Excitement of new beginnings...

Thought for today - "Accept the challenges so that you can feel the exhilaration of victory." George S. Patton

Today I am starting a new manuscript. I am so very excited. A new story. New characters. New ideas to pick up, turn over, move around, and play with, like the pieces of a puzzle.

For me, when finding that next story, more often than not, the location of the story, the background, comes first. This story idea is no different. I have been playing with three different possibilities for the last couple of weeks and this one just wanted to be looked at more than the others.

Next, out of that background or location, comes the suspense plot. The mystery to be solved. The puzzle to be worked. All the ideas aren't formed at this point, but they are starting to take shape.

Then come the people. For many, especially those that write romance of any kind, the characters seem to come first. Not for me. They sneak up on me after I have figured out where to look for them. After I've found that background and am starting to see the mystery and suspense unfolding. Then my characters come to me and I find myself asking them, "How did you get yourselves into this perdicament?"

The characters for this particular plot are still quite shy. They haven't shown themselves to me yet. I'm in the early throes of researching the background and unraveling the mystery/suspense, and well, my characters are still in hiding. I do know that my hero is the one in the middle of the "storm" and the heroine will be the one to help him find his way. But I don't know much else. No names. No physical description. No emotional hang-ups. Nothing. . .yet.

But as my characters before them know, you can hide but sooner or later, I will find you!

Carpe diem,
Kellie

Rejection is part of the business...

Thought for today - "Nobody ever died of laughter." Max Beerbohm

Rejection is part of every writer's career. Even those incredibly blessed individuals that managed to sell each and every story they ever wrote, were rejected at some time, on some level. It's a tough part of the business, but if we use the feedback we receive wisely, we can indeed gain from it.

In January, I sent out several requested submissions - some to editors, some to agents - all hoping to receive positive feedback. While not all responses are in, one in particular - a strongly worded rejection - challenged my strength and determination as a writer.

The specific editor giving the feedback pretty much hated what she had read of my work. She hated my hero. Hated my heroine. Might like my villains with a little work. Didn't like the first meeting of the hero and heroine, to the point she didn't think the plot would even work after that point.

The good news is, I certainly evoked strong emotion in her; the bad news is, it wasn't the emotion I was going for!
It was all very hard to hear.

She went on to say that she realized her feedback was quite "direct," but that she felt she would be doing me a greater disservice - both short-term and long-term - to sugar coat the message than to lay it out straight and bruise my feelings.

While it was very difficult to absorb, she was totally right.

Okay, maybe not right about the hero and heroine and the plot line, but right about giving me direct feedback. Her words, while they stung, also caused me to stop and reevaluate, both the story I had submitted to her and the direction I was moving my career.

Her words made me look closer at the plot of my story and at the key characters. While I don't necessarily agree with her assessment, she did give me a perspective a first time reader might have that I hadn't given thought to. And she gave me the perspective of a person that might eventually buy the book - the person that would eventually be responsible for "the bottom line" of whether it was a profitable business decision or not.

The other thing that her feedback did was make me slow down for a moment and look at how I felt about my writing career. There will always be rejection. If my only goal is to seek approval of others, perfection in getting only positive feedback simply isn't obtainable. I will make myself crazy in the search for it.

A writer really does need to write what they love. Some days - many days - that will be the only reward he or she will reap.

To the editor with the strong words that I really wasn't looking to hear. . .thank you!

Carpe diem,
Kellie