Huge Advances

Yes, I'm posting again and no I don't suddenly have the offer of a million dollar contract for my debut category romance (sniff). What I do have is a cold (double sniff). And I'm bored. I've finished all my 'work' reading (the latest modern heat) and I'm not sure if downloading any more romance will meet with Great Uncle Visa's approval. So what better thing to do to take my mind of my woes than to do a random post about....yep, huge advances.

In the paper today was details of Audrey Niffenegger's second novel advance. She's the author of The Time Traveller's Wife which was a romance thinly disguised as literary fiction. A great book in my humble opinion, even though it's fashionable to dislike it due to its popularity (and naturally popularity must mean it's not literary anymore). And now her second novel is apparently worth 4.8 million US. Argh!! Imagine being paid that kind of money?? I'm trying to think of the bad side, which would be the pressure, the critics waiting to shred your book, and um....anyone else think of a bad side?

Ah well, at least I can console myself with writing for the genre that apparently sells hugely during a recession. I confided this to a very well-read and literary acquaintance yesterday and felt rather smug when she looked gobsmacked. Yep, according to some stats I read somewhere, romance accounts for 50% of the American fiction market (though if this is wrong and I actually read it somewhere like the Women's Weekly, that well-known scholarly source, then please forgive me). So I figure the only way is up. :-)

Right, speaking of which, I shall ignore Great Uncle Visa's protest and go download some more romance while I lie in bed feeling sorry for myself. What a great way to start the weekend! What's everyone else doing?

On Waiting

Well, here I am still waiting. It's been two weeks since I sent off my revisions and I haven't heard anything. Not that I'm expecting to hear soon - apparently they're really busy over there at the moment. I was checking out the eHarlequin boards and some people have been waiting for responses on full manuscripts since July last year, so I guess I'm comparatively lucky!
Anyway, have figured that it's been seven months since I first posted off my partial for this manuscript. And seven months appears to be fast! However right at the moment, I'm feeling comfortable with the wait - no news is good news right? In fact, for the first time, I'm really not wanting to see an email from Anna in my inbox!

While I'm waiting though, I've decided that I'm going to enter some more contests. The RWNZ run one for category romance writers called Great Beginnings, which involves the first 25 pages of a manuscript and a synopsis. I've got one completeted ms waiting so I may as well enter it. Also the Knight Agency is running a Book in a Nutshell comp that it wouldn't hurt to enter. Only problem with that is that you have to encapsulate your book in three sentences! And I don't know if they take category writers. But it's better than waiting right?

Anyone else waiting for something to happen?

Whips

Yep, I've had to get out my whip and give my poor characters a sound thrashing to get them back into line. Thought Kate making her proposition was a good thing but no, as it turns out, it's not. Honestly, that woman is turning out to have more layers than an archaelogical dig. What I thought was her main conflict was actually just a symptom of an even deeper, underlying conflict!
Here was I thinking that she doesn't want to be let down by a man because her ex up and left her with a huge mortgage, but no, as it turns out. Her real problem is that she's a bit of an emotional whirlwind, falls in love too easily, and is devastated when they leave her (as they do because they are can't handle her), so when the hero comes along, she's absolutely determined she's not going to fall for another unsuitable man. Who knew?

I love that aspect of writing though. Who was it that made the onion analogy? Peeling back the layers to expose the 'real people' underneath. You think it's all going to be one thing and then suddenly it completely changes the deeper you get. Luckily Alex's conflict is fairly straightforward, though I'm reserving my judgement on this one. He could have a skeleton lurking in his closet that I don't know about.

Actually, I was going to put up a picture of Kate but I don't think I'm one of these people who can work from pictures of real people for my characters. They're never quite right and it puts me off. That's not to say I can't find inspiration in certain pictures though... ;-)

Revenge? Blackmail? Enemies?

On the subject of conflict, I was reading on the Smart Bitches, Trashy Books blog about what kind of conflicts readers prefer in their romance. It makes for interesting reading - especially the comments regarding what sort of conflict readers don't like! (reminds me of the discussion on one of the Amazon boards about what was the biggest turn-off in a sex scene!). Bascially one person's hot conflict is another's major yawn. It also proves to me that there is no such thing as an original conflict - as one commenter points out, there's only 12 kinds of plots and Shakespeare already used them all. :-)

Anyway, my favourite kind of conflict to read/write is: opposites attracting, revenge, and friends to lovers among others. My pet hate is misunderstandings (though it depends on the execution with this one). To take a leaf from the SBTB blog, what about y'all?

Free Will

As you'll probably have guessed from the word meter at the side, I am working on Kate 'n' Alex. Or at least, a new story for them. It's completely and utterly different from my Feel the Heat entry - it kind of had to be really - but that's not really the problem. The problem is the fact that these two characters will not do as they're told.

Does anyone else have characters that just randomly do stuff you didn't expect? I get it all the time. I don't know how it happens. I'm sitting there, writing away, and just suddenly I'll have Kate, who is desperate to sell her house but not wanting Alex buy it and pull it down (he's a developer and the only prospective buyer, natch), offer him a night of hot loving if he will buy it with certain conditions attached. Now, this was not something I had planned. Or even intended! So where did this idea come from?? I'm at a loss. Okay, so I admit that I had intended Alex to make an offer along those lines as a bit of a joke - he is very naughty - but no, it's Kate who comes out and says it. And Alex, who is supposed to be the naughty one, is coming over all honorable about it! Argh!! Now, I could rewrite this and try and change it back, but it's been my experience in other stories that it doesn't work very well. As the editorial assistant told me, you shouldn't make the characters do things they wouldn't do just to suit your plot. You have to let them make decisions that are true to their personalities - plot be damned (oh, all right, she didn't say that last bit)!

So, looks like Kate is being true to her personality and I'll just have to go with it. Anyone else need a whip to keep their characters in line??

Still More Angst

Just heard that my ms finally got there! Yay! Anna at HM&B has told me that she's swamped this week but she'll get onto it ASAP. Don't know quite what ASAP means in M&B land, could be in the next couple of weeks, the next month, the next six months, who knows? But now the angst of wondering if it got there safely has been replaced by the much more general and possibly worse angst of wondering whether they'll like it or not. Sigh. Such is the life of a writer eh?

On the up side, I can busy myself with Kate and Alex. Yes, I have two other mss that need my attention, but they're both at that tricky 'middle stage', where you've got over that first initial 'new beginning' glow, and you have to settle into the hard yards of working out their wretched conflicts. Beginnings and black moments, that's what I love to write and I'm not at either of those points with the other mss. Oh well, I'll indulge myself with K&A now, though at the moment it's very difficult keeping those two apart. I shall have to wave my big stick at them and let them know that if they want a nice love scene later they'll have to behave themselves now. That Alex though, he knows how to get around me. Damn alpha males! ;-)

More Angst

They didn't get it. Can you believe it? After all that angst and dancing around, Anna at M&B never received it because their email was playing up on Wednesday! And to think I was concerned about sending another email because I didn't want to bug her... Argh!!! In her words, 'thank goodness you checked'!

Right, this is almost like a second chance. I have all weekend to do yet more editing and more changing if I want. And do you think I did? Nup. I send it again immediately. No more editing, no more fiddling. I hope it's got there - won't find out till Tuesday morning NZ time though.

So moral of the story is: if you don't know whether they got your sub or not, always check.

Ah well, feel less jittery now though I won't be totally happy until I get the confirmation from Anna that the ms got there okay. Then a whole new mountain range of angst will open up before me, vast vistas of nervousness....

To cope I've started a new story for Kate and Alex. They're desperate for their HEA and have been nagging me for weeks now. :-)

Elvis Has Left the Building Or JSTFT

I've done it. Had a final read-through today, made some more changes, pestered the husband to read them through again, re-did a paragraph he thought didn't work, then danced round the house going "I can't, I can't!" As my other half told me in no uncertain terms - JSTFT. Just Send The F%&!ing Thing. So I did. I sent the F%&*!ing thing. Although, just you all know how much of a wuss I am, the husband pushed the send button. Yes, I'm a complete wimp.

Now I feel sick. Has anyone got a handy bucket?

Last Minute Revisions on the Revisions

Have managed to hold out a week and have taken out the ms for a final read-through and to do some last minute tweaks. And I have to say that I'm completely BORED with it. I suppose that's normal. Anyway, went to an Auckland Chapter group meeting of the RWNZ over the weekend and got some very good advice from that published authors that attend. We're very lucky to have people like Frances Houseden, Yvonne Lindsey and Nalini Singh in our group, plus a whole slew of people who have been published by Red Sage, Samhain and Wild Rose Press. So these ladies know what they're talking about. Their advice was gold for me, the inveterate fiddler. And basically it amounted to this: only change what the editors have told you to change and nothing else.

Right. Good. Thing is, I have changed some stuff in the last half of the ms. Okay, not changed so much as cut. And I had to do that because of the word count. I'm hoping it's still okay! As to the rest of it, that advice was great because I was worried about some motivation here, some pacing there, timing etc, etc. But since the eds didn't mention it, I'm not going to worry! Woohoo.

Which leaves me with finishing these tweaks in the next couple of days. And then I shall have the dilemma of waiting until just before the 24th of March (the deadline) to send it, or just throw caution to the winds and send it at the end of the week. Either way, I think if I have to read it one more time, I shall scream.

So, any recommendations? Send soon or wait until the deadline?

Reading Modern Heat

I should of course be writing, not doing lots of blog posts, but my two oddly titled WIPs are proving difficult. Can't get them to flow right. Probably because I'm too busy trying not to think about my revisions and whether I've done them right!

Anyway, the best thing I've found to do for inspiration is to read more Modern Heat (or the horribly titled Sexy Sensation as they are down under). Now this is something that I should have done right at the beginning, when I first started trying to write a Mills and Boon. Other authors tell you this, the guidelines tell you this, but do you think I did it? Nup. My reasoning was that somehow my voice would end up sounding like whatever I was reading at the time. Which is stupid. Because when I read Ian McEwen, I don't end up writing like he does (wish I did!), or Michael Ondaatje, or Heidi Rice or any one of a hundred other authors that I read.
Right, so after my first rejection, I thought, hmmm, best I actually read some of these things. First one I downloaded was Natalie Anderson's Pleasured by the Secret Millionaire and I read it from a writer's point of view and not just enjoying it as a story. Reading that was probably the best thing I ever did because I had one of those 'aha moments'. I noticed that all the hero and heroine ever did was meet, talk, have a love scene, part. Meet, talk, have sex, part. Meet, talk a bit more, have sex, reveal deepest secrets, happy ever after. AND THAT'S IT!
Now, that's overly simplistic of course and you may know this already but for me this was a revelation. There were no car chases, no complicated sub plots with extended family members, no hiding from stalkers, no shootouts. And definitely the hero and heroine did not stay apart for longer than half a chapter. This was my first realisation about internal conflict.

After that I decided I needed to buy them every month and so I did, religiously. Good thing too because when I met Jenny Hutton (MH editor) at the RWNZ conference last year, she asked me which Modern Heat authors I liked. If I hadn't been reading them, I probably would have said something dumb like "Um...Essie Summers?"

Moral of the story? If you want to write for a line (or any publisher), read the books. All the time. I buy them every month. It's good to see what M&B are publishing in terms of plot and conflict. You get a feel after a while for what might work in your own writing and what probably won't.

As to which ones I like, well, I prefer the grittier ones. Like Natalie Anderson, Heidi Rice, Kelly Hunter. What about you guys?

What's Wrong With Huntly?

Indeed, you may ask. What is wrong with Huntly? Or more importantly, just who/what is Huntly?
Huntly is a small, rural town in New Zealand, just outside of Hamilton. Its claim to fame is a large power station and a spoof song that was famous on student radio back in the 90's. The song was: What's Wrong With Huntly? So why am I talking about this? Well, good point. I'm talking about it because of hearing Scotland being nixed as a location for Modern Heat (see Lucy King's blog), I thought, what's wrong with Scotland?

Obviously Huntly, although I'm sure people like living there, is not going to be an appropriate place to set a Modern Heat story. It's small and rural for a start. But Scotland? Too cold and wet apparently. But then so is London and yet you can clearly set a story in London. So, given that the guidelines are so vague, how do you know what's a good location for your story and what isn't? I think the key for this is fantasy. These books are fantasies, grim-reality free zones. Still not sure why this excludes poor old Scotland but maybe Scotland is too grim-reality.
Also 'urban' is another one of the buzz-words that they give you in the guidelines. Which means a city. So really, what they want is a big city that you can fantasise about. Like LA, New York, Paris, Sydney, Auckland (hahaha!). No small towns, no villages, no remote settlements. Not Modern Heat enough - though it works for traditional Modern/Presents stories.

But what if you have never been to any of those cities? Well fear not. If you read a Modern Heat carefully, you can see that there isn't that much in the way of location detail. So all you need to do is a bit of internet research (Google Earth folks!) and you can get away with much. Because as we all know, the location is just a bit of tinsel on the tree. The main attraction is the tree itself - or the conflict.

Anyone got a favourite city they would like to see in a Modern Heat story? Personally, I'd like to see one set in Rome. I loved Rome...

Now What?

Well, have layered in all the new conflict for my heroine, managed to cut down the word count so that it's 53k instead of 56k, and added another love scene. Gave it to the husband last night for a first readover and he gave it the thumbs up. Phew! Poor guy, he's read the thing about 50 million times and yet still manages to find something nice to say about it each time. Is he a god or what? In fact, he's even taken to reading some of my Modern Heat books so he knows what he's critiquing. Cool eh? He likes a bit of romance now and then does my husband...

So what now? I don't know if I can bear going over it yet again, but I suppose I'll have to. Going to ship it off to my CPs to see what they think. Make some more adjustments. And then... Must resist the urge to send it away and be done with it. I've got till the 24th of March so maybe the intelligent thing to do would be to let it sit for a week or two, then read it again for a final once-over. Then I'll either rewrite the whole thing or hit the delete key and give up. :-)