New Year's Resolutions. I have decided, since I am an ornery, contrary beast, that I am not going to have any, at least not to do with writing. I don't need to write more since I'm obssessed enough with it as it is so that's not it. A contract would be nice but that's something I can't control so I can't have that either. Though, that being said, I guess there's one thing I could do for 2011 and that would be to enjoy my writing more. I hated 2010 to be honest. It was sucky from a writing perspective (except for the end) and I felt that I'd lost all the pleasure I got from writing. I worried about everything, whether I had the romance, the right turning points, whether I'd over complicated the conflict, made the characters too self aware, whether it was too much about sex, were my characters active enough....blergh!!!

Enough I say. This year I want to enjoy what I write and stick all that craft stuff in a big box and only open it when necessary. So, my dear blog friends, if it looks as if I'm in any danger of worrying too much about the crafty stuff, feel free to kick my butt and remind me that I was supposed to be enjoying my writing this year! :-)

Right, so, anyone else with some resolutions for 2011 that I am jealous of and wish I'd thought of first? ;-)