Murder She Writes

From 8:30 to 3:30 every weekday I’m busy trying to convince middle school students they WANT to understand grammar. It’s a losing battle. But I won’t bore you with that mundanity. After I get home, my night goes something like this.

5:00–Read emails and reply to the most urgent ones.

5:30–Fight off the urge to reply to every other email and instead go work on a blog post for my site, Trapped by the Mormons.

6:00–Reread the blog post and decide it’s stupid. Delete it and start over.

6:30–Finally come up with a blog post that is decent, but get sidetracked before finalizing it by homework with children.

7:00–Referee a loud discussion over whether or not Dancing Child or Soccer Girl left the gum wrappers on the floor of the living room. Determine it was Invisible Nonexistant Child instead.

7:15–Finally go to post blog post, only to discover it has mysteriously disappeared.

7:16–Scream in agony.

7:18–Make a drink.

7:20–Start over.

8:00–Finish blog post, which is not nearly as clever or funny as original one that computer ate (or at least I tell myself that).

8:15–Time to write.

8:16–Time for children to fight again.

8:17–Small nervous breakdown.

8:20–Back to work. Get about two pages written amid numerous interruptions.

9:00–Go back to email, make sure I answer all necessary mail.

9:30–Eyes will no longer stay open. Time for bed.

On weekends, my days go something like this.

8:00–Straighten House

8:30–Take advantage of peace and quiet (children are still sleeping) and write for a good hour.

9:30–Children drag selves from beds and begin making noise.

9:31–First meltdown of day as Soccer Girl tells Dancing Girl she was in the living room first, and thus will watch the cartoons SHE wants to watch. Never mind we have more televisions in this house than we have children. They both want the same one.

9:35–Enjoy RELATIVE quiet (“TURN THAT TV DOWN”) for another hour or so, then chaos visits as children are instructed to get off their butts and do their Saturday chores.

11:00–Children are in their rooms, supposedly cleaning, and another hour or so of productive writing occurs. I do not check rooms, preferring instead to live in fantasy world because it’s quiet and I can write.

Noon–Lunchtime for kids, who have suddenly lost all feeling and movement in their arms and legs and are totally incapable of making their own meals.

12:30–Back to computer, getting side tracked by instant messages and email.

1:00–NO NO, fight against the Jewel Miner game. FIGHT HARD. DO NOT GIVE IN. STAY AWAY FROM POGO.
Another half hour of good writing.

2:00–Dancing Girl has ballet, so we are off. Takes a half hour to get there (can you not find a CLOSER dance team?). Wait an hour there, pretending I am going to write on laptop, but mostly chatting with other dance moms and spending money I don’t have in dance store.

4:00–Back home, and husband has plans for the evening, so writing/working time is over.

Now for Special Occasions, otherwise known as GOOD GOD, THIS DEADLINE IS CLOSE!!

Send husband away with children, giving them clear instructions NOT to return for hours. Sit at computer, with Internet turned off, and write like a mad woman.

Ain’t it glamorous?

1  1

The Murder She Writes theme for this week is A Day in the Life…

5:40 – Get up and stumble into the shower before I realize what the heck I’m doing. Think of coffee. Oh wait; they are digging our pool today! Cool! We planned this for two years and now it’s really happening. But wait, I have a book due in six weeks, I have to work. Dang.

7:00 – Guys are showing up to dig the pool. I get my youngest son off to school and start going through my email. Did I mention that my husband took the day off? He’s roaming through my office (okay, fine, my office is the dining room and pretty easy to roam through). He needs the camera and is fretting about the men getting the tractor though the access area next to the house. He’s sure the tractor won’t fit.

9:00 – We sign off on the pool design. They start to dig. It’s amazing, but they drive the tractor through the access area with a whole inch to spare. These guys are good at this! Wait, isn’t there something I have to do today? Like, umm, do a massive rewrite on my book due in six weeks? Maybe I’d better check my email in case my editor emailed me. And have more coffee. Then I’ll pull up the file and get started writing.

11:00 – I’ve written a whole page. Sort of. Okay, I revised a page by changing a couple sentences. But still it’s progress. And wow, the pool is really coming along! Husband needs the computer to download the first pictures. Sure, sure, I need coffee anyway. I get coffee and stand at the window watching the guys.

Noon – I eat lunch with husband then decide that before I get serious about writing, I will email pictures for the dig to a few people. Done with that, I grab a Diet Coke and get settle back into work. The book had a couple major problems on the first draft. I need to concentrate. This book is a sexy romantic mystery—interestingly enough, the sex scenes just need a little fine tuning, it’s the mystery and character back-story that needs the most work. I make the decision to move one scene and set up the motivation of the killer a little more…

1:15 – My agent calls.

“You’re a fan of NASCAR right?”

Uh, I’m desperately trying to shift gears and figure out why my agent is asking me this. My brain is so deep into Wes and Holly that it takes me a couple seconds to shift gears. NASCAR? Oh, the proposal! I wrote a proposal with a NASCAR hero. “Actually, my husband’s a big fan and I’m interested because I’m exposed to it constantly. Plus, NASCAR drivers make really cool heroes.”

My agent says, “Okay that will work. I’m writing the cover letter for your proposal for Kate (my editor).”

“Okay, great.” We say goodbye and hang up. Then I start thinking about the NASCAR proposal. A while back, I wrote a novella featuring a NASCAR hero and people asked me to write more. So I wrote this proposal, but I’m not sure it’s something my editor will be interested it. But the characters really have potential, and there’s a little four year old girl in the book that has captures my heart, and she’s going to capture the heroes although he doesn’t realize it yet…

HELLO! Book due in six weeks, snap out of it! I drag myself out of the conversation with my agent and look at my screen.

My husband yells. “Jen! You’ve got to come see how far along they are! The hole is huge.”

“Good,” I mutter, “It’ll be a perfect place to bury my career.” But I get up and go look. Wow! It’s at least half dug. And the two guys taking turns operating the tractor are amazing; they literally turn that thing on a dime. I wonder what I could do with a pool dig in a book?

Wait. Book. Due. In. Six. Weeks! Screw the Diet Coke, I get some more coffee and go back to my computer.

2:10 — I’m deep into the scene when the phone rings again. This time my husband answers it so I ignore the whole thing until he comes into my office. “Your boss is on the phone.”

I look up and try, again, to shift gears. “Boss? You mean Kate, my editor?”

Evil grin. “Your boss is on the phone.”

That’s what I get for being a smart ass. I always tease my husband that my boss is 3,000 miles away and I actually look forward to talking to her on the phone. All very true, I love my editor.

So I answer the phone. “Hi, Kate.”

“Did he just call me your boss? I’m not your boss! I’m your esteemed colleague.”

She’s really outraged on my behalf, which cracks me up. “Okay, tell you what, I’ll smack him, will that help?”

“Yes it will.”

“Done,” I look across the room and smirk at my husband.

Kate says, “So sales thinks we need to change the title of Wes and Holly’s book.” Then we settle into a fifteen minute conversation, agree on a possible title and finally hang up.

2:30 — Make a Cafe Vienna Coffee and get back to work.

5:00 – Pool is dug. We are really getting a pool! It’s so exciting. But the amazing thing is that I somehow got a chunk of work done.

My evenings are usually dinner, go to the gym three times a week, maybe do some copy edits, promotions work, or if I’m lucky, just read for fun, and then spend time with my husband and the kids if they are around.

The pool is nearly finished. I think all that’s left is plaster and clean up, but there’s supposed to be rain this week, so it’ll be a little while longer before it’s done.
The book is done and at my editors. I have no idea if she will like it or not. (Worry, worry, worry!)

It’s time to start a new book. The thing about choosing a career like writing is that it’s always going to require compromise. I work around whatever is going on in my life. I’m serious about my career, and I’ve been known to snarl at the family when they forget that I need to have time to work. Fortunately, my family is very cooperative, and they also remind me not to take myself too seriously. My husband and each of my three sons have the ability to make me laugh and remember why I always try to put them first.

More on book trailers later . . . (I’m writing an article for the RWR) . . . but in the meantime, enjoy my latest 30 second flash trailer for THE KILL.

THE SONG REMAINS THE SAME
If you’re thinking Led Zepplin you’re on the right track, the above was the title to my first book. (The Zep song not the disclaimer, although it should have been.) My first complete ms and my second one as well was hand written. I wrote TSRTS in high school. It was basically my fantasy played out on several yellow lined legal pads. My heroine’s name escapes me now but my hero, Dallas, will forever live in my heart. One day he will be resurrected. So the story opens with me ‘er my heroine at a motorcycle speedway where her brother raced flat track (funny, so did mine) anyway she meets up with the darling of the speedway, Dallas Turner, the golden son of the south. 18 year old heroine and Dallas fall madly in love, elope that same night after he deflowers her in the back of his glam van, and move into his palatial mansion outside of Richmond. He buys her a pet wolf, because she does after all have to have a companion during the day when Dallas is at his day time job of running Turner construction, the biggest company in the south. He has an ugly ducking sister who resents heroine’s natural charm and beauty. Heroine hijacks nasty sister one day takes her to a spa, shops ‘til they drop and voila, gnarly sister is beautiful and can’t thank heroine enough. Heroine is now pregnant, with twins of course. Her and Dallas smile and beam appropriately nine months later. Then tragedy strikes! While working on an oil rig in the gulf (did I mention Dallas had still another job? He was the it man for Turner Oil) Dallas falls into the warm gulf water. After the Coast Guard and Navy can’t find him, he is presumed dead.
Heroine is devastated and goes home to Maryland with her wolf and perfect twin babies where she is convinced by her senator father to follow her dream of modeling in New York. Hey, are y’all ready to puke yet? It gets better. Heroine goes to NYC sans the twins, not sure what happens to them, but she does take the wolf and takes a room at the Ritz until she can find a permanent place to live. Anyhoo after a mega shopping day, as she balances a skyscraper high pile of Gucci, Pucci and Givenchy boxes into the elevator with wolf, she bumps into a man, drops her boxes everywhere (oh my) including onto very rude and very sexy man, who bears a striking resemblance to Rod Stewart. With his British accented voice he sneers at her and she immediately gets into a huff (this is stellar conflict folks). OK, so I won’t bore you with the details but it gets way worse. Rod, er’ um hero number two sings to her at a Central Park concert and asks her to marry him in front of a gazillion people, tearfully she accepts, blah blah blah. Dallas miraculously turns up alive in the end and she has to make a decision. I bet you want to know who she picks, huh? No? OK, fine, then I won’t tell you.
So, Allison’s HOT LATTE ain’t got nuttin’ on TSRTS (sounds like I’m boasting, but, sigh, I am not). I still have this story, in a box labeled TO OPEN EQUALS DEATH. LOL it should say TO READ MEANS SUDDEN UNCONTROLABLE VOMITING. Writing TSRTS did teach me to begin and complete a story. My next story LEATHER & LACE (is there a theme here?), written 13 years later turned out to be 700 typed pages. I wrote it first in long hand, it took me two years. What to do with enough legal pads to stock the Supreme Court for the next decade? I faxed my mother the pages. And bless her heart she typed them out and faxed them back to me. After L&L I didn’t write again for ten years. Too much life happening. But while long and meandering, L&L a sexy story about a hot cop, set the pattern for what was to eventually follow. For me, my stories have always involved a little of me, and a little of who I hope to be. I’ve been my own work in progress and my writing bears witness to that. As I have matured so have my heroines, as I have toughened up so have my heroes. As I have learned proper grammar and sentence structure and taken Allison’s mantra ‘refuse the urge to explain’ to heart, my writing isn’t half bad these days. When I go back and read my earlier work to now, I’m impressed with my growth, I can’t wait t see what and how I’m writing five years from now.
And for the record, I sold after I wrote my fifth complete ms with a couple of false starts in between. I have enough folders full of rejection letters and snarky contest judge remarks to fill a room, ok, well not that many, but a lot.
So, ending the week with my story, what’s yours? Just how many ms’s did it take you to get to the big show, or if still on that journey, where are you?

I feel like I’m in Confession. I have to admit my deep, dark, scary secrets.

I almost lied. I almost wrote about the second book I wrote, a pretty good attempt at a romantic suspense, because, well, it was SOOOO much better than the first book I wrote (though the second book is still not publishable.)

But there are enough people out there who could catch me in the lie, so I decided to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Hot Latte. My heroine was a virgin. My hero was an alpha cop. (Please, please, shoot me now.)

My hero, Mark Travis, moves into the apartment below my heroine, a computer security expert. They get off on the wrong foot (mistaken identity–she thinks he’s an intruder. Can we get anymore cliche?)

My heroine, Leah Cavanaugh, has a stalker (though she doesn’t know it.) Every morning she goes to the corner coffee shop (hence the title Hot Latte) and the counter guy has the hots for her. But he’s a sicko. He’s also a rapist that my hero is trying to catch.

I had so much going on in this book I’m not surprised that it ended up being 120,000 words. First, my hero has an ex-girlfriend ala Fatal Attraction; my heroine has an ex-fiance who cheated on her because she wanted to save herself for her wedding day; the rapist/stalker lives with his mother . . . though he kills her at some point and she’s rotting in her bed; the rapist/stalker frames the hero … he kills Mark’s ex-girlfriend with a knife he stole from Mark’s apartment. Of course, it was very convenient that Mark had a huge fight with his ex in front of witnesses (please, please, stop the cliches!) . . . and while Mark is in prison cooling his heels, the killer kidnaps Leah and takes her to a cabin in the mountains for a make-shift wedding ceremony, complete with the wedding dress of his dead mother. Oh, and he destroyed Leah’s apartment and made it look like he killed her in order to buy time.

Oh, yeah! I almost forgot . . . there was this subplot going on where the heroine’s ex-boyfriend was stealing company secrets and she found out about it and turned him in, then he tracks her down with his cronies and forces her to transfer millions of dollars from the company to his off-shore bank, until Mark comes in and saves the day. But in the ruckus, Leah’s brother (an ex-marine turned priest–I know, I know, please stop laughing) is shot and almost dies.

To give me a little teeny-tiny amount of credit, I did have a request from a reputable agent for the full manuscript. She sent back the cover letter three weeks later with one word: SUPERFICIAL (double-underlined, in case I missed the point.)

Ouch.

This was before I discovered RWA, before I found a critique group, before, well, before I knew ANYTHING about writing a book.

But I HAD finished a book. Cliches, head hopping and stereotypes aside, I had written an entire book and realized a dream. When I finished Hot Latte, I knew I COULD finish a book. No longer did I want to be a writer, I was a writer.

And not all was lost. I really liked Mark Travis. He came to life for me, and I was able to resurrect him in my upcoming release, THE KILL. Mark became Zack Travis, a very focused alpha cop. Zack has more depth than Mark, he has a backstory (when I wrote Hot Latte I didn’t even know what backstory was!), and he’s smarter.

I’d tried to rewrite Hot Latte because I really liked my characters. But the more I worked on it, the more convoluted it became. It just didn’t work. It was much easier to write a completely new book than to save this one.

I sold my fifth completed manuscript. Each book I wrote before THE PREY taught me something about myself and about writing. I don’t consider any of them a waste of time. In fact, I wouldn’t be where I am today without the trial and error of Hot Latte, Protecting Hart, Watch Your Back, Fatal Secrets, and the thirty-some books I started since 2002 but never finished. (Not to mention the hundreds I began before then!)

Some people sell their first book. Most don’t. But as long as you’re learning and improving with each story, none of them are a waste of time.

The first book I wrote was Family Inheritance, and I wrote it on a dare. A good friend of mine egged me on about writing after I made an offhanded comment about wanting to write a book some day. I’d had a story idea milling around in my head for a while and thought it might make a cool book. Within the confines of a half hour, his egging went from, “Well, then you should write it,” to “I dare ya to write it!”

So, what the hell, I wrote the book.

As I neared the end of those few hundred pages, I thought, “Now what?” Surely I didn’t just hammer out all those words to let them sit in a drawer somewhere…. Well, I did a bit of research on publishing and discovered that in order to go anywhere in this business you needed to be published by a New York house, but to get a NY house you needed an agent. So, in my naivety, I said, “Simple enough,” and went about finding an agent. I’m really thankful I didn’t start going to writers’ seminars prior to that because I might not have ever sent anything out. Too many doomsayers and pessimists. (Yes, it is difficult to get an agent, but it’s not impossible.)

So again, because I didn’t know any better, I looked in a directory for agents who handled work similar to my own and found fifty-two of them. Now although the agent guide said to only send what the agent asked for as per their listing, (i.e. query only, query and synopsis, synopsis or sample chapters), it just seemed too unproductive to me. Everyone wanted something different. So, I decided to put fifty-two of the same packets together. A query letter and three sample chapters. Okay, so I wasn’t sending only what they asked for, but what was the worst that could happen? They’d say no, right? I could live with that.

Surprisingly enough, out of those fifty-two packets, I received 32 hand-written rejections, ten, “I’d like to see the full manuscripts”, and ten form letters. Each of the ten who’d asked for the full manuscript also asked for an exclusive read. They also said it could take up to four months, if not longer, to respond. Once again I’m faced with a very unproductive situation. So, once again, I do what I think is more productive. I send all ten agents the full manuscript at the same time. Again I’m thinking…what’s the worse that can happen? They’d say no. Okay, I could live with that.

Out of those ten requests, five agents called, asking to represent me. I had to let each know they weren’t the only one asking. Only one got kind of pissy, but that didn’t last long because I told him no. In the end, I interviewed all five and chose the one I have now. She won based off her sales, longevity in the business, and the excellent reputation she had with editors.

In the end, I’d say I lucked out with the agent and publisher. But the writing aspect of the whole process didn’t have anything to do with luck. It had to do with a dare.

The first book I ever wrote was SISTERWIFE. After I finished it—at least for the first time—I discovered I didn’t know a whole lot about writing books. I found a great critique group, submitted the novel to it, and then proceeded to extensively rewrite the book. It was a great learning experience. But I had started off on the wrong foot—the one called AMATEUR—and so that book was doomed to a quiet death. While it was released first by Booklocker, which is self-publishing, and then by Zumaya, a very small POD publisher, and all told sold about 500 copies, it is no longer available.

Leaving SISTERWIFE behind was a hard lesson to learn. How do you know when to walk away? I’m not sure I know the answer to that, even now, but I do know that sometimes you DO have to walk away. But that wasn’t an easy decision to make, since I had written another book, a sequel, called TWISTED SISTER. I did like the idea of writing a series with the characters I created, because, well, I liked them! But I had loftier goals, and after I sold WIVES AND SISTERS, I decided that selling the first series was not in my best interest, even though Zumaya wanted to publish TWISTED SISTER.

Now, before you start to think I really AM hung up on SISTER as a title, let me explain. I planned on writing the “Sister” series. SISTERWIFE, TWISTED SISTER and SECRET SISTER. That was all. I did not intend to write books with SISTER in the title the rest of my career.

But when I sold my third book, OUTER DARKNESS, to St. Martin’s Press, the title was changed to WIVES AND SISTERS. That one wasn’t my call. I PROMISE. Due to the contract I signed, SISTERWIFE was still available when WIVES AND SISTERS came out. Boy, did I feel stupid.

My next book with St. Martin’s is called BEHIND CLOSED DOORS WITH MY SISTER. Just kidding. It’s BEHIND CLOSED DOORS. No more sisters.

So, that’s the story of my first book/books.

The Murder She Writes gals got together for a brief meeting and decided to try “themes” for each week. This week, I think we’re are doing First Books. I was there at the meeting, really, but my attention sort of wandered.

Okay that’s not true.

I panicked.

I have to blog about my FIRST BOOK? I mean are they sadistic? I thought about cheating and assume they meant my first PUBLISHED book. But Allison, Deb, Natalie and Karin are very smart and would know. And if you’ve read their books, you know they are not a group of women you want to mess with.

So here goes…

I have four and a half books that didn’t sale. Well, one did sell to an E-Publisher, but that was not a great experience for me so I think I’ll ignore that little episode. I wrote my first book about 12 or 13 years ago. It was a historical romance set in the late 1800′s in Texas. My mom was born and raised in Texas on a ranch, so I borrowed from her and went to work. I think it took me about 9 months to write the first version of that book. My first title was THE REGAL LADY.

Yeah, I know, not exactly Texas (or Western), is it?

What the heck was I doing? I’ll tell you, I was learning. And I was imitating bits and pieces of books I’d read. I’ve always been a voracious reader, and I think many of us in the beginning imitate others until we find out own way. So I sent the book out and it actually got some attention. But thankfully, it didn’t get published.

Then a friend told me a hard truth. She took me to lunch and gently told me that my heroine in the book didn’t do anything. Everything in the book happened to her, but she did nothing. She was sort of like a victim on a porch swing just waiting for the next tragedy.

Ugh.

But she was right. I ripped that book a part, rewrote it and it was better. My husband read it and came up with a new title LITTLE DARLIN’ I sent the book back out. More rejections. But man, I learned so much writing that book.

And in writing the next three and a half books:
THE LAWYER AND THE LAWMAN
THE LEGEND OF WITCH ISLAND
THE OUTLAW SEDUCTIONS
BEWITCHING THE PIRATE (half finished)

At this point, about three things finally dawned on me (1) I don’t really have a historical voice (2) every book had a bit of a murder mystery in it and (3) my natural writing voice has a humorous edge to it.

Duh. Maybe I should try writing a fun contemporary murder mystery. I did, it sold and here I am.

But of all the books I wrote, I learned the most from my first book. I would not change one day of all the writing and rewriting. It’s where I learned my craft, started developing my instincts and voice, and it’s where I made my biggest mistakes. But it was also where I got off my backside and went after my dream of being a writer. The fact that I completed the book meant I was a writer. The fact that I them rewrote and improved the book meant I was improving my craft.

The next four books meant that I am as stubborn as my family claims, but it also led me to the book that sold. They were stepping stones.

Of all the unsold books I wrote, THE LEGEND OF WITCH ISLAND is my all time favorite. It would have to be seriously rewritten to sale, and I don’t see that happening, but I loved that book.

To make our dreams come true, we all have to take that first step!