The Story behind the Book – Hot Shothot-shot.jpg

When Amie invited me to blog about the story behind my newest release, Hot Shot, I realized THAT could be a book in itself, a story eight years in the making, a story with turning points and black moments (several!) and a happy ending.

Once upon a time there were wildfires in Colorado, and Harlequin author Cindi Myers was living there and she would email her home chapter of SARA and tell us how heroic the firefighters were. Hmm. Heroic, eh?

That was our first summer in our new house and we had lots of company come stay with us. Even so, I started doing research on wildland firefighters, printing out info to read in the car on the way to this tourist attraction or that one.

One night we went to see Perfect Storm (my dad and I had both read the book) and scruffy Clooney – wow. My hero.

I don’t know how long that first version took me to write, but it was kind of a rip-off of Hanover Street, where the hero was SO brave until he met the woman he could love and then makes bad decisions. I pitched it at my first RWA conference in New Orleans. Rejected. Not heroic enough. Okay. I’d been rejected before. But I’d done a lot of work on this book, so I revised it and entered a few contests. It finalled and won Where The Magic Begins in 2002. That gave me confidence to enter the Golden Heart, and it finalled in 2003.

I can’t really remember where in the timeline I submitted to Silhouette Intimate Moments, but in 2004, Hot Shot finalled in the Golden Heart again and I got a phone call from Intimate Moments editor Shannon Godwin on my birthday. Almost a week passed before I actually talked to her and she told me what revisions she wanted. Whoo-hoo! I got those revisions done and sent to her at the beginning of June, and then stalked her at the Dallas RWA conference.

And then she left Harlequin, abandoning me. Fortunately, it wasn’t my first time being orphaned at H/S, so I emailed Susan Litman, with whom I’d worked before, and she rescued Hot Shot from Shannon’s desk.

Again, I don’t remember if she asked for revisions or just rejected, but at that point, Hot Shot went under the bed. I had several other marketable stories by that point (Hot Shot wasn’t the ONLY thing I worked on!)

In 2005 I didn’t final in the Golden Heart, so I submitted like crazy – contests, agents, any publisher that would look at unagented stuff. Hot Shot finalled in the Maggies and Hot Prospects. It won HP and was requested by Superromance and placed second in the Maggies, where Susan Litman requested it again.

Several things happened the same time. Another book won another contest and was requested, and I got an agent who LOVED Hot Shot. She felt we should concentrate on that, so we did.

For almost a year… When we met in Dallas and she wanted MORE revisions (Hot Shot was now Frankenstein’s monster with all the changes, mostly to the heroine), I almost cried. I was sick to death of the book, I no longer liked my heroine, it was a mess. A few months later I rewrote the whole shooting match and let go of my agent.

But I was determined Hot Shot would see the light of day, and the summer of 2007 I submitted EVERYWHERE, ignoring everything I’d been taught about simultaneous submissions.

And one morning, there, in my spam folder, was a request from Anne Scott of Samhain. She read it, loved it, wanted me to revise the ending before it went to contract. I completely rewrote the ending and resubmitted. We went through 5 rounds of edits and now Hot Shot is out and the best it can be. I hope you agree!

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Mary Fechter w/a MJ Fredrick
www.mjfredrick.com
The Bandwagon – Mary’s Blog
WHERE THERE’S SMOKE from Wild Rose Press March 2008
HOT SHOT from Samhain Publishing April 2008