Mystic Cowboy

Mystic Cowboy SOLD!

So, a lot’s been going on. I have Desire books coming out in July (A Man of Privilege), September (A Man of Distinction), February (The Rancher’s Valentine), July (Bolton Boys Book 1), and September (Bolton Boys Book 2), with Bolton Boys Book 3 waiting in the wings.

Whew, right?

But something else happened not too long ago that I’ve been sitting on. Quietly. Which, I can assure you, has taken a considerable amount of restraint on my part. I’ve very much felt like my six-year-old son trying not to tell his father what he picked out for him for Christmas.

In other words, it hasn’t been pretty. For almost eight weeks.

But now the e-ink is dry. (I guess? Darned new-fangled technology, confusing the heck out of me all the time!) (And, just to round out my old-fart rant, YOU KIDS STAY OFF MY LAWN!) And I can finally announce the awesome news!

Mystic Cowboy SOLD! It’ll be published by Samhain on January, 2013!

I wrote Mystic Cowboy in 2009. Agents loved it. I got some positive feedback from editors, but any positive feedback was paired with statements such as, “But it’s not right for us” or “I don’t know how it would sell.” In other words, they loved it, but they had no idea how to handle a book with where the hero is a medicine man who lives in a tent down by the river (but totally not in a Chris Farley/SNL way. Totally not.)

Yeah. I can see how that might be a tough sell.

But–and this is a big BUT–I loved this book. Rebel, the hero, is sinfully delicious. Two whole chapters focus on skinny dipping, people! What’s not to love about this book? Shirtless cowboys who are Indians on horseback!

And the thing was, other people still loved this book. When my agent, Jill Marsal, signed me, she didn’t sign me for a Desire. She signed me for Mystic Cowboy. She believed in this book. And I believed in her.

So she took it out for an editoral spin. Meanwhile, I kept writing Desires. I have multiple deadlines these days.

None of the traditional publishers bit. It was more of the same. I had been hoping that, since I now had a sales record from my Desires, that I would be a better risk. But no. Nothing.

So Jill and I discussed our options, and her position was that this book could be somewhere, doing something for me. I wouldn’t get that coveted 3-book, 6-figure deal, but Mystic Cowboy could be out there, attracting new readers and building my brand name. I agreed. As much as I loved this book, it wasn’t doing me any favors on my computer.

So we started to submit it to what’s known as ‘non-traditional’ publishers–publishers who aren’t as big as St. Martin’s, for example, but have more nimbly moved into the digital age.

Samhain, in the form of editor Heidi Moore, didn’t see ‘hard to sell’ when she read Mystic Cowboy. She saw a good book.

So she bought it. SHE BOUGHT Mystic Cowboy!

Here’s the blurb:

The White Sandy Reservation needs a doctor, and Madeline Mitchell needs to do a little good in the world. It seems like a perfect fit, until she meets the medicine man, Rebel Runs Fast. As far as Madeline can tell, Rebel’s sole mission is to convince her patients that modern medicine can’t help them.  And the fact that he makes her heart race every time he looks at her only irritates her more.
Rebel swore off the white man’s world–and women–years ago. But he’s never met a woman like Dr. Mitchell. She doesn’t speak the language, understand the customs, or believe he’s anything more than a charlatan–but she stays, determined to help his people. He tries to convince himself that his tribe doesn’t need her, but when patients start getting sick with strange symptoms, he realizes that he needs her more than ever. 
Pretty good, huh? I’m so excited that this book will be published that it’s been driving me nuts to have to wait and tell you all about it!
So the e-book version will be published this upcoming January, and then the print version will be available at some point later in the year, maybe around October. (Why? Well, Samhain is a non-traditional, e-first publisher. It’s okay. Don’t panic! We all need a little time to get used to new things.) (And stay off my lawn!)

So now, the publishing schedule includes Mystic Cowboy, and I couldn’t be happier about having another deadline to meet.

I’m so excited!

Represented by Marsal/Lyon Literary Agents!

It’s official! The paperwork has been signed, sealed, and delivered. I’ve joined the Marsal/Lyon Literary Agency, and I’ll be working with Jill Marsal!

Here’s how it went down. I had a partial of my single-title novel, Mystic Cowboy, in with another agency. That agency opened up a self-publishing arm, which is a conflict of interest to an agent’s position. This caused a huge dust-up on the Internets (and ‘dust-up’ is a professional term). So I withdrew my partial. The agent in question offered to discuss my concerns about this publishing venture, so on July 29th–a Friday–we set up a phone call for Tuesday, August 2nd. The agent was very nice, and her answers were okay, but at the end of the conversation, I asked what the status of my partial was. She couldn’t recall if I had sent her a partial or a full, what the title of the book was, what it was about, or even when I had sent it. In other words, she hadn’t taken the thirty seconds to even call up my email to her.

Clearly, this was not the agent for me. I withdrew it a second time.

So that was Tuesday, and I began to consider my other options. On Wednesday, August 3rd, an agent I follow on Twitter named Kevan Lyon, posted something. I’m not sure what–the exact words escape me. It was along the lines of her having worked through her backlog, or cleaned out her inbox, or maybe she was open to submissions again. I don’t know. I do know that I read that tweet and thought, “Huh. I’ve heard of Kevan Lyon. Maybe now would be a good time to submit.” I checked the Marsal/Lyon website and saw that I knew several of their clients. And they only wanted a query letter. I can send query letters in my sleep by now, so Wednesday night, I fired that letter off.

Then, because so many things in publishing move so very slowly, I sort of immediately forgot about it. If you have ever asked me to get something out of the freezer so it can defrost for supper, you’ll know I’m not kidding when I say it floated from my mind. I could try to make it sound nice by saying I decided not to think about the query for another month or so–most likely, the earliest I would hear back, but the simple truth is, I forgot about it.

For a whole 24 hours. Thursday night, The Kid had come down with a fever and went to bed way early. My husband and I enjoyed this bonus adult time by watching a movie while I worked on my new website (which, I promise, is coming soon!). Out of the blue, I get an email from Jill Marsal, which, in its entirety, read:

Kevan forwarded your email to me.  I would be happy to look at your manuscript.  Please include the cover letter below.

The ‘cover letter’ was the query letter. I sat there in stunned silence for a moment. Had I just gotten a request for a full–from an agent I hadn’t even queried–less than 25 hours after I sent the query letter?

Yes. So I fired Mystic Cowboy right back to her, making sure to change the query letter to her name. This time, I didn’t actually forget about it. But I promised myself I wouldn’t slip into that ‘gotta-check-the-email-every-five-seconds’ mode of hyper vigilance. Honest!

So the next day was Friday, August 5th. The Kid was just sick enough that we got to stay home (there are worse things than sick days on Fridays) but not so sick that he couldn’t demand cartoons all day long.  So we hung out, watching everything except Spongebob (I detest!) and generally just having a do-nothing day. I worked on that darned website some more. I took a break to eat lunch, came back, turned on the computer, and had a message from Jill asking for my phone number and a good time to talk.

I had brought my dessert–a small bowl of jelly beans–back to the computer. I sat there, completely stunned, chewing a Jelly Belly. Seriously? It had been less than 36 hours since I’d queried the agency!

I blinked a couple of times, ate a jelly bean, gauged how much time is left in Toy Story 3, and sent her an email with my phone number that says I could talk this afternoon, as I was home with a not-so-sick child, or we could set up a time for next week. I was clearly banking on the next-week option, because I hit send, put another jelly bean in my mouth, and the phone rang.

Sheer panic is knowing that you’ve got to answer the phone in your best professional voice and not only do you have to hope that your kid doesn’t start screaming about toys in the garbage incinerator, but you also have to get your upper teeth unstuck from your lower teeth. Also, you *know* deep in your heart that you’re supposed to have intelligent, rational questions ready to ask potential agents–and all you can think about is the jelly-bean cement gluing your mouth shut.

Ah, the glamorous life of an author.

So I manage to get my mouth unstuck and answer the phone before it goes to the machine. Jill and I had a very nice conversation in which she told me she liked Mystic and would like to represent it and I made a borderline fool of myself babbling. I mean, I was so discombobulated that I asked for the number of one of her clients so badly that she said, “Why do you want that?” And I said, “So I can talk to someone and make sure you’re a nice person.” There was a two second pause, and she said, “So you want a reference?” DUH. YES. I tried to laugh off the fact that I work with words for a living and couldn’t do a decent job describing a reference.

But Jill is such a nice person that she didn’t seem to be scared off by my strangeness or The Kid shouting about toys burning up in the background. She emailed me a reference within minutes, and I had a lovely talk with Robin Perini, whom I had met at the RWA conference in New York a few weeks earlier, right before she won the Golden Heart (for which you should go and congratulate her!). She told me that Jill replied to emails within hours, that she and Kevan worked as a team, and that Jill was an all-around awesome agent. I followed this up with some other emails, but that all dovetailed with my brief experiences with the agency. Those things, plus someone to help me navigate contracts, are what I need in an agent.

So I mailed the contracts that Monday, and yesterday got my signed copy back. It’s official, in that warm-and-fuzzy legal sort of way. I’m incredibly excited about this new phase of my career and thrilled that Mystic has another chance to make it to a shelf. Jill has already offered me priceless guidance in the few short weeks we’ve been working together. Good things are happening!

Taking the Publishing World by Storm (or at least by a light rain)

So the Romance Writers of America annual conference began. Time to get to work!

We eased into this whole business thing by having dinner with my editor, Stacy Boyd, as well as Desire editor Charles Griemsman and Desire author Cat Schield. I’m going to be honest. After two straight dinners with beverages winding up on my lap, I was worried that some sort of fluid would be spilled on someone. This fear got even stronger when Cat let my child–Chief Spiller–play with her Ipad and the deluxe Angry Birds. I owe that woman. Big Time.
But we made it through dinner sans spill, thank God. The next morning was the first official Harlequin event, Digital Day. This is where nice people who know about things like Twitter and stuff tell me what to do. Like join Twitter.
This was mere moments before I was informed I had to join Twitter. Notice I’m still smiling. Here. Come follow me on Twitter. 
That evening, I had a truly productive, happy meeting with Stacy. She’d just finished reading the first Bolton book and was enthused. This was thrilling, because most of the time, I have no idea what I’m doing. It’s great to know when it’s working! So, if everything works according to plan, everyone else will have a crack at those Bolton Boy in 2013, with the two follow-up novels to A Man of His Word coming out in 2012. EXCITING!

Actually, let’s just take a moment to pause. ‘Exciting’ is not nearly a strong enough word to sum up the happy fruit of my four years of labor. Let’s all take a moment to jump up and down and scream “YIPEEE!” as loud as possible, okay? Because, trust me, that’s what I’m doing right now.

Then I had Junior’s cheesecake with Carolyn and Jennifer of Romance Novel News. Two funnier, nicer women I’m not sure I’ll ever meet–emphasis on the funnier part there. I’m not sure we’re allowed back in Junior’s, though.
The next day I went to some workshops, listened to some speeches, and wore white pants without anyone–including myself–spilling on them. Then I went to a blogger’s tea thrown by Harlequin–hey, I do occasionally review books for RNN!–where the lovely ladies made me wear a fascinator-style headpiece. It was a tea, after all. I met fellow new Desire author Andrea Laurence, which was a very good thing. 
That’s me with Andrea on the left and Cat Schield in the middle (sans fascinators). The new Desire Authors!
That night, I went to one of only two chapter events I ever make it to–the Chicago-North RWA champagne party. For reasons that are best described as ‘insane,’ I took my husband and son. I seriously thought my hubby would have a glass of champagne while The Kid cribbed a few pieces of chocolate–and then they would leave. They were still there an hour later. The chocolate was Lindt, so The Kid looked like a chipmunk. I guess he was adorable enough to be allowed to stay.

After we all left, I went up, tucked him into bed, and went to the last party of the night–the Harlequin pyjama party–because Harlequin headquarters are in Canada, and that’s how they spell it up there. I wore my fascinator.

As you can see, I have a twig on my head. Which was good, because Larissa Walker wore hers, too. Even though Larissa and Amy Wilkins made me join Twitter, they turned out to be a fun bunch of women. I won’t even talk about how fun Vivienne Courtoise was. I think her bunny glasses say it all.

Thursday came and went in a rush. I went to the Harlequin Series Toast–where I drank champagne on a mostly empty stomach–and then, that night was the Harlequin Publisher’s Party.

It was, in a word, crazy. NOT the kind of crazy where nearly nude male models wear fig-leaf briefs and pretend to be classic statues like David. But it was CLOSE.

Here’s the funny story about the party. I didn’t feel awesome to begin with–see above about champagne on an empty stomach, followed by a too-heavy dinner. I got crammed into a van with seven other ladies. After bobbing and weaving through the crazy city streets, we get to the Waldorf Astoria. That alone is awesome. I go to pay my share for the ride, and the rest of the van laughs at me. Little did I know that the woman who was in the front seat was Brenda Chin, senior editor of Harlequin Blaze. She paid. I was very thankful as I tried to remember if I had said anything embarrassing on the ride over.

Okay, no. Disaster averted. Into the Waldorf! Where I promptly discovered I was not on The List. As in, not going to the party. This is the moment where panic set in. “But I write for Harlequin!” I said in a voice that was not even a little whiny. An Official Person was called over, I handed over my business card, and was shunted to the side.

Sheer panic.

But then my knight in shining armor–better known as Charles Griemsman, Desire Editor–walked up with USA Today Bestselling Author Day Leclaire. “What are you doing over here?” Charles asked. “I’m not on the list.” I swear, the hackles visibly went up on Charles’ neck. “You’re not on the list? Oh, we will see about that!”

Luckily, before Charles could go all velociraptor on someone, the Official Person said I could go in. I was given my pair of socks and the green light.

Yes. Socks. With Harlequin embroidered on them. Before I could grasp that, I found myself standing with Day and Charles in front of a Harlequin backdrop with the world’s Grumpiest Old Man Paparrazi. “They tell me 300, and now they say 500. It’s elder abuse, I tell you–Elder Abuse. Now smile!” Trust me–smiling was the only option at that point.

So I go in, carrying my socks.


So, it turned out that you need socks because everyone–and I mean EVERYONE–dances. No exception. They fly in the same DJ every year, and he plays the same set list to open. Editors, publishers, NYT Best-Selling Authors–they all take their shoes off and dance. Every single person.

So I danced. I wandered past the custom-made cupcake and ice cream bars. I drank Shirley Temples at the open bar. I yawned while boogieing. Finally, after 2 1/2 hours, I had to go to sleep.

So I wander down to the street, plaintively asking if anyone wants to share a cab ride back to the conference hotel. Three nice ladies say sure, and ask me what I write. We chitchat back to the hotel, and I get out my money to pay my part. All three women kind of laugh at me. “Honey,” the tall one says, “You’re in a cab with three editors from the Toronto office.”

Oh. I was very thankful as I tried to remember if I had said anything embarrassing on the ride over. No, I think. So good to go there. But thus, the major money-saving trip: Always catch rides with editors. They put cab fare on the company tab.

Friday was also good. I slept in past the first session–Shirley Temples take a lot out of a girl!–but made it to the session I was moderating, “How to Make Yourself Irresistible to Editors.” An editor wound up requesting a partial of Mystic Cowboy after that. And thus, my business trip was complete. Mission Accomplished!

So while I didn’t necessarily take the Publishing World by Storm, I did manage to take it by a Light Rain. Many thanks go out to Andrea, Cat, Charles, Stacy, Day, Blythe Gifford, Rebecca Finley, and everyone else who helped make my trip insanely productive and fun!

We Have a Winner!

Big News!

I WON!! Not only that, but I also took Second and Third!!

Maybe I need to back up.

Way back on October 14th, back when there was no snow on the ground, the trees were clinging to the last of their leaves, and I could send The Kid and The Dogs outside for the entire afternoon without being deemed a poor mother, I was notified Indian Princess had finaled in the Golden Rose, which I wrote about here. The next week, I got word that both Indian Princess and The Wannabe Cowboy had finaled in the Hot Prospect contest, which I’m sure you read all about here.

So, I just bet you were wondering how that turned out, huh?

I found out that Princess had gotten second in the Golden Rose a few weeks ago. No one-of-a-kind, handcrafted gold rose pendant; no gold-plated rose. Not even an editor request. I consoled myself with the fact that I had actually sold this book a week before the announcement. Oddly enough, this fact was quite consoling. I took my second place and called it a day.

I was going to blog about it, because I know that you, loyal reader(s), like to, as my mother says, “Wallow in the good news.” (Or maybe that’s just her?) I had every intent of blogging–but I was going to wait until I got the Hot Prospect results.

Sadly, this little thing called ‘the holidays’ happened, derailing contest announcements until everyone had gotten tipsy off of eggnog (seriously, who drinks that stuff?) and finished the panicked last-minute stuffing of Christmas Cards with the wrong year on them (not that I did that!) (Okay, maybe I did. I’m, uh, wishing you holiday greetings a year in advance!).

Finally, last week, word came down: Indian Princess had not only won its category, but it had been named the Grand Prize Winner! I get STUFF! A book trailer, active banner, and static banner from Firebird Web Designs! I’ll be talking with Carol of Firebird some time today (assuming that The Kid having a snow day doesn’t derail my every waking thought, because very little writing happens with The Kid spinning in my office chair).  Leanne Morgena of Wild Rose Press invited me to send in a partial, but again–I’ve already sold this book. I’ll have to pass.

I don’t want Wannabe Cowboy to feel bad–it did get third, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Actually, I kind of like being able to say I got First, Second, and Third!

Next up is the Golden Heart, which is the national contest through the Romance Writers of America. I sent both Princess and Wannabe off, as well as my single-title book, Mystic Cowboy.

I’m even more excited about this at the moment because I just got my judging packet in the mail today, and the first entry was pretty good. In every contest I’ve judged, I’ve had a finalist entry–Elizabeth Essex and Heather Snow. Both sold soon after. I’ve become friends with both. It’s exciting to think there might be another kindred spirit in my packet, just waiting to be read. Or that someone else has my stuff and is thinking the same thing.

Will I final in the Golden Heart? With which book? Will the dress I’m going to be wearing for my sister Leah’s wedding work for the reception ceremony? Will I have a winner? Will any of my friends be finalists with me? (You know who you are, Laurel and Rebecca!)

Can I wait the three months to find out about finaling? And the six month to the awards ceremony???

What was that New Year’s Resolution? Oh, yeah.

Patience.

WIP

Which is not the same as R.I.P. from last week’s obituary (and thanks again for all your well wishes!). No, WIP means Work In Progress for all you non-author types out there. In my case, it usually means Works In Progress.

Case in point: I haven’t even handed The Indian Princess off to my agent yet, and I’ve already got 15,000 words done on another book, tentatively titled The Wannabe Cowboy, and I’ve got 7,000 words done on the follow-up to The Mystic Cowboy (A reoccurring ‘Cowboy’ title theme? Know your target audience!), called The Man Called Nobody. (Yes, it’s a shout out to one of my all time fav-rave cowboys, Clint, but my character’s name actually is Nobody.)

Plus, (I can hear you saying out loud, plus??) I’m mentally churning through the follow-up to The Wannabe Cowboy, (really) tentatively called The Wannabe Indian. There may be a third Wannabe book out there, but it has not yet chosen to fully reveal itself to me as of yet. And I have another book waiting to be written, too–a complete reboot of an earlier book I wrote that is currently gathering dust on a shelf. Basically, the names and the characters’ occupations would be the same. Just about everything else would be different.

Yes. I’m an anomaly. I’m comfortable with who I am. 
So that’s two WIP, and two more in the chute. Toss in some freelance jobs and my grandmother Goldie’s WIP, Eleanore Gray, and that should keep me off the streets until there’s a lot of snow on the ground.
So, in advance, I’d like thank/apologize to my mother (Hi, Mom!), the Lovely Mary (Grammar Goddess), and Laurel Levy (beta reader extraordinaire) for all their hard work/tolerance of this onslaught of cowboy-based literature. 
Ladies, I’m going to make the next cowboy extra-hunky, just for you.

A Medium Revision

About a year ago, I was working on a book I called No Man’s Land. Here’s the back cover blurb:

 Bull riding is a man’s world, but June Spotted Elk is determined to make it her own. She’s not about to let anyone tell her that girls don’t ride bulls – especially not seasoned pro Travis Younkin. Sure, he claims he just wants to keep her safe by keeping her off the bulls, but June knows that he’s more worried about her messing up his big comeback season than anything else. But what June doesn’t know is how deep Travis’s scars run, or how far he’ll go to make sure no one else winds up on No Man’s Land.




Good stuff, right? June had an introductory bit part in the novel that my agent actually signed me over (which I refer to as the Noseless Cowboy book), so there were a few reoccurring characters when she got her own book, including Kip.

Kip is . . . a unique figment of my imagination. She’s a Lakota Indian, but a Holy Woman to the tribe. In other words, she’s a psychic. A powerful one. But she’s still a young woman in most of the books, with all the personality quirks a young woman has. In other words, she’s not always in control of her power. Not only that, she’s an albino. I liked Kip a whole lot, so she showed up in about five books I wrote. She was June’s best friend.

My agent liked Kip, along with the Noseless Cowboy. After all, she signed me over their book. 

But here’s the cold, hard truth for all you pre-published authors out there: Just because an agent likes something doesn’t mean it’s going to sell.

The Noseless Cowboy didn’t even get out of the starting gates because of that whole noseless thing. And Kip? Kip is too . . . unique for publisher to take a chance on for an unpublished author. 

Four of the five books that feature Kip are on a shelf. June’s book was the only one where she still popped up. No Man’s Land has been out with editors for about seven months. I’ve gotten four rejections, and it’s stuck in the slush pile a few other places. In other words, not much is happening. Blame the economy, the timing, the unpublishedness of the author (me) or . . .

Blame Kip.

My agent emailed me last Wednesday, asking me if I would be willing to try cutting Kip–and if I was, could I do it in two weeks, before her co-agents made a selling trip to NYC? My agent LOVES this book–she believes in No Man’s Land and she believes in me. She really, truly believes that the perfect editor for this book–and me–is out there, but it might be easier to find said editor if there was no albino psychic Lakota Indian Holy Women in the mix.

So we spent a few days going back and for about what level of rewrite this would be. Cut the mysticism entirely? No, we decided. An element of the supernatural is too important to the book–and all my books. Kip just needed to be scaled back and toned down–and not albino. She needs to not be a busybody, but more hesitant, more reserved. Oh, and just in case we ever do sell the Noseless Cowboy book, she needs to have a different name. 

So, the next week and a half won’t be a major rewrite. Just a medium.

Pun intended.



Write or Rewrite?

To Write, or to Rewrite? That is the question. Whether it is nobler in the mind’s eye to revisit the slings and arrows of outrageous criticism . . .


Nope, the metaphor just died there. Sorry. The criticism isn’t that outrageous. It’s pretty spot-on, actually. 


I’ve noticed a trend in constructive criticism of my westerns. The short list is:


1. Heroines that are too vulnerable (read: weak); or 
2. Heroines that are too strong (read: angry) (for some unknown reason, the middle ground is unreasonably difficult for me);
3. Waaaaay too much backstory up front (backstory is exactly what it sounds like–the background story of a character. You know, stuff like where they went to college, when they first got drunk, when they first kissed a boy–all stuff I think about, but most of which bores the socks off readers when presented in one whole chapter while the rest of the world is waiting to meet the hunky hero on horseback);
and
4. Overbearing mothers (which, I’m sure, has absolutely nothing to do with that whole ‘write what you know’ cliche) (Hi, Mom!).


Right now, I have a book–Mystic Cowboy–that isn’t on a shelf, but it’s near one unless I get off my fanny and do some rewriting. Rebel and Madeline are anxious to get away from any and all shelves and start making the editorial rounds.


But, at the same time, I’m working on that category, Indian Princess. Dan and Rosebud don’t want me to ditch them for Rebel and Madeline. They want to get to the good parts right now. 


Dan and Rosebud are winning. I tell myself it’s because I’m getting some ‘distance’ from Mystic Cowboy, so that my eyes will be fresher when I go back to it. Also, I have some beta readers who are going to rip it to shreds for me next week–I should wait to hear what they say before I rip it to shreds myself.


But those are just excuses. The fact of the matter is that writing a book is always a better time than rewriting a book. Writing a book is all about exciting new characters doing exciting new things–some of which are surprises until the words hit the page. It is, well, exciting. (Yes, I have two degrees in English literature. That’s the vocab you get on a Tuesday morning.) 


Rewriting means admitting that your stuff wasn’t as awesome as you thought it was. I’m a typical oldest child. Ask my sisters, and they’ll tell you, I like to think I’m always right. I hate to feel like I screwed something up, especially something I like to think I’m good at. I know I’m not supposed to take it personally, but try telling that to my ego. 


I know a lot of other pre-published authors struggle with this. Should I go back and fix, or just move forward?


Here’s why you have to rewrite. The only great piece of writing that was ever produced without any editing whatsoever was Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan,” which he never finished because he was proving an opium-based philosophical point. Everything else in this world has had an editor, and everything else in this world has had rewrites. (Insert your own joke about the Ten Commandments here.)


For pre-published writers, rewriting is a chance to get elbow-deep in the process of learning from your mistakes (wear gloves, because it’s going to be messy). That first book I wrote almost three years ago is still God-awful, but the nine months it took to revise and rewrite that thing taught me more than any class ever could. To write or to rewrite is really a trick question, because rewriting IS writing. Don’t fall into the false dichotomy trap! (There, that was a five dollar word. Happy?)


The trick is to know take what you learned on the last book and carry it over to the next book (hence no more overbearing mothers!), with the ultimate goal of having to do fewer rewrites. With any writing, you’ve got to take the good, leave the bad, and walk on. 


Happy Rewrites!







Randomness

Yes. There is no coherency to today’s post.

For example:

Yes. That’s a dog–a yawning dog–in a laundry basket. Somehow, the three-legged wiener dog–whose three legs are all of 2 3/4 inches long to begin with–managed to get into the laundry basket all by himself. Warm-from-the-dryer blankets will do that, though. Guard your baskets carefully. Wiener dogs may be lurking.

Which has nothing to do with my continual obsession with What Not To Wear As A Cowgirl:

So, this is pretty good, right? My Fashion Stylist vetted the skirt; the belt over the shirt works, doesn’t it?

Do Cowgirls wear pantyhose? Tights? Leg warmers? Anything? Because I’ve got to tell you, the high that day was 34 degrees, and I was cold. Not to mention my legs are not exactly things of tanned, toned beauty. Oh, the sacrifices I make for fashion. Hopefully, San Fran will not be that cold.

I also have this:

I swear, if I show up with a camera at work tomorrow, I think the Lovely Mary will scream or something.

Anyway, I think if I’m going to wear the brown corduroy jacket, I’ll work with either a white or bright-colored shirt. But otherwise, I think this is workable.

Wait, that was almost coherent.

Ah, that’s better.

Let’s see that again, shall we?

Yes. You are looking at a snowman three times the size of the real men who made him. He’s across the street from my house. As we speak, I am sitting in my office and watching people drive down the street, slam on the breaks, back up, and occasionally get out and take pictures. His garbage can hat and most of his bricks have fallen off, but this snowman isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. This is no mere boy’s snowman. This is a real man’s snowman. And speaking of real men…

Holy Moly. It was 28 degrees out, and Mr. Carhartt Overalls there was busting out those guns in a big way. Those arms will be making an appearance in my next book, I know that much. It takes a whole lot of muscles to move that much damn snow. And a forklift.

Notice the dogs:

Jake (modeling a stunning, custom-made, hand-knit sweater) is sort of okay with strange men who have awesome biceps. Gater, on the other hand, is considering attacking. You haven’t heard a dog bark until you’ve heard a half-beagle howl in attack mode. Really. It’s almost like the sonic bark from that movie Bolt. It shatters my ears every time.

And, finally, for those of you who actually managed to hold on through all this randomness, I’ve updated my website, here, to include the blurb on the book I’m almost done writing. Yes. I’m almost done with another book. This one is called Mystic Cowboy. I hope you like it!

So, tune in next week, when perhaps a little more organization will have returned to my life.

Or not.