Monday Morning Freak-Out

I'm having a bit of a freak-out at the moment. Nothing new for me I guess but a 'thing' has happened and it's left me feeling all weirded out.

I've had this idea for a series in my head for at least a year now and I always thought I'd write it as category length. However, since I've written my Dirty Virgin Hero, I've been wondering if I couldn't take it longer. The DVH was 63k and I have to say I enjoyed writing long, so I kind of thought this idea could maybe stretch to Single Title length.  I've always had it in my head that I'd like to give ST a go but I've never had a really good enough idea that would make me want to write it. Until it occurred to me that this series idea could be an ST.

I've kind of been put off ST till now because over the various conferences I've been to, agents and publishers were saying that ST Contemporary was a hard sell and that readers wanted sweet, small-town stories. Which annoyed me cos I don't write sweet, small-town stories.  So I steered clear of it, wrote what I wanted to write which was angsty urban contemporaries.

And then 50 Shades hit. And angsty urban alphas were suddenly in again. And the CPs were telling me to run the idea past the agent to see what she said. I kind of thought the agent would probably say no and I prevaricated a lot - mainly because I liked my idea and didn't want it to be rejected before I'd even got a chance to write a word. But in the end I sent her the idea and dammit, she liked it! And so now I have to write a series outline, a synopsis and a partial of the first book!

This is geat news - I'm thrilled about it honestly - but I'm also freaking out because I've never written an ST (we will not speak of my 320k opus) and the idea I have is complicated, dark and extremely angsty, and I'm really, really hoping I can pull it off. I'm going to be majorly writing out of my comfort zone and that's kind of scary.

But I guess challenging yourself is all part of growing as a writer isn't it?

Who else is writing out of their comfort zone at the moment? Anyone want to join me in the freak-out??

WIPS and Agents

I suppose everyone has seen my word counters on the side of the blog and has noticed that yes, they all stand at 100%. It's true, I have finished all three of my WIPs. Now I truly, truly don't mean to be smug. It's just that I am very lucky in that this is my day job. And having one kid at school and the other at creche means I do get quite a bit of time to write. And I do write fast when the mood takes me.

The other thing to bear in mind is that although I may have three finished mss, it doesn't mean that they are, in fact, any good! They could all be complete crap! If and when I finally do get to submit any of them, I could be soundly rejected or be told to completely rewrite them. In which case it's back to the old drawing board.

However, I'm fully of the belief that it actually doesn't matter if they are all complete crapola. They were all great practise. Old Coot (mountain climbing hero) is one that I wrote the start of, realised I had no conflict to speak of, and then completely rewrote. Kate and Alex is my Feel the Heat entry, minus the stereotypes and with added internal conflict. And Panic Attack...well, actually that was the latest one I started and the only one where I felt I actually knew what I was doing when I began it - meaning I had the internal conflict worked out first. So even if they are all rejected, I figure that each ms was a great learning experience. Nothing is ever wasted!

And now the fun really begins. Editing! So now I have to contemplate which one to start editing first (and finding titles for since I can't really submit something called Old Coot!) . While I do that, the other thing I'm wondering about is whether to pitch to an agent at the RWNZ conference. Sadly we're not getting an HMB editor this year but we are getting an agent from the Knight Agency who is actively seeking category projects. I don't know whether to pitch or not. I'm thinking not, because you don't really need an agent to write for HMB. What does everyone else reckon? To agent or not to agent?