Southern Fried Chicas

This is my first guest blog.

The Chicas are taking my virginity. Don’t tell my significant other.

Anyway, I’m here to talk about my book.  How Much You Want to Bet? A short contemporary romance.  From here on out it will be referenced as HMYWTB.

Well, back in 1985 a writer was born . . . I’m kidding.

Here’s the story:

It took me 15 months to finally step away from my first novel and say it was done. It took me maybe an hour to write the first chapter of HMYWTB. Then I let it rust on my hardrive until I finished my first novel. I went back and made a nice attempt at writing HMYWTB. It sucked and it sucked BAD. But I loved that first chapter. It had such energy. It broke the rule of opening a book with a flashback. Neil Sullivan, the heroine, was a construction worker who had backbone, bite, and secrets. And Gib *sigh*, a cocky, carefree millionaire was the perfect match for her. He’d remind her of all the things she left behind. She’d grounded him. My muses handed this story to me on a silver platter, and honestly I didn’t know how to fix it.

So instead of fixing it, I wrote a romantic suspense. I finished the romantic suspense, but something kept pulling me back to this story. I submitted a Q & S to a publisher and received a form rejection. Add some more rust to my hardrive, add some craft, add another 20k written on another story then we’d come to the second time I submitted this book.

You might hate me after I admit this, but when I sent HMYWTB to my publisher it was on a whim. I figured I was going to get a rejection. All I wanted was some feedback. I sent it, forgot about it, and received a rejection that changed my life. It was on the romantic suspense.

Have you ever had a knife shoved into your heart, then twisted 3/4 to the left? I don’t think so, but imagine it . . . hold the image for a second . . . then you know how that rejection felt. The editor pointed out the book didn’t have conflict, my grammar sucked butt, I should get some critique partners (which I had), and her parting line was, “I hope you have better luck with other publishers.” This may not be verbatim, but you get my drift.

Then I received another e-mail that changed my life. The editor from the other publisher wanted a full. She loved the first three chapters. She wanted more. I went back to HMYWTB with the other editor’s words ringing in my head. I fixed the conflict that disappeared around chapter 4. I put in more emotion. I made friends with my delete button. I completely rewrote the ending. I cut info dumps. I got rid of 3/4 of the head hopping. I thought of the first chapter and that feeling I got from writing it and held it close to my chest and wrote my heart out. I sent that sucker off.

A week later I received an e-mail with a subject line, “Contract Offer.”

I’m not sure what the moral of this post is. (Of course go buy my book. PLEASE!) Maybe it’s write for the fun of it, publishing will come when it’s your time. It’s okay to let a book rust on your hardrive until you know how to write it. Submit on a whim. No, it’s really write because you love it. Write because the characters won’t leave you alone. Write because you can NOT write. Write it and they will come. Yeah, that’s the moral.

As a side note: The first chapter of How Much You Want to Bet? is basically the same one I wrote almost three years ago.

If you liked this post you can find many others like it at my blog.

>If you are feeling charitable, you can find my book at The Wild Rose Press in two days, Feb. 15th.

Or if you’re into instant gratification you can ask me questions here. Any questions, I’m not shy.

Melissa Blue and I’m out.