A few have opined that it will be interesting to see who the wild card picks are and compare to the popular vote. Will you agree with the editors or with the popular vote?
Things that make you go hmmmmmmmm.
The editors will be contacting finalists starting Monday. Twitter is abuzz as writers chew off their fingernails. Waiting is difficult,if you think you might have a chance.
But the wise writer will keep busy - writing!
After I wrote my first novel and it was rejected by Harlequin Love Inspired Lines, I briefly considered publishing it myself. After all, everyone seemed to be doing that. Instead I finished the second in the series I’d envisioned, and then another novel in a completely different genre. I didn’t look at my first baby for close to a year.
I’m glad I waited, and here’s why.
As with a lot of firstborns, mom needs to step back and gain perspective. We hear this told time and time again, but sometimes we don’t listen. We get defensive. We find published novels that are far worse than ours and rail at the injustice. We wonder why a publisher wants a novel to fit into that little round hole.
Sometimes we give in to vanity publishing or the ever popular Indie publishing. None of these things are horrible and I’m not here to say that they are.
But I’m glad I didn’t do it.
After some time and distance I picked up my first again. Guess what? It turns out it’s not my best work. It’s not horrible, but it’s far from the best I can do. And then again, it is entirely possible that my writing has actually improved in the last year.
Nothing can take the place of practice. I now understand the all important scene, GMC, character and world building. In my first novel, every period and comma was well placed. I had an editor look it over and she did a great job. Unfortunately it’s not all about grammar, as much as we love to hate the Indies that appear to have been published without so much as a proofread.
Our story has to grab the reader from the very first page and draw them into the world you’ve created. Ground them in the perspective of your hero or heroine and let them see inside their soul. Not an easy thing to do.
I’m still working on it but I’m happy to say I’ve made progress. And my first isn’t going anywhere.
But this begs the question: what if it's not your first novel? What if it's your tenth?
I figure there are some advantages to pitching online.
Advantages to pitching online:
No one can hear your knees knock, see your sweaty palms or smell the results of your sweating.
If you’re a writer, you might do better with writing than speaking.
Misspellings can be excused as typos.
You can wear your PJs and fluffy slippers and no one is the wiser.
Some disadvantages:
No one can see you smile, and some people have a wonderful smile.
No one can hear your lovely speaking voice (assuming you have one, ahem).
It’s hard to exude warmth from behind a computer screen.
Some authors are technologically challenged.
Thought you might like to see my 99 word pitch too, so here it is:
A runway model turned café owner is about to lose her home to foreclosure. She won’t accept charity and won’t sell the café, the only thing that’s ever been truly hers. A ski contest with a sizable cash prize could be the answer. And she won’t let the fact that she hasn’t skied in years stop her. The deputy sheriff is a new Christian and wants to make up for his bad boy, checkered past. But the woman who needs him the most won’t trust him, even though he could show her everything she needs to be truly happy.
I’m still a student of the pitch and the query. It’s an entirely different skill set. It’s clear that pitching is important – while we learn our craft, we’ve also got to learn a little bit about marketing. The “pitch” is that all important marketing tool – the “back of the book blurb” and if you've done it right, it may actually sell your book.
Harlequin may be under fire lately, but in my experience no other publisher gives unpublished authors as many opportunities. The resources and education on the Harlequin Board are priceless, and they’re free.
In preparation for our online pitch with Emily, we were all treated to an online mini-class with author Winnie Griggs on how to refine our pitch down to 100 words. Winnie gracefully worked with each one of us. Another great resource, this is still up and available to anyone who wants to learn how to tighten their pitch. There is a bit of an art in this.
We were each assigned a time slot in which we would show up in the chat room online. Emily was in a separate chat room and we gathered in a separate room together, and each went into Emily’s chat room alone at our appointed time. We typed (or cut and paste) our 100 word pitch to Emily and she responded in one of four ways:
I'll cry if you don't send me your manuscript (requested full)
__I'd like to get to know your manuscript better (requested proposal)
__I'm not sure if there's a spark between your manuscript and me, but I'm willing to give it a chance to convince me (requested synopsis)
__There's just no connection between your manuscript and me (no request, but isn't it great to know the idea won't work before you spend time writing it?)
My answer was the requested synopsis. While I had hoped to be asked to send my proposal, I sent my synopsis off immediately and within two weeks heard back that she would like to see my proposal – the first three chapters. I took a few days to polish those and sent them off in mid-July. Part Two tomorrow ...
This is probably not the best reason, but honestly I decided on romance because certain authors made it look "so easy". Prolific writers like Danielle Steele, and Debbie Macomber. I read their stuff, so incredibly popular and mainstream, and I started to think "I can do that."
Now when I would read the thriller/mystery/suspense genre (Lisa Gardner among my faves, who actually began in category romance) I would think: How do they come up with this stuff? I can't do that!
So I started with what was (cough, cough) "easiest" for me. And guess what? It hasn't been easy. But for me to dip my toe in suspense/mystery when my brain is already thinking "too hard" wasn't going to work for me. So I took the easy way out (still coughing here).
Now my family is after me to write a mystery. Why? I spend most of my TV time glued to true life crime shows like Dateline, 48 Hours, Investigators, and all the stuff I can find from the I.D. channel. I absolutely love it. It drives my family nuts. But I don't think I could write it!
... 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.
