Submitting to Harlequin

Hello Fellow Writers!

Yesterday I went to the last official NaNoWriMo write-in of 2009. I used the time productively, by adding a new opening (and another 1000 words to my word count, bringing my manuscript to 51K) and making all of the little changes I needed to.

While it's still a first draft, it's a first draft that I can now show my writing group. I'm planning on emailing them the first chapter today.

At some point soon, I need to gather up the courage to submit my previous novel, "The Movie Star's Very Personal Assistant", to Harlequin. Here is an article about important things to consider when submitting to Harlequin, from their website.

Do polish your story before you submit it. Read through your story several times for spelling, grammar, clichés, unrealistic or stilted dialogue, heavy exposition, continuity errors, plot holes, etc. Consider giving it to someone else to read for a second opinion. You want to make sure that the editor that reads your story won't have a single excuse to put it down. For more tips on polishing, read Harlequin Superromance author Helen Brenna's article Polish Until it Shines.

Don't sweat the small stuff. After you've gone through your manuscript very carefully, don't get hung up on things like font or formatting or other stylistic considerations. Ultimately, if you've written a good book, it won't matter whether it's in 10 point Book Antiqua.

Once you do submit, do include a self-addressed stamped envelope if you want to be notified that your manuscript has been received. You may also want to indicate that you would like to be notified on the envelope or somewhere within your submission.

Don't expect a response right away, though. Even if you are just looking for an indication that Harlequin has received your manuscript, this can take several weeks from the time you send your manuscript in to the publisher. It has to be processed by Harlequin staff before being mailed, and the mail delivery in itself could take a while.

It will take longer still before you get a response about your actual manuscript. Often stories are evaluated by more than one Harlequin staff member, and this process takes time. Moreover, the editors like to make sure that they have crafted a useful and appropriate response to your manuscript, and try to put quality over speed of response.

Do have the story completed before you submit it for consideration. If after all of the time you have been waiting for a response from Harlequin you have not been working on your story, the editor will not be impressed that you are then going to make her wait for you. She's looking for a finished product—something that will live up to the potential that she saw in your partial. And if you rush to finish the story, it will likely read rushed and not polished, so when you finally do submit it to the editors, it will likely fall short of their standards.

Don't wait for a response before starting your next project. If the book that you have submitted is already done and is as polished as it's going to get, start the next one. If you are talented enough to get interest from a Harlequin editor, they will want to know that you have more than one good idea and will be happy to see evidence of this. Or if your first manuscript doesn't work out, you can always follow up with another book that may be more to the editor's liking.

Do include the fact that you are working on another book in your query letter. This will indicate that you are committed to writing and that you have many stories to tell. However, you may not want to say that you are working on too many manuscripts at once—this may signal to the editor that you can't finish a project and do not give each one enough attention.

Don't submit to more than one Harlequin series at a time. Only the first manuscript that Harlequin receives will be evaluated. The others will be sent back to you. So choose your targeted series very carefully. Is it really the line that best fits your book?

Do send your manuscript to the appropriate office and the correct editor. There's nothing that turns an editor off faster than reading a submission that clearly doesn't fit her line. This shows that you are too lazy to do your homework, and you probably won't be given very serious consideration. Luckily, finding this information is relatively easy. Each Harlequin series has a writing guidelines page on eHarlequin.com which can be found here. At the top of each of these, there will be an editor, assistant editor or editorial assistant's name. Address your submission to this person—and make sure you spell it correctly! These guideline pages will also indicate which office houses your chosen line. The addresses for the three editorial offices can be found here.

Don't get discouraged. You know that writing is a skill that takes practice, but so does submitting. It may take you a few tries before you find the right tone to use in your query letter, or the right amount of information in your synopsis. Keep writing, keep submitting.

I find it interesting that they want you to mention that you are working on another book in your query. I'll have to add that to my query letter before it goes out.

Today I will be writing a spec advice column and submitting it to a new local newspaper.
Wish me luck, and good luck to you too!
Yours Truly,
Shoshanna Evers

"The Road" Author Cormac McCarthy

Hello Fellow Writers!

I am on my way to the very last NaNoWriMo write-in at Panera. I'll be sad to see the month end, but I'm glad that I will continue to meet a couple of the other women on the weekend to sit and have coffee and tap away on our laptops.

DH and I saw the movie "The Road" last night. My husband read the book very quickly, which is saying a lot because it normally takes him forever to get through an entire novel. Personally, I love fun movies that leave you feeling good, with a nice neat Happily Ever After. "The Road" is not such a book or movie. But you can't argue with the awards it's received (like the 2007 Pulitzer for fiction). It's not my taste, but it's still an amazing book (and movie). If it doesn't win some sort of Oscar I will be shocked.

Cormac McCarthy, the author of "The Road", did a wonderful interview with "Oprah". You can watch the whole thing here by clicking on the different parts. In this section, he discusses how he feels about writing.



Today I plan on writing that new opening scene for "Snowed in With a Millionaire" and also to make some of the minor fixes that I found on my initial read-through of the first draft.

Wish me luck, and good luck to you too!
Yours Truly,
Shoshanna Evers

Advice Regarding Word Count

Hello Fellow Writers!

Yesterday I didn't get as much done on my revisions of my WIP as I had planned. Tomorrow, however, I will be going to the last NaNoWriMo write-in and I will get a lot done then. I'm sad that the official write-ins will soon be over, but I have plans to continue meeting on the weekends with a couple of the other girls.

I read a great Silhouette Desire book by Jennifer Lewis yesterday, called "The Maverick's Virgin Mistress". I read that book so fast because it was just so much fun! I won't spoil the ending for you, (well, we all know they live happily ever after) but I literally squealed at the ending and then read it out loud to my husband.

I know a lot of people have questions about word count. We've established that Harlequin category romances have very specific guidelines on their tip sheets, and they use computer word count. Here is an excerpt from a wonderful article by Jessica from one of my favorite blogs, Bookends, LLC, about word count. Read the whole article here.

First and foremost, what length should your book be? My answer is when in doubt think 80,000 words, give or take. I don’t think that you can ever go wrong with 80,000 words whether you’re writing mystery, romance, fantasy, literary fiction, or nonfiction. Okay, sure, it’s never going to work for children’s books or poetry, but since I don’t rep those it doesn’t matter (to me anyway). In fact, I think 80,000 words even works for YA. Sure, with some of these genres you’re going to be on the long end and with others the short end, but again this is the “when in doubt word count.” 80,000 words is pretty much safe everywhere.

What about range, I’ll be asked. Can you give us a range or can you be genre specific? I suppose I can, to the best of my abilities.

Mystery: I think that for mysteries you often have the freedom of writing a book that’s a little shorter. In the case of mysteries 70,000 to 90,000 words will likely work for you.

Romance: 80,000 to 100,000, and no, I’m not counting category. If you’re writing category you’ll need to follow the very specific word count requirements of that line.

Fantasy or SF: Here you can go a little bit longer. Some publishers will accept books in the 80,000 to 125,000 range.

YA: 50,000 to 75,000, and yes, this is an area that can get really fudgy (I made that up), but again, in the 80,000 range is good. **I corrected these numbers after feedback from others (and comment from Kim) although I do think with YA these days you can still be safe in 80,000 words although maybe a tad high. Fantasy YA of course can be higher.

Women’s fiction, literary fiction or anything I failed to mention above: 80,000 to 100,000 (sometimes 125,000, especially in the case of literary fiction).

Now all of these are ranges and estimations. You are unlikely to be rejected simply because you’re at 78,000 for your women’s fiction or 110,000 for your romance. That being said, if you start coming in at 175,000 words, 200,000 words, or 41,000 words, you better take a close look at your book. No one in their right mind would think you’re somewhat close to range. Let’s put it this way, we give a range so that you know what the fudge factor is. We’re all smart people and we all know that when we ask something to be within a range we’ll allow for some leeway. Just think about how much leeway you’d allow and keep it at that.

Today I am going to see the movie "The Road", which is based on the book by the same name. I'll let you know it goes!

Yours Truly,
Shoshanna Evers

How She Did It - Joan Hohl, Romance Author

Hello Fellow Writers!

I hope everyone had as lovely a Thanksgiving yesterday as I had with my family! I finished reading through my manuscript and making small changes. Today I'm going to put those changes in the computer and also write a new opening scene that I think will provide more of an insight into my heroine's daily life before she meets the hero.

I also just finished reading a Silhouette Desire category romance entitled "In the Arms of the Rancher", by Joan Hohl. It was very fun read. Imaging my surprise when I learned that this very sexy story was written by a woman who, according to the dates she gives in her bio, must be at least 70 years old now! One of the nice things about writing is you don't have to retire!

From eHarlequin.com, here is an article that explains how Joan Hohl got her start in writing. I think it's absolutely amazing that she was possibly the very first romance writer to write using the hero's point of view in addition to the heroine's POV.

For as long as she can remember, Joan Hohl has always wanted to be a writer. Her mother said Joan had her head in the clouds, always daydreaming. The only thing was, Joan's daydreams had plots!
Thinking herself audacious for even considering joining the ranks of her heroes — the authors — she never put her ideas, or dreams, into words, never made notes or wrote anything down. She worked at several jobs — nothing remotely close to a career — some sales clerking, but primarily factory work, because that paid better.
Then when she turned 40, Joan experienced a definite turning point in her life. Deciding that at her advanced age she could handle rejection, had nothing to lose and by some miracle, possibly much to gain if only in self satisfaction, she quit her job. With no employment, but her decision firm, she sat down at her kitchen table with pencils and a spiral notebook and let her imagination take wing.
Joan achieved her impossible dream three years, and many rejections, after she began writing. Her first book sale was to Vivian Stephens at Dell Publishing. A few weeks later she received a call from an editor at Leisure Books, with an offer for a manuscript she had previously submitted to other houses…and believed was dead-in-the-publishing-waters, so to speak. The second sale was the first one to be published, in 1979. Her first ten books were written longhand at her kitchen table. As she wasn't a typist, she paid one to transcribe her handwritten manuscripts before biting the bullet and going to the typewriter herself to hunt and pick her way through future stories.
Some years later, Joan sold a formally rejected, completed manuscript to Silhouette Books…and found a home. She is considered by many in the business a trailblazer in sensuous romance writing, and having been one of the first, if not the first, author to write male point of view in category romance novels.
Many of her books are set in her beloved Pennsylvania, by an ocean, any ocean, but usually along the South Jersey coast or the West, with its mythic Western heroes.
Now, a few years… ahem — past 40, after 60 some books (she now no longer keeps exact count), Joan is still writing two to three books a year, although she laughingly tells everyone she is semiretired!
Joan has been married forever to her husband, Marv. They have two beautiful daughters, Lori and Amy, and two grandchildren, Erica and Cammeron.
Joan has one question: Does she have a career yet?

Um, I'd say yes, most definitely! Today I'm going to write that new opening scene and get my manuscript in good enough shape to allow my writer's group to take a look at it. I'm also considering adding another little element for comedic relief that will involve going back through and weaving it into place. That might also happen today.

One thing I will not be doing is leaving the house and braving the Black Friday parking lots. Too crazy for me.

Wish me luck, and good luck to you too!
Yours Truly,
Shoshanna Evers

Fantasy Writer Robin McKinley

Hello Fellow Writers!

Yesterday I sat down with my manuscript and my red pen and had fun going through it. I wish I could read the whole book in one sitting, but my baby won't let me do anything for more than twenty minutes at a time unless he falls asleep, at which point I promptly fall asleep as well.

Nevertheless, I managed to finish the first draft of my romance novel "Snowed in With a Millionaire" with a week still left in the month of November. NaNoWriMo is still in full swing, of course, so this morning, sitting in my inbox, I found a pep talk for week 4 from author Robin McKinley.

Robin McKinley won the Newbery Medal for The Hero and the Crown, a Newbery Honor for The Blue Sword, and the Mythopoeic Award for Adult Literature for Sunshine. She writes fantasy.

Here is her advice to writers:

Dear writer,
As I write this less than twenty-four hours before NaNoWriMo’s deadline for this pep talk, I also have a book due in eight days. Not just due. Absolute, final, already overdue, my-editor-is-a-patient-woman-but-publishing-schedules-are-publishing-schedules, due.
When NaNoWriMo contacted me last April about writing a pep talk for this year's masochi—er—enthusiastic writers, I had just decided to whack PEGASUS in half and make two books out of it. I have always been a write-each-draft-straight-through-and-don’t-look-back storyteller; it’s the way I develop a feel for the pacing, for where the high and low, careening and meditative, places of each story are—and how I discover where and how it's going to end. Consistency and clarity (and spelling) begin to emerge in the second draft; there are a lot of complete re-rewrites and outtakes during the second draft, and probably the most-per-page screams of frustration: the first draft has told me that the story is there but now I have to make it work on the page. The third draft should mainly be giving the story a really good brushing and plaiting its mane and tail—but there are hazards even here (ask anyone who has ever plaited a mane or a tail), nor is it likely to stand quietly for this operation.
Some time last winter, still on the first draft and beginning to panic, I... stopped. I did not write straight through to the end. I went back to the beginning and started on the second draft as if I knew what I was doing—as if I knew how it ended. I seriously don't know how PEGASUS ends. I won't know till I get there. And I didn't finish the first draft, so I didn't get there. I've never started a second draft without having finished a first draft—without knowing how it's going to end. I've never split a book into two books...
Writing is like this.
Oh, not exactly like this; every writer is different as every human being is different, one from another. (Some writers make their deadlines. Some writers know where they're going. Some writers don't mind not knowing where they're going.) But the chief thing I would like to get over to you, as you look to me to say something inspiring about this maniac—I mean, this energizing and felicitious project to write a first draft of a novel in a month, is the liveness of Story, and therefore the unpredictability inherent in writing any story down.
You need that live, tensile, surprising strength between you and the story you're trying to write, or it'll die on the page. But this doesn't make it easier. It makes it harder. It's more exciting—more thrilling, more appalling: on good days you'll fly higher than a peregrine cruising for dinner, on bad days someone will have to scrape you off the floor with a spatula. This is what writing is like. You have to write on through the highs and lows, the careens and the meditations of your stories. And that's what you're here for now: to write. Go for it. Good luck.
So last April, when NaNoWriMo contacted me, I had decided that PEGASUS was two books, and had cheered up a lot. My due date was the end of August—and for once in my life I was going to meet a deadline with no problem. NaNoWriMo suggested I send my encouraging words to them by the beginning of August. Fine. Happy to. Thanks for asking.
I got to the end of the third draft of the first volume of PEGASUS on 13 September. But PEGASUS has not been one of the easy brush-and-plait ones. I’m still combing the burrs out. I am going to make it. I am going to turn PEGASUS in on the 8th of October. I’m even going to get my pep talk in to NaNoWriMo by tomorrow.
If I can do these impossible things, you can do the impossible thing of writing the first draft of your novel in a month. It’s a first draft! It does not have to be a thing of beauty! Don’t worry about the spelling (or the consistency)! Just write it. I bet you can even get to the end, and find out what it is.
And may you have an absolutely brilliant time doing it. Writing can be the worst, and often is—but it can also be the best. May you come out of that month knowing what you want to do next, and eager to keep going. Try to remember the peregrine days on the days that your husband/wife/roommate/dog needs steel wool to get you off the floor. And keep writing: the only way you can learn how your stories work is by letting them tell you. By putting live words together.
Good luck.
Robin McKinley

Today I will continue going through the first draft of my WIP. DH is coming home early from work today since it's the day before Thanksgiving, and we have big plans to make a home video of the baby. Surprise, surprise.
Have a happy Thanksgiving! I won't be posting a new blog entry tomorrow, but I'll still be writing.
Wish me luck, and good luck to you too!
Yours Truly,
Shoshanna Evers

Rewrites, Revisions, and Red Pens

Hello Fellow Writers!

Yesterday I basked in the happy glow of having a completed first draft sitting on my lap. I decided to take the day off from writing as a reward for having finished writing a 50,000 word romance in three weeks. Instead, I realized that for me, writing itself is the reward. I like doing it, that's why I do it. So I picked up my red pen and started reading through my novel.

I had written it so fast that I barely remembered putting the words on the page. I even found myself laughing at some of funny things my saucy heroine says - it was almost like I didn't write it myself. So strange.

From FictionWriters.com, here is an excerpt from an article about revising your manuscript. Read the whole article here.

• 1. Look for the deadwood, the unnecessary bits that don't move your story forward.
• 2. Check the first paragraph of each chapter for "hooks."
• 3. Check the end of each chapter for "cliffhangers."
• 4. Examine each page for balance between dialogue, action, introspection and description.
• 5. Find places to build in more character traits.
• 6. Look for inconsistencies.
• 7. Look for repetition, words (and ideas) repeated too often, too close to each other.
• 8. Find typos and grammatical errors.

Each time you sit down to reread your manuscript, choose one point from the list to look for; ignore everything else. Every rereading needs to accomplish something specific. Have a set goal in mind each time you start. Know what it is you plan to accomplish, and your rereading time will accomplish more.

Today I will continue reading through my manuscript, red pen in hand.

Wish me luck, and good luck to you too!
Yours Truly,
Shoshanna Evers

I Finished The First Draft! Now What?

Hello Fellow Writers!

I am happy to report that yesterday I finished the first draft of my 50,ooo word category romance "Snowed in With a Millionaire".

Yup. Done.

I went to a NaNoWriMo write-in with 43k words and found myself writing for 6 hours straight until I had pounded out those last 7K and wrote the words "The End". Since I started writing November 1st, that means it took me 3 weeks. I've never written so fast in my entire life. It was so much fun!

Now that the first draft if complete, the work is far from over. Now the real work begins - I need to get the manuscript in good enough condition to be able to show my writer friends. They'll help me figure out what's unclear so I can get some nice revisions going.

Today I'll share with you some advice about first drafts from Karen Miller.
Karen Miller is the author of the bestselling fantasy duology Kingmaker, Kingbreaker, the fantasy trilogy Godspeaker, the bestselling tie-in novels Stargate SG-1: Alliances and Stargate SG-1: Do No Harm and Star Wars The Clone Wars: Wild Space. Writing as K.E. Mills she is the author of the Rogue Agent series.
Here is an excerpt from her article "The Tyranny of the First Draft". Read the whole thing here.

Writers are schizo people. We need to wear two hats: the Writer, and the Editor. And we have to keep one locked in a box while the other is working, or we won’t finish the book. The Writer writes – and must be free to write even though the work is still far from perfect. In the first draft it doesn’t matter if the prose is clunky sometimes, if there’s some word repetition, if the dialogue is occasionally stilted. None of it matters. It can be fixed on the rewrite. The Writer must not be paralysed by the carping of the Editor, who notices everything that’s wrong with the work and wants it fixed now. It doesn’t need to be fixed now. It’s more important to finish the first draft and fix it later.

Of course, when the first draft is finished the Writer has to sit in the box so the Editor can assess the story, iron out the lumpy bits, fix all the plot-holes and so on and so forth without the Writer bleating and complaining about the cuts and changes. But only when the first draft is finished. Turning the Editor loose in the middle of the writing process is usually fatal. The Editor is critical. The Writer is creative. These two essential personas must be kept apart, or there’s a chance that first draft will never be finished.

The only way to do this is to do it. There are no magic bullets, no quick fixes, no secret handshakes that can get you over the finishing line. The only way to run a marathon is by putting one foot in front of the other for 26 miles. The only way to produce a finished novel that you can show to an agent or an editor is complete the journey from page 1 to the end. That’s it. It’s that simple … and that hard.

There is no point, if you’re a new writer, in showing an agent or editor the first three over-polished chapters and a synopsis. More than anything, these people want to know you can go the distance. Writing a novel is a mammoth task. You have to prove you’ve got the stamina to finish. You also have to prove you’ve got a good style and a good plot and engaging characters … but if you can’t finish the book, none of that matters.

Yes, it’s scarey. It’s a lot of time and energy invested with no guarantee of success. No promise that you’ll be recognised, or published. Or, if you do have that contract, that anyone will buy the damned book when it’s in the shops. That’s the nature of the beast. You either accept it, or you take up knitting. You know what they say: feel the fear and do it anyway. Because if you don’t, then it’s game over. Nothing happens without a first draft.

So write the damned thing. Get it done. Get it finished. Give yourself permission to write badly. Give yourself permission to write worse than badly. Give yourself permission to stumble, to flail, to thrash around on the pages like a raving loon.

It doesn’t matter.

Finish your first draft, so you can turn it into your second draft, and your third draft … or as many drafts as you need to make it a fabulous novel.

Without a completed first draft that will never happen. The first draft is the first step, it’s not the end of the journey. It’s where the story begins. Do I need to say it again? Keep your eyes facing forward and write, write, write, till you reach The End.

And enjoy yourself. It’s supposed to be fun!

Today I am seriously considering taking a break from writing to just revel in the fact that I wrote a whole book. Either that, or I'm going to sit down with my manuscript and a red pen and go to town on it. One or the other!
Wish me luck, and good luck to you too!
Yours Truly,
Shoshanna Evers