Archive for May, 2006

May 31, 2006

writing and revisions and sales

After the second draft of Delicious got rejected, I kept on writing. I wrote the story which eventually became Featured Attraction. I submitted that to the RNA’s New Writers’ Scheme, and got a great crit back, mostly focusing on plot problems. I also sent it to a very dear Harlequin author friend of mine, who gave me some excellent tips to increase emotional depth.

I pitched Featured Attraction at the 2003 RWA conference in New York, and a Harlequin editor requested it. While I was waiting to hear back, I wrote a novella, and a non-category manuscript called Spirit Willing, Flesh Weak. Harlequin asked for some revisions on FA, all focusing on emotional conflict.

Then stuff started happening pretty fast. Featured Attraction finalled in the Golden Heart in March 2004, and then Spirit Willing gathered interest from several agents, one of which I signed with in June 2004, after revising the novel. Then, in July 2004, Brenda Chin from Harlequin called me to say they wanted to buy Featured Attraction.

So–tally so far: Since writing the first draft of Delicious, I’d written three novels and a novella, and revised Delicious and two of those other novels considerably. I’d had one book and the novella rejected, signed with an agent for one book, and sold another.

Then I wrote Being A Bad Girl, my second Modern Extra, in 2005. My editor said she was interested in giving me a two-book contract, and did I have any other ideas?

“Yeah,” I said. “I have this great story about an English teacher and a celebrity chef.” (I didn’t mention the chickens at this point.)

“Excellent,” they said. “We’ll make that the second book in your contract.”

“Brilliant,” I thought. “Sure, that novel was rejected, but I’ve written five manuscripts since, and I’ve learned a lot. I’ve just got to go through and add some emotion here and there. Surely it can’t be as difficult as writing a book from scratch.”

At that point, hollow, malevolent laughter should have echoed through the room, accompanied by lightning strikes and the hideous croaking of vultures. You know, the normal thing that happens when a foolish writer indulges in a bit of hubris.

It didn’t, though. I got out my old manuscript and prepared for a nice, easy revision.

Note: for related posts, click the ‘Delicious’ category below.

May 30, 2006

Delicious, second rejection

I’m not sure when I sent the second, de-sexed version of Delicious in to Mills & Boon, but I know when I got the rejection for it, because I have the letter in front of me. It was 21st March, 2003.

I was disappointed to get a rejection. But I was also thrilled, because the letter was two pages long, and outlined exactly what they felt the strengths and weaknesses of the story were.

The editor said I could write. Which was a big relief. She said particularly that I had a “warmly sensual and passionate voice”–I walked around repeating that phrase to myself for days–and I should probably think about targeting a sexier line, such as Temptation. (I told you editors can read minds.)

But there were several things wrong with the ms–interestingly, not the things I identified as probable for the Temptation rejection on a query, because these were things that wouldn’t be apparent in a synopsis. The biggest problem was the classic one:

Not enough emotional punch.

Apparently Angus didn’t have enough inner conflict–in fact they detected none at all, and said he didn’t develop enough over the course of the book. Instead of confident, he came across as arrogant and possibly aggressive. Elisabeth had conflict, but it wasn’t yet strong enough to impact the story.

Now this letter refocused the way I thought about character. My focus had been on story, and humour, and sensuality. I was really into the characters, but I often found that I struggled with why a character behaved in a certain way. After this letter, my focus became 100% character and conflict. My first question became “Why?” And my second became “How will this story change the character into a better person?”

The letter didn’t ask me to revise the story, so I put it aside; I was already working on something else anyway. I had the pleasure of meeting the editor who wrote the letter, several months later in New York at the RWA conference, and she remembered me and my story. That made me feel great.

Looking at this rejection letter now, I can see how it’s 100% correct. I didn’t have enough emotional punch and conflict in this story, and the hero wasn’t well drawn. It’s actually pretty pleasing for me to read the letter, because now that the final version of the book has been published, all of the emails I’ve received about Delicious so far have talked about how emotional it is. And one reader, in particular, mentioned how much she noticed Angus changed and developed over the course of the book.

Somewhere along the line, I learned a lot, and I’m still learning it.

My next few blogs will be about how I sold the book, and then added emotion.

Note: for related posts, click the ‘Delicious’ category below.

May 29, 2006

Delicious, second draft

After my rejection from Temptation I went away and wrote a completely different ms, this one about a smart-talking waitress who strikes a deal with a gorgeous travel writer that she’ll find him a wife within a month. (That one got rejected, too, and I’m going to rewrite that one day.)

Meanwhile, I still loved Delicious, and I really wanted it to be published. I entered a couple of contests, which gave me some good feedback that helped me tighten up the beginning a bit. I heard about a new sub-line within the Mills & Boon Tender line, called Tango, which was going to feature lighter, more humorous feel-good stories. Mills & Boon also took partials, rather than just queries and synopses.

“Aha!” I thought. “Revise and resubmit!”

One problem: Tender doesn’t have explicit sex in it. And I had quite a bit in my ms.

So I revised. Although I couldn’t take out all the sex (a pregnancy worry is a big part of the plot and conflict), I did close the bedroom door while it was going on. It drove me crazy, though I did have a good time transferring all the sexual description into more sensual description of food and eating. I remember particularly a line that compared my heroine’s inner conflict to Thai fish sauce. (Don’t look for that line in the published book; it’s long gone, and probably for the best.)

Then I sent it off to Mills & Boon. Within about six weeks, I got a request for the full manuscript. This was the first request I’d EVER had, and I was thrilled.

There were two interesting things about this request: one was that it several suggestions for revisions I could make before I sent the full ms. They asked that I ensure that the teenager subplot didn’t take away focus from the romance, and that I make sure I didn’t have too much sex. (I swear, this editor completely read my mind–which good editors seem to do.)

The second interesting thing was that they called my manuscript BRAINY BABE’S TASTY ROMANCE WITH TV CHEF!

Which is a good title, I guess, though slightly less concise than Delicious.

I revised, sent off the full, and awaited a reply.

Note: for related posts, click the ‘Delicious’ category below.

May 27, 2006

Delicious, first rejection

So I sent off the query and synopsis in June 2002, and six to eight weeks later I was in America, at my parents’ camp up at Roxbury Pond in Maine, thinking about this great idea for a new book, about this playboy guy who has a dream about having sex with the most beautiful woman in the world and because of that, gives up all sex until he can meet her in reality. I’m thinking the guy might be a psychic, or maybe there’s some sort of buried emotion he has for this woman which he doesn’t know about consciously until his dream. (If you’ve read Featured Attraction, this might sound familiar.)

My husband called from the UK. “You got some post,” he said. “From Harlequin.”

“For God’s sake open it!!” I screamed.

He did. There was a silence. “Thank you for your submission to Harlequin Temptation. Unfortunately, your manuscript does not meet our requirements at this time.”

I burst into tears.

“That’s a form rejection. But why? WHY?” I wailed down the phone to my poor husband. “That story is the best I can do! I can’t do any better than that! How can they know they don’t want it just from the synopsis???”

“Dunno,” husband said. “Calm down. You can write another book. Go have a swim in the lake.”

I did, though I felt convinced the world was not on my side.

I’m still not exactly sure why Harlequin Temptation rejected Delicious on the synopsis, though knowing what I know now, four years later, I can take some guesses. Anybody want to try?

(I didn’t include the puking scene in the synopsis, though I suspect that would be reason to reject right away.)

Note: for related posts, click the ‘Delicious’ category below.

May 26, 2006

Delicious, first draft

A teacher walks into a classroom and sees a guy with a chicken.

That was my idea for the second manuscript I ever started, around March 2002. I wanted to write about an English teacher, because I’m an English teacher, and they tell you write what you know, right? And I thought it would be fun to have her meet a guy with a chicken.

However, I had no idea who the guy was or why he had a chicken.

I started writing blind. I rarely do this now, but when I started the first draft of Delicious, I didn’t know how to develop characters, how to plan a story. I just figured you started and kept going until the end. I knew there was a structure, and there had to be a plot and sexual tension and conflict and stuff, but I figured it would show up as I wrote.

It did. The guy with the chicken turned out to be a celebrity chef called Angus MacAllister. I decided he was going to look like Ewan McGregor, but taller, with dark hair (like he has in Moulin Rouge). I thought he was arrogant, proud, quick-tempered, and secretly very honourable. I had to figure out what a celebrity chef was doing in a school with a chicken–so I made up this story about him doing community service for a crime he didn’t commit. Then I had to have a reason to get my English teacher heroine, Elisabeth, and Angus to spend some time together, so I decided they’d work with some troubled teenagers on a cookery competition.

I based the troubled teenagers on a composite of several kids I’d worked with over my years of teaching, and came up with Danny, a kid with learning disabilities who had turned himself into a bully; and Jennifer, a girl so painfully shy she could barely walk into a room.

And then I just had a ball writing it. I wrote five to ten pages a night after school, every day. I poured myself a glass of wine and turned up the music (mostly, at that point, Badly Drawn Boy, Eric Matthews, and the Moulin Rouge soundtrack) and wrote and wrote and wrote. I named the chicken MacNugget. I made Angus have a passion for chocolate ice cream. I made up a dating agency and a chocolate-obsessed best friend, a sneaky reporter and an illegal immigrant, and I threw in a few Pride and Prejudice borrowings and a lot of quotes from Romeo and Juliet. (I was teaching both of those texts at the time.)

I decided Angus and Elisabeth would have their first kiss in a walk-in refrigerator. I decided Angus had gone to Eton, so I took a tour of Eton with my friend who was reading the book in daily installments, and we traced his imaginary path on the streets. I read restaurant menus and tried very very hard not to make Angus resemble Jamie Oliver. I shyly admitted to my upper sixth class that I was writing a book, and at their request I named several characters after them.

I set the final scene of the book in a ladies’ room. I cried when I wrote it, even though Elisabeth herself was puking. (I spent ages trying to figure out how to write that in a way that wouldn’t gross out the reader, and then how I could get her to kiss Angus afterwards without it being totally disgusting.)

Then I wrote a synopsis and sent off a query to Harlequin Temptation in June 2002.

And then the story started getting more complicated.

Note: for related posts, click the ‘Delicious’ category below.

May 25, 2006

welcome to the jungle

Today was the first sunny day in ages so after work I foolishly went out into the jungle I call a garden and mowed, hacked, pruned and weeded myself into a state of prostration.

So I’ll start blogging about Delicious tomorrow. I’m going to bed now.

(The garden is in a much better state now, although the bees were giving me dirty looks for getting rid of all the yummy weeds. I told them to stop whining and suck on my chive flowers.)

May 24, 2006

Delicious

I’m about to write another newsletter, but in the meantime I’m going to do a little bit of blatant self-promotion on this blog.

First off, my June Modern Extra release Delicious will be on the shelves very very soon; it’s already on www.millsandboon.co.uk. A couple of very kind people have already written me saying they’ve read it and (thankfully) enjoyed it.

Delicious is a very special book for me. It was the second novel I ever wrote, and I really started it just for fun. I wrote it before I’d established my usual process of character building and planning, and mostly I wung it. Every night I would go home from school and write half a chapter or so, and every day I would bring it in for my head of department to read. (We had to hide it from the students, which was difficult because we were giggling like mad.)

It was rejected twice by Harlequin/Mills & Boon, and then I sold it, on proposal, after I’d sold Featured Attraction and Being A Bad Girl. I had to substantially revise it, pretty much from scratch. I kept the characters, and some of the plot, and the title, and that’s about it.

Oh and I also kept the chickens.

For the next few days I’m going to blog about Delicious, and how I wrote it, and how it got rejected, and how I revised it, and why it’s special to me.

I’m also going to be talking about Delicious, and my other books, at Queen’s Park Library in London next Tuesday, 30 May. If you’d like to come along, click the link for more details.

romancing the blog

I have a post up on Romancing the Blog from about 11 GMT today, in which I confess to not having written that damn sex scene yet.

May 21, 2006

I’m not so sure about the snails

Coincidentally, my husband is also in France, in Paris, with work. This is also unfair but as he doesn’t like my posting pictures of him on my blog I won’t try to find one of him looking bored and constrained by clothing. He tells me he tried snails today for the first time. Lucky him.

Meanwhile, I’m still in Reading.

I wrote this morning and then spent the afternoon doing laundry and reading Arthur and George by Julian Barnes. I’m enjoying the book thoroughly; it’s a novel based on the life of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and one particular incident where he sought to clear the name of a wrongly-accused man. It hits on several of my (obsessive) interests: Doyle (the creator of Sherlock Holmes), Victorian England, and 19th-century spiritualism. Originally I had quite a bit of stuff about the history of spiritualism in my novel Spirit Willing, Flesh Weak, but I had to cut it for the sake of pacing, and I’m wondering, inspired by Barnes, if I could use it in another, wholly different type of story. The wheels are turning, though when I’d have time to write that book, I have no idea.

Then I went to see The Da Vinci Code which was pretty much the stupidest story I’d ever seen in my life but I went with a good friend (who assures me the book is much better) and the company more than made up for the film’s deficits.

May 20, 2006

why why why??

This is Cillian Murphy in Cannes this week.

I am not in Cannes. I am, instead, in Reading, doing laundry and marking practice exams.

This seems so fundamentally unfair that I can’t even begin to start to attempt to consider it.

I mean, look at the poor guy.

He’s obviously pining for a bit of interesting conversation with a marginally deluded romance writer/grammarian. Those show biz people must get boring after a while. Blah blah blah Palme d’Or blah blah cinema blah blah sophisticated French crap blah blah champagne and the Oscars blah blah my agent darling and I loved you in that Irish film thing about the bloke in the dress and the subtitled robins.

He hasn’t even got anybody there to persuade him to undo the second button on his shirt.

What a drag.

May 17, 2006

from shower to bed

I am going to finish writing this sex scene today.

Yes, I am.

(It’s actually not taking as long as it seems to–I’ve only opened it like three times. Schoolwork is taking up most of my thoughts and energy.)

My main problem right now is how they get from the shower to the bed. I have trouble with transition action in general. Sometimes it can take an hour to write something very simple such as “she crossed the room and went out the door after him”–just cause I get sort of bored with that stuff.

Added to this, the hero is a carrying kind of guy. If he had his druthers he would pick her up and carry her to the bed, especially as she is rather overcome and dizzy with, er, passion. But the thing is, the whole point of this sex scene is that the heroine (yes, the one who’s afraid of having sex with the hero) is leading the action. So I sort of have to struggle between the hero doing what he wants to do, and the scene reflecting my thematic purpose for it.

(Yes, I really do think this way.)

I think he will probably pick her up in another scene. So how do they get to the bed? I really, really want her to lead him there with a hand on his most obvious extremity, but I’m not so sure my editor will go for that.

I might try it out anyway.

May 15, 2006

Rick Astley

the dapper Mr Richard Astley

(Just a note for those of you unfamiliar with Mr Astley’s work, as referenced in my last blog post)

According to his Wikipedia entry, Rick Astley was a protege of Stock Aitken Waterman, starting as their tea boy and eventually exploding onto the scene in 1987 with his number one single “Never Gonna Give You Up”.

When you dance to that song in your local disco, you should always do the appropriate universal hand movements signifying “give you up”, “let you down”, “run around”, “desert you”, “make you cry”, “say goodbye”, “tell a lie”, and “hurt you.” (Instructions available on request.)

His website is www.rickastley.co.uk, where you can hear a sampler from his latest album, a collection of cover versions of classic songs.

Oh yeah, and Donna fancies him!

(Edit: Liz, I couldn’t possibly comment on the dimensions of his manhood. Wikipedia only goes so far.)