Because I sent in my proposal (three chapters and a synopsis) of my Dirty Virgin Hero ms to my Samhain editor and the next day – along with my Finn edits – she says she loves it and also the idea for the linked book that I included. Oh and also she’d like it for print so make sure it’s over 50k.

AAAAARRRRGHHH!!!!

I do not know how this has happened. I’m sure the ride is going to stop soon because it HAS to.

I do know that I am extremely pleased that my Russian chess player hero – whose story I wrote and rewrote so many times because I’m a stubborn bitch and I WANTED it out there because he’s cool, and how can you not love a chess playing dude?? – is sold. Black Knight, White Queen is currently slated for release in July next year.

And now my tattooed virgin bad boy – tentatively titled Take Him – also has a contract. Plus the possibility of print which I NEVER expected at all.

I am…well….rather gobsmacked.

Even with all this, I’m still hoping the ride will contine because I’d love my sheikh to be released into the world. But I’m not sure real life happens that way. Right???

Anyway, I also just want to reassure those of you entering SYTYCW that if you don’t get through to the next round, it’s NOT the end. All of you who read this blog know I entered both New Voices and SYTYCW, and I got nowhere. However, my first New Voices entry now has a three book deal with Entangled and The Chessman – which was an SYTYCW entry last year – sold to Samhain (admittedly, as a very different story but same concept).  I also know of several people who also didn’t get anywhere with their contest entries and yet sold the same book to M&B later.

The main thing really is to believe in your story.  Believe it deserves to be read.  And if you can’t do either of those things then just being as stubborn as hell does the trick too.

Right….*delivers chocolate martinis* *raises glass* A toast to my virgin hero! Who’s with me?

As you all know, I’ve been aiming at Mills and Boon for years. I had some success early on but basically, because I knew NOTHING about the craft of romance writing, I wasn’t able to follow up on the editorial input I got. It was incredibly frustrating. Then, back in 2010, I decided I really had to figure out what all this conflict/character/structure/plot crap was instead of just ignoring it and letting my instincts do my writing for me.

Learning craft was very, very hard for me. I’d had 20 years of writing purely for my bad self but writing for publication is different to writing just for your own pleasure. I took one or two courses but they didn’t really work for me because I don’t really learn like that. I struggled with figuring out how to apply them to my own writing. I struggled to put the lessons into practice. I basically just struggled.

The end of 2010, beginning of 2011 was a killer. I won an Aussie contest and got a request but then this and another partial was was rejected and I got sent back to the slush instead of working with an ed. To say this sucked was an understatement. I’d had a couple of years of working my butt off trying to figure out what they wanted from me but I hadn’t managed to give it to them. This wasn’t their fault. It’s only now I can see that the reason I didn’t get anywhere was because I still hadn’t got the craft stuff right and it was majorly messing with my writing ability. I’d lost my voice in other words.

By 2011 I was second-guessing everything I wrote. The process had become a nightmare. Did I have enough conflict? Were my characters acting inconsistently? What the hell was GMC and did I need to know? Did I have too much exernal stuff going on? Was it flirty enough? Was it too sexy?

I’d lost any pleasure I had from writing. I hated it. Basically I wanted to give up.

My CPs and my family told me I needed to go on. I needed to keep going. That I’d got too far too give up now. And because I’m actually quite a really stubborn old cow and  I HATED the thought of giving up, I decided they were right.

So I got back in the saddle. Being the glutton for punishment I am, I decided to keep trying with M&B but to write something a bit different from the Modern Heat/Rivas. So I wrote a Presents. It wasn’t anything particularly different and despite the dread of putting myself out there again, I entered it into an NZ contest. I finalled with it. This was the first positive writing thing that had happened since I was slushed and – I’m not ashamed to admit it – I cried! I didn’t get anywhere with it alas and I didn’t get a request which was gutting, but it was a sign to me that maybe I didn’t actually suck after all.

After that, I wrote another Presents and entered it into yet another little contest. This time it won. By this stage I was looking at the Presents I was writing and trying to figure out what I was doing right this time that I hadn’t before. I wasn’t holding back on the angst that was for sure and I really liked that aspect, but it still felt hard.  Anyway, I had a great conference year that year. Two great pitches and lots of lovely feedback from M&B about my writing. I was very happy. I’d dragged out an old Modern Heat that I’d rewritten and pitched to another ed from another publishing house. She loved the sound of it and told me to send it so I did.

The conference success was great and I was on a high. But then I got a bog standard rejection for my rewritten Modern Heat from the previously keen publisher and this made me incredibly unhappy. I couldn’t figure out what the problem with it was because I received no feedback. Plus, the partial I’d sent to M&B was very hard to write and once again I felt back into the ‘my writing sucks’ hole.

Which is when I finally decided to take the advice that everyone had been giving me all year but I’d been too stubborn (AKA too dumb) to listen to: WRITE SOMETHING DIFFERENT JACKIE.

Well, something had to change. I either gave up writing or I got back the joy again because my loathing of the process was eating into my stories and killing my voice.

So I decided to write the way I used to when I loved writing, without thinking of craft or whether an editor would like it. Or whether it fit guidelines. Or whether a character had to be sympathetic. Or whether a reader would hate my idea. I threw all of those fears in the bin. I wanted to write what I wanted to write. Something with tonnes of emotion, sexy times and angst. I wanted to put everything I liked to write about in it and I would NOT send it anywhere. It would be just for me.

I had an idea for my heroine that I’d been toying with for a while now but that didn’t fit into any guidelines for category – a woman who was recovering from a sexual assault. She wanted to reclaim her sexuality and the man she wanted to help her reclaim it with was her best friend, the one man she trusted absolutely. Friends to lovers is one of my favourite tropes and the theme of recovery from sexual assault complex and difficult and one I’d been wanting to explore for ages. So I decided I’d just go ahead and write it.

Like my heroine reclaiming her body, I was reclaiming my voice and my love of writing. I didn’t second guess anything. I just wrote the way I wanted. And I LOVED writing it. Absolutely loved it. My hero was hot and dirty and alpha, and my heroine was gutsy and tortured and strong and it was the best experience.

And somewhere in the process of writing that all the craft I’d been learning just clicked. I didn’t think about craft or character arc or goal or motivation or anything while I was writing it, but somehow it just happened anyway.

Douglas Adams in one of his Hitchhiker’s Guide books has Arthur Dent learning how to fly. The trick to flying is missing the ground. Arthur gets distracted just before he hits the ground and ends up missing it entirely. I think this is what happened to me. I got distracted, somehow missed the ground and ended up flying.

When I finished writing this book, my CPs told me I HAD to send it out. Since I’d never intended to send it anywhere this somehow made it easier. So I thought I’d give Samhain a go since I’d never sent anything there before. I didn’t think it would get anywhere. It’s such a hot-button issue and I worried I hadn’t dealt with it sensitively enough. But I loved the story and decided to take a chance anyway.  Three months later, the editor sent me an email saying she loved the story too and wanted to buy it.

Just after I finished writing it though, the good feeling I had with that book stayed. And because of it I began to realise what I’d been doing wrong with my M&B subs. The two characters in my Samhain book came alive for me in a way my characters hadn’t before and that’s what I realised was missing. Decent characters. I’d got it right with some mss – the contest winners – but not others. In others they were a collection of traits, robots going through the motions.

So after I sent my novella to Samhain, I rewrote my old Modern Heat that had been rejected again. I kept my heroine but I finally found the key that made my hero a real pereson. He had ADHD. And this is the one that I sold to Entangled.

There was something so freeing about writing my Samhain book. It was like everything came together in a perfect storm and finally slotted into place. And now everything I write is so much stronger because of that.

I’m so pleased that book was my first sale. It changed the way I wrote and it’s the reason for my subsequent sales. If I hadn’t written that book, I wouldn’t have sold.

So if you’ve ever got to the same point I did and can’t remember why you ever thought writing was a good idea in the first place, try writing just for yourself. Put in all the things you love. Don’t think about where to send it. Don’t think about an editor reading it. Just write because you love to write. And don’t, whatever you do, look down.

If you’re lucky, you may just miss the ground and end up flying.

Okay, so the last two weeks have been a total whirlwind.  Three book deal, revisions from Mills and Boon, a contest final, plus another thing I’m not allowed to mention yet, AND my birthday!!  Apart from all the good writing stuff, the bestest present was the crocheted screamer from Edvard Munch’s The Scream. Yes, a totally awesome friend of mine made it – she crochets robots in her spare time – and I think it sums up perfectly my feelings about all of this. In a good way. Hoo is also very pleased to have Screamy for a friend. He was kind of lonesome all by his knitted self.

I have to confess it’s been VERY difficult to concentrate on writing for the past week or so. I have to get my head around the fact that not only have I sold one book, I’ve  also have sold two more that I haven’t even written yet!  Which is exciting but also scary. Because it means I now have deadlines to make, the first of which is in October.I’m hoping this won’t be too much of a problem though because while I’ve been unpublished, I did get into the habit of giving myself deadlines, sometimes for a contest, sometimes for my own discipline. I’m also going to have to get my head around the fact that people are actually going to read my writing. Readers! Not just editors! Eeek! Oh well, at least I’ll have a good few months before that actually happens.

The best thing though to realise has been the knowledge that this is finally my job. I was 12 when I decided that being a writer was what I’d love to be. I never thought though, that at the age of 41 it would actually come true…

Anyway, for those who are interested, I thought I’d share with you my secret tips to getting published:

1. Write.
2. Learn your craft.
3. Submit.
4. Don’t give up. 
5. Rinse and repeat.

Do those five things enough times and you’ll get published.   

So I guess I’ll just say it.

I have a three book deal with Entangled Publishing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

It’s a series and will be out in the summer, fall, and winter of 2013.

I’m going to post details of my Call story (can’t believe I have a Call story!!!) on the Sister’s blog when I get a moment so stay tuned.

Anyway, I’m kind of at a loss for words right now – you would not believe the week I’ve just had – but what I will say, to all of your who have read my blog and have stuck around to provide support and encouragement for the past four years, is….

THANK YOU.

I could not have done it without you. Simple as that.