Jackie Ashenden

Grim Determination

2012-02-15T09:01:00.009+13:00

I was going to do a Valentine's Day post but...well...I didn't. I've been too busy hanging on to this writing gig by the skin of my teeth.

I think in my last post I questioned why we do this thing and y'know, for the past few days I've been thinking about it. The answer I always come up with is that I love to write. There really isn't anything I'd rather be doing. But I'm coming to the point where because it's no longer economically viable for me to write fulltime - hey, whaddya know, I haven't sold anything yet! - I'm going to have to do something else that actually earns me some cash.

You hear of people who take chances and quit their jobs to write fulltime who then, after years of toil, finally sell and go on to make pots o cash doing what they love. I would love to have been one of those success stories. But I am not. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to spend 3 years writing fulltime but that time is now coming to an end. And it's a bummer because I haven't managed to do what I wanted in that time. My craft has improved out of sight and I am writing better than I've ever done. But I haven't got that all-important sale yet.

I guess no one said it would be easy (three years is NOTHING). My words of warning to aspiring writers everywhere was even in our national paper - here! (yes, fame at last, mwwwwahhhhahaa!). And just because I have to get a 'real' job doesn't mean I should give up - though I have to face facts that I won't have as much time to write as I used to. Maybe it would even be good for me since I tend to be very obsessive about things I like doing and need to break out of it occasionally.

I am sad it didn't work out the way I wanted it to though. But never say never. Sometimes even I underestimate my own grim determination to succeed. And that determination is still there. Hanging on by its fingernails, but definitely still there.

Anyone else feeling like they're hanging on by a thread? Or is that me being waaaaay too dramatic again? :-)

Hiding

2012-02-10T08:48:00.004+13:00

I know, I've been gone for a wee while. Two weeks of mad writing, closely followed by a full-on doubt spiral and crash. No reason for it, just....Well, actually, I tell a lie. The trigger was a narrow miss on finalling in a contest. Which I should NOT have got so wound up about but did. Mainly because the margin was so narrow and it would have been another opportunity to get more than the first 3 chapters of a story before an editor... Sigh. One door closes and another shuts. Story of my life...

Anyway, laying low at the moment, trying to get some inspiration back again while I battle with non-writing stuff that's getting me down. Not to mention wrestling with the continual question:

Why, oh why, do I want to be a writer again???

To the Bat - ahem - Writing Cave!

2012-01-25T11:39:00.005+13:00

Talk about timing. I go camping with the family (let us not mention tents and the dismantling of said edifices in the rain) and the next day find out that I have won a full request from a pitch competition! Argh!!!

Why the argh? Well, I'm camping for a week with patchy internet access and no access at all the manuscript I pitched! Cue more argh! The only thing I could do was sit in my tent and think fiercely about all the tweaking I needed to do for it. Sigh...

Anyway, this is all to say that having just returned from my trip, I am now heading in to the writing cave to polish up my ms and make sacrifices to the gods of publication for a little bit of success. Wish me luck!

PS. Many thanks to Jami Gold for running the competition and also to the editors at Entangled for providing such a great opportunity!

PPS. Congrats also to Jo P for her successful pitch too!

The Big Seckrit

2012-01-16T21:00:00.005+13:00

You know the big secret? The one that our hero hides because he doesn't want anyone else to know? Or the one that the heroine never talks about and is afraid someone will find out? Like, the hero used to steal cars and one time, when he was chased by the cops, he hit someone and then ran away because he was afraid of getting caught. Or the time the heroine stole something from a shop because she was poor and needed to eat, and then kept doing it because of the rush?

They're usually BIG SECRETS. And the characters think they can NEVER TELL anyone about them because then...I don't know, the world would explode or something. You get the idea.

Secrets are cool and neat and can drive conflict really well. And it's tempting to keep them until the very end of the book so you can have the BIG REVEAL, where the character will finally TELL ALL and the reader will go 'ah ha! So that was the problem all along!'.

The problem with secrets is that although they are cool and neat and drive the conflict, they can also hide the conflict as well. The true conflict. Because it's not so much the hero's hit and run that's the issue as why he ran away after he hit someone. Same with the heroine and her shoplifting. Why did she need the rush? It's what they DO in response that's the important bit, not the secret itself.

But so often the secret becomes the whole of the story and the more interesting questions like why did the hero run or why did the heroine keept stealing, get lost under the big reveal. Sometimes it's the secret driving the story, not the characters themselves. Which is easy to do because it's fun to keep it from the reader. And it's fun to keep it from the other characters. Makes creating tension really a piece of cake too because all you have to do is threaten the BIG SECRET and hey presto, instant tension.

It's really easy for the big secret to become a crutch for conflict. If you have your characters going to extraordinary lengths to hide their secrets, if you have to manipulate the plot in order to do the same then you really have to ask yourself why. What would happen if the big secret was discovered halfway in? Would the book end? If so, then either you're not going deep enough into the conflict, or the book itself relies totally on the big secret which can also be not so good.

I guess it depends on what type of book you're writing, but for character driven stories I'm a big fan of getting that big secret out in the open when it's appropriate (not manipulating plot and characters to hide it). Because when the big secret is finally out, then you can start dealing with the real meat of the conflict - why did you run away after you hit that person? What were you scared of? Why did you like the rush of shoplifting? What did it give you that the rest of your life didn't?

My chess ms was a book with a character with a big secret. The hero did something bad in his past and he didn't even tell me what it was until the end. So I had to go back and rewrite it so he told it earlier, beacause the bad thing he did was the symptom of a deeper issue he had. A deeper fear. Even now I'm not sure I got it out early enough - but then again, he was a reticent kind of guy and it wouldn't have been something he would have told just anyone. I guess only time will tell with that one.

Anyway, I suppose the real thing to watch for is to make sure that when one of your characters is nursing a secret, you don't have that as the entire conflict (unless you're writing a murder mystery and they're the murderer). Ask yourself why the character is keeping it a secret in the first place? Do they even care what people think of them? What would happen if everyone knew? And if the answer is 'my book would end' then you know you're in trouble. :-)

Do you have a favourite big secret book? When was it revealed? And if you say right at the end and it was still cool then I'm sorry but I'm going to have to kill you. :-)

Rethinking The 10%

2012-01-12T07:58:00.007+13:00

Last year I posted a somewhat gloomy post about how getting published was 30% talent, 30% hard work, 30% persistence, and 10% of luck (or something like that - don't ask me to check). And that the problem I had with that equation was that the 10% was something you had no control over. It might happen. Or it could never happen. It all depends on a combination of the right manuscript, the right publisher, the right editor, at the right time.

Or, in another analogy, a combination of wind speed, trajectory, and the weight of the pig.

Yeah, gloomy, depressing. And I am a great one for looking on the depressing side because sometimes you just don't want to hope.

Luckily I have a mother who is the most incredibly supportive person you could ever want to meet (hi Mum!) and something she said to me last night got me thinking about that old 10%. She reckoned that if luck is involved, all it means is that you have to spread your net wider until you eventually catch something. The wider the net, the greater the chance.

I know, people have been saying this to me for a while now and I have been listening. It's just that I'm a person who gets very focussed on one thing and shifting that focus can be difficult. But this year I'm going to give it a go. This year I'm going to try something a little different.

And starting it off is going to be my first attempt at a novella. I've never really liked short stories to be honest (except for Roald Dahl) - I like my stories long. And as far as writing one...I have difficulty with keeping under 50k let alone writing reeeeeaaaallly short. But I had an idea for a shorter story a couple of weeks ago and...well...gotta widen that net, right? Besides, as my six year old keeps telling me, 'only try, Mummy. You have to try'. :-)

So, anyone else widening their net and trying something different? If so, what is it? Share!

A Romantic Start to 2012

2012-01-06T17:02:00.000+13:00

So, this is what 2012 is like... *walks around* *sniffs the air*

Okay, not too bad so far. No rejections at least so that's something. Still, the year is but a nipper which means there's plenty of time for Rs to come rolling in... Sigh. Positive much?

On the up side, my New Year started beautifully and romantically with the wedding of very dear and close friends of mine. It was organised in a week, the bride made her own bouquet out of felt and wire, drove herself to the wedding, and cleaned up afterwards (along with her new husband and guests!). Even though there was no notice to speak of and it was in the middle of the summer holidays, 65 people still turned up, all bringing a plate of nibbles to share! It was about 3 hours from start to finish and although my friends would shudder with horror at the very mention of them being romantic (they're far too practical) I actually secretly thought they were. Very romantic. :-) It quite inspired me to write.

I was also pleasantly surprised a couple of days later to meet someone who, when they asked me what I did, burst into a happy shriek and confessed that she was a romance reader and had just bought herself a whole stack of Mills and Boon to read over the holidays. Now since confessing to reading romance in NZ is somewhat akin to confessing you like torturing small animals in your spare time, it was really great to meet another like-minded individual and have a chat about how there was nothing wrong with it! The reading romance, not the torturing of small animals.... Ahem. Of course my unromantic friend (whom we were staying with) then told the romance reader she should read my writing. And you know what? I said no. Because I found out I'm actually quite sensitive about people reading my stuff when it's not really ready. And the story I was working on wasn't ready. Plus it had a billionaire in it and this lady didn't like alpha billionaires (though I mean really, come on, what's wrong with an alpha billionaire I ask you??).

Still, I was moderately tempted to show her because it has been a story I've been enjoying writing. Quite a bit actually. And the billionaire isn't really a billionaire, he's a prince. And the heroine is a bodyguard who's one tough chick. It's the kind of story that makes you feel quite pleased with yourself for like....oh, at least the next five minutes. ;-) Or until the R rolls in. But it would have been quite interesting for someone I don't know that well to have a look at it and see what she thought. Then again, she might have hated it because it does require some buy-in from the reader to make the fantasy work...

I guess that's a whole other post though.

Still, a wedding and a nice chat about romance were perfect starts to my year. What about yours?

Happy Christmas and Good Riddance 2011

2011-12-21T19:54:00.002+13:00

Haven't posted much recently - still suffering the post-Chessman slump. Which then morphed into another 'all my writing sucks' slump. Which morphed further into a 'everything sucks' slump. Cue endless rounds of Angry Birds and Pocket Frogs on Brad the iPad.

Anyway, this is wishing everyone a happy Christmas and New Year from me here in slump city. We are going up to Dr Jax's family's holiday home for Christmas - yeah, Christmas in NZ is lots of sun and sand and BBQs. Hehe - so I won't be around much for the next couple of weeks.

Hoping your holiday is happy and your New Year full of writing.

Me, I'm just hoping for a better year next year. Roll on 2012.

One Perfect Night - Happy Release Day!

2011-12-19T09:09:00.000+13:00

Big day today folks! Time wish my awesome CP and fellow Sister, Rachel Johns a happy release day for her debut book, One Perfect Night, available from Carina Press.

It's a wonderful book so if you need a bit of Xmas cheer this season, or just need a fabulous, fun and romantic read, head over to Carina Press and buy this one!

See below for an excerpt and links!

Excerpt from One Perfect Night

“Don’t look now,but Mr. McSexy just entered the building.”

“Blast.”Peppa Grant spun round and did exactly what her best friend and colleague Izzyhad ordered her not to. Her breathing faltered at the sight of six foot plus ofunadulterated male who now towered at the entrance to the company’s functionroom. An anxious hush fell over the previously buzzing room. As all eyessnapped to him, she tried not to quake in her costume’s fairy shoes.

Untilhalf an hour ago, Cameron McCormac had meant nothing more to Peppa than the newname at the very top of the office food chain. Now he was the man who owned thecar she’d sideswiped in the car park tonight.

Thedangerously handsome man who was making her pulse spike simply by standing inthe doorway. “Oh, God.”

AsPeppa pushed her barely touched glass out of reach and let her head fall ontothe table in front of her, Izzy giggled.

“It’s.Not. Funny,” Peppa declared when she finally looked up. Her eyes sought thecompany’s new CEO again and she felt her heart collapse into her stomach.

“You’reright,” Izzy said, reaching out and stroking Peppa’s hair like a mother over asick child. “If I’d just put aprize-winning dent in the big boss’s red, convertible pride and joy, I’dprobably be at Sydney airport boarding a plane or planning to hitch a ride withSanta back to the North Pole.”

“Hilarious.”Peppa shot her friend a sarcastic smile. “Please tell me McSexy has justvanished up a chimney?”

Izzytook a sip of her chocolate mocktail, her sea-blue eyes sparking with laughteras she peered theatrically over Peppa’s head. “No can do. Looks like he’s doingthe rounds, handing out candy canes or something to all the children. Mollymust have put him up to it.”

Molly,although old enough to be his mother, was Mr. McCormac’s personal assistant.Rumor had it when he did anything remotely human, she’d put him up to it. She’dbeen with the company longer than anyone and was the brains behind this event,the annual Christmas party for children of Lyrique Recordings’ employees. Peppahad a fleeting fantasy of leaving a message with Molly about her littlemisdemeanor in the car park but that wouldn’t be right. And she hadn’t beenbrought up to take the easy option.

“I’lldo it now,” she said, resting a hand on her queasy belly as she pushed herselfoff the stool and onto quaky feet. Although whether her shakiness was fromtrepidation or her gorgeous boss’s sexy gait and air-of-confidence, shecouldn’t be sure. “Confess before I’m due on stage and then, if he has anysympathetic bones in his body, he’ll let me entertain the kids before thecrucifixion.”

“You’resuch a drama queen,” sighed Izzy. “The top job pays well. He has enough moneyto line his undies drawer in gold. You apologize. You give him the details ofyour insurance company. You get on with your life. Simple.”

Simple.Right. But Izzy didn’t know that Peppa had just switched to a budget insuranceprovider. As she had never needed to claim in seven years of driving, theswitch had seemed a good decision at the time. The upside was low monthlyrates. The downside? A mammoth deductible on claims.

Well,that faux-pas may not only have cost Peppa her car and her job, but paying backthe damage to the boss’s vintage Lamborghini would seriously endanger herability to pay her mortgage. Not to mention she’d have to put her plans for anoverseas holiday on hold—a holiday that had been all about helping her mind andemotions recover from the battering of the past few months.

“Ithink he’s looking at you.”

Izzy’swords broke Peppa’s reverie. And of course she looked up, across the room, onlyto find her gaze colliding with the Head Honcho himself. Her heart hitched abeat. Despite the distance she could see the roguish tilt of his lips, theslight frown of his distinguished black brows and that his devilish licoriceeyes were trained on her. Dark-chocolate hair, speckled with naturallysun-kissed spikes, framed a face so chiseled it could have been carved fromstone. A man so in-control of his world he had no reason to question it. Heatflooded her cheeks and, not wanting to draw unnecessary attention, Peppa forcedherself to break her gaze.

If you’ve enjoyed this excerpt, you can readthe first chapter of ONE PERFECT NIGHT at Rachael’s website: http://www.rachaeljohns.com/pages/bookshelf.html

Or, you can buy the book at Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/One-Perfect-Night-ebook/dp/B005Z1CF2A/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1321790650&sr=1-1) or Carina Press (http://ebooks.carinapress.com/262D0727-23A2-4E9D-B75E-249FF29C76DF/10/134/en/ContentDetails.htm?ID=5BB8BC4C-4898-4073-8306-FECF92B5DC5B)

And to celebrate her debut release, Rachael isblogging today at the following places, giving away a copy of ONE PERFECT NIGHTat each spot:

· Get Lost in aStory (http://getlostinastory.blogspot.com/_

· Chick-lit Central(http://chicklitcentraltheblog.blogspot.com/)

· Novel Thoughts (http://novelthoughts.wordpress.com/)

AUTHOR BIO:

Rachael Johns is an English teacher by trade, a mum 24/7, a chronicarachnophobic, a supermarket owner by day and a writer by night. She rarelysleeps. Rachael received The Call from Angela James telling her Carina wantedto publish her book on April Fools Day and, when she told her friends, half ofthem wondered if it was a big joke. Luckily it wasn’t. As an active member ofRomance Writers of Australia, Rachael has finaled and placed in a numberof romance writing contests. Each success is uplifting and publication is her dream but evenif none of this happened, she’d still write. It’s a much better option thanironing, which she refuses to partake in. Ever.

The Magic Moment

2011-12-15T21:12:00.001+13:00

It's a magic moment really. The moment when the manuscript you wrote with such excitement, the characters you thought were so fabulous, the conflict you just knew was SO different, the story you lovingly crafted into a work of art, suddenly turns to crap in the space of a second.

Something silly might have triggered it off. A sudden doubt about the reaction of your heroine. Or maybe the feeling that your hero's Big Secret is too big secrety. Or even the fact that you've never really got that ending parargraph just the way you like it. But whatever it is, something somewhere has abruptly rendered your story into a heap of steaming ordure.

If you think I'm going to tell you wonderful things about how to overcome that moment then you're sadly mistaken. I just wanted to complain about it. Mainly because my lovely chess ms, that I loved when I wrote my black moment, suddenly became The Worst Story in the History of the World. I don't know why. I suddenly thought that my hero was too dark. Too much of a b*stard. Too unsympathetic. There wasn't enough glamour in it to make it Presents. My heroine's conflict was waaaaay too light and unexplored, and she was also too shouty. The plot just dumb.

The crazy thing is that this all this could be true. I just don't know. All I know is that there came a moment where I fell out of love with it and wanted to rewrite the whole damn thing.

But I guess that's the moment where you either stop working on it and send it off. Or you put it away. Either action determines the worth of the story. Sending it away magically makes the story even worse than you thought it was. Putting it in the drawer somehow makes it fabulous again. Because when you take that story out and read it again after a week or four, it's amazing how amazing it turns out to be. And you wonder how you ever doubted it.

Then you send it off and it magically becomes crap again.

Writers are magicians.

So do you work your magic on your mss too? Or is it just me?

Checkmate

2011-12-09T16:06:00.001+13:00

Yep, my chess player has finally been checkmated. Thank God. Here's a snapshot of some ms stats:

*Number of times entire ms rewritten - 3
*Number of times beginning rewritten - 6
*Size of 'deleted scenes' folder - 227k
*Number of times hero/heroine conflict changed - 3
*Number of times I wanted to kill hero/heroine - 20
*Number of tantrums pulled while writing - 50
*Number of times I wanted to give up in disgust - 100
*Number of times I DID give up in disgust - 100
*Number of times cried while writing - 5
*Number of working versions of present ms - 8
*Number of titles decided on - 0

So there we go. That's my chess player in a nutshell.

I know, some people are probably going to think I'm out of my tree for writing a chess playing hero. Probably some editors are going to think I'm out of my tree too. Perhaps I am. But one thing's for sure, I've learned a hell of a lot writing this monster, about conflict, about pacing, about tension, about character. And most especially, I've learned to be able to tell when I'm holding my characters back and not letting them do what they want to do.

Who knows if anyone bar the CPs will ever get to read it? I hope it gets somewhere. If not in print, then on screen. I really do. But at this point in time, I'm simply not able to assess anything about this story.

I don't know if it's good. I don't know if it's bad. I know I like it. I know I like my cold bastard hero and my stroppy, explosive heroine.

Perhaps at the moment that's enough.

When Your Hero is a Complete *$%#&#

2011-12-05T17:16:00.001+13:00

Okay, I'm admitting this up front - I love a good b*stard. I really, really do. I like reading about them and I loooove writing them. There's is something very satisfying about a sexy, arrogant SOB who gets his comeuppance at the hands of the heroine. The powerful, autocratic alpha male brought down by some cool chick who becomes his Achilles heel.
For me nothing beats the thrill of reading when the hero does something particularly b*stardy and you're going 'no way! Did he really say/do that???' And you're shocked because wow, what a b*stard, but secretly you're kind of thrilled because you never thought he'd go that far and yet he does.

Maybe you don't find that thrilling but I do. And I admire an author who manages to pull off the b*stard and yet make him believable and sympathetic. I think it's a very fine line and probably depends a lot on the reader. One woman's hot button is another's 'whatever'.

Anyway, I'm writing this post because of my chess player. He is, to be blunt, a b*stard. And he's a b*stard to write as well because his character is very black and white (imagery!), not to mention screwed up. He does things where I have that 'I can't believe you just did that' moment. And for the past few iterations of this ms, I have been trying to pull back on him because...well...I'm afraid. I don't want him to go there because it's not 'heroic' or sympathetic. And yet every time I stop him the ms goes haywire because he's not acting in character.

So eventually I decided to let him have his head and it's made for a very interesting ms. Especially the end, where I broke him down totally and I finally figured out why he acts the way he does. And that, I have to say, was another 'I can't believe you did that'! moment. Yes, the b*stard was holding out on me and only revealed his true infamy in the last chapter and it's something that I need to consider whether to pull back or let be. I'm hoping I can pull it off. Only time will tell.

But the interesting thing has been figuring out how I can pull off a good b*stard without making him too unsympathetic and here are a few things that I reckon you need to make your b*stard hero work (as always, take with a grain of salt because, y'know, unpublished etc).

1. Motivation - you MUST have good motivation for him to do the things he does. Just because he's angry and he's an alpha doesn't work. Because deep down he's a decent guy - he has to be, he's the hero. So there has to be a very good reason for why he doesn't act like a decent guy at times. We may not like what he does, but if we understand it,we're more likely to forgive him.

2. Show some humanity - you need a save the cat moment. A moment where the reader can see his innate decency. It can be something he says or, more often, something he does. I'm particularly a fan of something nice he does for the heroine.

3. The heroine must be his equal - now, I'm not saying she needs to be a b*tch to his b*stard. She may actually be a quiet kind of heroine. I think this depends on what he needs as a character. Does he need someone to stand up to him? Or does he really need someone who forces him to be gentle? What can she teach him? I quite like the heroine who doesn't get stroppy when he's being an a-hole but kind of calms him like a horse-whisperer calming a wild stallion. Hehe. However you do it, she needs to be strong enough not to take his crap.

4. At some point he has to recogrnise his b*stardy - nothing is more annoying that a hero who behaves like an ass and gets away with it. Here is where you need your heroine to call him on it. Maybe not immediately because b*stards take time to wear down after all, but at some point he HAS to recognise when he's being an ass. And an apology is always nice.

5. Break him - this is the part I find most satisfying. The heroine must break him down, strip away the b*stard mask he's hiding behind, and find the true hero he is underneath. Maisey Yates has done a fabulous post on black moments so go read it because what she says is so true. You cannot hold back when breaking these kind of heroes. The b*stard hero will hold on to his b*stardy till the bitter end. And that's mainly because it's the b*stards that have the deepest conflict. The most terrible of wounds. He'll hold onto his secrets extremely hard because he's SO terrified of confronting them.

6. Give us an ending where he's finally the hero he was always meant to be - mainly so we can see these guys have embraced the fact that they're actually decent men and can now act like it.

So that's my beginners guide to writing a b*stard. Anyone else got any great b*stard tips??

Jackie Lays the Blame

2011-11-30T15:10:00.001+13:00

So there I was, nursing my disappointments, holding on to them really tightly. And feeling tired and burned out and like it was all too hard. And I was doing really well, had my 'giving up' speech all prepared, the towel fully ready to be thrown in.

And then some wretched people decided to write me some lovely messages. Write some lovely supportive comments on this sorry excuse for a blog. Encouraging, horribly motivating messages. So imagine my surprise when I found myself deleting my 'giving up speech'. Picking up my towel. And more than, that, sitting down at my useless computer (it is useless, believe me, I hate the damn thing) and finishing the stupid story I've been slaving over for weeks.

You're all to blame. It's completely your fault. I would have given up. Truly.
But I'm afraid you guys talked me out of it.

So if you're sick of my moanings, my general carrying on about the vile hardships of being an unpublished writer searching for that lucky ten percent, my complaints about my characters, my tearings of hair and sackcloth and ashes when I get a rejection, then that's too bad. You've got only yourselves to blame.

And when - if! - I ever get that magic Call, you can fully blame yourselves for that too. God knows I will. Because you guys are pretty much the only reason I'm still here.

Well, okay, perhaps not that only reason. :-) I quite like writing too. And that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to keep writing because I love it. Because, basically, no matter what I decide, even when I'm languishing on the couch vowing and declaring that I'll Never Write Again, my brain decides to churn out another couple of story ideas. And if those couple of stories happen to turn up on editors desks then hey, nothing to do with me. I'm only writing because I like writing. Nothing to do with being published. Nothing at all. (okay, so it's a nice idea but I fear the execution may be harder than it looks).

Anyway, that's me. I'll be writing though perhaps not subbing. Still unpublished. But still here.

The Ten Percent

2011-11-22T08:04:00.001+13:00

This was meant to be a fabulous motivational post for but since this week has been disappointing writing-wise, I've kind of lost any motivational type attitude. Not that I had much to start with.

This year has been a hell of a year. Lots of very, very hard stuff to deal with. Lots of hard work put in. Don't get me wrong, I've learned a lot and the few successes I've had have been wonderful. But the sad fact is that there aren't enough successes to balance out all the crap.

It all comes down to that ten percent. If getting published is 30% talent, 30% hard work, 30% persistence, then that last 10% is luck. And you might have all the above but if you don't strike that last 10% you may as well not bother. Now, I don't think I'm a bad writer. I have some lovely contest successes as testament to the fact that people like what I write. And also lovely comments on the chapters I've written for New Voices. I know people would like to read what I write. This year I've also put in a lot of hard work to make my stories better. Learning craft has been difficult for me, applying it even harder. But I think I've made progress. And I've been pretty persistent. I've written over 10 books in the past couple of years - some twice!

But no one will get to read them if you don't get the 10%. Luck. The right editor, the right story, the right time. Some people hit it straight away. Some people don't. Guess which group I fit into? I don't set out to write bad stories. Every time I write a story I'm wanting to blow someone's socks off. But sadly, for me, the socks have stayed firmly on. I just haven't hit that 10% yet. And the sad truth of the matter is this: I may NEVER hit it. Because that's the beauty of luck.

At the moment, I feel like I'm going into a casino and playing the slots. I have had a few wins to keep me going - small returns to give the illusion you're succeeding - but no jackpot. Sometimes I don't get any in a row. Sometimes three. Once, I had four. Yet I keep missing out. And I'm getting to the bottom of the change in my cup. I could go get some more of course, but my bank account is on zero. I'm a gambling addict, betting what little confidence I have in my writing on a change in luck that may never happen.

Okay, so it might change. You never know. You might give up right before it happens for you! Well, I can safely say that is not the case now. It will not be happening for me in the near future. So I could actually give up now, safe in the knowledge that for the next year at least, I wouldn't have missed out on anything.

And you know what? I just don't know if I can do another year. My change cup is empty and so is my bank account. I've written books I was so confident in I was all but writing out my sale story, only to end in rejection. I've written books that I thought would never get anywhere that have won contests. So now I can't tell what's good anymore and what isn't. My instinct has gone. The vacuum of being unpublished has sucked it all away.

I've always been an emotional girl. Up and down, that's me. Writing just makes the downs more intense because I actually care too much about this thing. And as for the ups...well, there haven't been many. I wish I could detach myself. I wish I had a hard skin and could shrug off the downs. Maybe if I'd built up to it I would have. But I started off really well so that when the downs came, my skin wasn't thick enough to cope. Still isn't.

Anyway, this is a long-winded way of saying that at the end of the year, I'm going to have to sit down and reconsider whether I want to continue doing this. True, I haven't been doing this as long as many and if you've been doing this for years, I salute you.You are incredible people and I wish I had your staying power. But I'm not sure I do. I'm not sure I can keep gambling on the ten percent.

I was so hoping that my journey would end happily. That I would have a sale story to tell. But life doesn't happen that way. No matter how much we want something, no matter how much we think we deserve it, it doesn't mean we'll get it. Sometimes - unfortunately - there is no HEA.

In Which Jackie Waves a Big Stick

2011-11-16T13:58:00.001+13:00

It's always the way. You come back from holiday and life kind of descends on you like the 1000 tonne ACME weight descends on the coyote from Roadrunner. Actually, I shouldn't complain (though I am, obviously), because spending four days down in Queenstown, in a beautiful hotel, isn't something to complain about. It's just the coming back that sucks. Especially when motivation to write is thin on the ground.

It's not that I'm not liking my story. I am. I'm loving writing it. I'm just having a 'what's the freaking point?' moment. The moment all unpublished authors get when there is no prospect of your story being accepted today, or tommorrow, or even at any point in the near future. When, in all probability, it will be rejected just like all the rest of your submissions. When no one cares if you finish it or not because you have no deadlines. No slavering readers desperate for your next title. You have no one except your CPs (if you have CPS) and though you love them dearly some days even they are not enough.

Depressing.

So, any of you having the same problem as me? Are you feeling like there's no point finishing your story? Because if you are, if you need some motivation, if you need Jackie to wave a big stick and tell you to get off your butt and finish the damn book, let me know. Give me a deadline. And I'll write a blog post expressly designed to make you get those words down.

Why? Because I care. Because I want you to finish your book. I want you to edit it. I want you to submit it. Because after all, I am you. And if you don't, why the hell should I? :-)

The Joy of Rewrites

2011-11-08T14:14:00.000+13:00

It should come as no surprise to any of you that my approach to writing is rather emotional (I approach the rest of life rather emotionally as well, not just writing but that's an entirely different story).
So when something is wrong with a story, EVERYTHING else is wrong too. The kids are a nuisance, the husband is a git, the house is a tip. Life itself becomes one giant pain.
But, on the other side of the coin, when the story is going right, EVERYTHING else is just fabulous. The kids are well behaved, the husband is a doll, the house is spotless. Nothing is a problem.

Anyway, as you can imagine from my last couple of posts, I have encompassed the full emotional spectrum due to my wretched stories and I'm sure my family would now like to lock me away if only for a bit of peace and quiet.

However, I'm sure they'll be relieved to know that - for the moment - I'm okay. Because I've just spent the entire weekend rewriting the beginning of the story that gave me such a wonderful 'aha' moment about the heroine. I knew it needed to be done because although the beginning I had was okay - my CPs liked it - I still felt funny about it. Couldn't put my finger on why. Couldn't really even articulate the specific problem. Perhaps there was too much setup. Too much going on. Too busy. Whatever it was, I just had a funny feeling about it (cue the 'I hate the rest of my life too' moans).

Now, when it comes to rewriting, there are two schools of thought (or possibly more but I can't think of any others right now). You either don't need to rewrite as much as you think. Or you should rewrite entirely. Although the former can be very attractive after you've spent months crafting the perfect ms, the latter, for me at least, can be exactly what you need.

Maisey Yates gave me the best advice - rewriting entirely can help you break out of the cage you've written yourself into. It's hard but it feels like you're starting over and that can give you a lot of freedom. It was certainly the best thing for this particular ms. I rewrote chapters 2 and 3 completely. Different things happened. They didn't go out, they stayed in. The kiss I had happening at the end of chapter 3 didn't occur. It was like writing a whole new reality for them. But the best thing was allowing myself the freedom to let the characters be who they were, not me trying to impose what I thought they should do on them (which, I figure, was the problem with the original iteration) or what was good for the plot I had planned.

Anyway, the sum total of this is that now, having rewritten, I no longer have that funny feeling about the beginning. It's not perfect and it may not be at all what the editors want. But it feels more true to the characters than the earlier one. In fact, it's a beginning I'm not sure I could rewrite again since what I've already got is IT.

In Chez Ashenden, all is now right with the world. At least until I run into the next story problem. :-)

So, when you run into a writing problem, what do you do? Pull your hair? Scream at the kids? Throw the computer through the window? Or rewrite?

Crash

2011-11-04T08:24:00.002+13:00

It was inevitable. What goes up must, at some stage, go down. Yeah, the drug that was the character high has now worn off. Big time. Everything is as it was - crap. Oh, not entire crap because I still have had that great character revelation and I still feel good about it. I just need to rewrite the rest of the story. Completely.

So. Awesome.

I guess that's the 'wonderful' thing about writing. One minute you cannot believe the power of your fantastic brain. The next you cannot believe the power of your own ability to convince yourself anything you write is actually good.

And it doesn't help that - for the unpublisheds among us - we are essentially writing in a vacuum. Oh, we have critique partners and other people to read our work and give feedback but once we send that baby away, we're looking at months and months of waiting without any clue about whether we headed down the right track or whether once again, we've been gullible about what we've been writing.

We have no reason to keep going in other words. No reason to keep writing. Certainly no reason to keep rewriting. With no deadlines, no rabid fans clamouring to read your next book, nothing to keep you motivated, it's extremely hard to think of reasons why you should even finish the book you're currently writing (cos no one will EVER read it right??).

Sometimes loving writing just isn't enough.

So how do you keep yourself going when you're in the vacuum? When you're doing nothing but waiting? When you're not sure if the stories you're writing are complete crap or genius? How do you keep the faith?
Any tips gratefully received!

Epic Moments - The Joys of Pantsing

2011-11-01T09:49:00.001+13:00

Do you ever have moments when the scene you're writing suddenly becomes epic? When you know absolutely that THIS scene is a pivotal moment in your book? A scene that totally makes the rest of the story? A scene that is so powerful that you just know you're gonna have to rewrite the rest of the book because you didn't really understand the conflict of either character until that point?

Well, I had a moment like that over the weekend. There I was, writing a love scene, and it suddenly began to evolve in a way I hadn't really considered before. An incredibly powerful way. It became a scene where conflict, character and romance all met and melded together perfectly. Where the love scene and the way it happened became so absolutely pivotal that if you took it out of the story, if had happened in another way, there would be no HEA (yeah, I know, ALL love scenes are supposed to do that but we won't go there). I don't think I've ever written a scene quite like it. And you know what? When I was writing it I thought 'man, this scene could sell the book'.

Now some of the plotters among you may be thinking, 'Jackie, seriously? You did not not see this coming??' And the answer to that is no, I did not. I guess it's a pantser thing. I mean, I knew the characters conflict before I started but I did not know the details and I did not know 'how' the characters would help each other resolve it. It's like breeding two distinct species of animal then putting them in a cage together and standing back to see what happens.

Anyway, I gotta tell you, it's a rush. It's the kind of moment I live for when I write, and I haven't had too many of those lately. Especially good seeing as how the rest of the story has been a b*tch to write. It kind of made all the crap I was writing beforehand all worthwhile just to get to this particular scene. I may not sell the book of course but if not, it still would have been worth the experience of writing it just for this scene alone. Because if I can do it once, I can do it again.

So, does this ever happen to you? Have you written scenes you can't believe you actually wrote? Or had a scene turn out so differently from what you expected that you're left sitting dumbstruck by the awesome brilliance of your own brain?? :-)

Nothing to Say So Here's a Picture of a Man Instead

2011-10-28T13:02:00.003+13:00

Iam feeling generally unenthused about everything at the moment, most especially writing. Oh, don't get me wrong, I always write. Every day, mostly. But the writing has become a bit of a battle lately and nothing's going right.

So to save you all from a fantastic vent, I am posting a nice pic of a nice man instead. I've posted him before but I think he's worth a second glance. He is my inspiration for my chessplayer hero, which I am now in the process of rewriting from Riva to Presents. And considering how much easier it is to write as a Presents, it probably means I've been aiming this story at the wrong line.

Bah.

A Post About Rugby (No, Really)

2011-10-25T08:23:00.007+13:00

If you had told me two weeks ago I would be writing a blog post about rugby I would have told you you were mad. I am not a ruby fan. I never watch it. I know the ball is oval, that you need to score a try to earn points and that you can earn more points by kicking a goal. I know that the big huddle of men on the field is called a scrum. But that's it. Up until yesterday, I didn't even know that the first five eight is a position, not the first man who's over 5'8. :-)

This is unheard of for a NZ'er. Especially during the World Cup. What world cup you ask? Well, the Rugby World Cup. It's kind of a big deal here because we've been hosting it (no, not me personally though I could use the $100 million or so revenue that's apparently been generated). Plus the fact that we are a really tiny country and rugby is just about the only team sport we can compete on the world stage and stand a good chance of actually winning. Which we did on Sunday night.

Now, as I said, I never watch rugby but it was difficult to get away from the final game since we were in it and we were supposed to walk all over poor, old France. In actual fact, France nearly walked all over us. I could not watch the game. Jackie, who actively dislikes rugby, could not watch it because I was too damn nervous. In fact, it was ridiculous how invested I was in this game. I played computer games while trying to ignore the howls from the living room, my little heart leaping every time there was a cheer.

What's this got to do with writing? Hang on, I'm getting there. Anyway, we finally won. By one point. And I was watching the commentary afterwards and hearing what they were saying and thinking, wow, this game is a little like writing for publication. The same nervousness (as you wait on a submission), the same grim determination to hang on when everything looks like another big rejection, the same sense of helplessness when the other team score....
And then the commentary started talking about this one, particular All Black. Two weeks earlier, Stephen Donald had been watching the cup on TV, having a beer and doing a spot of whitebaiting (fish, if you don't know what whitebait are). He wasn't in the Cup squad and had been told pretty firmly he wouldn't be either. And yet two weeks before the big final, due to injuries concerning other players, he got a couple of calls on his mobile - which he didn't answer because he was too busy with his whitebait. Eventually when he did, the news was that he had been called up onto the squad. Then on the night, after more injuries, and he was called onto the field. Then he kicked the goal that earned us the Cup. From zero to hero in two weeks.

The commentary afterwards talked a lot about Stephen Donald. About how, when you think it's all over, when the country has forgotten you, opportunities can come along and you can suddenly find yourself right in the middle of it again. That these opportunities come when you least expect them to. Apparently sport is full of these moments, but, from what I hear from other writers, writing is like this too. That right when you least expect it, when you've got your hundredth rejection, something comes round the corner that you never thought would happen.

I hope that's the case. Because right now, I'm feeling a little like Stephen Donald. I'm sitting on my couch with my beer (no whitebait though cos I hate fish. Okay and replace the beer with a martini, cos I don't like that either!). I'm watching the Cup on telly and cheering everyone else on, wishing I was there too and wondering if I've missed my chance. I hope not cos unlike Stephen Donald, I have been training really, really hard. And one thing's for certain - if the call ever comes, I won't be too busy fishing to answer it. :-)

Calm the $%* Down - Tips for the Over-Optimistic Writer

2011-10-20T08:50:00.008+13:00

I am an optimist. No, really, I am. "But you run your subs down ALL the time!'' I hear my CPs shout. It's true, I do that. But that's just a cunning front. Because deep inside, I am an honest to God, genuine, over-the-top optimist. And not in a 'I think my sub isn't too bad and perhaps I might get a request for more this time' way. In a 'OMG, what if the editor loves this SO MUCH she calls me before she's even finished the first page and offers me a million dollar contract right there and then???' way.

It's giant pain in the butt. Every single time I send out a sub or enter a contest, this little piping voice is going "Hey hey hey! What if...???" And no matter how I try to ignore it, some part of me is nodding and thinking, 'yeah...wouldn't that be awesome?' So when I actually get the 'This submission is so bad, my dog could write it better than you'* letter it is GUTTING. Because although I tell myself it's fine, deep down I'm envisaging movie rights and Angelina Jolie in the title role. It sucks and so I have to stomp on this little voice because all the things its telling me are Never. Going. To. Happen.

However, the problem with this is that then you start sounding negative about everything due to the fact that you're constantly talking yourself down. And you don't really want to be doing that either. So what can you do about it? How to deal with the disappointment?

Well, I have taken the liberty of compiling a little list (warning, use at your own risk):

1. Knock your head repeatedly against a wall until a) the voice shuts up or b) you knock yourself unconscious.
2. Compromise. If it will stop telling you the editors are SO going to ring you at 3am to tell you how much they love it and are going to publish it RIGHT NOW, then you'll stop trying to tell it that in fact the editors will be sending YOU a request letter requesting that you never submit to them again.
3. Let it have its fun. Listen to its siren songs. Then go off and have as martinis as you need to forget you ever listened to it in the first place.
4. Stick your fingers in your ears, sing 'lalalala' loudly until you can't hear it anymore.
5. Book yourself into a nice little hospital for a nice little 'rest'.
6. Give into it. Believe everything it says. Then write rejection letters to publishers rejecting their rejections.
7. Pack it up in a box labelled 'Satan', push it to the back of your mind, and get lost in writing your next book.

Okay, so is this sounding as mad as I think it does? Or does anyone else out there have OTT Optimists that need settling down too?

*Not an actual quote from an actual rejection in case you were wondering.

The Dog Ate My Blog Post

2011-10-17T16:22:00.004+13:00

Because school holidays have ruined my career as a wanna-be romance novelist, not to mention keeping this blog up to date, I'm taking the easy way out post-wise and directing your attention to the Sisters' site where I have a post about emotion up there. It's one I was going to do for here but since I forgot it was my turn to do a post and considering that dogs can't really eat blog posts (I don't have a dog anyway), I had no excuse but to sacrifice it to my Sisters. It's on emotion in conflict and also has a totally gratuitous picture of Magnum PI.

If that doesn't float your boat and music is more your bag, then go here where, for your veiwing pleasure the lovely Maisey Yates covers an Adele song. She can write, she can sing...Is there anything this woman can't do?? :-)

A Budgie Called Doris - The Perils of Backstory

2011-10-10T09:54:00.003+13:00

I am consistently amazed by how little backstory you need in a first chapter. I know! Who'd have thunk it? But it's true. The reader does not need to know as much you think they do.

The reason I'm concerned with backstory is that I've been wrestling with the beginning of this chess ms and as I was reading over the last few iterations, I realised something. I've fallen into the old backstory trap too. As in detailing EVERYTHING that has led up to the moment my hero and heroine meet. Oh, I tried to kind of feed it in all subtle-like but there were still paragraphs of explanation. Paragraphs, people! And fundamentally none of those paragraphs needed to be there.

As a friend of mine shared with me last week, a bit of advice she had from somone else - you need to start the story when the water boils. You do not need to start with the heroine choosing the pot. Deciding whether to use hot or cold water. Finding the right top for the pot. Turning on the element. Putting it on the stove. Setting the timer....etc, etc. Get the idea?

It's very tempting to put everything in that first chapter. Because you know all about your characters and they're so interesting, you want the reader to be interested too. Plus you think it's vital that the reader knows the set-up otherwise how will they understand what's going on? Actually, readers (and I say this completely as a reader) are very forgiving with setup. If the story grips them immediately, they're not going to worry about why the bad guy is chasing the hero. Or why the heroine's company is going down the tubes. They'll trust you to explain it eventually. All they need to know is that the bad is chasing the hero and that the heroine's company is going down. What they want to know is what does the hero/heroine do about it? At least, that's what I want to know.

Say, for example, you have a hero whose major conflict is that he had a budgie called Doris who died in a tragic birdbath accident because he left her cage open once when he was a boy. He never got over it and now he refuses to love anything for fear of losing them and also has a terrible fear of water. Now, say your opening chapter starts with his goal of wanting to buy the heroine's bird sanctuary. But she doesn't want to sell for reasons of her own. Now, you could start this with the hero talking to a colleague about how he's tried to buy up all the bird sanctuaries in the area but hasn't managed to land this one. Or you could start it with the hero musing moodily out the window about how this tricky heroine has manage to elude him yet again. Or you could start it with him looking in the mirror and reflecting on how handsome everyone tells him he is but he doesn't think so but he kind of likes the way the light shines on the artfully messy spikes of his blue-black hair ( do NOT do this one btw).
Or you could start it with the hero having to row a boat over a lake to get to the heroine's house so he can talk to her in person.
Hint: three of these starts are detailing putting the pot on to boil. One of them is the pot boiling.
In the fourth, in one fell swoop, you have the hero trying to overcome a fear (conflict) to get the sanctuary (goal) because he's a perfectionist and he has all the sanctuaries in the area and this is the last one on his list (motivation). You don't need to go into the reasons why this is. All the reader needs to know is the above. Of course they'll be thinking 'why is he rowing?' 'Why can't he just call her?' 'Why does this matter to him?' But that's all stuff that will become clear in the story as you go on.

Anyway, that's probably a very bad example, but I reckon a good excercise to do is to take out ALL the backstory in your first chapter, then read it as if you don't know these characters or their story. Then put back only what you need in order to make sense of it. Nothing else. The rest you can feed in as and when you need it later.

Easy eh?

*Jackie rubs hands as another writing problem is easily solved* * contemplates rejections*
*gives up and tries macrame instead*

That Ole Emotional Connection Type Thing Again

2011-10-04T09:11:00.008+13:00

When I was a baby author, I really liked my characters to fight ALL THE TIME. Why? Because I liked the angst and conflict and the torment and the anguish. It was awesome, plus I got to write hot, angsty love scenes which is always a bonus. Unfortunately there was also a problem with this approach. Like, where is the freaking romance here???

Angry, fighty scenes are all yummy and angsty and delicious but if there's too many of them, you start to wonder why these two people are together if they hate each other so much and/or you just know their HEA is going to last all of five seconds. That, people, is not a romance. That is a soap opera.

Now, I'm not dissing soap operas here but if you want to write a good romance, you can't have fights and angst all the time. You have to have some moments where the characters love being together. When they make that all important emotional connection that tells the reader that these two are made for each other and when they sort out their issues, they will be together forever. And not in a 'eat every meal in total silence cos they can't think of anything to say to each other' kind of way, but a 'still having lots of nookie way into their 80s' kind of way. :-)

Anyway, the reason I've been thinking about this is because I've hauled out my chess ms with the idea of submitting in a contest and am wrestling with the beginning of it. I've rewritten the first three chapters of this wretched thing 50 million times already and it still isn't right. Why? Because it's a one night stand story and I just have NOT been able to nail down the emotional connection. When you find yourself writing paragraphs of justification and reasons for the heroine to sleep with the hero, you know something isn't going right. In fact, I figured that if couldn't write down her motivation in one sentence then I needed to stop writing until I could!

Now, I reckon emotional ONS stories are very difficult to get right. It's easy to get them to have the sex but to get two complete strangers to connect on an emotional level? Nup. Because what has to happen, in order to get that emotional connection going, is that both your characters have to drop - at least momentarily - their armour and be who they truly are with each other. You know that Michael Hauge thing about essence and identity? That essentially characters hide who they truly are behind a mask? What I mean is that in order for them to connect, each of them has to drop that mask. But because a ONS happens usually at the beginning of the book, it's actually very difficult for them to do that because as far they're concerned, they don't wear a mask. Their identity IS their true self (and I'm not talking dropping it all the way, I'm talking glimpses here. Flashes that intrigue and fascinate the other character enough that their emotions are engaged). Grrrr!

The other thing you have to get right in order to get that emotional connection is motivation. There is debate about whether guys need less motivation - it probably depends on the hero - but like it or not, the heroine has to have it (I know, I know, double standards). And it has to stem from something emotional, something to do with her conflict, because otherwise it'll end up being 'woohoo, sex!' which isn't bad if you're writing for Blaze. But it is if you're writing for some of the other categories (and hey, I know, I've got the Rs to prove it).

The reason this particular story has been difficult is partly because of the type of people my hero and heroine are, and partly because earlier, I didn't actually know them well enough. I knew their identities, but not the people they were inside. And without knowing that, I couldn't get them to connect on a deeper level. It was a bit like I'd taken two random strangers, put them in a room together and told them that they were hot for each other and could they make love now please. So not happening in other words.
It didn't help that my hero is not wanting sex at this particular time in his life and he's also EXTREMELY guarded so getting him to drop his mask for a bit (not to mention his trousers) was very, very difficult. Weird, I know. I eventually had to change the setup so he met the heroine at a moment in his life where those guards were perhaps lower than they would be normally. And then, because he wasn't into casual sex at that particular moment, I had to figure out what it was about the heroine in particular that affected him because mere sexual attraction was not enough for him (yes, he's a pain in the butt). But in order to know those things, I had to know him.

All in all, it was a very tricky business and no wonder I had difficulties at the start. Because what I was trying to do was make two people who would walk through boiling lava rather than admit to an emotional connection, have a bloody emotional connection!

But then isn't that what makes writing fun? Making our characters worst nightmares come true in the nicest possible way. :-)

So, what's the hardest thing you've ever made your characters do? And when I mean, 'you made' I mean that they did it themselves because of course you would never, ever, make your characters do anything... :-)

The 'I Hate My Story' Syndrome

2011-09-29T08:04:00.004+13:00

I've got a general theme this week - first my stupid process and now I'm hating my stupid story. First draft blues in other words. I should know by now that at a certain point in the first draft - usually about 3/4s of the way through - I start to doubt everything. And I mean EVERYTHING. The characters, the conflict, the plot. Everything sucks. Sucks in a 'I can't stand this stupid thing, what's the point even writing it?' way.

I don't know why this happens but without fail it happens to every single story.

And I'm at that point now with the WIP. It feels like there's vital bits of conflict still to put in and I'm at 35k already. Vital bits of backstory. Conversations the hero and heroine still haven't had. I'm worried that the character arcs won't be clear enough. Have I put in enough 'romance'. Are the motivations clear. Does my plot actually work....

Basically it just sucks. Inevitably, once I've finished, I read back over it and I realise it's actually not as bad as all that but having to go through this particular doubting process is SUCH a drag. It's at times like this where I wish I was a first-time right kind of writer. Where your first draft, with a once over lightly edit, is pretty much the finished product. But I'm not, I'm a 'spew all your words down first, then edit the crap out of it later' kind of writer. And right now I'm thinking that there's way too much crap to edit out.

Maybe it's just the mood I'm in. Maybe my story really actually does suck bigtime. Maybe I need to bin the whole thing and start again.

So does anyone else have this syndrome? What do you do to keep yourself writing? Any hot tips???

Stupid Process

2011-09-26T08:54:00.005+13:00

Yeah, well, sometimes my process is stupid. Why? Well, I've been doing again what I swore never to do - moving my characters to suit my plot. Gah! It's so insidious. You have a great idea for a scene perhaps mid-way through the book and because you love the idea of this scene so much, you start moving your characters towards it instead of letting it evolve naturally. At least that's what I've been doing. You'd think I know by now that when suddenly all the scenes get very hard to write and I feel like I'm wading through wet cement, it's a sign I'm pushing my characters not the other way round. But no, it's like 'Why is this scene so hard to write? Why aren't they doing what they're told? Why can't I get that lovely, flowy thing going? Argh!' *chucks keyboard across the room*

Sigh.

This is what happens when a die-hard pantser has to plot. Or when an impatient writer is desperate to write the 'good bits'.

I think for a lot of the past year, I've been trying to get back to the way I used to write. Which was having no idea for plot etc, just writing as it comes, finding out what was going to happen when my characters did. Which was fine. Until it came to revising something and then I realised that actually, craft wasn't there just to confuse me and make me feel annoyed. It was there because if you want to work with an editor and possibly get published, you kind of have to know the nuts and bolts of how to put a story together. Certainly you have to if you want to stay published. The problem with learning craft is that it can get in the way of how you write. You're so worried about conflict/character arc/structure etc, etc, that it can act as a barrier and totally kill your spark.

The mss I wrote last year were a case in point. It's like weaving a tapestry that you used to do totally by instinct and now you actually have to look at what you're doing. Make sure you've got enough blue threads, not too many reds, put in a bit of green, but watch out for too much yellow. Oh and not forgetting that you need a little bit of purple because ahead there's a design you want to do that has LOTs of purple in it so you have to put it in now. And because you're worrying so much about all the different threads, before you know it, your lovely weaving is just a paint by numbers job, not a fabulous, organic, creative bit of art.

Anyway, the point of this is that I need to get to a point where I can incorporate the craft I've learned, with my instinct. And that means not pushing your characters forward because you want to write a really good argument/love scene/black moment. Or because you need to get them to this point so you can have this particular scene (you would not believe the problems I had trying to incorporate a strip chess scene in my Chessman ms. It was SO hard. In the end I took it out because I realised my characters were trying to tell me something - they didn't want to play bloody strip chess!). For me I need to be with them in the moment, not think about what more I have to do for their characters arcs or how I'm going to work out their conflict etc etc. If I know my characters well enough, it'll work out. I have to trust my instinct more. Oh and probably stopping being so damn impatient would help too!

So, anyone else learned anything interesting about their process?

FOMO

2011-09-21T09:31:00.003+12:00

Okay, confession time. I have been avoiding New Voices. Yep, totally and completely avoiding it. Why? Weeeeelllll, long story and one I'm not going to share on this blog but it was part of why last year was the Annus Horribilis of my writing career (can I call it a career when I'm not actually being paid for it??). Anyway, the problem with avoiding something this big is that...well....you actually can't avoid it. Especially when you have a bad case of FOMO. Not heard of FOMO? It's Fear Of Missing Out. :-)

So, I've got this FOMO thing going on and there are so many great writers out there who have entered and I am feeling so bad for not going and reading the entries...

I think I probably need to man up and at least go have a look. I'll never be able to read all the entries but I should go and read those of the people I know (sorry guys, I am a BAD friend).

As for entering myself... Well, last year people really liked my chapter and I was beyond thrilled at the feedback. But the sad fact of the matter was that it didn't get anywhere. And I have an inkling as to why after several people let me know - in the nicest possible way - what the problem with it was.

No conflict.

Oh, I had conflict. I had bags of it. But did I put it in that first chapter? No I did not. Neither did I give either character any discernable, obvious goal. They had nothing to fight for, nothing to make what they were doing matter either for them or the reader. And without a goal there is no momentum. The characters are just standing around talking. Sigh. I guess, if nothing else, I can be proud of the fact that even with that dreadful faux pas, everyone STILL really liked it. :-)

It's not a mistake I'll make again. I still don't know whether I'm entering this year or not. I have a chapter I'm working on that is NOTHING like my last year's chapter . But one thing it WILL have is conflict.

So here's my avoidant New Voices advice to you for what it's worth:

Make sure your conflict is there in the first chapter. Give your characters a goal, something to fight for. Make it matter. Make it simple and make it obvious.

Easy, right?

The Rules

2011-09-16T21:18:00.002+12:00

I've got some Rules to follow over at the Sassy's site if you're interested. All about how to include alien motherships in Presents. (not really).

Synopsis Love

2011-09-12T12:27:00.006+12:00

I know, you wondering how that's even possible. Because there is NO FREAKING WAY to love writing a synopsis. And actually, it's not that I love writing synopses (I don't, I hate 'em) or that I'm any good at writing them (Nup, not that either) it's just the past two synopses I've written have been the easiest ever. They weren't even two pages!

So what's my secret? Well, I kind of don't want to say in case it proves that I am wrong, wrong, wrong. And also there really isn't a secret (except some good advice from Maisey Yates). It's a case of learning to let go the details of the story and focus on what is really important - the development of the romance and the character arc. I know, it's hard to figure out what are 'details' and what aren't. If you include this bit, then that means you have to include that and before you know it, you've got one page just on the first chapter! (my hint is if you think it's a detail, it probably is. So leave it out!).

In fact, in many ways, for me it's easier to write a synopsis for a story I haven't written yet. Because that way, there are no details to bog me down, plus it's great for figuring out whether your conflict works or not. Nothing like getting halfway through a synopsis and realising that your characters don't have enough conflict. Or that what you thought was the conflict, isn't what they thought.

But anyway, why were these ones so easy to write? Because I did totally leave out any extraneous details apart from the external conflict that brings them together. The rest is just how broadly the romance develops - their first impressions of each other. How that makes it worse for them. How they find connection. How that connection makes it worse. What they do about that. Why that doesn't work. And then the change they have to make in order to be together (the resolution of the conflict). The turning points of the story, etc, etc.

Now this could all be entirely wrong of course and in fact my synopses are crap! But at this point, taking an hour or two to write one instead of the usual three days, with another two for hair pulling and complaining, is AOK with me.

And just to show you I'm not all about how wonderful my synopses are (not), I am also going to include this little linky thing here (Sonny Bill Williams and his ripped shirt). I am not a rugby fan but since the Rugby World Cup is happening in my neck of the woods (American visitors, please visit this link hehe), I thought it pertinent to gift to the world a small incident that actually made me watch part of a game. I think the person behind the camera must have been a woman...:-)

Distracting Myself From Pressing Send

2011-09-06T14:48:00.005+12:00

It's subbing eve. Soon I will have two stories out there. Soon I'll be back on that big 'ole rollercoaster, viewing my inbox with trepidation, nay with horror. But what's a girl to do?

I had two really great pieces of advice when I confessed my subbing fear at the Auckland chapter group meeting last week. The first from the lovely Nalini Singh (namedrop, namedrop) who suggested getting out all the lovely things people have told me about my writing from contests etc and re-reading them. The second was from the also very lovely Yvonne Lindsay (more namedropping) who asked me whether I thought people deserved to read my stories. And my gut feeling was....hell yes!

Anyway, to distract myself from subbing fear, I am reading a book called One Day by David Nicholls. Not only is it a romance it is also awesome. At least so far - I haven't finished it yet. It charts the relationship of two people over the space of twenty years by concentrating on one day every year. So far the two protagonists are best friends (they start off as lovers) and as friends-to-lovers is my favourite trope in the whole wide world, I am loving it!

In fact, it's the story I wanted to write back when I was still a baby writer. In fact, I did kind of write it. Before I decided to concentrate on publication, the last story I wrote was a friends to lovers story over the space of twenty years. Coincidence? I think not!
However sadly the twist of writing one day every year didn't occur to me. And I suck at literary writing. And although I loved writing it and still adore the characters, there was SO much wrong with it it's not funny. For a start it's over 300k long. Then there's the fact that the heroine had no conflict. The hero did though I didn't explore it. There's also infidelity (hero/heroine), mountain climbing, a threesome (hero), drug taking (hero), lots of cussing, almost rape (heroine), overdoses (heroine plus others), ectopic pregnancy (heroine) and death by pulmonary embolism.

It was awesome.

Perhaps I should get it out, polish it up and send that out too. :-)

When You're Afraid of Your Own Story

2011-09-01T17:27:00.009+12:00

Alrighty, I have now finished the partial requested by Mills and Boon, and also the full I need to send to to Carina. All I need to do is a final polish on both and then a synopses each. Easy.

Well, okay apart from actually writing the synopses.

And the HUGE subbing fear that is currently lurking around in my brain.

Yep, easy all right.

I think this might be a good time to remind myself of the speech Jane Porter gave at the close of the Romance Writers of Australia conference. She was incredibly inspirational and what she said really struck home to me at the time. She spoke about how long it too her to get published and the ups and downs of the industry. Then she then went on to describe a little incident with her son about how he was learning how to play baseball and how his coach was talking to him as he prepared to hit the ball, how the coach was telling him he owned the ball, this one was his, this one had his name written all over it, he could do it. The kid struck out about three times but the coach was constantly telling him how he could do it. How he could hit this one out of the park. And on the third time he did it.
She mentioned this in the context of how wonderful it is to have support when you're doing something hard, but I got something out of it that was a little different. Because it gelled with something else that someone had told me earlier on in the conference - that we are the experts in our stories. No one else knows our stories like we do. No one else knows our characters like we do.

And I thought to myself that yep, I'm that kid. I'm standing there with a bat in my hand. And that ball? That ball is my story and I've been afraid of it. Afraid I'll get it wrong somehow, that my characters will be wrong, that my conflict will be wrong, that my plot will be wrong. And for the past year, I've been kind of taking punts at the balls that keep being thrown at me, but I'm so afraid of them, I don't even try swinging. Because deep down, I'm not sure I can hit them.

I am not owning my stories. They are owning me.

Well, at the end of her speech, Jane spoke about not giving in to despair. That your journey is your own, it's not anyone else's. That all you've got is you - but that's the biggest strength there is.

And I thought 'yeah, she's bloody right'. I need to stop giving in to despair. Stop being afraid of my own stupid stories. Stop letting them own me. Because I am the expert here, not them. I write them, they don't write me. I own them. They're mine. And the more I own them, the greater the chance will be that I'll hit one of them out of the ballpark.

It may not be the ones I've just written. But one day, one of those stories will, literally, have my name written all over it.

So there, inspirational speech/pep talk/coach for the week. Just remind me of it when the time comes to hit send! :-)

RWNZ Conference - The Musical

2011-08-25T16:55:00.007+12:00

Okay, so no, I'm not going to sing (you lucky people!) But after the conference I certainly feel like it. The passing of Sandra Hyatt cast a pall - how could it not? - but I'm sure she won't mind if I pass on some of the good things that came out of the conference. And there were some extremely good things.

1. My pitch to Lucy Gilmour. I'd won the First Impressions Contest #2 and my prize was the pitch. And since she'd already read and judged the first 1k of my story, we didn't really talk about it much. In fact we ended up about me and my writing (poor Lucy)! Anyway, she was lovely and so encouraging that I felt like getting down on my knees and paying homage. :-) Rather OTT I know but she laid to rest a great many fears I had. The end result anyway is that they're extremely excited about my Modern partial and are impatient to see it. Only hope I don't break it the way I broke the Hammer Pants ms.

2. My pitch to Angela James. Who loved it and asked if I had the ms with me. She was just joking of course but she was really keen which makes me really keen too. Now I just have to finish rewriting the end so I can send it to her.

3. Dinner where I got to sit beside the fabulous Natalie Anderson (Hoo took rather a shine to her as you can see), who wore her Adidas tracksuit (theme was the Rugby World Cup) complete with sparkly heels, and who had the best hair. She was wonderful company and made me swear that I would enter my next five - yes, you heard right - manuscripts into NZ's Clendon Award. I promised one. ;-) Anyway, go buy her new book because she's a fab author and lovely lady. Yes, buy it I tell you!

4. Molly O'Keefe. Who liked my hair. And gave one of the best ever workshops on conflict. It was so inspiring she even had a few lightbulbs herself and had to go off to jot them down. :-) Seriously, she was wonderful. A few highlights were having at least three facets to your character's life in your plot, and at least three scenes scenes for every facet. The first establishes it, the second raises the stakes, the third resolves it. She also gave a great run down on hooks and how to tweak them for that all important 'unpredictability factor'. Basically the way to do that is to think about why people love to read, say, a 'secret baby' story. Think about what people expect to have happen, then think about how you can tweak it so that it's different to what people expect.

5. Bob Mayer gave an awesome talk on how to write a great synopsis and also marketing of your book. The possibilities given social media are pretty endless and repetition seems to be key. The main points really are that only you can sell your book. No one else is going to do it for you.

6. Wearing my contest rosettes. In NZ, if you final or place in a contest, you get to wear rosettes and after a few conferences of a sadly bare chest, it was finally my turn. I had two! I had to be careful of their placement. ;-)

7. Collecting my certificates for my contest placings from Lucy Gilmour on the stage. Yeah, I know, but hey, I'm celebrating my successes here, no matter how small.

8. Spending time with the lovely Amanda Wilson and Cody Young.

9. Meeting more fellow writers who are also riding the roller-coaster with me.

10. Going home and finally being able to sleep without a million things scrambling around in my brain!

Anyway, I haven't really done justice to some of these things and that's mainly because when I got home and read through my notes, I realised they were hopeless. It's been a long time since my university days and clearly I suck at note-taking.

I haven't finished up my spiel about the Aussie conference either but since Jane Porter gave the most inspiring closing speech ever, I might save that for a seperate blog post. And besides, I'm pretty damn tired - two conferences back to back, especially when circumstances are tragic, are pretty full on.

Hope everyone else has been doing okay. Thanks also for your lovely comments re my last post on Sandra. It's going to take a while to sink in, let alone get past (not that you ever really do).

Sad News - Sandra Hyatt

2011-08-22T10:16:00.004+12:00

I'm going to continue to my round-up of the RWAus Conference and then pass on some good stuff from the RWNZ conference too but I just wanted to mark the passing of Desire author, Sandra Hyatt.

I didn't know Sandra well but often had great chats to her at our Auckland chapter group meetings. In fact, I did a blog post not two weeks ago about our last meeting, where she talked about essence and identity - a subject that gave me a number of lightbulb moments about my WIP. Afterwards I had a chat to her about Desire and whether or not I should send something there, and she was so lovely and encouraging. Then she confessed that she was almost going to tell me that I was close [to selling] but that she wouldn't because she'd always hated it when people had said it to her. :-) I still remember laughing about that.

But what I've also been thinking about today is how she told us a little bit about the story she was working on. It sounded so different and fresh, and it's just so sad that this story will remain untold, as will all the other stories she had yet to write.

When something sudden like this happens you do kind of evaluate life and where you're heading. You think about your dreams. About what you want to achieve. About what's holding you back.
And I think the main thing that's come out of this for me built on what Jane Porter said at the closing of the RWAus conference a couple of weeks back...

Your stories are yours. No one else can write them for you. No one else can write them like you can. You own them. And if you don't get them down, they will remain untold.

Don't let them remain untold.

Deepest sympathies go out to Sandra's family and friends, and to the rest of the RWNZ

The Awesomeness that was the Romance Writers of Australia Conference - Part 1

2011-08-16T09:38:00.011+12:00

Alrighty... *rolls up sleeves*

So this post is going to be about the best part of the conference (for me at any rate) - the people.

What came across quite clearly at the conference - from a number of different speakers - was what a wonderful bunch of people romance writers are. And I can quite categorically state that this is absolutely true. They are the BEST bunch ever and I couldn't have asked for better company. I want to have the weekend all over again just so I can spend more time with them all.

Anyway, here is a list of conference highlights in no particular order:

1. Seeing one of my CPs, the fabulous Rachel Johns, get her First Sale ribbon. It was especially funny to see her gas-bagging so much she almost forgot she had to go up on stage to get it!
2. Having the gorgeous Becca Heath's company at dinner with Mum and I.
3. Finally meeting the awesome Robyn Thomas AKA Chelsea Finch, one of my Sassy Sisters, face to face instead of via email.
4. Drinking the Moet that my Mum brought duty free in our hotel room with Bec and Rach before the awards dinner.
5. Not falling over on the way up to the stage to collect my High Five award.
6. My one minute of fame when I collected my High Five award.
7. Losing mobile service so I couldn't text my Mum (who was up in the hotel room) just before the High Five award was announced. Then getting it back again just in time for Mum to dash downstairs to the ballroom to see me collect the award!
8. Did I mention collecting my High Five award? ;-)
9. Having the wonderful Helen Lacey (Special Edition) recommend my blog to another author at our table.
10. Having my photo taken with the lovely Presents author Megan Crane (Caitlin Crews). I got quite shy and couldn't think of a word to say other than smile manically!
11. Saying hi to Jane Porter cos Maisey told me to. Cue another performance of me smiling manically cos I was too shy to say anything!
12. Tearing up at Jane's closing speech.
13. Hearing someone ask, at a panel discussion on heroines, whether any of the authors and editors present would do a crack-head heroine. Answer was: All in the execution. Cue a number of manuscripts being sent in that have crack-head heroines.
14. Having photos taken in the vintage photo booth with Robyn.
15.The plane not crashing either on the way to Melbourne or on the way back.
16. Having my amazing mother come with me, share her Moet, meet my writing buddies, see me collect my award, hold my hand on the plane, and just generally be the best roomie a girl could hope for. Love ya, Mum!

But of course, with every wonderful time, there are a few regrets:

1. That there wasn't a free night to go out to dinner with all my fabulous mates.
2. That I didn't ask Jane P or Megan if Hoo could get his photo taken with them.
3. That my other Sassies weren't there to join Robyn and I.
4. That the my fabulous mates don't live just down the road so I can go and talk to them whenever I want.
5. That the NZ conference wasn't quite so close!

Will do another post of the actual sessions I went to and some of the insights gained, but really, it was mostly about the people and I want to do it all over again!

Essence and Identity

2011-08-09T08:08:00.006+12:00

Okay, this is last blog post before Melbourne and the RWAus conference. Really looking forward to it - especially spending actual face-time with some of my awesome online buddies. Plus I get the extra special treat of meeting one of my Sisters! *waves at Robyn just in case she sees this*

But before all that, I need to start contemplating the essence of my hero in the story I am going to pitch Lucy Gilmour. Why? Well, at our most recent chapter group meeting, the very wonderful Sandra Hyatt gave us a talk about the Micheal Hague workshop she did and part of it really resonated with me.

Our characters wear two faces - the face they show to the world, and the face they keep to themselves. The face they show to the world is their identity, the face they keep to themselves is their essence (the people they truly are). Now in the story, the characters should conflict at the level of identity, but they should connect at the level of essence.

I thought that was a very simple way of making sure there is conflict in a story, but also some real romance. Because it's the moments where the two characters connect that show the reader that these two are meant for each other. Of course what it means is that I need to figure out who my characters actually are, as opposed to the face they show to the real world. Tricky. I know the faces they show to the world but working backwards to find their essence is another thing.

Anyone have some handy tips??

BTW, a big shout-out to my chapter-mate Louise George who has recently sold to Medicals!! Awesome, Louise!! Her first book is out in March!

Another Ride on the Rollercoaster

2011-08-04T11:25:00.003+12:00

Yep, the publication rollercoaster has pulled up outside my station and apparently there's a seat there with my name on it. What the hell am I talking about?

Found out yesterday I won the First Impressions Contest #2, a pre-RWNZ conference contest. Was pretty damn pleased, as you can probably guess. The past month has been vile so I was dreading to hear the final placings. The last contest I lucked out, coming fifth, and didn't receive a request which made me sad. To be fair, although the chapter was strong - I STILL think it was - the scenario/conflict it was very, very Presents and probably not different enough to warrant asking for more. My opinion entirely of course.

This other contest though, I didn't want to know where I'd come, certain it was last. But no. As well as coming first, I have also been asked for a partial and synopsis. Plus I get to talk through the idea with Lucy Gilmour at the conference. So big yays for me!! Especially as they really liked a small twist I'd put in with the heroine. She's a little bit different. I wondered if it was too much but no, apparently not. Now I just hope I can pull it off.

But with a big win comes also big fear. Did this last year with the High Five win and TOTALLY ballsed up my partial.

However, my writing is so much better than it was at that point last year. I have learned a hell of a lot and one thing is for sure, I will not be making the same mistakes again. Of course I may make different ones but I guess that's another story...

Anyway, bubbles all round for everyone!

Climbing Mt Ngauruhoe

2011-08-01T08:08:00.007+12:00

Holidays over. Phew. And a new month, which is even better, cos July has been, quite frankly, a stinker.

Yep, you guessed it, moany post alert! I haven't had one for a while so I figure I'm due one.

Keeping going with this writing stuff hasn't got any easier I'm afraid. I've stoppped thinking of climbing Everest. I'm now thinking in terms of Ngauruhoe. This is a mountain in NZ - for all you LOTR fans out there, it's Mt Doom. Which is a very appropriate title.

Why the change? Well, with Everest if you have the right equipment and skill level, and the weather is on your side, you can get to the top. I admit that in my forays up Everest my skill wasn't great, nor my equipment the best. But then you don't know these things until you fall off. The other thing I needed was the weather but somehow or other, the right combination of skill, equipment and weather has never lined up favourably for me. However, the thing about Everest is that I mostly enjoyed climbing it.

But I'm not these days which is why it feels like I'm climbing Ngauruhoe instead. This is a mountain comprised totally of shale. Climbing it is like climbing a massive sand dune. One step up, two steps back. There's no joy in climbing it (at least, when I actually did climb it years ago, I hated every moment of it), because all you do is trudge and keep trudging. What you need to get to the top is dogged determination and the belief you can do it.

And that's what I'm struggling to find. Dogged determination and self belief. One step forward is always accompanied by two steps back. It's dispiriting.Which makes it hard to keep going. What's the point when no matter how hard you climb, you don't get any higher?

So, what do you all do when you're feeling this way? Got any tips for me? God knows I could use 'em! :-)

The Unbearable Lightness of an Old MS

2011-07-25T08:31:00.000+12:00

This week has been a nightmare. School holidays, massive colds for both children, a broken leg that's taking ages to get better, and a husband who also has a cold... Argh. Where's my holiday??

As per usual I want to write and am frustrated by not being able to. Also frustrating are the doubt crows circling my desk. Some days I honestly don't know why I bother to push on. The successes are so few and far between that it seems like a masochist's game to keep at it.

Anyway, in the interests of keeping up some kind of momentum, and after a bracing round of thumping by the CPs (no, not actual thumping but the online equivalent) I have hauled out an old ms to give it a good going over before sending it out to another publisher. The one I thought I'd work on is one that Harlequin really liked and one I completely and utterly stuffed up the revisions for. :-( Hindsight is a bloody awful thing. I haven't looked at this particular ms for a couple of years because it was the 'one that could have been' and that's kind of painful. It's one that I did all kinds of things right but because it all happened completely by accident and not intent, I didn't know what those things were enough to be able to repeat them. In essence, the ms was rejected because my heroine didn't have enough conflict. They thought she was 'lovely' and the hero 'perfect' but conflict for her? Uh huh.

Getting it out and reading it again was bittersweet. Bitter because of all the 'what ifs'. What if I had known what I was doing? What if I'd managed to rewrite it better? What if I'd really understood what the problem was? And sweet because, you know, it's STILL a pretty good story. At least, even two years later and having learned all that I learned, I think it works.

But the problem? Oy! I saw it immediately in the first chapter where I had written 'she just wanted to be accepted for who she was'. Now that right there is the heroine's character arc. And it should be what she realises at the mid-point of the story or even towards the end, not what she understands in the first chapter! Can anyone say too self aware??? And that, in a nutshell, is why she didn't have any conflict. Because where else can she go from there? What more can she learn about herself? If she knew she just wanted to be accepted for who she was, then why didn't she go and do something about it? Why did I make her pretend to be someone else? Characters are supposed to think they're fine at the beginning of the book and part of their journey is figuring out they're not as fine as they think they are. At least, that's what I've been taught about character arc.

Sigh.

I guess the good thing about this is that the rewriting is not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I just have to make her less self aware. I have to make her think she's fine as she is. She doesn't need acceptance, pshaw, what a silly thing to think, etc, etc. Oh yes and need to beef up her actual conflict (because she actually did have some, it just wasn't very clear). And then...then I guess I will have to think about subbing it. Somewhere.

Anyone else hauled out an old piece of writing? Was it as bad as you thought? (c'mon, we ALL think that right?) Or were you pleasantly surprised?

Ask Dr Jax

2011-07-19T12:40:00.004+12:00

This is a very late post. I plead a wedding, a 40th birthday party and a cold all in the space of nearly two weeks. Oh and not forgetting school holidays. Yay. Not.

Anyway, time for the good doctor.

Question: How correct is it to say that one painful event can shape a person's life?

Answer: Like I said in a previous post, it's not really events that shape people so much as the relationships people have with one another. It's true that people do attach importance to certain events but most of the time, it's not really the event in particular that's the problem, though the event can certainly be a catalyst. Generally speaking, if, for example, a man is cheated on by his wife, that won't put him off all women forever even though it is certainly a painful event. But if, say, he had a difficult relationship with his mother - perhaps she cheated on his father - then that could influence how he views women in general. In isolation, events are just events. It's when you look at them in conjunction with the relationships people have in their lives that they take on meaning.

Thank you the good doctor!

And I shall leave you with the golden rule that Dr Jax keeps telling me about having characters that are too self aware.

If you think they're too self aware, then they probably are. :-)

Problems and Other Miscellaneous Announcements

2011-07-12T11:05:00.004+12:00

Quick post to blow my own trumpet about a little pre-conference RWNZ contest which I finalled in! Yay! Entries go off to Lucy Gilmour at M&B for a final placing and when she arrives in NZ in August, I get to have a 10 minute face to face pitch session with her. I'm really thrilled about it but nervous - the ms has a heroine who is a bit different and not sure I'll be able to pull it off. Oh well, can only try eh?

Also Dr Jax is proving hard to pin down to answer my questions. I think he's avoiding me. Mostly due to the fact that I have spent the past two weeks moaning to him about my chess WIP. He definitely does NOT want to hear anything more about my writing, I'm sure of it. He can pretty much tell that if I start hanging around him when he gets home from work, doing things like half-heartedly sweeping the floor or moving crumbs from one side of the bench to the other, then I want to talk about my WIP. I never come out and say it you see, I want him to ask me how it's going. And I do that mostly because I'm a one note record and I know how boring I'm being but I just can't HELP IT! When I have a problem with my WIP, g0ing away and thinking about something else never works. I HAVE solve it first. It's like an itch that HAS to be scratched and I can't concentrate on anything else until I've scratched it. It's kind of tiresome. Part of what makes it tiresome is the fact that I have to talk out my WIP problems. Often he doesn't even need to say anything, I solve it just by telling him what the problem is. But that can make it difficult when he's not around to talk to (and no, talking to the air does not help).

So - what do you guys do when you have WIP problems? Talk it out? Walk it out? Shower endlessly??

PS And speaking of the Chess wip - I have finished it!!! And now it will go in a drawer where it will NEVER be seen again - at least not until I've got up the courage to edit the stupid thing.

Being Different

2011-07-05T08:56:00.004+12:00

Okay so I'm going to say straight up that I have no idea what constitutes 'different'. Actually, no, I do have some idea, but whether my idea squares with an editors idea is something that hasn't been determined yet...

Um, no, that's not quite right either. So far my idea of different has NOT squared yet. In fact, I have been tarred with the cliche brush. Purely my own fault. Note to self: Do not have the hero make the heroine come to work for him unless it's part of his character and NOT just because I wanted them in proximity to each other...

Ahem. So anyway, different. I think a really good example of this is Maisey's latest release. Yes, this is a small plug for my lovely CP (BUYBUYBUYBUY), but it's also because it's got a different hero who has a very contentious (for romance readers) conflict.
For a start, in the The Highest Price To Pay the hero is black. The first Presents/Modern black hero. AND, what's more, he's black on the cover of the UK edition. Considering they hardly ever feature blonde heroes on the covers, having a very obviously black hero on the cover is a fantastic move. Now, he also has a conflict that is very different too. Different in that it's a thorny one, I think, for romance readers. I won't give it away by telling you what it is but it's one that I think is difficult to pull off and yet, IMHO, Maisey manages it.
The story itself is still very Presents - hero is alpha, the settings are glamorous, the heroine is strong and glam too. All the elements that make Presents what it is are there, but with just that little bit of difference.

Being different in category romance - hell, in all romance! - is really hard to pull off in my opinion. But not impossible. The trick is, I think, to not go overboard. Don't make your Presents hero a secret alien in disguise. They may never have had an alien/werewolf/vampire hero in Presents but that doesn't mean they're going to start doing it now! Be different in ways that are a little bit outside the box but not so much that you crush the box entirely. And it MUST be in character. Otherwise it's not going to work.

Anyone read a romance lately that you found different? What was it about it that was different?

BTW, I realise I am late with my Ask Dr Jax post so if you have any conflict questions, let me know!

Every Good Alpha Deserves A Hobby

2011-06-27T09:22:00.007+12:00

A week? Argh, naughty Jackie! My only excuse is that I've been hard at work this week getting in more contest entries. Yep, anything and everything, that's my motto. Gotta be in it to win it etc, etc...

Anyway, it's one of these entries that got me thinking about heroes. Heroes and hobbies to be exact. Hobbies?? Yeah, hobbies. I know, I know, brings to mind stamps and miniature railways and birdwatching (not that there is anything wrong with any of these!) and possibly anoraks. All of which don't seem to be particularly hero orientated. But bear with me.

First let me tell you that there is nothing cuter than a man in the grip of a small enthusiasm. Dear Dr Jax for example. He often has little fancies. Last month it was fish. He investigated EVERYTHING. Tanks, correct water PH, oxygen thingies, the proper food, lights, the works. You would think he was getting some terribly expensive tropical fish but no, it was fresh water guppies. But the kids got to choose a tank ornament each, and now we have a little aquarium in our lounge. Since then he hasn't looked at the fish and soon it'll be something else, but while he was interested there was something so utterly endearing about it that it got me thinking about my heroes and their 'things' (no, not that thing). :-)

A hero with a hobby is a very human hero. A relateable hero. You might have the world's biggest alphole but if he has a passion for teaspoon collecting then somehow, that makes him more sympathetic (or not as the case may be. I guess it depends if you like teaspoons). It also provides a very nice way for the heroine to relate to him. Perhaps she buys him a rare teaspoon for his collection? What a way to show you care! And it can also be a lovely point of similarity - maybe she collects plates?

The plot opportunities for little hobbies can be good too. Perhaps the teaspoon collecting is part of his conflict? He MUST have the best collection in the world because he has to be the best at everything because when he was a kid his father always made him feel second rate. Or perhaps he loves fishing because it makes him feel closer to his dead mother. Or he likes making jewellery because he's actually secretly creative and doing finance deals doesn't satisfy that part of him.

Hobbies can be great ways to set up character as well. What is it about teaspoon collecting that he likes so much? Perhaps he's very neat and has them all ordered and displayed beautifully and then the heroine comes in and messes them all up. Or maybe he's into music and is very techy, and has to have the BEST stereo equipment (come on, everyone knows at least one guy like this, right?), and then the heroine makes a perfectly innocent comment about his stereo which then gets her a rave for HOURS. And she's enchanted by his boyishness. ;-)

Obviously, in giving your hero a hobby, you do have to make it part of his character. I wouldn't give a CEO a stamp collecting hobby just because it was different. The stamp collecting would have to be part of the type of guy he is. Why stamps? Did he collect them as a child? Why does he still collect them as an adult? Etc, etc.

So what's the most interesting hobby for a hero that you've read? I read a Susan Napier years ago where the hero grew roses. It was awesome!

No Holding Back!

2011-06-20T08:26:00.002+12:00

Okay, it's official. Jackie is no longer holding back.

I know, I know, I was supposed to do this months ago. But I only really managed it in one chapter and that was my contest chapter. The rest of my mss, I've been dicking around with but not getting anywhere, questioning every action my characters took, every reaction. I told myself I wasn't going to worry about the little editorial voices in my head but you know what? No prizes for guessing.... Yeah, I've been listening to them.

The CPs have had to give me a slap round the head (Robyn and Maisey do an excellent good cop/bad cop routine) and since then, I've made a momentous decision. Ish.

I can write sassy and flirty, and I do it well. But sassy and flirty do not a story make. You need conflict and character and that's where I am having problems. Because I'm holding myself back. I'm trying to keep the light and flirty, but also have the intensity and angst that I love as well and it's not working for me. I keep injecting inappropriate tension and angst everywhere because that's what I REALLY want to write.

So, I'm giving up the light and flirty. I'm going all out on the angst. The intensity. The strong alphas. But I'm keeping my heroines stroppy. I'm doing Presents/Modern conflict and hero with a Riva heroine. I have no idea whether it'll work or not but already the Chessman - which Maisey had already told me was Presents - is benefitting. My hero (who was more Presents than Riva anyway, as I think Janet commented once) is no longer going to do stuff just to make him more sympathetic. If it's not in his character, then he ain't doing it. Like flirting. He doesn't flirt. He doesn't seduce. He has no light and flirty button. Neither does my heroine. She's hot-headed and stroppy and straight up. So Jackie must stop trying to make her light and flirty too.

And the next time I find myself questioning every action, every reaction, I need to ask myself this question - am I holding back? And if so, why?

Anyone else guilty of holding back??

Seven Random Facts

2011-06-13T09:26:00.006+12:00

The beauteous Rach (newcarinauthorbookoutinDecemberbuyitbuyitBUYIT!!!) has nominated me for a blog award that means I have to reveal seven random facts about myself. Okay, so here goes:

1. I am a romance writer. Yes, shocking and you totally didn't know it right? Unpublished still but not unhopeful.

2. I have hereditary deafness and as I'm getting sick of being the old lady in the corner cupping her ear and saying 'eh?', have decided I need hearing aids. I don't want them. The thought makes me feel 81 not 41 but I think they'll help. AND they have bluetooth which means I can listen to my iPod without needing earbuds and use my mobile handsfree. From there I shall slowly replace body parts until I'm cyborg enough to assimilate the rest of the world. Mwwwaaahahaha!

3. Many, many moons ago when I was young and dumb, I had an argument with Dr Jax and hit him on the arm. Not hard I may add, but it was enough to break my arm. Yep, drama queen, that's me.

4. I may have mentioned this before but it's worth repeating. I got engaged in Prague, on the banks of the river, with a guy playing 'Autumn Leaves' on the saxophone just a couple of park benches away. It was magical. Dr Jax then rang my father to get his permission to marry me. My father was slightly bewildered. :-)

5. My 23rd birthday was celebrated in St Petersburg during the White Nights. Much vodka was consumed.

6. I have never eaten tripe and have no plans to ever do so.

7. When my best friend and I began writing romances at the age of fifteen, our heroes HAD to have titles and the stories HAD to be set in ancestral mansions. I blame watching too much Brideshead Revisited.

And now I have to nominate ten people but since everyone has already been nominated, I'm going to do something different and get anyone who wants to, to put a random fact about yourself in the comments instead!

Ask Dr Jax - Dr Jax Responds Part 3

2011-06-08T08:09:00.006+12:00

Okay people, last Dr Jax post (until next month).

When two people meet, if they are the opposite end of the spectrum to each other, can they ever find a common ground? The situation I am thinking of is the following: If the woman has had major responsibilities in her life, but is now free and just wants to have no-strings attached fun, whereas the man, having lived a hedonistic lifestyle, now has major responsibilities, can there ever be a happy ending?

Dr Jax: Yes, definitely. They would have huge amounts of common ground. The woman knows what it's like to be responsible and the man knows what it's like to be hedonistic. But they've essentially met at the wrong time in their lives. What they need to do to get their happy ending is to synchronize what they want out of life. They are like pendulums swinging to extremes and both out of sync. But if the attraction is strong enough they will stop swinging so wildly and will slowly synchronize, finding a happy equilibrium.
They may also have other interests where they could connect. For example, liking the same authors, the same food, holidaying in the same place, etc, etc.

And this one is from me, because this is a HUGE problem for me. How do we know if our characters are being too self aware?

Dr Jax: A good rule of thumb is if you think they are too self aware, they probably are. :-) Other red flags (though not bad in themselves, they can be indications if taken as a whole that things aren't right): Your character frequently thinks about how events in their past have made them behave. Your character is never surprised by their own actions. Your character doesn't grow. These are the things that from a psychological viewpoint dont't reflect how real people behave. People don't think about events in their past as influencing their current behaviour. People are often surprised by their own actions. And people do change in response to things that happen in their lives.

So how self aware are people about their behaviour generally?

Dr Jax: Dimly at best. Solid research shows that our consciousness runs one to two seconds behind our actions. So we act, then become aware of acting, then we make up justifications for doing so.

Thanks once again for your questions everyone. Will do this again next month!

Ask Dr Jax - Dr Jax Responds Part 2

2011-06-03T12:39:00.008+12:00

The good doctor responds to more questions...

Dr. Jax, do you think we're aware of the events in our past which have shaped us? Or is it more common to simply assume you're all right, and that you're more or less 'normal'?

Dr Jax: Yes, most people think they're okay. However, the things that shape us the most are the relationships we have with other people rather than events. And the most important relationships are the ones we have in the first two years of life - these echo throughout our lives. Yet we have no episodic memory of those years - or if we do, then we usually remember them wrong because episodic memory is unreliable. Of course, we are often aware of events in childhood and we may attach importance to those events but in reality single events shape us much less than relationships do.
Jackie's note: Here is where psychiatry and writing fiction diverges a little - as writers of course, we have to attach some importance to events as these are easily read signposts to the reader of our character's conflict. However, I think given how important relationships are to people, it's a good idea to examine an event that has happened in a character's life and make sure to assess how that event related/changed the relationships the character had with others, not just how the event changed the character themselves. As an example, the character with the abusive father - obviously the first time his father hit him will be a big event that will have an impact (no pun intended!) on him, but it's good to think about how that event affected his relationship not just with his father, but also with his mother (was she there? Did she see it? How did she react to it?) and brothers/sisters etc.

I have a question about my hero. He's a workaholic who can't acknowledge that he's capable of feeling love and believes that he doesn't want or need a permanent relationship--believes he's better off on his own. (loss in his childhood, father had stiff uper lip attitude and wouldn't talk about the loss so hero learnt to supress his emotions). The problem is that, going on this, this character doesn't sound much fun (very work- focussed and buttoned up) But I don't want him to be like that. I want him to be outgoing and full of charm. Is this inconsistent with the above? Would a man who's closed off emotionally (and scared to love) have culitvated an outgoing, charming image? What would his unconscious psycholigical motive be?

Dr Jax: Sounds like you want your hero to be two different types of people! However, you can make his behaviour more consistent. If his father was a stiff upper lip type of guy, then you need to decide whether your hero becomes like his father, or consciously tries to do the opposite. Perhaps he has developed a charming, debonair exterior as part of a decision not to let anything matter too much to him. Emotions are painful so he won't let himself feel too deeply, he just wants to have fun, float along the surface of life etc, etc. Unconsciously this is to protect himself from feeling because feeling equals pain, but consciously he perhaps would be telling himself it's because he doesn't want to be all buttoned up and stiff like his father.
Jackie's note: My chess hero has problem with emotion too. But I've chosen the opposite to charming and debonair. I've made him very serious and logical. No, he's not charming and flirty because he views being charming and flirty as pointless and he doesn't need it to get girls anyway. Consciously he is contemptuous of people who are emotional because it's logic that's important, emotion clouds thinking (he's like Dr Spock without the ears!). Unconsciously he is trying to protect himself from feeling because he is afraid of what happens when he lets himself feel - bad things happen when he gets angry. No, he's not the life of the party but that's part of his character arc - what happens when you give him a heroine who won't let him get away with being all serious and logical, forcing him out of his comfort zone?

So, I have a question. An overriding theme present in every one of my books is self-esteem (and I wonder what that says about me!?!). And all of my characters seem to define themselves through their work (or lost job, in some cases). I wonder how big of a role work plays in other people's lives. Is it common for people's self-esteem to be wrapped up in their job?

Dr Jax: Yes, very common, especially if this is the only part of your life that is going well. If other aspects of your life suck (such as love/social life) then work becomes extremely important to you because it helps you feel better about yourself. It gives you validation from the outside world etc.

So big heaps of thanks to the good Dr J!! Hope that was helpful to people. If there are more questions, I can do one more post so let me know. The doc is happy to answer any more - especially as he loves talking and hates the writing up so this is the perfect balance for him. :-)
If not, I'll run an Ask Dr Jax post next month.

Thanks all for your fabulous questions!

Ask Dr Jax - Dr Jax Responds Part 1

2011-06-02T10:32:00.009+12:00

Got some great questions for Dr Jax - thanks everyone! I'll post some answers today and then some more tomorrow. If any of the responses prompt more questions, feel free to ask. I'll run this until the end of the week.

Have also decided to make the first Monday of each month a regular Ask Dr Jax Q&A. So if you haven't got a question this time, there's always next month.

Righto, before I launch into the answers, here is the usual disclaimer. Dr Jax is a psychiatrist, not a writer or editor, and any advice he gives is based on what would happen to real people in real life situations that may not be suitable for fiction.

Alrighty.... (Dr Jax's answers have been paraphrased)

Question 1: "I'm thinking oppression could break someone...or strengthen them to fight/rise up....does their personality type of other background play a part?

Dr Jax: Yes, background and personality do play a part. If their early experiences have taught them resiliency - ie good attachments to people, even if it was just one person who cared about them - then they would be more likely to deal resiliently to life's tragedies (fight in other words).

Question 2: Firstly, is it credible for a teenage boy to have a goal to be a volunteer doctor in third world countries, due to an unconscious need to prove his self worth following the deaths of his mother and brother in an accident? Secondly, is it credible for that boy, now a man, to leave Africa and his work as a volunteer doctor (and his unconscious quest for self worth) in order to return to the UK to be a father to a child he never knew he had? Or would he stay in Africa? Note: I've paraphrased this.

Dr Jax: Firstly, yes, it's credible for a teenage boy to have this goal - more plausible if he was the oldest brother (I met many people like this in med school!). To answer the second question, you need to consider what kind of person he is. As a kid was he serious? Or did he like to have fun? Was he curious? Or was he a cautious kind of person? What was he like at school? What were his favourite subjects at med school? etc, etc.
Then you need to look at that in conjunction with his past. How does he view fatherhood? Is being a good father important to him? Or does he put the needs of others before his own needs?
Also, consider how working in an under resourced third world country would have changed him. Because it would definitely change him.

Question 3: How do you start helping someone get over a phobia? Spiders for example.

Dr Jax: There are two ways of dealing with phobias. Flooding - which is sticking the person in a room full of tarantulas and keeping them in there until they're no longer scared. This works but is obviously very traumatic and not as effective as the second option. Systematic Desensitisation is the other way. This involves firstly learning deep breathing exercises and relaxation techniques (no mention of spiders at all). Then the 2nd step might be thinking about spiders as you practise your deep breathing. Third step might be talking about spiders- still deep breathing etc. Fourth might be looking at pictures of spiders while deep breathing, etc, etc. This goes on until you are able to look at real spiders and not feel scared. This process might cover a considerable period of time.
People's background and/or personality doesn't make any difference to the treatment.

Question 4: When figuring out conflict, we often use a character's early experiences with people to determine how they view life when the story opens. What I'd like to know is when they have these early experiences, how do people normally react? For example, if a character had an abusive father, would he become abusive himself or would he be more likely to abhor violence?

Dr Jax: People generally react in two ways to early experiences. They either identify with the treatment or they do the opposite. In this instance, your character may subconsciously decide that violence is okay and go on to be an abuser himself. Or he could decide that violence is never the answer and eschew it entirely. Note - when people do the opposite, they almost always do it in an angry way or in a way that makes a statement. For example, your character may tell his father angrily that violence is not the answer or deliberately not fight back as a way of making his point.

Okay, I'll post up Part 2 tomorrow. I have paraphrased people's questions and also Dr Jax's answers (let me know if I've got any of your questions wrong!). Feel free to post if you have any other questions, or use the contact tab just below my blog header!

Ask Dr Jax - Questions Please

2011-05-31T11:50:00.005+12:00

All right, the people have spoken!

Bring your tricky conflict questions to Dr Jax! He's a qualified psychiatrist and can give real life advice on any thorny behavioural issues. Would your characters really act the way they do? Or would they do things differently? How do people generally respond to tragedies in their lives? Etc etc.

You can either ask your question as a comment or, if you don't want to post it, feel free to use the contact page (there's a form) just below my blog header and email me. If you're not comfortable with specifics, then just be as general as you like. But don't do the 'my friend is writing this story...' cos that's a dead giveaway. ;-)

Disclaimer: Dr Jax is a psychiatrist, not a writer or an editor. He gives real life advice on how real people behave, not fictional characters. However should your book go on to be published subsequent to his advice, feel free to pass on any royalties (or chocolate). ;-)

Dr Jax Helps Out

2011-05-30T09:51:00.004+12:00

Was going to do a long and involved post today but since my youngest daughter broke her leg yesterday (jumping off a bunkbed trying to touch a light!), I am at her beck and call instead!

Still, thought I'd mention that I was talking to Dr Jax over the weekend and asked him if he might like to do a Q&A on conflict. We're told we have to be psychologists with our characters and their conflict so I thought conflict issues from the point of view of a bonafide psychiatrist might be kind of helpful. He was amenable so what do the rest of you think? Got any conflict questions you want to ask? A particular issue or how people behave in general? Let me know what you think would be most helpful!

Jackie Has Some Good News For a Change

2011-05-26T11:08:00.006+12:00

Yes, my successes have been few and far between of late but I found out this morning that I have finalled in the RWNZ Great Beginnings Contest! Big woots for me!! I've entered this competition for the past three years with no luck but this time round hit the mark and I'm extremely pleased!

I'm even more pleased because the kind of writing I fluked for the High Five, I put consciously, using all I've learned about conflict and character, into this story. That didn't mean I expected it to come anywhere. The judges could easily have hated my story and my characters no matter how well they were written. But they certainly liked it enough to give it some good scores and I'm pretty damn thrilled about it.

The story isn't a Riva story, it's a Presents/Modern, which made it a nice change for me. Anyway, have no idea how the final judging will go, suffice to say that I'm pretty happy with what I've got already. :-)

Some wise people have told me to celebrate any success in this tough industry, so here's what I'm doing - Hoo is passing round some vintage Krug on a silver tray...please, help yourself. And while you're doing it, share some successes you've had lately. It doesn't matter what it is, big or small, let me know so I can raise a glass!

Carving Michelangelo's David

2011-05-23T10:29:00.008+12:00

I feel a bit like Michelangelo trying to carve out David from a block of stone at the moment. I keep chipping away thinking I see the figure inside, but then realise that my David looks more of an ogre than a svelte young man. All the proportions are wrong and he's wearing clothes instead of a fig leaf. So I have to do some more hacking, some more cutting down and polishing. I'm hoping it'll be worth it.

Currently my Chess masterpiece is becoming the new never-ending story. A month and a half on the first three chapters. Longest. Time. Ever. And you know what? I think I may have to can those chapters. Why? Because they are based on an earlier incarnation of the conflict and now do not have any relevance to the rest of the story. They involve the heroine and hero working together. But they never work together again and their conflict is not based on a work situation. So why have I still got them working together?? How does it forward the conflict? It used to, but since I've fiddled with the heroine's conflict, it doesn't anymore. Argh!!

Sigh. This is becoming a watershed ms. I think I've learned more writing this than I have any other story. More about my process, more about what I've been doing wrong in previous stories, and more about how to fix the things I've been doing wrong. At least, I think I'm fixing things. I could be making it worse of course but the only way of knowing that is by sending it away. But I can't do that until I finish the damn thing.

This is why fixing an old ms can be harder than just writing something new, especially if the problem was character and conflict. I mean really, given the amount of rewriting I've been doing, I'll just say that in fact, this IS a new ms. Because changing a conflict or changing a character can have wide-ranging effects. A character that acted one way in the beginning, may not act that way after the change. And if the plot is based on what the character does - which is most category - then what the character does will in turn change the plot. Can anyone say nightmare?

Anyway, what else can I do but keep chipping away? And hope that soon my ogre will start looking less like this:

more and more like this:

Jackie's Year of Surviving Rejection

2011-05-18T20:21:00.002+12:00

I've done a post on the Sisters' Blog in celebration of our blog's first birthday. It's on...drum roll.... surviving rejection! If you're keen for a bit of Chumbawamba, then head over. If you're still in denial about the possibility of being rejected then keep away... :-)

Character Lightbulbs!

2011-05-17T08:16:00.009+12:00

Yeah, I'm finding I'm having lots of lightbulb moments with my chess ms. In fact, I'm beginning to think that my chess story is becoming a bit of a watershed ms. I am learning so much with this one. I knew at the beginning of the year that it was proving to be quite a learning experience but it's becoming even more of one now. Maybe it's because I'm taking my time with it and really thinking about it. Or maybe it's because my weaknesses are so much clearer now and I am working to fix them. I'm not sure. What I do know is that this story WILL be much stronger than anything I have written to date and that can be put down to the fact that I know my characters. This time round I have thought about their pasts in great detail and if there's something I don't know about them that I need to know, I can actually tell when that moment is and can stop and think about it.

What do I mean? Well, for example, whenever I am introducing a bit of conflict and find myself writing the same thing over and over again without really capturing what it is I want to get across, it's usually because I don't know what it is I'm trying to say! A specific example may be: 'He reminded her of her parents. Their lies, their judgements, the way they made her feel small'.
This does tell you something about her conflict. She had issues with her parents, they lied and judged her and made her feel small. But there are some questions unanswered: what did he do to make her think of her parents? What lies did her parents tell and did they tell them to her or to each other? What about their judgements? Did they judge her or each other? And what made her feel small? The lies or the judgements or both? And why did that make her feel small?
Obviously you don't answer all those questions immediately, they are revealed as the book goes along, but what you have to do as a writer is know the answers to the questions. And what I think really builds the characters, and what I have NOT been doing, is having an example to illustrate the answer.

So if her parents had lied to her, thinking about a specific lie at a specific time by a specific person, can tell you so much more about a character and their conflict that some vague generalisations. Example: When she was ten, her beloved cat went missing and her mother told her that the animal ran away from home. However that night, when she was supposed to be a asleep, she got up to get a glass of water and spotted her father in the backgarden digging a hole, her cat lying dead on the grass next to it.
Doesn't that tell us so much more about her and her parents and their relationship? And also gives us insight into the motivations of her parents too. It tells us she had a pet she loved. That her mother lied (to protect her maybe?) to her about what happened to it. That her father was in on it. And that by burying it at night when they knew she was alseep, they were trying to hide the cat's death from her. Perhaps this is a terrible moment for the heroine. Perhaps finding out that her parents are not always truthful causes her to subconsciously be suspicious of anything they might say. What is certain is that it gives us more information than 'her reminded her of her parents. Their lies, their judgements....etc'.

It's those little snapshots of pivotal moments in the characters lives that really - for me at least - build up a great picture of who that person is and what in their past might had led them to think the way they do. Of course, what I'm missing from that example and what it is just as important as the situation itself, is how the heroine acts in response to it. Did she not say anything to her parents about her cat or did she confront them?

So what helps you build character? Anyone got any useful examples?

Character Traits vs Conflict

2011-05-10T08:51:00.006+12:00

Janet asked me an interesting question about my last blog post and since I'm scraping around trying to find things to blog about, I thought I'd actually give my answer as a post. This comes with the usual caveat that my answer is my thoughts about the subject, thoughts that could be totally erroneous, sadly misguideded or plain old wrong. On the other hand they could be so totally brilliant that you will want to bow before the power of my awesomeness (presents and small tokens of thanks are always appreciated). :-)

Okay, so Janet ask me to give an example of the difference between a character trait and conflict. This was in response to me saying that what I thought was conflict in my heroine, turned about to be a character trait. So what do I mean?

Well, we're told that asking the 'why' questions are really important to figuring out conflict. And it's true, you do need to ask those questions. But my problem is that I didn't know when to stop! My heroine - I thought - is an emotional girl so I kept asking myself, "This is her conflict so why is she emotional? Why? Why? Why?". I kept looking for a reason for my heroine to not hide how she felt but there wasn't one that fitted with the idea of her I had in my mind. So there comes a stage where the 'why' comes down to 'well, they were born that way'. And if they were born that way, it becomes a character trait, not the conflict. So one of my heroine's character traits is that she has no problem with telling everyone exactly how she feels.

Where the conflict comes into it is how this character trait makes the character behave in response to certain situtions in their lives. Not hiding how she feels is NOT the conflict, but it does affect how she responds to the conflict. Does that make any sense?

My hero, on the other hand, is emotionless - which of course is a big lie because he's not really. But being emotionless is his response to his conflict. He's actually just like her, feels things very deeply, but unlike her, his experience has taught him that such emotions are dangerous and he won't have a bar of them. So he's shut himself down.

Here's another example. Perhaps you might have a hero who really, really likes cars. He likes the way they look and the mechanics and the speed, he's just right into them. And perhaps there's no reason for it, he's just always been the kid who loves machines. So his liking of cars is NOT his conflict. It's part of his character. But say he had a car as a teenager he lovingly built from the ground up, spent years on it, spent lots of money on it, it was his baby. And say his father decided he spent too much time on his cars when he should be in school and so sold his beloved car without telling him.... This is where his love of cars interacts with what could potentially be some great conflict, because it's not really about how much he loves cars is it? It's about how he views his Dad. How he responds to this would be a character trait. Is he the type of guy to head straight into a confrontation with his father? Or is he more of a restrained, quiet type of guy, who would say nothing but spend every resource he had finding the car and getting it back...(no you can't have this example, I've decided I'm going to use it. Hehe!).

So that's how I view character traits and conflict. Anyone got any more advice cos God knows, I probably need it. :-)

Heroines Do My Head In

2011-05-07T13:52:00.006+12:00

Ah crap, nearly another week has gone by. I do have an excuse though. I have been...drum roll....writing!

What you say? Jackie Ashenden actually writing? Unheard of!

Yeah, yeah, I'm being sarcastic. I never really stop writing to it's no surprise. But lately I have been turning off the net to concentrate wholly on what I'm doing. And good thing too because my poor Chessman needs the attention. His issues are turning out to be waaaay bigger than I thought. He's a very closed off guy, very cerebral and, naturally enough, there is a reason he's like this. Yes, that's right, ONE reason. Not fifty million in the way I usually always overcomplicate stuff, just one. And that's where the whole keep it simple, dig deep stuff comes into it. Taking that ONE reason and exploring it, not chucking in a whole lot of other stuff like I did, say, with the heroine...

Women. Honestly, why do I have such problems with women?? Maybe it's because I'm a complicated girl myself, I dunno, but some heroines just give me gip. I think it's due to the fact that I've focussed on one character trait for this particular heroine and turned it into conflict, whereas it just should have stayed as a character trait. Does that make sense. Anyway, thanks to awesome CPs, I think I've ironed out that little kink. Like the hero, I've taken ONE thing she does (not one aspect of who she is) and focussed on that as conflict instead. Which may be a breakthrough for me. Anyway, Comic Book girl now lives! Woohoo!

So, anyone else mistake a character trait for conflict or is it just me??? :-)

Jackie Discovers The Holy Trinity - Character, Conflict and Plot.

2011-05-02T08:10:00.012+12:00

Wow, slack blogger Jackie! *slaps hand* It's been a week - nearly. Groan. In my defence, I should say that I'm not online so much for a reason. Being obsessed by writing hasn't been good for me so I'm reconnecting with non-writing things, and that means less time at the computer and more time doing other stuff. So apologies if I've been slack at visiting blogs. On the upside, I am gaining some much needed perspective (slowly) and that's got to be a good thing, right?

Anyway, so my new process is actually going quite well. If you can consider spending three weeks on the first chapter 'well'. My usual modus operandi is to write like the dickens until the whole thing first draft is done, so as you can imagine, 3 weeks on one chapter is torture. On the other hand, it does mean that instead of getting halfway through and figuring out what my characters are like, which means another round of rewriting, I am getting a really good idea of them beforehand. And, what's more, when I run into a problem, instead of pushing through and writing it out, I am stopping and thinking about it. This is working for me, I gotta say. I have about four stories in the planning stages and all this character groundwork is proving invaluable. Normally I begin with the characters as people without pasts, their pasts only becoming clear to me as I go along, but now they have pasts right at the beginning! I can't tell you the difference it makes to the story, and to my writing as well. Doh!

Because it is all about the character. At least, the kind of stories I want to write are about the character. I don't think I truly appreciated before quite how true this is. I saw the conflict, the character and the plot as three separate entities and I treated them as such. But of course they're not. All three are inextricably linked. And, in my opinion, character comes first. You start with your protagonist. You decide who they are. What type of person. Then you give them some conflict - and the type of conflict that will provide the most friction given the person they are. And after that comes the plot - the story is driven by the choices the character makes and the actions that they take. That's a character driven story.

Now the above is just my own musings and how it makes sense to me. I don't know whether it's right or not and since I have been waaaaay wrong in the past, I could be waaaay wrong now. But I'm putting this into practice with the Chessman. Yes, my lovely chess player who fell by the wayside. I learned quite a bit while writing that particular ms, most of all about moving your characters to suit your plot and not the other way around. It was also the ms that gave me the first intimations of what a dog's breakfast I'd made of my Hammerpants ms. As you can imagine, I have a love/hate relationship with it because of that. Anyway, the long and the short of it is that I re-read it last week and discovered it's actually not sh*t. The heroine's conflict needs tweaking but the hero's is all there. And I'm also at the best bit - the black moment! So I've stopped labouring over rewriting the old ms for a while and I've gone back to my Chessman to finish it. Not sure what I'll do with it when I finish it but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. The main thing is though, that it's character driven.

I think. :-)

So how about you? Like character driven stories? Or are you a plot person?

It's Not A Rolls Royce

2011-04-26T09:47:00.008+12:00

Just got back from an Easter trip to a place called Pauanui, where all the nobs in Auckland go to spend their holidays by the beach. Strangest place. You might get a vast mansion with a helicopter out the back and a huge boat in the garage and then right next to it will be an empty section with only a rusty caravan parked on it and tents with people sitting in deckchairs. Presents possiblities perhaps? :-)

Anyway, got some great thinking time in. Have come to the conclusion that I need to change my process. Yep, the way I write has been great for twenty years but if I want to write something for publication, I need to do things differently. Not radically so, I hasten to add. I'm still a pantser at heart and probably always will be. But the thing I need to do is concentrate on my characters before I begin to write. Normally I have a scene in mind and I dive right in, only to come up against the 'what would he/she/it do now?'. And I stop right there because I don't know my characters well enough to know what they would do. For months I've been thinking that it's the conflict I haven't sorted but it's not, it's the characters. I know who they are in the present - when the story starts - but I don't know their pasts, what made them the people that they are. And when you're writing character driven stories, you kind of need to know those details.

The ways you can get to know your characters are many and varied - character sheets and interviews and writing out scenes from their lives - but I've tried them before and they've never actually worked for me. Thinking does though. When I'm in the shower or folding the washing or just tidying up, I've found that thinking about my characters, their childhoods, their relationships with others, the kind of people they are, really works. For example, I'm rewriting a story I wrote two years ago but the conflict never gelled and neither did the characters. But I spent a lot of Easter thinking about the hero and heroine, trying to figure out what their conflict was and whether it fitted with who they were at the beginning of the book. Normally once I'd got one aspect right, I'd quickly whip onto the pc and start writing. But I couldn't this time round and it's a good thing, because I thought I had it all sorted and then realised I hadn't considered another aspect of their backstory which then didn't fit with the actual premise of the book. Sigh.

I don't find this easy. I'm a very impatient sort. I want to get to the good stuff, the real, emotionally wrenching stuff. I love the torture and the black moments. The joy and despair. I don't want to write the set-up and introduce the characters and their conflict. But of course that part is almost the most important part of it because if you don't do it properly, how are your readers ever going to be invested in these characters? How are they ever going to care about what happens to them and their story if they're not fully realised people?

Dr Jax has a great saying that he is fond of when he's building or preparing something:
"It's not a Rolls Royce." This basically means not to sweat the details, it doesn't have to be perfect.

I've always really liked this saying - it suits my impatient personality. But I think that if I want my stories to be good ones, I'm going to have to change my thinking around them because when it comes to writing, the details do matter. And when it comes down to it, I want to write Rolls Royces not Daihatsu Miras.

Anyone else ever changed their process? Did it work for you?

Trying to Get Back Up Again

2011-04-20T08:50:00.004+12:00

Well, I did think I would do a few more posts than this but my inspiration to write continues to go up and down like a lady of the night's underpants. Plus, my direction and confidence are wavering all over the place. It's frustrating. The worst part is not having anything else out there. If you haven't got anything on submission, it's like there isn't any hope and I hate that.

I do actually have a good many finished mss all stacked up on my harddrive but they all suffer from the same problem - chronic lack of coherent conflict. Yes, it's a medical condition. Incurable. Or given that the course of treatment is rewriting them completely, pretty much incurable. Am I being too hard on myself about them? Possibly. But I don't want to send anything that I'm not happy with. True, I'll always have doubts with whatever I send, but when I can see glaring faults, I just can't do it.

So what I'm left with is starting something new or rewriting. And at the moment, I am too daunted to do either. It all feels too hard. Especially writing plain old contemporary romance. Category makes this easy because that's all they publish. But if you don't write category or paranormal, or urban fantasy, or steampunk, or erotica, or suspense, how do you make your contemporary romance different to eveyone elses? Do publishers even want plain old contemporary, internal conflict driven romance? Or do you have to put a spin on it?

Sigh. Some days it's easier just to take to one's bed and eat chocolate. Happy Easter everyone.

Getting Back Up Again Or How Buying a Handbag Is Always a Good Thing

2011-04-15T10:52:00.005+12:00

Okay, so I've been laying on the mat after the big KO for a while now. Plenty of you guys have told me to take it easy and be good to myself. Now, I'm not very good at doing that. My solution to feeling crappy about writing is just to keep writing. This is not a good solution. Not only does it only reinforce my feelings of crapness, but it doesn't help my writing either. Who writes well when they feel they suck? Not me.

So what did I do instead? I bought myself a handbag. There are two good things about my Hammerpants ms, the main one being prize money. Hehe. Here is a pic of the Handbag of Hope (Purse of Hope if you're American). It is blue, slouchy, soft and best of all, my phone doesn't get stuck waaaaay down the bottom so I don't hear it.

Oh and I said there was a second thing didn't I? Well, the second thing is that I'm pretty certain that I did something right in the first five pages of that ms. And I know what it is. I think I've said before that I suspected it was my conflict and character that was at issue and, yup, it is. The first five pages of the ms certainly sounded like I knew exactly who my characters were and what sort of conflict they had. The problem was, I actually didn't. Because I didn't think about it enough.

It's like when you do a mosaic. You set out some parts of it beautifully and it all looks good. But then you find some blank bits you didn't really see before. So you try to find bits to fit but they don't quite. They're the wrong size or the wrong colour. You jam them in somehow and from a distance it looks good but when you get up close, it's all wrong. The bits of you've jammed in don't work with the ones that are all set out beautifully. And the worst part is you kind of know you're wrong but you don't know quite why or how to fix it.

All my stories have been like this mosaic. They all look fine from a distance but when you get in close, there's a lot that doesn't fit, that doesn't work, that doesn't hang together nicely. So I have been trying to sort out all my pieces BEFORE I start the mosaic. This is - for me - extremely difficult because it's changing the writing habits of twenty years! Argh. Even the Handbag of Hope doesn't help much with this.

The result has been me spending at least a week on the first chapters of a number of stories. It's agonising to be honest because I'm desperate to get to the rest of the story, but I have to say, once all the bits of my mosaic have been worked out - the characters, the conflict, at least the inciting incident and a vague idea of the plot (pantser, yes, that's me) - it's amazing how much better that first chapter is. And I've come to the conclusion that if something doesn't quite feel right with a character - a bit of the conflict or an attribute or whatever - then I should NOT write until I've figured out what it is and put it right. Sigh.

Anyway, the main thing is that yes, I have been writing. I have a chapter ready to go for a contest that dear Dr Jax and my CPs think is better than anything I've done recently (yeah, I wanted to put that in there because God knows, you have to grab those lovely compliments when you can). I have another ms that I will rewrite for Carina. And then another couple of stories that I am just going to write and see where they take me.

I have my mosaics all laid out and right at this moment all the pieces fit. It's a good feeling to be able to fix that particular problem. Of course there will be other problems, others I don't know about yet but that's the wonderful thing about learning eh?

So for those of you who are looking for some positive stuff after you've had your heart cut from your chest while it's still beating. By a spoon. Here it is: there is life after rejection. It may take a while but there is still creativity. And there is a lesson to learn from it. Pretty much what you choose to learn is up to you but mine is this:

Yep, I drink a whisky drink....;-)

A Murder of Crows

2011-04-11T08:03:00.008+12:00

It's been a while since the last post - I usually blog more than this. But to be honest, I'm trying to drum up some enthusiasm. I've got a cold, which doesn't help, but there's also a murder of doubt crows sitting on just about every available flat surface in my office. Some days it's just not even worth going in there.

I think the hardest thing about this particular point in time is going ahead when there is no glimmer on the horizon, not even a tiny spark. You hear people's miraculous stories about how, when they'd decided to give up writing for good, something would magically happen - a lost sub becomes found or a ms they'd forgotten they'd sent gets the nod - but you know, those things only happen to the lucky few. It's when there isn't the prospect of even the most minor of encouragement that it gets very, very tough.

My last blog post was pretty positive. But positivity is one of those wonderful things that seem to come and go - at this point, it's mostly go. You can't stay positive all the time. It requires a conscious effort and to be honest, it's bloody tiring.

It's probably not the best day for a blog post actually. Because if you're looking for some brave examples of how to pick yourself up after getting the big KO writing-wise, don't look at me. I still haven't managed to regain consciousness let alone pick myself up.

I guess the thing with being on the ground is that you can't fall any further.

Anyone got a scarecrow I can borrow?

Kicking Fear's Butt

2011-04-05T08:32:00.002+12:00

So I've been contemplating this mountain thingy here and while I have, I've been thinking about my writing and all those bloody rejections. Especially the last two. I found it very interesting that in the ed's opinion, the Hammer Pants ms, the one I'd written 18 months ago, was stronger than the one I'd written 6 months ago. At first I was gutted about this - wasn't I supposed to be getting better not worse? But then, after I'd thought some more about it, I figured that actually, she was right. Why? Because I remember writing that first chapter. And I remember how I felt when I was writing it: I wanted to write without worrying about stuff, without worrying whether I was showing vs telling, without worrying whether the hero/heroine were sympathetic enough or whether I had enough conflict etc, etc. So I stopped worrying. I wrote it just for fun. And lo! it was good. Of course, by chapter 2 I realised my conflict problems had raised their ugly head again and I couldn't seem to untangle the difficulties, so I put it aside. But that's a whole other blog post. :-)

Writing without fear. That's what I was doing. And that's what I HAVEN'T been doing for the past year. Nope, the past year, I've been writing scared. Scared of getting it wrong, scared of messing it up somehow. Certainly all the Rs I'd got seemed to indicate that I wasn't getting something right and sure enough, that little belief kept getting reinforced and poor Jackie kept getting scareder and scareder. Her writing lost her spark. All the life got drained out of it. And, most important of all, she lost her joy. Nothing like a self-fulfilling prophecy huh?

Fear will do that to a writer. It'll suck the creativity right out of you. And it's a b*tch to overcome, let me tell you.

The good thing is that at least I have an idea of where I might, potentially, be going wrong. So at the moment I'm trying feel the fear and write it anyway. :-) I'm trying to recapture what I felt when I wrote the Hammer Pants ms. I'm trying to just be in the moment with my characters and not think about whether this ms works for Riva or Presents. Or whether my hero is being too alpha. Or whether my heroine is being too unsympathetic. Or what to do with it when I type The End. I just need to switch all that off, immerse myself in the story, and start enjoying it again. I need to stop writing for an editor, for a reader, for my CPs. I need to write for me first.

This is something that a lot of people have been saying to me. And it's not that I haven't listened, it's just that I haven't understood why it's important. Well, I do now.

So goodbye creepy fear. There is no place for you when I'm writing. You can haul your sorry skeletal carcass out of my study and you better do it before I go all Chuck Norris on your hide. Sure, I know you'll be back when I hit the send button again but hopefully by the time that happens, I'll have so many subs out that you won't know which one to attach yourself to. So asta la vista baby!

And while fear is making itself scarce, I shall leave you with the words of wisdom my five year old daughter gave to me. When I told her about my R she said, 'Were you writing quietly and carefully, mummy? You must always write quietly and carefully."

Anyone else writing quietly and carefully? Or alternatively, giving fear a good roundhouse kick to the head? :-)

The Fabulous Rach!

2011-04-03T08:29:00.004+12:00

And one of my lovely CPs (name drop, name drop) has just sold her contempory romance to Carina Press!!!!

Break out the champers Hoo, we're having a sale party!!!!

Big huge, mega congrats, Rach my dear!! The story is awesome and so are you. :-)

Check out the call story here!

Jackie Contemplates the Mountain

2011-03-28T08:07:00.010+13:00

So. Um. Hi. My name is Jackie and I'm a wannbe writer. A romance writer.

Extremely brief history: I started pursuing publication seriously three years ago. Since then, after a brief blaze of glory and the odd flash of brilliance, it's since been a gentle (not) slide into relative obscurity. Yay me.

So here I am, in obscurity, back at square one.

It doesn't look much different since the last time, the couch in the corner is still there and no one's cleaned up the empty dutch courage glasses. The view out the window has changed though. Before, there was a whole lot of fog preventing me from seeing the route I have to take, but it's crystal clear now and boy, that's a bloody HUGE mountain just sitting there. To be honest, it's giving me the sh*ts. In fact, for the past week I've been seriously considering whether I can climb it again. Whether I want to even start climbing it again.

But you know, just because you get a rejection, it doesn't stop the ideas from coming. You can take the writer away from the writing etc, etc. I have been writing for thirty years and I'm not going to stop now.

Still.

It's a pretty big mountain.

I might just sit here and contemplate it for a while.

Someone pass me another glass of dutch courage.

Blog! The Decision!

2011-03-17T08:56:00.008+13:00

Thanks everyone who left a comment regarding this blog. It means such a lot to know everyone still likes what I put out there and that I'm helpful in some way, even though at the moment I feel like the biggest fraud in the world.

So, I guess I'd like to say that I'm going to keep going with this blog. Yes, at times, especially the bad times, it's a drain and I wish I didn't have to say I failed. But I think on the whole, it's a 'good' pressure. It's certainly helped me to keep going this far so stopping now, when I probably need to keep going the most, seems shortsighted. Plus, I'm afraid I like all you guys (and lurkers!) far too much to give you up. And yes, I do like writing it! In fact far more than I ever thought I would. So, sorry, you're stuck with me. :-)

There is a couple of things I want to say though because I think I need to say them. Firstly, there may be people who read my blog and wonder at my intensity about this writing business. Yes, I'm an emotional person and I do have a fondness for the dramatic but that's not the sole reason I have found this so very hard. About 8 years ago I lost a family member and afterwards - as you do when this kind of thing happens - I thought to hell with a life half lived, I need to follow my dream, if nothing else to make the pointlessness of the loss mean something (sidenote: hey, conflict alert! Quick, someone nick that as a conflict because if you don't, I will! hehe) . Now, unfortunately with this kind of decision, the dream ends up meaning more than it perhaps should which makes its failure that much harder. I don't know whether I need to step back from this or not, but I have to say, it has driven me much further than I thought I would ever be prepared to go. Still trying to figure out if that's a good thing or not.

Secondly, the Hammer Pants ms. Why was it R'd? Well, its faults were many and myriad. But they all stemmed from the same thing, the thing I have ALWAYS struggled with: it's the conflict stupid. No, the ed didn't say that specifically but she did point out issues in the characters' backstory that I skated over, that I should have dealt with and - as is always the way - you go, 'of course!' Why didn't I do that?' And I didn't because I didn't know what those issues were. Why didn't I know? Because I hadn't ever got a handle on the conflict.

And herein lies the big problem with my writing. I have not 'got' conflict. I've done everything the eds suggested - character biographies, interviews, writing out aspects of their backstories. Everything. I tried SO hard. And I learned heaps in the process. But it didn't work because I have been starting out wrong every time. I still have not understood simple, deep conflict.
And this - I think - is where I am hampered by two things: 1) Up until 2 years ago, I didn't read romance. All I read were fantasy/SF and literary fiction. 2) I like to do things my own way and I like to be different.
Issue number one means I do not have a background in the conventions of genre fiction. I didn't even know what conflict was, let alone the fact that romance novels have to have an HEA. I didn't know that heroes and heroines have to be sympathetic and aspirational and flawed and all those other things, because they don't have to be in literary fiction.
Issue number two means that I want to be different. I didn't want to write those stock conflicts - woman loses father, then loses husband and so is wary of love for example. I wanted my conflicts to be different. But of course, since I had no idea about what conflict was - or rather, I'd grasped some aspects of it, but not others - I didn't know how to make them different. Lastly, I didn't really understand that there's a reason those conflicts pop up again and again - because they work! Duh.

Sigh. So if you take that, add the fear of making things too dark, and you have a recipe for disaster. It's very sad because my dear old Hammer Pants ms was something I wrote 18 months ago. The characters do have life and energy that my most recent stuff doesn't have, which just goes to show how horrible the last year or so has been for my writing. But the main thing Hammer Pants didn't have was conflict. And I knew that. I just wasn't expecting it to win that contest, and I wasn't expecting a request. And I panicked with the partial. But, to be fair, I think even if I hadn't panicked and took the time to do it properly, I STILL wouldn't have got the conflict right. Maybe I needed this rejection in order to learn what I still don't know.

There are those who say I probably shouldn't list my problems like this so publically. That editors/agents may read this and view it poorly. Well, that may be the case. And if there are editors/agents reading this, know that this is me making every effort I can to learn my craft in order to make better stories. But I also wanted to let you guys reading now know that even after working with an editor for so long, there are some things that still don't fall into place. Maybe if I'd fluked one right ms, I may have had the added pressure of having to do a second book in order to handle the conflict issue with more speed. But whatever the case, I didn't fluke it and my luck ran out.

Anyway, so where do I go from here? I don't know. I need to learn about conflict because I suspect my problems with it are not specific to Mills and Boon but to the whole romance genre, and in which case, my other mss will not fly anywhere.

Whatever the case, I have been ordered by Dr Jax to take two weeks off writing. This is a horrible thought, especially as two new ideas popped into my head just yesterday (yeah, can't stop the ideas!) but I'm going to do it. I'll let the ideas percolate and sit there. And maybe if I'm still excited by them, I'll go ahead and write them. But until then, it's no writing for me.

I've also decided to take a week off blogging/blog reading too so apologies if I don't visit you or leave comments. Know that I will be back soon once I've cleared my head and the grief of the lost opportunities isn't quite so raw.

And once again, thank you all so much for reading and for your support. You are all wonderful.

What To Do With This Blog?

2011-03-16T07:45:00.004+13:00

Okay, well, here I am. And wondering what the next step is. At this point, you can pretty much take my advice with a whole salt pan because clearly, I do not know what I am doing with my writing.

Actually no, that's bollocks, I DO know what I am doing. I've learned HEAPS in the past year. But what is clear is that the way I am doing it is not right. They say one door shuts and another closes. :-)

Anyway, this does lead me to question whether I want to continue with this blog. And for that I need you blog readers. I pretty much need to know if this crap I spew is of worth to people.

So my questions to you are thus:

1. Do you want to keep reading this blog?
2. If so, what do you like about it that keeps you coming back?
3. Is anything I say worthwhile and useful to you, and now that the M&B door has shut pretty firmly in my face, are you still interested in where I go from here?

Rock Bottom

2011-03-15T08:54:00.003+13:00

Well, they didn't the Hammer Pants. I was right all along. It was pants. And the even worse news? It's back to the slush for me.

There really isn't any further to fall right now.

So. Really. Where do I go from here? Where do I want to go from here? Am I any good at all? Or is the universe trying to tell me something and I've been too stupid to listen?

Unpublished! Why It's Awesome

2011-03-11T07:55:00.013+13:00

I'm coming up to the mid-March you'll hear back deadline. And I've got that whole love/hate relationship thing going on with the Inbox of Doom. It's mostly hate at the moment, followed by brief, intense bouts of love. Such as waking to find there is NO email from the editor in the mornings - love that! And then, five minutes later, 'argh, there is NO email from the editor! argh! But I need to know!' etc. Hate that.

Anyway, pretty much convinced myself that my submissions totally suck. Both of them. No, truly. Don't get me wrong, I love my Hammer Pants ms. I love my hero who is soooo very bad and love my heroine who gives him what for. But since writing the Chessman, I have learned a whole lot more about letting my characters do what they will, and I'm not sure that has happened with MC Hammer Pants. I hate chapter 3 for example. I want to rewrite that completely and as for the rest of the ms... I'd like to think I've done okay for a full request but, fact is, I may have stuffed up again like I did with the previous ms and they won't want the rest. And I'll be kicked back to the slush.

Doubt is vile.

So to pass the time in Unpublished Author Hell and distract myself from my submission doubt, I've decided to list all the positive things about still being unpublished.

1. I can write what I want.
2. I can write when I want.
3. I have NO deadlines.
4. I don't care what my readers think about my story because I have no readers.
5. I can write a story with characters who don't have to be sympathetic/aspirational/original/flawed. Or not.
6. I can have has much external conflict as I like. And aliens. And guns. And pirates. And a little pink pig called Mavis (and she can be the freaking heroine!).
7. I can have no conflict at all if I want and the story can be two pages long.
8. I can stop writing forever and take up morris dancing instead and no one would care.
9. I can toss my WIP in the bin and it wouldn't matter.
10. I don't have to obssess about whether my book is outselling other people's or worry about royalties or marketing or whether I have enough ideas for another book or whether my second book will be as good as my first or whether I'll be a one hit wonder or whether I'll even sell another book ever again.

Oh and here is a link about why being unpublished is awesome (if you can't handle teh swearz, then don't click it).

Any other currently unpublished peoples out there who can think of some reason why this isn't a bad state to be in? Gotta take the positives where we can huh?

PS. Okay, I'm totally lying, you know that, right? Here's why I'm actually desperate to be published...

Ten Ways to Make Your Heroine Suffer - plus some Pimpin'

2011-03-07T15:48:00.007+13:00

Right, I thought I'd do a companion piece to my hero torture list since fair's fair, turnabout etc. Time for the heroine to get her turn. Now, I do find writing teh ladeez a tad difficult - women are so complicated! - so if anyone wants to add to the list or disagree, feel free! And remember this is just a few things you can do to make your characters suffer. The ways are as endless and varied as the conflict... hehe...

1. Give her a hero who is the antithesis of everything she believes in. (He's arrogant and uncaring. I hate him).
2. Make him absolutely physically irresistable to her. (But man, he's soooo hot! Hateful male)
3. Give him one (or more) qualities that she can't help but admire (He's so arrogant! But...he really loves puppies and I can't but like a man who loves puppies).
4.Make him get in the way of her goal. (I want to be head of the corporation? Why is he so determined to stop me? Hateful male!)
5. Have him do something for her that changes the way she thinks about him. (Oh he's such an arrogant SOB. I hate him! But then, he donated all that money to the puppy shelter to keep it running...)
6. Make her fall in love with him. (I hate him so much! But the puppies...wait!...No!....I can't!....Noooooooo!!!)
7. Have him refuse to talk about his feelings (Why doesn't he want to talk about this? I can't understand it. Doesn't he know how important it is?? Hateful male).
8. Have him do something that makes her think he hasn't changed after all (he's completely destroyed my chances of promotion! Why would he do that?? Why do I STILL love him! Hateful male etc..)
9. Get her to make her declaration of love to him only to have it come flying back at her - because of course, it's all got to be on her terms. (He didn't want my ultimatum that I'll marry him only if he stops standing in my way of promotion? What? Why not? Hateful, arrogant male. Why do I still love him? Why???)
10. Make her realise that he isn't the only one who needs to change if she wants to be with him. (Wait! Is being with him more important than being the head of the corporation....? Why do I need to be head of the corporation anyway? I just want to be with him and the puppies! Uh oh...)

If you want to go get some awesome examples of both hero and heroine torture, then go no further than the fabulous Natalie Anderson. I'm doing a bit of pimping for her since she's a fellow Kiwi and her latest release kept me up till 12.30am last night! The End to Faking It was a really emotional, intense, sexy read and I just loved it. Anyway, if you want to go get it, you can from the M&B site or go to Nat's page on FB where she is doing an excellent giveaway. Cue the 'free stuff' woot! Details here.

And of course, if you're of a Modern bent, then Ms Maisey Yates is also a great torturer past compare. Marriage Made on Paper is now out and for really great hero torture, you can't go past The Inherited Bride.

So, anyone have any more handy tips for heroine torture?

My Heroine Hell

2011-03-04T09:08:00.009+13:00

So there I was, whipping along with the Chessman, 15k in three days and thinking "I SO rock at this writing thing" etc, etc, when suddenly, at 39k, everything came to a crashing halt. And the problem? My heroine. As you who read this blog know, heroines make me want to tear my hair out. They have to be sympathetic yet flawed. Not so different that the reader can't identify with them, but different enough to stand out from all the other heroines in this world. They have to be aspirational. They have to be someone the reader can imagine being. They have to be strong. They have to be simple (for category, their motivations etc must be simple) and yet more complex than a stereotype. Oh and yes, they have to be original.

Easiest thing in the world. Not.

So, the problem of my heroine was this - I kind of knew bits of her, but there was an element that I was missing that would have solidified her on the page and in my head. Do you know what I mean? It's hard to describe. But the essence was that I realised that all she was doing was reacting to the hero. He'd do something, she'd react. And the problem with that is she wasn't actually taking charge of the plot. It was all being driven by him. Why by him? It's not just because he's an alpha. It's because I knew him. I know what he'd do in a situation, I know his conflict, I know his feelings about things. And so because I didn't really know her, he was taking over, the dear, sweet, darling man (yeah, baby, it's all about the hero).

Now, normally when this happens, I push through and finish the thing and then go back and fix the problem, but this time I figured I really had to stop and do something about my heroine. My black moment wasn't going to work, let alone the HEA, if I didn't know who the hell she was. So I had to figure her out which - as you all know - is not easy.

After much hair pulling, I think the reason why I couldn't get a handle on her is that my initial idea of her was actually too difficult pull off. She was a drifter, someone without any idea of what she wanted to do. She was goalless. The problem with a heroine like that is if she doesn't know what she's doing with her life or what she wants, then neither does the reader. And that's not particularly aspirational or sympathetic. It also plays merry hell with the pace. I'm not saying you can't have a character like this, it's just hard work. And God knows, getting this stuff right is hard enough without giving yourself a difficult character to pull off. Keep it simple stupid. :-)

So, figuring out characters... For me, I have write the whole first draft before I know them. Character interviews, all that kind of stuff doesn't work. It's not until I'm writing that I figure it out. Oh and discussing ideas with the CPs helps a treat too. And all it'll take for me is one suggestion and then suddenly it'll come right (like it did in this instance).

What about you guys? How do you figure out yours? Do you have to write the whole thing first and get to know them as you go along? Or do you know everything before you write?

Oh and my heroine? Yep, figured her out finally. She's a passionate artist who draws graphic novels. And no, they are NOT cartoons...

Attack of the Killer Blahs or I Suck

2011-03-01T08:20:00.007+13:00

Blah. Such a great word. Sums up so many things in such a short space. Also correctly and precisely describes my feelings about the tsunami of submission doubt that has dumped itself on my head. I'm at the point where you know you're going to hear back soonish and am trying to resist the lure of re-reading my subs to check things. Re-reading does one of two things: 1. It plunges me into the depths of despair since the sub was obviously crap and why on earth did I think it was any good in the first place? Or 2. It makes me feel incredibly satisfied since the sub is clearly excellent and I will instantly get a contract and why are they taking so long?

Neither of these options are useful, espcially when the last time I settled on option 2 I got a form R. What also doesn't help is the fact that the Hammer Pants ms is now different to the synopsis I sent in. Now apparently this doesn't matter too much since eds know synopses change etc, etc. Well, can I say now that that is wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Your synopsis does matter. It matters a lot. And my synopses usually aren't that great in the first place. Why is it you only see such things AFTER the sub has gone? Blah, I say.

Anyway, one thing that isn't blah is The Chessman. If you will note the word meter at the right hand side of the screen, you will see that it has climbed appreciably. Basically in the past three days I have written 15k. Yes, I will be smug a moment since this is the only thing that seems to be doing well. In fact, I'm amazed at how fast the thing is going down. I think there is a reason for it but I might save that for another blog post. Especially as the reason its going down fast is another reason to be down about my Hammer Pants. Argh!

So what do you do when you have a blah moment? Shop? Drink? Eat? Hug random strangers? All four at once?

PS. Big congrats to Leah Ashton who sold her NV book. Good for you, Leah!

A Very Sassy Correspondent

2011-02-25T17:57:00.006+13:00

Hey everyone, just thought I'd let you know that we have a new feature on the Sisters' blog - the Sassy Correspondent. Jo Dixon is our correspondent and every Friday at the end of the month she will be doing a guest post. Today is her first post so do pop over and say hi. She is awesome and finalled with me in the RWAus High Five contest. She also has excellent taste in men. :-)

Oh and for those of you looking to achieve mastery in your writing, here is exactly how to do it (link courtesy of the most excellent Trish Wylie. Follow her on Twitter!).
The 30 Steps to Mastery.

For the record, I am at step 18.

Jackie's Character Defining Epiphany

2011-02-22T08:51:00.010+13:00

Never let it be said that I am one to dwell (actually I do dwell but I am trying not to do so today). The R has happened, I am now officially over it. Moving right along.

And I am moving right along to a little epiphany I had while having coffee with an awesome writing friend last week. There I was, moaning about my R and generally having a good vent, and the conversation moved on - as it does with writers - to our latest WIPs. Well, I don't know about you but I could bore for New Zealand on the subject of my WIP. My poor friend probably couldn't get a word in edgeways about hers, I was too busy hogging the conversation with mine. Anyway, I digress...

This is my chess player WIP I'm talking about and it's a holiday fling/unexpected baby story. Now, the problem with these is that in order for the baby to happen you have to get the h&h together early (duh). And I could not get my h&h together. Lots of sexual tension but they just weren't feeling it - she wasn't feeling it actually. So my friend asked me a very sensible question. "Why would she sleep with him?" Simple huh? And you know what? All I could think of was 'because he's hot'. Can anyone see the dreaded 'sex without emotion' trap opening up to swallow me??

So, what I had to do was to think of a reason she would sleep with him. Why him, out of all the other hot guys in the world? Why is he the one who really floats her boat? What is it about him? And in thinking about this guy, I suddenly realised a problem that I have got into in the past year or so. I couldn't think of why the heroine would sleep with this guy because I hadn't defined him enough. He was hot, he was cerebral, he liked playing chess but that was about it. And that wasn't enough to make him special to the heroine.

And this is my problem. I've learned a lot of craft in the past year and to be honest, sometimes it paralyzes me. I've got my conflict simmering away in the back of my mind because I'm now deciding this before I write, and when I'm writing that vital first chapter I'm thinking 'now, here's this character's conflict, how does that make him the person he is today? How does he act? What does he think?'. So off I go, writing away, and then I write something down like 'He always hated people who were late'. Nice and definitive and - more importantly - character defining. But then, Jackie thinks 'hmmm, would his conflict make him hate people who are late? Or wouldn't he mind? I don't know'. And so I delete it so I can keep my options open, just in case it turns out that in fact, he doesn't mind people who are late. Can you see my problem here? Every one of these little sentences that define character and I am deleting them because I don't know whether that's how they would act or not. Which is why, when I'm halfway through, I run into the heinous problem of not knowing how my characters would act in a certain situation because I haven't defined them enough! Nightmare.

I like to keep my options open, that's why I've been doing it. What if I need the character to not mind someone being late? If I don't define it, then I can adjust it later. But you know what I'm doing? Dr Jax pointed it out to me - I am tweaking the character to suit the conflict. Making them be who I want them to be and not who they are. And in what are supposed to be character driven stories this is not a particularly good thing to do.

Another part of my worry is that perhaps the reader/editor won't accept a character's beliefs given their particular conflict. Thing is, at this point, I know everything about the character but the reader doesn't. All they know is what you choose to tell them. Hey, if your hero hates people being late then as far as they're concerned he does. They're not thinking 'hmmmm, not sure about that given his conflict.' As long as you give him a good enough reason for hating people who are late, then that's all good as far as the reader goes.

Which brings me to the part that I am hoping will go much better for me. If I define who my characters are - or at least signpost - in that first chapter, authoritatively and with confidence (not 'sometimes he didn't like people being late' or 'he kind of got annoyed with people being late'. Try 'he hated it when people were late') then I will know how they act in certain situations later on. I don't need to go 'wow, what would he do here?' and get stressed about the hundred different ways he could act because I left my options open. There is only one way he would act. The heroine is late and so the hero, because I told people in that first chapter that he hates people who are late, is annoyed with her. I don't need to think 'now, will he be annoyed? Or wouldn't he mind?'. Nope, he's annoyed.

Now, I do think about the mss that did well a lot. What did I do right that time and not in all the others? For the Hammer Pants that won that contest, I'm pretty sure part of it was because I defined the hero and heroine very strongly in those first five pages. Now I wrote that not caring about conflict, not worrying about keeping my options open. And clearly that worked. Of course, I ran into huge problems in chapter two because I hadn't got the conflict right but hey, I had two great characters in those first five pages!

So, what I need to do is find the happy medium. Have an idea of the conflict, but start with the characters. And when conflict and character meet up, tweak the conflict not fiddle with the character!

Dr Jax gave me this little thing piece of advice that probably many of you know already from school/university etc but I think it's great for writing. It serves as a good reminder to me that my job is to tell the reader about my characters right from the get go, so they will then want to read on, and do it in as clear and obvious a way as possible:

Tell them what you're going to tell them. Tell them. Then tell them what you've told them. :-)

SYTYCW - The Aftermath

2011-02-19T09:20:00.016+13:00

Things to do with your form R:

1. Print it out then burn it.
2. Print it out, pull it to pieces very, very slowly. Then burn it piece by piece.
3. Print it out, frame it, stick it on your wall and stare at it every day, brooding on your revenge.
4. Print it out, put it on the ground and stamp all over it in sharp stilettos.
5. Print it out, wave your recent contest win certificate in its face screaming 'in your face, form rejection!'
6. Hit the delete key and send it to your Recycle bin, then take out the trash, baby.
7. Do nothing with it. Leave it in your inbox and never think of it again.

Okay, we can safely say that I did not do number 7.

First up, big heaping thanks, gratitude and endless supplies of your favourite tipple to all you lovely people for the hugs and suppportive comments. You guys are - honest to god - the reason I am still here, still writing, still waiting in Unpublished Author Waiting Limbo (UAWL). Without you and the CPs I would have given up and gone home.

Still, I won't lie. Getting a form R for SYTYCW has made me a stupid, blubbery, hopeless mess. It's made me feel like I haven't learned a thing. that I'm going backwards. Now, I know this isn't true. I know there are a hundred and one different reasons for forms, that they can have nothing to do with your writing or your story. That you can't let them get you down, that you need to get over it. I do know all those things. But those are all intellectual responses. It's the feelings that are the tough part to deal with because I am an emotional drama-queen kind of person.

With Rs, I know I have to get to the bottom before I can climb back up the other side. I have to wallow in the sense of failure, the doubt, and, yeah, the jealousy that others are doing better than I am. If I'm lucky my CPs will bear with me while I vent a little bit - because I have to do this as well otherwise it'll eat me up inside. But it's only once I've done all this that I can let it go and start feeling better about it. No, it's not an easy process but it's the way I am and I just have to go with it. Most of the time I come out the other side feeling positive and ready to tackle things again but sometimes the process goes on for longer than a couple of days and it takes me a while to let go of it.

Anyway, it's taken a while for me to let go of this. And I probably still haven't quite yet. It's thrown me into a huge spiral of doubt about my other submissions too. Because how can it not? If you don't get a reason for why something was rejected, then how do you know you haven't repeated it in your other submissions? But that aside, I've had lots of great advice from very wise people about what I should do with this particular sub. I'm still not quite sure where I'm going to take it just yet. I've heard that it's wise to change it if you're going to resub but as I don't know what's wrong with it in the first place, I'm not sure what to change. The writing I'm assuming is not the issue since (yes, I shall blow my own trumpet) the writing has netted several contest placings and a revisions on a full. So I can only assume it was the conflict/characters. Which means changing everything. And I don't know that I want to do that.

I guess I shouldn't pout too much about it though. The sub was me trying a new line, always a bit of a gamble. And it probably didn't help that I was trying to do things a bit differently. It's something I always try and think of when I'm writing a new story - how can I make my story different? The problem with doing different is that sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Most of the time it hasn't but I guess the fact that I've still got an ed willing to work with me means that somewhere along the track, doing things differently has been a good thing.

In the meantime I have finished the rough draft of another partial, my chess player. Yes, that's something a bit different again, which will either work or it won't. But I guess that's my way of challenging myself. Anyway, that brings the grand total of rough partials to five. How's that for not giving up?

As for that form R, which of those options do you think I did? ;-)

SYTYCW? No, Apparently I Can't

2011-02-15T10:25:00.005+13:00

Which means I got an R and a bog standard R at that. Thanks but no thanks, your story was 'not strong enough'. Now, of course, Rs are not new to me. But this has the dubious honour of being the first form R I've ever had. No, I've never had one. Welcome to the jungle, I hear you say. And fair enough, it's probably about time the negative karma comes round to me and balances things out. I have to be honest with you though, I like my own jungle where all my Rs have feedback!

Anyway, there are various negative ways of looking at this:

1. I have learned nothing in the three years I have been honing my craft.
2. My synopsis was NOT the best one I'd ever done, even though I thought it was pretty good (see number 1).
3. I got the line completely wrong.
4. I got the voice completely wrong.
5. The chapter sucked. The synopsis sucked. My writing sucks. I suck.

Or there are the positive ways:

1. They had so many entries and since mine was one of the last, they wanted to get rid of it as quickly as possible so a form was quickest.
2. The wrong editor read it and perhaps someone from the UK office would have been more favourable to it.
3. It was a gamble and it didn't work. Still have two other subs in...

Notice how the negatives outweigh the positives? Still trying to come up with some more positives!

What didn't help is that the ed I have been working with for my Riva subs let me know that she won't be able to get back to me till mid-March. It's not her fault and I'm really happy that she let me know but....man, I'm getting really sick of being in Unpublished Author Waiting Limbo!

Okay, so sucky day for me today. I'm still at the bottom of the well and currently have no idea how to climb out. Hugs appreciated though.

Valentine's Day in Limbo

2011-02-14T13:01:00.009+13:00

Okay, so, since Elissa nailed shut the escape door in Unpublished Author Waiting Limbo, I am now trapped here. Which means you will all have to put up with me moaning about it until I manage to swim the lakes of fire, slay the two-headed dogs, manage to scale the nine hundred million mile high barbed-wire fence, and somehow unlock the fabulous double doors that lead to Published Author Waiting Limbo. So if you all get sick of me, blame her. ;-)

In the meantime, since it's Valentine's Day I am going to give all you wonderful blog friends a little gift for making Unpublished Author Waiting Limbo just a little more bearable (not to mention blocking all my cunning escape routes you evil wenches, hehe).

Now, I'm not feeling very Valentiney since all I got this morning was a cup of coffee and a stale croissant. However, the day is still young(ish) and Dr Jax may yet redeem himself. So, to that end, please enjoy this small inspiration on me. Hoo is making cocktails (Sex on the Beach if you must know) so feel free to settle in. For those of you who have already seen it (and I'm sure most of you have, do indulge again. Personally I think you can never have too much of a good thing. Especially if that good thing is David Gandy wearing next to nothing.

And I think it decides the argument about white speedos quite conclusively. Yes, they are sexy.

Happy Freaking Valentine's everyone. :-)

The View from the Bar in Unpublished Author Waiting Limbo

2011-02-12T08:26:00.015+13:00

There is a special place that all unpublished authors wanting to submit to a publisher evenutally congregate in. It's called Unpublished Author Waiting Limbo. It's really not either heaven or hell but I'm going to designate it hell and give it it's very own special circle because Unpubbed Author Waiting Limbo can be torture. And it's not because Unpubbed Author Waiting Limbo is full of devils with pitchforks and crows pecking your eyes out. It's actually quite a nice place. There are comfy couches and seats. Magazines to read. A little library of books. There's a bar and music. A nice fire going. It seems comfortable. But that's just on the outside. Inside, every single author is torturing themselves with "what's happening to my submission?" Because that's the problem with Unpubbed Author Waiting Limbo. You don't know. And when we don't know, our brain makes up all kinds of stories about what is happening with your sub. Maybe it's taking so long because the ed loves it and is getting a second opinion? Maybe it's taking so long because the ms has gone missing? Maybe it's taking so long because the ed hasn't got to it yet? Maybe she hates it and it's gone in the bin and I didn't get the rejection email?
There are thousands of stories in Upubbed Author Waiting Limbo, all happening inside the authors heads. The human brain abhors not knowing and so when we don't know what's happening, it just goes ahead and makes stuff up for us.

Yay for brains.

Anyway, my brain is a master of making stuff up for me in the absence of not knowing. Currently, I have three subs out. Sub number one has been gone four and a half months now and since I have been passed to a new editor, I fear my Unpubbed Author Waiting Limbo clock has been reset back to sub number two, which has been gone six weeks. Sub number 3 is SYTYCW and two weeks after everyone else has had responses, I am still waiting for mine. I do not know why I haven't heard but currently my brain is telling me they either never got my entry or they've lost it. This is making Unpubbed Author Waiting Limbo a very unpleasant place to be right now and I wish I wasn't here.

I've got quite familiar with Unpubbed Author Waiting Limbo. It's actually become like home. I'm starting to put up pictures and photos, put a nice rug down, got my special pillow. But you know, it's not really home. I see people who have been here less time than me get that magical response which fires them up to heaven or down to hell, and I am jealous. I don't want to be here anymore. I want to move on to Published Author Waiting Limbo which is just through the fabulous double doors down the end of the hallway. The doors that are guarded by two-headed dogs, a lake of fire, and a 900 million foot high barbed wire fence.

Some days I am okay with being in UnPubbed Author Waiting Limbo. I've got friends here and the vodka is cheap and plentiful. But today is not one of those days. There is a way out though. There's a small doorway behind the bar that will let you crawl to freedom and I'm sitting at the bar contemplating that doorway right now. It's in the opposite direction to Published Author Waiting Limbo of course but there aren't any two-headed dogs or lakes of fire or fences. Just five minutes walk and I can open it and be free of Unpubbed Author Waiting Limbo forever. And it's starting look very, very attractive.

Yes, I know the best way to handle it is to write, and yes, some days that's what I do. But Unpubbed Author Waiting Limbo wears you down. It can sap your creativity. And no matter how hard you try, you just can't get your brain to stop thinking about why you haven't heard yet and devising various hideous scenarios about how lame your sub is and how your email filter is somehow deleting every email that could possibly be from an editor.

Today, as I am waiting for some sort of SYTYCW news and failing to get any, is a day of no creativity or inspiration. It's a day of frustration. It's a day where I think I will NEVER escape this place. I will be here for ever and ever and ever. It's a day of thinking that it isn't worth it and that it would be so easy to end the torture and just walk out the doorway at the back of the bar.

And right at this moment I want to.

Ten Ways to Make Your Hero Suffer

2011-02-09T10:29:00.020+13:00

Still nothing from SYTYCW but apparently the last responses are going to be sent out this week. I am feeling extremely nervous as some Rs without feedback have already gone out so - like everything in this business - there are no guarantees.

Anyway, as a kind of distraction, I thought I'd turn my thoughts to torture. As you do. Hero torture in particular. Now call me a sadist but torturing my characters is one of my all time favourite things to do, especially torturing my heroes because let's face it, who doesn't love a tortured hero? Yeah, there is such a thing as too much angst, I know, so it's a fine line. But still....tortured heroes....mmmm...*drools*...

Ahem.

So, how does one torture one's hero? Well here's my top ten list of ways to get the best out of your hero's emotional pain. :)

1. Give him a heroine who is the antithesis of everything he believes in but then give her a couple of qualities that the he can't help admiring. Watch his agonies as he tries to tell himself he doesn't like her. Or admire her. No freaking (or other suitable F word) way!

2. Have your heroine be utterly irresistable physically to him so that he can't helping wanting badly, no matter how much his brain tells him don't go there. Oh wants...but shouldn't...but I do...but I can't...etc...

3. Make the heroine totally indifferent/unaware/derisive of his usual slick moves so that he has to behave differently and thus be out of his comfort zone if he wants this fabulous, fascinating woman. Dammit!

4. Have him tell himself that he doesn't really want her, that it's just physical. And then put him in a situation where he realises that actually, it isn't. Oh noes!!

5. If he's being overly alpha, have the heroine tell him he's being a jerk and if he doesn't stop behaving like an ass, she's outta there. No one tells me what to do! Ever! But she's leaving and I'll never... Double dammit!

6. Get him in a situation where he has to talk about his feelings with the heroine. Hey, he's a guy. Worst. Thing. Ever.

7. Make sure he's totally comfortable with the relationship he has with the heroine. It's just about sex. It's just about being friends. It's just about being work colleagues. It's cool. It's fine. Everything's dandy. Then watch him squirm when you make him realise that he's falling in love.

8. Put him in a scene where he thinks he's doing something nice for the heroine and then have it backfire on him because a) he's misjudged the heroine or b) the heroine's conflict means it's actually the worst possible thing he could have done (see heroine torture) or c) he still hasn't learned that he has to do things differently from the way he's always done them if he wants this, particular woman. Lots of bleeding potential here. Can also lead into number 6 for added torture. Or number 10 for maximum angst.

9. This is a risky maneouvre but you can have him do something alpha that makes the heroine laugh at him. This can be good for uptight, buttoned up heroes. And in fact, can be a real growing moment if he figures out that actually, being laughed at won't kill him and that sometimes laughing at oneself can be a good thing. Who doesn't love a hero who knows when he's being a d*ckhead?

10. Have him realise he's in love with the heroine and know that there is no way that he will ever - EVER! - be with her. (Unless he does something totally and completely way out like risking his heart and telling her he loves her).

Naturally all of this depends on the hero, his conflict and his motivation. And some of these may not apply to some heroes. Hey, there are guys who actually quite like talking about their feelings! But usually I find that if I put my heroes in any one of these situations, they don't like it. Don't like it at all. Just being cruel to be kind though. Because the more you torture your characters, the more emotion you get from your story, the more your characters learn and the more wonderful your HEA. :-) In this case, the end justifies the means. Hehe.

Anyone else got any good torture suggestions? Bring 'em on!

So You Think You Can Wait Part 2

2011-02-05T11:39:00.007+13:00

I'm still in waiting room hell. Have heard nothing re SYTYCW this week. I'm almost wishing I'd got one of the Rs they sent out last week because then at least I'd know. But the worst part is that after waiting another week after everyone else, I STILL could get an R. Groan. Poor eds, they had flu and then a snow day, and no doubt are up to their eyeballs in lots of other stuff, but the timing sure does suck. At least I'm not the only one though. There are a bunch of us who haven't heard so that's something. Means I won't be getting too paranoid about whether they even received my entry!

Anyway, now I have to wait until NZ Tuesday before I find out anything. I know, drama queen right? Well, I'm afraid that's me. Drama queen extraordinaire. And when you know you're going to hear about a sub 'any day' you just can't just forget about it. At least, I can't. It has made writing this week very difficult (waking up at 5am every day to check your email gets a little tiring - and no, I didn't purposefully wake up at that time!). I've got 'waiting paralysis' basically. Plenty of stuff I should be getting on with but I keep coming up against the 'will they even want the rest of this?' barrier. Same with all my new ideas, especially since - when you're targeting Riva - you have no idea whether what they're looking for...

Well, that's my vent of the month. Anyone got any tips as to good distraction techniques?

Portrait of the Artist as a Young(ish) Romance Writer (TM)

2011-02-01T17:05:00.001+13:00

In the absence of SYTYCW news (yes, still waiting), here's a picture of me being stupid.

A day or two ago, Joanne Coles suggested on Twitter that Maisey Yates needed bons bons and champagne and then she'd be a real romance writer. Following a discussion about stereotypes, Maisey instantly came back with this gorgeous pic of her as 'The Romance Writer'.

And since imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, here is Jackie Ashenden lounging on her day bed while she drinks champagne and eats chocolate, her faithful lapdog by her side.

Note: She is not wearing a gauzy dress but a gauzy top is de rigeur. She also had gold shoes. Ignore the jeans, though they are more Riva aren't they? Purists also may note that her glass is empty. That's because she's waiting for her buff and oiled manservant to pour her another. :-)

So, tell me faithful blog readers, what do you wear while you're writing? A gauzy, flowy dress? Chick-lit strappy sandals? Do you drink pink champagne and pet your toy poodle while you dictate to a minion? Or do you - heaven forfend - slop around in your pyjamas while you tap away?

My Chapter 8 Horror

2011-02-01T07:58:00.015+13:00

In the absence of news from SYTYCW (due to a badly timed bout of flu - poor eds!) and, indeed, any news from anywhere else, I thought I'd do a post on that tricky beast pace.

First, let me set the scene:

Due to difficulties with a scene, Jackie asks Dr Jax to read the Hammer Pants ms for his opinion.

Dr Jax reads the entire thing and comes back with: "Chapter 8 is flat."

Jackie (hears 'your ms sucks completely and all of it is crap): "But there's some really important stuff in that chapter!" querelously.

Dr Jax: "There's too much exterraneous detail."

Jackie (hears: 'your dialogue sucks and so does your conflict'): "But I have to get over the conflict, the romantic connection, the past in that chapter! And they talk about important things!" reflects on awesome, emotional dialogue now deemed exterraneous detail.

Dr Jax: "Yeah but you could do all of that in half a paragraph."

Jackie (hears: 'The whole ms is terrible, you're a terrible writer, you'll never get this crap published'): "But how can I do that? I don't know what to do!!" wails, soul destroyed.

Dr Jax: "I don't know, you're the writer." callously.

Jackie flounces off in a huff.

Dr Jax: "But what about that scene you wanted to discuss?"

End of conversation.

Oh yes, I had lots of fun this weekend. But you know the real kicker? He was right!!! Chapter 8 was as flat as a pancake. There was no pace.

So what's pace? It's actually a tricky thing to describe and better people than me can say it better than I can but for me it's the sense of movement you get when you read something, the sense that the characters are driving you on to find out what's going to happen to them. There you go, see, I suck at explaining but when there is no pace, the scene feels like watching a dull play. Lots of people standing around talking and not much of anything happening.

And my chapter 8 was pretty much like that. The h&h were standing around discussing things but nothing was happening. Oh, they were discovering things about each other but really, the conflict wasn't being furthered in any way, shape or form. It kind of sucked.

How to fix it? Well, I've been steadily taking on board craft stuff for the past year and a half but the one thing I couldn't seem to get a handle on was Goal, Motivation, Conflict. I mean, I got the conflict part, and then I could understand motivation, but goal? Nope, that part of the jigsaw wouldn't fit. Until about the end of last year and you know when you have a lightbulb moment? Yep, I had one of those.

Anyway, chapter 8? No goals. The characters had nothing to strive for, no expectations about each other. This is not the big goals I'm talking about here, just the little ones. What did my heroine expect when she flew off to meet the hero? What did my hero expect when he came to meet her? I have no idea because I didn't put it in! He met her at the airport and they went straight to his house and had a lovely time. Oh and talked. Lots. But nothing really happened. Bah.

So, after a lovely chat with the CPs (who ARE writers so boo to you, Dr Jax!) I finally got a plan. I needed to figure out what my hero/heroine wanted/expected at the beginning of the chapter and how a response from one or the other of them would confound and frustrate those expectations. Example, what if the hero didn't meet the heroine at the airport like he'd told her? How would she feel/respond? And what would he do in response to that? And how would this change the relationship by the end of the chapter? Already I can think of a number of ways this would change things and make the chapter a lot more dynamic.

You notice that I'm doing this in retrospect? A good plotter would probaby have worked all this stuff out beforehand but I am a pantser from way back and this is just the way it has to be. Interestingly, this is the chapter that has always felt a bit lacklustre to me and thanks to Dr Jax and his crit, I now know why and thanks to the CPs, how!

Poor old Hammer Pants. It may not even get past the partial stage but it's been great in terms of learning stuff and identifying problems, I'll give it that.

Anyone else have any difficulties with pace? Do you know what you're doing when you write it or are you like me and only see it after the stupid thing is finished?

BTW, Kate Walker has done a fabulous post on voice. Go check it out if you're still unsure about what constitutes an author's voice.

So You Think You Can Wait

2011-01-29T13:23:00.005+13:00

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....

2011-01-28T07:48:00.006+13:00

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!)

2011-01-24T07:17:00.015+13:00

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

2011-01-21T08:30:00.009+13:00

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

2011-01-15T11:56:00.009+13:00

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

2011-01-12T09:07:00.006+13:00

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

2011-01-09T09:52:00.009+13:00

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

2011-01-04T10:54:00.007+13:00

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? ;-)

Happy Christmas!

2010-12-23T08:18:00.003+13:00

Happy Christmas everyone!

The above is an image of the Pohutakawa Tree - NZ's very own Christmas Tree. Now, I hate to be smug but Christmas in NZ means summer and sand and the beach so think of me while you're shivering beside your fires...

Actually, I'm quite jealous in some ways. I'd love to have a white Christmas. But sadly unless an Ice Age comes to NZ in the next couple of days, that won't be happening (and just as well really since we're going to be in a tent).

Anyway, I will be on holiday for the next 10 days (with no web access! Argh!) so I hope everyone has a fabulous Christmas and lovely New Year. The ed has told me she'll get to my partial in the New Year so at least there won't be an R in my Christmas stocking (but there better be a present, okay, husband?). :-)

Here's hoping for a great 2011 with lots of sales!

*passes round mulled wine for Northern Hemisphere visitors and a nice cold lager for those in the Southern Hemisphere*

Oh and super congrats to my lovely CP Maisey Yates who just sold her sixth (yes?) book! This is a fabulous story that Maisey worked incredibly hard on and it's going to be so exciting to see it in print! Big yays for the Frenchman!

The Closet and Some News

2010-12-17T20:01:00.005+13:00

This is just a quickie post to say I'm over on the Sister's blog talking about coming out of the closet. And no, not that particular closet in case you were wondering. :-) Just a small post about being loud and proud of your work.

And now for the news - I've been handed on to another editor following my High Five win. Weirdly I am left in the same position I was in when I came runner-up in the Feel the Heat contest. Then I was handed over to another editor who then looked at the two subs I had in and picked the one with most potential. That sub got to the second revisions on a full stage. So here I am again with two subs in and yet another editor looking to see which has most potential. Dejavu!

I'm hoping at least one of them does actually have potential and I finally do one poor editor proud. It's amazing I haven't been ditched yet really. To lose one editor may be regarded as a mistfortune, to lose both looks like carelessness....:-)

I shall endeavour not to be careless this time.

Here Endeth the Year of Suck

2010-12-15T13:46:00.008+13:00

I thought I'd take a leaf out of my dear sister Chelsea's book and do a post about what I've accomplished for 2010 since, it being a sucky year, it might be a good perspectiviser (no, I know, it's not a word) and not as depressing as it seems.

So, anyway, on with the perspectivising...

I have only had one sub out this year and it took a full year to have it rejected (yes, at partial stage). While I was waiting for that sub, I wrote four books, not including a second rewrite of the eventually rejected sub.

I've had two rejections. One for the above sub, and one for a pitch of a book I wrote a year or two ago.

I entered three contests. One I got nowhere. One I got lots of wonderful reader comments. And one I won. Two out of three ain't bad. :-)

I have had two requests. One from the editor for another story after the other two were rejected and one for the contest I won.

I have had about 30 thousands meltdowns (and that's just in the last six months), given up writing for good at least as much, thrown myself on the couch and torn my hair about 100 times, sulked in my bed, ate chocolate and whined on 50 separate occasions, whined generally about writing and about how other people are doing waaaay better than me and why can't I catch a break pretty much every week for the past year, and actively grumped at the family when the writing wasn't going well every day.

I have gained an iPad, an octopus and the numbers 4 and 0 after my age.

I have also learned a whole lot about my process, about how to keep teh sexxay emotional, how to make sure conflict is there from the first page, and how to keep my conflicts simple! I am still learning and no doubt in the next year will learn even more.

And last but definitley not least, I have made so many wonderful friends through this blog, through conferences, through CPs and through writing in general and that made the Year of Suck infinitely more bearable.

So, thanks guys. For listening to my moanings and general crapola, for being supportive and patient with me. And for all your lovely encouraging comments this year.

Oh yes and ending on a hopeful note, I have three subs out there (sending my third tonight) now so am hoping one of them hits the target to make 2011 the Year of Win!

Any major revelations for 2010 that anyone wants to share? Writing ones not things like llamas are bigger than frogs or anything (which they are, oddly enough).

Patience is a Virtue

2010-12-11T08:28:00.007+13:00

The above picture is the sound of silence. Both in my house just now and also from the mighty offices in Richmond. I was actually feeling quite good about the silence (in both places) for a while but it's been 8 weeks since I sent in my chapter and synopsis and...well, getting a bit impatient now.

I know, I know. They're inundated with NV subs and no doubt with all the SYTYCW subs too, not to mention being snowed in - literally - so it's no wonder I haven't heard really. And what with polishing up the Hammer Pants and my SYTYCW sub too, hearing about my other sub is not really what I want right now...

Oh, okay, I tell a lie. I DO want to hear about it. I want them to ask for the next two chapters please. The timing would be terrible but hey, I could manage it! Unless it's a flat out R of course. But OTOH, at least I'd know.

So, how about it M&B? Can I find out before Xmas please? Pretty please?

......*more tumblweed rolls by*.........

Sigh.

Aaaaanyway, I am having a lovely weekend of writing provided for me by the wonderful Dr Jax. He's taking the kids out so I can polish up my subs and get them away next week before we head away for a few days up north (where I have NO internet. Sniff). Hence the lovely sound of silence in my house.

So, anyone else waiting right now? How long as it been for you?

Hammer Pants Shoots! Hammer Pants Scores!

2010-12-07T14:54:00.003+13:00

Ah, my Hammer Pants. How I love thee. Let me count the ways...

Okay, okay, enough waxing lyrical. What's the news? Well, I got a nice early Christmas present in the shape of:

WINNING THE HIGH FIVE CONTEST!!!

But that is not all, no, that is not all.

I GOT A REQUEST!!!

Ahem.

Sorry for the shouting but 2010 has been, quite frankly, a b*tch writing-wise so this is a very nice way to end it. Yep, it was for the Hammer Pants ms (for which I will now have to reinstate the beginning that I cut!), the very same one wherein I emasculated my bad boy hero in a bid to make him likeable. Grrr. Naughy Jackie. *slaps wrist*

Anyway, the request is for three chapters and a synopsis and once I send that off, plus my SYTYCW chapter, I will have THREE subs in.

Yes, I am a greedy woman. :-) It could, of course, all come tumbling down and I shall be once more buried under a pile of rejections, but just for now, for this week, I am going to do an MC Hammer dance in celebration.

And in fact, if you look closely at the video below, I'm sure you'll see me somewhere in there. I'm the one in the gold pants. ;-)

I also would like to say big congrats to Rach and Jo for finalling too. You both rock!

One last thing. I want you all to go along immediately to check out brand new Riva author Aimee Carson's blog. She's awesome! :-)

First Drafts Suck

2010-12-01T09:08:00.003+13:00

Why? Well, here are some reasons my draft sucks:

1. The story is boring.
2. The conflict is confused.
3. The characters are irritating.

As you can tell, I'm at the 'they're never going to want any more of this story so what's the point in writing it' stage. Sigh.

I always get to this point in every story I write and mostly when it's the first draft, which is why I hate first drafts so much. I usually try and get them down as quickly as possible since I much prefer editing. I don't know why I find them so tough. I think it's probably because I'm a pantser by nature and so the plot kind of reveals itself as I go along. Oh, I know the character arcs and the emotional development of the story, but it's the how that happens. The 'what do the characters DO' that gets me. She needs to learn that he isn't like her father so what does he do to show her that? He needs to learn she won't leave like his mother so what does she do? etc, etc.

I know, I know, just sit down a write without the internal editor going blah, blah, blah in the background. And believe me, I do that. But I still get the I can't be bothered with this anymore thing happening.

Anyway, my usual approach to first draft suckage is to start a bright, shiny new idea which, of course, does not help because to get past the first draft stage, you've actually got to finish the first draft!

Grrr.

So far my best option has been to write ahead to a scene I particularly want to write and this is usually the black moment. Because I love writing black moments, doing this can be a really good way of getting things flowing and it's fantastic for figuring out whether your conflict is going to work or not. In fact, skipping forward to writing the black moment for the Hammer Pants ms enabled me to see that my poor old bad boy wasn't all that bad. He kept insisting that he was a b*stard and that he wasn't good enough for the heroine and I kept wondering why that was since he actually didn't have a past that would make him ashamed. Same with the Frenchman. In the story, there's a choice that as an alpha male in control of his life, he probably would have made, except in my story, he doesn't want to even make the choice. And I kind of thought I knew why, but it wasn't till I'd written the black moment that I went 'Ooooh, so THAT'S why!'.

So, anyway, that's my tip for getting past the 'bogged down' stage in first drafts. Anyone else got any ideas? I'd be glad to hear 'em!

How Dorothy Dunnett Ruined Me for Writing Category Romance

2010-11-26T07:50:00.012+13:00

**Spoiler Alert! If you plan on reading these books and like surprises then stop reading now. Right now. This instant! **

**I mean it.***

**Well, okay, but don't say I didn't warn you.***

I like subtlety. My very favourite historical romance in all the world - The Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett, that I first read at the tender age of 15 - was chock full of it. I liked the way nothing was ever semaphored in large, friendly letters, merely hinted at. Whispered. I liked the way that sometimes I had to go and re-read parts just to see if what I thought happened, actually did happen. Or that I'd missed something that I should have picked up on. I liked how you had to pay attention to the most seemingly innocuous conversation because it might contain some clue to a character's emotional state or to their past. Or how even the way they were standing was some hint as to their deeper emotions. I liked the way there was ALWAYS a subtext going on and how half the fun was guessing what exactly the subtext was. And I liked the way you hardly ever got the hero's POV because it kept him mysterious.
But most of all, I really liked how my best friend and I used to argue for hours about questions the answers to which were never clearly answered - what really happened to his father? What was it with his mother? Was the boy who died really his son or the son of his enemy? Was he really in love with the woman in book 2? And what exactly was the nature of his relationship with the Turkish prince in book 4?
In fact, those questions and many others, kept a whole web discussion forum going for years and probably still does. But that's beside the point. I loved the subtlety of it and I read and re-read those books over and over again, just to see if could pick up any more bits and pieces of information that I'd missed the first ten times I read it.

I loved that subtlety SO much that I swore, as a writer, I would never hit my readers over the head with conflict (actually, I didn't really know what conflict was back then but you know what I mean), that I'd dole out little bits of information like cheese before mice, leading the reader into the story but perhaps never revealing anything too much till later. If at all. I'd give them little puzzles so they would be fascinated about my characters motivations and perhaps go and re-read bits so they could maybe pick up on something they'd missed. And I'd also keep my hero very mysterious and not give him a lot of POV so no one would know quite what he was doing or why until right at the end. Oh yes and I'd torture him lots too because there's nothing like a tortured hero.

And I bet you can guess how well that worked out when it came to writing category romance.

It didn't.

I blame Dorothy Dunnett and Francis Crawford of Lymond completely for my inability to get to grips with category romance. And I have to repeat to myself daily what worked for six 500 page books published in the 60s will not work for one 50k book published in 2010.

So, no to subtlety. No to little reader puzzles. No to carefully hinted at emotional states. No to mysterious motivations. No to limited hero POV. No to roundabout dialogue where the characters talk about everything but the thing they actually need to talk about. Oh and BIG nos to torturing your hero with opium addiction (seriously!).
Yes to have that conflict in the first chapter. Yes to being absolutely clear as to the motivations of your characters. Yes to the reader knowing more than the characters do NOT the other way around.

Still, I suppose if Dorothy Dunnett had actually written on the first page 'Francis Crawford had always secretly feared he was the secret lovechild of his mother's affair with her husband's father' then I'm sure there would not have been six books to write.*

Anyway, that's my excuse as to why this category romance lark is so damn difficult for me and I'm sticking to it. :-) And you'll be pleased to know that I have actually broken the habit of a lifetime and in the latest couple of WIPS, got out my conflict stick to beat the reader over the head with it. :-)

So, question for the day - have there been any particular book/books that have had an influence on you as a writer?

*Note: okay, so that's kind of a spoiler. Sorry. But it's only part of the conflict not all of it. Or is it? You'll have read it to find out. And you may come to an entirely different conclusion. :-)

Neutering the Bad Boy

2010-11-23T07:40:00.010+13:00

It's funny the things you find out about your characters that you don't realise until you've written The End. Have done the HEA for the Hammer Pants ms (actually they're Hammer Capris since I've come up short on the word count) and figured I've been pulling back on my hero. I wanted him to be a bad boy - hey he knows it and has been trying to tell me so it's not his fault - but actually, he's not all that bad. In my efforts to make him sympathetic, I've neutered the poor man. Which kind of defeats the purpose of his conflict and may be one of the reasons I was struggling with the ms. Never a good thing to do with an alpha. So one of the many pieces of tailoring I have to do to the Hammer Pants to get them looking like Chanel is to give my poor bad boy back his cojones. He's not a happy lad, let me tell you, and he did not appreciate my efforts to contain him.

Such are the joys of the alpha male.

Anyway to give myself a bit of alpha practice, I've been redoing my Frenchman to suit Presents/Modern. Yes, it's quite different to writing MH but to be honest, I'm quite enjoying releasing my inner emo. As you know, I LOVE teh angst. Bring on the drama, the torture, the sexy darkness! You can't go too dark with MH - at least not as dark as I want - so letting it all hang out with a bit of Presents is actually quite liberating. Anyway, I always had a sneaking suspicion that the Frenchman erred on the Modern side of the Modern Heat line so it's not been too much work to pull him completely over it. And I have to say, he's happier as a Modern hero. His voice in my head wasn't ever MH and so the rest of the ms is not all that MH is tone either. In fact I'm secretly thinking of sending the first chapter to SYTYCW, just to see what happens. Hehe.

So what's everyone else doing? Neutered any bad boys lately?

Hammer Pants Get a Prize

2010-11-18T11:40:00.006+13:00

The rollercoaster has been up and down this year, mostly down it has to be said, so I was pretty pleased to be told last night that the MC Hammer Pants ms finalled in the RWAus High Five contest. Apart from Feel the Heat two years ago, I've done poorly in most contests I've entered. Often I get a couple of judges who loved the entry but also one who HATED it. So this time I appear to have lucked in. Very happy about it but also extremely surprised because I was sure the ms wouldn't get anywhere at all.

Anyway, the High Five consists of the first five pages of an ms (no synopsis - guess why I entered??) so I'm not sure if that's enough to warrant a request but I would be very happy if so. There is one problem with a request however. I have changed the beginning of the story completely since I sent off the entry! Argh!! Not sure whether to continue with it the way it is now or not.

Oh well, will wait and see what happens. In the meantime there's my SYTYCW submission which I'm tearing my hair over since it's a little something different, plus the wait on my MH chapter and synopsis. Crossing fingers that perhaps the rollercoaster will continue its upward climb...

How's the rollercoaster doing for everyone else?

PS. Big congrats also to my lovely CP Rach and my lovely blog friend Jo Dixon who also finalled.

Pants!

2010-11-12T17:12:00.008+13:00

You know that 13k? Best. Deletion. Ever. Yes, indeed, sometimes starting the whole thing again is the best thing to do. Because now I am at 25k and thinking it's not total pants. Okay, so that's a lie, it IS pants, just not saggy, baggy, smelly, held-up-with-string pants. More like dodgy tracksuit pants. Or gold, sparkly MC Hammer Pants. Yep, I think I'll go with the MC Hammer Pants ms, because hey, there is the requisite touch of luxury in that it is set in a VERY nice hotel. That's probably the only good thing about it in many ways but you'll all be pleased to know that I am not going back and editing. I am doubting nearly everything about it but I shall press on. At least the tone is right and the conflict is okay. Probably. Maybe. Who knows?

What I do know is that after Nano is over, I shall be left with a pair of gold MC Hammer pants that I will need to tailor into a Chanel couture ball gown. Which is easy right?

So how's everyone else's Nano looking? Do you have Hammer pants too?

The 17 Step Method

2010-11-08T08:03:00.013+13:00

Why is it that the more you know, the harder it is to write? A couple of years ago, my process was this:

1. Have an idea.
2. Write it.

Excellent huh? But then came along this pesky thing called craft and things changed, and so did my process. It became something like this:

1. Have an idea
2. Work out the conflict.
3. Sit down and write it.

Nowadays though, I know more. So at the present time it's like this:

1. Have an idea.
2.Work out the conflict.
3. Figure out the backstory.
4. Figure out the characters.
5. Determine character arcs.
6. Think about a vague synopsis.
7. Sit down and write it.
8. Stop. Realise you haven't thought about the backstory deeply enough. Repeat Step 3.
9. Continue writing.
10. Stop. Realise you haven't really got a handle on the conflict. Go back to step 2.
11. Keep writing.
12. Stop. Realise that your beginning sucks and you've started in the wrong place.
13. Start again.
14. Stop. Realise that your conflict actually sucks.
15. Try to keep going despite it, hoping it'll all work out in the end.
16. Stop. Realise that it's not going to work out and your whole story sucks.
17. Give up, go get a martini and watch Spartacus instead.

No doubt, in another year or two it'll go something like this:

1. Have an idea.
2. Decide to bypass all the crap by proceeding directly to step 17.

Does anyone else have this problem or is it just me?

Delete, Delete, Delete

2010-11-04T07:55:00.006+13:00

Did you hear that?

*screams*

That folks is the sound of thirteen thousand words being deleted. Such a great start to Nano huh? Writing this reunion story has been like pushing the proverbial excrement up the proverbial hill and yesterday I was going to give up the whole story in complete disgust and wander around wailing and rending my garments. But in a last ditch effort, I followed a bit of advice handed out by CPs and a few lovely blog readers, and wrote a scene that occured in the past - the black moment where my couple's earlier relationship broke up.

Now this, my friends, is a most excellent way to go and if you are having conflict issues and can't work out a character's history, writing it out is extremely helpful. Of course, in writing out this particular scene, it has resulted in the loss of 13k. So perhaps helpful isn't quite the right word. Still, better to know the problem now than in another 40k or so when I would have to rewrite the entire story.

Anyway, the problem was I had started the story in the wrong place and made the hero do something he wouldn't, thereby creating a lot of complex backstory, with lots of offstage revelations, just to get him to do what I wanted him to do. I thought he realised breaking up with the heroine the first time round was a mistake but it wasn't until I wrote out some of his past that I realised that he didn't think it was a mistake. He thought he did the right thing. And it's not until he meets her again that he realises he didn't.

And so I'm having to start the entire story again. It sounds horrendous to get rid of all those words and it is, but the start I had won't work with the conflict now, and if I keep going with it in its current form, the entire story will probably fall to pieces. Probably. I don't actually know of course until I start writing it but one thing I am certain of, if the story feels too hard to write then there is a problem with it.

Still, depressing start to the month I have to say. Anyone have other depressing deletion stories?

On a happier note, big congrats to Leah, winner of the New Voices comp! Fabulous news, m'dear. We'll have lots to celebrate next RWAus huh?

Dealing with the Whataboutmes

2010-11-01T20:34:00.005+13:00

Trying to haul myself out of the blahs with a post over at the Sisters about how to deal with a bad case of the 'whataboutmes'. And if you want to know what they are, here's the link:

What about me?

If you don't, here's a picture of Andy Whitfield from Spartacus instead. Are you not entertained? ;-)