Happy Birthday To Me

Guess what day it is today? Yes, my birthday! And also - brace yourselves because I'm going to tell you how old I am - the last year of my thirties. Which is sad! I have loved the thirties - not the beginning bits because some crappy things happened then - but the last five years have been rather good. Especially the last year.

In fact, this has been a pretty momentous year all round. This time in 2008, I subbed my first ms to Mills and Boon following recieving a compliment slip after the Instant Seduction Contest. I was also feeling annoyed with my library job and wondering if it was at all possible to have a decent career while having a young family. Even working 30 hours a week put huge stresses on our family - my husband has a fairly demanding job and what with me trying to carve out my own career, it was just hell on wheels. And so that's when I thought, dammit, writing has been my dream since I was 12 years old. It's all I've ever wanted to do. So why not take the leap - quit a job that was only frustrating me and write full time. It took me months to do this because giving up a career I'd spent 10 years in wasn't easy. Neither was being dependent on income from my husband. But honestly, it was the best thing I ever did. Not only did it take away the stress involved with managing school hours and school holidays, but it meant I could do what I've wanted to for years. I'm very lucky and my husband is a small god for making it possible.

I also want to thank you all for being such great friends. If I'd never made that leap, I would never have met such a wonderful lot of people. Even though I've never met any of you in real life, I feel like I know you, and that's something I never, ever expected from full-time writing.

Anyway, that's my deep and philosophical thoughts for the day. Tonight we're going out for dinner and in order to NTAI, I am being a complete computer geek and playing the new computer game I've just bought. No writing will be done.

Next year it's going to be the big four oh and I am planning big things. Until then, happy birthday to all you other Geminis out there and let's hope this year is the best ever!

News - Revisions R Us!

I had an email from Anna today! No, not a sale but I'm pretty sure I'm going to be asked to do a second round of revisions!! Why am I not sure? Well, the email was kind of an apology because she mistakenly sent me my ms when it should have gone to a colleague she was wanting a second opinion from. A second opinion so she could send me some revisions! At least, she mentioned that but then the rest of the email talked about 'feedback'. Do you think 'feedback' is revisions? Or am I being an idiot and over-analysing??

Oh well, I'll find out next week because apparently I'll get my feedback by Tuesday. Argh!!

Desperately Seeking a Title

I need a title. My Feel the Heat entry has been completely and utterly rewritten and now needs to be called something. Kate'n'Alex sounds like the title of a sitcom and although I could stick with Chasing Kate - which was the title I used for FTH - I'm not sure if it fits with the story anymore.

To show you how useless I am with titles, here is a list I came up with:

a) Chasing Kate - Again
b) The Millionaire Property Developer's Secret Bulldozer
c) The Hippy and the Property Developer Have a Weekend of Hot Sex and Live HEA
d) For the Love of Gardening (cos there is gardening in it)

Hmmm, somehow I don't think I'll be using any of the above (though I do have a hankering for the secret bulldozer). ;-)
Anyway, here's where you guys come in. Can you help me think of a title? To get you thinking, here's a quick blurb I wrote about it:

It's lust at first site when Kate meets Alex. Pity he's arrogant, rude, and worse, about to buy her much loved house with the sole purpose of knocking it down. But then he offers her way out of her money woes - he'll buy her house and let her live there, no demolishing required. For a price: one weekend with her.



Alex wants Kate like he's never wanted anything in his life. She's passionate and challenging, the perfect combination. But he's not a settle-down type of guy and so there's only one way for him to get what he wants: he'll have her for one weekend and one weekend only. However he'll soon find that one weekend with Kate isn't enough. Not nearly enough...

Okay, my blurb probably sucks (I hate writing 'em) so the other things you need to know are that secret babies, brides, virgins and/or billionaires do not feature anywhere in the story. A commune, a nice vegetable garden, an island hideaway and an old Mini do.

Anyone got any good ideas??

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?

Cliches and How to Avoid Them

Lorraine has been discussing conflict and cliche on her blog after an interesting editorial post on the Mills and Boon UK site. It's all about how conflicts can become cliches if they are used to create a character. Thought I might put in my two cents worth as it's something that the editors have pointed out to me about my own writing, so I've had a bit of experience with it (hope you don't mind if I nick your topic, Lorraine!).

The way I understand it, a conflict becomes a cliche if that's all there is to the charcter. An example would be my Feel the Heat entry. Kate was a cliched hippy set against Alex, the cliched developer. And that's all. There was nothing behind their conflict, nothing that made them anything more than cardboard cut-outs. Another example (yes, I have a few!) is the current ms that I revised. My heroine in the initial draft was a cliched geek. Again, that's all. That was her conflict. She was two dimensional. Her conflict made her a cliche. I have another heroine in another WIP who also started out like that - the prim accountant who doesn't like losing control. Another cliche. There wasn't anything more, anything that made them real people rather than ciphers. Does that make sense?

To get past these cliches, I think the answer is, as the editor put in her post (paraphrasing here), imagine your character as a real person and ask yourself: what life has this person lived that makes them who they are today? What experiences have they had that have added to their character? Okay, so your hero's mother died when he was 5 and it scarred him, but that isn't the only thing that has ever happened in his life.
For example, in my current WIP, the main conflict for my heroine is that her mother never got over her father leaving them. So she has spent years trying to make her mother's loneliness better but never succeeding (because it's her father her mother wanted, not her). She's very caring so this need to make things better has leaked into other areas of her life, namely her relationships with men. She's attracted to tortured souls so she can 'heal' them. Now, if that was all there was to her, it would make her very one-dimensional (in fact, make her a nurse and I have a cliche just waiting to go). But I have learned my lesson so her need to help people isn't all there is to her. She's developed a fear of flying after a bad flight experience, her much loved grandfather introduced her to photography which she loves, she used to go out with musicians and likes going to a good gig, she's trying to be a bit more selfish about her own needs... All facets of her, some of which are related to her conflict, some are not. But they are all part of the life she's lived up until now and make her the person she is. Her conflict does not make her a cliche - I hope!

Again, this is just my take on it. I could be wrong. Anyone else have any ideas?

Life Imitates Art

I blame my heroine. In my current WIP my heroine decides that she needs a helicopter ride to overcome her fear of flying. So off I go like an obediant little author and write her the scene she wants. Next day, my brother-in-law who is training to be a helicopter pilot rings me up to see if I want to go for a fly. How exciting yes? Well, guess where my heroine got her fear of flying? Yes, sadly, from me!
So, having written a wretched helicopter scene, I could hardly refuse an actual ride in an actual helicopter now could I? Especially since I've never been in one..

Talk about suffering for my art! Anyway, as you can see, the helicopter was tiny! It was a Robinson R22 for those who know/care about such things (and no, my daughter did not go with us - I could barely fit me and my jersey in there!).

However, I am pleased to report that despite little wobbles about how the wretched thing stays in the air and a few 'oh look, is that plane coming directly at us??' moments, it was fantastic! Flew right over Auckland and over our house (the roof is in dire need of a paint), and it's definitely a trip a heroine in need of getting over her fear of flying requires.

Have decided for my next WIP, my hero shall fly helicopters. Actually scrub that. The heroine can fly the damn helicopter. :-)

Some Perspectives

I'm feeling sick and grumpy today. Got a vile cold and aren't fit company for man or beast. Anyway, thought I needed a bit of perspective on - yup, you guessed it - waiting. Here's a quick list for you:

1. Penelope waited 20 years for Odysseus to return.
2. Pharaoh Kufu waited 20 years for the Great Pyramid at Giza to be built.
3. The average wait time for a new heart is 6 months (UK).
4. The Count of Monte Cristo was in prison for 14 years.
5. Heathcliff was away from Catherine for 3 years.
6. It takes 6 months to become a New Zealand citizen.
7. It took JK Rowling's agent a year to find a publisher for her Harry Potter manuscript.
8. The Israelites spent 40 years wandering.
9. Getting to Mars would take between 7 and 9 months depending on how fast you were travelling.
10. Keri Hulme (NZ writer) spent 10 years writing her Booker Prize winning novel, The Bone People.

In comparison, my ms has been in London for 9 weeks, which is no time at all. Nuff said, I think.

Oh, and the above facts may or may not be true - my research could be (and probably is!) highly suspect.

The Heroine Wore A Housecoat

Okay, so last post I complained about the clothing dilemma in terms of the hero. And I also wondered just what on earth a housecoat was. Thanks to Lorraine and Joanne(who has posted a lovely You Tube clip of Hilda Ogden on her blog), I now know! Yes, it is - as I feared - something my nana would have worn if she were still alive (RIP). Otherwise known as a 'pinny'. Attractive no? Can you imagine dressing your heroine in one of these? I guess they were probably thought of as hip and up to the minute in...I was going to say the seventies here but surely by the seventies they would have had fifties housewife written all over them?

Anyway, thank God the housecoat is no longer to be seen because I'm not sure I could take a heroine who wore one entirely seriously. Which brings me to another item of clothing dearly beloved of romance heroines (the ones I've read anyway): the shirtwaister. Now, I have puzzled long and hard about exactly what a shirtwaister is. I have always thought it was a little bit between a housecoat and a dress, and you know what? It is! All you have to do is add a belt!

Seriously, the shirtwaister isn't too bad all things considered. At least, it's little sexier than what I thought. Still, I can hardly talk - my heroine is wearing leather trousers at the moment. Not sure why since she's not really a rock chick and I'm not hugely fond of leather trousers myself. It just sort of...happened. She had all her clothes nicked and the hero's seventeen year old sister took her shopping and...and... Look, she's just wearing them because she likes them okay? ;-) But hey, at least she's given up her strappy sandals, a cliche according to Jenny Hutton's tips on the Mills and Boon boards...

So, what's your favourite heroine outfit then? Housecoats? Shirtwaisters? Leather trousers? :-)

The Hero Wore Pink Trousers

I've been working on my WIP today and ran into the clothing dilemma. What, you say? Clothing dilemma? Yes, indeed. The clothing dilemma frequently happens to me when I'm describing what my characters are wearing and an incredibly cool, styley outfit ends up sounding like something an old man/woman would wear. For example, I saw a picture of a fab Ralph Lauren outfit for my hero and it came out sounding thusly: "He wore a pale grey, pinstripe suit, with a bright pink pinstripe shirt, and a pink and yellow paisley tie." The outfit looked great and the guy wearing it looked really hot. Honest. No? Okay, what about this one: "His black shorts showed off his powerful thighs, the purple jersey he was wearing a nice contrast to the bright green lapels of the shirt he was wearing underneath it." Still no? All right, what about this: "The pink trousers he wore hugged his rear nicely, a pale green jersey stretched across his broad chest." No? Hey, this is Ralph Lauren. Okay, then I guess I definitely wouldn't be able to get away with the fabulous World Man outfit I saw in the shop yesterday. World (NZ designers) do great men's clothes but if I dressed my poor hero in baggy black pants, spotted shirt and a waistcoat with horses on it, it's going to sound naff.

I guess it all comes back to being scarred by reading an old 80s Mills and Boon where the hero wore a cream jacket with brown box pockets and epaulettes, and the heroine a housecoat. Ever since then my heroes have to stick with jeans and a t-shirt. Or a suit. Cut offs at a push. No patterns. Easy to describe, easy to envisage. And don't even get me started on what the heroine wears.

Anyone else have this problem or is it just me? And just what is a housecoat anyway??

Finished

Yep, finally finished the first draft of Kate and Alex. Well, when I say finished, I do mean that incredibly loosely. I got to the last chapter, wrote a couple of pages, then got entirely sick of all the explanations and arguments and put '...and then they get together, HEA'. Slack eh? Told you I was crap at endings. Anyway, the actual, professional plan is to leave the story to fester for a week or two, then haul out for a major edit and a final, proper re-write of the last chapter.

Which leaves me now with two completed manuscripts and two more halfway there. Of course, they could ALL be utter pants and in no way acceptable but sadly, the only way to tell whether this is the case would be to submit and this I cannot do until I hear... But as you all know, I am NTAI. :-)

Anyway, for those of you who are wondering at my ability to finish two mss comparatively quickly, know that the only reason I can do this is that writing is my day job (while oldest is at school and youngest is at creche) so I do tend to have the time. Plus, a great tip that I learned from doing the Nano (novel in a month), was to do a chapter plan beforehand so I know exactly where I'm going, then write without editing. This does mean an incredibly rough first draft - there are scenes that aren't finished 'cause I've got too bogged down - but at least the whole thing is down on the page. Works for me at any rate.

What about the rest of you? Where is everyone at with their current WIPs?

You Gotta Say Boots, Not Shoes.

Herewith the boots.

Yes, the picture is crap. They are black suede so kind of boring but then so is NTAI. I'm hoping that when I get the big yes/no, I'll splash out to celebrate/cry with something totally ridiculous and pretty, that I will never have any opportunity to wear like....








these.....











On the other hand, I could just continue to write lots of books. :-)

New Boots

One must never underestimate the value of retail therapy. To help me NTAI (see previous post), I went out today and got myself some new boots. With a heel. Now, I don't normally wear heels. They hurt my feet and they make me feel overdressed. But now, as I edge closer towards the big four oh, I've decided to hell with that. I don't want to be on my death bed thinking 'man, I really wish I'd got myself some killer heels'. Hence the boots. They were also going to either be my 'Woohoo I sold my book' boots or my 'Wah, they rejected my book' boots. Sadly they are neither. Today they're my NTAI boots.

Okay, I'll stop wibbling about the boots. On more important matters such as writing, I have nearly finished Kate and Alex. Again I find myself charging towards the finish line, wrapping the whole thing up in seconds flat. I think it'll take at least 5k to finish and then end up finishing in 1! What's with that? I suspect it's because I don't like endings. The whole let-me-explain-why-I-acted -so-badly explanation thing is very tiresome to me. Plus I don't like mush. I know, odd for a romance writer, but I can't stand it when things get too syrupy. And inevitably, there's always a certain amount of syrup required for an ending.

What about everyone else? Do you like endings? Or do you prefer buying boots? :-)

Not Thinking About It

Okay, sorry about the whinging last post guys. Guess the pressure got to me and I was just letting off steam. Thanks to everyone who posted encouraging comments - felt much better after reading those! I think learning to wait is the hardest part of this journey for me. I've never been good with being patient and being a newbie when it comes to submission, it's very difficult to come to grips with. Then again, I am very, very lucky that I have come this far. Being fixated on this one goal, I often don't appreciate how far that actually is. But I am appreciative. Honestly. I'm just at the point where where I want the whole drawn-out process to end one way or another.

Anyway, you'll all be pleased to know that I have stopped whining and have put up this virtual scarecrow to scare away the Crows of Doubt that have been pecking at me for the past week. This week I am not going to think about my ms or what's happening to it. This week I am going to concentrate on Kate and Alex and fixing the problem in Chapter 5 that is bogging me down. Of course that means rewriting chapters 5, 6 and 7 but am I daunted? No! I am determined to finish this so I have a third ms to fire at them if I am rejected this time.
Oh and I sent away my comeptition entries too.

So, here's to Not Thinking About It. Anyone else NTAI?

The Death of Chatterton Or Feeling Annoyed With Waiting

I feel a bit like poor old Chatterton today. Or at least, lying picturesquely on a poorly lit bed with the remains of my torn up manuscript at my side, while I overdose on laudanum is looking increasingly attractive.
It's the wait you see. I know, banging on about waiting again. It's now five weeks since I sent away my revisions. Anna told me she couldn't get to it for at least a week so I'm mentally adjusting myself to four weeks but still. Reading other people's call stories and how two days after they sent their mansucript, they were rung and given the good news. Okay, maybe not two days but two - three weeks. A month at a stretch. It's a month for me right now and nothing heard. Maybe I'm reading the wrong call stories??

So I am bracing myself for bad news. They're probably working up a nice rejection letter for me - which would be good, don't get me wrong, but obviously not what I want to hear. I know, the length of time they take to get back to you is different for everyone but I am feeling rather woeful about four weeks. I've been spoiled, I realise, by their fast responses over the New Year.

Ah well, nothing for it but to grind my teeth here. Have posted off my competition entries for the Great Beginnings Contest. And this weekend we're down south for a 40th birthday. All good distraction I guess.

Anyway, thanks for letting me complain. I'd better give myself a sound slapping for such pathetic whiney-ness. Buck up old bean and all of that. Hope everyone has a good weekend.

Here endeth the whinge.

The Best Job in the World

Right, so I'm back from the wilds of Ohope. Had a thoroughly lovely time and did not think about the manuscript - no, not once. But now I'm back with the PoD (Phone of Doom) and the IoD (Inbox of Despair), both of which were silent as the grave. Wish I was back in Ohope again!

In the meantime I have been thinking of ways to explain to people just how hard getting published is. Mainly because the one question I keep being asked is 'So, are you published yet?', like it's a diet you keep meaning to start or a place you keep meaning to go. Yes, I say to them, how slack of me to be trying full time for a year to get published and haven't managed to do so yet. How incredibly slow and dull.

I've thought that perhaps one of the best ways to describe it is telling people that getting a manuscript accepted is like applying for the Best Job in the World. You have a position that 50 thousand people apply for, and you have to be the one out of all those 50 thousand who has that something special that makes you right for the job.
Now, I don't know how many manuscripts M&B get a year and it may not be 50 thousand but that's the best equivalent I can come up with. So now I tell people that where I am now is kind of like making the shortlist but they're still considering my appropriateness for the job.
Of course it means that if I don't get the job, I'll have to begin the process all over again!

Anyway, better get my contest entries in before the deadline. What's everyone else doing?

The Alpha and Ohope

Well, cometh Easter, cometh the holiday. We're going away to Ohope Beach (see right) for four days. Nice picture eh? It's a tourist board shot so I'm sure it's not actually like that in real life - though one can hope. Anyway, it's not terribly exotic and not something I could use in a Modern Heat story (remember Huntly?), but it will be nice to get out of the city and - more importantly - away from the Phone of Doom and the Inbox of Despair. While away I shall be too busy wrangling small children (we're going away with friends), drinking chocolate martinis, and attempting to play badminton (hard while you're holding a martini) to angst about phones or email. At least, that's what I'm hoping. I'm going to bring my laptop too just in case I get some time or a wild fit of creativity and get some writing in. Probably though, I'll just end up reading the ebooks I've got on it.

I was actually going to do a post like Lorraine's about alpha males 'cause I thought it was really interesting the comment about how many people seem to have difficulty with making their heroes alpha. I've also read various reader comments on different sites about how much they don't like alpha males. And yet Presents (which is full of alphas) is a top selling category. So really, I was wondering why people have problems with writing an alpha male. Is it personal preference? Anyone willing to share their alpha problems? I had one - Alex, my hero in my competition entry, was apparently not allowed to doubt his attractiveness to the heroine. Which kind of makes sense. Doubting one's own attractiveness is not an alpha trait.

Okay, so I did end up posting about alphas after all! Ah well, can't get away from the writing. Hope everyone has a nice Easter!

Learning to Enjoy Olives

Okay, so maybe I was a little hasty in saying that synopses suck. In fact, writing synopses do not suck. I think it's like learning to enjoy olives. At first they're vile and you can't wait to spit them out, but after a little while you've managed a couple, then a couple more, and then suddenly they're delicious and you add them to every meal! Alright, got a little carried away there but you know what I mean?

I had a synopses breakthrough in other words. Thanks to Felicity for passing on the fab advice from Jenny about doing a conflict synopsis. This is especially valuable in Modern Heat which is all about the internal conflict. I did two synopses for the contest that I'm entering at the end of April and after a day fiddling with these things, I finally cured the conflict problems in both mss that I knew were there but couldn't get a handle on! It was great. Now, of course, I have to do a tonne of rewriting (deep sigh) but it'll be worth it in the end. Anyway, if you're wondering about your internal conflict, do a synopsis that concentrates solely on how your h&h work out their conflicts - if there's a problem with it, you'll soon find out.

Good old conflict. We had an RWNZ chapter meeting just this weekend about it. One of the Desire authors told me that in Desire it's best that you have as little internal conflict as possible and that it was better to have lots of external! I was surprised - which shows you just how mono-manic I've become about getting the internal stuff right. Ah well, I like to think I've learned heaps about it at least. No doubt if I ever write anything else, they'll tell me I now have too much internal conflict and not enough external!

Hope everyone else had a good weekend. We put our clocks back last night - welcome to winter. :-(

Synopses and Babies

I really hate synopses. They suck. I know most people hate them too but honestly, as a complete pantster who has only just starting doing the synopsis before writing the novel, I am useless at them. Am trying to do synopses for the Great Beginnings contest, for the two stories I'm going to be entering, and it's hard going. I keep thinking that perhaps I'm over-complicating my conflicts...or something. Whatever, I spent a whole day on one yesterday and came out with nothing but irritation. Now, if I'm not happy with the conflict, and yet people who have read it can't see a problem, is there in fact a problem? Or is it just me being too anal? Argh, now you see, right here is where I need an editor!

And speaking of which, no, no word. My best friend and very first ever CP is due with her first baby in a week or two, and I find it very weird that we're both waiting for much dreamed about, longed for news, in more or less the same time-frame. I'm really hoping my baby-news will be as good as hers - if you know what I mean! It would certainly make my year. Oh well, I'm preparing myself if it's not good news for me though. I have another full ms to fire off to them plus another two that are nearly there. One of them should get through and if they don't, I shall take myself to my poor writer's garret, dose myself up with laudanum and very bad red wine, and write copious amounts of bad poetry. That'll teach them. :-)

Huge Advances

Yes, I'm posting again and no I don't suddenly have the offer of a million dollar contract for my debut category romance (sniff). What I do have is a cold (double sniff). And I'm bored. I've finished all my 'work' reading (the latest modern heat) and I'm not sure if downloading any more romance will meet with Great Uncle Visa's approval. So what better thing to do to take my mind of my woes than to do a random post about....yep, huge advances.

In the paper today was details of Audrey Niffenegger's second novel advance. She's the author of The Time Traveller's Wife which was a romance thinly disguised as literary fiction. A great book in my humble opinion, even though it's fashionable to dislike it due to its popularity (and naturally popularity must mean it's not literary anymore). And now her second novel is apparently worth 4.8 million US. Argh!! Imagine being paid that kind of money?? I'm trying to think of the bad side, which would be the pressure, the critics waiting to shred your book, and um....anyone else think of a bad side?

Ah well, at least I can console myself with writing for the genre that apparently sells hugely during a recession. I confided this to a very well-read and literary acquaintance yesterday and felt rather smug when she looked gobsmacked. Yep, according to some stats I read somewhere, romance accounts for 50% of the American fiction market (though if this is wrong and I actually read it somewhere like the Women's Weekly, that well-known scholarly source, then please forgive me). So I figure the only way is up. :-)

Right, speaking of which, I shall ignore Great Uncle Visa's protest and go download some more romance while I lie in bed feeling sorry for myself. What a great way to start the weekend! What's everyone else doing?

On Waiting

Well, here I am still waiting. It's been two weeks since I sent off my revisions and I haven't heard anything. Not that I'm expecting to hear soon - apparently they're really busy over there at the moment. I was checking out the eHarlequin boards and some people have been waiting for responses on full manuscripts since July last year, so I guess I'm comparatively lucky!
Anyway, have figured that it's been seven months since I first posted off my partial for this manuscript. And seven months appears to be fast! However right at the moment, I'm feeling comfortable with the wait - no news is good news right? In fact, for the first time, I'm really not wanting to see an email from Anna in my inbox!

While I'm waiting though, I've decided that I'm going to enter some more contests. The RWNZ run one for category romance writers called Great Beginnings, which involves the first 25 pages of a manuscript and a synopsis. I've got one completeted ms waiting so I may as well enter it. Also the Knight Agency is running a Book in a Nutshell comp that it wouldn't hurt to enter. Only problem with that is that you have to encapsulate your book in three sentences! And I don't know if they take category writers. But it's better than waiting right?

Anyone else waiting for something to happen?

Whips

Yep, I've had to get out my whip and give my poor characters a sound thrashing to get them back into line. Thought Kate making her proposition was a good thing but no, as it turns out, it's not. Honestly, that woman is turning out to have more layers than an archaelogical dig. What I thought was her main conflict was actually just a symptom of an even deeper, underlying conflict!
Here was I thinking that she doesn't want to be let down by a man because her ex up and left her with a huge mortgage, but no, as it turns out. Her real problem is that she's a bit of an emotional whirlwind, falls in love too easily, and is devastated when they leave her (as they do because they are can't handle her), so when the hero comes along, she's absolutely determined she's not going to fall for another unsuitable man. Who knew?

I love that aspect of writing though. Who was it that made the onion analogy? Peeling back the layers to expose the 'real people' underneath. You think it's all going to be one thing and then suddenly it completely changes the deeper you get. Luckily Alex's conflict is fairly straightforward, though I'm reserving my judgement on this one. He could have a skeleton lurking in his closet that I don't know about.

Actually, I was going to put up a picture of Kate but I don't think I'm one of these people who can work from pictures of real people for my characters. They're never quite right and it puts me off. That's not to say I can't find inspiration in certain pictures though... ;-)

Revenge? Blackmail? Enemies?

On the subject of conflict, I was reading on the Smart Bitches, Trashy Books blog about what kind of conflicts readers prefer in their romance. It makes for interesting reading - especially the comments regarding what sort of conflict readers don't like! (reminds me of the discussion on one of the Amazon boards about what was the biggest turn-off in a sex scene!). Bascially one person's hot conflict is another's major yawn. It also proves to me that there is no such thing as an original conflict - as one commenter points out, there's only 12 kinds of plots and Shakespeare already used them all. :-)

Anyway, my favourite kind of conflict to read/write is: opposites attracting, revenge, and friends to lovers among others. My pet hate is misunderstandings (though it depends on the execution with this one). To take a leaf from the SBTB blog, what about y'all?

Free Will

As you'll probably have guessed from the word meter at the side, I am working on Kate 'n' Alex. Or at least, a new story for them. It's completely and utterly different from my Feel the Heat entry - it kind of had to be really - but that's not really the problem. The problem is the fact that these two characters will not do as they're told.

Does anyone else have characters that just randomly do stuff you didn't expect? I get it all the time. I don't know how it happens. I'm sitting there, writing away, and just suddenly I'll have Kate, who is desperate to sell her house but not wanting Alex buy it and pull it down (he's a developer and the only prospective buyer, natch), offer him a night of hot loving if he will buy it with certain conditions attached. Now, this was not something I had planned. Or even intended! So where did this idea come from?? I'm at a loss. Okay, so I admit that I had intended Alex to make an offer along those lines as a bit of a joke - he is very naughty - but no, it's Kate who comes out and says it. And Alex, who is supposed to be the naughty one, is coming over all honorable about it! Argh!! Now, I could rewrite this and try and change it back, but it's been my experience in other stories that it doesn't work very well. As the editorial assistant told me, you shouldn't make the characters do things they wouldn't do just to suit your plot. You have to let them make decisions that are true to their personalities - plot be damned (oh, all right, she didn't say that last bit)!

So, looks like Kate is being true to her personality and I'll just have to go with it. Anyone else need a whip to keep their characters in line??

Still More Angst

Just heard that my ms finally got there! Yay! Anna at HM&B has told me that she's swamped this week but she'll get onto it ASAP. Don't know quite what ASAP means in M&B land, could be in the next couple of weeks, the next month, the next six months, who knows? But now the angst of wondering if it got there safely has been replaced by the much more general and possibly worse angst of wondering whether they'll like it or not. Sigh. Such is the life of a writer eh?

On the up side, I can busy myself with Kate and Alex. Yes, I have two other mss that need my attention, but they're both at that tricky 'middle stage', where you've got over that first initial 'new beginning' glow, and you have to settle into the hard yards of working out their wretched conflicts. Beginnings and black moments, that's what I love to write and I'm not at either of those points with the other mss. Oh well, I'll indulge myself with K&A now, though at the moment it's very difficult keeping those two apart. I shall have to wave my big stick at them and let them know that if they want a nice love scene later they'll have to behave themselves now. That Alex though, he knows how to get around me. Damn alpha males! ;-)

More Angst

They didn't get it. Can you believe it? After all that angst and dancing around, Anna at M&B never received it because their email was playing up on Wednesday! And to think I was concerned about sending another email because I didn't want to bug her... Argh!!! In her words, 'thank goodness you checked'!

Right, this is almost like a second chance. I have all weekend to do yet more editing and more changing if I want. And do you think I did? Nup. I send it again immediately. No more editing, no more fiddling. I hope it's got there - won't find out till Tuesday morning NZ time though.

So moral of the story is: if you don't know whether they got your sub or not, always check.

Ah well, feel less jittery now though I won't be totally happy until I get the confirmation from Anna that the ms got there okay. Then a whole new mountain range of angst will open up before me, vast vistas of nervousness....

To cope I've started a new story for Kate and Alex. They're desperate for their HEA and have been nagging me for weeks now. :-)

Elvis Has Left the Building Or JSTFT

I've done it. Had a final read-through today, made some more changes, pestered the husband to read them through again, re-did a paragraph he thought didn't work, then danced round the house going "I can't, I can't!" As my other half told me in no uncertain terms - JSTFT. Just Send The F%&!ing Thing. So I did. I sent the F%&*!ing thing. Although, just you all know how much of a wuss I am, the husband pushed the send button. Yes, I'm a complete wimp.

Now I feel sick. Has anyone got a handy bucket?

Last Minute Revisions on the Revisions

Have managed to hold out a week and have taken out the ms for a final read-through and to do some last minute tweaks. And I have to say that I'm completely BORED with it. I suppose that's normal. Anyway, went to an Auckland Chapter group meeting of the RWNZ over the weekend and got some very good advice from that published authors that attend. We're very lucky to have people like Frances Houseden, Yvonne Lindsey and Nalini Singh in our group, plus a whole slew of people who have been published by Red Sage, Samhain and Wild Rose Press. So these ladies know what they're talking about. Their advice was gold for me, the inveterate fiddler. And basically it amounted to this: only change what the editors have told you to change and nothing else.

Right. Good. Thing is, I have changed some stuff in the last half of the ms. Okay, not changed so much as cut. And I had to do that because of the word count. I'm hoping it's still okay! As to the rest of it, that advice was great because I was worried about some motivation here, some pacing there, timing etc, etc. But since the eds didn't mention it, I'm not going to worry! Woohoo.

Which leaves me with finishing these tweaks in the next couple of days. And then I shall have the dilemma of waiting until just before the 24th of March (the deadline) to send it, or just throw caution to the winds and send it at the end of the week. Either way, I think if I have to read it one more time, I shall scream.

So, any recommendations? Send soon or wait until the deadline?

Reading Modern Heat

I should of course be writing, not doing lots of blog posts, but my two oddly titled WIPs are proving difficult. Can't get them to flow right. Probably because I'm too busy trying not to think about my revisions and whether I've done them right!

Anyway, the best thing I've found to do for inspiration is to read more Modern Heat (or the horribly titled Sexy Sensation as they are down under). Now this is something that I should have done right at the beginning, when I first started trying to write a Mills and Boon. Other authors tell you this, the guidelines tell you this, but do you think I did it? Nup. My reasoning was that somehow my voice would end up sounding like whatever I was reading at the time. Which is stupid. Because when I read Ian McEwen, I don't end up writing like he does (wish I did!), or Michael Ondaatje, or Heidi Rice or any one of a hundred other authors that I read.
Right, so after my first rejection, I thought, hmmm, best I actually read some of these things. First one I downloaded was Natalie Anderson's Pleasured by the Secret Millionaire and I read it from a writer's point of view and not just enjoying it as a story. Reading that was probably the best thing I ever did because I had one of those 'aha moments'. I noticed that all the hero and heroine ever did was meet, talk, have a love scene, part. Meet, talk, have sex, part. Meet, talk a bit more, have sex, reveal deepest secrets, happy ever after. AND THAT'S IT!
Now, that's overly simplistic of course and you may know this already but for me this was a revelation. There were no car chases, no complicated sub plots with extended family members, no hiding from stalkers, no shootouts. And definitely the hero and heroine did not stay apart for longer than half a chapter. This was my first realisation about internal conflict.

After that I decided I needed to buy them every month and so I did, religiously. Good thing too because when I met Jenny Hutton (MH editor) at the RWNZ conference last year, she asked me which Modern Heat authors I liked. If I hadn't been reading them, I probably would have said something dumb like "Um...Essie Summers?"

Moral of the story? If you want to write for a line (or any publisher), read the books. All the time. I buy them every month. It's good to see what M&B are publishing in terms of plot and conflict. You get a feel after a while for what might work in your own writing and what probably won't.

As to which ones I like, well, I prefer the grittier ones. Like Natalie Anderson, Heidi Rice, Kelly Hunter. What about you guys?

What's Wrong With Huntly?

Indeed, you may ask. What is wrong with Huntly? Or more importantly, just who/what is Huntly?
Huntly is a small, rural town in New Zealand, just outside of Hamilton. Its claim to fame is a large power station and a spoof song that was famous on student radio back in the 90's. The song was: What's Wrong With Huntly? So why am I talking about this? Well, good point. I'm talking about it because of hearing Scotland being nixed as a location for Modern Heat (see Lucy King's blog), I thought, what's wrong with Scotland?

Obviously Huntly, although I'm sure people like living there, is not going to be an appropriate place to set a Modern Heat story. It's small and rural for a start. But Scotland? Too cold and wet apparently. But then so is London and yet you can clearly set a story in London. So, given that the guidelines are so vague, how do you know what's a good location for your story and what isn't? I think the key for this is fantasy. These books are fantasies, grim-reality free zones. Still not sure why this excludes poor old Scotland but maybe Scotland is too grim-reality.
Also 'urban' is another one of the buzz-words that they give you in the guidelines. Which means a city. So really, what they want is a big city that you can fantasise about. Like LA, New York, Paris, Sydney, Auckland (hahaha!). No small towns, no villages, no remote settlements. Not Modern Heat enough - though it works for traditional Modern/Presents stories.

But what if you have never been to any of those cities? Well fear not. If you read a Modern Heat carefully, you can see that there isn't that much in the way of location detail. So all you need to do is a bit of internet research (Google Earth folks!) and you can get away with much. Because as we all know, the location is just a bit of tinsel on the tree. The main attraction is the tree itself - or the conflict.

Anyone got a favourite city they would like to see in a Modern Heat story? Personally, I'd like to see one set in Rome. I loved Rome...

Now What?

Well, have layered in all the new conflict for my heroine, managed to cut down the word count so that it's 53k instead of 56k, and added another love scene. Gave it to the husband last night for a first readover and he gave it the thumbs up. Phew! Poor guy, he's read the thing about 50 million times and yet still manages to find something nice to say about it each time. Is he a god or what? In fact, he's even taken to reading some of my Modern Heat books so he knows what he's critiquing. Cool eh? He likes a bit of romance now and then does my husband...

So what now? I don't know if I can bear going over it yet again, but I suppose I'll have to. Going to ship it off to my CPs to see what they think. Make some more adjustments. And then... Must resist the urge to send it away and be done with it. I've got till the 24th of March so maybe the intelligent thing to do would be to let it sit for a week or two, then read it again for a final once-over. Then I'll either rewrite the whole thing or hit the delete key and give up. :-)

Why Being a Geek Isn't Enough

Where am I up to with the whole heroine's internal conflict thing? Well, since getting the big thumbs down on the mother angle of her conflict, I've had more feedback. Now, initially my heroine was ashamed and insecure about being a geek. But this is not 'good conflict' because being a geek should not be a reason to be a ashamed or embarassed. There has to be something deeper that makes her feel insecure, not just because she likes electronics and gothic metal. And there is something deeper I've decided. What makes her feel insecure? The fact that she's different and has never felt like she fitted in.

So, how do I make her different without falling into the Parent Trap? I can't make her feeling different because her mother always told her she was. Neither can I make it dependent on her taste in music or because she likes computers. It has to come from something inside herself. I had a good think about my heroine and the way I've written her, and thought that probably she'd feel different because she was very, very bright. Perhaps her family is very normal and don't know how to deal with a high IQ child? Perhaps when she was in high school, she was put in accelerated learning classes, made to feel different from the rest of her peers at a time when all a kid really wants is to be the same. And then I thought, well how about at one stage of her life she found a group where she did fit in but ended up being cast out of it? How would she feel? What's say that at university, a place where she thought she belonged, she maybe showed up someone by mistake, and as a result was excluded from the group. This would make her very unsure of herself. She'd always be worried she's going to make another mistake, break some social rule she didn't know about, which may mean a loss of the feeling of belonging. So maybe this is why she doesn't like social situations, the reason she's very insecure, worried about saying the wrong thing. And this will be the reason why her black moment will be so terrible for her: she will say the wrong thing and it will result in her losing the hero, and thereby losing the one person in the world who she thought understood her, the world she built with him where she thought she belonged. Evil eh? Didn't I say I liked torturing my characters?? :-) Her resolution will be her finding the confidence to risk saying the wrong thing again in order to win the hero back.

Phew. Sorry, went on a tad there. I hope that wasn't too boring! It's just that I thought going through the process of deciding on strong internal conflict could be useful. Ideally you would do this before beginning writing your manuscript - or at least you'd have the bones of it there to begin with.

Anyway, I don't know if this will work. I let Anna know the angle I was going to take and I haven't heard back so I'm assuming this is a 'go for it' sign. I hope!! She has given me a deadline which is in a month's time. Eurrgh! I feel sick!!

Conflict - The Parent Trap

I have had more feedback from Anna at M&B re my conflict for my heroine. One word: argh!!!

Want to know why? Alrighty, no, having parents dictate a characters actions is not acceptable. A bad relationship with a parent should add to the conflict, not define it. And add is the key word here. In other words, the reasons a character behaves the way they do must be for their own reasons alone and not be explained by another person's ill treatment of them.

So what does this mean for my poor heroine? Well, her mother's ill treatment of her cannot be the reason she is the way she is. Whether this happens in the real world or not is beside the point - this is what they are looking for in a character and so this is what I must provide.

Do I have a solution? Oh yes, indeed. In fact I had a brainwave about this last night. My heroine at the time the story opens is feeling lonely. Why is that (why question again)? Because she feels no one understands her. Why? Because she's different and she feels she's never fitted in. Aha! I sense a conflict coming on... And indeed, Anna suggested the feeling of not fitting in, in her feedback to me. So that's what I'm changing. My heroine now has always felt like an outsider. She's completely different to everyone in her family, is fearfully intelligent and this has always set her apart. Her conflict is that she yearns to belong. How is this a conflict? Well, the hero makes her feel she does belong in the little world she creates with him. Until his conflict blows this world apart.

Complicated huh? Anna told me the aim is to create a believable character and not just invent reasons for already existing behaviour. Can you see why it's hard to do this with an already written mansucript?? Luckily my heroine's behaviour is to do with confidence issues so fitting this conflict into the ms shouldn't be too difficult. I just have to fight the urge to over-complicate it. And also I have to find a resolution for her. Which is the thing that's getting to me now. Does her resolution involve her finally accepting her differences? They are what makes her special after all. Or does she decide that she has let her differences define her and hasn't noticed the parts of her that do make her belong?

Conflict Again or Keeping Your Poker Hand Secret

Wow, this is great guys! I'm loving your questions and comments. Doing these posts focuses me too 'cause I'm still learning along with the rest of you.

Right, so, I read my ms last night and thought about my poor old heroine. Interestingly, and luckily for me, I found I had the bones of a great conflict for her already in there, but I just didn't develop it enough. Must have got distracted and in the end, couldn't see the wood from the trees! So what's her conflict? Well, it has to be strong. It has to be the kind of conflict that would affect your whole life. I guess internal conflict is the emotional baggage we all drag along with us and everbody's got it. My heroine's baggage is a mother who wanted a pretty little girl but got a tall, skinny geek with a stammer. H's mother pick pick picks at her, telling her to smarten up, pretty up, how being interested in unfeminine things will mean she'll be lonely all her life, how she'll never be as sucessful as her brother. How she'll never measure up. So now my H has a reason to be ashamed of her geekiness - ashamed because her secret fear is that perhaps her mother is right and she will never find someone who will want her for who she is, that she will never measure up. Naturally this fear will be realised because that's what you have to do to get the emotion pumping, and she will be forced to either get brave or give in to her fear. And that, my friends, is internal conflict. I still have to run this by Anna at M&B (want to get it right) but I think it's pretty strong.

So you've got your conflict sorted. Great. Now, how much do you give away in that vital first chapter? I would say it's a bit like playing poker. You've got a great hand but you don't want to give it away all at once because you have to save something for later. I mean, you want the reader to keep reading, right? So you hint. Like a trail of breadcrumbs (sorry, mixing my analogies here), you give the reader a little bit to intrigue, for them to keep reading a bit more. A hint could be along the lines of: "He was never going to end up like his parents." or "If only her relationship with her mother was better." So now you've got your reader thinking, 'so what's the deal with his parents? She's got a bad relationship with her mother? Why?'
Does that help? I mean, it's by no means a hard and fast rule. I've got a wip where the internal conflict is right out there in the second chapter and the rest of the ms is how the h/h resolve it.

Again, the crucial part of this is the strength of the internal conflict. It has to be life changing in order for the h/h to make the decision that they can't be together. I mean, if it's just because her job is important to her, that's not strong enough. But what if her dying mother's last wish was for her to follow her dream of being a plastic surgeon? And then what if the hero pops up and tells her she has to make a choice between him and the vow she'd swore to her dying mother? Can she live with having the hero and breaking her vow to her mother, or will she lose her one chance at love because of the promise she made to a dead woman? That's what I mean by strong internal conflict. It's not dependent on the heroine's job, but on her own desire for two goals that cannot be reconciled.

Okay, now I've got my heroine's conflict sorted (hoping!), I'd better go write it! Anything else you want to ask or discuss, please go right ahead and post. I'm liking discussing this too.

More on Conflict

Okay, we were talking about internal conflict. Thought I'd discuss this a bit more because I got my revisions today! Yes!!! These are revisions for another story that is currently under consideration at Mills and Boon. I am hugely relieved to say that they like the story but there is one major problem with it that I have to address. And I thought I'd use it as an example as the major problem is to do with - yep, you guessed it - conflict!

So, lots of people liked the analogy of putting your characters in a room, shutting the door, and asking yourself if there was any reason why these two couldn't be together right then and there. It's a good one eh? But how, if they can get together right then and there, do you provide reasons for them not to? A good place to start is asking the 'why' questions.

Which brings me to my problem. The central issue with my story is that the heroine's conflict needs to be stronger. When I wrote this story, I fell into the same trap as I fell into with Kate: I based my heroine on a social group rather than as a fully-rounded individual. She's a geek. She's shy, introverted, into computers. Cool, I thought. Lots of room for conflict there. But sadly I did not consider the most important question. Why is she a geek? Any yes, she does need a reason other than because she just really likes computers!

Okay, so I stick her in a room with my hero and ask myself why they can't be together. He doesn't want to because he's afraid of love. Why? Because his parents' relationship was a bad one. Why? Because his father loved his mother but she didn't love him back and their marriage went to hell in a handcart. My hero now considers love ruined his childhood (see what it did to his parents?) and he's not having a bar of it. Right, now this conflict came across as strong. Great.
But let's compare with my heroine. She can't get together with the hero because she's a geek and is ashamed of it. Why is she a geek? Why is she ashamed? Um.... See? As was suggested to me, turn it on its head - perhaps it's her insecurities that made her a geek rather than the fact that being a geek has made her insecure? Better. So, why is she insecure? Why is she so shy? What is it in her life that has her running from the hero? Why does she think she isn't good enough for him? It has to be a very good reason for her to run away from the love of her life.

So, are you getting the hang of it? See Lucy King's blog for more on the why questions and how you can get a handle on that wretched internal conflict problem. As for me? Well, I need to go away now and figure out the answers to the above questions myself!

Editorial Comments on Chasing Kate

Hello lovely blog readers. Thanks again for your great comments re my synopsis! Maybe I'm not as lousy at writing them as I thought... :-) Right, prepare for a long post...

You've probably seen the editorial comment go up on I Heart Presents. I want to say Anna wrote an extremely flattering and lovely piece - I don't know if it's fully deserved but I'm extremely grateful to her for her faith in me. It does seem to be true what they say - the editorial staff at Mills and Boon are great!

Right, so the editorial comment. She says that I leaned quite heavily on stereotypes and she's absolutely right. This was part of the whole 'lack of of internal conflict' thing. Now, poor old Kate seems to exist in a vacuum. There aren't any reasons given for her to act in the way that she did. Why does she feel so passionately about her beliefs? My only excuse is that 'she's a hippy. That's what she does'. Stereotype? Uh huh. Anna told me I needed to provide reasons for her to act the way she does otherwise she doesn't come across as a fully rounded character. She said that at every step you have to keep asking yourself why your characters do the things they do. What made Kate lie in the dirt? Why did she go with Alex to his office? Why did he threaten her? 'Just because' isn't a good enough reason! Providing reasons means providing backstory and you'll notice that there wasn't any backstory in that first chapter. Now, I'm no expert, but I've been told a number of times that because these are short romances, you have to get all the information out there quickly. And do it without info-dumping. Who said writing Mills and Boon was easy again??

Now, what else did they say? Kate's appearance was an issue. She's got a nosering (thank God I didn't give her a tattoo!) which may be a turn-off for some readers. Readers have to identify with the heroine so you can't go for extremes. They also thought the whole protest scene was a 'gimmick' and over shadowed the rest of the story. Does that make sense? Their conflict stemmed from the setup and not from their internal conflict. A no no.

And the humour. Yes, I'm a dialogue girl. I love writing it. I can hear my characters talk in my head like it's a movie. I am extremely flattered that some people found the dialogue funny because humour is just one of those things that's hard to do. But (you knew there was a but didn't you?) I got kind of carried away with it in this chapter. They told me that the humour was great but it couldn't be there just for the sake of it. The dialogue should drive the romance forward and if it doesn't, you should cut it.

Do you see now why they didn't want it? I did revise and give Kate some backstory, toned down the protest scene (should have not put it in at all in retrospect but I liked it!) and gave them a bit more in the way of internal conflict. But I didn't go far enough. The archetypes were still there. Again, stick your characters in a room, with no external plot or sub characters or anything else, and what is it that keeps them apart? If there isn't anything, then there is no internal conflict and therefore no story.

However, all is not lost for Kate and Alex. I am going to write their story. It will be a new story though and hopefully with lots of internal conflict and absolutely no archetypes!

Okay, I'd better stop now. Does this help people? Feel free to ask me any questions about it. Again, I'm not an expert (hello! Still unpublished!) but I hope that by passing on comment like this, it helps others get an insight into their own work.

My Synopsis

Firstly, another big thank you to all who posted here yesterday and said such lovely things! I've been feeling a bit down over the past few weeks, waiting for the wretched revisions, and having such nice comments made me feel much better. Thanks guys.

Anyway, I see my synopsis is up. Argh. Now, I hate these things. I don't know any writer who likes them (don't put your hand up, Lorraine!). It didn't help that it was only supposed to be two pages double spaced and that Chasing Kate had been rewritten six times and I still hadn't worked out what was going to happen! Anyway, luckily I had a baby plot in there - the ultimate in internal conflict (yes, apparently it is) - so that was a relief. And I chucked an argument with an ex in there just for good measure. But they were just desperate attempts to cover up the fact that I didn't have a handle on the conflict and it showed. If your conflict isn't convincing to you, it won't be convincing to other people - at least that's what I've come to realise.

Right, I think they'll put up the editorial comment tomorrow so I'll wait till that goes up before I post anything else. People had some great questions about conflict so I'd like to talk about that, and stereotypes as well. They also gave me some good comments about alpha males in MH - slippery beasts to get a handle on (no double entendres intended!). I had half thought to post up my revised chapter here, just so you can see how I revised it with their recommendations and to see how it compares with the first draft. Would that be useful? Maybe not. Although they liked the revisions, they still didn't want the story! :-)

Oh and if you have any questions about the synopsis, do ask. I'm not an expert by any stretch though, and they didn't give me feedback on the synopsis specifically.

My Chapter is Up

On www.iheartpresents.com. Argh!! To all of you who posted about it, thanks so much for your great comments. It's great to know you all liked it - and even if you didn't, thanks for posting that you did. :-)

Unfortunately Kate and Alex did not get their happy ever after because M&B decided in the end that the story wasn't strong enough - mainly because their conflict was pretty much based on what they did rather than who they were. The conflict was external rather than internal. I was asked to do some revisions on it, which I did (retro-fitting a manuscript with decent internal conflict is NOT recommended!) and they liked the revisions but said that the beginning kind of overshadowed the rest of the story. Luckily I had a partial of another story already with them and they liked that one better. Yay!

Anyway, feel free to ask any more questions about Chasing Kate and why they didn't want it. I found the editorial comment they did on it hugely helpful and don't mind passing any of that kind of stuff on.

Top Ten Things to do While Waiting

1. Twiddle thumbs and whistle tunelessly while surfing around aimlessly on the interweb.

2. Check email for the 50 millionth time.

3. Post pointless comments on other people's blogs.

4. Finally get to your WIP then waste time trying to think of titles for it. So far - being crap at titles - I have gone for the joke option (you never get to choose your own titles anyway). Option 1: It Started With a Panic Attack. Option 2: The Venture Capitalist's Backpacker Mistress.

5. Critique other people's manuscripts. This is the perfect time, people. If you have a Modern Heat burning a hole in your PC and need a crit partner, I am currently not doing anything. ;-)

6. Eat more chocolate and have another coffee.

7. Wonder if you should go for a walk and then decide not to 'cause it's too hot. Summer in Auckland is far too hot for anything strenuous.

8. Check to make sure Hell hasn't frozen over. No. Good.

9. Wonder if you should post a poll on your blog - Revisions first or chapter up on I Hearts first?

10. Plan the next blog post, determining not to mention revisions again because you're in danger of becoming a revisions-bore.

11. Return to number 1. Yes, the numbers do go up to 11 (for those who have seen Spinal Tap).

Gemini, Feb 14th

My stars for Valentine's Day:

"Change is but a hair's breadth away. It is so close you can't even invest in frustration now. True patience is to be waiting as if your lover is about to call from overseas. Encourage the party in your heart."

Okay, I'm not one for horoscopes but it did seem to tie in so nicely with my current mood that I had just to write it down! And to have a horoscope like that on Valentine's Day... Anyway, am encouraging my heart to party hard. :-)

As to the rest of the day, Valentine's has seemingly passed my hubby by. Okay, so he's on call (he's a doc) and distracted but still... No 'happy Valentine's love'. No flowers (not so bad since the price of flowers is extreme). No chocolates (probably a good thing). Not even a silver tea stand (thanks Lucy). Oh well, the up side is that I did get an email from Amy at I Heart Presents telling me that my chapter will be up next week. Eeek! I'm hoping it's been so long that everyone will have forgotten about it...

Writer's Block

It's official, I seem to have lost my mojo. Have spent the past two weeks staring at my screen, writing a paragraph then deleting it, writing another paragraph then deleting it, rinse, repeat. I guess it's better to actually write something than nothing at all but when you actually have nothing to show for it? Usually when I'm stuck on a scene I can't get past, I jump ahead and write the next scene on but I can't seem to do even that.

Anyway, this lack of doing anything is making me even grumpier than I am normally, which does make the family want to jettison my study into deep space with me inside it (hey, I wouldn't mind. At least I wouldn't have any distractions!).

So, what does everyone else do when they can't seem to write? More chocolate? More martinis? More chocolate martinis??

More Wittering While Waiting

Still waiting for revisions. You'd think after six months of being on the 'getting published' train I would be used to waiting. But no. I'm either going to have to get myself a set of worry beads to fiddle with, drink way more martinis, or have a personality transplant. I'm thinking the martini option sounds like a lot more fun, especially when they're of the chocolate variety...

At least my husband's birthday helped pass the time. We had dinner at White which is in the Hilton (see photo) Hotel in Auckland. Beautiful. We sat outside, overlooking the harbour, watching all the lights come on as the sun went down... And I realised that this was where I'd set some of the manuscript currently being considered in London! There is a scene where the heroine storms out of a party and goes and sits in the lobby. I was imagining some vast hotel lobby with lots of seating but in reality there is not much of a lobby and nowhere for the heroine to sit! Argh. Oh well, I guess it wouldn't be the first time someone's written about somewhere they've never been, only to find they're wrong when they actually see the place in real life. In fact, I'm writing one right now that is set in London (I have actually been there, though over 10 years ago). The characters go for a walk down the Embankment and on Google Earth, it doesn't look very far. Just my luck that what I think is a thirty minute walk would actually take three hours! :-)
So, has anyone done this kind of thing before? Written about a place only to find you've imagined it completely wrong?

Missing Something Vital

I was thinking about my current wip last night (instead of sleeping. Bad Jackie!) and realised, abruptly, that I had forgotten a vital part of the conflict: the why.

What do I mean? Well, my heroine is a very driven lawyer and my hero is a very driven mountain climber. So far so good. But I haven't explained why she likes law and why he likes climbing mountains. Problem? Oh yes! Their conflict revolves around neither of them wanting to give up their dreams (or what they think are their dreams) for a relationship, so having an explanation about why their dreams are so important to them would probably be a good start right? Argh! It's quite a basic thing but I forgot totally about it. In my defence it is a manuscript that I am rewriting, using all the feedback from M&B that I've been given so far. Retro-fitting so to speak.

Anyway, now I have had this breakthrough, I'm hoping the rewriting will get easier. At least that's the plan. The only other worry I have is that it's turning out to be quite angsty. Remember how soon is soon? Well, how much angst is too much angst?

Concerning Impatience

Yes, I am impatient. I always have and always will be. Not to mention sensitive to criticism and very up and down emotion-wise (I'm a Gemini so that figures). So really, all things considered, I am very ill suited to writing as a career choice. At the moment I am surfing aimlessly around the net, reading writers blogs and generally living on the eHarlequin boards, all trying to immerse myself in writing. Note that I am not actually writing.

Actually, that's a big fat lie. I did write something yesterday so I am gradually getting back into the zone. But I'm still finding it difficult to concentrate because I am waiting. Waiting for my revisions!
Which brings me back to my impatience. Anna at M&B (who must be cursing the day I entered that contest because not only did she have my chapter to give feedback on, but also the partial that was waiting in the slush pile that I'd submitted before the contest!) told me that she would be in touch 'soon'. Argh! Makes me feel like a kid again, when your parents told you that you could have something to eat 'soon'. Or you could watch TV 'soon'. How soon is soon?

Anyway, this gradual inching closer is playing merry hell with my poor nerves. Like the stages of grief, there seems to be the stages of subbing: Excitement (when you hear they like it), horror (when you get the first lot of revisions), despair (when you can't do them), denial (when you know your writing is crap), nausea (when, sick of the sight of it, you finally send the ms back to the editors), relief (when it's gone - lasts maybe an hour), doubt (yes, you're now certain your writing is crap), impatience (when you haven't heard for two days - this gradually becomes more intense as the wait lengthens), and back to excitement (if the news, when it comes, is good) and/or horror/despair (if the news is bad). And then, the whole thing loops around again.

Fun eh? I think I was never so happy with writing as when I was writing for my own pleasure. Ah well, I'm still glad I started this whole thing. A year ago I was just sending off my entry to the Instant Seduction Contest - the very first time I ever subbed anything...

Modern Heat Circa 1979

I found an old M&B in my bookshelves a couple of days ago. Old being 1979. It's even signed by the author, with an inscription that says "to Danny's friend Charles". I don't know if Danny's friend Charles would ever read this (do guys read M&B? Especially in 1979?) but hey, signed by the author is still signed by the author.

Anyway, I decided to have a read just to see how times have changed and actually it held up pretty well, apart from all the sherry drinking and phones you actually have to dial. However, though I was pleased to see that the heroine did have a job as a chef (pretty good considering chef jobs for women are rare even today), I was somewhat annoyed when the hero demanded that the heroine give up her job because he 'doesn't require a working wife' (it's a marriage of convenience). Now, this may not be unusual for Presents these days - the guys are fairly arrogant like that - but heroine's response was 'okay, I'll give up my job, no problem'. Her job that she's been working hard in. Sure. No problem. Now, I don't know about you, but I'm thinking today's heroine would be just a little bit upset about that. But in 1979, apparently not.
As to the characters, the heroine is quite fiesty but of the doe-eyed, little girl type, which the hero takes advantage of - lots of spanking threats. The hero is very, very arrogant and not a little chauvanistic. An example: "Carmela, for all that she is a women, is also a highly qualified accountant". For all that she is a woman. Huh? Or how about this one: "I do not fight with women, and unless severely provoked, I rarely strike one." Note the rarely. Obviously they liked them a bit violent back in 1979.
Anyway, for all the spankings and ruthless crushings of soft lips, the bedroom door remains firmly closed, which I suppose is kind of expected.

So, did I enjoy it? No, not really. I like my heroines to be women rather than girls and definitely, though I love an arrogant hero, they have to be sympathetic at least some of the time. I think though, these things were indicative of the time it was written. The author is still writing for M&B today - must get one of her most recent ones and do a comparison. Would they be different? I'm thinking so.

Which brings me to today's question: what do you like in your hero or heroine? I'm thinking that striking women only rarely wouldn't be a quality you'd want in your hero - or your heroine! :-)

Chocolate Fish

I have been eating far too many chocolate fish lately (AnNZ thing. See Wikipedia). Obsessively some might say. I think it's because I'm not writing. I've had a non-writing week which always makes me very grumpy and always inclined to eat chocolate.
I've got two WIPs that I'm currently working on at the moment and I did open them up and have a look. I even wrote a couple of lines. But it just didn't work. I suppose everyone has these down-times where nothing seems to come to together right.

It doesn't help that it's school holidays here and I'm providing entertainment for my seven year old. She's pretty self-sufficient usually but will come in to bother me with requests for food, observations about random phenomena, and the occasional whine for a play date because Mum's boring. When I'm writing, these interruptions are incredibly distracting. I can't tune them out and keep going. So I just don't bother writing when she's around. I wonder if this inability to concentrate with distractions is a symptom of age? Or motherhood? In my twenties, I used to be able to write away happily, stereo going loudly, interruptions aplenty and just be able to tune them all out. Not so now.

Anyone else need complete silence to write or could you write in the middle of a rock concert?

Wherefore Art Thou Chapter?

My chapter is missing. I have emailed Anna to ask her what has happened to it but as she won't be back in the office till the 30th, I haven't had an answer yet. This is my contest entry chapter I'm talking about. Don't they understand that millions of people are waiting with bated breath for this to appear? Don't they know that my inbox is groaning under the weight of the hundreds of thousands of emails that people are sending me asking me, "Jackie, for the love of all that's holy, where is your fabulous chapter? We're desperate to read it!"
Well, okay, maybe not millions, or even hundreds of thousands. Maybe five. But still.

The longer it takes, the more embarassed I feel about it. I've learned so much since I wrote it that all I can see are the archetypes I made my characters and the great, gaping holes in the conflict. Oh, what am I talking about? There wasn't any conflict! At least not good, internal, Modern Heat conflict. Ah well, c'est la vie. At least it will be a good example to others about what NOT to do. :-)

Aaaaanyway, now I shall resume twiddling my thumbs, whistling tunelessly and not managing to write a word while I continue to wait....

Caving in to My Mother

Yes, I finally did it, I gave my mother my ms to read. Seeing as how she is the orgininal Ashenden, I thought she'd better have a look just in case it actually sees the light of day and on the off chance she didn't want her name being attached to anything she didn't like. I did feel compelled to tell her that it had 'sexy bits' in it. She just gave me a slightly exasperated look and said, in very dry tones, "It's not like I don't know anything about that, Jackie." Cue nervous laughter from her daughter.

Anyway, am feeling totally weird. I know everyone said to relax before the revisions come but I just can't. I keep thinking about the ms and wondering if the things that are wrong with it are the things that they thought too or are they something completely different! But that's a rhetorical question and a pointless rhetorical question at that - no way of knowing until I hear back. Currently the ms is in its fifth draft (whenever I make significant changes I always save it in a new draft so I can go back to the old one if need be) so you can see how many times I've changed the wretched thing. The main problem is that I'm retro-fitting an older ms that I wrote before I had a real idea about conflict. Consequently I had to redo the conflict which means heaps of rewrites. So hard! I probably should have put in the story I wrote for Nanowrimo instead. That's all done and semi-polished and the conflict is much better. Ah well, too late now.

Being a Militant Romance Writer

We've been having houseguests, very old and very dear friends who are extremely supportive of my writing. However, they do not have a romantic or sentimental bone in their bodies and think romance as a genre is... Well as one of them put it: "who reads that sh*t?". Whereupon I climbed up on my soapbox and delivered a stern message about who exactly reads that sh*t (academics, lawyers, supposed literary types) and what the purpose of said sh*t is. Poor guy, after my lecture, he just shook his head and told me that he just didn't get it. Fair enough. I don't get people's fascination with reading sports books. In his defence, he did proof a synopsis for me when I put in my very first partial and did not laugh or poke fun or anything like that. He proofed it well, asked me questions about it and took it seriously. So I forgive him.

Anyway, everyone else I know has thought the whole me writing romance thing fantastic. There has been no scorn poured, no mickey taken, no lip curling. I have had the odd 'so are you going to write anything else?' question but apart from that, the response has been great.

Anyone else had similiar experiences when asked what you write? Or have there been the odd person who has veiwed romance writing as similiar to admitting you like to pull the wings off flies now and then or you drown kittens in your spare time?

One Step Closer

Okay, I cannot believe the speed with which this has happened but I got an email from Anna this morning telling me she really liked my full ms! Woohoo!!! Excuse the exclamation marks but, y'know, I'm quite pleased about it. She was very impressed that I'd taken on board their suggestions, that hero and heroine were characters in their own right and not just the way they were to serve the plot (note to self, conflict driven not setup driven!), oh yes and she liked the ending.

Anyway, there are some revisions I need to do concerning the pace, the motivation and the conflict - not much then! - which she and Jenny will forward to me at the beginning of February. Argh! Can't wait to get my teeth into it though. I knew after I'd sent it that more work was needed and I'm just so pleased they going to give me the opportunity.

So, I am officially not stressing about it - until revision time! :-)

Heroes I have Known...

I've been having crap sleep at the moment, mainly due to my OCWD (obsessive compulsive writing disorder) and stressing about what I should have put in the ms that's with M&B now. Usually I try to distract myself by thinking about my current wip instead but last night, I got to thinking about all my previous stories. These are ones that myself and a friend used to write and swap. They were romances that were written totally for ourselves, with no guidelines to follow or editors to worry about. Totally self indulgent but absolutely fabulous to write.

Anyway, I have to confess that I totally fell for the hero of the last of these romances. Absolutely and completely. I like a gorgeous, bad, self tortured hero (their redemption is so much more poignant) so I made him gorgeous, bad, and yes, I tortured the hell out of this poor guy. I put him through the emotional wringer. The worse his behaviour, the more self tortured he got and the better I liked him (yes, I am a sadist to my characters, the poor dears). Anyway, he got his HEA in the end but I have to admit that I was sad to finish writing about him. And I wish, wish, wish, I could put him in one of my M&Bs but sadly, he's too mad, bad and dangerous to know for the guidelines (okay, so not mad but you know what I mean). Maybe one day I'll polish that ms as a single title and sub to...somewhere. But until then it remains on my PC, my secret treat that I read when I need a dark hero fix. I should move on really, but I do find that parts of him creep into my Modern Heat heroes, every now and then...

So, what about anyone else? Got a favourite hero that you can't forget?

Being Obssessive Compulsive

It's true, I am absolutely obssessive compulsive about my writing. I was told off yesterday by the husband for spending the weekend in front of my computer. I'm trying to make this a full time job you see so the plan was to limit writing to during the week, just like any other job. However, unfortunately the way I work doesn't quite fit in with the 9 - 5 model. When I have a new idea or get really into a current one I HAVE to write. I simply don't want to do anything else. If I'm forced to do something, my head will just not be on anything other than the story I'm thinking about.
No wonder my the husband was annoyed with me. Since trying to write full time, he's probably wondering where on earth his wife went!

Anyone else write like this? Or is it just me??

Congrats Lucy!!

Just want to add my congratulations to Lucy Roberts who has just sold to M&B Modern Heat. As the winner of the Feel the Heat competition, her sale was kind of in the bag just a bit. :-)
Way to go, Lucy! The rest of us are simply green - in the nicest possible way of course.

Meanwhile, back in the good ole Southern Hemisphere, the crows of doubt have been at me. Couldn't sleep last night due to a sudden realisation about something I missed out in my manuscript. Is it something that they would reject it for? Who knows?? I'm now sure I'll be getting the big R anyway. Think the waiting on this one isn't going to be as easy as I thought. I have just read From Slush to Shelf, which is an article about the path of a full manuscript when it reaches Harlequin M&B. Methinks I shall be waiting a looooong time....

Gwendoline Quadd

I was tidying up my disaster area of study yesterday and discovered an old note with some names on it. Took me a while to figure out what it was but then I remembered. About ten years ago, when I was but a youngster, I had an idea I'd try writing a Mills and Boon. This was greeted with much mirth by the family (we'd had a few wines) who then decided to find me a pen name. In fact 13 pen names. As follows:

Millicent Moncrieff
Winona Wycliffe
Prunella Essence
Margaret Offenburger
Olga Spratt
Mabel Tallstorei
Amelia Blyndsythe
Thomasina Pratt
Petronella Pedal
Pamela Pooch
Petronella Wibbley
Eva Glockenkoff
And my personal favourite - Gwendoline Quadd

Was I an idiot? Oh yes, indeed. Not unexpectedly, my pen name is/will be (if the gods of romance are kind) none of the above. I'm going be the relatively staid Jackie Ashenden. The Ashenden part is my mother kindly letting me use her maiden name - thanks Mum. I could use my own name which is Coates but it didn't have enough flair. There's my husband's name (which I didn't take) which is Vroegop. Maybe there's a certain je ne sais quoi about Jackie Vroegop which I'm not aware of...? :-) Anyway, anyone else going to use a pen name?

It's Gone

Have sent off the manuscript and it has been received by M&B. They said they'd get right on it ASAP. I am preparing for a six month wait at least.

Now what am I going to do?

Perhaps I shall entertain myself with Confessions of a Slush Pile Reader.

Back to Work

Am now back from a week and a half of lazing around doing nothing at the beach. Fantastic to have some time off but am now distinctly unmotivated. Have no resolutions to speak of and am heartily sick of the manuscript I have to post to Anna at M&B. Read the hard copy while I was away and have come to terms with the idea that it is now TOO LATE to do any rewriting. Sigh. It's due on the 15th so only enough time to correct spelling mistakes and then concentrate on my least favourite task: the synopsis.

Oh well. I did in the end give it to a romance reading relative while away. She liked it - at least she told me that she didn't even get up to get a sandwich because she was right in the middle of it, even though she was really hungry! Oh, and she liked the sex scenes too. Which is good to know. No one wants to know they write a bad love scene...

Anyway, does anyone else give their stories to friends/relatives to read? My mother is hassling me to give it to her but I'm not sure about her reading it. Especially the naughty bits!

Happy 2009!

New Year here in NZ and it's a gloriously hot and sunny day. Hard not to feel that this is going to be a good one...
We're up north from tomorrow for another week and a bit of holiday. Manuscript is all printed out and ready for proofing, and the little PC is packed and ready to go so I can edit. Mustn't tell all the rest of DH's family (who will be on holiday with us) that I have my ms with me otherwise they will demand to read it. Worse, in a moment of weakness (after a few wines, let's say) I may let them!

Note to self: must not work on fabulous new idea until present story is complete. Actually, that can be my New Year's resolution: I should be faithful to the story I'm writing now and not go off flirting and having lots of fun with exciting new ideas...

Anyway, hope everyone has a great New Year with lots of good news for those of us who are sending or are going to send submissions out!

And for those pondering the age old question: can a man write Mills and Boon? Here is the answer...