DO NOT WANT AGAIN!

Her Cinderella Secret got rejected by The Wild Rose Press.

*Sad trombone noise*

Read the details here.

Do. Not. Want.

*Sigh.*

My MMA romance novel got rejected by Harlequin Superromance. Not because of the quality of writing, but because of the lack of a more solid romantic conflict.

Go read the post-mortem on Victory Essex's blog--I got to interview senior editor Victoria Curran about it, and what came out of the hour-long talk was very enlightening.

DO NOT WANT, PART DEUX

Rejection letter number two, from The Wild Rose Press:

April 30, 2008

Dear Vicki,

I'm sorry it has taken me the whole month of April to read All in the Details...(edit)....

Vicki, you have many good writing skills. Your mechanics (grammar, spelling, punctuation) are all excellent. That certainly makes an editor's job so much easier. You do not need to underline anything in italics though. Your italics were used properly; you just need to remove the underlines.

As for the story, I find that All in the Details gets off to a very slow start. I expected the story to develop faster than it did. It seems you have a very good story towards the end of the manuscript—about Lilah's family history. I would like to see that moved forward so you can grasp the reader's interest sooner. I suggest that when Lilah and Kent have their "fling", they become intimate emotionally enough for her to share that part of her life with him.

I'd like to see a stronger hero, too. Because of his mother's treatment of him, he seems to be a wimp in her realm, but a tiger in Lilah's presence. I would like to see a little more strength with Diana and a little more vulnerability with Lilah. This will make his personality more believable, if he doesn't waffle so between the two women. Does this make sense?

When Lilah meets Diana in her office near the end of the story, I find it hard to believe Lilah will get away with telling Diana how she needs to run her life, especially since the women hardly know each other. Perhaps you could have them meet and tussle a couple of times before this, so that it seems more plausible for Lilah to speak her mind in this instance.

Your writing is very descriptive, which is imperative in fiction. Your characterizations are good, too. The settings are minimal in effect so that in the future you might want to weigh in heavier in describing the surroundings.

Your writing has a lot of potential, and if you would be willing to consider some of my recommendations and would like to re-work your manuscript and re-submit it, I would be glad to take another look at it. Whatever you decide to do, I wish you much success in your writing endeavors. You do have a lot of talent, I just think you need to hone it some.

Please let me know if I can be of any further help to you.

Sincerely,

jan

Like my first rejection letter, it's not as bad as it could be: that said, there are obviously some flaws in the characters and storyline that I could address--all things I was aware of, but decided to let slide, just to see if anyone else would notice.

Also, I was really trying to go for a more believable non-Alpha hero, but apparently, it doesn't really work.

Next steps: right now, I'm focusing on some other works, plowing on with book number two, Star Attraction, which could conceivably stand alone without All in the Details (I'd envisioned them as part of a miniseries). Still working on that short story, which is absolutely killing me; and fanfic, which is still my first true love.

As it is, though, I am completely burnt out. I took a couple of days off, but it only recharged my creativity juices to about 1/5 full.

I think I need to do something else for a while...like NOT read or write romance. Thank God TV is back....

DO NOT WANT

I didn't believe the news stories that said this was the most depressing week of the year. But now I know what they're talking about. And here is the reason:

My first rejection letter!

See, back in July 2007, I sent off my first Harlequin Romance novel to New York, entitled All in the Details. Two weeks ago, having still received no response, I called the editorial assistant, who fished my MS from the slush pile and sent me back this reply.

I'm crushed (nothing a glass of wine won't fix), but his words are encouraging, and I was already kind of expecting his criticisms.

The highlight, of course, is that he recommended I pitch to the Desire line...if I alter the hero's character radically.

I'm not adverse to revisions, of course, but I'm going to move forward and write some other stuff before I think about editing and resubmitting to another line. Or publisher.

The author's path to success if fraught with rejections. I'm taking this one in strife--now I can become a PRO member of the RWA. And then I'm framing this to go right next to my first letter of kudos. It'll keep me humble.