Wednesday, May 31, 2006
The Perfect Score
The things you learn trolling Amazon.com! For example, I just stumbled across the cover of my August Blaze, The Perfect Score. Pretty nice, huh?
This book has had a long and bumpy path. I originally wrote the proposal right before chick lit really hit the market in a huge way. In its original incarnation, the book was not a romance, and poor Mike (the hero) wasn't even a figment of my imagination. My working title was Lipstick & Liposuction: The Semi-Sordid Adventures of a Slut Wannabe (or L&L for short). My agent shopped the proposal, and we received tons of wonderful feedback about the clever premise (girl seeks to up her slut score) and my voice. What we didn't receive, however, was an offer. In the meantime, I'd sold other proposals and my calendar was full-up. So we stopped marketing it, and I didn't worry about revising to resubmit. Life, and my career, went on.
Fast forward a few years, and suddenly, I am writing chick lit (and mommy lit!). At one point I was looking through my idea file, and saw L&L. I still thought the concept was loads of fun and I still loved the voice and Mattie, the heroine. It didn't fit, however, with the type of chick lit I was publishing. No demons. No codes or assassins. What to do, what to do?
Enter Brenda Chin, my editor at Harlequin. Sometimes authors sign a contract for multiple books without any idea what a subsequent book will be about. My last contract was like that, with the 2nd book in the two-book contract being simply described as "next year's book." Brenda called to discuss this upcoming book and I bemoaned the fact that the only thing on my mind at the moment was this old chick lit proposal that I wanted very much to bring back to life. Because she's wonderful – and because I believe in karma – Brenda announced that Harlequin was now doing a chick lit "flash" within Blaze. So, yes, I should send her some pages, because this sounded like a perfect fit. Yay!
Obviously, the story needed to be a romance, so I rewrote the first chapter to include Mike and his point of view, and totally revamped the overall story, keeping the basic kernel, but fleshing out the love and family relationships, as well as Mattie's motivation for diving into this unusual venture. Then I sent the chapter to Brenda, who loved it and bought it.
Probably the longest "labor" of all of my books, but I think it was worth it. Hopefully you will, too!
This book has had a long and bumpy path. I originally wrote the proposal right before chick lit really hit the market in a huge way. In its original incarnation, the book was not a romance, and poor Mike (the hero) wasn't even a figment of my imagination. My working title was Lipstick & Liposuction: The Semi-Sordid Adventures of a Slut Wannabe (or L&L for short). My agent shopped the proposal, and we received tons of wonderful feedback about the clever premise (girl seeks to up her slut score) and my voice. What we didn't receive, however, was an offer. In the meantime, I'd sold other proposals and my calendar was full-up. So we stopped marketing it, and I didn't worry about revising to resubmit. Life, and my career, went on.
Fast forward a few years, and suddenly, I am writing chick lit (and mommy lit!). At one point I was looking through my idea file, and saw L&L. I still thought the concept was loads of fun and I still loved the voice and Mattie, the heroine. It didn't fit, however, with the type of chick lit I was publishing. No demons. No codes or assassins. What to do, what to do?
Enter Brenda Chin, my editor at Harlequin. Sometimes authors sign a contract for multiple books without any idea what a subsequent book will be about. My last contract was like that, with the 2nd book in the two-book contract being simply described as "next year's book." Brenda called to discuss this upcoming book and I bemoaned the fact that the only thing on my mind at the moment was this old chick lit proposal that I wanted very much to bring back to life. Because she's wonderful – and because I believe in karma – Brenda announced that Harlequin was now doing a chick lit "flash" within Blaze. So, yes, I should send her some pages, because this sounded like a perfect fit. Yay!
Obviously, the story needed to be a romance, so I rewrote the first chapter to include Mike and his point of view, and totally revamped the overall story, keeping the basic kernel, but fleshing out the love and family relationships, as well as Mattie's motivation for diving into this unusual venture. Then I sent the chapter to Brenda, who loved it and bought it.
Probably the longest "labor" of all of my books, but I think it was worth it. Hopefully you will, too!
