I’m a year older now. Don’t feel it, sure don’t act it.

Hmm, I’ll take that back. Last week was a rush one with an editor requesting the full of COMMON BOND, getting it printed, off to her, then the wait. You can read the blow by blow on my March 8 blog on Writeminded.

As I was reading BOND, I couldn’t believe so much time had gone by since I’d first written this story. Seems a lifetime away since it finaled in contests, yet the book is so much better after my last rewrite. Even now it felt fresh to me.

Not perfect, mind you. In my opinion most novels benefit from editorial imput. Mine are no exception.

The majority of writers have trouble letting go of their work, me included. I can always see something else that should be done. I’ve woke up in the middle of the night with a better way to say or do something in a work that I entered in a contest, or submitted to an editor or agent.

I listen to my published friends describe their editorial revisions and hope I get the chance to improve my stories as well. Only time will tell.

That’s the thing about the writing life. Age isn’t a barrier. Neither is location or health (for the most part). Time often stands still while we’re deep into putting words on paper.

Writers write and submit to agent and editors. And then start the next book so they won’t go crazy waiting for a reply.

Readers hear of the overnight success stories. Those first books that are snatched up and the writer becomes rich and famous overnight.

Writers know it’s generally a long hard road to publishing. We write. We submit. And we wait for the call.

However long it takes.

After getting a fourth of my chicklit mystery written, I realized it wasn’t a true mystery. (Talk about a head-slapping thung moment!) I started getting a bit nervous when no dead body showed up early in the book. I was reader to knock someone off and get the murder underway, but it just wouldn’t happen.

Instead of murder, I’ve got people missing and blood. In fact, I still don’t have a murder. I don’t know where the people are either. Well not entirely. I think I know where one of them is holed up.

At any rate, Hello Chaos is chick thrill–a suspense but not that edgy drilling-the-fingers-into-the-chair read. I’ve written that type and I’ve got to say I like the difference in this type suspense where the reader suspects there’s danger, but doesn’t know just how big bad and ugly the bad guy can be at this point. Throws a different light on the read. (I hope.)

I’ve been writing this in first person point of view but that wasn’t working to the advantage of the plot or the characterization. At least it wasn’t doing it for me, so I changed the first four chapters from first to third person.

I like it better. It still had the same voice, bite and immediacy. But in first I could only tell you what my main character saw, heard or did. In third I can clue the reader in to what my hero (yum) and bad guys (boo!) are doing. And yes, I know I could’ve kept the heroine in first person and used third for the hero and other characters, but stickign with third throughout feels more natural.

So it’s time to get back to the writing and get my characters out of the nasty jam I just got them into and into another surprise. 🙂

Until next time…

I’ve written quite a few novels and have yet to write (or should I say plot?) two of them the same way. Admittedly part of the reason is my refusal to write anything resembling an exact formula or cookie-cutter idea which in my mind translates to boring.

But for the last few novels, I did write a brief synopsis and/or back blurb before I started chapter one. That I always partnered up with rough character lists (I don’t do charts). This time I didn’t bother with the outline or synopsis. Why?

In looking back over my previous works, I realized I hadn’t come close to that original premise in any of them. The stories evolved and the characters’ goals changed more often than not, so the synopsis was a waste of my time.

Let me clarify here. Before I started my current work, I figured out the initial goal, motivation and conflict of my major characters and kept that sentence GMC in front of me. But that’s a far as I went with anything resembling plot.

I opened a file, focused on my character and started writing. Now I’m seventy-five pages into the book and I’ve stepped back so I could take a good hard look at the story idea and determine if it’s worth developing.

It is, thankfully. So it’s full steam ahead with writing the rest of the book–after I draft that synopsis. At least now it should be more in keeping with the story promise. 🙂

Instead of forging ahead with my chicklit mystery today, I pulled up a historical romance file and read the first three chapters. Why, you ask?

Two reasons. I love this particular western historical romance–it took third place in two contests. And some time back, author Karin Tabke told me to query her editor with the work. Actually Karin said more on the lines of, “Get your ass in gear, Jan, and send BOND to my editor. ”

So this morning I went over COMMON BOND to check for errors (yes, after going over this countless times I found a missing period), and I paid attention to the voice and tone. The story still is my favorite–I love my cowboy hero BOND.

In my own defense, I did email Karin’s editor a couple of months back but I think my query got caught in a spam filter. And I bought into the fact that western historicals are nearly impossible to place.

Last night I listened again to last year’s RWA tapes — the publisher sessions. And guess what? Kensington admitted to liking cowboys. Yay!!!

There’s a small opportunity for BOND out there. So I took this morning to polish the partial of my baby and get it ready to mail.

Fingers crossed the editor loves it as much as my cps.

My hero whistles.

It came as a surprise to me. Yes, I don’t do extensive characters sketches–my characters evolve as I write. And this isn’t the first time one of my heroes whistled.

So why did my current hero Trent’s trait surprise me this time?

It’s not the fact he whistled, but how he whistles.

Cord, my cowboy hero from COMMON BOND, whistled ballads and whistled when he was herding cattle. He created a soothing tone, almost a wistful quality.

Not so for Trent. He can let out a piercing whistle, a reverberation that’ll make your ears pop. It’ll carry a mile. He doesn’t whistled tunes, but he can also perfectly mimic birdcalls.

My dad could do the same, though he did whistle songs on occassion. His unique loud whistle clearly remains in my memory, even though my dad died when I was a teenager. I’ve never heard anyone else whistle like him, so to have my hero do it startled me. I could probably do some psychobabble here and find other traits of my dad in Trent, but I don’t wanna play that game.

Back to whistling. I so envied my dad’s ability. I begged him to teach me how, much to my mom’s annoyance. Not that she had to worry about her tomboy daughter grasping the talent.

He showed me how he made the sounds, the curl of his tongue, how he set his mouth. He guided me through the process step by step.

I tried so hard to whistle like him. But all I produced was a weak squeak and a lot of spit.

That was years ago, but occasionally I try to whistle like Dad. Nada. Ain’t gonna happen for me, but as least I can teach a character the finer points.

As for the writing, I’ve got an eighth of HC behind me now. Hopefully I can pick up the pace and get this baby drafted!