Haven’t been blogging much these past couple of months. Mainly because I’ve been up to my neck in conferences, rewrites, submissions, edits, Dr Jax going to Milan and me being a solo mum, and deadlines. It’s been a thing.

Anyway, I thought I’d give you an update on where I’m at so people don’t think I’ve dropped off the earth or have stopped blogging or anything completely INSANE like that.

So here’s what I’ve been doing:

I rewrote the Chessman. Took out the stuff I put in to make it more category. Darkened the conflict, hotted up the sexy-times, put in lots of angst, and then sent it to my editor at Samhain.
 
Then I rewrote most of the sheikh and included a couple of scenes that freaked me out to write and made wonder whether I am actually insane to put them in a M&B manuscript. Possibly I am. Anyway, only time will tell about that because I send it off.

Then turned my attention to my second Entangled book – working title The Player. I finished this before I left for Australia but I knew I’d done a completely pants job of it so had to rewrite most of it. Sigh. Sent the partial to my Entangled editor and got her thoughts and yes, I did have to rewrite the last half. Double sigh. Have just finished the rewrite today and will send that off tomorrow.

Next up is my third Samhain project – which is affectionately known as DVH AKA Dirty Virgin Hero. Yep, he’s a hero! He’s a virgin! And yet he’s also dirty!  Have no idea how that’s going to work out and I may yet be off my tree in thinking it will but I’m going to give it a go anyway. Got to keep yourself challenged.

THEN, once I’ve finished the partial of the DVH, I am going to look at starting my third Entangled book – working title The Boss.  Uptight, OCD hero. Naughty heroine. Am hoping it’s going to be fun.

So there you have it. Wot I have been doing. And in there somewhere will be Falling for Finn edits and maybe paying more attention to The Gambler, another Presents ms that I had to put aside for all the other stuff.

Phew.

Oh and one other thing, just quietly because I’m not sure I can announce yet. So just pretend you didn’t hear this. I sold the Chessman.

I really love my sheikh but honestly, in the process of rewriting Mr Sheikhypants, he and the wretched heroine decided to go to a place I was NOT comfortable with. And no, it wasn’t Huntly (though they do go into the desert, which is also not comfortable). It skated close to a line that pushes all sorts of hot buttons and to be honest, I REALLY didn’t want to write it.

Which meant, of course, that I HAD to.

I’m always of the opinion that if it’s scary to write and you don’t want to go there, then you have to write it.  Believe me, the times I haven’t gone there and pulled the characters back, have been the times when the story gets derailed. It becomes mediocre and flat. Because you can’t trick your characters. They want what they want and if they don’t get it, they get pissy with you and just lay there like cardboard cutouts.

So, I anyway, I wrote the scene they wanted. And it was intense. And I’m scared to death of keeping it in because it could be a rejectionable offence. But it could also be the scene that sells the book. Oh and also, if I take it out, their whole relationship falls apart since they needed that scene to happen in order to fall in love.

This is why pushing those boundaries they’re always talking about is hard. Because you don’t know which side of the boundary you’re standing on and it could be the wrong one. But it’s also why you have to write those kinds of scenes and not pull back. Those scenes are the ones that can be the most emotional, the most wrenching, the ones that take your book from being ‘okay’ to ‘unputdownable’. They’re not easy scenes to write and they shouldn’t be. The best ones never are.

Of course, I don’t know what side of the boundary I’m on but I do know that the scene was intensely emotional and I cried  while writing it so at least that’s one person who likes it.

So I’m going to advise you to write the uncomfortable scene. If your characters want to go where you’re afraid to take them, take them anyway and don’t pull back. Ignore the voices that are telling you the hero/heroine can’t do that, that it’s not PC, that it’s not sympathetic. Just write it, push it as far as you can. Then see what you have. Pulling back is easier than ramping up and if you don’t go as far as you can, then you don’t know how far it actually needs to go.

It’s scary but it’s worth it.

So have you ever had characters do something that scares you? Did you let them do it?

Oh and in the middle of that there’s the Romance Writers of Australia conference that I’m going to and then the week after that the New Zealand Romance Writer’s conference. Not to mention Dr Jax being an international jetsetter and flying off to Milan in a week or two – without me, I may add.

It’s all very busy. 

Hopefully when I get back from the Gold Coast I’ll have some good goss to relate and blackmail pics to post. I’m pitching to an agent there – first time evah! – so wish me luck.

In the meantime I’ll leave you with a link or two:

This is to the Hot Pink Typewriter where fellow Indulgence author Victoria James is talking about torturing your characters. Okay, so she doesn’t put it quite like that, but that’s the essence of it. And since she posted this the same time I was putting my sheikh through the emotional wringer, I thought it was very appropriate.

Also see here, where the fabulous and talented Maisey Yates has her story of selling to Berkley with a cowboy story! So proud of you girl!

Ummm…and that’s about it. Might do a post later about what to do when your characters take you places you really don’t want to go (not looking at anyone in particular Mr Sheikhypants!). Should you go there or rein them back??  (I let him go there and still can’t work out whether that was a bad thing or not).

 Have a good week, y’all.

Needless to say I am thrilled. It’s been a while since M&B have asked for a full from me so I’m feeling extremely pleased with myself. There are still a few issues with the partial which I’ll have to address but since the ed was absolutely clear about what they were, I’m hoping fixing the problem won’t be too much of a mission.

But I’m feeling just a tad overwhelmed since the ms requires quite a bit of rewriting – which I will have to fit in with my contracted stuff for Entangled and my next Samhain submission.

Never rains but it pours eh? So let that be a lesson to you all, you have to be ready whatever happens because when it happens, it HAPPENS!

PS: will be announcing the winner of Michele’s book soon – leave a comment on the previous post to be in with a chance. Will draw names on Saturday!

Admittedly, the things the editor pointed out were things I had wondered after I’d completed the ms and sent the partial away. The heroine’s conflict wasn’t enough for example. The hero, hey, he was fine – joy! – but she needed work. I think I’d got to the point where I just wasn’t sure of the balance. The hero’s conflict was very dark and I thought giving her too much heavy stuff would be over-egging the pudding. Apparently not.

But, happy days, I had an idea to make her conflict much stronger and more intense, and also tied in to the other thing I’d forgotted – external goal. Bah. I’ve even done a blog post on it and yet I STILL forgot in this ms. I got so focussed on creating tension between the hero and heroine that I forgot the external goal could create the tension, not the other little things I’d put in there. It’s like I’d given the hero and heroine bicycles, their conflict driving the pedals and making them move forward, but instead of putting them on the road and letting them pedal to the finish line, they were on a circular track going around and around, and going nowhere. Doh.

In fact, it’s quite amazing how the interaction of conflict, motivation, and goal intersect! Yes, I know, I should have realised this YEARS ago but I haven’t seen it quite as clearly as I have this time.

I guess you learn something new every day. Anyone learn anything else new today?

Well, I woke up this morning to an email from the wonderful editor at M&B about Mr Sheikhypants. They love him and his conflict (yay me for getting the hero right for once!) but the heroine needs a little more work. Best of all I got a great list of the issues that were of concern and some ways to tackle them. So thrilled! They were actually things I was feeling a little doubtful about anyway so it’s great my instincts were spot on. I have to tweak the partial and send back as they were keen to see how I dealt with it.

As you know, my subs with M&B haven’t worked out in the past couple of years so I’m beyond pleased that a) my voice works for Presents and b) they like my hero.   Oh and c) it’s not NO!

Have already sorted out how I can make my heroine’s conflict stronger which will make her pursuit of the external goal stronger too. And everything will tie in together and it will be wonderful and rainbows and unicorns and flying ponies shall flourish.

Here’s to finally getting out of the quicksand! Clearly I need to throw tantrums more often.

Oh and you know how I’ve been waiting in the supermarket? I’ve actually been in a couple of other supermarkets too and now I’ve finally reached the checkout and my goods are being rung up and bagged as we speak.

The deal is this:
Go to page 77 of your current MS/WIP
■Go to line 7
■Copy down the next 7 lines–sentences or paragraphs–and post them as they’re written. No cheating.
■Tag 7 authors
■Let them know

Now in my current WIP, I don’t have a page 77 since I haven’t written that far. So I’m going with Mr Sheikypants. I guess this is more than 7 lines/paragraphs whatever but I do like to end on a high note.

He did have a point. Anyway, what was the big deal? “My mother is lovely. She was a PA before they adopted me and—”

“You are adopted?”

Lily frowned at the interruption. “Yes. Is that a problem?”

Blue eyes flickered. “No.”

“But it bothers you?”

“No. I am…surprised.”

“About what?”

He ignored that. “Tell me more about your parents.”

Lily stared at him, hearing the edge of demand running through his voice. He didn’t look at her but tension had crept into the set of his shoulders, his knuckles white where they gripped the steering wheel. A seething, shivering tension that abruptly made her feel like she was in the car alone with a very powerful, very dangerous animal.

I need to tag people but since I’m late with this and no doubt everyone has already been tagged, I’ll do a blanket ‘if you haven’t done this before, considering yourself tagged’ thingy!

Hope everyone had a nice Easter!

Anyway, a couple of hours later I dragged my sorry self out of bed and (despite terrible worries that the power would suddenly cut out or my computer refuse to work) managed to log on. It was a wonderfully friendly experience. I’ve never really been in a chat situation and it was fabulous that the editors were hanging out in the waiting room chatting with everyone too.

I was last on the list and around 5am eventually got to pitch. And I’m not ashamed to say that I froze. Completely. Twice. My head was full of GMC so when one of the eds asked me how my hero would pick her up in a bar, I kind of just stared at the screen going ‘huh?’ Of course AFTER the pitch I thought up all kinds of fabulous things to say such as my hero does not go to bars to pick up women! But did I say that? No. However, what I did manage to do was get across his conflict which they thought was ‘very emotionally powerful’. Cue yays from me!

The editors also gave me some good advice re the heroine and also that since my voice is ‘light’ I need to get some darkness in there – cue more yays from me since I do love the darkness.

Anyway, I think I did all right since they asked me for a partial and synopsis, which is fantastic (the partial bit, not the synopsis)!

So go the sheikh!

But, well, I did get picked. And Mr Shiekhypants seems to have been a winner.

To say that I am moderately pleased would be to say that Sally Field was quietly satisfied with her Oscar win.

And I have to say, I am quite shocked because it was only an 80 – 100 word blurb, plus a 250 word excerpt so you had no room at all to pitch your idea. I am also not the world’s best pitcher. However, I will say that having a hook really, really helps. And some books are ‘hookier’ (if that’s even a word!) than others. I have no idea whether that was what made it with mine, but having a tough oil baroness for a heroine helped. She was totally my hook and I shamelessly used her!

I do hope, however, that I haven’t bitten off more than I can chew with doing a sheikh story…

Oh well, I guess that’s me all up. I like to make it hard for myself and not play it safe. But at least it’s another small step forward in this ridiculous roller-coaster ride of a journey.