Determination

Over eleven hours. One-hundred-eighty-three games. Two relentlessly determined athletes. One match the broke record after record. It was the longest match ever in hours, days & games, had the most aces ever recorded in a single match, and for me, the most admirable display of perseverance ever. Last week at Wimbledon, John Isner & Nicolas Mahut put in their bid to steal some of the limelight away from the World Cup action and write their own names in the sports history books.

A writer can learn a lot from a match like that. It was an eleven hours struggle spread out over three days (called on account of darkness twice, but never called off for the sheer exhaustion of the players). Each player had winners and missed opportunities. And every time they fell behind, they battled back to even ground - again, and again, and again.

Anna's suitcase story, of the author bringing hundreds of rejections to that RWA workshop, puts me in mind of this kind of struggle. Spread out over years and countless manuscripts, we submit and submit and submit. Contests, query letters, partials, fulls. There are ups and downs. Moments of validation and frustration. But we keep going. We believe in our ability to win and we push ourselves past the rough patches with nothing more than faith and hope.

And then, after all of that, hopefully one day we get here:

And it's all worth it.

Query Tally

If you've noticed my previous blog references to querying agents with The Soldier, you might wonder how that's going. I loved it when Vivi's other blog, the Ruby-Slippered Sisterhood, did a "By The Numbers" Golden Heart post, so I'll share my stats here with a little analysis.

Queries sent since October 2009: 15

No Reply as of June 22: 5 (33%) (Pending since Dec. 29, 2009, April 29, 2010, May 30, June 18 and June 20)
Form Rejection: 5 (33%)

Personalized Rejection from Queries that Included Pages: 1 (7%) (I like this number.)

Partials Requested by Agent: 3 (20%) (I like this number better.)

Full Requested by Agent: 1! (7%) (I like this number best.)

Offers of representation: 0 (Is that 0% offers or 100% rejected? Which sounds better?)

Two years ago at National RWA in San Francisco, one of the luncheon speakers wheeled a rolling suitcase to the podium and dumped hundreds - thousands? - of rejections on the floor. I can't remember who she was - it's that suitcase that stuck with me - but her motivational speech worked. My fifteen rejections do not compare with a suitcase. I can track these queries, narrative comments included, in a three-page document. I'll keep going, constantly having five pending queries, until I darn well find an agent that clicks.

If you're a writer and want specifics about agents I've queried, feel free to email me off the blog and I'll share the nitty-gritties. I have notes. Many. If you want to know more about queries, go to The Query Shark. She bites, but it's all for your own good. If you want a grown-up merit badge like this one, you need The Merit Badger!

Crazy Week

Hot on the heels of Chassily's time management article (scroll down), I must confess that poor time management skills last week kept me from blogging, querying agents or writing. My week was completely routed by a bad case of the romance heroine syndrome TSTL. And what, you ask, is TSTL?

Too Stupid To Live.

You know the heroine who goes into the basement rather than locking the door? TSTL. The one who leaves the car and decides to walk alone along the deserted road? TSTL. Or the classic Pacific Northwest TSTL heroine - the one who leaves her car sunroof open overnight.

It rained. I opened the car door Wednesday morning to an inch of water in the cup holder. I had to leave my coffee on the front porch while I drove Big Boy and Miss Bossy Boots to school.

Right, that would be merely a head-pounding dumb mistake, except that it was the second time this particular heroine has done that with this particular Subaru. In Seattle we have auto-detailers who specialize in dry-outs. I am now a valued repeat customer. (Readers, the real test of a hero: not whether he knows your morning coffee, but how he reacts when you call and say you left the sunroof open ... again. Mr. Richland was very polite, rather like a classic Amanda Quick or Julia Quinn hero. Perhaps he left his office and pounded a villain to a pulp before catching his bus home, but he was a prince about this.).

Do I have any TSTL sisters out there, real or fictional? Please help me feel better and offer a story to share with Mr. Richland, who kindly let me drive his convertible for the past five days. So bring on the dumb mistakes, the TSTL sisterhood, the "how could I?" moments. Thanks!

Time Management How-To

Chassily Wakefield, a local author, has a great article up at 1st Turning Point. It's all about time management for the unpublished author. If you've never checked out this website, you really should. It's authors sharing tips on promotion. Good times! And Chassily's article is fabulous. (My favorite line: "Map out a 24-hour day and a 7-day week. Sorry, that’s all you get.")

Check it out! And let me know what you think.

Epub Questions?

Today I'm hosting a Q&A over at the Ruby-Slippered Sisterhood blog about epublishing options for aspiring authors. Got a burning question? Curious about what the whole epublishing rigamarole is? Want to share your epub expertise? Swing on by at http://www.rubyslipperedsisterhood.com/rss/index.php/everything-you-always-wanted-to-know-about-e-pubs-but-were-afraid-to-ask/ and join the discussion.

Stylish

What makes a book a keeper for you? What puts an author on your Auto-Buy list? For me, the answer is one word: style. Writing style, to be exact. If I like the way you tell your story, there is very little I won't put up with.

Unlikeable characters? Far-fetched plots? Utterly ridiculous leaps of logic? Senseless misunderstandings? No worries. For me, whether or not I really love a book is a case of it ain't what you do it's the way that you do it.

For the truly stylish author, I could read their shopping lists and be enthralled. Jennifer Crusie does that for me. Eloisa James and Julia Quinn knock it out of the park every time. And don't even get me started on Christopher Moore and Laurell K. Hamilton.

Of course, conversely, I am likely to be very critical if your style doesn't engage me. You can have the world's most likeable characters, most unique plot, beautifully thought out, but if your style is wooden, I won't make it past the first chapter.

That author's voice is intangible, hard to pin down and impossible to duplicate. And whether or not an author's voice will resonate with a reader is impossible to predict - so editors looking for the next stylish author have their work cut out for them, don't they?

My question for you - what do you look for in a book? A storyline or theme you like? A character you can relate to? Or, like me, are you a sucker for style? What makes an author hit your auto-buy list?

My Reading Drought is Over

I'm at the bookstore, purchasing two long awaited novels.

• Married by Morning (Lisa Kleypas)
• Ten Things I Love About You (Julia Quinn)

Where are you? What are you reading?

Real Romance

This morning, I lolled in bed until a seriously late hour. When I could finally be bothered to kick back the covers, my husband was just coming home from running errands. And what did he have in his hands? A Starbucks latte just for me!

"This is the kind you like, right?" he asked, handing over the perfect cup 'o designer Joe. I was impressed, for several reasons: (1) My drink order is embarrassingly complicated. (2) My drink order has changed since we started dating. (3) Normally I get Starbucks on the way to work, when I'm alone and cranky.

His powers of observation regarding such a little thing made me feel so loved... and so well-known. And, really, the two go hand in hand!

To me, this is real romance. I don't need an emotionally wounded vampire. I wouldn't know what to do with a wealthy alpha oil tycoon. In my daily life, I get my romantic kicks off of little things like this. I'm so glad to be married to even-keeled Mr. Marvelous, who know how to do the laundry and doesn't complain when we eat Cheerios for dinner. What a guy!

I want to know about your real-life romance! What are the little things your hero (or heroine) does to inspire you? Alternatively, who are some real life romance couples you know--and what makes them so great? (Yes, I imagine I'll go on and on about my parents in the comments section.)

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.

Writers Giving Back

When I was in college, my friends and I used to joke about whether we would choose to use our powers for good or evil. Essentially it was an "are you a hero or a villain" type discussion. I never really thought of myself as particularly heroic, nor terribly villainous. A lot of the things in our lives fall into that ambiguous grey area - neither good nor bad. They just are. But sometimes we get the chance to do something good. Maybe the heroes are just the ones who take those chances?

One of the amazing things about the various Romance Writers of America chapters I've been involved with is the way they get involved in good causes. The Greater Seattle RWA does a goods drive every Christmas for a women's shelter. The book signing at the RWA National convention always benefits literacy. Each May (right now!) Brenda Novak hosts an auction raising thousands upon thousands of dollars for Diabetes Research. Hundreds of writers participate in these and other philanthropies every year, raising funds and awareness for good causes.

I'm taking a page out of their book for my current one. The heroine of my current ebook release, The Sexorcist, is a survivor of a serious congenital heart condition. She triumphed over adversity and deserves every bit of her happily ever after. In honor of real-life heroines like Brittany, I've launched the Have a Heart promo, benefiting the Children's Heart Foundation.

Here's how it works: If you buy The Sexorcist in ebook, and email a copy of your receipt to heart@viviandrews.com before July 31, 2010, I will donate 10% of my royalties for that sale to the Children's Heart Foundation. If you would like to learn more about this organization which funds research for congenital heart defect treatment, or if you would prefer to cut out the middleman and donate directly, you can visit their website at: www.childrensheartfoundation.org.

How often do you get to read a book and get warm fuzzies for helping a good cause at the same time? Well, luckily, with the efforts of the romance writers giving back, pretty often.

Don't forget to check out the Brenda Novak auction! (And keep an eye out for my Tickle My Fantasy Alaskan Gift Basket while you're there.)

The Big Bad Block

Curses upon ye, writer's block!

This is the problem with a long hiatus from creative writing. I feel like I've forgotten how to write anything fun. Give me a work report or some painful professional navel-gazing and I'm your girl. I can analyze my teaching six ways to Sunday and throw in the words "intentional" and "differentiated" every other sentence.

But writing a scene full of witty banter? Re-plotting my novel to fix the dragging middle? Suddenly, I'm paralyzed. I'm worried that I won't do it well, or that I won't be able to sustain any sort of creative effort. I tell myself that I'm too busy or too exhausted. If I'm going to fail anyway, I might as well go clean the kitchen or write some curriculum because that's what's really important... and that's the only place I can actually succeed.

Obviously this is not a healthy attitude. I've had writer's block before, and I've tried a number of methods to deal with it. Though I've always managed to get back to work, I haven't sustained a healthy routine. These methods have always been about perpetuating self-loathing (as opposed to self-care). For instance, I tell myself I'll sit at the computer for an hour. And when I do, I'm humming "you can't do this" in my head. Yes, there's a winning mental refrain! Alternatively, I tell myself "the creative well has run temporarily dry. You need to abandon your project entirely." Then I set aside my writing routines so that I can eat fried food, read other people's romance novels, and worry that I'll never finish my own.

Shockingly enough, neither of those strategies really works.

I knew I was in deep trouble when it took me all week to write this post. (Yes, I actually started on Monday and now it's Saturday... sad, huh?) I think it's time to dust off my copy of The Artist's Way and put myself through a 12-week writers' recovery program.

Anyone else have any other ideas? Do share: how do you bust your block?

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.]

Writer, Promote Thyself!

I hate trying to sell people things. Especially when the things I'm trying to sell are me and my books. I am not a natural born salesman. Asking people to buy things gives me hives. Why can't people just magically find out about me and my awesomeness? Why do I feel like a little beggar girl or a door-to-door missionary? Am I doing this whole promotion thing wrong?

I heard some Big Deal Authors lately talking about book signings and the way people tend to shy away from the person behind the table, refusing to meet your eyes. The theory (quite a good one, I think) was that they don't want to have to reject you in front of you. In a bookstore, they can wander through the aisles picking up and putting down dozens of books before they find one that interests them, but they never feel guilty for putting one down. With you sitting there, the author adds the guilt factor.

I get that, but how do you counter it? With chocolate? (Bribes!) With excerpts? That way, you can hand them a chapter, they can wander over to grab a latte and a scone, read your chapter in line, decide they love you, and come back to get a signed copy to take the register. I like that approach.

But what about online promo? Why are people skittish to participate there? I'm having a blog party all this month with daily prizes. (http://viviandrews.blogspot.com) Looking at my website tracking info, I'm getting a lot more hits than I am comments - but only the commenters can win. So are my lurkers shy? Are they not interested in the prizes? (A free book? Who turns down a free book?!) They are under no obligation to buy my books or the books of my guest bloggers. All they have to do is comment, possibly win, possibly discover a new author they love or win a book they can give to a reader-friend who loves that genre if they don't.

I feel weird because I'm running around trying to drum up traffic for this blog party and I feel like it should be easier than this. These are awesome prizes! There is virtually no effort involved in winning them! The big prize this month is a brand new ereader! All you have to do to enter is sleuth around my website to answer five questions (one about each of my books) and send me an email with your answers. Is an ereader not worth a few clicks?

I'm puzzled. And I feel like a realtor. See, I went to the parade of homes with my family a few weeks ago. There were a lot of realtors with a lot of different styles. Some gave away goodie bags or cookies or donuts. One actually followed us through every room of the house commenting on our comments to one another (so irritating!). But the one thing they had in common was that they were representing gorgeous homes. These houses were gems, that's why they were included in the parade of homes. But there were still gimmicks and raffles and staging to make them attractive to buyers.

So even if you write a great book (see, I really was going somewhere with the metaphor!), you still have to make it attractive to readers. (Without stalking them through every room telling them why they should buy it.)

And that is the part where I feel completely out of my depth. Oh, to be famous and rich and hire someone to be my book realtor!

Am I looking at this the wrong way? What makes you buy a book? Word of mouth? An ad you saw? A review?

Tomorrow at my blog I'm giving away a signed copy of my new book Shifting Dreams. All this month I'm giving away an ereader. No purchase necessary. Just a little fun. Come on by and play... or come on by and lurk if you want to feed my neurosis. ;)

Cross Your Fingers

Auditory Flashback

Sort of Haunted House--undergraduate a capella group version, sung by the Brown Derbies.

I haven't listened to this song in 12 years. Yet, as my National Boards deadline approaches, it's dominating my I-Pod. And every time hear it, I have a flashback to freshman year of college.

I was a bookworm, double-majoring in English and history. My roommate was an athlete, double-majoring in hockey and beer. We were the most mismatched pair in our hall. Everyone predicted we'd kill each other before Christmas. Not so!

That girl saved my sanity. Repeatedly.

Whenever I started stress-spiraling, my roommate would force me to put my book down. She'd cue the Derbies song on our CD player and start doing this ridiculous bouncy dance. It was my job to bounce--yes, ridiculously--next to her for the duration of the song. And if I still had that crazy look in my eye after it was over? Hello, repeat button. It never failed. I was always laughing by the end of our routine.

Obviously, my life has changed since then. I'm no longer sleeping on an extra-long twin mattress (thank goodness). My former roommate is now a Facebook friend, not a daily presence. I've traded in work-study poverty and terminal single status for a husband, a steady income, a cat, and a mortgage...

... And yet so much is still the same! I'm still a wacked-out stress case. I still push myself up against deadlines and then waste time berating myself for it. I still eat mass quantities of popcorn whenever I pull an all-nighter. And apparently, I still listen to Sort of Haunted House whenever I'm feeling overwhelmed.

You couldn't pay me to be a teenager again. Seriously. Yet for the past few weeks, I've enjoyed revisiting this part of my 18-year-old self. (Now excuse me while I go do the bouncy dance.)

What song connects you back to a specific memory? And what do you listen to when you're up against a deadline?

Crazy Painted Man Proposes

I searched on our blog title and re-discovered Prerogative of Harlots, a blog musing about one of my 2009 posts (the one on archaeologists vs paleontologists in romance novels). It's safe to view at work, by the way - Harlots is a blog about museum life, not a Julia Roberts character. I regard being the catalyst for a line like "His heart racing, he tore the fossil from the dirt with his bare hands," as an honor akin to winning the annual Bulwer-Lytton contest. I'm excited that I sparked a near-dissertation on all the possible ways paleontology is not the stuff of romantic leads.


Although not as excited as I would be if I were the skip of the Canadian women's curling team and received this proposal. I sincerely hope none of my Canadian readers can identify him. I saw lots of proposal signs at the Olympics - Canadians must have been feeling the love - but this was the best. Depending, of course, on your definition of good.

And don't forget to watch some of the far-too-scant TV coverage of the 2010 Paralympics! If you have on-demand, the Opening Ceremony was an amazing showcase of talent. My children asked questions about why the heavy-metal singer didn't have an arm and a leg, why several athletes didn't have legs, why some athletes used wheelchairs and others used crutches. It was a rocking, exciting, moving show - far, far better at explaining the differences and similarities between people than the telethons of our childhood.

I'm sure the Paralympians will get their share of crazy painted man proposals this week too. NBC will be showing excerpts at random times, so be on the look-out.

What Does Funny Look Like?

I've been gazing at the cover for my April release, The Sexorcist, (because those are some highly gaze-able abs, baby). It's got me wondering: What does my cover say to you? (Hopefully it says Pick me up and take me home with you! but besides that...) Light/dark? Playful/sensual? Paranormal? What do you think the story is about?

I've been pondering the mysterious art of romance covers. I feel I should preface this by saying I have the utmost respect for cover artists and I profess to know nothing of what sells on the front of a book. I'm just a reader and a writer. Marketing ain't my thing. I once heard Sue Grimshaw (of Borders True Romance fame) talking about cover art and my mind boggled at all the ways her definition of a great cover differed from my own.

You see, I want something that captures the feel of the book. Something that gives me a sense of tone. Playful book, playful cover. Serious dark story, serious dark cover. Sensual, body-parts-a-flyin' book, well then lets see some body parts a-flyin' on that cover!

But, from what Sue Grimshaw said, I'm not so sure others share my cover preferences. So I'm asking: What do you look for in a romance cover? Sexy manflesh? Something demure that won't embarrass you at the checkout line? A couple in a torrid embrace? An iconic image like a flower or a high heel? What catches your eye when you're browsing your bookseller of choice?

My cover has manflesh in abundance, and there is many a manflesh cover out there that would lend credence to the idea that manflesh sells... but would you believe me if I said The Sexorcist was a paranormal romantic comedy? Does it look funny?

I've been thinking about what humor looks like on the front of a book and I'm curious about what others see when they look at covers. I've grabbed eight books of similar genre to my own from the last few years and slapped their covers down below here. Judging these books purely by their covers: Which one looks funniest to you? Which one would make you pick it up and flip to read more? And (perhaps most importantly) which one would you be most likely to shell out your hard earned cash for?

Ready? Here are the candidates!
#1:
#2:

#3:

#4:

#5:

#6:

#7:

#8:

What say you, romance readers? Let the social experiment begin!

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.

Ten Things I Love About You

There's an official release date for the next Julia Quinn!

There's also a book cover.


I know what I'll be doing on May 25th! What about you? And is there anything else that should be on my reading radar?

Saucy versus Serious

Amanda Forester, a friend from our Seattle chapter of Romance Writers of America, has two fun book trailers for The Highlander's Sword on her website. She made both (with help from two real life heroes - her husband and his bagpiping buddy). One's saucy, one's serious. Vote for your favorite and you could win a FREE BOOK.

Amanda's videos rock like Canadian curlers. I watched them and thought ... when I sell a book I'm going to have to learn how to do that? And my mother thought romances would rot my mind!