24 June 2011

Can't Make You Love Me **Update**

Ok, so, when I posted my blog a couple days ago, I was totally dejected. All the time and energy I'd funneled into that book only for so many people to say they disliked my hero. It wasn't a good time for me.

It was with only the barest glimmer of hope that I decided I would submit the manuscript one final time. By the time I had it formatted and blasted it off to my editor at Etopia Press, all that hope was gone. It was just another rejection waiting to happen. She emailed me a few hours later with the standard acknowledgement of receipt and I began waiting again.

The next afternoon she emailed me telling me that she'd read the synopsis and her interest was peaked and she was going to be getting to the full manuscript right away. I still had a few more days, at least, I figured. But a few hours later she emailed me again telling me that she loved it and wanted to buy it.

I may have woken up half my house, the scream was so loud.

She praised the writing and didn't have any major issues at all with the story. I'm super excited because I love this story so much and now the world will finally be able to see it. Well, after a healthy round of edits, anyway.

I'm prepared for the backlash because Dylan isn't your typical hero. He's an ass, and I know it. But he has his reasons. I hope you'll stick around to find out what they are.

I think it makes the end result a little more satisfying.

21 June 2011

Curses! Rejected Again...

I've written a book that I perhaps love too much. Different people know it under different titles. To my beta readers, it was Dance in the Dark. To my ex, it was Sooner Than Later. To one editor, it was 4 Real. And now, it's latest incarnation is (ironically) Can't Make You Love Me.

I wrote the realest and rawest possible account of a young man's struggle to discover and try to accept his burgeoning attraction to his best friend, who happens to be another male. The story itself only took me two months to write, and I was elated when I finished. To this day, it's still my favorite completed manuscript, with it's not quite sequel coming in at a close second. I tweaked it and tweaked it and then tweaked it a bit more to make it sparkle. My betas loved it. So it was time to submit it, right? Wrong. Reject reject reject. Not an ounce of feedback and I was getting a tad demotivated. So I shelved it.

Coming back to it a few months later, I fell in love with the story all over again. I sent it out to another beta, a lovely author I met on Twitter a while back, and when she sent me feedback, I almost died. She had a few questions about the story in general, but her biggest issue was that she didn't like my hero. Well, one of them anyway... So I tweaked him a bit and sent him and his lover (and I use that term as loosely as he does) off to an editor. A few weeks later, she served me with another rejection. Her comments differed from my latest beta's, but her largest issue remained the same. She didn't like my hero. Near devastated, I shelved it once again, wrote the not quite sequel, and then tweaked the manuscript even more. I changed the title for the third time and subbed it once again. The results were much more positive. At first.

The editor from this latest publisher got back to me within a week requesting the full of the manuscript. She said that she loved that it was a different spin on the coming out story and wanted to see how it played out. So I sent in the full and I waited. A little over a week ago, she contacted me saying that she was passing it on for a second read. Stomach in knots, I waited. I vacillated between hope and despair, not exactly sure what the second read meant. I was finally at hope again when I got the latest rejection letter this morning.

There was only one listed issue this time. They didn't like my hero. At this point, I'm not sure how else I can tweak it without altering my hero as I envision him. I set out to tell a different type of story, one where the reader goes on the borderline terrifying journey of discovery right along with the character. That's not to say one hasn't already been written, I just haven't read one quite like it. And it would appear I've succeeded just as much as I've failed. It's different, but I'm starting to think it may be different to the point of being unpublishable in its current form.

I'm gonna try to sub it one more time as is, and if the answer is the same, I'll dive back into revisions. Hell, I may rewrite the entire manuscript. I don't know yet. All I know is that my hero is just as he needs to be for his story.

The only problem is, who's going to want to hear his story if they don't like him?

19 June 2011

Book in A Month

There's a certain publisher that I'm determined to get contracted by, to the point where I've become borderline obsessed with coming up with as perfect a story as I can for them. So, tomorrow, I'm plan to start seriously working on another piece to send in to them. I've already got it plotted out for the most part and, turns out, it's not a very long piece, but it's not really a short either.

So my goal is this: draft this entire manuscript within the next month. No days off, no "Oh, I'm not in the mood to write right now, I'll do it later" no excuses. By July 17, I will have this book done. Or, at least I'll have the final chapter off to beta readers.

A twitter friend recently did a May50k event (for lack of a better term) in which she wrote an entire 50,000 word book during the month of May and the results were amazing. I may try to enlist her assistance just to make sure I'm not slacking off when I should be writing. And if any of my followers are reading this, I'd appreciate it if you'd do the same, if you don't mind. So unless something happens so ridiculous it just HAS to be shared, there will be no tweeting until daily word count goal is achieved.

I've got a title already, but don't want to share it just yet in case it decides it wants to change in the middle of writing. I will however say that whether this gets accepted by editor X for publisher Y or not, this will be the first book in a trilogy titled "Born This Way". Yes, it's Gaga, but it's paranormal Gaga. And I think it'll be interesting.

Wish me luck people.

01 June 2011

Scary Love

Since about the age of ten (big whoop, I'm only twenty-one, now) I've had a borderline unhealthy obsession with all things horror. So much so that before I ever ventured down this path that is erotica/erotic romance, pretty much the only thing I ever wrote was horror.
My first two attempts to break out of the horror genre were wonderful, and I love the stories themselves, but I found that before long, I started getting bored and itching to get back to that pulse-pounding fear. Which is one of the things that led me to my recently contracted novella Sparks Fly.
The book itself is far more horror than it is either erotic or romance, but the point is that while writing it, I realized that I don't have to choose. Almost immediately following Sparks Fly, I started writing another novella that was actually originally supposed to be titled Sparks Fly (more on that in a later blog) and that one had it all: a healthy combination of terror and sexxin. Or at least I think it's a healthy combination.
I don't think I'll be able to turn my back on writing a good love story anytime soon. But the good thing is: now I know I don't have to. I can throw everything I love right into one manuscript. My poor characters may hate me afterwords. But I think it'll make us all stronger in the long run.