The Joy of the One Page Synopsis

This is a killer, right? You're not wrong. How do you get everything you want into one page? Well, it's not easy but it's entirely possible. After Michelle S gave me her critique of my sorry synopses, she suggested that I try doing them in one page. This was really hard but in doing so, I had a bit of an inkling about how an editor might read it and why certain things were important.

Now, obviously I am no expert in this but I thought I'd share my insights just in case they're helpful.

To help illustrate points, I'm going to use the synopsis I subbed for the FTH contest. This was two pages double-spaced and quite frankly, not very good. See if you can spot why.

When Alex Woolf, Auckland millionaire property developer, discovers eco-activist Kate Weaver protesting at one of his constructions sites, his self-contained world is suddenly thrown into chaos by a sudden attack of the lustful kind. But Kate is wary: he's the very antithesis of her green ideals and is also, unfortunately, incredibly attractive. Unfortunate because she's susceptible to physical chemistry and has learned from past mistakes that it means nothing in the end.
Incensed by the blatant way Alex shows his interest, Kate organises a protest outside his offices but this turns nasty and she ends up being rescued by him. Naturally she tells him exactly what she thinks of him. His response? A kiss to her palm that leaves her trembling. Alex is hooked on the chase. He tracks Kate down with a demand: dinner at her house or he presses charges regarding her protest: Kate has no choice but to agree.
At dinner, Kate tries to scare him off with her blunt opinions but Alex is even more attracted. The evening ends with him pulling her into his arms and kissing her senseless. Then he goes further by manipulating her into having lunch with him at his Waiheke Island home.
Kate, hating to be manipulated, fears the worst but over the course of the afternoon, realises that her initial impressions about him are misplaced. There is a vulnerability to him that she, champion of the vulnerable, finds very intriguing. But, worse than that, he makes her laugh.
That night, finally unable to resist her own sensual nature, a side of herself she's always mistrusted, it's Kate who does the seducing. Their lovemaking is a transcendent experience, a true meeting of both bodies and spirits, and it changes everything between them.
The next day circumstances force Kate into staying on the island but after the night she spent with Alex, she feels she knows him, is sure he would never hurt her. He brings out her humour, her sense of fun. Things she'd hadn't even known she'd lost. She soon doesn't want to leave. Alex too is changed by the experience. A lonely childhood has led to a life of emotional self-sufficiency but passionate Kate has opened a door in his heart. A door that leads to a world where caring about someone does not lead to dependency but emotional fulfilment.
But the spell breaks when they return to the mainland. Attending a party with Alex, Kate is served with a reminder about how out of place she is in his world: a chance meeting with her ex leads to bitter humiliation and it's enough for Kate to decide that it can never work between her and Alex. They're too different and she's too afraid of being hurt again.
Alex feels betrayed at Kate's rejection after the party. He defended her – stepping in to help someone else was a huge step for him in the first place – so why did she throw it back in his face? He wants what they had on the island but he still can't reconcile these feelings with what he's been brought up to believe: that being dependent on someone else for your happiness makes you weak. Way out of his comfort zone, he decides that perhaps his parents were right after all, that looking after number one is the most important thing.
But then they discover that their island tryst has had consequences: Kate is pregnant. She's appalled. Not only is she in love with someone she doesn't want to be in love with, she's also having his baby! Alex is horrified too – the ultimate in dependency requires the ultimate in unselfishness. But now it's happened, he realises he wants it more than anything in the world. So he challenges her: she must get over her fear of not being good enough for him and understand that their differences need not divide them. Kate answers with a challenge of her own: if she'll do that for him, can he get over his need for emotional self-sufficiency and commit to her as well as their child? But for Alex, admitting finally that he loves her, there's no need to compromise. He'll do whatever it takes to have her and his child in his life. Permanently.

I think I put everything but the kitchen sink into that synopsis but anyway, here's what's wrong with it:
Firstly and most importantly, where are Kate and Alex's conflicts? They're not in the first couple of paragraphs and because they're not, nothing the characters do or feel really makes any sense. When an editor reads a synopsis (this is just a guess here folks 'cause I've actually got no idea. It's more how I would read a synopsis) she'll want to know immediately why these two feel they can't be together. If she knows straight up, then she'll be able to see why/how the characters make the decisions they do and if they make sense.
If not, she'll be left asking herself questions like these:
What were Kate's past mistakes? Why does Alex's interest incense Kate? Why is he vulnerable? Why is that attractive to her? What made her lose her sense of fun? What does being not of his world have anything to do with their romance? Why are they too different? Why will it never work? Why was it a huge step for him to defend her? Why did he learn this lesson from his parents?

You see? I'm sure you can spot the other questions in the subsequent paragraphs too. But all these questions pretty much stem from the same reason - what are the conflicts here? And the short answer to that is: there aren't any. Not anything internal anyway. All the baby stuff etc, scene with the ex, is all just me trying to cover the fact that there was nothing to keep Kate and Alex apart. There's hints - Kate's past mistakes, Alex's parents, but nothing concrete.

So if that's not a very good synopsis, what's a good one? I'm not the world's greatest synopsis writer and I'm certainly not setting myself up as one, but I can do better than the above these days. Next post I'll redo the synopsis the way it probably should have been done the first time and you can see if it's better or not.

Light and Flirty Modern Heat: Yeah, Right.

I'm worried about my sub. So what else is new right? Well after reading the transcript of the editor chat on eHarlequin, I've got several worries:

Firstly, I'm worrying that my sub is too angsty for Modern Heat. The problem is that I love deep, emotional internal conflict. And I love a strong, tortured hero. However, I also like humour which makes an uncomfortable mix between Presents/Modern style internal conflict with the Modern Heat flirty/sexy hero. With MH, you can't have your hero standing around brooding endlessly. There has to be some humour/flirtiness there, which makes it hard if you have a deep internal conflict for him. I think my hero isn't too broody (which makes him sound like a chicken!) but towards the end, he's pretty conflicted. Will this be a sub-killer?

Secondly I'm worrying about the whole 'fresh twist on an old theme' thing. The fact is, my setup isn't particularly fresh or original. They meet in a nightclub - how original is that? I like to think I spiced things up with the presentation of it a little but maybe I didn't. The whole fake engagement thing I had going on there was supposed to make it a little bit different to the marriage of convenience thing but I've now taken it out, I haven't even got that. Is my sub too boring?

Thirdly, I'm not sure I pushed the boundaries enough. I wanted to get this one right and in doing so, I'm worried I may have played it too safe. The transcript seemed to imply new and innovative is the way to go, but really, how far can you go as an aspiring author? What, exactly, can you get away with? Perhaps, as Kate Walker says, it's all in the execution. In the sub that was rejected, my hero and heroine didn't physically meet until page 6 or so but they did have a sexy online conversation. This was not mentioned as a problem in the feedback I received so maybe you can get away with a certain amount of rule breaking.

Lots of worries, huh? Anyone else worried about their sub? Perhaps I need to put up the scarecrow again...

Home Again or Completely Gratuitous Shots of New Zealand Countryside

Okay, 4055kms later, I am finally back home! And already feeling the post holiday blues... :-) Stupid eh? But had a lovely time. Travelling the country has given me a new appreciation for how beautiful New Zealand is. If any of you are down this end of the globe, make it your mission to see the South Island, especially Fiordland. And most especially, Doubtful Sound. A more beautiful place on earth I have yet to visit... (Picture on right is Lake Te Anau. Picture on left is taken from the Cardrona ski field in Otago, looking towards Queenstown)



Yes, it rains in Fiordland. A lot. And apparently people have been known to complain to the local tourist information bureau about the fact that it rains. As if the tourist bureau has anything to do with the weather. Reminds me of the time we were Morocco, on the edge of the Sahara and how a couple of our tour party complained to the tour guide because clouds meant they couldn't get their desert sunset photo... These waterfalls at the right are in Doubtful Sound and only appear when it rains.

Here's me being blown about on the front of the boat in Doubtful Sound. Well, I suppose there has to be one shot of me but no one took one of me in front of anything scenic so this will have to do. :-)






And here's my eldest daughter taking a wander along the shores of Lake Whakitipu near Queenstown.







Now the holiday is over, it's back to the wait - 13 weeks! Not to mention thinking about the next writerly blog post... Hope everyone else has had a good couple of weeks!
P.S. Please excuse the big lines of nothingness in between the photos. Blogger sucks when it comes to formatting posts with images.

A Missive from the Deep South - On Heroines

Still adventuring in the wilds of New Zealand's South Island. We're in Dunedin, the southern most city and I have been searching in vain for wireless internet. I think poor old NZ is rather foot-dragging when it comes to providing free wireless hotspots because there ain't none around here. Luckily Dr Jax has an iPhone and it can provide me with the access I have come to require, nay demand.

So, had plans for doing lots of lovely writing/editing while I've been away but they came to nought. Probably a good thing to have a complete break but it does lead to frustrated writer syndrome (symptoms include grumpiness, impatience with long suffering family, and general wistful imaginings about all the lovely things one could do if only one had enough time on one's laptop) - which isn't happy for either me nor my family. Loving the holiday though (especially the three days of unexpected and superb skiing) but will be looking forward to getting back into the swing of writing again.

Anyway, while we've been away, I came across an article in the Guardian about writing for Mills and Boon. It was extremely interesting, especially about 'the heroine problem'. Apparently, according to this journalist, writing M&B heroines is extremely difficult. This is because they provide the reader with the conduit to the hero - in other words the reader needs to be able to imagine herself as the heroine in order to experience the love affair with the hero. But in order to do this, the heroine has to appeal to as wide a range of people as possible - basically she has to be bland enough to appeal to everyone and yet interesting enough to appeal to everyone. Hard, yes? It's good to know I'm not the only one who thinks so!

This is pretty much my problem with my heroines. I give them things like nose rings and tattoos. Or make them geeks with no self confidence. Or make them flawed in some way. But as soon as you do this - make them extreme in any way - you instantly alienate the readers who don't understand or can't relate to that kind of heroine. Which is why my FTH contest heroine didn't work - she was too extreme in both her views and her appearance, and thus alienated a whole lot of potential readers.

In fact, I had a rather interesting conversation with Dr Jax about this particular issue. I was running my new idea by him and he was asking me why a woman recovering from breast cancer was more acceptable than a recovering addict. I had to point out that addiction was more alienating and less sympathetic than breast cancer, not to mention it was a subject you couldn't wrap up nicely in 50k or less, even if it did happen in the past. He argued about this but even if a recovering addict was worthy, it doesn't provide the requisite fantasy or escapism element that you need to have in an M&B.
Even breast cancer may be pushing it. You can't wrap that up easily either but am thinking I'll have to make her in total remission, with all her treatment in the past, and, bearing in mind the whole appealing to the widest range of people possible thing, probably not having had a mastectomy.

Of course, I'll have to hear back about my current sub first before I send anything else out. Sigh.

What does everyone else think about the whole heroine thing? Do you find them difficult to write?

In the Millionaire Playboy Psychiatrist's Penthouse

Two out the four statements in the above title are true and I'll leave you to figure out which ones are which...

Yes, it is a little bit sad to be posting a blog entry while I'm on holiday but a) wouldn't you know it, I have a cold and am holed up in our apartment and b) my eldest also has a cold and is holed up with me. The cold is helped marginally by the setting - a penthouse suite (one of the true statements, see photo) on the shores of Lake Whakitipu, which has all the mod cons including a deck with a spa pool that looks onto the Remarkables Mountain range. Dr Jax outdid himself with the accommodation it has to be said. We have broadband, we have heated floors, we have flat screen TVs... Happy days.

In fact, the setting and the apartment are all extremely Modern Heat - I'm inspired despite the cold! Queenstown is pretty young, urban and hip - certainly judging from all the trendy snow people I saw in town yesterday - with lots of bars and restaurants. Could be a great location for a new story. In fact, I even have a great idea to go along with it. Shows you what an obssessive writer I am that even on a family holiday with a vile cold, the creative urge never stops. Am kind of itching to get into writing it and if it wasn't for those meddling kids... :-)

But I can't think of new ideas at the moment. Too many old ideas to edit, not to mention angsting over the partial under consideration. Coming up for 12 weeks next week but I'm not holding my breath for an answer just yet. In fact I should be doing more NTAI - ing. Unfortunately my main method of NTAI-ing is more writing....which I can't do...

Ah well, shall try and distract myself by reading the new AS Byatt I bought with me, though as much as I love her writing, it probably won't provide as much escapism as Lucy King's new book did (great going, Lucy!). Isn't it lucky I also have Kate Hardy's latest too? ;-)

Holidays!

Woohoo!! Yep, we're going on holiday for two weeks on Thursday! Be the first holiday for me in months (no, two nights in Rotorua does not count) and I can't wait. We're going to Queenstown (see piccie) in the South Island for a conference that Dr Jax is attending. Queenstown, for those in the northern hemisphere, is kind of like NZ's answer to Switzerland on a much, MUCH, smaller scale. :-) Remember those mountains in Lord of the Rings? Those are the Remarkables (again, see piccie). Remember Rohan? That's the kind of country where we'll be going. Anyway, not sure of the wisdom of driving over a thousand ks with two small kids but hey, if you don't try you'll never know right?

Of course the other advantage of going away is that it's the perfect NTAI distraction. It's been ten weeks since I sent in my sub and the twelve week mark will pass while I'm away. I'm thinking I won't hear, considering the busy-ness of the London office. Sigh. Oh well, I am taking the laptop with me just in case (does that make me sad?). Can't do without my email and can't do without my lovely blog friends. :-) And perhaps I'll even have time to do some writing. There's lots of hot alpha skiers, snowboarders, climbers and general extreme kind of guys down there... Hmmmm....

Modern Heat set in Queenstown anyone?

Yet Another Post About Heroes

Yes, I know, I've probably posted this before but I thought I'd do another one simply because I love a good hero. Always have, always will. I like a good heroine, don't get me wrong, but baby bring on the hero because that's what I read romance for.

Now apparently I do a good hero - according to the editors. And my last (sadly deceased) manuscript had a 'perfect Modern Heat hero', so I guess I must be doing something right with 'em. But it seems that creating a good, Modern Heat alpha male is a problem for a lot of people (let's not go into my difficulties with heroines okay?). Kate Walker did a fabulous blog post about alpha males so I won't go into that either but here's a little bit about how I begin doing mine.

Dr Jax (my husband for those who don't know and no, that's not his actual name) reads all my manuscripts and he often tells me that I manage to get into a guy's head really well - which is pretty much essential in creating a good hero. And that's how I often start. I imagine myself as my hero - how would he feel? How would he think? Guys are not so different, their emotions are the same as ours and essentially they want the same things as we do. They're human right? Okay, at least semi-human. ;-) Their key difference is in the way they express themselves and in some of the actions they take. For example, my heroes are used to taking charge of their own lives. They make decisions and take action, they don't hang back and wait for someone else to do it for them. But they also find it difficult to talk about their emotions because guys generally aren't very good at that kind of thing.

The other thing I find helps me with writing them is very basic - you have to write what you find sexy. If you don't find alpha males at all sexy then creating a convincing alpha male hero is going to be very difficult. If you don't love your hero then no one else will either. I like strong men. I like wounded, flawed men. I like men who take charge. I like intelligent men who have a sense of humour. I like arrogant, witty men. And most especially I like the confident, gorgeous guy who always has a come-back, who thinks he knows everything there is know, and yet who can be brought to his knees by the heroine. Mmmm, yum. Everything that I find sexy in a man goes into my hero. Now, other people may not find him as sexy as I do, but that's okay, everyone's version of sexy is different. But I think if you find writing an alpha male hard, you have to ask yourself why. Is it because you don't actually like alpha males? Or is it because you just can't get into his head?

If it's the latter, close your eyes. You're sitting in a bar. You're not worried about how you look because your looks aren't important to you. You're not worried about your clothes either because clothes are just clothes and they looked fine when you put them on that morning. You're not anxious about what to do if a woman approaches you because you always know what to say. In fact, there are more than a couple giving you the eye right now but you're not interested in them, despite the fact that they're gorgeous. No, because through the crowd you've spotted someone. A woman who is interesting to you in a way you can't quite put your finger on. It's irritating you because you can't figure it out and you hate not being able to figure stuff out. Then again, you do love a challenge, a puzzle, figuring out how things tick. This woman is lovely but it's not her beauty that draws you (beautiful women are a dime a dozen in your world), it's the puzzle she represents that holds your interest. And you want to figure out that puzzle. But she's surrounded by her girlfriends and they've already warded off quite a few approaches this evening. So what do you do?

What would Luke do? :-)

Conference - RWNZ

Warning, this post contains scenes of shameless name dropping...

So, how was the RWNZ Conference? Pretty damn good actually. Romance writers are such a lovely bunch of people - I can't get over how friendly and supportive and just plain old nice they all are. Which makes a conference full of 'em a great place to be.

Anyway, my highlights? Firstly there was a workshop where Melissa Jeglinski of the Knight Agency did a one page critique of people's WIPs. I was pleased to get some nice feedback about mine which kind of set me up for the rest of the conference. :-)

Secondly was a talk from Harlequin editor Mary Therese Hussey about writing for category. She had this to say about what an editor looks for in a first chapter (in general):

Are the opening and closing lines strong?
Do characters make decisions?
Are the conflicts strong and interesting?
Are the characters compelling?
Does the story start in the right place?
Do you want to read on?

Interesting eh? Made me want to hurry back home to check out my first chapters!

She also mentioned the importance of making the conflict clear and understandable and of making sure your story begins where it should. The opening of the story should be at a point of change in a character's life, not before it.

There were some other great craft sessions where I got some more insights about a great fault of mine which is thinking up quirky openings and then struggling to find the motivation for the characters to do the things I want them to. It all comes down - naturally! - to having strong and meaningful conflicts. Asking the 'why' questions. All this made much more sense this year than last year, probably because of what I've learned since then via my rejections and advice from other authors.

Anyway - name drop moment - the main highlight was meeting the lovely Natalie Anderson and having a great old chat about writing and law libraries (she was a librarian as well)! It was great meeting one of the authors for the line I'm trying to write for - especially one whose books are my faves. And also to get a bit of reassurance about the difficulties of balancing strong emotional conflict with the fun, flirty Modern Heat vibe. It's not easy and it's nice to know I'm not alone with that! Cheers, Natalie!

So that's conference this year. Next year promises to be even better and I'm even thinking about hopping across the ditch and going to the RWA one in Sydney too.

All in all a great weekend. Hope everyone else had a good one as well!

Having a Whinge

Having a grumpy 'I hate waiting' day today. Also a 'my mansucript sucks and is boring' day. There's lots of emotion in there - I'm actually wondering if there's too much! - but it still feels boring! Maybe I'm too close. Maybe I need to put a car chase in there to liven things up. ;-) But y'know, with Modern Heat, it's all about the internal conflict and that means keeping external stuff to a minimum. My characters don't seem to do much but go from his house, to her house, to a restaurant, to a beach, back to her house... You see what I mean? This does seem to be the case with other Modern Heats I've been reading (and actually some Moderns too!) but when I read mine, it just feels like there should be more happening. I could stick in a mountain climbing scene, since my hero is a climber, but then that adds nothing to the romance and I'd only put it in to indulge myself.

Aaanyway, which is why I'd really, really like to hear back about what they think of it right now. Like everyone else with subs out there, right? :-) Think I need to go out on an NTAI spree...

Failing that, I could work on the five other manuscripts that I've got festering away on my computer, all in various stages of being re-written. In fact, I seem to have been in re-writing mode for the past six months. I've got the initial stages of a new idea but I keep getting distracted by my earlier manuscripts and ideas on how I can make them stronger.

Anyone else re-writing an old manscript? Or do old stories go down the bottom of a drawer never to be heard from again?

Three Cheers for Editing!

No, that's not sarcasm you hear. I'm actually being serious. Yep, I have been dreading editing this hideous story and yet, now that I'm in the middle of it, I'm actually quite enjoying it.

Of course, I've only done the first half. It's the second I should be worried about.

Now, I had a really clear idea of what I wanted with the first half so the first draft of that isn't too bad. But unfortunately I have a feeling that the second half is going to be vile. I already know that the conflict hasn't focussed on the right things, that I've got distracted and let other issues complicate it - namely concentrating on my hero's emotional growth to the detriment of my heroine. Argh! So it's going to be the devil's own job untangling it - plus not letting it get tangled up again! And I am going to have force myself to do a better job of the ending rather than using placeholding phrases such as "And it all worked out in the end. Cue kiss. HEA." Oh yes, and there's the epilogue to go too.

Sigh. And it's already at 49k! Ah well, I'm hoping I can cut screes of 'just's, 'that's, 'suddenly's and other words I seem to use ALL the time. Not to mention all the smiling and grinning my hero seems to do.

What an exciting week for me. :-) Good job I've got the RWNZ Conference to look forward to!

Another One Bites the Dust

Well, it's done. Done and dusted. In a triumph of internal conflict overcoming external, my story has morphed from that of woman whose wedding for visa purposes falls through and she tries to marry a guy off the street (yes, I kid you not), into that of a risk-averse lawyer who falls for a risk loving climber. Weird huh?

Anyway, it's an extremely rough and dirty draft and there was a moment there when I wondered if I could even give them their HEA (my poor hero had a particularly tough time). But they sorted it out and got there in the end. So, my last thing really is wondering whether or not to put in an epilogue. There is a thread in there that if I wrap up within the story, it will affect the pacing. Then again, it should be wrapped up (will he survive his climb or not??) and the logical place is to put it in an epilogue. Decisions, decisions.

May not make all that much difference if they don't want to see the full but hey, I'm gambling that they will. Six weeks and counting, and considering that it's holidays UK way, I'm thinking I'll be waiting a while yet.

Anyway, what to do now??

I Am a Rock. I Am An Island.

It's hard when you have a hero who won't open up - like Lorraine said in her post, how is the heroine supposed figure him out when he won't tell her anything?? I've saddled myself with a particularly difficult customer. My hero is a climber and they are notorious for being the strong, silent type. Not that he's very silent, he's just used to dealing with his difficulties on his own and he doesn't - N. O. spells no - want to talk about the accident that killed his mother on K2 (second tallest mountain in the world). See the mountain shot to the right? Well that's K2 and he's going to climb it, just see if he doesn't.

Anwyay, all this makes it extremely difficult when I have to convey this past to the heroine. Because why would he tell her? What would Luke do? He wouldn't tell her, that's what! So I've had to rely on a third party. I have seen this method used in other stories so I'm hoping it's okay. And it's not that someone else tells her, it's a passing comment made by someone that sets off a whole lot of tension in the hero that the heroine picks up on, which she then confronts him about. He eventually tells her in strictly non-emotional terms just so she'll shut up about it basically and stop asking him questions. I think it works - hope so!

But now I have come to another dilemma. How do you get a heroine who is all about safety to continue seeing a guy who is all about risk? Especially when she knows she's falling for him and that he doesn't want anything but an affair. Argh!!! Think the lust card might have to be played.

Apparently you can get a computer program that will just churn out M&Bs according to that well known 'formula'. If anyone can find said program can they let me know?? I could sure use it right about now. ;-)

Reflections on Heroines

I have been reading Jane's blog and trying to pass on the advice about internal conflict that I was given in my rejection. Which meant I had to read the damn rejection email again. And you know what? I realise that in fact, I hadn't read it properly. Or at least, I only saw parts of it. Thing is, when you get rejected, the only things you see are the words "However" and "Sadly" and "Sorry to disappoint you on this occasion". And then you close the email because it's a rejection and that's it, it's over.
However, I had failed to see these little comments: "in parts this story is absolutely brilliant" and "your hero is a perfect Modern Heat hero". Don't know how I managed to miss those but having seen them now, I am feeling a lot better about my poor rejected ms!

I wasn't going to look at this story just yet because it felt too sad, but I've decided I'm going to make a push to rewrite it sooner. It seems a pity to waste the parts of the story they really liked, not to mention a hero that is 'perfect for Modern Heat'. However, it does mean a heroine overhaul. Which means a plot overhaul. Part of the reason for the rejection was that I was trying to make my heroine, Christie, do things she wouldn't do, inventing all kinds of reasons for her to act in a certain way that would fit the situation I'd given her. She was a geek with no self confidence and no experience of men who has to set up a date via the internet. And then the date turns out be this incredibly handsome, incredibly confident guy who makes her stammer and stutter, and then she has to choose to have a one night stand with this guy... Argh! You see my problem? Anyway, I loved the setup. I wanted it to work. I gave her a boss who would have fired if she didn't set up the date (it was research for a computer magazine), a friend who pushed her into it, and an ex boyfriend who had found someone new as a catalyst. And still it didn't work - it just wasn't something her character would do and ending up being completely unconvincing.

However, that being said, M&B thought she was a lovely heroine. She was unconfident but she had this little streak of stubborness and fire (she accused the hero of cowardice at one point which again was something they really liked because it struck directly at his internal conflict). So how to keep these nice parts of her and yet give her some decent conflict and a set up that works? Interestingly, in the first draft she had a mother that ran her down all the time and the advice I was given by M&B was to think about this angle when redoing her conflict. Unfortunately I went about it in the wrong way, making her mother's opinion define her when in fact an adult woman (so I was told) would no longer let her mother's opinion dictate what she did (let's just forget about the people in real life who DO actually let this happen for the moment shall we?).

My solution is this: her mother will contribute to her conflict but won't define her character. Her mother wanted a pretty princess and instead got a tall, lanky tomboy who hated dresses. After a childhood trying to be what her mother wanted, Christie decided that she'd never be that person (see? this is her choosing not to be defined by it), and so followed her interests in computers, becoming a hotshot female game developer. This involves her being around guys all the time since that's the industry, but she will see herself as one of them, ie neglecting the fact that she is female. Now her real conflict is that she doesn't realise how much her mother's disappointment in her as a girl has affected her own sense of self worth. No matter that she's successful in her work, she's constantly compared to her older brother who is married with kids and her mother is always telling her she'll be on the shelf because no one will be interested in such an unfeminine woman. But my heroine doesn't want to accept that - she's been accepted in her job the way she is after all. However, her job isn't the same as romance and what she begins to discover is a fear that her mother is right, she will not be loved for who she is but who she's expected to be.

This is not to say that this will work. I actually have no idea yet and probably need to develop this a bit more. But I think, if I can pull it off, it will be a much better conflict than the two scenarios I previously tried to use. And better, I won't be constrained by fitting the conflict around an already written set up. In fact, I'm giving them a whole new setup that won't be complicated by things forcing the heroine into meeting the hero.
Weelll, now that I think about it, there may be a teeny, tiny complication but we'll see how we go. ;-)

Husbands Are Useful or What Would Luke Do?

I knew there was a reason for husbands. I mean apart from changing fuses, cleaning drains, getting rid of spiders and entertaining children. Yes, mine has yet again proven his worth when it comes to sorting out my complicated plot dilemma.

I was telling him about my great new idea that involved a pretend relationship instead of the fake engagement (see previous post) and he was silent for a little minute. And then he said 'that sounds quite complicated' . So I explained that they had to have a reason for continuing their relationship after their one-nighter - which was the whole point of the fake engagement thing, as well as enforcing an intimacy that would deepen the tension. All very good reasons I thought.
But you know what he said? He told me that it sounded very much like I was inventing reasons to make my characters do what I told them. No, he had not read my previous blog post. No, I had not applied my own very good advice to myself. Doh.

So I whined, 'But they need a reason to see each other again.'
And husband says, 'Really? So hot sex isn't enough of a reason?'
'But...but...' I protested weakly.
'Come on,' says husband. 'Ask yourself - what would Luke do? Would he really need a reason other than that to see her again?'
Of course he wouldn't. He's an alpha male. If he wanted to keep seeing her then, by crickey, he'd just jolly well go ahead and do it! And would Anna say no? No, of course not! Would you say no to another hot weekend with a fabulously hot guy?

Okay, so after having pointed out my blatant manipulation of my characters, dear hubby then suggested a way that I could still deepen the tension and enforce the intimacy that wasn't so complicated and contrived. I've got a party in the plot that was supposed to put the fake engagement to the test and hubby suggested making this weekend party occur somewhere away so that my hero and heroine (she'll ask him to the party and he'll say yes) will be together where the chance to get away is minimal. So now I have them in enforced intimacy (to deepen the tension), no fake engagements, no pretend relationships. And the action stems directly from choices they both make. Of course once they get to the party, that's where the fun starts conflict-wise. It was just the getting them there that was the hassle!

This is not to say it all won't turn to custard again. But at least my niggles about contriving my plot have been put to rest. And it may all for nought anyway if I don't get asked for the full. But what this has taught me is that I am STILL a class A manipulator of characters to suit my own evil ends and this needs to stop right now. Think I shall have to print out a little sign that says 'What would Luke do?' and stick it to my monitor just to remind me.

Anyway, here's to hubby, upholder of characters rights, saviour of plots, and stern keeper-in-liner of wayward romance authors!!

Plots - Are Your Characters Driving or Are You?

Plots are the work of the devil. Yes, I'm sorry, but they are. They join internal conflict in their very own special circle of hell. At least, in my own personal writing hell. Why is this you say? Well, because in Modern Heat land (and no doubt in Modern/Presents land too), the plot needs to be driven by the characters. But surely every plot is driven by the characters? After all, without any characters, you wouldn't have a plot right?

It's true that of course without any characters you wouldn't have a plot, but it does not mean that every plot is character driven. This is something that I have slowly been coming to learn over the past few months, especially after Michelle pointed out the flaws in my synopses. In fact, it was something I already knew, but just didn't understand until now.

So what's the difference? Well, I'm still learning and naturally enough I am no expert but here's what I see as the difference. In your suspense/mystery/SF/fantasy/paranormal etc the action is usually plot driven. This is when external circumstances force the characters to act. But character driven plots are where the action is driven by decisions and actions the character makes themselves and not due to external circumstances (which is why internal conflict is so important because this affects how they act). Now, feel free to tell me this is a load of old bollocks and I've got it wrong, but that's what I think is the difference.

Anyway, like I said, for Modern Heat, the action/plot must be driven by the hero and heroine. Which means that if you have an overly complicated set up, you end up forcing your h&h to act in response to your plot, and not because of decisions or actions that they make themselves. Which in turn can make them act in a contrived way. Does that make sense?

A prime example of this is my rejected ms - which was rejected partly because of the setup and because I was trying to force my heroine into acting in a way that she wouldn't. My setup was that my heroine had to use an internet dating site to set up a blind date for research she was doing into the internet dating scene. This was not the problem. The problem was that I had made my heroine a socially inept geek for whom blind dates and dating full stop was anaethma. Good in terms of setting up tension, but not so good for a character driven plot. Why not? Well, why would a socially inept geek want this assignment in the first place? And so I had to make her go through with it by setting up a pushy friend, a broken relationship she wanted to get over, a boss that would fire her if she didn't, etc, etc. You see how I complicated everything? Just so I could force my poor heroine to go on her date.

Now making this setup character driven would have been easy if only I had made my heroine make the decision to go through with the date herself. So she takes charge of the action rather than her responding to the actions of the plot. Maybe she took the blind date assignment because she wanted to do something different, maybe she took it because she wanted to change her life. But in order to make her take charge, she would have to have been a different sort heroine, with a different sort of conflict, and that would mean rewriting the whole book - hence the rejection.

Which brings me to the current wip. I have a fake engagement in the middle of it and although this does stem from an action the character takes, I fear I have manipulated things in order to make the character take that action rather than letting things take their natural course. Since this is in the synopsis I have submitted, I'm slightly reluctant to take it out but my instinct is to do so. Should I trust my instinct I wonder? But that's a whole other post so I'll stop there!

What does everyone else think about character driven plots? Does this make sense or am I barking up the wrong tree? Maybe I'm simply barking full stop!

Conflict Sorted

Back from the joys of Rotorua. Was lovely actually - the highlight being the spa in the motel (sadly heated by gas and not by hot volcanic rocks) and a night time visit to a wildlife park where we saw a kiwi. You'd think, being an NZ'er, I would have seen tonnes and tonnes of kiwis just running around wild right? Not so. I have seen them of course but only in zoos. They are nocturnal and keep away from humans so to see one in their natural habitat without any glass or bars was kind of cool.

Anyway, one of the other highlights was figuring out my hero's internal conflict! Yay! Admittedly it was really my husband's idea, so full credit to him. He's a psychiatrist you see and this can be very useful when it comes to figuring out conflict and motivations. In the end it wasn't that hard though - again, I have been over-complicating it (me? over complicate? Never!) and adding too much other stuff. I think I have a tendency to do this as I'm peeling away the layers of his character - I'm giving the wretched man too many layers in other words! Either that or the focus isn't as sharp as it should be. Whatever the case, his dead mother is the key. Now all I have to do is avoid any pesky Oedipus complexes... :-)

So, my mission this week is to continue editing the WIP and then, once I've pulled all the strands together, finish it. Which will then let me start writing my bright, new, shiny idea. Luckily with the new idea, all conflicts have been sorted and are ready to fly.

As to the partial - four weeks tomorrow. Not that I'm counting or anything. :-)

What's everyone else up to?

Going to Roto-Vegas

We're off for a couple of days down to Rotorua, the home of boiling mud, hot pools and the smell of rotting eggs. The husband has a conference there and after days of trying and failing to get my hero's conflict sorted, I'm hoping that a break will give me some ideas too.

Rotorua is the 'land of passion' as you can see by this April Fool's day ad that was run through various papers this year, so perhaps the smell will give me some inspiration! I am going to be taking my little laptop with me anyway and hope to have some time to give the wip a re-read, perhaps try to figure out just what I'm doing. I've got three strands of conflict that I could conceivably use but at the moment don't know which one to pursue. And all three is going to be way too complicated to resolve in 50k words. I'm hoping it will become clear in the fullness of time but boy, the man is being ridiculously opaque.

Oh, and why Roto-Vegas? Well, it's a bit of a NZ in-joke. We call it Roto-Vegas because Rotorua is NZ's answer to Las Vegas. Don't know why really because I don't think there are any casinos/burlesque shows/huge neon signs/deserts/Elvis impersonators in Rotorua. But it does have lots and lots of motels/hotels and tourist type stuff to do, not to mention being quite expensive. Ah well, at the moment, being winter here, I'll just settle for a nice hot spa to sit in with a glass of cold bubbly by my side, and perhaps my current hero in tight swim shorts to feed me grapes...but don't tell the husband that. ;-)

Black Moments

Ah, the black moment. The best part of a romance. At least, it's one of my favourites. I do love writing them. If I haven't made at least one of my characters cry and/or reach for the medicinal scotch then I feel I haven't done a very good job. In fact both crying and reaching for the scotch are both good outcomes for me. I like also to have them be mean to each other. In fact, being mean to each other is great to write. No physical violence obviously (unless it's the medicinal scotch against a wall) but there does tend to be lots of cutting remarks, hateful sarcasm and downright lashing out.

Being hurtful has to be well motivated though, which is why the black moment is so great. Because all that emotion has to be got out somehow and when you're scared and angry and confused, that's what you do. It's also where you say the things you'd never say normally. That's when my characters confront each other with the big questions, the ones they've been dancing around the whole book. And the big questions don't have easy answers because this is internal conflict here and it's not easy to resolve (otherwise there wouldn't be a book, right?).

I think it's in writing the black moment that I love writing romance the most. All the emotion in it is so powerful. Those gutwrenching, painful scenes are also great because if you've written them well and your reader is thinking 'how on earth are these two going to work it out?' , it makes the resolution that much more wonderful.

Actually, sometimes in the first draft, I don't know how they'll work it out. I have a general idea but it's not until I'm in the thick of it that'll I realise what they need to do in order to be together. In fact, sometimes it's not until that black moment that I understand that what I think the conflict is, is actually something deeper. My current WIP I know is going to be along those lines. There's going to be something in that black moment for both my characters that I haven't figured out yet. Obviously they're both afraid (because fear is at the root of it) and I generally know why but I have a feeling there's going to be more to it than what I initially thought. Better get on to it, hadn't I?!

So, what's your favourite scene to write?

The Hook - Vital Plot Element or Unnecessary Complication?

Okay, you'll all be pleased to know that I'm done with the crows (until I hear from the eds I guess but NTAI!). My poor climber has been left to languish at a crucial moment so I should probably get back to him and give him his HEA. However, my sticking point is my plot. I have a fake engagement hook in the middle of it and though it stems from actions the characters themselves take, I'm wondering if it's a tad unbelievable. It's purpose is mainly to force the h&h together and maybe to deepen his conflict a bit but I'm still doubtful about it. Do they really need something to force them together? Can't they just be together because they're having a hot affair? I'm at 44k already and the black moment isn't coming for a wee while yet, so maybe my fake engagement is just an unnecessary complication...

The other thing I'm having doubts about is my timeline. Maybe it's just me, but does anyone else think that two weeks is an awfully short time to fall in love? Or is it just the nature of the genre and two weeks is fine and I'm being overly picky?
I don't know. Until I get over these stumbling blocks, I'm not sure I can finish the WIP. Might just wait until I hear back about whether the story is a goer or not.

Anyway, in the meantime, I have gone back to rewriting my Feel the Heat entry. It's so much better now I've got the conflict sorted! Since the editorial assistant asked me about it, I think I might submit that one next should the other one not succeed.

Ah conflict, how do I hate thee? Let me count the ways....

Hard Slog

Well, coming into the home straight with my re-write of my climber story, but it feels at the moment like wading through treacle. Not quite sure why. I'm really having to force myself to keep going with this one. Initially I was quite excited about it but the last third of the book has been a struggle. Maybe it's because although I know where the conflict is going, the action feels slow and - yes, go on, say it - boring. Or maybe it's just having to wrestle with my submission doubt and wishing I would hear back about it so I can get some clear direction about how to proceed. No chance of that in the near future!

It doesn't help having a bright and shiny new idea that's calling to me. It feels wrong to leave the climber story unfinished while I immerse myself in the excitement of a new story. Then again, a change is as good as a rest huh? Hmmm, might just go and do a quick synopsis... ;-)

Presents Writing Competition

Great news re the new competition at I Heart Presents. Another fabulous opportunity for people to bypass the usual wait and get their stuff in front of an editor.

Seeing as how I was a runner up in the previous comp and given what I've learned since, thought I'd post a few bits of advice for those keen to enter.

• The key to the romance is the conflict, especially internal conflict. To work out your internal conflict, put the h&h in a room with no one else, no car chases or kidnaps, and ask yourself why can't they be together right now? It must be something inside the characters, their thoughts, feelings, and experiences that make them think they cannot be together. And their reasons must be strong. It can't just because the heroine doesn't like rich men or the fact that he's arrogant. Why doesn't she like rich men? Why doesn't she like arrogance?
  
• Your readers will live through your heroine so make her someone that everyone can imagine being. Someone that everyone can relate to. Stay away from stereotypes and extremes of behaviour.
• Stick to the guidelines (ie don't add paranormal elements to what is obviously not a paranormal line).
  
• Read as many Modern/Modern Heat as you can get your hands on.
• Remember the KISS principle: Keep It Simple Stupid. Which means don't overcomplicate your plot with intricate suspense elements, lots of secondary characters, or subplots. Keep the focus on the h&h and their conflict.
• These are short romances so the hero must appear - ideally - in the first page or two, and he must be alpha. The guidelines for the MH hero have changed a bit - he's more alpha than he used to be so keep that in mind.

No doubt lots of published authors will be posting advice too so keep an eye on the blogs of your favourites to pick up some great tips. I Heart Presents will have lots of sage advice for your entries as well.

I posted some of the editorial feedback I received from my competition entry last year on my blog so do feel free to look through the blog archives if you want to see what they told me about mine. And why it wasn't successful! I think the entry is still up on the I Heart Presents site in the archives somewhere (they didn't put it up until this year - January I think), so it may be useful to read it and then look at the feedback they posted afterward (this is not a subtle attempt to get people to read my writing by the way, more a look at what they liked and what they didn't).

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask. I'm not published but like I said, I've learned a great deal since last year's competition so I may be able to help. The final caveat though is that all of this is my own opinion - the one that really counts is the editors.

Good luck everyone!

Submission Doubt

I've put up my scarecrow again because I've got submission doubt and need something to scare away the crows.
These are particularly ornery ones I have to say. It wasn't so bad the first time around because I was just so pleased to have had a full request. And true, the first lot of revisions were pretty intense but then, woohoo, I'd made it to the full-with-revisions stage and that was a great achievement.

But now I'm starting over and I'm wondering if I can do it again. Published authors must get this when it's time to submit that second book and you have to prove that the first one was more than a fluke. Obviously I'm not at that stage yet but the full-with-revisions is a pretty high benchmark to have to repeat. What if I can't? What if they don't like the story? I think it's better than my rejected manuscript - I've learned so much since then - but what if I've missed something vital?

Well, as Michelle S told me, the only thing I can control is the writing. I have to trust that it's a good story and hope that they'll want to see the rest of it. So I shall, which is why I'm continuing with writing the rest of it. And if it isn't then ONE of my stories will get there. I'm damn well going to make certain of it.

I'd just like to say a big thanks at this point to all the lovely people who visit my sorry blog, and to all the other lovely people on the eHarlequin and Mills and Boon forums who have wished me luck. You guys are the best. Determination gets you a long way in this business but it certainly helps having other people being determined with you. So, thanks.

Anyway, I have had confirmation that my partial was received so it's on with the waiting. And the NTAI. :-)

PS. Did you know that the guidelines for Mills and Boon have been updated? Here they are here.

Sent

I've done it. Sent in my new sub last night. Was going to ship it around a few more people to read but, well, simply couldn't face fiddling with it any more and thought I'd just send it and forget it (sorry guys!).

Haven't heard whether Anna received it or not. I hope she lets me know since the last time I did this, she didn't actually get it! Oh well, will follow up on Friday if I don't hear.

So now it's time to NTAI and rewrite the rest of the manuscript!

Active vs Reactive

I've been thinking lately about Michelle's advice re my characters being reactive as opposed to active. At least that's what they were in my original synopsis. I never really thought about this before - of course they were active, they were walking and talking and making decisions, right?
But that is not being active. They didn't take charge of the story. They sat there and waited for stuff to happen to them.

I found this happened with chapter 1 of my re-write. I was feeling unhappy with what I'd done and I couldn't figure out what the problem was. And then the light dawned: my hero was looking at the heroine waiting for her to come to him. The heroine was looking at the hero, too bound up in her conflict to actually take that step. The consequence was lots of staring but not much doing. No action at all. What needed to happen was one of them needed to act.

Had to be the hero - my mountain climber wouldn't stand around staring, he'd get out there and get what he wanted. So this my hero did. He got out and took charge of the scene, making the heroine have to act intstead of her just sitting there waiting for something to happen. And it's a much, much better scene now. It has movement. It's more pacey. And sets off a whole chain of choices and actions that bring both characters slap bang up against their internal conflict. Phew!

Anyway, this kind of thing is new to me so I'm going to have to keep thinking about it as the book progresses. I have to say, being conscious of having your story flow from the choices your characters make, certainly makes things more dynamic. Which for me - a very waffly writer - is a very good thing. And it makes me more certain than ever that they were right to reject my earlier manuscript. The first half was so slow compared to the second half! Nothing a complete re-write wouldn't fix however. ;-)

Okay, I'd be interested to hear what anyone else thinks of this. Any insights?

The Fine Art of Synopsis Writing

Right, forget flowery phrases. Sentences that scream 'look at me!'. Paragraphs that read well but don't actually tell you anything about the story. Throw them out of the window. Why? Because all your synopsis needs is the setting, the internal/external conflict, the evidence of growing attraction, the black moment and the resolution.

Yes, I have been thinking more about Michelle's advice, especially when it comes to writing the synopsis. The first one I did was full of the flowery phrases. It said nothing about how the characters grow and what they learn. It was full of 'he realises' and 'she realises' but nothing about why they realise that. So I wrote another one, and this was full of the 'why's, the internal conflict, what the heroine liked about the hero, what he liked about her, what they learned from each other, why they fell in love, why they couldn't be together and why, in the end, they were. But this one missed the turning points in the story, how it actually unfolded. Wrong again.

So this time I've done a third. And this time - I hope - I've done it right. This time I've actually included the 'hows'. Like instead of just saying ' he shows her that a little risk isn't a bad thing'. I've said how he does this by taking her bungy jumping and rock climbing. And when he comes to realise he needs the heroine in his life, instead of saying 'he suddenly realises....' I've given him some bad news about his father that the heroine is able to help him through, thus showing him what it's like to have support when he needs it.

Okay, it's not perfect, and until I get the okay from the editors, it may not be right, but it's SO much better than my previous effort. And this is a typical two page deal. Michelle said I should be able to write a synopsis in one page and let me tell you, it was difficult exercise. But I managed it! I would actually recommend everyone give this a go. It certainly boils your story down to the most basic nuts and bolts, and it's a great way to see if there are any plot/conflict holes. In much the same way as writing a synopsis centered just on the conflict can be useful too.

Anyway, that's my two cents worth today. This may be self evident to others but it was certainly a big step forward to me. As a pantser extraordinaire, doing a synopsis before I actually start writing is a huge acheivement. Who'd have thought it would help? :-) And it's given me a great start for writing the rest of the story - two chapters down and one to go before spit, polish and send. :-)

You Learn Something New Every Day

Well, what a weekend it's been. My poor husband has been in despair. Mainly because I am being very mono-manic about my writing!
Why? Because I've been inspired! After the wonderful Michelle Styles offered to look over the synopses of my next two subs, I have been having lightbulb moment after lightbulb moment. I think I must be very slow with learning all of this stuff because Michelle did point out things that Anna has already said to me, but for some reason I didn't see it in the manuscripts I've already written. Maybe it's to do with having new eyes to see the wood in spite of the trees, or maybe it's because I only focussed on fixing one thing to the detriment of all the rest, but whatever, the main thing is that it will mean RE-WRITING BOTH ENTIRE MANUSCRIPTS! Argh.

So? What were the problems? I'll point out the things from my climbing story:
1. The internal conflict was complicated for the heroine (again) and my hero was too self aware. There was no clear reason why they couldn't be together.
2. The two characters must grow from the experience. They must learn things from each other. Again, it wasn't clear what the h&h learned from each other or how they were changed at the end.
3. I didn't give any reasons as to why my hero was willing to give up the thing that made him who he was for my heroine. Neither did I make it clear why my heroine would overcome her fear of commitment for my hero other than the fact that she loved him. Why did she love him? Why did he love her?
4. My story was episodic. One scene didn't lead particularly well into the next.
5. My characters were reactive not active. In other words they reacted to stuff that happened to them, they didn't drive the story along by taking action themselves.

Phew! Quite a bit of stuff. And those were just the main points. There were other problems too. Fixing all of this was actually surprisingly easy once the faults were pointed out. To fix things I:

1. Gave my heroine some internal conflict that made getting involved with my hero her worst nightmare. Made my hero peripatetic and loving his freedom, who finds my heroine's need for security claustrophobic.
2. My heroine will learn stuff about herself from the hero and will use what she's learned to eventually get the hero. My hero will learn he can't live without the heroine, that her qualities are what's missing from his life, that he can't do without them, and what happens to make him realise this.
3. I gave them both qualities that each find attractive in the other. The heroine loved the excitement that the hero's risk taking brought into her life. The hero likes my heroine's bravery in how she goes along with one of his schemes even though she deems it risky.
4 & 5. I made the characters decide the flow of events rather than letting lots of outside forces determine the action. This makes them drive the story forward.

I've also learned HEAPS about synopsis writing. It really is an art. I thought I had it but no, I didn't! I am still fiddling around with the current synopsis but it's much better than it was and is certainly a great blueprint for how the story will follow.

Anyway, I'm all energised and desperate to get into writing. I want this story to be the one!

Once again, huge thanks to Michelle for her time. I really feel like I've come a long way since last week!

Moving On - The Next Sub

I'm posting quick smart because I don't want my rejection post to be the first thing people see on my blog. It's been a hell of a process but it's done now and I'm moving on. And what better news to move on with than an email from Anna. After telling her that I had four manuscripts ready(ish), she told me to send her partials of the two I thought were strongest. Two!! Yay.

So now all I have to do is choose the two strongest. Not so yay because which one do I go for? One of them the conflict is still niggling at me so probably not that. It's another classic case of me having a set-up without really thinking through the internal conflict. However, the other three are all potentials. They are all very simple stories in that that there is no immediate, gimmicky set-up. The emphasis is entirely on the internal conflict. I've also steered clear of the stereotype trap I fell into with the previous stories in that they're fully rounded characters and not just a bunch of character quirks. At least, I hope I have.

But you know, it's funny. I was running through one of the stories with my husband last night and he said 'wow, you really problems with your heroines don't you?'. And I thought no I don't! Surely not. But he's right. My heroes conflicts are all clear cut, I find them simple to write. But my heroines always seem to take me ages to figure out. I wondered if it was because men just aren't that complicated - at least, that's what I told my husband - but actually, I think it's because my heroes are more important to me. I love writing them. And my heroines tend to suffer because they're just a foil for my amazing guy. Which was why my manuscript was rejected. The second half of the book was great, Anna told me, because it was all about my hero. The first half was about my heroine and just didn't work.

So, the next submission will have to concentrate on getting my heroine right. Argh! Choices, choices... :-)

Final verdict is in and the jury decided: guilty.

In other words they didn't want my manuscript. Clearly the second opinion the EA got found too many things wrong with it and the fault was largely with my heroine. To be fair, I did write this last year before I knew all that I know now and I found it very difficult shoe-horning believable conflict into a premise that probably shouldn't have flown in the first place. I probably should have rewritten the whole thing from the start.

Anyway, all is not lost. They told me they saw great potential in me as a writer and that I didn't need the pitch slot I had booked for the RWNZ conference because I already had their attention and continued feedback (I'm hoping!). And basically I should send them whatever I'm working on now. I emailed Anna back and told her I had four completed manuscripts and which one did she want to see? :-) Bit cheeky I guess.

So, today, I need to have a good wallow, and deal with my disappointment - which is mainly focussed on having to begin the waiting process again. It's been very hard and it will be hard to face another year while they decide on something else.

You guys have been great with all the support you've given me. And - this is silly I know - but I feel like I've disappointed everyone. I hope I haven't. I hope I'll be able to post something a lot more positive in the future and repay all that good faith, because obviously I'm not giving up. Not in the slightest. I'm going to do this no matter how long it takes me.

A Wobbly Moment

To all those lovely people who have offered advice and support over the past week or so, thank you so much. You've made me feel hugely better about this waiting game that I'm playing. For someone who absolutely loathes waiting and who is naturally impatient, this has been a real lesson and I'm just so grateful to have understanding ears to pour all of my whines into. :-)

So, I'm feeling much better about waiting on Anna to get back to me, although I had a wobbly moment on Saturday when I found out I didn't final in a contest I had high hopes of. It's funny how the fact of not finalling suddenly made me doubt my writing and doubt the stories I had entered. Maybe they were boring? Maybe I'm not as good as I think I am? Maybe I was arrogant in thinking I would final in the first place? Sigh. Whatever, it's a good lesson in humility and just goes to show that even when you think you're doing quite well, there will always be people who don't agree.
It actually got me thinking that that it won't be any easier if I'm published. You'll always be worrying about whether the editor likes your next book, whether anyone will buy it, whether they'll like it, and if they don't like it, how to cope with bad reviews. Scary stuff. Obviously I need to start growing a thicker skin.
That wasn't a blatant play for sympathy, by the way, merely a little sulk. I'm over it now - retail therapy courtesy of Great Uncle Visa certainly helped, as did large amounts of chocolate. :-)

Speaking of contests, I just wanted to say a big woohoo to Rach! She finalled in the Valerie Parv and the Great Beginnings contest! That girl's got talent and if she doesn't sell soon, I'll eat my cotton socks. WTG, Rach.

Oh, and you know I mentioned I computer game I bought for my birthday? Well, it's called The Sims 3 and it's kind of like a real life simulator. You manage the lives of virtual people. The reason I'm telling you this is that in the game, you can make your little people become writers and make money by selling books. And do you know which books make the most money in the game? Romance books!! If only that were as easy in real life... ;-)

We Apologise for the Delay - Normal Service Will Resume in a Fortnight

Yes, I have heard back from M&B. It was a lovely email letting me know that there has been a delay and that I'll get my feedback within a fortnight. Sigh. It's very nice of them to let me know this - they certainly didn't have to send me anything at all - so I'm very grateful for the heads up.

But I admit to feeling a tad...tortured! The email only mentioned 'feedback' so I have to say I'm expecting the worst. This may seem premature and fatalistic but at this point that's how I feel. I was wondering if they can't just give me a hint - rejection or revisions! But I assume they can't tell me anything more because no one has made an official decision yet. Until the 'second opinion' has let the editorial assistant know the verdict, she can't say anything either way. Which is only my assumption of course, not knowing how these work, but I guess that's the reason. And I understand. I wouldn't want to be told 'yes, you're having revisions', only for her to come back and say, 'scrub what I told you, the official word is no'.

So,I shouldn't assume what they'll tell me because I don't really know. I guess I'm doing what I always do - assuming the worst so I won't be disappointed. This, by the way, never works! I should also resume my NTAI which I have to admit, is getting very hard. But forgetting about it is clearly the way to go. If only I could! :-)

Anyway, given the delay, I have emailed the editorial assistant to ask if it's appropriate for me to pitch another ms at our conference. I'm hoping she'll get back to me because I don't want to take up a slot if I don't need it.

Okay, that's my news. Anyone got anything good to share? I need some good news today. :-)

No News is Good News

No news this morning. Honestly, after all my nervousness and drinking of chocolate martinis the night before... Anyway, I kind of thought something like this might happen so I'm not too worried. I've waited over 3 months now so I can wait another couple of days. If it is a couple of days. Actually I hope I hear back before the end of June though. Got a pitch session booked for the RWNZ conference and I was hoping not to need it...

No doubt all will become clear in the fullness of time. :-)

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??