Archive for the ‘crows’ Category

April 11, 2008 | crows, writing

I’ve finally got some bookcases for the bedroom, so I was dismantling my old bedside table and underneath it I found, to my surprise, my first ever rejection letter.

It’s from Harlequin in Toronto, dated March 19 2002. It’s a form rejection, though it’s printed on lovely heavy cream headed paper. When I first saw the envelope last night, I thought my address had been typed on it in capital letters, but when I looked more closely I saw it was actually my own handwriting, mathematically precise. I remember throwing away a couple of envelopes because I hadn’t made the writing quite perfect enough.

When I received this rejection, just over six years ago, I was very disappointed. I’d thought that Harlequin would at least be interested in seeing the full. Now, I know that that story was very far from being publishable. It’s the only one of my unpublished mss I’ve resigned forever to the attic.

Now, I am working on my tenth contracted book and though right at the minute I am a teeny weeny bit stuck on it, I can see how far I have come.

By the way, one of the people who helped me come this far, Kate Walker, is celebrating the second edition of her wonderful 12-Point Guide to Writing Romance. If you haven’t read it–here’s your chance. And go on over to her blog where you can read her writing advice and have a chance to win lots of books.

November 8, 2007 | crows

My agent liked my proposal, so tomorrow it goes to my editor.

One crow down, several million more to go.

November 8, 2007 | crows

Have just sent a blurb/proposal to my agent about my next book, which has the working title Girl from Mars. It’s about a female comic book artist who takes a vow not to get a boyfriend.

So I’m waiting to hear about that.

I’m also waiting to hear what my editor, who has been away but now is back, thinks of Honey Trap.

And my friends and readers of my blog are now, following my pickle craving, convinced I am pregnant.

Crows, anyone?

September 28, 2007 | crows

Have not posted for a couple of days because I’ve been convinced that every word I have written, ever, SUCKS.

Usually I get this much sooner in my first draft. I am probably very lucky it’s held out for this long.

You would think that holding a gorgeous hardback in my hands and reading the bits I like out of it, would help reassure me that I can write something that I, at least, can enjoy.

Nope. Don’t work. I suck. The teensy good bits in my last book are purely down to chance. A thousand monkeys with typewriters would probably produce the same thing through primate good luck.

Also, I’m just about to write the climax, which should take two or three chapters, and I am, for some reason, gut-wrenchingly scared to write it. Like, I actually feel sick when I think about it.

I post this not in a bid for reassurance. I know I have wonderful cyber-friends who will do their best to buck me up, and you guys don’t need to because you’ve done it so many times already. I post this because I know I will get through it, and I want it on record that I feel this way, so that it may make other people feel better, and it will make me feel better when I read it at some point in the future when I’m feeling the same thing all over again.

Do feel free to tell me that you also suck, though. And I’ll tell you that you don’t.

(And also go wish Biddy a happy birthday.)

September 25, 2007 | crows

For various reasons I had to send my editor my unfinished first-draft manuscript today.

Oh my God. What an awful feeling. I am such a control freak. Usually my first drafts are only read by my bosom friends, about whom I know blackmailable secrets. The thought that someone else, MY EDITOR, upon whose opinion hangs my career, is reading my first crappy draft makes me chew on my nails.

I’ve taught three courses in the past two months and in each of them I’ve said: “Write crap in the first draft. You can fix it later.”

I never said “Unless your editor asks to see it, and then you will be facing a pit of humiliation as deep as the seventh abyss of hell.”

I think I will go hyperventilate now and attempt to forget all the stupid things I’ve put in this draft which has not been edited at all. (In contrast, I’ve edited this blog post four times.)

May 20, 2007 | about me, crows

I go back to work tomorrow.

And I thought I had crows of doubt about writing.

I have an excellent childminder, quite a well-adjusted baby, and a job I’m good at and can step back into without overwhelming worry or effort.

Please, please, please let me sleep tonight.

April 26, 2007 | One Night Stand, crows, writing

I just emailed the revised draft of One Night Stand to my editor, whom I will be seeing at the Romantic Novelists’ Association awards luncheon at the Savoy tomorrow.

Terrified? Me? Never.

crawls under couch

March 1, 2007 | One Night Stand, crows, writing

I’m too tired to write tonight; have managed 453 words, most of that written in the John Lewis cafe while Fecklet napped in his pushchair. The John Lewis cafe is one of my new writing venues because it is merely a shop floor away from a nursing lounge and a baby changing room. However, it doesn’t do decaf lattes so it is far from ideal.

(Ah, what a change from ten years ago, when my quest was to find a cafe that didn’t mind my chain-smoking Silk Cuts while marking GCSE coursework.)

I’m having pacing problems with this book. For one thing, it’s just slightly longer than my usual books, so I have to adjust my mental measuring stick a little, and I’m not exactly sure how much. I sort of figure I’ll finish the book and then add or subtract.

For another, I’m trying to fit the character arc into the timings dictated by several plot factors: my heroine is pregnant and this book covers the nine months from conception to birth; she is writing a book and the book covers the time from writing to publication; there are a few other things that secondary characters do that either seem to take too much time or too little. I have one plot strand that I cannot figure out what to do with, because I don’t want to wind it up too quickly, but I don’t want it to take up too much space, either.

And of course I have the problem that I’m writing in first person, so the hero’s character arc has to be shown from the heroine’s point of view, and so I can’t go so much into it, and so it’s not quite as easy to make up the word count by exploring his side of things.

Anyway. The crows of doubt are present, but not really looming. It’s more like they’re hanging out in some nearby trees in case they’re needed.