My Manuscripts

I’m almost positive that I’ve previously posted about all the manuscripts I’ve written in the past, but after searching the blog, I can’t find the post, and the topic is making its way around the blogosphere again, so I’ll share mine:

The Juvenilia: Many, many short stories, both for school projects and on my own. I took my school short story projects very seriously, and my prom date can testify how bitter I was when the Chaucer “tale” contest entry I slaved over tied for first with the one he scrawled out during lunch period. Luckily, we had the same group of friends, so the pizza party we got as a reward was still a fun time. And when I sold my first novel, said prom date, now a successful engineer and international businessman, saw fit to remind me of his fabulous native storytelling ability.

This may in fact inspire Amy’s latent jealousy of Brandon, the math major who writes stories in his spare time. Hmmmm, must think on that.

In high school, I got my hands on a copy of a “how to write a novel” book, and planned out a series of historical romances (I was a Johanna Lindsay fan) as well as an epic fantasy (huge fan of Marion Zimmer Bradley and Frank Herbert). Both got a few chapters in.

The College Years, part one: Many more short stories. This is also when I discovered fanfic, which I used as a type of literary training wheels, practicing dialogue, pacing, etc. while getting to be lazy with premise and characters. Once I found myself creating stories which focused more on the original characters than the fanfic regulars, I moved on. The other thing I liked about fanfic was the opportunity it gave for reader feedback.

The College Years, part two: Junior year, I wrote an epistolary historical novella as a project for one of my classes. It was awesome. I got an A+, and the instructor said I should be a novelist. (A year later, I gave it to my new boyfriend, Sailor Boy, and he reiterated her opinion.) This was rare, rare praise at Yale, where the general consensus seemed to be that if you weren’t going to go for some Novel Prize in Literature, you had no right to pursue a fiction writing career. If you were an actor, you could do soap operas or sitcoms or romantic comedies, but writing was *different*. It was a discouraging atmosphere.

The summer after my junior year, I plotted out a contemporary romance about a wedding planner. I knew nothing about weddings or wedding planners. As a nail in the coffin, a romantic comedy came out around the same time with the same plot that was neither romantic nor funny. I didn’t get very far in the story (see earlier bit about knowing nothing about weddings), and gave it up, though that didn’t save me from snarky comments by my ex-boyfriend, who’d watched me work on the project, when he heard about the film.

Of course, that was the ex-boyfriend who thought it would be “better for his career” if I concentrated on writing children’s picture books rather than romances. Yeah, I know. I know. My 29-year-old self is appalled. I always think of this argument whenever I see that Laura Bush or insert-celebrity-here has a children’s picture book out. Apparently, writing children’s books makes you seem warm and fuzzy, and is good PR for you/your husband.

The College Years, part three: My senior year, I took my one fiction writing class. I thought the instructor was a snob and wrote my final project (a Hawthorne homage ghost story) in defiance of the way his voice always dripped with disdain when he used the word “genre.” I wrote two stories I was very, very proud of. Sailor Boy liked them too. With his encouragement, I decided to try my hand again at writing a novel after graduation. I’d just learned about RWA, but it was way too pricey to join if I wasn’t going to be serious about it (and I had stacks of notebooks in my closet which indicated that, perhaps, I wouldn’t be). I set myself a challenge. If I could finish a draft of a novel, then I could join RWA.

Manuscript #1: The challenge novel. What with graduating from college, launching my freelance journalism career, and a foray into a series of questionable employment opportunities in post 9/11 Manhattan, it took me more than a year to finish. It was a contemporary category romance novel aimed at Harlequin Temptation. It had an utterly ridiculous plot involving a mistaken identity runaway bride in a wedding dress with stolen diamonds sewed into the hem. And a bartender obsessed with the movie Harvey. It was a reunion story. Finishing it was one of the proudest moments of my life. I’d written a whole book. I remember going through the day in a cloud, and thinking, over and over again, that it was all downhill from there. I’d written a book, I knew I could do it, now the only trick was writing a GOOD one.

I know. I know. But the psychological effect of writing a whole novel cannot be denied, and I recommend new writers seriously push themselves to finish something rather than flitting from half-finished manuscript to half-finished manuscript, or querying something before they’ve written a complete anything.

I queried it, got a partial request, and received a very nice rejection letter eight months later, while halfway through MS #3.

Manuscript #2: I started this halfway through writing MS#1, when it became clear to me that my first attempt was not quite the barn burner I’d hoped. This one got high marks in several contests, finalled in a couple, and won a Maggie Award. It was a category romance about a glass blower and a celebrity pastry chef. Super sexy. It got a full request, then a revision request, and then one line closed and another opened and I was revising it for that, and I was living in Australia and time went on and in the end, the revisions were still under consideration when I sold my first book and withdrew the submission so I could concentrate on fulfilling my first contract.

Manuscript #3: This manuscript was an action adventure targeted toward Silhouette Bombshell, which had been announced, but not launched. It finalled in a couple of contests, got a few requests, and the most in depth rejection letter I’ve ever received. It also garnered me my first agent request (and rejection). I love this book. I love the characters. I feel that writing this book was a great leap forward in my craft.

The unfinisheds: I wrote parts of a whole bunch of things. Another category romance I lost interest in half-way through, but used a secondary character as the heroine in my next completed manuscript. A sexy novella aimed at Kensington Brava. First chapters of a few more novels, stuff like that.

Manuscript #4: A contemporary paranormal romance about a skeptical journalist and a ghost hunter on a haunted island. Finalled in a bunch of contests, received a ton of requests, launched my first agent search, received a ton of rejections (it was a tough sell in a paranormal market focused on stories where at least one of the main characters was a paranormal creature of some sort), a few more requests, and before I got my final few answers back, I sold.

Manuscript #5: Secret Society Girl.

Manuscript #6: Under the Rose.

Manuscript #7: Rites of Spring (Break)

Manuscript #8: Rampant. I started this one before UTR, but finished it last.

I’m now part way through Manuscript #9, which will be the fourth SSG book. After that, I’m writing the second book in my YA contract. After that, anything goes 😉

Oh, and to answer the question in advance: no, I have no plans to revive any of the manuscripts I wrote before selling. I loved them and worked hard on them, and appreciated what I gained from them (I still wear my Maggie Award on a regular basis), but I’ve moved on to new projects now.