Dec 3, 2009 | Contests, Winners, Writing |
My December contest is live, so be sure to check out the contest page and see what the prizes are this month! There will be three lucky winners this time! Congratulations again to Jillian S. of Dayton, OH, who won the November contest. Just as soon as I dig myself from under this deadline, I'll pop your goodies into the mail!
I'm still working hard on the sheikh story. I only have a few days left to get it done and turned in. I'll get there, because failure is not an option, but man can it be tiring during the trek to the finish line. I love what I do, but sometimes I just want to take a break and do nothing but sit on the couch in front of the fire and read all day.
Since that's not an option, I keep my nose to the grindstone and keep working. I admit that I spend a little more time than I should online, but I also think of it as a way to keep my sanity. 🙂
Have you ever seen “For Love of the Game” with Kevin Costner? I don't like sports very much, but I love sports movies. I like the story behind the events whereas I don't actually like to watch real games all that much. Give me a character in crisis, and even if he's a sports hero, I love it (I also feel this way about SEP's football romances and Rachel Gibson's hockey romances).
Kevin plays a great character in this movie, and one of the things he does, while pitching this huge game of his career, is tell himself before he throws the ball to “clear the mechanism.” Then the crowd noise fades and there's nothing but him, the ball, and the batter on the other end. I think of my online forays during the day–or even the times I get up and do something else, like throw in a load of laundry or fix lunch and watch 15 minutes of TV while eating–as clearing the mechanism.
It's necessary to the way I work. I can't go away for long, because that interrupts the flow too much. But a short break where the brain is engaged in something else entirely? That clears the mechanism and I find when I sit back down that I might see the path I've been trying so hard to find.
This blog post today is clearing the mechanism, too. I decided I needed to write something other than the story, and I wanted to share this process because it's one of the things that helps me. It may not help you. You may need to focus completely, so I can't guarantee this will work. (But if you try, you must resist the temptation to wander down country lanes, so to speak. Quick breaks, get back to work, etc.)
So now that I've spent the last fifteen minutes writing this post, it's time to get back to work. What tricks do you use to clear the mechanism?
Nov 30, 2009 | Revising, Writing |
Sometimes, when we are still unpublished, we think that if only we could get The Call, everything would be easier. We'd have an editor and our books would be on the shelves. And, yes, while this is true and it is a most wonderful thing, there is still work to be done. The kind of work that when you get it as an unpublished writer, you are discouraged and think you'll never get there.
But I have to tell you that part of your life as a published author is rewriting. Successfully, regularly, and when asked. I have recently done a lot of rewriting. And right now, I'm rewriting the novella that's due in two weeks. Why? Because my editor wanted my internal conflicts to be better. I thought they were pretty good in the 25 pages I sent to her, but she was right as always and they could be better.
So I chucked those 25 pages and started again. Now, I have only days until it's due and a lot of pages still to write. Which means I will be scarce, but I'll check in and report on my progress when I can.
Remember, if you've recently gotten a rejection with a suggestion for massive rewrites, don't be discouraged. Published writers have to do it too. And so will you, so get used to it now and get busy. 🙂
(And can you believe that tomorrow is December already? OMG!)
Oct 29, 2009 | Contests, Writing
You have until November 2nd to enter the latest Harlequin Presents competition! Here is a current post from the new Harlequin Blog about it, and you can also, of course, find much info over at the I Heart Presents site.
Best of luck to all entering! And remember, you don't have to win to see your dream of selling to HP come true.
But if you DO win, oh my. Enjoy that ride. It's great. 🙂
Oct 15, 2009 | Research, Writing |
I'm getting immersed in my sheikh novella — or, more appropriately, in the setting for the novella. My mother has a book on Arabia and another on the Bedouins that I've borrowed, and I've been viewing photos of deserts and tents and etc. And I've reviewed my copy of T.E. Lawrence, which is water-logged and has sand in the binding (due to reading on the beach in Hawaii). Things have changed over the years, of course, but it's wonderfully atmospheric.
In case you think the title of this post is poetic, it actually comes from a joke my husband tells. He's been telling it since I met him, in fact, but the only part I remember is ‘desert winds and caravans'. There's also something about Timbuktu, though I'm purposely not remembering it….
Do you like sheikh stories? Which are some of your favorites? Know any good desert jokes? (Or do you know this one?) 😉
Oct 6, 2009 | Contests, Life, Writing |
I realized this morning when I woke up that today is the one year anniversary of The Call. One year ago today, at 7:27 AM, my lovely editor called to buy Spanish Magnate, Red-Hot Revenge and one other book from me. In February, my second book was accepted, and then my editor called to buy three more books. She also recently called to buy a novella.
It's been quite a road since that day one year ago! I can remember the excitement, the heart-pounding inability to concentrate on anything other than the fact I'd just sold a book. It was an amazing day! Best of all, my poor patient long-suffering husband was at home when I got the call. Five more minutes, and he'd have been out the door on the way to work. But he was here, and I didn't have to scramble around trying to find him so I could tell him. You know how you always read call stories where someone was at home alone, and then she couldn't get her husband or any of her family on the phone?
Thankfully, that wasn't me. 🙂 I can't remember the order in which I called people after. I may have called my mom, and then my dad at work. And my in-laws. After that, it's a blur. My hubby had to trot off to work, and later that day, he had to leave town on a business trip. I remember that my celebratory dinner that evening was a Lean Cuisine pizza and a glass of wine. But when my hubby returned at the end of the week, we went out for a proper celebration! And of course he brought me flowers and a card before he left for that trip.
It was a great day.
One year later, I'm hard at work on Book #4, which is due in a little over a week, and thinking about the novella I have to write next. It's been fun, busy, stressful at times, but I wouldn't trade this job for anything.
Most of all, I want to thank my readers for all the wonderful comments and emails you've sent to me over the last year. Your support when my book came out meant so much to me. I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope you'll enjoy the next one. You landed me on the Waldenbooks/Borders Bestseller list and on the Bookscan Top 100 Bestselling Romances list. I thank you all very much. I write because I love it, but I also write because I hope you will love it.
Now, because I feel so celebratory today, I'm going to give away a copy of Cavelli's Lost Heir to one lucky commenter! You'll have to be a little patient, however, because I don't have my copies just yet. I expect them soon, and when I get them, I'll pop it in the mail.
So tell me what you've celebrated recently, or what you will celebrate soon! Any milestone or event counts.
PS You will have noticed I have a new Contest page on this site. Stay tuned for a new contest soon….
Sep 30, 2009 | Writing |
It approacheth at light speed. The deadline. Or, as Kate Walker calls it, the dreadline. I like that. Because you do start to dread it, knowing you somehow have to wrap up this latest story into a neat and tidy bow and ship it off to your editor. Who will then unwrap it and either shriek with horror, shake her head sadly, or jump up and down with glee.
I'm banking on the first two, truthfully. There are rumors of authors who send in books with no revisions, but I've yet to experience it, so I always expect them. I just hope my editor doesn't shriek. 🙂
But as I type my merry way along toward that day that is oh-so-close, it makes me think of when I was still unpublished and wanting to cross that sacred line to being published so much. When you're unpublished, time is on your side. (Or so it seems, but more about that in a moment.) Life creeps in, other tasks take precedence, and it's easy to shove your little hobby manuscript to the back of the burner while you attend to everything else.
And yet, I say to you, that is a mistake. Because time is not on your side, not really. As you push your manuscript aside to do fall cleaning, drag out the pumpkin carving kit and autumn leaf table cloth with matching napkins, someone else is writing. Someone else is finishing a book, which they will then send to an editor. They might sell that book, and be contracted for another.
Publishing is not a zero sum game, as the amazing Linda Howard says. Just because someone else sells a book doesn't mean you won't. But you have to figure out how to complete those books, regularly, and how to submit them in a timely manner. Taking a year to write a category romance is not good practice. Depending on the line you sell to, they might want 3 or 4 a year.
Now of course you shouldn't ignore your family and hide in your writing cave every minute of every day, but you really have to find the time to write regularly. Because it's good practice, a good habit, and will benefit you in the end both in work completed and lessons learned while writing.
The best writing teacher is writing itself. You have to write a lot to learn how to write. The anonymous “they” say you should write about a million words before you're good enough to be publishable. Malcom Gladwell, in his book Outliers, says that it takes about ten years of practice to get really good at a thing.
And you know what, both are true for me. I easily wrote a million words (probably about 250K on my first book alone), and though I quit trying to publish and went back to school for several years, I studied writing and I read a lot of romance during that time. My total time as a writer of fiction thus far? Sixteen years.
So figure out how to give yourself a deadline, and then meet it. It's good practice, and it'll be expected once you do sell.
