Never say Never Trying something different

You may want to skip this post. It's a long-assed all about me one. Or you can go right to the end to see my writing goals for next year :-P

I've mentioned before that the year turned out not too bad for me. I set goals and achieved a lot of them. But, one of the most notable goals that I fell short of meeting had to do with the writing. I pushed myself and made some progress, but not nearly enough. I've had to sit back and analyzed the possible problems:

I was in a dark place emotionally for the past (couple of) years. There were/are two unlikeable people in my life who I had to interact with on a daily basis, and those interactions, inevitable, filled me with hate and anger, more and more. One of the things I worked on this year, was to *not* let those two get to me because I barely recognized myself as the laid-back, calm, jokey person I'd been most of my life. Instead I was a coiled tangle of ugly feelings and knee-jerk reactions. *bletch* (Not a conducive mindset to creatively writing passionate, humorous, love stories)

So instead of funny, hot, emotional, contemporary stories, I was caught up in a dark fantasy pseudo historical romance, which was more plot heavy, than character driven. The darkness in the mss reflected some of what I was feeling in real life, I guess that's why I couldn't let it go. But even the other mss I was working on, that had more humour, was still missing that emotional/character-driven component which I think is a major strength/driving force in my writing. I'm tired of pushing, and poking, and pulling. I want to be carried away.

So... those two books have been put aside for now. I promised a bunch of people I'd start submitting my first ms again (Felicity Stripped Bare in the sidebar). To that end, I tweaked the first paragraph a bit, then sent the whole thing off to the GMC Queen, Dee. I got several requests (fulls/partials) for it, but no sale. Maybe Dee can give me some idea of why. Or maybe I just hadn't sent it out to the right agent/editor yet.

Next up, I have a couple of contemporary romances that I need to go back and finish. Hindsight tells me part of the problem with them was that I was attempting to shift from the strength of 'character-driven' to plot-driven. A little more structured plot can only do good, but it's not what drives my writing. So, I'll have to untangle those twisty-twist plots I cooked up, and revise with something more streamlined.


But, it's hard to jump back in to mss left cold for months/years. I want to feel that emotional connection to my characters that I now know is vital to my writing. Being caught up with fascinating world-building or plot twists will only take me so far and then no further. And, there does have to be a strong enough frame-work of GMC/plotting to sustain a single-title length. My brain needs a bit of a rest from that type of in-depth planning.

So.... I'm working on a novella/short story length erotic romance (Song of Surrender in the side bar). 50-100 pages. Yeah, yeah, I've been decidedly unenthusiastic about overly sexualized stories (mostly because the sex was at the expense of character, believable/interesting plotting) and I'm on the record for saying I can't write short. lol. But novella writing will help me get out of the rut I'm currently in because, most of the focus will on the H/h (their emotions & responses), and I can avoid making the back-story/world-building/plotting too complex or worrying about supporting the story over a longer page count. Also, I'll probably get around to finishing Leif Irondik. *g*

I now know that the sooner my H/h interact, the better for me. The stories really hit their groove when I have the H/h playing off each other emotionally, sexually, personality wise. I need them in conflict, or engaging banter, or fighting/responding to sexual attraction before all the external plotting gets out of hand. And no more love triangles. At least no more love triangles where Hero B is in the spotlight for the first couple of chapters, when I know in my heart that the real hero, Hero A, is waiting in the wings.

Writing goals for next year:

1. Focus on getting the single title romances done and at the door, starting with Felicity Stripped Bare. While there seems to be a death knell ringing over the contemporary romance sub-genre at the moment (move over Westerns, chick-lit, and Regencies), I naturally write with a high level of sexual tension/physicality, so the level of heat might still get me some interest. :-/

2. As a counter-point, keep writing (and hopefully get published) the novella length erotic romances (which seem to be mostly fantasy/sci-fi based at the moment). They'll give me a break from writing the longer contemporary romance books, but keep me productive at the same time.

3. Writing Related: might do something about a new blog design/web-site. We'll see. But I may adapt a schedule like a number of other writers (Writing Wednesdays, Thursday Thirteen, Reviews on Mondays, etc) so I can get this blog a little more lively again.