My experience working with an editor.

This weekend I've been working with my editor on BITE ME, YOUR GRACE. On Sunday, she called me around midnight her time.

I'm all, "Wow, you're up late!"
She replies, "Well, I'm reading the most awesome book."
I'm about to say, "Oh yeah, I totally know how that is..." Then I discovered that she was talking about MY BOOK!

WOW, working with a professional editor is AMAZING! At first I was petrified at the intimidating prospect of one of the top romance editors in the country scrutinizing my work. I thought she was going to hate it. But she didn't. In fact, it was almost like talking with my critique partners. She had genius suggestions to make the book its very best. And when I disagreed with something, she didn't get grumpy. Instead we brainstormed together until we came upon a solution we both liked. And it was AWESOME!

I cannot believe how incredible it is to have a professional in the industry who loves my book, believes in it, and is on my side to help me make it shine.

Time zone differences can be tricky, though. :)

Anyway, I can't wait to meet her in person and give her a big hug!

Seeking the The "Holy Grail" of publication. (rerun post)

I'm going to share a few things I've learned about my journey using quotes from the movie, "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." Hey, someone did it with "Princess Bride."

"When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built in all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up. And that's what you're going to get, Lad, the strongest castle in all of England." 

Getting published takes determination and you likely won't succeed until your 3rd or fourth book.

  "Welcome, brave sir Knight. Welcome to the Castle Anthrax."  

"The Castle Anthrax?" 

"Yes... it's not a very good name, is it? Oh, but we are nice, and we'll attend to your every need."

A good title can get you far.

"Meanwhile, not more than two swallow's flights away, Arthur and Bedivere had discovered something. Oh, that's an unladen swallow's flight away, obviously. There were more than two laden swallow's flights away, four really, if they had the coconut on a line between them. I mean, if the birds were walking, and dragging the coconut..."

"Get on with it!"

Your plot needs good pacing and better not ramble.

"Oh, wicked, bad, naughty Zoot! She has been setting a light to our beacon, which, I've just remembered, is Grail shaped. It's not the first time we've had this problem." 

Be sure to always check submission guidelines to be sure that your manuscript is what they are looking for.

"First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin. Then shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who, being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it." 

Follow Directions!!!

"The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water, signifying by divine providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. THAT is why I am your king."
 

"Listen, strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony. 

"Oh, but you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you. If I went 'round sayin' I was Emperor, just because some moistened bint lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away."

You may have some credibility issues with your plot.

 "Go and tell your master that we have been charged by God with a sacred quest. If he will give us food and shelter for the night, he can join us in our quest for the Holy Grail."

 "Well, I'll ask him, but I don't think he will be very keen. Uh, he's already got one, you see."

They may have already bought something similar.

Finally, they may not be the right publisher for you. But if they do this, you should probably report them to Preditors and Editors.

The Sh*t Just Got Real.

Dio always knows the right thing to say. These are indeed words to live by...even though they're a little blurry.

Okay, so I finally got a book deal. Now that the ecstatic joy has gone down to a sane level, (okay, as sane as I can be) I need to begin focusing on what this means for me. The obvious being, no longer can I be considered by anyone (or myself on a bad day) a hobby writer.

Because, the sh*t is real now.

My editor said we have a lot of work to do: namely edits and working on my career path. As it says on their website: Sourcebooks publishes authors, not books.

Career...I haven't heard that word applied to me since I got my degree in automotive. A degree I can no longer use. However, I've been treating my writing as a career for the last two years. I've made self-imposed deadlines, gone through line edits with friends, built up a humble platform, and discovered the value of social networking (other than winning free books.)

But now it's a REAL career. The deadlines will be real, the edits will be through trained professionals who are not going to take it easy on me. My platform and social networking could impact my sales.

I know the work my editor referred to is going to be a lot more than revising BITE ME, YOUR GRACE. Speaking of, when I said that to my husband, he said, "But, I thought you edited it already." The house practically shook with my hysterical laughter.

Anyway, besides polishing that work, there's going to be a multitude of preparations before I make my debut. Namely, what project will be the next focus? No longer can I willy-nilly hop around sub-genres. Not right now, anyway. At first that sounds restrictive...until I remember the anxiety that came from: "What project should I work on next? I have one idea here, and another there!" Now, I will have guidance and help in shaping my personal brand. And that comes as such a relief.

What am I doing now, so early on my journey?

As you can see, I've deleted the progress bars for my other projects from my site until I figure out what I'm working on next. Also, I've finally figured out how to add pages to this blog. Aren't the tabs cute? Those pages are pretty bare for now, except for the one where I list my upcoming guest posts. Check it out. I got some good ones lined up already. The "books" tab is for now a source of happy daydreams of what's to come. As for the "About Me," I'm going to do my best to seem awesome. :)

Because my career is REAL now. Hey, do you think if I say that to the kids, they'll behave and let me work when they're around?

No? ::sigh:: That's what I thought.

Thanks to all who are here for me and been supportive of my journey so far. I'll pop back in and say "Hi" later. Now I gotta go to my Idaho Writer's League meeting, where Shelley Martin and I are interviewing everyone as their characters. To keep the Halloween spirit, we're also bringing some spooky goodies. I carved a pumpkin to "barf" up smoked salmon spread and made deviled eggs to look like eyeballs. Shelley's got pumpkin bread, lady fingers...and a chocolate fountain. It bears repeating: A CHOCOLATE FOUNTAIN. 

The Crazy Tale Of My 3-Book Deal!!!

Crazy as deep-throating a whole cake...with lit candles.

You guys have NO idea how hard it was to act like everything's been normal the last 2 weeks. Whew!

What am I talking about?

For those of you who missed my announcement on Twitter and Facebook this weekend: I ACCEPTED A THREE-BOOK OFFER FROM SOURCEBOOKS!!!!

How did I get it? Mostly by accident, with a lot of craziness....and a ton of hard work to write the manuscript and get it in its best possible shape.

Oh, and did I mention that I kinda-sorta wrote that book on accident?

I'd lost my career and my mother (that part was the worst) in five month's time and my attempts to query an earlier novel failed miserably. Half mad from grief, I took a gamble with my small inheritance to take a year off, research the industry better, perfect my craft, and write a better, more marketable manuscript.

I replaced my dinosaur computer with a laptop and got the internet. Wow, I learned a ton. The first thing: A writer NEEDS the internet. :) But I had little idea as to what to write.

I tried a brief stint as a financial adviser and though I learned a ton about finance, I was a complete failure at making a career out of it. But... I got THE idea.

My coworkers asked me what I wrote and I explained what paranormal romance was. Then I heard, "Oh, like TWILIGHT?" for the 100th freakin' time. As one who'd cut her teeth on vintage Anne Rice, Maggie Shayne, The Lost Boys, and the Subspecies movies, it kinda irritates me when people think TWILIGHT is the first vampire craze ever. I knew about Bram Stoker, but I was pretty sure the history went further back.

That's totally what Louis would think. :)

I took out my "Encyclopedia of the Undead" that my aunt got me in my goth days and found out that the first vampire story in English was written in the REGENCY period by none other than Lord Byron's physician, Dr. John Polidori. In fact, the story evolved from a ghost writing competition with Byron, Percy Shelly, and Mary-freakin'-Shelley. Frankenstein was another story birthed from that fateful night.

Polidori's tale spawned a vampire-craze all over western Europe long before Dracula, The Vampire Chronicles, Twilight, etc.

And he was CUTE too!

I adore regency romances! I've read Judith McNaught and Johanna Lindsay like an addict. Virginia Henley and Eloisa James are my heroes. I love rebellious heroines with unconventional dreams. I got to thinking....why was this vampire craze never mentioned in regency novels? Or Mary Shelley's work, for that matter?

I did a little more digging. How far had feminist literature progressed by then? In Georgian times, a famous work was: A VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN, by Mary Wollstonecraft. She was none other than MARY SHELLEY'S MOTHER!!! It was too delicious for words.

Imagine a regency heroine idolizing those women and wanting to write horror novels of her own. Then I got to thinking again about vampires. Wouldn't Polidori's story piss them off? Especially one trying to pose as a member of London Society?

As Stephen King would say: POW!!! And it all started with me trying to prove a point to people who probably didn't care.

Stephen King's my hero, too.

In a state of giddy delight, I finished the rough draft in less than three months. It was the most FUN I've ever had writing. Even better was that my beta readers had fun reading it.

I polished it up and wrote the query. I got a ton of requests right away, most complimenting the title....which was ALSO an accident. While writing the novel, I had no clue what to call it, so I gave it a joke title. My vampire was a duke, so I called it "BITE ME, YOUR GRACE."

But when I threw it out on Twitter, people loved it so much, even going so far as to say they'd buy it due to the title. So it stuck.

After having fulls with 8 agents, I signed with one. The others passed because the manuscript wasn't awesome enough...which proves I yet again queried too soon. Because the agent I signed with turned out to... Not really be much of one.  (I ask that you click on that link so you get that story without me having to make this post longer than it is.)

After that relationship ended, I took another gamble and inquired on the status of my submission with a few publishers and queried a few more. I didn't expect to get far with the inquiries, but figured I'd find a home for BITE ME, YOUR GRACE with a small respectable house. Still, both inquiries led to full requests and the editor of Sourcebooks even emailed me personally when she received it to say she loved the title. Then a smaller house requested the full...and offered a contract within two days.

I was totally stoked. The publisher loved the book, their terms were appealing, their authors were great (in fact, a few were former clients of my ex agent) and I admired their cover art. However, Sourcebooks was still considering the manuscript. Following protocol, I informed the editor of the offer and asked for two weeks for a response. I fully expected her to pass, being so busy. To my surprise, she didn't.

For the next week and a half, my inner voice vacillated between "Hurry up and reject me already!" and "Could they REALLY be considering it?" I doubted it, the reasons outlined in my "no longer have an agent" post. (See, I told you to click that link.)

But after a bunch of crazy emails and exciting phone conversations, Sourcebooks counter-offered with a three book deal. "I just couldn't let that book go," said the almighty DEB WERKSMAN.

It was like that microphone had been replaced by...um...me.

As much as I liked the other publisher, it was in my best interest to take Deb's offer.

And as a gangster-skater hybrid from the 90's would say, "Shit just got real, Yo."

With hard work, a multitude of happy and unhappy accidents, and untold support from friends and family, my dreams have begun to come true.

That's my crazy story. The next post will be on said shit getting real, "yo." :)

Lynn Rush Talks About Editing with a REAL Editor

Thanks so much Lynn, for giving me an excuse to use this pic!

When I was a newbie writer, I used to read about how authors were deep in edits and had deadlines. I wondered if I’d ever get to do something like that. Would it really be as hard as they wrote about? Would I really disappear for days on end from the social media world to get things done?

Well, I found out pretty quick. March 11^th, 2011 was the day I signed my contract for Wasteland with Crescent Moon Press. It was an amazing day. Surreal, actually.

Within the next few weeks, I got my first round of edits.

Oh.

My.

Gosh.

I quickly found out everything I’d read about edits, especially the first ones for us newbie authors, was true.

All the mark ups, suggestions, highlights…Some of my non-writing friends questioned the need for such changes, because why else would they buy your book if they didn’t like it, why change it so much?

Because editors have one thing in mind: Make this story shine. Because if it’s the best it can be, everyone wins.

I totally get it.

But yikes, so many changes? Did I really use the word flesh 192 times? Holy Cow!

Editors come at your novel with a fresh, objective eye. They haven’t been writing the story for weeks, months, years. They aren’t close friends wondering if they’ll hurt your feelings if they say something doesn’t work.

They do this for a living. They know what they’re doing. And they say what they mean. No filters. I really enjoy that, actually! Just tell me what needs fixing so I can fix it. That’s what I need.

Usually the editing process starts with bigger issues. Giving suggestions, ideas, direction on story/plot concepts. Then the following rounds of edits get more focused until it ends with making sure every T is crossed and I is dotted.

How long it takes varies with each publishing house and writer. For me, I signed my Wasteland contract March 11^th, and the book officially released September 6^th.

So, yeah, take in all the suggestions and work through your story, still maintaining your voice. But with the guidance of an editor, your novel becomes what it truly is meant to become.

Are you a newbie writer or author? Don’t worry. You’ll be able to do it. It’ll be scary, might sting a little, but in the end, it’s totally worth all the blood, sweat, and tears. Editors are worth their weight in gold.

~~~~

I’ve got an e-book copy of Wasteland here for one lucky person. So, leave a comment and you’re entered.

I’ll choose a winner tomorrow and contact you, so be sure to leave your email addy in your comment. If you’re not wanting to do that, just send me (lynnrush@cox.net) your email addy and I’ll set it aside in case your name is drawn.

Thanks for having me here today, Brooklyn!

Write on, my friends!

Lynn Rush began her writing career in 2008. She has both an undergraduate and graduate degree in the mental health field and has enjoyed applying that unique knowledge to developing unique characters.

A former inline speed skater and mountain biker, Lynn has been known to test the limits of her athletic endurance. So, when she's not writing, she spends time enjoying the Arizona sunshine by road biking nearly 100 miles per week with her husband of fifteen years and going on jogs with her loveable Shetland Sheep dogs.

Catch the Rush: www.lynnrush.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/LynnRushWrites

Twitter: www.twitter.com/LynnRush

Goodreads: http://bit.ly/k6NAZa  

Amazon:  http://amzn.to/pavzwE

Barnes and Noble: http://bit.ly/pbigOg

All Romance Ebooks: http://bit.ly/nujjjp

You Tube Trailer:  http://youtu.be/k-KRE1yMiNk 

Book Blurb:

Bound by the blood contract his human mother signed four centuries ago, half-demon, David Sadler, must obey his demonic Master’s order to capture fifteen-year-old Jessica Hanks. But as he learns more about her, he realizes she may be the key to freedom from his demonic enslavement.

The only obstacle—Jessica’s distractingly beautiful Guardian, Rebeka Abbott. He must not give in to their steamy chemistry, or he will lose his humanity. But fresh off a quarter millennia of sensory deprivation as punishment for not retrieving his last target, he may not be able to resist temptation long enough to save what’s left of his human soul.

Why Self- Publishing Is Not For Me...at least for now.

No hidden meaning intended with this picture, I just thought it was funny. :)

I have many friends who have embarked in the world of self-publishing. Many have had great success with it, in fact. As they watched me through the disastrous situation with my former agent, they've begun trying to lure me to the "other side."

Despite the triumphs of my friends, I am still refusing to go that route and before I drown under the cries of "join us, join ussss!" (Sorry, friends, I gotta tease ya a bit.) I feel compelled to state my personal case. Here I go, in no particular order.

1.) Self-pubbing the "Right way" costs money. Yeah, anyone can throw their work up on Smashwords and other sites, but the most successful self-pubbed authors hire editors, cover artists, and pay for various forms of promotion. My funds are limited in that capacity. Speaking of promotion.

2.) All authors, whether commercial or self- pubbed, have to spend a lot of time and effort in online promotion. But I've noticed that the best self-pubbers are almost superhuman in their web presence. ::cough Jamie DeBree::cough Between my job, my family, and my writing/ editing schedule, it's enough for me to keep up with the blog/ twitter/ facebook. Still, I think I'm doing fairly well.

3.) Security. All respected authors have specific lines that the reader trusts to get what they expect from. i.e. unknown authors become an insta-buy for faithful readers of specific imprints. I would feel far more confident and honored for my work to be among a successful imprint.

4.) I WANT AN EDITOR!!!! A good editor supports your work and is behind you 100% ....but she won't let you go out in public with your fly unzipped, figuratively speaking. ;) There is so much I don't know about the industry and I would feel much more comfortable for an expert's advice on keeping my readers happy.

5.) I want a team behind me. Besides an editor, commercial publishers have marketing/ publicity departments. They do a bunch of mathematical calculations and secret magic ceremonies to determine the most profitable circumstances for your book release. Like, X-genres sell best in the fall, X types of titles are trending...or X author has a new release that month so let's do a different month so she won't overshadow you. How cool is that?

6.) I want a profitable cover. Yes, I've seen some really bitchin' covers in self-pubbed books, but a publisher's art department has even more resources. They have their own magic ceremonies to determine what cover will attract readers. Bold colors or pastels? Embossed or flat font? Topless guy (mmmm) or embracing couple?

7.) A GOOD agent would be a godsend. I know jack about negotiating contracts, subsidiary rights, foreign sales, or when it would be appropriate to approach the editor about a new project. And hopefully my agent would help me get my manuscript in its best shape before the editor sees it.

Yes, self-published authors get to keep the majority of their profits, but for me, the benefits of commercial publishing I listed above are well worth the reduction of my royalties.