I feel just so very up.

Catch the filler words in the title? Guess what I'm doing again? I thought I had finished revisions to the nth power of nine, revisions as far as the final digit of pi, revisions that, if turned into frequent flier miles, would take all of the Richlands to New Zealand and back, first class. But no. Last week an agent rejected my full manuscript: "I just didn't feel the rest of the chapters were as strong as the first five." After I moped for twenty-four hours, I agreed. My first five chapters rocked enough for her to request a full and read it a week after submission, but the rest of The Soldier rocks like a chair, not an amplifier.

How do I know? Because finding and replacing the words "feel" and "felt" in the manuscript took me two hours. I didn't have a chance to tackle the third word on my list, "seem," and the list continues with then, just, few, some, even, still, only, up, down, against, back, look(ing), and sound. Last year I judged a writing contest entry that used the word "just" 43 times. In twenty-five pages. Sometimes Control-F is a better friend than coffee, and that is from a Seattle-ite.

I also like Joanne Bourne's technical advice on words to check. It reminded me to look not only for filler words like those above, but also for overused descriptions. Eyes and hands and fingers, oh my. I suspect I'll cringe when I read through the frequent hand/finger references in The Soldier.

(By the way, Joanna Bourne is a wonderfully gracious person - I sat next to her twice at 2008 RWA Nationals - and The Spymaster's Lady is a superb Regency. Please put it on your To Be Read list.)

Here's another word I spread far and wide through my writing - adjust. I tried to layer body language into the manuscript. Instead I created fidgeters. It makes me wonder how the saintly Mr. Richland tunes out my own constant "adjusting" of glasses, hair, bra straps and sleeves.

What words do you know you over use? And how many times do you use just or feel/felt? Can you be more atrocious than two hours of feeling removal? Let me know so we can wave our fingers and grip our hands together.

Sassy Gay Vikings?

Wherefore art thou, my immortal Viking hero? Hast thou received a make-over from the Sassy Gay Friend? "Friday Videos" at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books turned me on to this set of Othello, Hamlet, and Romeo and Juliet alternate endings.




Last week I struggled to edit the scene where my hero and heroine visit a museum to "borrow" a valuable relic. If he appeared as a Special Forces dude, I doubted the museum director would help, so I originally disguised Wulf as a documentary film maker in black glasses and a New York accent. Result: a scene no better than packing peanuts. Then I met the Sassy Gay Friend, and voila:

"An appointment would permit me to prepare." The white-haired gentleman who met them in the Danish National Museum's Great Hall stared over his reading glasses. "The snow delayed my staff. I am alone today."
"We are so so sorry. Our funding came through forty-eight hours ago and we had scads to pack." Wulf tilted his head as he held out his hand. "To save money, the donor used frequent flier miles, can you believe?"
"I see." The Director of Danish Prehistory nodded his understanding of donor peccadilloes. "Do you have a camera person?"
"His flight was delayed in Paris, so completely unfair." Wulf pressed one hand to his cheek and pulled his shoulders forward. "I looove Par-ee."
"We plan our shots in advance." Theresa stepped between him and the director. "For this segment we're interested in sword hilts of approximately 500 A.D." Behind her back she wiggled her fingers at Wulf.
Tone it down? She glared over her shoulder and Wulf blew a kiss. Not a chance, baby. I want to see you laugh.

Sassy Gay Friend, meet Wulf, the immortal Viking warrior. Readers, go forth and flip your glitter scarves. I'm spending the week finding every tiny mistake, every "just" and "still" and "stood up" and "sat down" that sneaked through previous edits of The Soldier. [Yes, I know the right side of the video is chopped off. Lots of things get chopped off in my book, so I'm not going to deal with this. Click through to youtube or SmartBitchesTrashyBooks if you need the whole thing.]

What A Beautiful Mess I'm In

National Boards. Ye, gods.

The expression "biting of more than I can chew" comes instantly to mind.

For those of you not in the teaching biz, National Boards is a process akin to "super certification," a sign that the teacher in question's at the top of her game. To become an NBCT, teachers must meet rigorous standards--mostly through intensive study of their own classrooms. It involves videoing oneself (and one's students), analyzing those videos through a series of essays, and then submitting it all for peer review.

It's great professional development, but it's also incredibly nerve-wracking. There's only so much navel-gazing I can handle before I turn into an epic freak show. I'm so worried that my evaluators will confirm my worst fear: that I'm actually a horrible teacher. (Bonus worry: they'll be so distracted by my terrible taste in clothes that they won't be able to grade my videos.)

What's been really fun is having my teaching insecurities bump up against my writing insecurities. I've put off writing my essays because I fear showing them to anybody--much like the latest draft of my novel. This has made for some extreme stress!

Most candidates put in 200 to 400 hours of work in the course of their candidacy year... on top of full-time teaching responsibilities. Not to sound like a kid making homework excuses, but... this is why I haven't been working on my novel. This is why I've been a non-presence in the blogosphere.

And this is why I'm so looking forward to March 31st.

Yes, the end is in sight. Come hell or high water, my National Boards portfolio must be postmarked by midnight on March 31st. If you see a crazy lady at Kinko's/Fed Ex that night, it's probably me.

I'll be working down to the wire on this one. It's definitely time to stockpile the coffee and hunker down. Wish me luck! And while you're at it, do the same for Erin Eisenberg. She's a fellow romance writer and teacher, also suffering through the last weeks of National Boards.

Now We Are Four ... and Forty Behind.

The holidays passed at our house without any Christmas kittens or stockings meowing by the chimney. Then January brought birthday butterfly ballerina cupcakes. Like the "dark moment" of the heroine's journey, bad things happened to those ballerinas, namely, the four-year olds celebrating with Miss Bossy Boots.

The cupcakes* to celebrate Miss Bossy Boots' big day started off fabulously arranged, as many parts of life do, and ended up resembling the current version of Chapter 19 in The Soldier. As part of the Cherry Adair "Finish the Damn Book" Challenge, I scheduled myself to spit-shine fifty pages a week so I can start my new 2010 book in February. Last week I spun pages 199 - 210 over and over without progress. Saturday I took a printed version with me to Summit Central at Snoqualmie Pass. After sending Big Boy and Miss Bossy Boots off with their teeny-tiny skis and instructors, I sat down and lined up my pages on a long table in the lodge. I could see the whole thing, and it is indeed ugly.

I only managed part of Chapter 19 before retrieving Miss Boots from her lesson, which is barely longer than her skis. Here is a photo of my edited pages (taken at home, not at the lodge).

Revisions. Fixing. Fine-tuning. No matter what I call it, it feels like it takes more time to polish ten pages than to write them.

Can you make out the yellow highlights? I mark the first sentence of each scene to figure out if it reads like a rock dropped on the reader's foot or a smooth transition. I ask myself if the first sentence or two answers the questions: 1) whose point of view? 2) time of day and time elapsed, if any, since previous scene? 3) place or setting? Because I want to jump in to what I see happening, those two sentences are hard for me to craft. I also highlight the last word of each paragraph and look at them, and only them, on the page. Each one should be interesting enough to make the reader jump to the next paragraph. On one page I had: nicotine, van, attention, soon, organizations and watch. I immediately eliminated the boring word soon as a paragraph ending. Organizations - dull - will have to change but I believe nicotine, van and attention are keepers.

Unfortunately I didn't finish last week's fifty pages of revisions and darned if I don't have another fifty scheduled this week. I called this post "forty (pages) behind" but it feels like ninety right now. By the end of Monday I will finish revising Chapter 19! I'm committed because I want to start the next book but I can't until The Soldier is a lot shinier. I could use motivation (or cupcake stories) as I check back in with the blog.

* Cupcakes courtesy of the household birthday baker, "Mr. Richland."

Getting Better All the Time

There are times when being a writer can feel a bit like being Sisyphus. No matter how many times you roll that rock up that mountain, there is always another mountain. At least that's what it feels like to me when I'm staring down revisions on an old book I've already revised a dozen times over.

The good news is I'm getting better at this. Every revision brings something new that I've learned as a writer to the manuscript and so every revision is a little better than the last.

The same can also be said of my new projects. Not that each one is better than the last, necessarily (such a subjective question!), but rather that with each new manuscript I bring something new as a writer.

Tomorrow I have a new ebook release. Serengeti Storm is the second in my lion-shifter series and when I sat down to write it, I was simultaneously trying to please those who had loved the first story and bring something new to the table. The newness turned out to be a new understanding I had of writing deeper emotions - the conflicts based in our family lives and long-term lovers. There is a power in those emotions that the love-at-first-sight affairs in most romances can't compete with. I found the act of writing this story helped me grow profoundly as a writer.

Those leaps as a writer can happen when you least expect them. Sometimes it's a class or a book about writing that triggers a shift in your writing. Sometimes it's a critique or a compliment. And sometimes, it's just slogging through another draft, trying to see what you've seen a million times with new eyes, pushing that rock up that mountain one more time.

What has helped you grow the most as a writer?

This week, to celebrate Serengeti Storm's release, I would like to give away a copy of Janet Evanovich's How I Write: Secrets of a Bestselling Author. Just comment on this post by Friday at noon (Pacific) and you are automatically entered to win.

Nerves, Nerves, Nerves

Yesterday I got an email pointing me to a great review for The Ghost Shrink, the Accidental Gigolo & the Poltergeist Accountant. Do you know what my first thought was as I read the heady praise being heaped on my undeserving head?

Oh, no.

Yep. No jumping for joy here. I actually thought Oh, no, she liked it. Quickly followed by: She's gonna hate the next one... (which hits the ebook stores October 27th) and really hate the one after that (which I am in the middle of writing).

Yeah. Way to think positive, Vivi.

I've been a nervous wreck for a few days now. On Wednesday I hit that point (that awful, awful point) in my WIP where the rosy glow wore off and I became convinced the entire thing sucked. It wasn't funny. It wasn't romantic. It was a big, sloppy, disjointed mess. My characters were inconsistent and unlikeable. My plot was plodding and unbelievable. In short, junk. All of it, junk.

It doesn't help matters that I'm in submission-waiting limbo on another manuscript and will-readers-like-it-waiting limbo on the October release. Stress piled up on stress and turned me into a walking basketcase. I'm visiting some friends at the moment and I actually gave one of them instructions to throw water in my face if I look like I'm stressing myself out about the writing crap. So far I've narrowly dodged a couple dousings.

I know I need to plod on through on the WIP. I need to push past my current welter of insecurities and get to the finish line. I can make it funny in revisions. I can make it romantic in revisions. I can make it good. Later. Right now, I just need to get to THE END.

Nerves suck. But they are part of being a writer. I worry that I won't be good enough to get published. I worry that once I'm published, no one will like my book. And I worry that even if they loved that one, they will hate this one. There is always fresh worry baking in the Andrews household.

My question for you: How do you get past your own insecurities and fears? How do you convince yourself that your current project (writing or otherwise) is worth completing? How do you silence that nasty doubting voice telling you it isn't good enough?

Plot Happens in Vegas...

A few days ago, I promised to write about the Get-Drunk-and-Wake-Up-Married storyline, or as I call it, the Vegas Plot.

My new WIP is set primarily in Vegas, and for the longest time I didn't connect my love of cheesy strangers-getting-married-plots to my need to set the book there. After all, my hero and heroine already know each other before traveling to Sin City (they don't like each other, but they know each other). Given their reasons for visiting Vegas, I doubt they'll be hitting the craps tables and winding up at an all-night wedding chapel. And yet...

And yet, when you want to take two all-business characters and force them to get a little freaky, there's no better spot to set your story than Vegas. And not just in books or movies, as the perennial appearance of flicks like What Happens in Vegas or The Hangover prove. This year's summer pop hit (Katy Perry's "That's What you Get For Waking up in Vegas") bears a striking resemblance to last year's summer pop hit (Carrie Underwood's "I Don't Even Know His Last Name").

To bring things back to the realm of literature, Vegas operates in our cultural mythology like the forest in a Shakespearean comedy. In plays like As You Like It and (most notably) A Midsummer Night's Dream, characters leave the city and enter the forest, where they don disguises and alternate identities, where they experiment with different lovers and try on new relationships, where they reorder their place in world. It's an experience at turns jarring, confusing, exhilerating, freeing, and confining. When the characters leave the forest--after one long night or several long years--they return to their accustomed places in society and resume their usual relationships. But they bring something of their experience in the forest with them--a sense of the possibilities for anarchy and change that exist even in the most ossified institutions and rigid identities.

Doesn't that sound just like Vegas in 21st-century America? A confined and separate place where constrained and contained people can give free rein to the elements of themselves unallowable in their ordinary lives. A place where the promise that "What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas" allows for the kind of role playing the hero or heroine of a Shakespearean comedy would recognize as his or her birthright.

Of course, for contemporary writers, the real interest comes not with the loosening of morals in the secret, sacred space of Vegas. We can see unrestrained ids on display every night of the week on reality tv. For us, the more interesting question is, "What Happens When Vegas Doesn't Stay Put?" When the Forest of Arden invades the court? Or when you wake up married in Vegas and have to go back to work in Cincinnati?

And then there's the biggest benefit of all to the Vegas-set story: Research trips!

If you're a writer-- what locations inspire you most? And since we're all readers-- do you love stories set on cruises? In European locations? In small towns? What kind of setting grabs you...and why?

*GASP*

Not five minutes ago, I sent e-mails to two editors at two of the big-name houses in romance publishing.

Gulp. Gasp. Heart attack.

All fall-out from the Princeton conference. Let me tell you, it is vastly easier to meet editors in an academic setting versus a wanna-be writers' convention. As one of them told me, "I don't have to worry here that if I mention I like Italy, I'll get 20,000 Italian-set mss in the mail."

They gave me their cards, and so I wrote. I don't feel ready. I'd like to rework Then Comes Marriage from top to bottom before showing it to anyone. I'd like to finish All the Things You Are, the new contemporary romance ms I started a few weeks ago, before reaching out to potential publishers.

But...fate puts opportunities in our paths. If I hesitate, I might lose momentum. If I dither for weeks, they could forget all about me.

It was easier to meet editors at an academic conference. We'll see if it's any easier to sell to them.

Gulp.

Odds and Ends

I'm done with the semester and on to the summer work--the last stretch before I finish my MA and start the PhD. Despite the hectic past few weeks of reading/writing I managed to get some romance reading in.

Oh, who am I kidding. I lost it about half-way through my Madame Bovary/Theodor Adorno paper and decided to go on a Susan Elizabeth Phillips binge. I read all my favorites. It Had to Be You, This Heart of Mine, Nobody's Baby But Mine, Dream a Little Dream, Kiss an Angel, and Ain't She Sweet-- all consumed in the space of two weeks. And I still managed to get two papers written. And (to gloat a little) got an A on one of 'em (the Persuasion paper; I'm less optimistic about the Flaubert).

Re-reading the SEPs reawakened my dormant urge to write a contemporary, and I woke this morning to a vivid half-sleeping dream in which the first scene and basic plot of a novel spooled through my head. In fact, lots of imaginary people have been talking to each other in my head since I started bookmooching authors' backlists like a fiend in January. There's also a new historical that I'm thisclose to starting.

Which brings me to my current writing problem: Oh Mistress Mine, why are thou sucking? I've been "working" on you for two years now, and you're not getting much better--or much longer. How much of this is grad school malaise and how much is a book that's not working? When do you decide to plow through and when to jump ship? (Forgive the mixing of agricultural and nautical metaphors, but writers block will drive one to it) I ditched one novel at about 40,000 words when I first started writing and don't regret it, but I sometimes wish I could have finished that book. I still like Aimée and Gregory, but they don't haunt my head like my new characters do. Just a case of grass-is-greener?

To close, before heading to the gym and trying to write a few pages (and reading some 18th-century treatises on smallpox inoculation for my thesis):

I finished my last Laura Kinsale this morning. I had saved Midsummer Moon for about four years, because I just wasn't ready to have none of her books left to look forward to. But to celebrate the end of the semester, I read it and loved it, and now I'm feeling satisfied and a little sad and more than a little tempted to go on a Kinsale binge...which I really can't afford after my last three days of leisure.

And finally, an excellent procastinatory tool. I haven't laughed so hard in quite some time. Anyone with a passion for correct punctuation and a healthy appreciation of the absurd will enjoy.

Just Sing (La, la, la, la)

I popped over to Julia Quinn's website the other day to check out what's on her agenda (new series drops in 'o8, woohoo!) and found this tempting nugget: soundtracks for each of her novels. I loved reading her insightful and entertaining reasons for picking each of these songs--songs she listened to while writing the books, songs that remind her of her own plots and characters, and even songs that inspired the writing of certain of her novels. To quote Carrie Bradshaw, I couldn't help but wonder what a soundtrack for my own works in progress would look like. JQ gets all high tech (and famous writer-y) and actually has iTunes lists to match her books. I am not so gifted. Nor do I even listen to music while writing (I prefer the sounds of the Second Avenue bus stopping outside my window, thank you very much). But in an effort at seeking inspiration wherever it may come, I decided to play dj for the night. The results follow.

Then Comes Marriage:

"Chapel of Love" My first (and...um...only) completed novel begins and opens with weddings, so I have to pick this old chestnut. I think it fits Calla at the beginning of the novel really well: simplistic, totally confident and optimistic, ready for a fall.

"Dancing in the Dark" The old jazz standard not the Bruce Springsteen song. Calla and Peter do dance in the dark, and I've thought about titling the book after the song. The line "Looking for a new love to brighten up the night" fits the book well.

"Heart of Life" (John Mayer) This song fits Calla's situation so well-- beaten down by losing her husband and the life she always thought she'd live, but restored by the "circle of her friends" and her new love for Peter. It's such a sweet, beautiful song with a touch of sadness. I think it fits the mood of the book.

"Something to Talk About" I like to think of Calla and Peter being down with this song by the novel's end. They're both ready to stop letting other people's opinions dictate their lives and just live already (and make a little mischief, too).

O, Mistress Mine:

I'm only 1/3 into the writing of this book, but I already have a few ideas:

"The Song is Ended" This is one of my very favorite songs (I'm a huge cabaret/Great American Songbook geek) and fits this story of a love affair cut short perfectly. Gregory and Aimee's memories of their affair are like a lingering melody for both of them, despite their different reasons for entering into it.

"No Matter What" (Badfinger) This is totally Gregory's song. He's ready to take on the world to be with Aimee at the beginning. I think once I reach the end its resonance will have changed-- more that he's ready to accept all the different parts of her, as different and confusing as they may be.

"Maxine" (John Legend). The song's about a cheating lady, but the refrain "She may not be you...but she looks just like you" exemplifies Gregory's confusion over Aimee/Genevieve's identity (which doesn't really go away, even when he figures out the truth behind her past). John Legend has such a great voice.

Finally: I'm absolutely determined to write a book based on the ridiculous, very entertaining song "Rhode Island is Famous for You" (as sung by the glorious Nancy LaMott). Any song with the lines "They know mink where they grow mink in Wyomin(k)" and "A camp chair in New Hamp(chair)" is a well-spring of inspiration. I can see it now...a driven doctor/knitter...a dashing naval pilot...a date with punny destiny!

What Makes a Hero?

As some of you know--generally speaking, to your own shame and mortification--I keep a quote book. Recently I was rummaging through it, and I came upon the following exchange from my graduate school days:

Kate: Tortured soul sex? Oh, yeah!

Shannon: That's a place we don't need to go, Kate.

Oh, Shannon. Perhaps we don't need to go there during a Masters in Teaching program. But in a romance novel manuscript? We are all about the tortured soul sex.

Take me, for instance. I was fairly certain that my hero was pretty simple: dependable and devoted, Jude St. John is the original Mr. Nice Guy. Then I realized that, while this might make for a lovely man in real life, it's not too interesting for a novel. We don't want to read about human golden retrievers. There's no conflict there.

So. Jude's a nice guy. There's no way around that. And he's carried a torch for the heroine for almost a decade. But then I realized that he's also smothered a good deal of resentment--she left town to pursue big dreams, he was stuck caring for his dysfunctional family. A little bit of lust, a little bit of jealousy--more interesting, no? And part of that caring for family involved getting in the way of an alcoholic with a knife, and now he has a lovely scar on his right bicep. Since making this discovery, I've been trying to figure out ways to make him shirtless throughout the novel. Shirtless while wearing his toolbelt, if possible. Good times!

In terms of Tami Cowden's archetypes, I'd say Jude is two-thirds "best friend" and one-third "lost soul." He grew a lot more interesting... and problematic... once I darkened his general outlook on life. But it's a slippery slope... I want an interesting, complex hero. But I don't want a moody jerk, or someone who makes my readers skeptical about the HEA ("I give it two years, tops, before he goes all crazy axe murderer").

Maybe I wouldn't want to marry my own heroes, but I should at least want to go to dinner with them. I think I've walked the line with Jude--given him some intriguing, sexy "crunch" (as Jennifer Crusie would call it), without turning him into a muscled misanthrope.

So this is what I want to know: how do you prefer your hero? (a) happy-go-lucky (b) mildly mysterious (c) convincingly complex or (d) deeply disturbed? How are your ideal heroes different from the partners you prefer in real life--and would you date your favorite romance hero?

In the Family Way

Recent events in my own life (read: marriage) have had me thinking about a topic I've never considered in depth before, the importance of family in romance. Attempting to calculate what desserts I'll actually have time to make on Thanksgiving day that will hold up on the hour-long drive from my parents' in PA to my in-laws' in NJ will do that to you (because, yes, we're trying to visit both families on the same day. We'll see how it goes).

Families are so important to our real-life romances. I feel like my husband has married my whole crazy clan. Considering the fact that he's known my youngest sister (now twenty) since she was twelve, he really is a brother to her. And I wouldn't be as excited about our married life together if I didn't know that I love spending time with my husband's family and really do want them in my life for better or for worse.

But how many romances make use of this element of the marriage story? Off the top of my head and entirely unscientifically, I'd say not many. Or not enough. Think about it: the numbers of orphaned governesses out on their own (ripe for the seducin'), or lonely dukes who inherited it all after their cruel father croaked. Or wretched fathers forcing their children to marry where their hearts don't lie. Doesn't it seem that those sorts of stories outnumber the one-big-happy-family kind, at least in the historical genre? In contemporaries there may be more, but there are still rarely supportive, loving parents, even while sibling sagas threaten to take over the world.

We know that happy families can work great in romance, whatever Tolstoy had to say about them. The Bridgertons are a prime example: those books would lack so much without the B's hanging out together as a clan. In fact, the one B book I really didn't care for (Francesca's story) missed the mark for exactly that reason, too little family interaction.

But I'm guilty of not practicing what I preach. My first book: heroine, estranged from family; hero, mourning loss of brother and father (though he did have a mother, sister, and brother-in-law around to torment him). My current WIP: heroine, an orphaned only child; hero, estranged from his rather large family. If we're supposed to write what we know, I'm afraid I've broken that rule.

Is it intimidating to write about family life? Is it too close to our (my?) hearts to delve into right away. Or are the dramatic possibilities inherent in the gal/guy-on-her/his-own plots too tempting to pass up? Whatever the case, I've got to get over those qualms soon. The heroine of my next WIP is the oldest of thirteen children. And they're ALL making an appearance.

While I'm trying to sort that out, why don't you chime in: Is romance (real and fictional) better when it includes family? Why do so many authors cut the family out of the plot? What's your favorite family in romance?

Note added: check out the review of Lisa Kleypas' Mine Till Midnight at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books here to get Sarah's take on the topic.

Why I Hate Rewrites

I'm in the midst of rewriting my opening seven pages for the Emerald City Opener Contest. I've now, officially, spent half an hour staring at potential first sentences and agonizing that I might not pick the perfect one. So now I'm soliciting opinions from others. Which one do you like better? HELP ME!

Option A: "In the midst of her boyfriend’s achingly appropriate birthday party, Jessica Jo Carter began to think seriously about leaving him."

OR

Option B: "If it hadn’t been for the Gouda cheese, Jessica Carter’s whole life would have been entirely different."

I modeled that second sentence off of my favorite opening line of all time. Bonus points for anyone who can identify the original! (And if you are one of my friends that regularly visits this website but doesn't leave comments... please make an exception just this once!)

Judgment Day-- This Time It's Personal

I just got the scores from RWA for my Golden Heart submission. I was bummed when I didn't get "the call" announcing my status as a finalist (which, somehow, I'd convinced myself would happen). I'm even more bummed at receiving these scores.

First of all, my overall score places me in the bottom half of entries. Not too far down into the bottom half, but still there. That sucks. I've seen some of the crap that actually get published by the industry and had flattered myself that my book was better than a lot of it. To find out I'm not even in the top 50% of hopeful authors really stinks.

Second, the scores are kind of all over the place. Three of the five judges rank me pretty consistently in the mid level (5, 5.5, and--my new sworn enemy-- 4.2). Then two other judges rate it pretty highly, a 7 and a 9, the highest score possible.

I get that opinion's subjective, but how in an at least somewhat merit- rather than personal opinion-based competition can one judge rate my book a 4.2 (a D) and another a 9 (A+)? Of course, the Golden Heart gives no editorial feedback, so I have no idea what was so appalling to Judge 5 and delightful to Judge 2.

At least I didn't get any 1s. I guess I should take from this that I'm not a terrible writer, my book appealed to someone, and that I've got a long way left to go. A few more weeks left of the semester and then I'll throw myself into shopping Then Comes Marriage and writing Secrets and Spies.

The Creature From the Black Lagoon

Would be me. If by "Black Lagoon" one means "Library." Thanks to Kate D for single-handedly keeping hope alive.

Don't get me wrong, graduate school is fantastic, and I'm so happy to be reading and thinking and analyzing literature again in a more professional setting than online (not that talking romance here hasn't been great, too). But the utter neglect of my completed-the-week-I-started-school final draft of Then Comes Marriage had me low and it had me down.

Until this morning when, perhaps still under the effects of Halloween cocktails from last night, I grit my teeth and took the step I've been contemplating for weeks.

That's right, I entered Then Comes Marriage in RWA's Golden Heart contest.

So, let's see, what's left to tackle by the submission deadline of December 4? Reformat entire ms, write exciting and interesting synopsis, and cull first five chapters of ms into a gripping and cohesive partial.

And write three 20 page papers while keeping up the normal reading course load.

I'm sure I'll regret this imminently, but I think it's time I force myself to get back to work on my other potential career, and there's nothing like a deadline to get me moving.

Bonus! By entering the contest, I'll have my synopsis completed, and with trimming and revising, should be able to begin submitting to agents next month! Wish me luck!

The Ticking Clock

After a week away in Sag Harbor, NY and Santa Fe, NM, I'm back home in New York and the days are ticking down:

2 weeks until I begin school
3 weeks until I begin sending queries to agents and entering contests.

I finally have all four of my author (and Kate D) inspected manuscripts back. And it's unanimous...all five of us agree that my ending sucks. So while consulting the OED to find out if the phrases I use are Regency-period appropriate, fixing typos, and cutting about 20 pages, I also have to rewrite a good portion of the ending so my characters don't behave in ways that were pulled out of my ass. Oh, and I changed Peter to a viscount from a duke and changed his brother-in-law's name from Geoffrey to Alfred, so now I'm going through looking for every instance of "duke" and "Geoffrey." And there are a lot of them.

In good news, I chose a new title, not one that was previously listed here. Then Comes Marriage.

Title Bout

I need a name change. The Wedding Widow was never going to cut it. Too cut and dry, not eye-catching enough. And now an inside source informs me that publishers find widows depressing. So, in my narcissistic way, I turn to you for help.

Quick summary:
Heroine is a lovely, snobby young girl who gets married to her childhood sweetheart on the first page. He's still a bit drunk from the night before and is run over by a cart and killed while exiting the church. She turns out to be pregnant. Oops. Family casts her aside, and she spends the next five years on outskirts of society, not so snobby anymore.

Hero is a younger, irresponsible son and best friend of the dead husband. He blames himself for the wedding accident (he was out drinking with the guy the night before) and runs off to join the army. Spends five years fighting in Europe, returns home when father and older brother die and he gets the title. Runs into heroine. Learns about baby/outskirts of society situation.

He feels guilty. She hates him for "killing" her husband. She meets a bunch of other widows and hangs out with them. He avoids debutantes and hangs out with army buddies. Lather, rinse, repeat.

The book's a little angsty, but not dark, dark, dark, and it has some humor. Here are the titles I've thought of:
His Best Friend's Wedding
Not Quite Married
The Bride Wore Black
After the Wedding
Dancing In the Dark
Running to Find You
The Thrill of the Chase
Waiting For You
Putting the Groom Before the Cart
The Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Wedding

Okay, those last two aren't serious.

Please comment and let me know which (if any) you like. Or suggest your own. I want to catch the attention of those agents and editors from the get-go!

A Moment to Boast

The Wedding Widow has had its first review...sort of. I just heard from one of the authors I sent it to. She said she's read through chapter four and thinks it's WONDERFUL so far. That's how she wrote it! All caps. She thinks my characters are vivid, my writing's great and she's hooked and surprised by how much she likes it!

Sorry for the braggadocio, but I need to store away every good moment as fuel for when the inevitable rejections come.

I have to say, I'm feeling pretty good right now.

Update -- State of the Novels

Flitgirl: Despite a hectic week since leaving my job (four freelance assignments, younger sister's high school graduation party and my own engagement party, and bridesmaid dress shopping with my sister), I've managed to get started on the next book in the Merry Widows series. I'm two chapters in to Aimee's story and enjoying it so much. In the sludge of all my revisions I'd forgotten what fun it is to discover a novel for the first time.

I also...[drum roll]... sent out five copies of the ms of The Wedding Widow to friends and authors I know for critiquing. This may seem like no big deal, but having objective eyes look over my draft is a huge deal for me. Up until now, my criticism (provided by the lovely Kate D. and Theresa) has been more of the cheerleading, You can do it! variety. I'm excited to get feedback, but also bracing myself.

As far as Kate's Revising Mr. Right goes, I quote from her e-mail: "Coming down to the final chapters... writing diligently... so excited."

You can do it, Kate! Everyone, get into the comments and give her those good cheerleading vibes.

Cutting Room Floor

What happens when you have to cut a beloved part of your first draft? Oh, I am in agonies! I wrote the following excerpt from Revising Mr. Right in response to a writing group exercise, and it doesn't fit with the rest of my novel at all. For one thing, it's written in first-person and the rest of the novel is third-person POV. For another, if I included this excerpt then I'd have to write about a whole camping trip... and that leaves them up in the woods too long. Not good. I want the ex-boyfriend to have quick and easy access to SeaTac Airport, so he can get the hell out of my narrative.

So. I know I need to cut it. And yet... it's so fun to write about men behaving badly. I feel weirdly attached to this scene. I enjoy it more than the alternative "pissing contest" I've set up over a game of pool. And I also feel bizarre and slightly naked posting it on this blog, but I wanted it to exist somewhere in the world, if only for a little while.

Soon I will feel self-conscious and paranoid and ashamed of taking up so much space on DSW. At that point, I'm sure, I'll remove it from the blogosphere. But in the mean time... here's an excerpt that won't make any sense to anyone but the Flitgirl. With that warning, please feel free to wade through my prose. And if you manage to get through to the end, riddle me this:

What's an author to do when an alien chunk of cut text feels more fun than the rest of her draft, but would spin the final third of her (much beleaguered) manuscript in a wholly new direction?

* * * * *

Revising Mr. Right
by Kate Diamond
Jessica Jo Carter, the heroine, tells her story (excerpt):

Bad things happen when I feel generous. Case in point: Walter sitting in the cab of Jude's truck, his knees not quite relaxed because he doesn't want his khakis making any more contact than necessary with the old, duct-taped bench seat.

I'm literally sitting between the two of them, wishing I could be anywhere but here--except not really, because then they'd be alone in the vehicle without my specialized supervision. Perish the thought.

I never should have said yes to this. It was supposed to be just like old times, a birthday camping trip--leave the presents in the trunk, hike in enough cupcakes and Ramen to last us the weekend. The only difference was that now we were actually old enough to bring beer. Oh, and Becca was on her cell phone every five minutes making sure her deadbeat husband hadn't managed to lose, mangle, or kill their kid in her absence.

And Walter. Walter was suddenly there, too, an outlier with his oatmeal colored Eddie Bauer sweater and barely concealed hostility. Why my ex thought it so important to join us--to the tune of $800 in new camping equipment--was beyond me. Personally, I could have done without the Cape Cod contingency.

He didn't really love me. I think we both knew that by now. When I'd told him to get over himself and go back to Boston, I think he was just annoyed to hear the word "no." I mean, let's face it: we were never the best match on earth. He spent countless hours drilling me in etiquette and railing against my aversion to pantyhose and high heels. And from my point of view, no true romantic should ever marry a guy who thinks faxing a prenup counts as proposing.

He knew all this. I'm sure he did. But Walter? Walter hated to lose. For that reason he refused to leave without a fight, and Jude seemed more than willing to give him one. This left me on horrified standby, wondering why men's logic seems to drop as their testosterone levels rise. Suddenly, my childhood best friend felt the need to pose and beat his chest over me--would probably drag me around by my hair if I let him. It was creepy. More than that, it was obnoxious. After all, thanks to Jude's lack of maturity my nostalgic birthday trip was about to turn into some sort of nature boy pissing contest.

If he'd listened to me, we'd all be spared some heartache. I'd told him he'd win any kind of contest against Walter, hands down. I'd said that he was my choice, that I was staying the Northwest for good this time, and that I wanted to make things work between the two of us. But apparently Jude didn't believe me. Either that, or he felt the need to test my love by goading my ex in the great outdoors.

I'd tried to change his mind that night at the bar, when he first issued the invitation--or was it challenge? I'd made another effort when we were packing up the food supplies and adding extra rations for Walter. This morning was my last attempt. By mile twenty, I'd realized that Jude refused to hear anything I'd try to say to him. He was too busy being macho, singing along with Johnny Cash to the "Cocaine Blues."

"Don't you have anything else we could listen to?" Walter practically hissed.

"Sorry, Walt," Jude laughed, not sounding sorry at all. If we hadn't caught the insincerity in his voice, the fact that he then turned up the volume was a big tip-off. And I couldn't believe he had the audacity to glare at me, as if this was somehow my fault.

I crossed my arms over my chest and hoped he could read my mind: no sleeping bag nookie for you, Neanderthal Boy. Finished glaring at my annoying beloved, I stared out the windshield at the car up ahead of us.

Hmm. All things considered, maybe I should have ridden with Becca after all.

* * * * *

All rights reserved. No part of this Revising Mr. Right excerpt may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the author's written permission except in the case of brief, credited quotations embodied in critical comments.