Took a Picture of My Baby Before It Left For NYC

I finished my first manuscript, first and second revisions, in January 2012.The whole endeavor from start to finish took approximately 14 months.In late February, I sent that baby off to the slush pile in New York City. I'm such a nerd I took a photo of the envelope.I'll see if I can post it here.

You know how it is with your baby - you wonder if it will make it all the way there, if it will get torn or thrown around on the way. And it was winter - I had no idea if my baby would get wet and arrived shriveled or twice its normal size. But you have to let these things go. I heard back from the Editor, the wonderful Emily Rodmell, on May 2, 2012, a short two months later which in publisher-speak means "immediately". I sent Emily a proposal - sometimes called a partial - the synopsis and three chapters. I targeted Love Inspired contemporary. I received a nice letter from Emily on May 2 - it was my first "R" rejection and it has the place of honor on my desk in a nice frame. It was short and lovely, and I quote in part:

... while there are appealing aspects to the story, it does not ultimately meet our present needs. Because we have a romantic suspense line in addition to a contemporary romance line, we try to keep the two completely separate and reserve any suspense plots for Love Inspired Suspense. Your story had too much danger/suspense to work for Love Inspired but not enough for work for LIS.

That was my bad - I did know that, but hadn't realized that the lines were so set in stone. Learning lesson! Shortly thereafter, I linked in to the Harlequin ecommunity - a wonderful place for budding romance writers. If you're a romance novelist, especially an unpublished one, I can't recommend a better place.