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On the
Brink – What does it take to push you over?
Being on the
brink of publication is excruciating. You’ve finaled in contests,
you’ve had full manuscripts requested by an editor, you’ve had
revisions requested, and still you haven’t gotten the call. “It’s
never the being so close that’s frustrating,” said Blythe Gifford (The
Knave and The Maiden, Harlequin Historicals, January 2004.)
“It’s being the so far! In this business, you never know how close
you are to the finish line until you cross it.” So what does it take
to make that final step? I asked some authors who have been down the
same painful path to publication.
Was there
a time you wanted to quit?
Cindi Myers
(Fear of Falling, Harlequin Blaze, September 2006, and The
Birdman’s Daughter, Next, April 2006) became so frustrated, she
took a pile of manuscripts to the backyard and burned them, hoping
to be free of her addiction.
Julie
Ortolon (Rita finalist Almost Perfect, Signet, September
2005, as well as Just Perfect, October 2005 and Too
Perfect, November 2005) said, “Abso-flippin’-lutely not! For me,
getting published was always ‘do or die.’ I wanted it so bad it was
like a constant ache in my bones. And since I never doubted it would
happen, I treated it like a business right from the beginning.”
“In mad,
rash moments, I have sometimes felt like quitting,” said Emily McKay
(Surrogate and Wife, Silhouette Desire, February 2006).
“Emptying my hard drive. Feeding floppies down the garbage disposal.
Having a bonfire of old manuscripts in the backyard. I quit my day
job so I could concentrate on writing four years before I sold. Yep,
that’s four years. When I quit my day job, I figured I’d sell in a
year or two. So by the time that fourth year rolled around, I was
starting to feel pretty silly. In fact, about a month before I sold
the first book, I downloaded the Austin Independent School District
job application.”
Cheryl Howe
(The Pirate’s Jewel, Leisure, March 2004) wanted to break off
her dependence on writing, and did for a little over nine months.
“Writing was getting to be like a bad relationship. I felt like I
gave and I gave and it just took. And I got to the point where I
just wanted to walk away.”
Julie
Elizabeth Leto (Dirty Little Lies, Pocket, August 2006, and
The Domino Effect, Blaze, August 2006) didn’t quit, but she took
a break for about a year or so. Meanwhile, she stayed active in her
RWA chapter so she never felt as if she quit. “The funny thing is,
I’m one of those people who will easily quit something if it’s too
hard. But I’d decided early on to do this no matter what. It was
part of who I was. I couldn’t
quit.”
Lori Harris,
a 2003 Golden Heart finalist with three Intrigues now under her belt
(Secret Alibi, March 2006, Targeted, February 2006,
and
Someone Safe, February 2005), slowed down her writing at
times but never quit and never would have, even without a sale. She
credits her positive attitude to finaling in the Golden Heart every
year she entered. “[It] tends to keep you believing that you have
some amount of talent. I also believe you can accomplish just about
anything if you’re determined.”
What kept
you from walking away?
Virginia
Kelly, a 2003 Golden Heart finalist as well, sold to Silhouette
Intimate Moments. Her book, To the Limit, came out June 2005.
Wouldn’t we all prefer that solution? And she sold only because of
the Golden Heart! Her work wasn’t in front of anyone else, and the
Friday before she left for National, she got The Call.
Karen Rose (You
Can’t Hide, Warner Books, April
2006) credits her husband for talking her out of quitting,
and Lori Harris credits her critique partners who have stuck with
her for ten years.
Blythe
Gifford’s crisis of faith led her to write a book about a heroine
who had to decide if she had the faith to follow her dreams. That
book, The Knave and the Maiden, finaled in the Golden Heart
and was released in January 2004.
A story idea
brought Cheryl Howe back as well. She gave herself permission to
write even if it wasn’t marketable. Reading The Alchemist by
Paolo Coelho “recommitted me to following my dream no matter the
outcome.”
Was there a
point when you decided that you would buckle down and get published,
no matter what?
“I never really thought I’d be published,” Virginia Kelly
said. “I think it’s been a wish for me all along. Which actually
fits in with the fact that I sold based on the GH, not on a
submission to an editor.”
Blythe Gifford had an epiphany on the plane to the
Orlando conference. “I thought, ‘What will I say if the person next
to me asks me what I do?’ And the answer came back, ‘I’m a writer.’
I got a huge rush just from thinking that was the answer. That
internal realization was a big step for me.”
“I decided after an editor appointment at the 2000 RWA
conference that I would do whatever I had to do to get published
with Harlequin,” Mia Zachary (Afternoon
Delight, Harlequin Blaze, April
2006) said. “That meant major plot changes to my story, in
addition to three rounds of editor-requested revisions.”
Several of
the authors believe they had to take this journey to arrive where
they are now. Both Jenna Kernan (The Trapper, Harlequin
Historicals, September 2005) and Cindi Myers believe their earlier
works were rejected for a good reason. They were not ready to
publish. Lori Harris believes she sold at the right time. The
experience she had gave her the ability to take a story apart and
put it back together. “[My journey] gave me a lot of valuable
experience and helped streamline my craft and toughen my voice,”
said Julie Leto. “Looking back, I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
When I sold, I was ready and confident.”
What was
the last thing you learned before selling?
“Embrace
your strengths!” Julie Leto said. “As writers, published and
unpublished, we tend to focus all of our attention on those things
we do wrong, or at least not as well as we think we should…I kept my
mind focused on the good stuff, and that helped me develop my
voice.”
“It’s the
writing, stupid,” Cindi Myers said. “All the want to and the market
savvy and the hooks and high concepts don’t mean a thing if the
writing isn’t the absolute best it can be. And there aren’t any
shortcuts. Writing is work.”
“I read,
attend conferences and write most every day in an effort to improve
my writing and understand the business of publishing, “ Jenna Kernan
said. “I understand how to pitch my story in a synopsis that
included the characters’ internal conflict, character growth, and
the development of the romance.”
Emily McKay
said, “I don’t think I understood how tightly plotted stories really
need to be. Good fiction is like a puzzle that the author has to put
together for the reader. Every single element of the story has to
fit within the confines of the story. Once you’ve put the puzzle
together, you shouldn’t have any leftover puzzle pieces, and you
shouldn’t have any jagged edges. Every border needs to be straight,
and the picture needs to be complete. There shouldn’t be anything in
your story that doesn’t fit.”
Virginia
Kelly said the last thing she learned before being published was to
never assume no one will read your book. In order to meet the Golden
Heart deadline, she left a troublesome chapter in the manuscript,
thinking no one would get past the third chapter. Surprise!
Karen Rose
learned that not everyone will like what you write. The week before
she got The Call, she received a rejection from another publisher
that called her writing “generic.”
Mia Zachary
said, “The last thing I learned before I sold was that even when the
self-doubt is so strong as to be debilitating, there are people who
believe in you. There are people who have enough faith in you to
make up for the faith you lack. And that you’re very lucky to call
these people your friends.”
What
advice do you give to writers on the brink?
Karen Rose
tells them, “Don’t give up. Don’t write to get published. Write
because you must and those people in your head just won’t shut up.”
“Eventually,
one of three things will happen,” said Emily McKay. “Either I’d sell
a book. I’d die. Or I’d give up. Of those three things, the
one I had any control over was giving up. So as long as you don’t
give up, you’ll sell. Remember, this isn’t a contest. No matter how
long you’ve been writing, there’s someone else out there who’s been
writing longer and hasn’t sold yet either.”
Lori Harris
believes in timing. “The right manuscript on the right editor’s desk
at the right time.”
Jenna Kernan
echoes Lori and adds, “If you truly do not enjoy the exercise of
writing, I do recommend people find something else to do that they
love. The business is too rough not to love what you do. Lucky me, I
found an editor who liked what I wrote.”
Julie
Ortolon agrees publishing is not for the weak of heart. But for
those who are determined to make it, she says, “Passion rarely, if
ever, comes without talent. If you want to succeed in this business
to the point you can feel it in your bones, then yes, you have what
it takes to make it happen.”
Cheryl Howe
says her worst period of dejection came right before her first sale.
“So when my friends say they are about to give up, I say, ‘Good.
You’ll sell soon!’”
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