Happy Christmas!

Happy Christmas everyone!

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Closet and Some News

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

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

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

I shall endeavour not to be careless this time.

Here Endeth the Year of Suck

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

So, anyway, on with the perspectivising...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Patience is a Virtue

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

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

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

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

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

Sigh.

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

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

Hammer Pants Shoots! Hammer Pants Scores!

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

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

WINNING THE HIGH FIVE CONTEST!!!

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

I GOT A REQUEST!!!

Ahem.

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

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

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

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





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

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

First Drafts Suck

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

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

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

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

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

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

Grrr.

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

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

How Dorothy Dunnett Ruined Me for Writing Category Romance

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

**I mean it.***

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

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

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

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

It didn't.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Neutering the Bad Boy

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

Such are the joys of the alpha male.

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

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

Hammer Pants Get a Prize

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

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

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

How's the rollercoaster doing for everyone else?

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

Pants!

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

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

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

The 17 Step Method

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

1. Have an idea.
2. Write it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Delete, Delete, Delete

Did you hear that?

*screams*

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dealing with the Whataboutmes

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

What about me?

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

The Joy of Reunion Stories. Not.

Still suffering from the 'mehs'. With a sprinkling of 'blahs' and some 'whatever' sauce. This is not good. It does not help that my current wip is a reunion story. This is the first one I've attempted and I gotta say it's hard! Now, back in the mists of time (a year ago), I used to find beginnings easy. Got my hook and it all came together nicely. It was the rest of the book that was the hard part. But things are different now and quite frankly, I am finding beginnings to be a pain in the butt!

So why now? I think it's the old craft thing kicking in. I know more about craft now that I ever did and that has made me aware of the things I need to know before I can start the book - before I used to dive right in and never worry about it. Conflict being the main one. For example, the couple I'm writing now have a painful past and I thought I knew what that past was but as I was writing chapter 2, I realised that in fact I didn't. Nor did I know what their most basic conflict was, the one that made their relationship fail the first time round. Or at least, I had an idea but then realised I hadn't thought about it deeply enough. Oh, yes, and of course I'd made it unnecessarily complicated again so I had to simplify it. Simple but deep.

And then there's the question about how to get across all that past, that sense of what their initial relationship was like, when they meet up again. It's tricky because the conflict that they have must happen in the present, not the past, so you can't put too much past in there. Argh!!

So, here I am, stuck in chapter 3, having rewritten the past couple of chapters 2 or 3 times and I'm still not sure I've got it right. Groan.

Anyone have any handy hints or tips for reunion stories??

Like, Whatever

Oooh, I've been a bit of a bad blogger. A week with no post! Well, the truth is I've been staying offline a bit over the past week. A case of the 'what's the point of anything?'s. Maybe it's time of the month (don't get me started about dealing with hormones and writing!) or maybe it's due to the tail end of winter hanging around here but definitely it's been a bit of a can't be bothered couple of weeks.

I suppose I should be writing more of the ms that has the first chapter with the ed, but the truth to tell is that I can't face it. After having the last one rejected at partial stage after I'd rewritten the full twice, I'm not sure I want to put in the work of writing the whole thing only to not even be asked for chapters 2 and 3. Now, this actually flies in the face of accepted advice. You should finish the ms before you sub right? This is true. However, in my defence, I will say that the ed specifically asked me for something I'd only just started. And now, having got her synopsis for something that isn't written yet, I am a little afraid of writing the rest of it because - of course - once you start writing the story, the synopsis might change! And so might the conflicts! So I don't want to have written chapters 2 and 3 and suddenly find out that the synopsis I wrote two weeks ago is suddenly not right. Sigh. Hence me leaving this story until I hear back from the ed.

In the meantime I am working on another MH idea (three actually) and - big announcement! - SOMETHING DIFFERENT. Yes folks, after two years of concentrating on MH, I am trying my hand at something else. Bout time huh? :-) It's an idea I've had floating around in my brain for years. What is it? Steampunk romance with magic! Yep, that's pretty much as removed from MH as you can get eh? I've actually started it but it's hard. In fact, it's really hard. I have to get back into external conflict, figure out world-building, put a historical spin on it... Not sure it'll be successful at all to be honest. But hey, it's a challenge and that's always a good thing, right?

Still doesn't help with me with my dose of the 'whatevers' though. Just another thing I'm 'meh' about. What about everyone else? What do you do when you just can't be bothered?

How Badly Do You Want It?

Okay, so I'm a sad case, but this is something I ask myself quite regularly. Especially this weekend as I wandered around feeling sick as a dog with submission doubt. Is my heroine acting out of character or over the top again? Is my hero way too nice? Did I keep my conflict simple enough? Is there enough of it the first chapter? Are their motivations clear?

It's kind of exhausting feeling like that. As is the rollercoaster of hope and despair that the writer's journey seems to consist of. And sometimes I think that perhaps I care TOO much about it.

I've never had a blinding ambition to be anything. I was librarian for 15 years because a) I liked books and b) I could never get into publishing. And being a librarian suited me very well because it wasn't too stressful and at the end of the day it meant I could come home and write.
Actually, when I say I never had a blinding ambition to be anything, that's a small lie. I have always wanted to be a writer. But it wasn't ever something I thought I would be. It was just one of those nice dreams.
But in the last few years, I've realised that perhaps I could be one after all. That perhaps it doesn't just have to be a nice dream. And whaddya know? It turns out I have ambition after all. And boy does my ambition want this. It wants it SO bad! It cares so deeply about it, that some days I have difficulty switching it off.

The downside of this means that I am a writing bore. I write every day and get grumpy when I don't. I think about writing obsessively. When it's not going well, nothing goes well and it's all bad. I have a love/hate relationship with my inbox and I feel like throwing up every time I get an email from the ed. When I get an R it's DEVASTATING. When I get a 'you'll have to rewrite it from the top', I'm ECSTATIC. It's exhausting.
On the upside wanting it badly, caring too much means that I channel all that drama back into my writing. Which does make for lovely, emotional scenes. It also means that giving up is much harder. And....I'm sure there was another upside but maybe not!

So I don't know, admitting how badly you want something isn't fashionable these days. You've got be 'well, whatever, I'll give it a go and if it doesn't work out, so what' kind of thing. Some days I wish I did have that attitude. It would be so much easier. But the thing is, that kind of attitude would mean that I probably wouldn't still be here on sub number 6. I'd have stopped after sub number 1.

Anyway, I've tried not to care, believe me. To make this whole process easier on myself and my family. I've tried to think, 'oh well, if it happens it happens and if it doesn't, it doesn't'. But you know what? That doesn't work. No amount of trying will make me care any less about it. So I think I'll just have to accept that I want this badly. That I care about it very much. That I'll never be a 'meh, whatever' kind of person. And that I'll just have to live with the hope and despair that comes along with caring far too much for my own good.

Lucky Dr Jax. Ah well, he always knew he was getting a drama queen for a wife. :-)

So what about all the rest of you? How badly do you want it?

Three Little Problems

Yep, have sent a chapter and synopsis to the ed. No, not the NV entry as yet. This is my soldier story (though I'm thinking of losing the soldier part since it only adds to his character and doesn't directly relate to the story). I feel paranoid and sick about it naturally. The previous two ideas haven't gone down well so I have no idea whether this will fare any better. I have tried really hard to take what the ed's been saying to me on board so whether I've managed it will be anyone's guess.

You see, here are my problems:

1. I have been writing romances since I was 12. Now these were only for myself, not for publication. So I have had over 20 years of writing stories where I could do whatever the hell I wanted and that seemed to mostly be concerned with piling as much angst as I could into it. Hey, I didn't have to please anyone but myself so why not? Flashforward 28 years and I'm still trying to stop myself from piling on the angst. Fear of failure? Sure. Why not add fear of being vulnerable too? Oh yes, and also fear of not being wanted, hating to be protected and stick an unplanned pregnancy in there too. Enough conflict for ya?

2. I HATE being hit over the head with the obvious as a reader. QED, as a writer I am not obvious enough. This combined with a fear of my characters being too self aware, means sometimes the conflict isn't obvious in the first chapter. And neither is their motivation.

3. I came late to reading romance. I only started reading a lot of it 3 years ago. Up till then, the only romance I read was an M&B binge every 6 months or so. I've been trying to catch up on the genre but up until 3 years ago, I didn't even know a romance had to have an HEA, let alone heroic, aspirational, sympathetic characters.

So these three little problems of mine have all conspired against me. Not only do I over complicate my conflicts so it's not clear, I am also not obvious about them so readers (and editors!) don't know what motivates them. Ergo this makes them unsympathetic because if you don't know what motivates them, you can't relate to them. Add to that a tendency to want to break the 'romance' mould with my characters because I want to do something different (and not knowing what's 'acceptable' and what's not), and you have a recipe for disaster. And rejection.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, it's taking me a VERY long time to both be aware of these problems and to overcome them. My latest sub I have tried hard to stick to one conflict for both my characters, made sure it's clear and have tried to follow it to its conclusion in the synop. I have also tried to make it more obvious in the first chapter. The thing I'm most worried about is my heroine. I've - again! - tried to make her different. I hope I haven't overstepped the mark. She's spiky and prickly, and kind of rude. There is a reason for this and I'd really like to think I got it across in that first chapter but...

Who knows? Only time will tell I guess. Anyway, it's back to NTAI for me! Where's everyone else at?

The Importance of Being Earnest (and Honest)

Sometimes this blog is a difficult thing. When I started it, I thought I'd just do random posts about how the writing was going and also - because I spent 10 years as a librarian and I'm firmly of the belief that knowledge is power - I wanted to share what I'd learned from the editor. From the blogs I'd already seen, not many people shared the info they got on their rejection letters so I thought I would, since the information in them was so helpful. I didn't quote the letters direct since I'm not in the business of quoting others without their permission, but I did post the gist of it.

At first this was easy. When I started submitting, I knew I would make mistakes and get rejected, and I had no problem admitting my mistakes and sharing them with people so that others might find it useful. Of course, that was then. Sharing the rejection on my revised full was pretty hard. And sharing the rejections subsequent to that has been harder still. Mainly because with all this editorial support, aren't I supposed to be getting better? Am I not learning anything?

Anyway, this is just to say that it's a very public journey I've chosen to take. And yes, it's my choice. And you should know that sometimes I hate posting my failures or mistakes up here. But I do because that's how I started and that's how I should continue. I have learned a lot and I know I still have a lot to learn, and I'm still a librarian inside, I still want to share my knowledge with those who might find it useful.

But the other thing is that I also share about how I feel about my mistakes and rejections. I know some people don't like this. It's uncomfortable. Hey, it's uncomfortable for me too. But I do it because I want people to know it's normal to feel angry, to feel sad, to feel disappointed when you get rejected or when you don't place in a contest. It's normal to cry. It's normal to want to give up. It's normal to feel jealous of those who have made it. It's normal to yell 'it's not fair'.
I have felt all of those things and probably will continue to do so. But you're allowed to feel that way, don't let anyone tell you can't. If you care about something, then you will feel crap when it doesn't happen.

I have had some lovely emails lately from people, telling me how much they appreciate my honesty on this blog. So I thought I should say that I shall continue as I have started, posting my failures and mistakes. And I'll continue to whine when I feel I'm not getting anywhere. And no doubt, I'll continue to say 'I give up' at least once a month. And if you find this uncomfortable, that's okay. You don't have to read. I'm doing it for those who feel they can't say it publically, or don't want to share, who think they're alone when they get that rejection and they feel like someone's cut out their heart with a spoon. Well, you're not alone. We ALL feel that way, no matter how many people pretend otherwise.

The truth? This blog, the people who read it, the commenters and the lurkers, and my CPs are the reason I'm still here. Yes, last week I wanted to give up. I was angry. I was disappointed. I felt ignored and I indulged myself with all those feelings. But I thought of all the people who have followed me on this journey and who are on their own roads, and I know I can't give up. I've got to keep going. So, having indulged my feelings thoroughly because that's how I deal with it, I'm putting them aside and getting on with it.

This may sound like a wah-wah, whatever post for all the battle hardened submitters and authors who have been doing this for years. Fair enough. Maybe after another few years I'll have developed the same attitude and got my hard shell. But until then, this post is really for the people who haven't been at this long and are struggling.

I pledge to you that I will continue to be honest with how I'm getting on. This will be hard for me but I'll do it. I won't criticise people or organisations, this is all about me, the drama queen writer. It's a hard, hard journey but I am not a hard person and sometimes, it's okay to admit that.

Sale Congratulations

Just interrupting the pity party to offer congrats to:

Amy Strnad for her sale to MH!! Yay, go Amy! She will now have to get herself a blog so we can all go comment. Hint, hint... :-)

Wendy Marcus for her sale to Medicals!! Go Wendy!

Well done ladies.

The whine will continue anon.

Dark Night of the Soul

Hey everyone, back again from holiday. But unfortunately coming back to a bit of a downer so excuse the ranty post. Heard from the ed while I was away and although it was a very nice, long email, it was full of all the things I'm doing wrong and not much about what I'm doing right. And actually, not sure there's anything I'm doing right at the moment. My major problem seems to be characters that aren't instantly understandable and relateable, and thus are unsympathetic. Big yays for me.

I seem to like characters that act too much like real people, with all their sad, stupid flaws, rather than aspirational characters that are flawed but ultimately act in more sympathetic ways than real people ever do. This is not bad, by the way, simply one of the requirements of the genre. Because, really, when you read romance, you do not want to read about everyday people being dumb. You want to read about fundatmentally good people who come to see the error of their ways and do the right thing in the end. Not that my characters don't do that, it's just they're not as instantly understandable as the category requires.

So, here I am, working on my synopsis for my next sub, wondering if I've made my characters too complicated again, whether they're instantly understandable, whether they're acting in extreme ways, is there too much sexual tension, is there not enough, is this even worth submitting because it's obviously a huge load of crap... Should I give up this stupid writing thing and take up macrame instead.

Sigh. I should add that in fact, there was one thing I'm okay at and that seems to be emotional scenes. Though since they don't tend to come along until a bit later in the story and as I've had two partials rejected, I haven't even had a chance to show those off of late either.

So there you have it. Welcome home, Jackie.

And no, there was no mention of my NV entry. Everyone else seemed to like it so I'm not sure what the problem with it was. No doubt something I haven't even scratched the surface of yet, that will lead to undiscovered new territories of rejection potential...