My Recent Comments

Congratulations Lauren!!!!!!  That's fabulous news!

 JT

Sorry to hear about the R, but it's fabulous that they gave you some feedback to work with.  That stuff can be invaluable.

JT

Welcome to the group, Tracy, and congratulations!!!!!  :) 

Well, ms is off and away (after a slight delay with the customs form which I flubbed --oops) and I'm better now.  LOL.  A little panicky in the car and boy do those fear sound familiar in the post about sending in the Nocturne!  I read through the MS one last time as I was printing it and I kept thinking, oh geez, is this sexy enough?  How does the hero come across?  Is the heroine okay?  Is the story strong enough?  Ack!  So many doubts, so little time.  And now, it's out and gone and mailed and doubts don't matter any more. 

The important thing is on to the next one.  The big question is... which one first!?  So many ideas to choose from.  I have one that's calling to me though, so I think I'll tackle that one next.  The heroine has been uber impatient and seems like a real pistol!  I almost feel sorry for the hero.  ;)

 Oh, and Jules?  Don't sweat catching up on Jason and Liz... they haven't been on since they broke up a few weeks ago.  Sigh.

JT

It's the funniest thing.... I wasn't nervous at all this whole weekend after getting the letter (just excited!) and now the butterflies have set in.  LOL.  I'm so going to hyperventilate at the post office.  I'll have to add paper bag to my checklist of things to take with me. ;)

JT

Thanks, everybody!  It's so funny to be in such a rush to send it off knowing you're in for another long wait.  LOL.  But I've got my fingers crossed that -- even if it's not exactly right -- they'll be open to revisions.  So I'm crossing my fingers.

JT

Wouldn't you know it?  The week I'm away from home the letter comes.  LOL.  Fortunately I have very lovely family who drove it over for hand delivery.   :) 

I just got a full manuscript request on the partial I submitted to Blaze last summer!  WEEEEEEEEEEEE!

JT

So sorry about the rejection, but like so many people have posted here, that offer?

I've an offer to work directly with an editor and they are keen for me to submit something new.

Is amazing!  It's one most authors would kill for and (speaking in a large scale publishing terms) rare.  So many authors wind up with a typical rejection or a letter kind of pointing out things that leave them scratching their heads... so the opportunity to work directly with an editor who is encouraging you to submit something new and that they are keen on you submitting more?  Tells me two very important things -- you write well and they LIKE you.

 That's quite a foot in the door!  Congrats!

 JT

Lordy, I so want to walk into a bookstore and see my name on a book cover.  I want to be standing there when someone picks it up, reads the back cover... flips to that first page for a read (like we all do, you so know it!) and then goes, Huh, and drops it in their basket.  :D  I want to have a review on Amazon.com -- good or bad -- and I want to be able to say, "I wrote that!"

I want to write a book people will love and keep on their bookshelf instead of turning in for store credit at the local used bookstore.

I want to write a story that -- when you read that last page -- actually "Awwww" aloud as you close the book.  Gotta heart that Awww Factor.

 Oh!  Oh!  ETA: I want to make enough this year with my writing to have to declare taxes on it so I can put "self-employed: Writer" down.  How's that for a goal?  Pay more taxes!  LOL!

 Those are my goals.

And Dee?  So with you on the brain dead thing.  Sigh.  I've been writing a long, long time (romance for shorter, but still) and the last year?  Dead.  Nary an idea.  And those I did get I had to really struggle with.  I'd get characters but no plot.  Plot but no characters.  No zing.  No zest!  I feel like I'm coming out of it though and now I don't know which project to turn to first!  Kind of nice, actually, but now bad writing habits (or should I say bad "non writing" habits - those things that prevent you from getting AIS (ass in seat) and just writing) have become common place.  Yuck!  So I have to train myself all over again.

Oh, and the Bad Writing thing.  I once read in a book - don't remember which one -- Give Yourself Permission to Write Badly.  It's why Revisions were created.  First drafts are supposed to bite.

Did you know the average book goes through 7 revisions before it's "done"?

JT

Sue -- that's exactly the aspect of one of my Blaze ideas that I'm looking at.  Is it "sexy" enough a concept to sound like a Blaze?  My other ones definitely have that sexy vibe to them with potential, but this one... the hero and heroine are more advisaries than any other book, but I'm hoping that they will feel a strong enough attraction toward the other that their sparring will give them opporunity to combust.  LOL.

 JT

{{{Jodie}}}  Hang in there! 

And yeah, back in the saddle again for another story.  I keep picking at the plots.  There's always some part of it I haven't explored, or some aspect of the plot that gives me pause to think, Hmmm... is this a Blaze?  And I have so many, I'm tempted to break my #1 Rule of working on one story at a time and maybe just write the first 3 chapters of all of them and see which one eventually grabs me.  Sigh. 

Anybody do their stuff backwards when they start writing their stories?  I usually come up with the blurby pitch first (that winds up sounding like the back of the book), which gives me my hook and gimmick for the story... which often leads into hooks for the plot... which leads into more character development.

JT