Saw this article about Rona Jaffe. Kudos to Ms. Jaffe!Newsday.com - Entertainment News
 

I love it!!!!

(and you can click here to get more than just the cover image: Carpe Demon Page
 

Amazon.com: Books: Spy X: The Code If you have a kid around 10-11 years old, check out this book (and the one that follows it). I bought it on a whim, devoured it in no time, then logged back onto Amazon and was happy to discover the next in the series was just coming out. Arrived yesterday and I finished it last night. Now, though, I have to wait until January.

Isn't that just like me? Addicted to a kids' series. But it's great fun!
 

Are there any nicer words to hear from an editor? Okay, granted, it's only a synopsis. And granted that was in an email (who knows what might be revealed in a phone call). But I'm taking it and hanging on to it! And pretty soon I'm going to sit down and write a "bang up" book, too!

And for those of you keeping score, the Pet Project that my muse and I have been working on has been shipped off. Yes, Elvis has left Outlook and is now waiting patiently in my agent's in-box. Now, I am not a patient person (alas) and I know she's not going to have the chance to read it until after Frankfurt. Which means my fingers are going to be cramped, cramped, cramped from being crossed for so long.

Off to do some catching up and then (gasp!) go to sleep early!
 

I'm being bad.

Yes, it's true. I'm working on a little pet project that's been in my mind now for several months, and it's not contracted and no one has paid me for it or talked about paying me for it or said one word about it, frankly. (This could, perhaps, be because they don't know it exists). But I'm having a fabulous time. Of course, the fabulousness is tinged by the fact that my calender says that I'm supposed to be working on my next Blaze. But I'm only one day behind, and the muse ... she is a tricky little wench.

The thing is, sometimes you really do have to go where the muse sends you. In this case, the idea jelled and jelled and jelled and jelled, and the other day I sat down with a screenwriter friend of mine and we talked through a few points that hadn't made it to that jelling phase. That was on a Friday, and I figured I could use the weekend to work on this project guilt-free. After all, a weekend is a weekend, right? (The answer: Not if you're a writer and not if you have a toddler. You take your writing time as it comes. But, hey, it seemed a reasonable justification.) So I sat down and wrote out the proposal chapters and emailed them to my Trusted Writer Friends last night and printed it out for my Trusted Husband. The feedback? Two thumbs up, which is great, except that now it's Monday and I've been working on the STUPID SYNOPSIS all day. And it's MONDAY. I"m supposed to be Blazing (let's not tell my editor, okay? Shhhhhhh).

I'm almost done, truly I am. And I really do need to finish today because I want said Trusted Writing Friends to give the synop a read before I email the whole thing to my agent, who'll be hopping a plane to Frankfurt the end of this week. And if you're keeping score, the bottom line is that I'm basically pulling a college-type allnighter to finish a proposal for a book that no editor even expects to land on her desk so that my agent can take it on a plane with her even though we realistically won't talk about it until she gets backs after the book fair. Sound reasonable? It might not be. But, like I said, that muse was banging at the door and insisted on coming in. So I let her. And now I guess she's staying until she's damn good and ready to go.

And the really cool thing? I LOVE this part! I absolutely love when the story just reaches out and grabs you (I'd write the whole book right now if I had just a bit more time. I don't. Sigh.). So I'm having a blast (even if it is late and even if I am dealing with a synopsis, ugh). And about the only thing that would make it better is if at the end of the day someone buys the book. Fingers crossed! I'll keep you posted!

(And in other news, I got the cover today for CARPE DEMON and OH. MY. GOD. I love, love, love it! I emailed my editor to make sure I'm allowed to post it, and once she gives the go-ahead, up it goes. Very much doing the happy dance here in Central Texas)
 

WHATEVER: The Real World Book Deal Descriptions Just in case you haven't seen this. Truly a hoot! (Although, I suppose if you're not a writer who subscribes to Publishers Lunch, the hoot factor may be reduced significantly. Even so ....)
 

Coffee Klatch Hey, hey, hey! Kathleen and I have posted a new Coffee Klatch ... this one on The Rule of Four. Check it out!
 

 

 

Boston.com / A&E / Books / The dope on prolific writers Personally, I find using a time stopping pocket watch ala The Girl, The Gold Watch & Everything much more effective ...
 

Recently on one of my email loops, someone started a "how did you first get published" thread, and I responded. Then I decided (being basically lazy) to recycle that post as a blog entry. So, voila!

And, hey, I'm feeling a little nostalgic. I just looked me up on Amazon, and there are 19 books listed. I have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA how I managed to write so many books back when I had a day job. Oh, wait. I never slept or read anything I wasn't writing or that wasn't emailed to me from my critique partners. Oh yeah ...

Anyway, here's my story. If you don't care, please don't tell me. I'm deluding myself that this is truly fascinating stuff here ...

The most interesting are my first and second sales (directly from contests) and the sale of my 10th book (can't remember which "sale" it was), which was the sale of one book because of a rejected proposal.

Before I was published, I was a contest slut ... but a discriminating one. I knew I was targeting Temptation for my category stuff, and any house that would publish paranormal (at the time, that was pretty much Dorchester; my how things have changed in only 5 years!) for single title, and so I entered contests where the final judges were editors for that line/those houses.

My first manuscript did well in contests, but never well enough. But I got enough good feedback to use it as "marketing material" in query letters (a tool which I personally think is pretty effective). Brenda Chin at Temptation requested the mss, but rejected it as not having a sexy enough premise (it didn't. it also starred an underwater archeologist and a documentary film maker. Um, yeah. not gonna happen). At any rate, I determined to go "sexy premise" all the way, and I did. That book, which ended up being my first sale (Nobody Does It Better), started finaling and winning contests, one of which was judged by Brenda. At the time, I had about 140 pp of a 220 page mss written. She requested the full, and I finished it in about 2 weeks. If memory serves, that was about October. About December, I heard back that she was sending it up the ladder for approval. THAT was a long wait, but in June I sold it! VERY BIG THRILL she says, in the understatement of the year. (That was the TARA contest, by the way)

Meanwhile, I'd been working on a very unmarketable paranormal about a cat who's in love with her master. I was entering it in contests and it was finaling, but usually w/ the comment that I was working a really tough market. It won a contest (the Merritt) and was judged by Chris Keeslar at Dorchester, who requested the full. That was after the Harlequin sale, though, and I was knee deep in revisions on the Temptation (and they were paying me for that one!) so finalizing CAT got set aside. Imagine my surprise when I got a call from an assistant at Dorchester asking where the book was! I explained that I'd sold to HQ, and didn't have time to finish the book on spec, but would they take a seven chapter partial (all I had done at the time. My chapters were about 30 pp long, so that was a good chunk of the book). They said yes.

Meanwhile, I got the contract for NDIB, negotiated it myself and then decided that was a HUGE waste of my time and I'd be much better served paying someone else 15% to do it for me. And so I hired an agent who I'd been talking with (she knew I had "I'm an attorney-do I need an agent?" reservations). By the time I got the call for The Cat's Fancy in September, she was already on board and negotiated it.

So that's story of my first two sales (one category, one single title). Here's another interesting story that's food for thought in the "there are no wasted mss" department. Before chick lit really existed as a label, I started this first person mss that, in retrospect, really is chick lit. Very edge, very sexy, and very over the top. We shopped it around and it was almost bought by several houses. But they could never quite figure out how to market it. BUT, it did catch one editor's attention so much (and she'd already read Aphrodite's Kiss and liked my voice) that she asked me if I would turn in a straight romance proposal. I was in deadline hell and also preparing for trial, and I told my agent I simply didn't have time. BUT I did have five pages of a story I'd been playing with a while previously. I'd thought of the idea when Duets launched, but it was really a "bigger" book. I'd just never developed it. So we sent that, the editor loved it, and she bought me based on having read those 5 pages (which had just been sitting in a computer file) and the submitted proposal (which still has never sold and frankly never will). That book became Nobody But You, which was out last year from Pocket.

I guess the moral of the story is that even if something doesn't sell right away (or ever) that doesn't mean that it won't ultimately end up being useful to your career (heck, even if no one but you ever sees it, it's still useful for honing your craft).

And there you go. My "first and future sale" war story. Please, please, pretend to be fascinated :)


 

I'm so excited, and I can't believe I didn't post this before! (I was just typing my newsletter and realized I hadn't shouted this from the bloggy rooftops!): Jayne Ann Krentz and Charlaine Harris gave CARPE DEMON fabulous cover quotes!!! Yay! Whoo hoo! I'm absolutely thrilled, not to mention honored that they took the time out of their schedules to read the book for a quote. I had the opportunity to meet Jayne Ann at the RWA national convention (where I'm sure I babbled like a deranged fan!) but I just found out that I missed the chance to meet Charlaine Harris. (Have I mentioned I love Sookie?). She was in Austin recently for a conference ... and I found out two days later. Sigh. Oh well.

And the cover copy for Demon is done, too, and it's awesome as well. You can read it and the quotes by visiting the Carpe Demon page at my website: