Fear - If You Can't Handle It Then Writing Isn't the Job for You

Here's a few things I've learned about fear after I sold:

It never goes away - I used to think that once I sold my first book, I'd never feel afraid of sending my writing out again. Wrong. Somehow the thought that the editor loved the last book makes sending in the next book harder. Because what if you've somehow stuffed up the next book?  It was diffcult to write - does that mean it's worse? What if the editor hates the story? What if she hates everything else I send in to her ever???

Sending stuff out to other publishers after you've been accepted by one is STILL scary - I'm waiting on a couple of other things and even though I've sold a couple of stories, I'm still as anxious and neurotic as I was before I sold those other ones. In fact, in many ways, fear of rejection was easier when I was unpublished because I kind of had nothing to lose. Now, I've sold a couple of times which means that theoretically it should be easier to sell again. Right? Right??? And if I don't sell, does this mean I suck? That the other publishers were wrong to accept me??

People will read my books - some people will love them. Some people will hate them. Some people will be disappointed because the books weren't as good as they assumed they would be. Some people will be pleasantly surprised because they were better than expected.  Some people will love the first one and yet hate the second. And vice versa. Some people will form opinions about me as a writer and some people will not hesitate to let me know what those opinions are. Which is scary.

Or what if no one reads my books? What if I don't sell and disappear into oblivion? There are thousands and thousands of writers out there - what makes my book any more special?
 

Skiing downhill really fast....

This whole year has been like skiing downhill very fast and knowing there's a turn coming up - you'll either fly off the edge of the mountain and crash spectacularly with lots of broken bones. Or you'll do a magnificent parallel turn in a shower of snow. One thing's for sure though, the turn is coming up and you don't know how it's going to go until you get there. And that's kind of scary.

With all this fear stuff, maybe I'm just neurotic and need to chill. Maybe no one else worries about these kinds of things and I'm being over-dramatic. Whatever the case, just know that if fear is something you don't want to have to deal with or is something that paralyses you then writing isn't the job for you. Because it doesn't go away once you've sold. It just changes. The stakes become higher. The further up the mountain you get, the further you have to fall.

After five years of this, I thought I'd become pretty good at handling all the worry and the fear. But nope. I think I've just got better at drinking wine. :-)

Anyone else find the fear difficult to deal with? What do you do in the face of it?

   

Wot I have Been Doing

Chocolate! From the Armani shop! Armani chocolate!

Haven't been blogging much these past couple of months. Mainly because I've been up to my neck in conferences, rewrites, submissions, edits, Dr Jax going to Milan and me being a solo mum, and deadlines. It's been a thing.

Anyway, I thought I'd give you an update on where I'm at so people don't think I've dropped off the earth or have stopped blogging or anything completely INSANE like that.

So here's what I've been doing:

I rewrote the Chessman. Took out the stuff I put in to make it more category. Darkened the conflict, hotted up the sexy-times, put in lots of angst, and then sent it to my editor at Samhain.
 
Then I rewrote most of the sheikh and included a couple of scenes that freaked me out to write and made wonder whether I am actually insane to put them in a M&B manuscript. Possibly I am. Anyway, only time will tell about that because I send it off.

Then turned my attention to my second Entangled book - working title The Player. I finished this before I left for Australia but I knew I'd done a completely pants job of it so had to rewrite most of it. Sigh. Sent the partial to my Entangled editor and got her thoughts and yes, I did have to rewrite the last half. Double sigh. Have just finished the rewrite today and will send that off tomorrow.

Next up is my third Samhain project - which is affectionately known as DVH AKA Dirty Virgin Hero. Yep, he's a hero! He's a virgin! And yet he's also dirty!  Have no idea how that's going to work out and I may yet be off my tree in thinking it will but I'm going to give it a go anyway. Got to keep yourself challenged.

THEN, once I've finished the partial of the DVH, I am going to look at starting my third Entangled book - working title The Boss.  Uptight, OCD hero. Naughty heroine. Am hoping it's going to be fun.

So there you have it. Wot I have been doing. And in there somewhere will be Falling for Finn edits and maybe paying more attention to The Gambler, another Presents ms that I had to put aside for all the other stuff.

Phew.

Oh and one other thing, just quietly because I'm not sure I can announce yet. So just pretend you didn't hear this. I sold the Chessman. :-)

Finn Blurb!

I have a tagline and blurb!  I am excited! And here's some more exclamation marks to show just how excited I am!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ahem. Okay, so here we go...

Falling For Finn

When you’ve been burned, the heat of the moment is the scariest place to be.

Six months after a sexual assault, Anna Jameson has decided enough is enough. She’s sick of being a victim, of letting the experience have power over her. She wants her fear of physical intimacy gone, as in now. 

In the quest to reclaim her sexuality, she needs a man. A man she trusts absolutely. A man like her best friend, Finn.

Finn Shaw is all about taking risks. He does it every week on his extreme sports TV show. But there’s one boundary he’s never pushed, and that’s his friendship with Anna. When his hyper-intellectual family kicked him to the curb over his dyslexia, Anna stuck by him. 

Her request to become friends with benefits throws him for a loop. He can’t deny her anything, but this is a whole different ball game. Once they’re skin to skin, there will be no hiding the fact that he’s loved her for years.

When their chemistry burns out of control, Finn decides he’s the one who’s had enough. It’s time to break out of the friend box—and show Anna that risking her heart is a risk well worth taking. Even if it costs him her friendship. 

Warning: This book contains a strong-willed heroine who knows what she wants, a daredevil hero intent on showing her how much more she could have, sexy love scenes that’ll melt your heart, and a grand gesture you’ll need a tissue for.

This story has all my favourite things in it: friends-to-lovers, angst, sexy times, angst, an extreme sports, alpha hero, angst, single malt whiskey, oh yes and some more angst. :-)

I await February (19th everybody, mark it in your calendars! This instant, I tell you!) with trepidation and excitement...

Blogs: Are They Dead?

Okay so I'm bad. I haven't done a post for a while but that's because all my social media falls off my list of things to do when I have writing that needs doing. So really, I'm not bad. I'm good. :-) For those interested, I'm now working on edits for the next in my series for Entangled and will hopefully get that away in the next couple weeks.

But that's not what I wanted to talk about. What I wanted to talk about was blogs.

Now, I love blogging. And I've been doing so for the past four years, sharing my whines and my angsts and the roller-coaster that is pre-publication with all of you kind enough to read this blog. But in these days of Twitter and Facebook and Pinterest and stuff, are blogs still relevant? I'm only wondering because apparently my blog should be on my website, which got me thinking about moving it. And that got me thinking about blogs in general and whether they're still of any interest to people.

My blog has always been geared towards writing and other writers but when my first book comes out, I'd like to think that maybe the ten or so people who buy my book who don't know me, might come along and have a look at the blog. And perhaps what they see won't interest them because, if they're not writers, why would they be interested in reading about the writing process? About craft and whatnot? Which means I probably should do posts about other stuff. *cue panic*

So what I want to know is this - is it worth it? Will people still want to read blog posts when everything is on Twitter or Facebook? 

I happened to be sitting with Randy Ingermanson, the snowflake guy, at the RWNZ conference during lunch one day (namedrop, namedrop), and I asked him what he thought about blogs since he'd just done a great presentation about online marketing. He thought blogs were better than Twitter, mainly because a blog post stays here online forever, whereas a tweet is gone in an instant. Blog posts do your marketing for you in other words. But this only works if you enjoy blogging and if you're good at it.

So anyway, I'm still thinking about this. I probably should move my blog off Blogger and put it onto my website whatever I decide, but I don't want to go through all the hassle if blogs are indeed dead.

What does anyone else think? Do you still look at blogs? Or do you prefer other media?

When Your Characters Scare the Pants Off You

Screamy is scared

I really love my sheikh but honestly, in the process of rewriting Mr Sheikhypants, he and the wretched heroine decided to go to a place I was NOT comfortable with. And no, it wasn't Huntly (though they do go into the desert, which is also not comfortable). It skated close to a line that pushes all sorts of hot buttons and to be honest, I REALLY didn't want to write it.

Which meant, of course, that I HAD to.

I'm always of the opinion that if it's scary to write and you don't want to go there, then you have to write it.  Believe me, the times I haven't gone there and pulled the characters back, have been the times when the story gets derailed. It becomes mediocre and flat. Because you can't trick your characters. They want what they want and if they don't get it, they get pissy with you and just lay there like cardboard cutouts.

So, I anyway, I wrote the scene they wanted. And it was intense. And I'm scared to death of keeping it in because it could be a rejectionable offence. But it could also be the scene that sells the book. Oh and also, if I take it out, their whole relationship falls apart since they needed that scene to happen in order to fall in love.

This is why pushing those boundaries they're always talking about is hard. Because you don't know which side of the boundary you're standing on and it could be the wrong one. But it's also why you have to write those kinds of scenes and not pull back. Those scenes are the ones that can be the most emotional, the most wrenching, the ones that take your book from being 'okay' to 'unputdownable'. They're not easy scenes to write and they shouldn't be. The best ones never are.

Of course, I don't know what side of the boundary I'm on but I do know that the scene was intensely emotional and I cried  while writing it so at least that's one person who likes it. :-)

So I'm going to advise you to write the uncomfortable scene. If your characters want to go where you're afraid to take them, take them anyway and don't pull back. Ignore the voices that are telling you the hero/heroine can't do that, that it's not PC, that it's not sympathetic. Just write it, push it as far as you can. Then see what you have. Pulling back is easier than ramping up and if you don't go as far as you can, then you don't know how far it actually needs to go.

It's scary but it's worth it.

So have you ever had characters do something that scares you? Did you let them do it?

Ten Things I learned at the RWNZ Writers Conference

1. The sky is NOT falling. The future for authors is bright because the world will always need stories and stories never die (Randy Ingermanson).

Carol Marinelli, Frances Housden, and Amanda Antonio at the dinner

2. Eloisa James is who I'd like to be when I grow up. Inspirational and funny and shared hot NYT author bestselling tips. The most important of all being: the bigger you are the harder it gets and the harder you have to work.

3. There must be something in the water in London because every single M&B ed that I've met is drop-dead gorgeous. And also extremely, extremely nice.

4. Sophia James must be a long-lost writing sister because her pantsing method is exactly the same as mine! Hot tip for layering your story - make sure you have questions in the first five chapters of your book. Questions that jolt the reader with surprise, that make them curious, intrigued and want to know more about your characters.

5. That I am crap at talking myself up and telling people what I'm good at. I totally blame the fact that I'm Kiwi.

My third place certificate!

6. That no one cares about you or your book. You have to make them care. And that like it or not, you have to sell yourself because your publisher won't do it for you these days. (Randy Ingermanson).

7. Over analysing your five minute pitch to DEATH afterwards is not helpful.

Jilted!! At the RWNZ Conference!!

8. Hotel staff blush very easily when they walk into a room to change the water just in time to hear about an  intimate sexual encounter being read aloud. Note to hotel staff - don't run out of the room because you will be laughed at.

9. It is possible to get a coffee stain on your name badge EVEN when it is totally encased in plastic.


10. That your writer friends are awesome and belonging to your national writing organisation who puts on conferences like these is a very, very good thing indeed.

And because everything ALWAYS goes up to 11... (hands up if you're a Spinal Tap fan?)

11. That my mother is the greatest for looking after my kids while I was at conference (in the absence of the good doctor), for putting on my electric blanket when I came home exhausted, and for making me soup so I didn't have to cook.

RWAus12 - The Pantomime

I think I said 'the musical' last year so this year it's a pantomime. Sorry, I'm not going to sing or dance. That would be far too much. But I shall post photos instead. Had the bestest time evah on the Gold Coast for the Romance Writers of Australia conference. My third year and this time I had a bright shiny (okay so it was blue and not shiny) first sale ribbon to stick on my conference badge!  As you can see I look rather tired - I blame Rachel Johns and Pink Ladies at the cocktail party the night before... Anyway, the conference was fabulous. Had a great time catching up with the lovely Rach and Bec, meeting again fabulous Madeline Ash, Helen Lacey, and Leah Ashton. Saying hi to fellow Entangled peep, Annie Seaton. Also meeting for the first time Fiona Marsden (sharing our love for Maisey Yates' tortured heroes) and Melissa Smith.

The workshops too were interesting, with Eloisa James giving a very inspiring keynote speech about putting your emotion in your writing.

One thing especially stood out this year and that was the sense that there were a lot more options for unpublished authors than there ever has been. Editors were actively selling their publishing houses to authors in a way I haven't seen before which was actually very exciting and I think contributed a lot to the positive feeling of the conference.

What else happened? Well lots. I lost my phone twice. Yes, twice. I know, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, once is a tragedy, twice starts to look like carelessness (or stupidity depending on your pick).  I went to the theme parks and screamed on the rollercoaster (it was a very small rollercoaster and my six year old did not scream). Dr Jax dragged me along to a timeshare presentation purely so he could get cheap tickets to Seaworld which meant I was almost late to my agent pitch appointment. Luckily I made it on time and got a full request for Mr Sheikypants from said agent. Dr Jax was forgiven...

And now I have to gear up for the RWNZ conference this weekend, where I get to pitch to an M&B editor but since they already have Monseiur Sheikh, I have no idea what I'm going to say. I guess 'hi' would be a good start. :-)

Sorry if I've left anyone out of my shoutouts. Suffice to say that I really enjoyed meeting and talking to everyone at the conference and can't wait till Perth next year!!

It's Conference Time

Well, I've been a bad blogger. Haven't been posting much but in my defense, have had lots on with getting Mr Sheikhypants into a fit state for sending, while angsting about my next Samhain submission and also the editing of the next Indulgence that I'm planning to send off soonish.

Oh and in the middle of that there's the Romance Writers of Australia conference that I'm going to and then the week after that the New Zealand Romance Writer's conference. Not to mention Dr Jax being an international jetsetter and flying off to Milan in a week or two - without me, I may add.

It's all very busy. 

Hopefully when I get back from the Gold Coast I'll have some good goss to relate and blackmail pics to post. I'm pitching to an agent there - first time evah! - so wish me luck.

In the meantime I'll leave you with a link or two:

This is to the Hot Pink Typewriter where fellow Indulgence author Victoria James is talking about torturing your characters. Okay, so she doesn't put it quite like that, but that's the essence of it. And since she posted this the same time I was putting my sheikh through the emotional wringer, I thought it was very appropriate.

Also see here, where the fabulous and talented Maisey Yates has her story of selling to Berkley with a cowboy story! So proud of you girl!

Ummm...and that's about it. Might do a post later about what to do when your characters take you places you really don't want to go (not looking at anyone in particular Mr Sheikhypants!). Should you go there or rein them back??  (I let him go there and still can't work out whether that was a bad thing or not).

 Have a good week, y'all.

Oh, I'm on Fire

A few people have said that I'm on fire recently and I graciously took the compliment, feeling pleased with myself. Little did I realise that that my hotness would soon spread to other areas - namely Dr Jax's man-shed. In other words, we had a fire last week and poor Dr Jax lost his shed.

 I'd come home late from seeing a friend and the hubs and I were cursing the neighbours party because it was loud and we wanted to sleep. Then there came a hammering on our back door. Thinking it was the neighbours being drunk and obnoxious, Dr Jax sallied forth to tell them to get lost. When he didn't come back inside I thought it was odd. Then I heard crackling. I went to the back door and well....there was his shed down the back of the garden, flames shooting out of the roof!

The neighbours far from being drunkenly obnoxious were hammering on our door to tell us the shed was burning down and they'd called the fire bridgade.

It was actually pretty bloody scary. The firemen seemed to take forever to get to our house and in the meantime Dr Jax had got out the garden hose and was waving it futilely at the flames. But by this stage the trees were alight and we needed some big blokes in firemens outfits with big hoses (no double entendre intended hehe).

Eventually the firemen came but it took them a good 30 minutes to get the fire under control and then another couple of hours to make sure it was fully out. The neighbours hung around and took videos on their phones (as you do) while I angsted about the huge wooden chest of photos - 20 years of them - that was on the mezzanine floor of the shed. No doubt lost, I thought. Until the firemen hauled the chest out, charred and burned, and opened it up to find all the photos completely perfect (except a little water damanged).

Anyway, the fire inspector seemed to think that the fire had started with a laptop that had been left on. Not quite sure how it had spread, whether it had sparked or burned the desk underneath where it was sitting, but I guess that's something we may never know. But you know the first thing I did while the firemen were putting out that fire? After thanking God that no one was in the shed and that our kids were safe (they slept through the entire thing) I ran up into our house and quickly emailed the WIPs I'd been working on to my Gmail account! You can tell where my priorities lie right?

Did get me thinking though. Dr Jax lost his computers - this photo to your right is the remains of one. The charred stuff on the top is the keyboard. But the majority of the important documents on them had been backed up to our home server. But then, what if it hadn't been our shed that burned down? What if it had been our house and the home server with it? That would have been a whole other story but it just goes to show that sometimes even backups to home servers or to memory sticks or discs can be lost just as easily as if your work was on your computer.

I think the best answer to this is cloud storage. Which is why I now make sure to back up my files to Dropbox - also very handy when swapping files between computers. Backing up is very easy, especially when the alternative is losing all your writing... The trick is remembering to do it.

Anyway, that's my excitement for the week. Time for a beer! (yes, those are beer bottles that somehow survived). Anyone had a similiar experience?

Giveaway winner - The Boss and Her Billionaire

And the winner of Michele's book is Jess A!!  Jess, can you either contact me with your details via the 'contact' form on the blog. Or leave a comment below.  Congrats!

Mr Sheikhypants Goes Through to the Semi-Finals!

In keeping with the Olympic theme of the post before, before last, I'm delighted to announce that Mr Sheikypants, the Presents ms that I won a pitch with on eHarlequin, has had a full request! *happy dances*

Needless to say I am thrilled. It's been a while since M&B have asked for a full from me so I'm feeling extremely pleased with myself. There are still a few issues with the partial which I'll have to address but since the ed was absolutely clear about what they were, I'm hoping fixing the problem won't be too much of a mission.

But I'm feeling just a tad overwhelmed since the ms requires quite a bit of rewriting - which I will have to fit in with my contracted stuff for Entangled and my next Samhain submission.

Never rains but it pours eh? So let that be a lesson to you all, you have to be ready whatever happens because when it happens, it HAPPENS!

PS: will be announcing the winner of Michele's book soon - leave a comment on the previous post to be in with a chance. Will draw names on Saturday!

Giveaway - Michele de Winton and The Boss and Her Billionaire

Doing another giveaway today - for a fellow Kiwi and Entangled author Michele De Winton.  She's talking about receiving the magic Call. Leave a comment for a chance to win her fabulous book, The Boss and Her Billionaire. This is currently burning up the Barnes and Noble charts so get in quick before they're all gone! Ahem...no, they won't be all gone of course but you know what I mean. ;-)

It’s what we all want isn’t it? The trilling of the telephone, probably at night, when we’ve settled in with a glass of wine (or one of Jackie’s magnificent cocktails) and that nice warm glow is starting to coat our skin.
You pick up the phone, expecting the neighbour to be complaining about how your dog ate their rubbish again and instead you get:
“Hello? Is that my all time favourite debut author? I just loved your submission and I can’t wait to make you so famous you’ll have to hire an assistant to keep track of all your fan mail. Oh, and when you’re ready I think we should talk about film rights.”
Dream.
Okay, so I don’t know any publisher that would start a conversation like that. No one knows what is going to make a best seller. If they did publishing would be a lot less challenging (and probably slightly boring) and there wouldn’t be so many self help books on how to write a best seller. Doesn’t stop us all dreaming though ;-)
There have been three memorable ‘calls’ for me. My very first publication call was for a short story. It was a finalist in a competition, along with the stories of EVERYONE in my writing group and came out in a neat compilation book. Rather than making it less special though, the shared glory was, well, glorious. And it was the first step in me believing that writing really was something I could do.
The second call was for my first novel. The managing editor from my mainstream publisher called me himself and I could tell he loved making these calls. Unfortunately for him I was in a meeting and had to hold back my excited yelping until after I left the building. I called him back and we had a little on-the-phone happy dance together in a stairwell. Well I happy danced. He probably chuckled.
And when I finally ventured into romance and signed with Entangled Publishing for The Boss and Her Billionaire I didn’t even get a call. I got an email. A shiny, happy dance email. That one was a bit of a dream. And a bit of right time, right place. I submitted. An editor came back to me within a week asking for the whole MS and then they accepted it really quickly. As it was the first romance I’d ever written I was over the moon. It had a few holes in it (no doubt because of my lack of experience in the genre.) But they have worked with me to hone it to its shiny steamy self. Now I’m doing quite a lot of happy dancing as I watch the rise and rise of the Entangled Publishing catalogue – and my book with it.
I guess that’s the thing about doing what you love. When you put yourself out there and someone comes back confirming that the thing that you love is something they love too, it’s magic. But even a small confirmation is enough sometimes. If you’ve been writing for years and feel like you’re never going to get anywhere maybe it would be helpful to stop a moment and check out just how far you’ve already come. Because if you keep writing, keep honing your craft, you can’t help but improve. And maybe with your newly trained eyes you might see the holes in something you wrote years ago. Take it out. Shake off the dust. Fill in the holes. And submit it. Getting a short story published was enough to make me keep going. And going.
For you it might be something different. But I think the call is waiting out there for most of us. What do you think? Would publishing a short story be enough to make sure you didn’t down your pen again? Or will nothing less than selling a novel suffice?
Thanks for stopping by
X Michele


 
Cruise director Michaela Western has everything she wants—everything except a sex life. But there are no secrets on cruise ships. She risked her job once for a dalliance with the Captain, and won’t do it again for a few minutes of toe-curling pleasure. Until a devilishly handsome new staffer with a body made for sin tempts her to walk on the wild side...

Investment billionaire Dylan Johns always gets what he wants. He is used to giving orders—not taking them—until he’s forced to go on hiatus from his investment company. To bide his time and carry out an old dream, he takes a job on a cruise ship—and ends up taking orders from his gorgeous, but uptight, new boss. He is determined to loosen her up with a fun onboard romance, but their no-strings fling turns serious and Dylan is forced to confess his lies.

When the affair threatens to shatter Michaela’s own career dreams, she finds herself caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.

Buy Michele's book here:

Amazon
Barnes and Noble 

Contact Michele here:

 www.micheledewinton.com
http://micheledewinton.blogspot.co.nz/
https://twitter.com/MicheledeWinton
http://www.facebook.com/michele.dewinton

Cover Squee!

Okay, I can finally post my Samhain cover! Woots all round!!  I can't tell you how exciting this is and I just love it. LOVE IT!!

Is it not gorgeous?? It's got my name on it and everything!

Publication as an Olympic Sport

Congrats to Gillian who won a copy of Robyn's wonderful book! I'm also going to be running another giveaway on Wendnesday for a fellow Kiwi and Indulgence author, Michele de Winton so be sure to check in then for a chance to win her book too!

In the meantime, I've been watching the Olympics (and no not just the men's swimming, though....phwoooarrrrr...hehe..) and all the commentary about the self belief and determination that athletes have to have etc, etc has got me thinking about that in conjunction with writing and getting published.

I mean, it really is an Olympic sport isn't it?

If you're exceptionally  lucky you might win gold on your first go and that's fantastic. But if you're like the majority of us it'll take a lot longer than that.  In order to get that coveted medal - a contract - you have to have the kind of focus, determination and self belief that top athletes have.

I have never thought of myself as being a particularly determined or self confident sort. I'm actually full of the insecurities that most writers have, that my writing sucks and no one will ever want to read or even, God forbid, like it. But what I've always had is a healthy dislike of being told what to do, especially when someone tells me 'no'. When someone tells me 'no', I just have to go out and make them change their minds. This made me hell on wheels when I was a kid (yeah, I was a whiner, no surprises there eh?) but it helped a lot when it came to getting published.

Last year I pretty much lost a lot of belief in my abilities as a writer. Every single day I thought about giving up - I kid you not. But dammit, I just couldn't. I couldn't let 'no' be the final word in my writing journey. I couldn't let all the grief the rejections caused be for nothing. I had to keep whining to the grown-ups for my ice cream and I didn't want to stop until they gave in and bought me one.

I leaned pretty heavily on my wonderful CPs in the interim and had lots and lots of moans about how hopeless I was. That was my way of dealing with the feelings of frustration. But that stubborn, whiny  determination kept me writing, kept me learning my craft and kept me sending out stuff. And I guess, deep down, I did have enough belief in myself that I would do it eventually. 

Sure enough, a couple of publishers gave in to my whining and now I have my ice cream. ;-)

So what about you? What keeps you hanging in there on your writing journey? Is it the dream of winning gold? Or something else?

Robyn Thomas and His Unexpected Family - Giveaway!

So proud today to introduce my CP Sister and all round fabulous lady, Robyn Thomas. Her debut book has just been released from Entangled and it is awesome!  You can win your own copy here if you leave a comment! *promos shamelessly* :-)

I’d like to thank Jackie for inviting me here today to chat about my debut book His Unexpected Family. I’m so thrilled that we’re both writing for Entangled Publishing’s Indulgence line.

For this post I’m going way back to the beginning of this book’s journey. It’s hard to believe now, but there was a time when I struggled to come up with story ideas.  My inspiration wasn’t lacking in the usual sense, it was simply offering story ideas that didn’t match what I was *meant to be writing. (I had the dreaded combination of an editor request that was quite specific and a perpetually blank page.) As panic began to set in, I looked inward and found my answer.

It was so simple that it was almost scary. Instead of looking at the request as a directive to write a particular type of story, I’d build my kind of story around an issue that mattered to me. In this case: grief and starting over.

I find that people are fascinating when they’re really up against it. It’s not possible for them to hide who they really are, and yet I love to watch them try. No-one wants to be vulnerable, and it’s tempting to hide behind humour, sarcasm or rudeness. Ren and Cole from His Unexpected Family are all wrong – and so right – for each other. They’re both wounded and defensive, and progress for one means a setback for the other. Receiving conflicting messages from their head and their heart, makes them blunder and stumble and question everything. And, for me, that’s delicious.

What do you find delicious to read (or write) about? Leave a comment for your chance to win a copy of His Unexpected Family.

Sometimes you have to take the leap…again.
Newly widowed with a new baby, Ren Jamieson is putting her life back together after her thrill-seeking husband’s death. But when she’s called to show a high-end property to a prospective client—a commission she desperately needs—she meets a man who makes her pulse pound like nothing she’s ever known…
Cole Matthews is more than he seems. Real estate is only part of the reason he’s in Australia – the other is to see Ren, and make amends somehow for the life lost. The last thing Cole expects is a woman whose humor, sweetness and sexiness give him a rush greater than any he’s ever experienced…
Torn between her growing feelings for Cole and the risks of loving yet another adventurer, Ren will have to choose between keeping her feet on the ground…and taking the most dangerous leap of her life.

Get the first chapter here!

Buy it here:
From Barnes and Noble
From Amazon

Visit Robyn here!


Robyn's Bio:
Romance and fairytales are the best ingredients to work with because they go with absolutely everything. Inspiration for new recipes is everywhere I look, and who wouldn’t want to pursue a career where the only limit is your imagination?
I remember making the decision to write my first book, but since then writing has become more of a compulsion than a choice. It’s less about having complete silence, a gorgeous work space, a free hour or two, and a steaming hot coffee, and more about getting my fingers to the keyboard any chance I get. The coffee helps, though.

I live just outside Melbourne with my wonderful husband and two sons. Writing romance helps to balance the effects of living in an all-male household. I love to cook, hate to clean up, and keep very odd hours. My writing days used to be solitary, but they’re not anymore. I now have Seven Sassy Sisters online, and their friendship and support is invaluable.

First Cover Sighted!

Hanging around in this sold-but-yet-to-be-published limbo is weird. You want to yell about your books but you can't yet because they're not out. And they won't be out for another six months at the very least. You kind of want to keep going 'hi, remember me? Yeah, I sold. But my book isn't out for six months okay so be sure to remember that. February. Make a note in your calendar. Yes, next year. Six months. I know but be patient.'

Basically waiting is the one constant in the whole publishing process.

In the middle of all this waiting is some good stuff though - I got to see the first version of my cover for my Samhain book! Reader, I cried. Yes, hearing I'd sold didn't make me cry (I was too busy hyperventilating), getting the contract didn't make me cry, but seeing that cover with my name on it in big, shiny letters...  And it's a FABULOUS cover. Not just because it has my name on it but because it's actually really, really beautiful. I mean, if that was someone else's book I'd be going wow, that cover so makes me want to buy it.

Anyway, I can't show you the cover yet but since Samhain is really a well oiled machine, I won't be surprised if I get a final version soon-ish and then I can squee and wallpaper the internet with it.  Hehe.

Which brings me to my question of the week - what sells a book for you? The cover? The blurb? A review? Bribes of chocolate from the author??? *stands by with pen ready to take notes while staring at cover again*

Giveaway at the Sassies - His Unexpected Family

I can finally announce that Robyn's debut release for Entangled Indulgence is live on Amazon!  We're having a giveaway at the Sassies in celebration so do pop along and leave a comment to be in the draw.

I'm going to be having Robyn here on the blog with another giveaway in a few days so keep your eyes peeled for that one too.

Friday Indulgence - Chocolate Martinis

As you know, the role of the chocolate martini has a historic place in my writing career and been the pick-me-up of choice when it comes to the hideousness of rejections. I've even doled out several (virtually) to lots of writing friends. So now is the moment when I can finally share with you Dr Jax's ultra secret recipe* so you can make it yourself. Only catch is you'll have to go to the Entangled Indulgence blog for the receipe. Hehe. But hey, Hoo's there too!

*Hint. Containts vodka and chocolate. :-)

The View from the Other Side

I've actually been waiting to post on here a while because I wanted to do a Happy Release Day post for my lovely CP and fellow Entangled Sister Robyn. But due to technical difficulties, we'll have to wait a little bit longer for that.

So I thought I'd write intead about being on the other side of the publishing fence and what's different about it.

Nothing as it turns out.

Hehe. Actually, that's not strictly true. My inbox is a lot fuller of author loop emails than it used to be. And I guess the fears about writing have changed a little.  It's not not so much 'will they like my writing' as 'will they like this new story'. There's a bit of that 'difficult second album' thing going on.

I've finished the first draft of my next Indulgence and am now working on the next book for Samhain. Both are proving bears to write. I somehow thought the writing would all get a lot easier once I was accepted but turns out not. I'm worried my ed won't like my next Indulgence book as much as the first - I wrote the first one a while ago after all. And I'm really worried my Samhain ed won't want to buy the one I'm going to send her because, well, it's got angst up the wazoo and is totally crazy. I went a little 50 Shades on it even. 

I guess the fears never end do they? They just get a little different.

What is weird is being a published author and yet not having a book out yet. I've got six months to wait until my Samhain book is released and then another few months after that before my Indulgence book is good to go (though release dates for that are yet to be finalised).  Which is SO LONG! Argh! And yet part of me is glad of the wait because I'm not sure if I'm ready for reviews and all the stuff that comes along with complete strangers reading your book. Especially the bad reviews and I will get 'em because if I've learned one thing from the New Voices comp it was that not everyone likes what you write.

Anyway, I'm rambling. I should be posting crafty-type stuff but instead I'll leave you with a link to an awesome post by Maisey on balancing internal and external conflict in category romance. It's really good. In fact, I heartily recommend you ask her questions in the comments if you have any because she is an expert in this type of thing.

And when you've done that, go here to Brenda Drake's blog. She's running a pitch competition with the Entangled eds for all the Entangled lines. First 200 comments and they're up to 163 already so get thee hence quickly! I'm recommending this because I sold to Entangled through a pitch competition so it's worth a crack!

Also if you've got a question about pitching or about Entangled then feel free to ask me!

The Trick is to Miss the Ground - Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Writing Again

Okay guys, I've been wanting to write this post for weeks now but I had to wait until I'd signed the Samhain contract. It's about my first sale and why writing for yourself is so important.

As you all know, I've been aiming at Mills and Boon for years. I had some success early on but basically, because I knew NOTHING about the craft of romance writing, I wasn't able to follow up on the editorial input I got. It was incredibly frustrating. Then, back in 2010, I decided I really had to figure out what all this conflict/character/structure/plot crap was instead of just ignoring it and letting my instincts do my writing for me.

Learning craft was very, very hard for me. I'd had 20 years of writing purely for my bad self but writing for publication is different to writing just for your own pleasure. I took one or two courses but they didn't really work for me because I don't really learn like that. I struggled with figuring out how to apply them to my own writing. I struggled to put the lessons into practice. I basically just struggled.


The end of 2010, beginning of 2011 was a killer. I won an Aussie contest and got a request but then this and another partial was was rejected and I got sent back to the slush instead of working with an ed. To say this sucked was an understatement. I'd had a couple of years of working my butt off trying to figure out what they wanted from me but I hadn't managed to give it to them. This wasn't their fault. It's only now I can see that the reason I didn't get anywhere was because I still hadn't got the craft stuff right and it was majorly messing with my writing ability. I'd lost my voice in other words.

By 2011 I was second-guessing everything I wrote. The process had become a nightmare. Did I have enough conflict? Were my characters acting inconsistently? What the hell was GMC and did I need to know? Did I have too much exernal stuff going on? Was it flirty enough? Was it too sexy?

I'd lost any pleasure I had from writing. I hated it. Basically I wanted to give up.

My CPs and my family told me I needed to go on. I needed to keep going. That I'd got too far too give up now. And because I'm actually quite a really stubborn old cow and  I HATED the thought of giving up, I decided they were right.

So I got back in the saddle. Being the glutton for punishment I am, I decided to keep trying with M&B but to write something a bit different from the Modern Heat/Rivas. So I wrote a Presents. It wasn't anything particularly different and despite the dread of putting myself out there again, I entered it into an NZ contest. I finalled with it. This was the first positive writing thing that had happened since I was slushed and - I'm not ashamed to admit it - I cried! I didn't get anywhere with it alas and I didn't get a request which was gutting, but it was a sign to me that maybe I didn't actually suck after all.

After that, I wrote another Presents and entered it into yet another little contest. This time it won. By this stage I was looking at the Presents I was writing and trying to figure out what I was doing right this time that I hadn't before. I wasn't holding back on the angst that was for sure and I really liked that aspect, but it still felt hard.  Anyway, I had a great conference year that year. Two great pitches and lots of lovely feedback from M&B about my writing. I was very happy. I'd dragged out an old Modern Heat that I'd rewritten and pitched to another ed from another publishing house. She loved the sound of it and told me to send it so I did.

The conference success was great and I was on a high. But then I got a bog standard rejection for my rewritten Modern Heat from the previously keen publisher and this made me incredibly unhappy. I couldn't figure out what the problem with it was because I received no feedback. Plus, the partial I'd sent to M&B was very hard to write and once again I felt back into the 'my writing sucks' hole.

Which is when I finally decided to take the advice that everyone had been giving me all year but I'd been too stubborn (AKA too dumb) to listen to: WRITE SOMETHING DIFFERENT JACKIE.

Well, something had to change. I either gave up writing or I got back the joy again because my loathing of the process was eating into my stories and killing my voice.

So I decided to write the way I used to when I loved writing, without thinking of craft or whether an editor would like it. Or whether it fit guidelines. Or whether a character had to be sympathetic. Or whether a reader would hate my idea. I threw all of those fears in the bin. I wanted to write what I wanted to write. Something with tonnes of emotion, sexy times and angst. I wanted to put everything I liked to write about in it and I would NOT send it anywhere. It would be just for me.

I had an idea for my heroine that I'd been toying with for a while now but that didn't fit into any guidelines for category - a woman who was recovering from a sexual assault. She wanted to reclaim her sexuality and the man she wanted to help her reclaim it with was her best friend, the one man she trusted absolutely. Friends to lovers is one of my favourite tropes and the theme of recovery from sexual assault complex and difficult and one I'd been wanting to explore for ages. So I decided I'd just go ahead and write it.

Like my heroine reclaiming her body, I was reclaiming my voice and my love of writing. I didn't second guess anything. I just wrote the way I wanted. And I LOVED writing it. Absolutely loved it. My hero was hot and dirty and alpha, and my heroine was gutsy and tortured and strong and it was the best experience.

And somewhere in the process of writing that all the craft I'd been learning just clicked. I didn't think about craft or character arc or goal or motivation or anything while I was writing it, but somehow it just happened anyway.

Douglas Adams in one of his Hitchhiker's Guide books has Arthur Dent learning how to fly. The trick to flying is missing the ground. Arthur gets distracted just before he hits the ground and ends up missing it entirely. I think this is what happened to me. I got distracted, somehow missed the ground and ended up flying. :-)

When I finished writing this book, my CPs told me I HAD to send it out. Since I'd never intended to send it anywhere this somehow made it easier. So I thought I'd give Samhain a go since I'd never sent anything there before. I didn't think it would get anywhere. It's such a hot-button issue and I worried I hadn't dealt with it sensitively enough. But I loved the story and decided to take a chance anyway.  Three months later, the editor sent me an email saying she loved the story too and wanted to buy it. :-)


Just after I finished writing it though, the good feeling I had with that book stayed. And because of it I began to realise what I'd been doing wrong with my M&B subs. The two characters in my Samhain book came alive for me in a way my characters hadn't before and that's what I realised was missing. Decent characters. I'd got it right with some mss - the contest winners - but not others. In others they were a collection of traits, robots going through the motions.

So after I sent my novella to Samhain, I rewrote my old Modern Heat that had been rejected again. I kept my heroine but I finally found the key that made my hero a real pereson. He had ADHD. And this is the one that I sold to Entangled.


There was something so freeing about writing my Samhain book. It was like everything came together in a perfect storm and finally slotted into place. And now everything I write is so much stronger because of that.

I'm so pleased that book was my first sale. It changed the way I wrote and it's the reason for my subsequent sales. If I hadn't written that book, I wouldn't have sold.

So if you've ever got to the same point I did and can't remember why you ever thought writing was a good idea in the first place, try writing just for yourself. Put in all the things you love. Don't think about where to send it. Don't think about an editor reading it. Just write because you love to write. And don't, whatever you do, look down.

If you're lucky, you may just miss the ground and end up flying. :-)