Are you enjoying the new design on the new WordPress blog/website? I hope so! As the McDonald’s people say, I’m loving it.

I was a bad blogger for a bit as I waited for my new design to go up, and a few things have happened since we last met. For one thing, I finaled in another contest (I first finaled in the Cleveland Rocks Romance Contest), the Winter Rose Romance Contest. I also entered more contests because I have Contest Fever, apparently. I entered a contest sponsored by the Alaska Romance Writers called the Break-Up Contest. You send in your best break-up scene–how fun is that? How could I possibly resist? I rewrote the big break-up in THROWN and liked it even better, so I might use the contest entry as the real thing. I find out about this one in early July.

I also entered the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers contest, another contest where you send in the first 25-30 pages of your manuscript. And finally, I plan to enter a similar contest sponsored by another local Romance Writers of America chapter, the Denver Romance Writers. That deadline’s in mid-May.

But that’s IT, I swear. No more contests for a while. Honest. No really. I mean it.

Besides the contests, guess what else is going on? I’m now an RWA PRO! PRO status means you’ve gotten to the point where you’re ready to send your story out to agents. I sent my query letter to an RWA-approved agent, sent in the application to the RWA (along with my manuscript), and voila! Now I get to sign up for pitch sessions at the RWA conference in Manhattan in June a week earlier than non-PRO members, and I can attend a PRO workshop at the conference where they will doubtless teach me the secret handshake.

And finally, Joanne Kennedy, RITA Award nominee and all-around fabulous author, has finished reading THROWN! We are going to meet for lunch in Fort Collins (halfway between Cheyenne–where Joanne lives–and Denver), and I’m going to pay for a lavish lunch and Joanne is going to share her vast wisdom with me. I will then revise my manuscript if I agree with her suggestions, which I’m guessing I undoubtedly will, as we share sensibilities. And then I will be ready to submit to agents and editors, and pitch to those agents and editors at the RWA conference.

All this also means I haven’t been writing all that much. I’ve been revising LOVE IN THE TIME OF COLIC some, but my real focus is on THROWN and making a serious push to get it published.

Oh, and today I met a little girl at the barn where Brooke lives who looks exactly like Wave, the 8-year-old in THROWN! How weird is that?

Hope you enjoyed reading this update, and thanks for your support, as always.

This is today’s post on Roni Loren’s most excellent blog, Fiction Groupie. I thought y’all might be interested.

A New Way to Find Critique Partners

I get a good bit of email via this blog asking me questions. And I have to say one of the most popular questions I get asked is–can you critique my work? This is closely followed by–where do I find beta readers/crit partners?

These are tough questions to answer because, well, on the first one the answer is usually no. For me to thoroughly crit one chapter for someone, I usually need 1-2 hours. Seriously. I’m detailed. You’ll feel like you’ve had a proctology exam. And between blogging, writing on a deadline, being a mom and wife, I just honestly don’t have the time these days. I even had to leave my own crit group last year because I couldn’t dedicate enough time to be an active participant. So now I just exchange with a few trusted betas when I can.

However, just as a sidenote and a shameless self-promotion, Kat Brauer will be auctioning off a crit from me over at Crits for Water in May. All proceeds will go to an awesome charity that provides clean water to countries where that is hard to find. Deets coming soon. But I hope some of you will bid on little ol’ me.

*back from our commercial break* Okay, so I need to address the follow up question of–where the heck do I find crit partners? (Because you need them, you here? NEED them. Do not go submit your work without having beta readers WHO ARE NOT RELATED TO YOU, ARE NOT YOUR BEST FRIEND, AND ARE NOT SLEEPING WITH YOU give you feedback. Don’t do it.)

In the past, I’ve referred people to message boards, I’ve done matchmaking here on the blog and on Twitter (rather successfully in fact. *waves at all the crit lovebirds*), but really my advice usually came down to “you have to network”. Get to know people through writing groups, your blog, twitter, whatever.

But now there is a new option that I’m so excited about. Penguin has launched Book Country. This website is a new place for writers (and readers) to go to post parts of your work (only members can view it) and get feedback from other writers. It’s social networking and critiquing all wrapped into one.

For any of you following Colleen Lindsey on Twitter, this is the Sekrit Projekt she was always talking about. I had the opportunity to see her speak about it a few months ago when she presented at the DFW Writer’s Workshop, so I’ve been waiting with bated breath for the public launch so I could share the info with you guys.

I’m not going to go into how the site works (more info on that here), but the cool thing about it is this awesome genre map that lets you code your work on genre, heat level, and humor level. So people who are looking for what you write can easily find it. Also, it’s a setup that forces give and take because you can’t get crits until you give some. Love that.

And….it’s free! Yay for that.

So go check it out. Maybe you’ll find a crit partner match made in heaven. 🙂 If nothing else, playing with the genre map alone is super entertaining.

So have you had trouble finding crit partners? If you have some where do you find yours? Anyone try Book Country yet? And if you’re looking for a crit partner, feel free to put your genre and email address in a comment below–maybe this can act as some more matchmaking!

Welcome to my newly designed blog/website! I’ll write a proper post soon–I haven’t had new posts lately due to my new design. But I wanted to check out the new digs before too much time passed.
And a big THANK YOU to Jean Ditslear of Redwall Communications (redwallcom.com), who customized this so beautifully for me. Ain’t it the coolest? (Like Jean herself.)
Check back soon, and I’ll post the announcement of a new post on Facebook and email.
As always, thanks for visiting.

I have to say, I’ve never uttered those three words in my life, but I am tonight. It all started with an email I got this morning. In January I’d entered the Northeast Ohio Romance Writers of America’s (NEORWA) Cleveland Rocks Romance Contest. The big draw for the contest was it was only open to unpublished authors, and you didn’t have to submit a synopsis, just the first 20 pages or so of your story. (I love writing my novels, but I’ve resisted writing a synopsis. I’ll have you know I’ve written one over the past weeks. It was a Herculean effort, but now that I’ve done it, I feel like maybe I can split a few atoms in my kitchen.)

Over this past weekend, for whatever reason I remembered that they were going to announce the finalists in April, and I checked the website. Sure enough, April 4th was the big day. I wish I hadn’t looked, because then I was bummed on Monday (the 4th) when I didn’t hear anything. I hadn’t counted on anything, but certainly I had this tiny glimmerette of hope. When I didn’t hear anything, I thought, “Oh, it’s just a contest from CLEVELAND, for heaven’s sake. They can’t even keep their river from catching on fire.” (This was somewhat easier to think because I’m a Steeler fan.)

And then, and THEN, I got an email today (April 5th) telling me I’m one of three finalists in that wonderful contest from that wonderful city! The final judge is Alicia Condon, a romance editor at Kensington Publishing. I just hope Alicia likes movie stars and horses! I’ll know if I’ve won on May 14th, when the NEORWA has its annual Cleveland Rocks Romance Conference.

Now, I have no idea how many entries the Cleveland Rocks contest attracted. But I don’t care. I feel terrific that I am a finalist in the very first writing contest I’ve ever entered, so I’m just going to pretend there were FIVE MILLION entries. The great thing about this is, now I can say in my query letters that I was a finalist in a contest, and the final-round judge—an editor at a major independent publisher—will be forced to read the beginning of my novel!

Cross your fingers, press your thumbs (if you live in the Czech Republic), light some candles, send Ms. Condon a new iPad, whatever you have to do. Help me win!!

And, as always, thank you for your support.

Speaking of contests, my lovely friend and brilliant romance author, Joanne Kennedy, has an even bigger reason to celebrate. Her ONE FINE COWBOY was nominated for a RITA award, the Oscar of the romance novel world. I am soo happy for her, I feel like I was nominated! Yes I’m happy because I know a RITA nominee (which is really fun), but mostly because she is one of the nicest people on the planet. (And also because there’s all kinds of natural horsemanship in her book. Can you say “serendipity”?)

Let me tell you first that I made a typo as I typed the title of this post. Instead of “horses,” I typed “hores,” which made my eager-for-the-cheap-joke mind go straight to “whores.” Sounds like a fascinating blog post, but fortunately or unfortunately, it’s not one I am qualified to write.

Now then. Back to our regularly scheduled post.

I’ve been in love with horses for most of my life, so it’s little wonder my first novel features a bunch of them. Horses have taught me a ton over the years, but who knew they’d teach me about writing? It’s the patience thing.

Yes, you have to be patient with horses no matter what, but a few years ago I started studying natural horsemanship. If you want a crash course in patience—and I mean an advanced degree—try this. Ideally, you have to outwait a HORSE, and horses have all the time in the world and know it. I used to think I was a pretty patient person, but my horse ran circles around me, patience-wise. But practicing natural horsemanship and having to think like a horse has upped my patience quotient a thousandfold.

What does this have to do with writing a romance novel? As I journey along to get my book published, I’ve found that patience is a valuable arrow to have in my quiver. For one thing, just like when you’re looking for a job, you are, by and large, never the hiring person’s priority. Filling a position is typically a back-burner kind of thing. It’s the same with agents who are looking at your work—they don’t get paid to read queries or sample pages, they get paid for taking care of their current authors. Sure, yes, of course they want to find the next J.K. Rowling or Michael Chabon or (fill in successful author name here), but it’s a tough slog through the slush pile. Agents take months to read what you send them, and that can range from two to twelve months. Or more.  I learned at a recent workshop that it takes two-to-three years to get a novel from manuscript to bookstore shelf. And that’s AFTER you find an agent! In other words, traditional publishing is not for instant gratificationists.

With luck, my horse has prepared me for the wait.

Thanks for your support!

I am not published yet. I do not have an agent yet. But I feel like I’m making progress because two things that have never happened before happened recently.

But first, an update. I am rewriting the beginning of THROWN as per the recommendation of Sara Megibow, the agent who looked at it a coupla Sundays ago. It’s not QUITE there yet, but it is coming along nicely.

And now the first new thing. I emailed Gail Fortune, the agent from Talbot Fortune who is reading THROWN. I couldn’t help myself. I had to do something because although I am learning more patience from doing natural horsemanship (and that may well be the topic of a future post), I am going slowly mad. It’s a good lesson though, since the world of publishing moves at a glacial pace. In a way, it’s rather pleasant, since so much of our world is about instant gratification, with e-books, smartphones and just about everything “on demand.” Or at least that’s what I’m telling myself. I asked Gail about querying Sara, and also asked, in a roundabout way, about THROWN. That wonderful Gail emailed the very next day and said she’d likely finish in two weeks and would call me to talk about it. I couldn’t ask for more than that. VERY excited to talk to her—well excited and scared, as Little Red Riding Hood sang in Sondheim’s “Into the Woods.” (Pardon that reference, but Stephen Sondheim turned 81 this week. And I love him.)

The other nice news. My friend Joanne Kennedy, whose third novel COWBOY FEVER just came out, graciously asked to read THROWN. She asked this, knowing full well she had looming deadlines for her own novels, since she is a full-time writer (how jealous am I??). She hasn’t finished it yet, but thought it might be a good fit for her publisher, Sourcebooks. Apparently they like horses and humor (well, not like Mr. Ed…), and I know my book has horses (five), and I pray that readers will think it has more than five giggles in it. This means that I have to write a synopsis—the dreaded synopsis—but I am up for it. Needless to say, I was completely flattered.

More steps along the path.

Thanks for your support.

My first agent workshop is now in the history books. I attended it yesterday morning, which would have been daunting on the first day of Daylight Savings Time if I weren’t so darned excited. I had no trouble getting up. (Just ask Galley, who got his full and proper walk before I left.) I went extremely high tech and extremely low tech: I took my iPad loaded with my query letter and my manuscript; and I had my trusty Moleskine notebook, the one that helped me capture memories from my trip to Italy, ready to receive notes. (I hate typing on the iPad—since I can’t feel a keypad, I make all kinds of mistakes.) Further armed with a latte, I was ready to learn learn learn. Sara Megibow of the Nelson Agency here in Denver taught me and 29 of my closest writing friends as much as she could about publishing in the time allotted. I know a bit about the business from having worked in it for ten years, but that was more than a decade ago and I wasn’t in the editorial department at Warner, so my information was tangential at best. Now, with the increasing popularity of e-books and the burgeoning self-publishing craze, the publishing world is changing quickly. Sara told us scary statistics like last year she signed nine authors and sold five of the nine manuscripts to a publisher. Those nine authors, mind you, were culled from an initial query-letter pool of 36,000. Eek! In other words, it hasn’t gotten any easier to get your book published. She spoke to us about elevator pitches, or a two-sentence description of your book, kind of like an expanded logline on a movie poster. We went around the room and spoke aloud our elevator pitches for our books, and she liked mine! She had no edits. I was overjoyed. I was glad and happy. Being a copywriter doesn’t hurt when you’re trying to write an elevator pitch, but still. But. Later we lined up to show her our work or whatever else we wanted to show her. One hopeful author told me Sara had requested the first 30 pages of her manuscript. When I got to the front of the line, I was practically trembling, and it wasn’t from the latte. I handed over my iPad and stared out the window, praying to the literary gods to smile upon me. Apparently, the literary gods had neglected to turn their clocks ahead and were still asleep. Instead of asking for my first 30 pages, or the whole manuscript, or dropping to the floor, hugging my knees and begging me to sign with her on the spot, she, um, told me she thought I started my story in the wrong spot. She was very nice about it, mind you. Lovely, really. But my book wasn’t wowing her. Her socks remained firmly in place. Sigh. There went my glad and happy. (I actually watched the poor things slink out of the room.) But, as I told a friend, at least she didn’t tell me I’m a talentless hack and should burn my manuscript. I’ve been obsessing over where to begin, now that I must take a fresh look at my book. The journey continues…

One of the funniest people I know—Susan Wright—is from Dallas. So how fitting that I recently discovered a writing blog, Fiction Groupie, by a romance writer from Dallas, Roni Loren, whose debut novel CRASH INTO YOU, will be published by Berkley Heat in early 2012. I was so taken with her no-nonsense post on query letters—the cover letter you send to a literary agent to see if he or she would consider reading your manuscript—that I’ve reposted the meat of it here. Roni was at a writer’s conference, and took excellent notes during a workshop given by a panel of agents who “gonged” bad query letters.

If you’re not a writer you’ll never need this advice, but it’s fun to see what literary agents are looking for/repulsed by, and to get a behind-the-cover look at one of the first steps in book publishing.

Personally, I hope I’ll never have to write a query letter—because Gail Fortune, who is considering my manuscript even as I write this, will love love love THROWN more than life itself—but just in case, I’ll be ready.

WHAT COULD GET YOU “GONGED” BY AN AGENT
1. Opening with a question.
Most of us have heard this, but there was still a query in the bunch that did this. It got instantly gonged.

2. Vampires
You have to be REALLY REALLY different to get them to even consider another vampire novel.

3. Cancer
In and of itself, it may be an important issue in a book, but there were at least four queries where cancer seemed thrown in to up the dramatic effect. “There’s this and this and this! Plus, someone has cancer!”

4. Too many things/issues/characters/plotlines.
This was one that the agents said a lot. Stories that seemed to have too many different things going on, too many characters, or too many plotlines listed in the query lost their interest. Stick to the hook!

5. Describing your own writing.
Don’t tell them in your query that your story is fascinating, fast-paced, touching, whatever. Show them the story, not what you think of your own writing. One agent gonged out when the first sentence said “This is a fascinating story of…”

6. Cliches and tropes
Overused and tired phrases in the query got you gonged. If you’re using them in the query, the agents suspect they’ll be in your book. “Her life will be forever changed”…”The last thing she expected was”…”love is blind”…etc. Plus, cliched storylines as well—girl finding a diary with secrets, person finding a portal, romantic suspense where the wife suspects husband is up no good, the woman who loses her husband and goes  a small town to rebuild her life, etc.

7. Inauthentic voice
There was a YA one that used “awesome” “buttload” and “stupid” all in the first two sentences. It sounded like an adult trying to do teenspeak. Didn’t work at all.

8. Stuff Happens
Queries where there was a list of events but no hook or central conflict described.

9. Teens and the elderly
This is a bit random, but there were a few queries that were pitched at YA where the story is the teen gaining wisdom from an older person. They shot these down. Teens don’t want to read about old people. They don’t care what older people have to say when they are that age and so they aren’t going to want to read about that.

10. September 11th plotline
All the agents literally groaned. Some said it was still too close of a topic for them to personally work with. Remember, most of these agents live in NYC, 9/11 was a national tragedy but for those on the front lines realize that it’s got to be even more traumatic to relive.

11. Going on and on and on….(kind of like this post :p )
They want to hook, the main character(s), and what’s at stake. That’s really about it. Do not give a synopsis posing as a query.

12. If you do the “it’s this meets this” kind of hook, don’t use two movies. Use at least one book in the comparison to show that you are well-read in your own genre.
And don’t compare to the GIANT books. Twilight, Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Hunger Games—they’re used so much that the comparisons don’t meant anything anymore.

13. And finally, MAKE EVERY WORD SERVE  A PURPOSE and BE SPECIFIC.
So many queries had a whole lot of words but said nothing. It’s a tale of love and loss and redemption. Of good and evil. Of whatever other completely vague abstract concepts you can think of. That may be a theme in your story but that is not what it’s about. The agents want to know what your story is specifically about. Do not waste words talking about abstract things. Every word must give them something that you haven’t already said and that speaks to the uniqueness of your story.