Rewrite Update

I’m working on rewrites for book number three, and I submitted the rewritten partial to my editor about two weeks ago. Of course that’s always nail biting and I think I might have worked out what makes major revisions, to me, so hard to get a good read on.

I think going through revisions, or a rewrite, you have to be willing to detach from your work somewhat so that you can gain an objective focus and move forward with your editors advice without allowing lingering ‘oh, but I love that parts!’ to get in the way of writing the best MS you possibly can.

So, it’s a good thing, but then, it’s also tough, because with that detachment, at least for me, my emotions aren’t as ‘in it’ while I’m writing. When I’m finished and I get editorial approval…oh, yeah, all the love is back! And it isn’t that I don’t *like* what I’m doing per se, it’s just a different part of the process, a different feeling that goes into a rewrite.

But my general angstiness was relieved today when my editor emailed me with some AMAZING feedback on the partial. So I’m pressing forward on the full feeling better than I have. I’m halfway through the rewrite and I feel ready to pounce on it tonight!! Amazing what a little bit of encouragement from an editor can do. My CPs were keeping me on life support in the meantime.

So what, if anything, feels different about the rewriting/revisions process to you, versus writing that first, uneditorized draft?

The Path To Publication

This post was inspired by publishing myths over on Writer Beware ( a great resource for writers!) where she was talking about the myth that you have to know ’someone’ to get into the biz.

So I wanted to talk a little bit about my journey from slush to shelf, and all of the stops in between.

You hear, especially on vanity press websites, that you need to *know* someone to have a chance. While that might be helpful (I wouldn’t know) it’s not a necessity. I didn’t know anyone when I started out. NO ONE. I have no connections with ‘the industry’ (well, I do now…) but I started my journey to publication by clicking on the writing guidelines at eharlequin and looking at the guidelines for the different categories. Which one did I want to do?? Presents made sense. It was my favorite line to read and I knew I would have a lot of fun writing them.

I had already entered the Instant Seduction contest and was waiting on feedback when I started my first MS that ended up completed, (now titled HIS VIRGIN ACQUISITION and available in the UK in August and November in North America. )

So after studying submission guidelines, and reading the editor pet peeves and finding out the format that was expected, the appropriate person to address the query letter to, and all of those other things that are essential to do before you submit, I began working on my MS.

Somewhere in there the contest results were announced and I was not even among the fortunate few who received feedback, but I was committed. Halfway done with the MS and bound and determined to submit it, even though I though my odds weren’t all that great since I couldn’t get feedback from the contest.

So I submitted, extremely careful to follow all of the requests for how to put a submission together (double spaced, rubber-banded, not stapled, name, book title and page number on every page, etc.) This is where the right brained part of the writing process comes into play, it’s the part creative types don’t really like, but it’s a necessity.

Writing is a business. Publishing is a business. A writer, both published and unpublished, should conduct themselves with professionalism and pay attention to those details! Know what a publisher publishes, and only send them appropriate materials (eg, don’t send your erotic zombie romance to the Harlequin Romance line…mmkay?) and send it in the format they’ve requested. (they do those handy e-submissions these days…much less scary!!)

So after that…I got published. Not. After that there were revisions on my partial. I read somewhere that 80% of revision letters are never responded to. The writer either doesn’t do the the revisions and never submits to the publisher again, or they don’t do the revisions and resubmit it to another editor in hopes the first editor was an idiot who failed to see the genius in the work, and that another editor who is not an idiot will see it.

Don’t do that. Do the revisions. Advice from an editor is gold. Even if you do the work and it’s ultimately rejected, it wasn’t time wasted. It’s time investing in your craft and learning to make yourself a better writer. I went through revisions on the partial, revisions on the full and a rewrite of the last half of the full. And I’m so glad I did. I learned more reading revision letters from my editor and applying it practically than I did in three terms of creative writing in college. It’s an education for the price of postage.  I kind of think that there’s no room for false modesty in writing, you have to have some confidence, but there’s no room for a massive ego either. You have to be able to take critique, and apply it, knowing that, if an editor offers feedback, they see potential and they want to help you be better.

That work that I put into revisions paid off exponentially. After that last round of revisions, HIS VIRGIN ACQUISITION was accepted and I was offered a contract. (I have had revisions on every submission, the first, and the two since getting a contract.)

So it’s possible. Extremely possible to know no one, to do the research, do the writing, do the work, and get yourself published.

As a side note, a vanity press wants your money, a real publisher will pay you for the work that you’ve done. As it should be. A vanity press appeals to your vanity, they play on the fact that you have *dreams*, that you can use your self-published book as a way to get ‘in’.  (as a rule, publishers will not look at a previously published work, so whatever you get ‘published’ with the vanity press will likely earn an immediate, form R from a real publisher) They throw around things like ‘you can be a published author, like you’ve always wanted. It’s in your reach!’

Yes, it is in your reach. But you don’t have to shell out bucks for it, you have to do the work. There’s a lot of ground between writing a manuscript and seeing it published, but it’s possible to get there. If you’re writing isn’t ‘there’ yet, work on getting it there, submit, submit, submit.  Revise. Submit. Revise.

More Editor Gold

My editor is a genius. It’s true. No really. She gives great revisions and she’s helped me make everything I’ve submitted to her SO much stronger. And today, we had a really nice talk on the phone, which is always great. She offered me a new contract (yay!) and some really solid revisions for book #3 (the book which feature my very sexy alpha Sheikh!) and also, we got to talking about my WIP.

Because with the sheikh, I had too much external, and my internal was only getting glossed over because of it. But with my WIP, I had a ton of internal stuff, and the characters fully formed, but I couldn’t really figure out how to get them together. And I said, jokingly ‘can’t I just throw them in a room together??’ And she said, well, kind of.

Because if their conflict is sufficient, it shouldn’t need the external trappings. So I pictured it like this: Put the H and h in a room and lock the doors. There’s nothing and no one else in there (please get your minds out of the gutter, I’m trying to make a point!) and they now have to get to the heart of their conflicts. With all the external elements stripped away, how long does it take them to solve it? Is it a ten minute conversation addressing a misunderstanding between them? Or is it something that requires them to really reach within themselves and address the issues inside of them that are keeping them from happiness and ultimately, from being with the person sitting across from them??

I think I may start plotting my sticking characters in an empty room and making them get right down to it. Talking about the conflict. Geez, people.

Characters, Conflict and Plot! (Oh, my!)

Seems like a simple thing, you make up a story, you write it down. (Those of you who have been doing this for any length of time are laughing already…)

There’s a lot more to it than that though!! And even though I know a lot of the tricks and rules, I still find myself falling into old mistakes, particularly in letting the plot maneuver my characters around like pieces on a chessboard. My editor pointed that out to me in my revisions for Presents #2. She said, as I’ve mentioned, that my plot must be character driven. Meaning that we don’t want to see the plot steering the characters around.

The specific instance in book #2 was when my hero took the heroine onto his private plane (as every good billionaire has!) and she went with him. Then, before she knew it she’d been effectively Shanghai’d to his country. Entertaining, yes, at least I thought so, but why did my heroine, a smart, independent, 28 year old, lawyer, get on a plane with a man she didn’t know or trust in the first place??

The only answer I had to that was…um…cuz I needid hur to git to his kuntree??? (this does not fly as an answer regarding character motivation, BTW)

But when I really went back and assessed the character of Alison, I knew she wouldn’t really do that. If she would, she might as well slap TSTL on her forehead and don some good, ankle breaking stilletoes  because she’s going to need a lotta rescuing from her own dumb self. And that is NOT what I, or imagine any other author, wants in a heroine.

That was why I just rewrote it. And with every scene I had to stop and ask myself not, where do I want them to go next in terms of the plot I’m trying to construct, but what are they going to do in this situation. How would Alison really handle all the general craziness that’s just landed in her lap (and the sexy Prince that came with it!). It certainly wouldn’t be by passively going along with his whims, nuh huh.

And then there was that other bit of gold: It’s about the characters. You’re telling their story. Their journey, their romance, is the heart of the MS, not all the other amazing plot twists and secondary characters and beautiful scenery and…you get the idea.

And then we move onto conflict…ah, internal external conflicting freaking conflict.

One of my darling CP’s told me that external conflict brings your characters together, while internal conflict drives them apart.

Using book #2 as an example the EC would be a mix up at a lab and an unintended pregnancy, while the internal conflict would be Max’s unwillingness to love again, and his feelings of inadequacy as a husband, coupled with Alison’s deep trust issues.

The mix up and the baby bring them together, but all that stuff that’s inside of them, stuff that screws up real life relationships, are the main things that should cause conflict between them and trigger the black moment.

A half heard conversation that causes the heroine to think the hero was using her and makes her run away, that’s external. It would be cleared up with a few words. The heroine leaving because she’s dealing with deep trust issues is internal. It’s not so easily solved, but when it is, their HEA will be all that happier and more believable.

Even though I can’t claim to have all of these totally nailed down, I’ve managed to work them in when I do revisions, and I’ve seen my two submitted MSs improve dramatically as a result.

Happy, successful, character driven, writing!

Maisey

Love Scenes

This is a discussion that came up in my crit group a little while back, and Jackie also discussed it on her blog recently. So I wanted to continue on the topic, because, let’s face it, in romance, this is kind of important.

Of course we know that romance isn’t about sex. It’s not one sex scene after another with no character and no meaning, rather, the consummation of the h and H’s relationship is an important, character building, relationship building, conflict bringing, story advancing moment.

It should say something about them, who they are, what they’re feeling. For example, a love scene between an h and H who think they’re indulging in a one night stand would be different than a love scene between an h and H who have years of pent up desire. It would different if the heroine had been in love with the hero and she has expectations, hopes, dreams tied up in the two of them making love, vs if she wanted to keep her emotions disengaged because she doesn’t want a real romantic entanglement.

When I finished writing and dusting up book #2 for Presents, I had a mild panic attack when I realized that I had written FOUR love scenes. Yeah, cue breathing into the paper bag again. It seemed like too much to me for a book that size, and I was concerned it would read like one love scene after another without any real conflict, resolution or story advancement. So I decided to edit one out. But the trouble was, I felt like losing any of those scenes was to lose a huge chunk of story. In the end I really didn’t want to lose those moments because in my mind they were the most intimate, revealing parts, especially for my hero, who’s completely undone in those moments.

So I left them in with the thought that if my editor asked me to take one out, I would. So it was immensely gratifying when she sent me my small revision letter a week or so back that she said the lovemaking between them furthered their emotional connection and confirmed their deep attraction, in addition to setting of a chain of rollercoaster emotions that brought them closer together.

And that to me sums up what the love scenes are for. Yeah, they’re fun to write and fun to read. They allow us to glimpse the most intimate moments in a developing romance. They allow us to experience every aspect of love and falling in love. But more than that, they can become an integral part of the storytelling, not just a scene you could lift out because it was nothing more than a series of purple prose and graphic description.

Oh, and now, for Maya and myself, we must partake in Mark Valley…Snaps.

Why I Dearly Love Revisions

Yes, I know, isn’t it easy to say when after the fact? Well, yes, it is. Hindsight, after all, is a brilliant and wonderful thing.

Ahem. My lovely, gorgeous, lovely editor who I LOVE emailed me today, and yay, she liked what I did with my partial.

And here I was, only a few weeks ago, righteously bummed over the massive amount of work those revisions represented. Yet again though, my editor was so right and she brought out the best in me by challenging me. So I’ll say it again, revisions are a beautiful thing. When you really have to sit and question what you did, why you did it, and why things don’t work, it forces you to find ways around your normal way of thinking and that just opens all kinds of possibilities up. I’ve learned that I limit myself in a way, and when I get new insight from my editor I have to find a way to break through those self-imposed barriers.

An editor points out your weaknesses, but whether they point them out to you or not, they exist. And you may not be able to see them, but, oh, your readers would SO be able to. I am thankful for this because, yet again, my editor really forced me to dig deeper. She not only pointed out my weaknesses, she made me dig deeper and find some new strengths. The result is a much better MS that I am much prouder of, and that I think readers will connect with on a deeper level.

So, hats off to my editor, and yay for revisions.

Merry Christmas To Me! (Revisions!)

So funny that I happened to do a post on revisions right before receiving a fresh new set of my own! I felt immediately compelled to come to my own web site for a reminder of why revisions are good.

Christmas Eve morning the revisions for my second submission to M&B landed in my inbox. Thankfully, my lovely editor is more than willing to talk with me, either through email or on the phone after the Christmas Holiday, so that was a major relief.

As I’ve mentioned, it’s definitely a good thing to let the revisions settle in for a bit before diving into them, but for me, that’s easier said than done. So, with my husband and kids still in bed, I drove across the street (head hanging out the window so I could see since I didn’t wait for my windows to defrost!) and went to my parent’s house for coffee.

And they, kindly, let me bounce inane idea after crazier idea off of them for the next hour or so. Then my mom and I baked pies and did the bulk of our Christmas prep work while I ran back and forth from the stove to my laptop taking down notes (if you can call my half-formed ramblings anything so sophisticated as ‘notes’)

I admit, I was feeling a bit panicky. Again, I agreed with the revisions and reservations my editor had, but there’s that moment where you have no idea how to fix it that feels a little bit like it might if you jumped out of plane and realized you weren’t quite sure where the ripcord for your shoot was. Yeah, a little bit like that.

But after a couple hours of baking, frantic emails to my crit group, more baking, and more general nail biting, I did start to have some ideas. And with ideas came a return of my sanity!

Christmas I really did manage to let it all go and just enjoy my kids opening their gifts (and I enjoyed the heck out of my gifts!) and today I was back to work. That old excitement is starting to return, along with all the second guessing and insecurity that seems to be so common to us author types!

It is exciting though to be going on this journey with a new MS. I know in the end it’s going to be better and those moments of panic as I rolled out pie crust will seem silly.

So I shall humbly continue to be your revision expert and commiserater.

More On Revisions (Since I’ve Done My Share)

I’ve been reading on blogs that a lot of people have gotten revision letters lately, or rejections with revision suggestions, and since the topic is so near and dear to me, I thought I’d offer up some more thoughts on the subject.

Yes, it can be daunting to stare down the barrel of a revision letter. And my natural tendency is to want to jump straight in and tackle the bad boy head on. When I received my letters though, my crit group advised me to read the letter and give the points a day or two to really set in, and I think that’s good advice. It allows you to get some emotional distance and gives you the chance to analyze it a bit.

My next step, after really going over that letter, is to line out what points in the revision letter need to be applied to what things in the MS. I make a list of what things I think need changing based on the letter.

Example: if my revision letters says I need to make sure I don’t let my hero slip back into the ‘all-American guy’ character I had established him as in an earlier draft, I write myself a note that’s somewhat nonsensical but gets the point across to me, something like: Check Marco’s dialogue, watch out for slips out of character. Cut diner scene?

You get the idea. Anyway, anything to do with either character would probably get grouped together, and anything to do with plot, pacing, etc, would each get their own group.

Then I would pick one thing at a time to work on, like Marco’s character. It helped me to break it up so it didn’t seem seem so huge. Once I was satisfied I had taken care of the character issues I could then move on to pacing or whatever else it was I needed to work on.

As for the emotional aspect of the revisions, my best advice on that is to take a deep breath and realize that they don’t give revisions if they don’t see huge potential. The ed didn’t look at your MS and see a disaster, she saw the places you were capable of taking it. She saw that it could go from good to great, and editors are trained to really wring the great out of you!

I was just thinking I’m actually kind of excited to get my revisions for the new MS I submitted. Working through the revisions for HVA made it a million times better and I can’t wait to see what wonderful thoughts my editor has for making the next one even better.

So there’s a positive spin to revisions, you just have to look to see it. It isn’t about what they didn’t like, it’s about what they DID like. It’s about elevating every aspect of the manuscript so that it matches your strengths.

Do you have a special system for tackling revisions?

Ever Changing Conflict

One of my dear CPs brought up a very interesting point yesterday as we were discussing the changes His Virgin Acquisition had to go through during revisions.

I was trying to explain how, during revisions and a half rewrite, the conflicts of the hero and heroine had changed. She said maybe the internal conflict had always been there, but certain things had shifted and brought it into the foreground. And I see exactly what she meant. The conflict was there, I simply had to emphasize elements that had already been alluded to in order to bring it out more.

In the first draft the conflict was mostly external, even though the H and h had their issues, but by the time I got to the rewrite of the last half I had decided to remove all the secondary characters cluttering up the end and focus on what inside of the hero and heroine would keep them apart. And that’s when I learned a lot more about them both!

For me, it was like a gradual uncovering, a peeling away of layers until I had simplified it and brought it down to what’s essential in a romance anyway: The hero and heroine. And then all that was between them was their fears and issues.

It’s been that way a bit with my WIP as I’ve been working on it. As I’ve gone they’ve really shown me which parts of their initial conflicts I came up with are even relevant, and that parts of their background I didn’t know were as important, were more defining to them than I’d initially realized.

What are your thoughts on the dreaded internal conflict/character development? Do you get your IC nailed during the plotting? Or is it a process?

Character and Building it

There’s been a lot of discussion over at http://jackieashenden.blogspot.com/ about characterization. One of the commenters suggested using astrology to help nail down a character, and that got me thinking of all kind of fun things a person might try…

The Myers-Briggs personality test…taken as your hero or heroine of course! Here’s a link: http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp After you score it, make sure you click on the link that will break down what the personality type means. (I’m ESFJ, for those who wanna know!!)

Also there’s the ‘temperament test’ http://www.oneishy.com/personality/personality_test.php (I’m Sanguine Choleric)
And a little Chinese Zodiac (I’d be the tiger!)http://www.chiff.com/home_life/holiday/chinese-zodiac.htm

Have fun!