Biting the Star

I knew it would happen. Someone bit a big chunk out of my five star rating for Goals for a Sinner by giving it a one. The Romance Studio awarded those five stars and others followed, and no, not all reveiwers were my relatives as this person implied. I have noted those giving the most savage reviews generally hide behind a weird screen name. That's okay. I don't plan to hunt you down. In most cases, these folks begin with "I thought I'd found a fabulous new writer..." and obviously they were severely disappointed. So sorry. I do not believe a five star rating means I am fantastic. I feel it indicates that the particular book met all the criterion for a nice little romance-good characters, a plot that moves right along, and a happy ending.

Her major gripe seemed to be that the characters had misunderstandings and sometimes acted immaturely. Well, honey, if they were perfect from the start, there would be no plot, no crisis, nothing to overcome, no growth of the individuals. She didn't like my sex scenes either. To each his own. Mine tend to be more real than many and are often funny. Couples get interrupted by phone calls, don't disrobe gracefully and sometimes not at all. If you want fantastic, multiple orgasm sex right from the start, go elsewhere, dear reader, and enjoy what you find.

As for saying no girl would think of others on her wedding day, I'm afraid I based Stevie Dowd's attitude on my own. I find long receptions tedious and simply wanted to leave and be with my new husband. Instead of having a garter toss, I sent my blue garter directly to a guy dating one of my friends. I thought he needed a nudge. As for Stevie, she'd like to see quarterback Joe Dean married off so he won't lead her man into temptation and does try to set him up on her big day.

Having explained myself, I now want to say I am not all that upset by having my star diminished.

A five star rating makes you a target. I've heard sometimes jealous writers intentionally give a bad review to knock another writer off a top listing. I don't think that is the case here as my rankings aren't that high. So, like that getting that first scratch on a new car, I am somewhat relieved to have it overwith. May the disgruntled reviewer find fantastic elswhere.

Nothing Wasted

Though I have written one thing or another for most of life from grade school puppet shows to college poetry and my first novel hand-written way back in the 1980's (I found it recently when looking for some old short stories), I did not get published until, let's face it, I was old. I would have liked this experience sooner. Wouldn't everyone? But working full time, three kids, a husband and house to take care of did not allow it. I have, however, discovered that I did not waste all those non-writing years. Instead, I stored up characters, incidents, and emotions over a long period of time and placed them in my mental attic so to speak.

When I need an incident for a story or want to imagine what a character is feeling, I root through that attic and recall the joy of first love, the thrill of sex, the anguish of divorce. Things that happened to my family now spill out on the pages. For instance in one of my yet unpublished books, I related a Little League game. My son was not the best hitter, but he could take one for the team. He often got hit by the ball, one time so hard the stitching on the ball cover showed on his backside. He took a base, and being pretty good runner who always knew where the ball was (his strength), eventually rounded the bases for a score. Need a Little League scene. Out it comes from the mothballs of my mind but without the overpowering scent. My grandmother used mothballs. I know of what I speak. One day, that book might be printed. I will dedicate it to my son, probably to his embarrassment. Thanks for the memories, kiddo.

So to those of you who think you are spinning your wheels, wasting your talent, think you will never see your words in a book, I say, "No, you are just storing up information that will become your future novels." And good luck to you.

Judging

I look at offering to judge writing contests as paying back now that I have two books published and two more under contract. Every year, I take on Golden Heart entries and always volunteer to read and grade the works submitted to my chapter, Heart of Louisiana. Because judging is very time consuming, I do limit myself to these two endeavors just in case anyone out there is lurking to find judges. In the name of honesty, I will confess I never won a contest and did enter many over a period of three years trying to get some kind of credibility that I could claim in a query. Closest I ever came was finaling twice with Goals for a Sinner and once with Queen of the Mardi Gras Ball. And I might add after Goals did so well, I entered it in the Golden Heart and got one beautiful perfect nine out of nine - and also a three at the very same time. Goals did turn out to be my entry into the publishing world and Queen will be out next year. I do try to judge fairly without personal predjudice and attempt to give good, sound advice.

That said, I will divulge my secret sin. I like seeing how far I have come from most contest entrants. I find myself mumbling, "Doesn't anyone know how to use a comma or colon anymore?" as I read. Jeez, would you get rid of all those "was-es", and dangling "ings"? Spell check is not to be trusted entirely. He didn't do everything rite. He did do everything right! In essence, I am revisiting every mistake I ever made when I started out and before I had professional editing to show me the way. One thing I have never written on any scoresheet is "You should leave this one under your bed", as a was once written on one of my entries, although I did have an entry several years ago that truly deserved it. The poorly written thing was so bad, I thought it might be a joke. Regardless, at the very end I left the author with these words, "You need to do a lot more work on this. Hone your craft. Don't give up." I hope the author found those encouraging words amid all the red ink I splashed over her pages.

As for me, I never enter contests anymore. I only judge them.

Length

I am known primarily for my sexy football romances, so discussing length could mean many things. Get your mind out of the gutter! I am referring to the length of a book. Current wisdom says no novel over 120,000 words will be published today due to the atrophied attention spans of readers contracted from television viewing, computer use and tweeting. An agent at a recent conference declared she wouldn't look at anything over 100,000 words. One of my e-publishers is constantly urging their authors to produce 50,000-60,000 word Harlequin-style romances, not easy to do as I have tried it and failed. Supposedly, people using e-readers won't order anything longer. Forget classics like Gone With The Wind. Margaret Mitchell would be advised to cut that length in half or issue her story as three back-to-back novels. Sad. Okay, I will admit I've only gotten a quarter way through Northwest Passage, but it was the unrelenting dialect that made me put it down, not the length.

Length has cost me some contracts as my two best books both ran over 100,000 words. They have found a home at L & L Dreamspell. My first historical, Queen of the Mardi Gras Ball at 113,560 words, will be coming out in early 2012. Wish for a Sinner, already published, was originally 108,700 words. I cut it back to 103,000 in a vain attempt to get it under that magic 100,000 word barrier, but could not go the rest of the way. Its length was one reason it kept getting turned down. Thank heaven, the lovely ladies at Dreamspell feel length doesn't matter. It's what you do with it that counts. No, no, don't bombard them with your 700,000 word tomes. They are a small press and aren't accepting manuscripts right now. But know that here and there, people who like a good, long story do exist even if we are headed toward extinction. As for me, I did manage to bring the manuscript of Kicks for a Sinner in at 90,000 words. That was a close one!

Retreat

In May, I attended my first writers' retreat in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Being one of the lucky ones who has ample time to write, I did not go there to create but rather to smooze with publishers, editors, and my fellow writers. Besides, I also got to visit my daughter, mother and two sisters on the trip and still use it as a tax write-off. How great is that!

While the information on query writing, synopses, etc. was a little elementary for me, I did enjoy the murder mystery evening used to point out how carefully mysteries must be plotted, the side trip to Biltmore Houses to explore the world of the super-rich, and the great dessert trays (the last a little too much). Gained five pounds on this trip. Best of all, I loved meeting the publishers and editors I've known only by the names on their e-mails. I came away with a request for a partial, an e-reader won in a raffle, and many new friends.

I followed the retreat with a visit to the Randolph Writers group who gave me a lovely welcome and listened avidly to my "Adventures in E-publishing" talk. Since I was in the area, I contacted several groups to see if they might want a free lecture. These wonderful folks were the only takers. I'd like to think the others missed out on a fine opportunity. Didn't mind if they don't want me to speak, but a "No Thanks" note would have been nice in several cases. Ah well, that's the way it goes in the life of a writer. The Randolph Writers invited me back. I'll try to get there after my historical novel comes out in January and give them a new lecture, "Writing the Historial Novel-Pitfalls and Pleasures".

Meanwhile, back to polishing the draft of Kicks for a Sinner, soon to be sent off to my editor. I admit I'd rather be writing than retreating most days, but it did provide a refreshing break, and I wrote the last few chapters of Kicks in my mind on the long journey.

Headless Torsos

No, I do not write gruesome suspense novels, only light contemporaries and historicals, rarely gory. Recently, I participated in a discussion on another blog about the tendency for romance covers to feature only the torso of a deliciously muscular male, always shirtless and headless, usually legless, too. In fact, both my sports novels, Goals for a Sinner and Wish for a Sinner, have such in your face, eye-attracting covers. I admit, the first one shocked me as I considered my story to be light and funny, not hot and heavy. A meek protest to the publisher resulted in the standard reply, "Honey, this is what sells." Of course, the second cover was pretty much the same, and I guess when Kicks for a Sinner comes out it will feature a beautiful headless torso,too, or maybe just a pair of really great male legs.

I've learned to live with my covers by joking about them, telling folks that is my much younger husband and such. I do worry that readers seeking a really hot read will be disappointed, though there are certainly some sex scenes when the plot calls for them. I am also concerned that women who might enjoy the story are too embarrassed to pick up the book. A supportive cousin who works at a library, bless her heart, offers readers book covers for my works. I even looked into getting some plain brown wrappers with just the titles and my name embossed on them. Afterall, Goals for a Sinner could be mistaken for a religious tome as well. Still looking into that.

The Bad Review

Honestly, as an author I have grown the hide of an alligator. But even alligators can be injured if you shoot them in the eye. I can endure agents not liking my voice. That's individual taste. Or just not caring for my genre or how I presented my story. I still get wounded when someone doesn't like my characters. They are like my children. Please don't call them ugly. Recently, I received a poor review on Wish for a Sinner. Okay, the reader still gave me an average grade. All the others have been higher. However, she hated every major character. After I cried on the shoulder of my grown journalist daughter who understands, I did go back and check this person's other reviews. Mostly, she likes paranormal romance and is cool towards other forms of the genre. So I give her credit for even trying a sports romance. It was not her thing. Arrogant athletes and the women who tame them don't stack up the same against sympathetic vampires and loving werewolves. I do feel better now.

Another that hurt was a rejection from an editor who said one of my beloved but unpublished Regencies was merely Jane Eyre rewritten. True, I have read Jane Eyre many times, one of my favorites, so it is possible some of that flavor crept into my story. I can swear, however, that Jane Eyre never had sex with Mr. Rochester prior to marriage, and just because a heroine is plain and a hero brooding does not make them Jane and Mr. R. My gal is a tart-tongued spinster who bullies a man back to health and falls in love with him of course. If you reject all arrogant masters of the manor and plain women characters, there goes half the romance genre into the waste basket. I've never sent that story out again though I do still love it. Just want to protect my ugly children.