More News - Sale to Samhain!

You know that super angsty story that I wrote last year? The one I mentioned in my last post? Weeeellll guess what? I'm finally allowed to say that I sold it. To Samhain!!

Okay. So this is where it gets a little freaky.

The Samhain sale was actually my first sale. I hadn't heard from anyone regarding all my submissions so I was feeling a little down and impatient (okay a lot down and impatient) as I checked my email one morning in bed. And there in my inbox was an email from one of the Samahin eds. It was a personal one, not from their generic email address, so after I stopped breathing for a second, I thought well, it can't be all that bad if it's a personal email. And sure enough it wasn't. But I stopped breathing again when I read the email - it was very short - telling me that she loved the book and wanted to acquire it.

I just sat in bed going 'Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god' over and over and over again. I think I must have freaked out the husband because he eventually woke up and looked at my face and said, "What's wrong?"

 Hehe. Nothing's wrong dude. I just sold my FIRST FREAKING BOOK!!!

The day after that I got revisions from Mills and Boon and two days later I got the call from Entangled.

So when they tell you that when it happens, it all happens at once... they're right. IT DOES!!!

I sold four books in one week. Am I not awesome??? *toots own horn*

Ahem. :-)

Anyway, Falling for Finn will be released in February 2013. And now I can spam everyone with promo! Not. ;-)

I'll say more about this book in a later post because it's a great lesson about what can happen when you let yourself write whatever the hell you want.

So that's my advice to you. Write what you want to write and let yourself go. Because anything can happen.

Bring on the Angst!

The quicksand book is done. At least the first draft of it is. And thank God because I thought I'd never claw my way out of it. Why do first drafts suck so badly??? Anyway, my plan now is to let it sit and fester and while it's brewing away I'll start another book aimed at someplace else. This is going to be hard. Firstly because I hate beginnings and secondly because this book/novella is not going to be strictly category.

I've been writing category style books for a few years now and I actually find the parameters of category comforting. They give you a nice framework within which to work and because I like to twist things, they give you some great conventions to twist. However the end of last year I decided I needed a break from category  and wrote a novella that was category in length and in the focus just on the hero and heroine, but really wasn't in terms of subject matter or language. Hehe. It ended up being quite dark and gritty and angsty and I just loved writing it.

Now I'm looking at writing another one and I'm kind of scared. Because the first one was different to what I write normally, I'm not sure I'll be able to replicate it. I just chucked everything I liked into that first story and it just took off but...Well, this time round it's different. I can't write that first story again so I'll have to chose different characters. Different setting. Different conflict. What if I don't like it as much? What if it doesn't write as easy as that first one?

I found stepping outside the category boundaries easy the first time round because I'd let them hem me in to the extent that I needed to do something drastic to break out. But my writing is different now to what it was then. I don't feel as hemmed in as I did before. So this time I'm not so much breaking down walls as opening a door. And for some reason that doesn't feel quite so easy.

Anyway, I've decided that my chessplayer is going to get the angsty, gritty treatment. Yes, I know, I've rewritten this ridiculous ms a number of different times but it's never quite felt to me like a category book. So I'm taking the hero pretty much as is (minus the multimillionaire bit), giving the heroine some decent conflict and turning it into something sexy and dark and intense. At least that's the idea.

I'm also going to give the heroine a conflict that's quite personal to me. First time ever actually. I hope I'll be able to pull it off.

So have you ever broken out and written something different? And when the time came to do it again, could you??

Getting Stuff Done

This one's for the lovely Scarlet Wilson who told me on Twitter that I needed to blog about time management. And since I always do what I'm told, I thought I'd better go do it. :-)

First up, there are a few things that work in my favour when it comes to fitting in writing around everything else that's going on in your life:

1. I do not have a day job. I'm lucky enough in we can scrape by on Dr Jax's earnings. It's been very hard though and I'm so hoping that I can make a bit of money next year to pay him back for all the support he's given me.
2. My kids are 11 and 6 and go to school during the day. So I have the school day to write. 
3. I write very fast. 

Okay so here's what I have to do in the next few months. I'm just starting out here as a newly contracted author (secret thrill as writes those words) so I'm still as but a learner in the ways of publishing. I've only just got a deadline. My book for Entangled won't be out till probably around spring 2013 so I have quite a while to wait before edits come along. However I know that I will have work to do for something else (of which I can't speak) around September. My first Entangled deadline is not till October but I want to get my second book to my editor by August (conference month) plus there's another book (novella) I want to write and get sent by then too.Which will leave me September free to concentrate on the other work and other stuff I may need to do. It's all about forward planning...

Anyway, with all that in mind, right now I have two books to write by August.  These aren't editor-set goals but my own because I want to get them away before I go to conference and before things hit in September. Now with school holidays coming up, I know I won't be able to do as much as I'd like to so I want to be able to get as many words down as possible now.

So here are my tips for getting it done, in no particular order:

1. Be selfish when it comes to the writing. I am. I always have been. I prioritise it over a lot of other things because it's my passion and my job. I did this even when I was working full time. In fact, I left my day job because I was serious about writing (and I had the luxury of doing so). Yes, it's harder when you have a day job but if it's what you want to do then you'll make it work. 

2. If you're selfish about your writing then you'll probably feel guilty about it as well. I feel guilty about not spending enough time with my family and friends. But then women tend to do that. We feel guilty about everything. If you don't feel guilty more power to you, but I've had to learn to live with mine. Guilt is part of the deal and you either let it kill your writing or you accept it and move on. 

3. Accept that the sometimes the house will be messy. I'm afraid cleaning house is waaaaaay down my list of priorities. If I was working full time I wouldn't be cleaning during the day so why should I just because I work from home?

4. If you have kids then sometimes the TV just has to go on. See #2 about guilt.

5. Know your process and adjust accordingly.  I know I find the beginning difficult but I will get into it by the mid-point. I know I hate first drafts so getting it down as quickly as possible is also good. I know I need to let the ms sit for a week or longer before I edit. Which means I have to give myself enough time for a 'rest period'.

6. If #2 is eating you alive, set aside some non-writing times. At the risk of sounding sickening, I never have a problem with making myself write. I do have a problem with not writing. I'm obsessional when I'm in the midst of a story and I don't want to anything else. So I have to make myself take non-writing time to save my hands and also to prevent my family from killing me. Hehe.
My least productive writing time is at night so that's my downtime. I spend time with family and assuage my #2 issues. ;-)

7. Push through the times when you think your ms sucks and you think it's the WORST BOOK EVA. Whine to your CPs, your husband, your cat. Deal with it however you like. Just keep going and get the words down. You can edit it later.

8. Write every day when you can. I don't sleep in these days so I use the mornings in the weekends to write.

So there you go, that's how I get my writing done.The main thing really is the prioritising it. Then making yourself do it. And also about balancing the things you can live with and the things you  can't. I can live with a dirty house. I can't live with not meeting my deadlines. I can live with feeling guilty about putting on the TV for the kids. I can't live with not writing.

I guess this might seem a little disingenous coming from someone who's only just got a contract. I mean, I haven't had revisions or edits or promo stuff or anything else to do yet, so I don't know how I'll balance it all then. But I'll guess I'll have to learn.

Anyone have any other tips about getting the writing done? Apart from adding a couple more hours to the day??

Quicksand Book

This time the quicksand isn't in the journey ahead, it's in the book I'm writing. And no, I'm not exaggerating. I'm SURE my book is composed entirely of quicksand because every time I open the damn document I get sucked in. And not in a good way. More like a 'help, help I'm drowning!' way.

I don't know why this is. It may have something to do with the fact that this is the first contracted book I have to write and maybe the pressure is getting to me. Or maybe it's the fact that I never thought the first book of this series would actually BE a series so having to write two extra stories, with conflicts I thought up quite quickly so I could get the outlines to my editor (oooh secret thrill!), is making me feel a little disconnected from it. Or maybe it's just that I know people are going to read this book. It won't be my little secret this time. Other people will read it, not just an editor. And they'll be able to form their own opinion about whether they liked it or not. Whether I'm a good writer or not. And to be honest, that's freaking me out just a bit.

I think when you're aiming for publication, you get so set on just getting something accepted and you forget that once it is accepted, people will be reading your book. Oh you can kid yourself that only friends and family will read it but the fact is someone, somewhere will buy your book and read it. A complete stranger. Eeeek!

But then that's the whole idea right?  You don't chase publication because you think you're a crap writer and no one should ever read what you wrote. You chase publication because you think people should read the stories you tell. Because you want to share them. I think it was Yvonne Lindsey who asked me one RWNZ meeting, when I shared how scary it was to send something off after you've been rejected lots, whether I thought other people deserved to read my stories. And I remember how struck I was by the word deserved. And how my gut reaction was 'Yes. Yes they do.'

I think I need to hold onto that thought as I continue to push through the quicksand book.

So what about you? Are you chasing publication? If so, why? Do you think other people deserve to read your stories?? Come on now, don't be shy. A writer has to have some ego otherwise we wouldn't be sending our stuff out right? ;-)

Settling the Dust

Okay, so the last two weeks have been a total whirlwind.  Three book deal, revisions from Mills and Boon, a contest final, plus another thing I'm not allowed to mention yet, AND my birthday!!  Apart from all the good writing stuff, the bestest present was the crocheted screamer from Edvard Munch's The Scream. Yes, a totally awesome friend of mine made it - she crochets robots in her spare time - and I think it sums up perfectly my feelings about all of this. In a good way. :-) Hoo is also very pleased to have Screamy for a friend. He was kind of lonesome all by his knitted self.

I have to confess it's been VERY difficult to concentrate on writing for the past week or so. I have to get my head around the fact that not only have I sold one book, I've  also have sold two more that I haven't even written yet!  Which is exciting but also scary. Because it means I now have deadlines to make, the first of which is in October.I'm hoping this won't be too much of a problem though because while I've been unpublished, I did get into the habit of giving myself deadlines, sometimes for a contest, sometimes for my own discipline. I'm also going to have to get my head around the fact that people are actually going to read my writing. Readers! Not just editors! Eeek! Oh well, at least I'll have a good few months before that actually happens. :-)

The best thing though to realise has been the knowledge that this is finally my job. I was 12 when I decided that being a writer was what I'd love to be. I never thought though, that at the age of 41 it would actually come true...

Anyway, for those who are interested, I thought I'd share with you my secret tips to getting published:

1. Write.
2. Learn your craft.
3. Submit.
4. Don't give up. 
5. Rinse and repeat.

Do those five things enough times and you'll get published. :-)  

Call Story

Two posts in one day?? Insane. But then that's my life at the moment and I don't mind telling you that I'm quite happy with it thank you very much. :-)

Anyway, I've posted my Call story on the Sisters site. It's long and rambly. Don't say you weren't warned... :-)

Sold to Entangled!!!

I've thought about how I would write this post a million times. And for the past week I've been imagining all the ways I would write it. But now the time has come, I can't think of what to say!!

So I guess I'll just say it.

I have a three book deal with Entangled Publishing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

It's a series and will be out in the summer, fall, and winter of 2013.

I'm going to post details of my Call story (can't believe I have a Call story!!!) on the Sister's blog when I get a moment so stay tuned.

Anyway, I'm kind of at a loss for words right now - you would not believe the week I've just had - but what I will say, to all of your who have read my blog and have stuck around to provide support and encouragement for the past four years, is....

THANK YOU.

I could not have done it without you. Simple as that.