Cover Squee!

Okay, I can finally post my Samhain cover! Woots all round!!  I can't tell you how exciting this is and I just love it. LOVE IT!!

Is it not gorgeous?? It's got my name on it and everything!

Publication as an Olympic Sport

Congrats to Gillian who won a copy of Robyn's wonderful book! I'm also going to be running another giveaway on Wendnesday for a fellow Kiwi and Indulgence author, Michele de Winton so be sure to check in then for a chance to win her book too!

In the meantime, I've been watching the Olympics (and no not just the men's swimming, though....phwoooarrrrr...hehe..) and all the commentary about the self belief and determination that athletes have to have etc, etc has got me thinking about that in conjunction with writing and getting published.

I mean, it really is an Olympic sport isn't it?

If you're exceptionally  lucky you might win gold on your first go and that's fantastic. But if you're like the majority of us it'll take a lot longer than that.  In order to get that coveted medal - a contract - you have to have the kind of focus, determination and self belief that top athletes have.

I have never thought of myself as being a particularly determined or self confident sort. I'm actually full of the insecurities that most writers have, that my writing sucks and no one will ever want to read or even, God forbid, like it. But what I've always had is a healthy dislike of being told what to do, especially when someone tells me 'no'. When someone tells me 'no', I just have to go out and make them change their minds. This made me hell on wheels when I was a kid (yeah, I was a whiner, no surprises there eh?) but it helped a lot when it came to getting published.

Last year I pretty much lost a lot of belief in my abilities as a writer. Every single day I thought about giving up - I kid you not. But dammit, I just couldn't. I couldn't let 'no' be the final word in my writing journey. I couldn't let all the grief the rejections caused be for nothing. I had to keep whining to the grown-ups for my ice cream and I didn't want to stop until they gave in and bought me one.

I leaned pretty heavily on my wonderful CPs in the interim and had lots and lots of moans about how hopeless I was. That was my way of dealing with the feelings of frustration. But that stubborn, whiny  determination kept me writing, kept me learning my craft and kept me sending out stuff. And I guess, deep down, I did have enough belief in myself that I would do it eventually. 

Sure enough, a couple of publishers gave in to my whining and now I have my ice cream. ;-)

So what about you? What keeps you hanging in there on your writing journey? Is it the dream of winning gold? Or something else?

Robyn Thomas and His Unexpected Family - Giveaway!

So proud today to introduce my CP Sister and all round fabulous lady, Robyn Thomas. Her debut book has just been released from Entangled and it is awesome!  You can win your own copy here if you leave a comment! *promos shamelessly* :-)

I’d like to thank Jackie for inviting me here today to chat about my debut book His Unexpected Family. I’m so thrilled that we’re both writing for Entangled Publishing’s Indulgence line.

For this post I’m going way back to the beginning of this book’s journey. It’s hard to believe now, but there was a time when I struggled to come up with story ideas.  My inspiration wasn’t lacking in the usual sense, it was simply offering story ideas that didn’t match what I was *meant to be writing. (I had the dreaded combination of an editor request that was quite specific and a perpetually blank page.) As panic began to set in, I looked inward and found my answer.

It was so simple that it was almost scary. Instead of looking at the request as a directive to write a particular type of story, I’d build my kind of story around an issue that mattered to me. In this case: grief and starting over.

I find that people are fascinating when they’re really up against it. It’s not possible for them to hide who they really are, and yet I love to watch them try. No-one wants to be vulnerable, and it’s tempting to hide behind humour, sarcasm or rudeness. Ren and Cole from His Unexpected Family are all wrong – and so right – for each other. They’re both wounded and defensive, and progress for one means a setback for the other. Receiving conflicting messages from their head and their heart, makes them blunder and stumble and question everything. And, for me, that’s delicious.

What do you find delicious to read (or write) about? Leave a comment for your chance to win a copy of His Unexpected Family.

Sometimes you have to take the leap…again.
Newly widowed with a new baby, Ren Jamieson is putting her life back together after her thrill-seeking husband’s death. But when she’s called to show a high-end property to a prospective client—a commission she desperately needs—she meets a man who makes her pulse pound like nothing she’s ever known…
Cole Matthews is more than he seems. Real estate is only part of the reason he’s in Australia – the other is to see Ren, and make amends somehow for the life lost. The last thing Cole expects is a woman whose humor, sweetness and sexiness give him a rush greater than any he’s ever experienced…
Torn between her growing feelings for Cole and the risks of loving yet another adventurer, Ren will have to choose between keeping her feet on the ground…and taking the most dangerous leap of her life.

Get the first chapter here!

Buy it here:
From Barnes and Noble
From Amazon

Visit Robyn here!


Robyn's Bio:
Romance and fairytales are the best ingredients to work with because they go with absolutely everything. Inspiration for new recipes is everywhere I look, and who wouldn’t want to pursue a career where the only limit is your imagination?
I remember making the decision to write my first book, but since then writing has become more of a compulsion than a choice. It’s less about having complete silence, a gorgeous work space, a free hour or two, and a steaming hot coffee, and more about getting my fingers to the keyboard any chance I get. The coffee helps, though.

I live just outside Melbourne with my wonderful husband and two sons. Writing romance helps to balance the effects of living in an all-male household. I love to cook, hate to clean up, and keep very odd hours. My writing days used to be solitary, but they’re not anymore. I now have Seven Sassy Sisters online, and their friendship and support is invaluable.

First Cover Sighted!

Hanging around in this sold-but-yet-to-be-published limbo is weird. You want to yell about your books but you can't yet because they're not out. And they won't be out for another six months at the very least. You kind of want to keep going 'hi, remember me? Yeah, I sold. But my book isn't out for six months okay so be sure to remember that. February. Make a note in your calendar. Yes, next year. Six months. I know but be patient.'

Basically waiting is the one constant in the whole publishing process.

In the middle of all this waiting is some good stuff though - I got to see the first version of my cover for my Samhain book! Reader, I cried. Yes, hearing I'd sold didn't make me cry (I was too busy hyperventilating), getting the contract didn't make me cry, but seeing that cover with my name on it in big, shiny letters...  And it's a FABULOUS cover. Not just because it has my name on it but because it's actually really, really beautiful. I mean, if that was someone else's book I'd be going wow, that cover so makes me want to buy it.

Anyway, I can't show you the cover yet but since Samhain is really a well oiled machine, I won't be surprised if I get a final version soon-ish and then I can squee and wallpaper the internet with it.  Hehe.

Which brings me to my question of the week - what sells a book for you? The cover? The blurb? A review? Bribes of chocolate from the author??? *stands by with pen ready to take notes while staring at cover again*

Giveaway at the Sassies - His Unexpected Family

I can finally announce that Robyn's debut release for Entangled Indulgence is live on Amazon!  We're having a giveaway at the Sassies in celebration so do pop along and leave a comment to be in the draw.

I'm going to be having Robyn here on the blog with another giveaway in a few days so keep your eyes peeled for that one too.

Friday Indulgence - Chocolate Martinis

As you know, the role of the chocolate martini has a historic place in my writing career and been the pick-me-up of choice when it comes to the hideousness of rejections. I've even doled out several (virtually) to lots of writing friends. So now is the moment when I can finally share with you Dr Jax's ultra secret recipe* so you can make it yourself. Only catch is you'll have to go to the Entangled Indulgence blog for the receipe. Hehe. But hey, Hoo's there too!

*Hint. Containts vodka and chocolate. :-)

The View from the Other Side

I've actually been waiting to post on here a while because I wanted to do a Happy Release Day post for my lovely CP and fellow Entangled Sister Robyn. But due to technical difficulties, we'll have to wait a little bit longer for that.

So I thought I'd write intead about being on the other side of the publishing fence and what's different about it.

Nothing as it turns out.

Hehe. Actually, that's not strictly true. My inbox is a lot fuller of author loop emails than it used to be. And I guess the fears about writing have changed a little.  It's not not so much 'will they like my writing' as 'will they like this new story'. There's a bit of that 'difficult second album' thing going on.

I've finished the first draft of my next Indulgence and am now working on the next book for Samhain. Both are proving bears to write. I somehow thought the writing would all get a lot easier once I was accepted but turns out not. I'm worried my ed won't like my next Indulgence book as much as the first - I wrote the first one a while ago after all. And I'm really worried my Samhain ed won't want to buy the one I'm going to send her because, well, it's got angst up the wazoo and is totally crazy. I went a little 50 Shades on it even. 

I guess the fears never end do they? They just get a little different.

What is weird is being a published author and yet not having a book out yet. I've got six months to wait until my Samhain book is released and then another few months after that before my Indulgence book is good to go (though release dates for that are yet to be finalised).  Which is SO LONG! Argh! And yet part of me is glad of the wait because I'm not sure if I'm ready for reviews and all the stuff that comes along with complete strangers reading your book. Especially the bad reviews and I will get 'em because if I've learned one thing from the New Voices comp it was that not everyone likes what you write.

Anyway, I'm rambling. I should be posting crafty-type stuff but instead I'll leave you with a link to an awesome post by Maisey on balancing internal and external conflict in category romance. It's really good. In fact, I heartily recommend you ask her questions in the comments if you have any because she is an expert in this type of thing.

And when you've done that, go here to Brenda Drake's blog. She's running a pitch competition with the Entangled eds for all the Entangled lines. First 200 comments and they're up to 163 already so get thee hence quickly! I'm recommending this because I sold to Entangled through a pitch competition so it's worth a crack!

Also if you've got a question about pitching or about Entangled then feel free to ask me!

The Trick is to Miss the Ground - Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Writing Again

Okay guys, I've been wanting to write this post for weeks now but I had to wait until I'd signed the Samhain contract. It's about my first sale and why writing for yourself is so important.

As you all know, I've been aiming at Mills and Boon for years. I had some success early on but basically, because I knew NOTHING about the craft of romance writing, I wasn't able to follow up on the editorial input I got. It was incredibly frustrating. Then, back in 2010, I decided I really had to figure out what all this conflict/character/structure/plot crap was instead of just ignoring it and letting my instincts do my writing for me.

Learning craft was very, very hard for me. I'd had 20 years of writing purely for my bad self but writing for publication is different to writing just for your own pleasure. I took one or two courses but they didn't really work for me because I don't really learn like that. I struggled with figuring out how to apply them to my own writing. I struggled to put the lessons into practice. I basically just struggled.


The end of 2010, beginning of 2011 was a killer. I won an Aussie contest and got a request but then this and another partial was was rejected and I got sent back to the slush instead of working with an ed. To say this sucked was an understatement. I'd had a couple of years of working my butt off trying to figure out what they wanted from me but I hadn't managed to give it to them. This wasn't their fault. It's only now I can see that the reason I didn't get anywhere was because I still hadn't got the craft stuff right and it was majorly messing with my writing ability. I'd lost my voice in other words.

By 2011 I was second-guessing everything I wrote. The process had become a nightmare. Did I have enough conflict? Were my characters acting inconsistently? What the hell was GMC and did I need to know? Did I have too much exernal stuff going on? Was it flirty enough? Was it too sexy?

I'd lost any pleasure I had from writing. I hated it. Basically I wanted to give up.

My CPs and my family told me I needed to go on. I needed to keep going. That I'd got too far too give up now. And because I'm actually quite a really stubborn old cow and  I HATED the thought of giving up, I decided they were right.

So I got back in the saddle. Being the glutton for punishment I am, I decided to keep trying with M&B but to write something a bit different from the Modern Heat/Rivas. So I wrote a Presents. It wasn't anything particularly different and despite the dread of putting myself out there again, I entered it into an NZ contest. I finalled with it. This was the first positive writing thing that had happened since I was slushed and - I'm not ashamed to admit it - I cried! I didn't get anywhere with it alas and I didn't get a request which was gutting, but it was a sign to me that maybe I didn't actually suck after all.

After that, I wrote another Presents and entered it into yet another little contest. This time it won. By this stage I was looking at the Presents I was writing and trying to figure out what I was doing right this time that I hadn't before. I wasn't holding back on the angst that was for sure and I really liked that aspect, but it still felt hard.  Anyway, I had a great conference year that year. Two great pitches and lots of lovely feedback from M&B about my writing. I was very happy. I'd dragged out an old Modern Heat that I'd rewritten and pitched to another ed from another publishing house. She loved the sound of it and told me to send it so I did.

The conference success was great and I was on a high. But then I got a bog standard rejection for my rewritten Modern Heat from the previously keen publisher and this made me incredibly unhappy. I couldn't figure out what the problem with it was because I received no feedback. Plus, the partial I'd sent to M&B was very hard to write and once again I felt back into the 'my writing sucks' hole.

Which is when I finally decided to take the advice that everyone had been giving me all year but I'd been too stubborn (AKA too dumb) to listen to: WRITE SOMETHING DIFFERENT JACKIE.

Well, something had to change. I either gave up writing or I got back the joy again because my loathing of the process was eating into my stories and killing my voice.

So I decided to write the way I used to when I loved writing, without thinking of craft or whether an editor would like it. Or whether it fit guidelines. Or whether a character had to be sympathetic. Or whether a reader would hate my idea. I threw all of those fears in the bin. I wanted to write what I wanted to write. Something with tonnes of emotion, sexy times and angst. I wanted to put everything I liked to write about in it and I would NOT send it anywhere. It would be just for me.

I had an idea for my heroine that I'd been toying with for a while now but that didn't fit into any guidelines for category - a woman who was recovering from a sexual assault. She wanted to reclaim her sexuality and the man she wanted to help her reclaim it with was her best friend, the one man she trusted absolutely. Friends to lovers is one of my favourite tropes and the theme of recovery from sexual assault complex and difficult and one I'd been wanting to explore for ages. So I decided I'd just go ahead and write it.

Like my heroine reclaiming her body, I was reclaiming my voice and my love of writing. I didn't second guess anything. I just wrote the way I wanted. And I LOVED writing it. Absolutely loved it. My hero was hot and dirty and alpha, and my heroine was gutsy and tortured and strong and it was the best experience.

And somewhere in the process of writing that all the craft I'd been learning just clicked. I didn't think about craft or character arc or goal or motivation or anything while I was writing it, but somehow it just happened anyway.

Douglas Adams in one of his Hitchhiker's Guide books has Arthur Dent learning how to fly. The trick to flying is missing the ground. Arthur gets distracted just before he hits the ground and ends up missing it entirely. I think this is what happened to me. I got distracted, somehow missed the ground and ended up flying. :-)

When I finished writing this book, my CPs told me I HAD to send it out. Since I'd never intended to send it anywhere this somehow made it easier. So I thought I'd give Samhain a go since I'd never sent anything there before. I didn't think it would get anywhere. It's such a hot-button issue and I worried I hadn't dealt with it sensitively enough. But I loved the story and decided to take a chance anyway.  Three months later, the editor sent me an email saying she loved the story too and wanted to buy it. :-)


Just after I finished writing it though, the good feeling I had with that book stayed. And because of it I began to realise what I'd been doing wrong with my M&B subs. The two characters in my Samhain book came alive for me in a way my characters hadn't before and that's what I realised was missing. Decent characters. I'd got it right with some mss - the contest winners - but not others. In others they were a collection of traits, robots going through the motions.

So after I sent my novella to Samhain, I rewrote my old Modern Heat that had been rejected again. I kept my heroine but I finally found the key that made my hero a real pereson. He had ADHD. And this is the one that I sold to Entangled.


There was something so freeing about writing my Samhain book. It was like everything came together in a perfect storm and finally slotted into place. And now everything I write is so much stronger because of that.

I'm so pleased that book was my first sale. It changed the way I wrote and it's the reason for my subsequent sales. If I hadn't written that book, I wouldn't have sold.

So if you've ever got to the same point I did and can't remember why you ever thought writing was a good idea in the first place, try writing just for yourself. Put in all the things you love. Don't think about where to send it. Don't think about an editor reading it. Just write because you love to write. And don't, whatever you do, look down.

If you're lucky, you may just miss the ground and end up flying. :-)