My friend Jennifer Echols (Major Crush, Simon Pulse, ‘06) is answering questions for a college creative writing class on her blog. The first question is about how she got into writing fiction. She’s looking for other people’s stories, and I thought I’d take this opportunity to share mine:
Fall 2001: Having graduated from college, I decide that if I’m ever going to do this novelist thing, I’d better put my keyboard where my mouth is and give it a whirl. In a bout of serendipity, I pick up a romance novel for my plane ride to New York City on September 11, 2001. To get me through my hellish, hellish day, I read that book over and over again about three times. (It’s a great book. Exposed!) Afterwards, holed up in my boyfriend’s dorm room, I decide to write to the author to thank her for writing that book, and keeping me sane. Turns out she’s from my hometown, Turns out she’s super awesome. At the time, I think it’s very bizarre that a romance novelist would set a romance in my hometown, rather than Dallas or New York City or Paris or a Greek Island somewhere. I decide to write an article about her and her hometown-flavored books for my local newspaper, and since I’m doing all this research into category romance for the article, I start writing one. It sucks!
Summer 2002: Having moved back to Florida, the super awesome romance novelist (Julie Leto) suggests I come to her RWA chapter meeting. I do, then I finish my book, then I cough up the $100 bucks to join RWA because I think the chapter members are the most supportive and helpful group of writers I have ever met. I’m now in three chapters, and I still think that about TARA. I realize that the book sucks and I start on another one (#2) that I like more. I also submit a query for manuscript #1 to Harlequin editor.
Winter 2002: Having attended RWA meetings religiously for several months, I finish manuscript #2. I also get a request for the partial of manuscript #1. I enter both in the Golden Heart contest.
Spring 2003: Continue to study craft and industry religiously. I’m a writing fiend. Have written a partial (book #3) for this upcoming female action-adventure line Harlequin is launching called Bombshell, the first chapter of a single title romance (book #4), half of another category romance, and a very sexy romance novella. recieve a score of ONE (lowest possible) for #2. Send out partial of #2 to editor. Receive rejection for partial of book #1. Receive rejection for novella. Final in local chapter contest three times, with #2, #3, and #4. Begin working with both of my critique partners. Am also working full time at the newspaper.
Summer 2003: Receive full request for #3 from editor after she learned it finaled in the contest. Attend my first RWA National Conference, in New York City. Get a request for a partial for #4 (from Berkley). Think this means something. Sure I’m about to sell, and having learned that it’s a good idea to have an agent for single title, I query an agent who is a friend of a friend. She requests the partial of #4 in a day, the full in another, I tell her I don’t have the full, and could I send her #3 instead (which I have high hopes of finishing soon). She agrees.
Fall/Winter 2003/2004: Move to Australia. Receive full/revision request for #2. Finish #3. Enter #3 in Golden Heart (and have high hopes of it winning, as think it is best work I’ve ever written). Send out #3 to agent and editor.
Spring 2004: Move back from Australia. Start working at newspaper again. Begin a few projects that don’t go anywhere. Receive rejection for #3 from agent (who still wants to see #4) and from editor. Begin sending editor proposals for other stories, none of which fly. Decide that either editor and I don’t click, or I’m not really getting the idea for the line (when it debuts that summer, I realize it’s the latter foremost).
Summer 2004: I begin to feel the weight of all the rejections and my productivity drops tremendously. I receive a rejection from Berkley for #4. I final in the Jasmine and Molly Contests with #4, and the Maggie Contest with #2. I attend the RWA National conference, where I receive a blind request for a partial of #4 from and editor and from an agent. I get home and, having decided that a good agent is the best way to get anywhere in this industry, I query 18 agents with #4. I get 17 rejections, and one partial request, and a rejection from the editor who requested it at Nationals.
Fall 2004: I live through four hurricanes, coordinate a contest, work in hurricane relief, and win a Maggie Award with #2 and a Molly Award with #4 (I come in second in the Jasmine, owing to the fact that the final judge is also the one who just rejected it, though the Molly judge had rejected it, too). The two partial agent requests turn into full agent requests. I enter #2, #3, and #4 in the Golden Heart, sure I will final this time (after all, I won all those other contests!).
Winter 2004/2005: I get the idea for book #5 and move to Washington D.C. I finally get off my butt and finish the revisions to #2 and #4, and send them out to the editor (#2) and three agents (#4) who wanted it. As a reward for finishing, and in a fit of pique and frustration after finally finishing the coordination of the contest, I begin #5 with an eye towards breaking all the contest rules.
Spring 2005: I receive a rejection for #4 from two agents. A month later, one of these agents calls to say she’s considering it (???) and will give me an answer in a week. (She doesn’t contact me for another month and a half, leading me to wonder which was in error, the rejection letter or the phone call?) That week, I finish a partial of #5 and tell my critique partner about it. She pitches it that weekend to a bunch of editors and agents, who all clamor for it, even though it’s unfinished. I send it out to them, and also to the third agent still considering #4 (who was the agent who turned down #3) and also to another agent I met at a conference. In half an hour, the third agent offers on the basis of #5. Two more offer within days. An editor looking at #5 writes to express interest. I sign with my agent, and we sell the book a week and a half later based on the first five chapters, in a two book deal, in a heated six-way auction.
So that’s what happened. Three and a half years, five manuscripts, a few dozen rejections, and finally a deal.
January 22nd, 2006 at 12:53 pm
Wow, Diana, what a tough journey to publication. I know what it feels like to think you’re so close with the requests and then the requests end up as rejections. Your experience shows what drive, determination and talent can do–lets you reach your goals.
Can’t wait to read your series. =D
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January 22nd, 2006 at 6:49 pm
Three and a half years and you wrote five manuscripts! While holding down a fulltime job! I thought you said you write slow?
Very impressive!
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January 22nd, 2006 at 8:34 pm
Congratulations on the deal. I was running the streets of New Haven about the same time you were a freshman. Went to lawschool right down the road. Did mucho drinking at BAR and ate alot of semi-raw hambugers at Louie’s, Clinton’s fav burger joint. Drank some at the Yalie Rowers bar(I can’t remember the name but they had a yard-o-beer that was quite refreshing…
Anyway, good luck. I followed you over from Kelly’s blog.
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January 22nd, 2006 at 9:28 pm
Kelly, I heard someone once say that people are most in danger of quitting when they are closest to selling. Something about how the books are or are almost publishable, they just haven’t gotten that elusive lightning strike, and they can’t figure it out. There lies the frustration. Honestly? I got off pretty lucky. Three years is nothing, and it might have even been less had I not jetted off to Australia or wasted several months sending proposals to a line I wasn’t suited for (a line, which, it seems, you are immensely suited for!)
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Justine, I think I do write slowly. I was working “full time” for about 10 months of those three and half years. The other times I was travelling or freelancing.
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Hi, R.J.! How cool. In my book, there are scenes set in Bizarro-world versions of both BAR *and* Louis’.
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January 22nd, 2006 at 10:50 pm
I hope this doesn’t make me sound like a total sap but reading that almost made me cry. Maybe because it hits home – I feel like I’m so close (Golden Heart final last year, agent requests, full requests from editors) and yet, so far, nothing.
I know it takes time and you have to have a good dose of “the right place, the right time” and all that other stuff. I’m not giving up yet tho. At least not until I hear the results of this year’s Golden Heart. lol
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January 22nd, 2006 at 11:13 pm
I never even got close in the Golden Heart, Kristen, so you’ve got it all over me there. In fact, the manuscripts that did the best in the big regionals (like the Molly and the Maggie) got the worst scores in the GH. There’s more info on that here and here. I’m just nto a good GH entrant.
But you’re so committed! I remember once you said that at your first Rita award ceremony, you turned to the prez of your chapter and said, “that will be me up there next year” and then it was! Very much chill-giving, that. I also think there was an article recently in the RWR talking about stats of the GH and who sold and how soon and whatnot.
But yeah the “close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades” phase is the absolute worst. And I don’t know if it ever stops. Because even after you have the validation of selling something, you get passes, and you want to be like, “No, I can write a book, see? They/you published the last one/three/fifty. Why don’t you want this one?”
I so almost quit last fall. The pressure of the hurricanes (or lack thereof.. ha ha, meterology joke), the contest, and the 18 rejections? Suckage. And then I got my Maggie Award. And I wear it EVERY SINGLE DAY. Now I have a contract, I have an editor, I have an ARC that I can hold in my hands if I want… but I still wear my Maggie Award. Because I was going to quit, and then the universe told me to hang in there, and handed me a little silver talisman that my father still thinks looks like marijuana. (Dude, dad, it’s a magnolia.) So I think you should pin that little gold heart on your sweater every day, if it helps. Five people thought your book was the best thing they’d read all month. Some other time five more people will, and they’ll be the ones at the acquisitions table.
Ahem, so, cheese plate anyone?
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January 23rd, 2006 at 7:05 am
I find it slightly frightening that you know that I said that at my first RITA awards. I mean, I know I’ve mentioned it but still.
Are you secretly psychic? I guess you can’t be or you would have figured out what the editors and agents were thinking a log time ago. Hah!
I really need to get that GH certificate framed and hang it in my office where I can see it. I keep meaning to do that. Okay, putting that on top of my To Do list for this week.
Thanks for the words of encouragement, Diana – can’t wait to meet you in Feb. at the STAR conference!
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January 23rd, 2006 at 10:08 am
What can I say? It was memorable. You had a goal and you did it. It’s like those guys that come home from their first date and say, “I’m going to marry that girl.” And then they do. It’s memorable.
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January 23rd, 2006 at 10:19 am
Anybody who thinks this business is easy is wrong.
I think the problem is we all love to post our successes, and we don’t often post our failures along the way. So what a lot of people see is how someone succeeded and how it seemed so fast and so easy and how they got this great deal with very little effort, when that wasn’t the case at all.
I love this blog post, Diana. It shows how hard you worked to get here and how NOT easy it was to do it.
Hmmm I should do the same thing on my blog. I had a LOT of failures over the past few years *g*
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January 23rd, 2006 at 11:07 am
Oh, Jaci, I’d LOVE to read yours! Do it, girl!
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January 24th, 2006 at 9:31 am
“It’s like those guys that come home from their first date and say, “I’m going to marry that girl.” And then they do. It’s memorable. “
Even more memorable when they come home, say the words, and after two months of lukewarm (from the girl’s side) daring and five years of stalking-edged pursuit, said girl marries a handsome millionaire. Except in that case, it’s no one’s memory but that guy’s *g*
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January 24th, 2006 at 3:50 pm
Oh boy! I’m behind… by like 3 manuscripts. I. Must. Get. Writing.
And you queried with partial unfinished manuscripts (and still finished them)? Determined is putting it lightly. And you are a brave, brave woman. I need to take some pointers from you! *g*
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January 24th, 2006 at 4:37 pm
Daria, you crack me up!
And you queried with partial unfinished manuscripts (and still finished them)?
Determined? Brave? No, I was *stupid*! I promised myself that I’d never do that again — and then, lo and behold circumstances forced my hand. I knew i had to query on the (still unfinished) SSG, because hte buzz was so high. I even apologized about it in my query letter to my agent, because the last one I’d sent had been unfinished. But I was beginning to get the idea that it would sell unfinished. Still, I don’t recommend it — not least because 99.8% of the time, that’s not how it works, and it’s also how you piss people off.
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January 24th, 2006 at 5:27 pm
And my picture is finally full. I was wondering how came you openly queried with unfinished ms and no one even seemed surprised–but now seeing there was already a big buzz about it, it wasn’t just a bunch of cold queries, that sort of explains why no one expected anything else
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