More News - Sale to Samhain!

You know that super angsty story that I wrote last year? The one I mentioned in my last post? Weeeellll guess what? I'm finally allowed to say that I sold it. To Samhain!!

Okay. So this is where it gets a little freaky.

The Samhain sale was actually my first sale. I hadn't heard from anyone regarding all my submissions so I was feeling a little down and impatient (okay a lot down and impatient) as I checked my email one morning in bed. And there in my inbox was an email from one of the Samahin eds. It was a personal one, not from their generic email address, so after I stopped breathing for a second, I thought well, it can't be all that bad if it's a personal email. And sure enough it wasn't. But I stopped breathing again when I read the email - it was very short - telling me that she loved the book and wanted to acquire it.

I just sat in bed going 'Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god' over and over and over again. I think I must have freaked out the husband because he eventually woke up and looked at my face and said, "What's wrong?"

 Hehe. Nothing's wrong dude. I just sold my FIRST FREAKING BOOK!!!

The day after that I got revisions from Mills and Boon and two days later I got the call from Entangled.

So when they tell you that when it happens, it all happens at once... they're right. IT DOES!!!

I sold four books in one week. Am I not awesome??? *toots own horn*

Ahem. :-)

Anyway, Falling for Finn will be released in February 2013. And now I can spam everyone with promo! Not. ;-)

I'll say more about this book in a later post because it's a great lesson about what can happen when you let yourself write whatever the hell you want.

So that's my advice to you. Write what you want to write and let yourself go. Because anything can happen.

Bring on the Angst!

The quicksand book is done. At least the first draft of it is. And thank God because I thought I'd never claw my way out of it. Why do first drafts suck so badly??? Anyway, my plan now is to let it sit and fester and while it's brewing away I'll start another book aimed at someplace else. This is going to be hard. Firstly because I hate beginnings and secondly because this book/novella is not going to be strictly category.

I've been writing category style books for a few years now and I actually find the parameters of category comforting. They give you a nice framework within which to work and because I like to twist things, they give you some great conventions to twist. However the end of last year I decided I needed a break from category  and wrote a novella that was category in length and in the focus just on the hero and heroine, but really wasn't in terms of subject matter or language. Hehe. It ended up being quite dark and gritty and angsty and I just loved writing it.

Now I'm looking at writing another one and I'm kind of scared. Because the first one was different to what I write normally, I'm not sure I'll be able to replicate it. I just chucked everything I liked into that first story and it just took off but...Well, this time round it's different. I can't write that first story again so I'll have to chose different characters. Different setting. Different conflict. What if I don't like it as much? What if it doesn't write as easy as that first one?

I found stepping outside the category boundaries easy the first time round because I'd let them hem me in to the extent that I needed to do something drastic to break out. But my writing is different now to what it was then. I don't feel as hemmed in as I did before. So this time I'm not so much breaking down walls as opening a door. And for some reason that doesn't feel quite so easy.

Anyway, I've decided that my chessplayer is going to get the angsty, gritty treatment. Yes, I know, I've rewritten this ridiculous ms a number of different times but it's never quite felt to me like a category book. So I'm taking the hero pretty much as is (minus the multimillionaire bit), giving the heroine some decent conflict and turning it into something sexy and dark and intense. At least that's the idea.

I'm also going to give the heroine a conflict that's quite personal to me. First time ever actually. I hope I'll be able to pull it off.

So have you ever broken out and written something different? And when the time came to do it again, could you??

Getting Stuff Done

This one's for the lovely Scarlet Wilson who told me on Twitter that I needed to blog about time management. And since I always do what I'm told, I thought I'd better go do it. :-)

First up, there are a few things that work in my favour when it comes to fitting in writing around everything else that's going on in your life:

1. I do not have a day job. I'm lucky enough in we can scrape by on Dr Jax's earnings. It's been very hard though and I'm so hoping that I can make a bit of money next year to pay him back for all the support he's given me.
2. My kids are 11 and 6 and go to school during the day. So I have the school day to write. 
3. I write very fast. 

Okay so here's what I have to do in the next few months. I'm just starting out here as a newly contracted author (secret thrill as writes those words) so I'm still as but a learner in the ways of publishing. I've only just got a deadline. My book for Entangled won't be out till probably around spring 2013 so I have quite a while to wait before edits come along. However I know that I will have work to do for something else (of which I can't speak) around September. My first Entangled deadline is not till October but I want to get my second book to my editor by August (conference month) plus there's another book (novella) I want to write and get sent by then too.Which will leave me September free to concentrate on the other work and other stuff I may need to do. It's all about forward planning...

Anyway, with all that in mind, right now I have two books to write by August.  These aren't editor-set goals but my own because I want to get them away before I go to conference and before things hit in September. Now with school holidays coming up, I know I won't be able to do as much as I'd like to so I want to be able to get as many words down as possible now.

So here are my tips for getting it done, in no particular order:

1. Be selfish when it comes to the writing. I am. I always have been. I prioritise it over a lot of other things because it's my passion and my job. I did this even when I was working full time. In fact, I left my day job because I was serious about writing (and I had the luxury of doing so). Yes, it's harder when you have a day job but if it's what you want to do then you'll make it work. 

2. If you're selfish about your writing then you'll probably feel guilty about it as well. I feel guilty about not spending enough time with my family and friends. But then women tend to do that. We feel guilty about everything. If you don't feel guilty more power to you, but I've had to learn to live with mine. Guilt is part of the deal and you either let it kill your writing or you accept it and move on. 

3. Accept that the sometimes the house will be messy. I'm afraid cleaning house is waaaaaay down my list of priorities. If I was working full time I wouldn't be cleaning during the day so why should I just because I work from home?

4. If you have kids then sometimes the TV just has to go on. See #2 about guilt.

5. Know your process and adjust accordingly.  I know I find the beginning difficult but I will get into it by the mid-point. I know I hate first drafts so getting it down as quickly as possible is also good. I know I need to let the ms sit for a week or longer before I edit. Which means I have to give myself enough time for a 'rest period'.

6. If #2 is eating you alive, set aside some non-writing times. At the risk of sounding sickening, I never have a problem with making myself write. I do have a problem with not writing. I'm obsessional when I'm in the midst of a story and I don't want to anything else. So I have to make myself take non-writing time to save my hands and also to prevent my family from killing me. Hehe.
My least productive writing time is at night so that's my downtime. I spend time with family and assuage my #2 issues. ;-)

7. Push through the times when you think your ms sucks and you think it's the WORST BOOK EVA. Whine to your CPs, your husband, your cat. Deal with it however you like. Just keep going and get the words down. You can edit it later.

8. Write every day when you can. I don't sleep in these days so I use the mornings in the weekends to write.

So there you go, that's how I get my writing done.The main thing really is the prioritising it. Then making yourself do it. And also about balancing the things you can live with and the things you  can't. I can live with a dirty house. I can't live with not meeting my deadlines. I can live with feeling guilty about putting on the TV for the kids. I can't live with not writing.

I guess this might seem a little disingenous coming from someone who's only just got a contract. I mean, I haven't had revisions or edits or promo stuff or anything else to do yet, so I don't know how I'll balance it all then. But I'll guess I'll have to learn.

Anyone have any other tips about getting the writing done? Apart from adding a couple more hours to the day??

Quicksand Book

This time the quicksand isn't in the journey ahead, it's in the book I'm writing. And no, I'm not exaggerating. I'm SURE my book is composed entirely of quicksand because every time I open the damn document I get sucked in. And not in a good way. More like a 'help, help I'm drowning!' way.

I don't know why this is. It may have something to do with the fact that this is the first contracted book I have to write and maybe the pressure is getting to me. Or maybe it's the fact that I never thought the first book of this series would actually BE a series so having to write two extra stories, with conflicts I thought up quite quickly so I could get the outlines to my editor (oooh secret thrill!), is making me feel a little disconnected from it. Or maybe it's just that I know people are going to read this book. It won't be my little secret this time. Other people will read it, not just an editor. And they'll be able to form their own opinion about whether they liked it or not. Whether I'm a good writer or not. And to be honest, that's freaking me out just a bit.

I think when you're aiming for publication, you get so set on just getting something accepted and you forget that once it is accepted, people will be reading your book. Oh you can kid yourself that only friends and family will read it but the fact is someone, somewhere will buy your book and read it. A complete stranger. Eeeek!

But then that's the whole idea right?  You don't chase publication because you think you're a crap writer and no one should ever read what you wrote. You chase publication because you think people should read the stories you tell. Because you want to share them. I think it was Yvonne Lindsey who asked me one RWNZ meeting, when I shared how scary it was to send something off after you've been rejected lots, whether I thought other people deserved to read my stories. And I remember how struck I was by the word deserved. And how my gut reaction was 'Yes. Yes they do.'

I think I need to hold onto that thought as I continue to push through the quicksand book.

So what about you? Are you chasing publication? If so, why? Do you think other people deserve to read your stories?? Come on now, don't be shy. A writer has to have some ego otherwise we wouldn't be sending our stuff out right? ;-)

Settling the Dust

Okay, so the last two weeks have been a total whirlwind.  Three book deal, revisions from Mills and Boon, a contest final, plus another thing I'm not allowed to mention yet, AND my birthday!!  Apart from all the good writing stuff, the bestest present was the crocheted screamer from Edvard Munch's The Scream. Yes, a totally awesome friend of mine made it - she crochets robots in her spare time - and I think it sums up perfectly my feelings about all of this. In a good way. :-) Hoo is also very pleased to have Screamy for a friend. He was kind of lonesome all by his knitted self.

I have to confess it's been VERY difficult to concentrate on writing for the past week or so. I have to get my head around the fact that not only have I sold one book, I've  also have sold two more that I haven't even written yet!  Which is exciting but also scary. Because it means I now have deadlines to make, the first of which is in October.I'm hoping this won't be too much of a problem though because while I've been unpublished, I did get into the habit of giving myself deadlines, sometimes for a contest, sometimes for my own discipline. I'm also going to have to get my head around the fact that people are actually going to read my writing. Readers! Not just editors! Eeek! Oh well, at least I'll have a good few months before that actually happens. :-)

The best thing though to realise has been the knowledge that this is finally my job. I was 12 when I decided that being a writer was what I'd love to be. I never thought though, that at the age of 41 it would actually come true...

Anyway, for those who are interested, I thought I'd share with you my secret tips to getting published:

1. Write.
2. Learn your craft.
3. Submit.
4. Don't give up. 
5. Rinse and repeat.

Do those five things enough times and you'll get published. :-)  

Call Story

Two posts in one day?? Insane. But then that's my life at the moment and I don't mind telling you that I'm quite happy with it thank you very much. :-)

Anyway, I've posted my Call story on the Sisters site. It's long and rambly. Don't say you weren't warned... :-)

Sold to Entangled!!!

I've thought about how I would write this post a million times. And for the past week I've been imagining all the ways I would write it. But now the time has come, I can't think of what to say!!

So I guess I'll just say it.

I have a three book deal with Entangled Publishing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

It's a series and will be out in the summer, fall, and winter of 2013.

I'm going to post details of my Call story (can't believe I have a Call story!!!) on the Sister's blog when I get a moment so stay tuned.

Anyway, I'm kind of at a loss for words right now - you would not believe the week I've just had - but what I will say, to all of your who have read my blog and have stuck around to provide support and encouragement for the past four years, is....

THANK YOU.

I could not have done it without you. Simple as that.

Revisions are Groovy

It's kind of amazing how a couple of editorial sentences can make you look at an ms and suddenly you see exactly what isn't working. The email I just got from M&B was just like that. In fact, in terms of revisions, it was one of the best ones I've ever received in that it was very clear what wasn't working and had suggestions about what could make it stronger.

Admittedly, the things the editor pointed out were things I had wondered after I'd completed the ms and sent the partial away. The heroine's conflict wasn't enough for example. The hero, hey, he was fine - joy! - but she needed work. I think I'd got to the point where I just wasn't sure of the balance. The hero's conflict was very dark and I thought giving her too much heavy stuff would be over-egging the pudding. Apparently not. :-)

But, happy days, I had an idea to make her conflict much stronger and more intense, and also tied in to the other thing I'd forgotted - external goal. Bah. I've even done a blog post on it and yet I STILL forgot in this ms. I got so focussed on creating tension between the hero and heroine that I forgot the external goal could create the tension, not the other little things I'd put in there. It's like I'd given the hero and heroine bicycles, their conflict driving the pedals and making them move forward, but instead of putting them on the road and letting them pedal to the finish line, they were on a circular track going around and around, and going nowhere. Doh.

In fact, it's quite amazing how the interaction of conflict, motivation, and goal intersect! Yes, I know, I should have realised this YEARS ago but I haven't seen it quite as clearly as I have this time.

I guess you learn something new every day. Anyone learn anything else new today?

How Throwing a Tantrum Can Work

Soooo....you know how I threw an epic tantrum about how nothing was happening??  And many of you said to hang in there and things will start to move?

Well, I woke up this morning to an email from the wonderful editor at M&B about Mr Sheikhypants. They love him and his conflict (yay me for getting the hero right for once!) but the heroine needs a little more work. Best of all I got a great list of the issues that were of concern and some ways to tackle them. So thrilled! They were actually things I was feeling a little doubtful about anyway so it's great my instincts were spot on. I have to tweak the partial and send back as they were keen to see how I dealt with it.

As you know, my subs with M&B haven't worked out in the past couple of years so I'm beyond pleased that a) my voice works for Presents and b) they like my hero.   Oh and c) it's not NO!

Have already sorted out how I can make my heroine's conflict stronger which will make her pursuit of the external goal stronger too. And everything will tie in together and it will be wonderful and rainbows and unicorns and flying ponies shall flourish. :-)

Here's to finally getting out of the quicksand! Clearly I need to throw tantrums more often.

Oh and you know how I've been waiting in the supermarket? I've actually been in a couple of other supermarkets too and now I've finally reached the checkout and my goods are being rung up and bagged as we speak. ;-)

In Which Jackie Drags Out Yet Another Tired Analogy

For the few people still reading this blog, I thought I'd vary my analogy today. I've given up supermarkets for the moment, since supermarkets imply movement. I'm going with quicksand today since there is absolutely no movement whatsoever. Plus I can also get in the whole 'journey to publication' thing since, apparently, it is a journey.  Except I guess that too is a misnomer since 'journeying' also implies movement. And I'm not moving. I'm stuck in the quicksand of waiting.

It's depressing. You can't do anything. You can't move forward and you can't even go back. Oh, you keep writing but you wonder what the point of it all is. You've got stacks of stories but why write more? No one's ever going to read anything you've written anyway, right?

Even your blog posts start sounding the same.

I'm not quite sure what to do really. The quicksand is steadily sucking all my enthusiasm for writing away and soon I'll have nothing left. The real world is calling and a job that actually pays money for hard work is seeming all the more attractive.



I thought this year I would start to get somewhere. I've had few modest successes and I think my writing is better than it's ever been. But now the successes haven't lead anywhere but into more quicksand, things are starting to feel like retread of last year. And the year before that. And the year before that.


So what's the point with continuing to standing here, stuck in the middle of a journey that isn't going anywhere?  Anyone got any sage advice for a quicksandee?

Supermarket Queues

So I'm at a packed supermarket and I'm trying to find a checkout that hasn't got fifty million people queued up and not having much luck. I can't use the 12 items or less checkout because I have more than 12 items and the self-serve checkout is a little bit new-fangled and freaky for me.

My heart is sinking cause I know I'm going to be in the supermarket FOREVER at this rate, and then I happen to see a checkout that only has one old lady in it. So I nip in behind her, looking at everyone else and feeling smug because I know I'm going to get out before them.

And then the old lady starts taking coupons out of her bag. And she's got a LOT of coupons. And then the other queues start going really fast and I realise, with another sinking sensation, that I have picked the wrong queue. *dramatic music*


Desperately I search for another queue that looks like it's going faster and get into that one. And it works. For a minute. But then the man in front of me pulls out something he has in his bag that he wants to return, and starts arguing with the checkout operator. Another wrong queue.

I skip to the next one but this one has a young woman who is trying to buy alcohol and has to have her ID checked and the operator clearly doesn't have the authority to authorise it and has called their superior. But their superior is currently arguing with the man who is still trying to return something.

I find another queue and this one looks like it's going fast, and I'm feeling once again so pleased with myself. But just as I start putting my shopping on the conveyor, the checkout operator slaps a 'checkout closed' sign down and goes off on her break.

So I whip in behind a mother and her kids and hey, she's got a LOT of shopping but there's no one else behind her, and it's going really well. Until her kids start playing up. And she starts arguing with the checkout operator about the specials. Then she realises she's forgotten to get something and heads off towards the shelves.

I am beginning to think I will never get out of this supermarket.

I try the queue with the man returning stuff but he's still arguing and now there's another checkout operator involved. Brieflly I consider the queue with the young woman buying alcohol but realise her operator is now the one involved with the man arguing. The mother still hasn't come back from the shelves and the old lady is still fumbling around in her bag for her coupons.

At this point I know that my fears are correct. There are no shortcuts. Some queues are faster and there's no rhyme or reason to them, they just are. If you're lucky you'll get a short queue. If you're not, you won't.

I go back to the queue with the old lady. And I wait. And wait. And wait.

That new-fangled self-serve checkout is starting to look better and better.

Research. It's Weird.

Another WIP finished, another ms to add to the pile. Yeah, finished Mr Rough yesterday. And I mean finished very loosely. My endings are so bad, mainly because I hate writing em. Usually because it's not until I write that I figure out what's missing in the rest of the ms. With Mr Rough I was so concentrated on the hero's thorny and knotty conflict, that I completely forgot about a major loose thread with the heroine! Argh.

Anyway, I always feel depressed after finishing an ms, usually because the ending feels so rushed and blah. But I do try to resist the urge to go through and fix it up immediately. I find that some time away from the ms and the characters does wonders when it comes to editing. A fresh eye and all that. Doesn't help with the blahs though.

The best way to help with that - apart from a  couple of stiff martinis - is, of course, to get stuck into the next idea. And this one, since it's kind of connected to Mr Rough, is one that is going to be HARD. Because the conflict for the hero is REALLY HARD.  You see he's a gambler. And a womaniser. And he's giving the big finger to the world in general. Which means that something really bad happened in his past and with a little help from Ms Yates, I decided what it was. And it's baaaaaaad.

And it's going to be fantastic to write because if there's one thing I love it's a tortured hero who really does have a reason to be tortured and not just because his mummy didn't wuv him enough.

*rubs hands* *is evil*

But I really should do some research first. Because he's a gambler, I am now going to have to go off figure out the finer points of poker etc. In fact, now I think about it, I've had to research a lot of very odd stuff over the years I've been writing. Chess. Astronomy. Handguns. Genetics. Anyone looking at my search history is going to get an eyeful of WTF. 

So what about you? What's the weirdest thing you've ever had to research for the sake of your story??

Jackie's Little Checklist

Again, thousands of apologies for my lack of keeping this sorry excuse for a blog up to date. And also apologies for not doing my usual round of visits to other people's blogs. I've been keeping my social media distractions to a mimimum for the purposes of pretending that I am an NYT #1 bestselling author with millions of readers waiting for my next book. I'm kind of doing a series you see and that's a little risky for an unpublished author. So to minimise my risk, I'm pretending that I'm not unpublished. It's working so far...except when I happen to catch glimpses of my bank account....

Aaaaaanyway, moving right along....

I think in my last post I mentioned a little checklist of things I need to keep in mind whenever I start a new story and some of you suggested that I post it. This of course meant I had to think about it and actually list some those things. It was a lot of work I tell ya.. :-) It is by no means complete - there will be other things I don't know that I need to know to add - and also it is my list and designed to help me and my weaknesses when it comes to crafting a story. Some of the things on it you'll probably think 'WTF? She hasn't got that yet?'. Other things may make you get down on your knees and worship my genius (I'm not imagining this will actually happen but dreams are free).

Okay, this is complicated and actually, I'm wondering if this mightn't be better as a flow chart or mind map...yes, a freaking mind map!  But basically this checklist is a series of questions, since that's what works best for me. They're also all interelated which further complicates stuff.



1. Character: The most important part. Character should always come first IMHO.
Who is this person? How do they behave? What do they do when they're under stress?  How do they act when they're confronted or challenged?  What do they do when they're happy? How do they see themselves? What do they want most? How do they handle emotion? What are their opinions about: friends? family? love? work?  What annoys them? What makes them happy?  What makes them afraid? What emotion are they most afraid of and why?
  
2. Conflict: What was the event/thing/person that changed the course of the character's life?  What was the character like before it? How did the character change afterwards? Does the character think they changed in response or do they think it didn't affect them? What story do they tell themselves about this event and is it what actually happened? What fear did the conflict plant in the character? And how does the character hide this fear? What does the character do to make themselves feel better about their fear/conflict? How does the conflict relate to the character's view of love?

3. Goal: What does the character want? How does it relate to their internal conflict? Why is it important to them (conscious/unconscious)? How do they feel about it? What do they think it will give them? What are they prepared to do to achieve it? What lines will they not cross (and why)?

4. Motivation: Does the conflict affect the character's motivation (hint: it should)? In what way? What emotion is driving the character's motivation? Are they aware of it? If not, then what other reason do they give themselves for what drives them? Why do they deny the real reason?  

5. External conflict/set up: How does this relate to the internal conflict? Is the external goal reflective of the internal goal?

6. Character arc: I guess this should go up with character but what the hey! How does the character change? How is this reflective in their behaviour?  Who are they under the mask they wear to show the rest of the world? Why do they hide their true self? What do they discover about themselves that helps them overcome the problems of their conflict and drop their mask? How does the other character help them discover their potential? What is their true potential??

Now, I don't hold this list up in front of my computer screen and tick off each little box, nor do I have to have all the answers up front (but at least an idea is a good plan).  It tends to happen in a much more organic way and depends on how the idea came to me at the time. If the conflict idea comes first, I think about who this thing might have happened to and why it would have been so terrible for them. From there the character starts to form in response to the conflict. Or sometimes I'll have an idea for a character, then I'll try and think about what could have happened to them to make them who they are.

No doubt there are more things I need to think about that I haven't listed here and I'll probably add to it. When it comes to discovering these things, I don't do characters sheets or whatnot because I find them artificial and I end up with a robot, not an actual person. The best way for all this to come together is just good old-fashioned thinking about it. When I'm doing the washing. Or having a shower. Or yelling at the kids. :-) It works for the most part.

Anyway, that's my checklist for you. It's kind of random. I might see if I can mind-map this though it may be waaaay too complicated. Anything anyone else wants to add? 

Alternatively, if you don't want to read this post, head over to the Sassies site and see some pictures of moody men. :-)

Emotion - The Heart of the Character

Hmmmm, bad blogger me with the weekly posts. I should be doing more. But well, I tend to slow down when I'm feeling in a low patch and have had another dip in the trail in the past couple of weeks. The journey to publication has gone way downhill, past the swamp and the garbage heap, and it's taking a while to come back up the other side. No particular reason it went downhill, just the waiting angst. And a severe case of whats-the-pointitis.

To take my mind off the incredibly long, winding back road that is my journey to the fabulous city of publication, I have been thinking of a...checklist (for want of a better word) for things that I have to remember whenever I start a new ms. I'm not thinking of a list of boxes here, more a list of things that I commonly forget to think about whenever I sit down to write.

For the past couple of mss, I have been getting way better at character (if I do say so myself). At least the characters are coming together more organically. They're not just a collection of traits I picked out of a hat with conflict tacked on the end, they actually feel like real people to me. Their external conflict is even reflective of their internal conflict and everything!

But there are some things that I forget to consider and one in particular is pretty damn major - a character's emotional life. Why is it important? Well, because romance is all about emotion. And emotion is what motivates a character. Oh, they can tell themselves all kinds of things about why they do what they do, but at the very heart of it, it's emotion that drives them.

Yes, you have your conflict but it's the character's emotional response to that conflict that shapes the story. For example, in Mr Rough, my hero is very, very angry. He's conscious of his anger and he embraces it because it drives his need for justice. And from that I realised that he will not let any other emotion take the place of his anger. It's the only emotion he will allow himself. I was very happy with that because for me if I know that anger is his reigning emotion, then everything he does will be because of it or about protecting it. It makes him consistent in other words. It also gives me a layer to his character and a simple character arc. Because in order to find love, he has to give up his anger and everything that the anger fuels (justice, control etc etc).

The thing I did NOT do however, was consider how my heroine feels about her feelings. And this gets problematic when the hero and heroine meet because of course when they do, suddenly everything becomes about the feelings. So you have to know how your character will react when confronted by an intense attraction. How do they feel about the attraction? Does it make them uncomfortable? Or does it excite them?  When they feel these things, what do they then do?


In the case of my heroine, I didn't really know and it wasn't until a CP mentioned her reactions seemed a little off, that I realised the problem. She was behaving inconsistently because I didn't really know how she would react when she was uncomfortably attracted to someone. And in fact, I didn't really know how she viewed emotion at all. It wasn't until I sat down and figured it out that I realised that at the heart of her was anger as well. Except instead of acknowledging it like the hero, she denies it (because of her conflict). And in fact, emotional control in all things is very important to her. So her reaction to intense attraction is to ignore it, pretend she doesn't feel it, in order to maintain her emotional control. That's her layer. Her identity. The mask she wears. If she wants to find love, she will have to acknowledge her emotions, acknowledge her anger.

So now I know what to do when it comes to the next mss. I need to know the emotional landscape of my characters. How they view their own emotions and how they deal with them. How their conflict has changed this. Sometimes I won't know this immediately. Sometimes you just have to sit down and write until you get a feel for the character. But at least next time it's something I know I'll have to keep in mind so that the characters act consistently.

What do you reckon? Do you think about this kind of stuff before you write? Or are you a get it all down first kind of writer?

The Trouble with Women

So I had problem with alphas in my last post. My new hero, Mr Rough, is being let off the reins and he's loving it, but now I'm wondering all over again about sympatheticness (if that's even a word) as it relates to the heroine. The romance heroine does have a reputation for being a perfect, self-sacrificing, paragon of a woman, brutally manhandled by the hero before making him bow down before her like a unicorn before a virgin (and she's often that too).

Now, I have to say right up and here and now that I hate those heroines. I don't want to read about perfect, self-sacrificing people. I want to read about flawed, imperfect individuals who go on a journey to either overcome those flaws or to learn to accept that they're actually not flaws at all. And yet right now, in my WIP, I have a heroine who wants to take control of her father's money. She wants to control her father's money because he controlled her as a child and she wants payback. For herself. And yet I'm trying to make this motivation less mercenary and cold by including her feelings about protecting her mother in there, purely because I'm wondering if a reader will find her too mercenary. Too unsympathetic. Too selfish. And this annoys me because it's predictable. Always the heroine has to have some unselfish motivation because no one likes a cold-hearted woman. It's always her mother or her brother or sister or her poor widowed auntie.

Why can't she want to have something for herself? Why can't she be as cold and as ruthless as the hero? Especially if she's motivated enough?

We're hard on our heroines I think. They're supposed to be the placeholder for ourselves and so they can't be seen as selfish or anything too extreme or else they risk alienating us.

Me, I'm a forgiving reader. But I hate stupidity in heroines and doormattery and too much self-sacrifice. I also can't stand kick-assedness for the sake of it. But I can handle a heroine being selfish. I can handle a heroine who takes the diamonds the hero wants to give her and also the hot sex because she wants it and she likes it. None of this 'oh no, I can't. It would demean me!' or 'I must take the diamonds to pay for healthcare for my poor sick granny and bear the sex because I said I would' crap.

What about you? What turns you off in a heroine? What can't you forgive? And is liking her instantly really that important?

A Hard Man is Good to Find - Fear of the Alpha

I think you'll all know by now that when it comes to heroes, I'm an alpha girl all the way. I like a hard man. A man who doesn't take any crap from anyone. A take charge, protective man. And most especially a tortured man. Mmmmmm....tortured man....*Homer Simpson donut noise*

Ahem.

So anyway with all this alpha-love going on around Ashenden House, it annoys the crap out of me that in my latest WIP I keep softening up my hero. I kept doing it with the skeikh and I did it in the ms before that too. In fact I keep softening them up so much that they may as well be blouses instead of alpha heroes. And not in the billowy, loose, cool pirate shirt way. More in a frilly, girly way. May as well have put a pussy-bow on them and called them Fanny.

I know why I'm doing it of course. In my head I'm thinking frantically 'he MUST be sympathetic!'. And 'there MUST be some soft moments right NOW!'. And 'he MUST be likeable!'. Argh. So I keep making him gentler, making him likeable and sympathetic and....well....soft. Which for an alpha Presents hero isn't really all that good. Because people don't read them because they like soft men. They like them because of their powerful, alpha hot men. Who aren't soft in ANY way.

Sigh. My real problem is the fact that in the last couple of WIPs my heroines have been strong. Very, very strong and ballsy. And that's a problem because you have to have a hero who is even stronger and ballsier than she is. He must win their encounters - at least at the beginning. Which kind of scares me a little because I'm worried about all the things like not being sympathetic, not being likeable, hearing the word 'alp-hole' in my head. Opening up that alpha box all the way is scary.

However, what I need to remember is this: his motivation is EVERYTHING. No, he may not be likeable. No, he may not be sympathetic. What he needs to be is understandable. He has to have good reasons for doing what he does and if he's properly motivated he can get away with a lot. I know I'll forgive a hero a lot if I can understand why he acts the way he does.

The second thing I have to remember is that at the heart of the alpha is a good man. Whether he thinks he is or not, underneath everything, he's the protector, the carer, the defender. Yes, he can act like an a-hole sometimes when he believes he's right. Yes, he might sometimes be a little scary when he's threatened. Yes, he'll fight like crazy not to be vunlnerable. But fundamentally he's a good person.

Which brings me to my current WIP. I need to get over my fear of letting my hero be who he is, which is one hell of an angry SOB. So angry in fact that my MOC story is turning into a revenge tale because he was NOT happy with just a MOC. He wanted more.

So I can't go softening him up because it's not in his character (soft guys don't really pursue revenge so single-mindedly). Plus the fact that his heroine won't take any crap, especially from him. In fact the past couple of days I've been rewriting a particular chapter because I realised I'd pulled back on him. So I rewrote it and just let him have his head and honestly, writing it was like watching a car-crash. You just can't look away. I kept writing and thinking, 'what did she say to him? Oh my god, this is going to be bad'. And then I wrote more and it's like 'Oh no, he did not just do that!' It was actually kind of awesome. Because it finally felt like he was being who he was. :-)

Right, so, my lesson for all those afraid of the alpha, is basically don't hold back on him. Give him the proper motivation (and not just because his mummy didn't wuv him). And trust him to be a good man. He may not be intially sympathetic or likeable, but as long as the reader can understand him, then they'll forgive him a lot. Oh and if he's a really bad boy, nothing like a good grovel at the end. :-)

Anyone else have trouble with their alphas? Or are you a beta girl?

Lucky 7

The lovely Rach has tagged me for the Lucky 7 Meme and since I've been away for Easter, this is slightly late but...well....better late than never, right?

The deal is this:
Go to page 77 of your current MS/WIP
■Go to line 7
■Copy down the next 7 lines–sentences or paragraphs–and post them as they’re written. No cheating.
■Tag 7 authors
■Let them know

Now in my current WIP, I don't have a page 77 since I haven't written that far. So I'm going with Mr Sheikypants. I guess this is more than 7 lines/paragraphs whatever but I do like to end on a high note. :-)

He did have a point. Anyway, what was the big deal? "My mother is lovely. She was a PA before they adopted me and—"

"You are adopted?"

Lily frowned at the interruption. "Yes. Is that a problem?"

Blue eyes flickered. "No."

"But it bothers you?"

"No. I am…surprised."

"About what?"

He ignored that. "Tell me more about your parents."

Lily stared at him, hearing the edge of demand running through his voice. He didn't look at her but tension had crept into the set of his shoulders, his knuckles white where they gripped the steering wheel. A seething, shivering tension that abruptly made her feel like she was in the car alone with a very powerful, very dangerous animal.

I need to tag people but since I'm late with this and no doubt everyone has already been tagged, I'll do a blanket 'if you haven't done this before, considering yourself tagged' thingy!

Hope everyone had a nice Easter!

Treadmill Blues

I wish this was a post about running on an actual treadmill and burning actual calories and getting awesomely fit. But it's not. It's about running on an analogous treadmill, where no calories are burned and nothing actually happens, you just keep running and running and not going anywhere.

Yep, you guessed it, this is a moan post. To be fair I haven't done one for a while so, y'know, I'm feeling entitled.

Possibly this could also be post-sub blues, or beginning blues, or the waiting blues. Or the NTAI blues. Or the dammit-I-will-never-be-a-rockstar blues. Or the kind of blues you have when you know that the chance of chocolate occuring in the next couple of hours is zero to nil.

But no. It's the kind of blues you have where you've subbed everything everywhere. You're keeping ahead of the rejections by soldiering on with the next story. You've done everything you possibly can to keep the momentum going. But you're still stuck in the same place as you were two months ago. Three months ago. Six months ago. A year ago.

Still nowhere in other words.

I'm sure it'll pass. At least, sometime something will happen and then I'll either be going up or down. I hope it's up, though realistically, given my track record, it's more likely to be down. But until something does, I'm stuck on the treadmill, running and running and going nowhere.

I guess at least my Pinterest boards give me something pretty look at while I'm here.

Anyone else got the treadmill blues? Or is it more the realisation that you'll never be a rockstar blues? :-)

I Hate Beginnings

It wasn't always this way. I used to love them. I used to find them really easy. An idea would pop into my mind and five seconds later I was writing it and it would just flow and the world was full of happy bluebirds and fluffy bunnies and singing princesses. Of course afterwards I'd have to rewrite the whole story fifty times over (including the stupid beginning) but hey, at least the start went well...

Sadly this is no longer the case for me. I've started my new WIP and it's taken me a week to get the first chapter right. This is unusual for me since when things are going well I can write a chapter in a day. My problem is - I think - that the more I know about character and conflict, the easier it is for me to see when it's missing from my story. Last year I'd push through the hard bits and just write in an effort to find the story. Now I'm finding I can't do that. Now I'm realising that when it gets hard, it's usually because I'm missing something vital and if I write through, I'll only end up rewriting over and over so it's better to get it right first time round.

This beginning hate is also partly a change of process. Instead of having an idea of the set up and writing instantly, I spend a LOT of time thinking about the story first, getting it straight in my head initially. This has been great in terms of conflict etc but when I sit down to write I've sometimes got too much information in my head and I struggle to get the balance of conflict, backstory, and character right in that first chapter.

Then there's the writing away and suddenly having to stop because you've realised you haven't nailed the characters down as well as you could have. This in particular has been a real bugbear for me, especially with this WIP, probably because my sheikh and his oil baronness were so strong in my head. I always knew what they'd say in any given situation because I knew them. But this time round it's been a struggle to fix Mr Rough and Miss Prim. She was easier. But he...I just couldn't get him. It's like the difference between a statue of a man and the living, breathing reality of him. I knew his appearance, his conflict, a fair bit of backstory but he just wouldn't come to life for me. I suppose the good thing is that now I know the feeling of having a character come to life - my chessman, my sheikh - I can recognise when it's not happening and can stop and try to find the 'key' to the character. And for me that's usually figuring out their layers. ie what's the mask they wear in public (their identity) and who are they behind this mask (their essence).

Anyway, to cut a long and VERY boring story short, once I'd figured out Mr Rough's identity (after only having to write his POV twice!) the stupid statue finally began to show signs of life and now I think I have him. Just as well since his conflict is going to be an extremely tough one to write and he's going to be another dark, angry hero that I will have to break. Hehe. *rubs hands*.

Does anyone else find beginnings tough? Or is it just me??

Peek of the Week - With Ink

See the inspiration for my new hero - and be afraid. Be very afraid!