Originally published at Nice Mommy~Evil Editor. Please leave any comments there.

Jaci Burton’s winner: Chris (comment #5)! Check out Jaci’s backlist at her website and email her at jaci at jaciburton dot com with your book choice!

Shannon Stacey’s winner: Pearl (comment #19)! Check out Shannon’s digital backlist at her website and email her at shannonstacey at gmail dot com with your book choice and preferred format!

Thank you all for keeping us company while we hijacked our editor’s blog!

Originally published at Nice Mommy~Evil Editor. Please leave any comments there.

So when Angela asked for any volunteers to post while she was away, I happily volunteered because, hey, I’ve got a book coming out in print August 2009.  My happiness quickly deflated when she said “But, this can’t be a strictly promotional post.  It should be fun and informative.”  Ugh!  I had five days to come up with something witty and I’m not very witty, especially on the spot.   In any event, with a little help from a friend, I came up with something that I hope meets the standards.

TWELVE THINGS I’VE LEARNED SINCE I STARTED WRITING PROFESSIONALLY……

1.  There are guidelines even for your imagination.

2.  Writing is a solitary profession.

3.  I can come up with enough words to write an entire book.

4.  Characters don’t like it when you ignore them.

5.  Research can be fun and interesting.

6.  A plot is more than a final resting place.

7.  Research can be boring and tedious.

8.  The right critique partners are a blessing.

9.  It’s still about being in the right place at the right time.

10.  Promotion sucks.

11.  Getting published is only the beginning.

12.  Every story has already been told; you have to tell it with a new twist.

Now these are not in any particular order.  Over the eleven years I’ve been writing on a professional level, all of these things have come into play at different stages.  I know I’ll be dealing with them again.

Have a wonderful Sunday….

~~Sloan McBride  (www.sloanmcbride.com)

P.S.  Book One of my Time Walker Series, “The Fury” is coming out in print August 2009.  Please drop by my website to read reviews, an excerpt, and see the new book trailer I created.

Originally published at Nice Mommy~Evil Editor. Please leave any comments there.

So here I am, sitting in my living room, which is in chaos because we’re having a new floor fitted, and a new kitchen, thinking about the RWA conference and where I’d rather be.

But the RWA Conference isn’t the only game in town. Last weekend, I had the pleasure of attending the annual conference of the RNA – the Romantic Novelists’ Association, in Penrith, Great Britain. There is a lot of cross-traffic between the RNA and the RWA, and some people are members of both, but they are very different organisations with different aims and approaches.

The RNA is primarily for published writers, although we do have many unpublished members. And the British romance market is very different to the American, with different definitions. There aren’t always romance shelves in British bookstores, and some books that would be considered mainstream in the States are counted in the UK as romance, for instance, the sagas (sometimes known as “clogs and shawls”) in which the love story is only part of the heroine’s journey. Paranormal romance is almost unknown in the UK, and historical romance is very different. Best-selling authors like Mary Jo Putney and Liz Carlyle are unheard of in the UK.

But writers are writers the world over, and the weekend consisted of jovial meetings at the bar and the dinners, and classes which could be applicable either side of the Atlantic, and over the Pacific too, come to that.

Instead of doing summaries of the talks, I’ll put snippets from the ones I went to. If you’re interested, the summaries and accounts can be found on the RNA blog, a new venture that should be on any writer’s feed list:

http://romanticnovelistsassociationblog.blogspot.com/

So here are some snippets from the talks:

Freda Lightfoot is a writer of sagas and mis-lit, and she used to own her own bookstore, so she’s seen both sides of the process. Her talk was on author branding.

“Your brand is your guarantee of quality.” She advised attendees not to stint in their efforts, but to remember that writing is a business.

Kathy Gale used to work for MacMillan and other publishers as an editor. She has now opened her own business.

“There is a big gap between writers and publishers – writers don’t always know what publishers want.

Supermarket sales have transformed the market. Supermarkets take about 12 books a month then sell them in huge quantities, instead of taking more writers and selling fewer books. In recent years that has led to the death of the midlist.

It’s very important to see yourself as a contemporary writer. Authors sometimes write in a slightly old-fashioned way, or don’t update a manuscript that has been around for years. Older authors can continue, but should try to update, new writers should write in a contemporary style.

Think about what the reader wants. You are writing for someone else, not just for yourself.

“New writers will spend a lot of time describing place and not enough characters. Don’t let pace override everything else.”

As well as a successful author, Anita Burgh is a teacher and mentor to many unpublished writers. She spoke about surviving rejection. “Dyslexia is very common among writers. Don’t be too humble in submissions, on the other hand don’t be too bombastic either. Agents and editors need you, or they can’t survive.”

Jessica Hart is a multipublished Harlequin/Mills and Boon author. Her talk was on the “f-word.” (not the one I was thinking about!)

“In a romance the story is about the obstacle between the h/h. The tension comes from uncertainty.”

“Fear is the biggest plot driver of all.”

“Plot isn’t about putting the characters in romantic scenes in romantic places.”

“The hero and heroine have to find it impossible to walk away at any part of the story.”

Jessica recommended Blake Snyder’s book “Save the Cat.”

Hugo Summerson is the former MP for Walthamstow East. His talk was on Public Speaking. His whole talk was a perfect example of how to keep an audience listening.

“When campaigning, in a car cavalcade the safest car is the first one. The last car is the one that gets the rotten fruit.”

“Don’t give handouts until the end as it’s a distraction for the audience.”

“Find out what the audience wants to know. Find out how long you’re going to speak for. Assess depth of knowledge in audience.”

“What interests people is people. Not dry facts. So use anecdotes and concrete examples.”

“How interested you are in your subject? If it bores you, you shouldn’t have accepted the invitation.”

There was more. I could go on all day. What with that, the shoes and the discussions with other authors, it was a highly successful conference, and I can’t wait until next year!

If you want to read more about the conference, or about the RNA, we now have a blog:

http://romanticnovelistsassociationblog.blogspot.com/

And our website is

http://www.rna-uk.org/

Phew! I did it all without breaking Angie’s blog! Go me!

Originally published at Nice Mommy~Evil Editor. Please leave any comments there.

I first started working for Samhain in about August of 2007. And, as all of us newbies are in the beginning, I was under Angie’s thumb. Very much so under her thumb. And for someone like me who likes to do things on my own, I hated it. Really hated it. I had to send EVERYTHING I did to her to look at and give me approval on first. I remember complaining that I thought it was stupid, I knew what I was doing and if I had a question, I would ask. Hell, she wouldn’t have hired me if I sucked, right?

I was right about her not hiring me if I sucked…and for anyone out there’s who’s taken her/Samhain’s editor test, it’s grueling. Very grueling. But I was wrong about not needing her guidance. Very wrong. As much as I may have disliked it at the time, I know that I am a better editor today because of her guidance and flaming whip. She really has one, I promise. And it really hurts sometimes. The first edits I sent to her for one of my books, she promptly flung back at me with about a million comments on the first few pages. I remember my stomach sinking to the floor, or below that if possible, and wondering why she had hired me in the first place.  And then I quickly got over, put on my big girl panties and took her comments and integrated them into my editing from there on out.

And after what seemed like years, she finally gave me the go ahead to go it on my own, that I didn’t need her approval anymore. I was so happy that I didn’t have to take that extra step anymore that took more time up. And now that I look back at that, I know that when she did that, she was telling me she trusted me. She trusted that I would put out the quality of work Samhain is known for at the Crissy and Angie expect from us.

I have yet to meet Angie in person, but I’m hoping to at RT next year. It’s in Ohio and I’m in Indiana and I’ve already made up my mind that I’ll be there. =) And I can’t wait to finally get to meet the illustrious Angela James. I mean, heck, the woman has been my boss for two years now and I’ve never even met her. But I guess in this industry that’s not so far out of the norm. =)

I can only hope to have the “status” someday that Angie has in this industry. I can honestly say she’s my editing hero/role model. LO And no, I’m not sucking up, that’s not me. I’m just stating the facts that I think any other editor at Samhain would agree with.

Tera Kleinfelter

http://editortera.wordpress.com

P.S. I was going to do something sooooo typically Tera and post nudie pics of David Hasselhoff (my hero) or some such nonsense, but I though better and decided to do something out of the norm and do something completely off the wall and be serious for once. =P Plus, I figure if I’m good this time, then Angie will trust me to babysit her blog again and I can come up with some a little more….interesting, shall we say. =)

Originally published at Nice Mommy~Evil Editor. Please leave any comments there.

(Edited to add: This is a guest post written by Shannon Stacey)

You’ve seen the view from the Executive Editor of Samhain’s side of the desk here, but I thought today I’d give you a glimpse of the view from the other side. What’s it like, as an author, to go through the editing process? I’ve done it eight times, so I’ll give you a quick overview and then I’ll offer up a few specifics that might help if you’re thinking of submitting to Samhain.

(Obligatory caveat: Angie has been my editor throughout all my contracts with Samhain. Other editors may do things differently, plus the working relationship between an editor and each of her authors varies. Therefore your mileage will, as well.)

FOREVER AGAIN was published in January of 2006 (it was one of Samhain’s four launch titles), which means we probably started the editing process in the fall of 2005, therefore Angie has been my editor for almost four years. I’m not really sure how she feels about that…

Anyway. I’m a fairly clean writer, so our process is generally two rounds of edits and a round of final line edits.

Round One: Oh my achin’ ass. These hurt. The comments in the documents (edits are done electronically through track changes) are scary enough, but it’s the general impression in the body of the email that really makes you cry. This is where you hear your hero’s a flaming asshole or your secondary guy (and future hero) is a little creepy. Maybe you didn’t develop the romantic arc clearly enough on the page so the HEA isn’t believable. Or the dreaded I just don’t love it. In the document there are cheerful little speech bubbles pointing out plot holes and awkward sentences and timeline issues and pet words and…just about everything a writer can possibly do wrong in a book.

Round Two: With the heavy lifting out of the way, this usually seems a little easier, but the magnifying glass is out for the fine tuning and a thousand little errors need to be fixed. Okay, not a thousand. (Well, again, your mileage may vary.) If there was a large issue that required substantial rewriting, those sections will be edited and there’s the question of whether it effected other parts of the story.

In both rounds, commas are fought for and typos are fixed. Issues are hashed out. For two books in a row, Angie and I went ’round and ’round about the capitalization of Navy. I lost in both cases. I’ve learned through almost Pavlovian conditioning to trust Angie’s judgement. When I disregard her suggestion, the reviews criticize that element. When I implement a change she suggested, the reviews love that element. Seriously.

Once the book’s edited within an inch of its life, it goes to…Final Line Edits: This is a crucial step in the book’s process and, though I stet a lot of issues dealing with voice and such, I’m always blown away by the number of things the final line editors catch. Usually syntax/grammar/spelling/typos and such, but they’ll also speak up if they think a comment needs to be made. The FLE for NO SURRENDER questioned the clarity of an event from 72 HOURS that’s mentioned, as well as commenting on the timeline of the ending.

Just for fun, here are my five favorite editorial comments from Angie:

5. Is this a word?
4. Something about this sentence just isn’t right.
3. Hello run-on sentence!
2. I don’t think this is a word.
1. This sentence is just kind of…ugly.

If you’re thinking about submitting to Angie, there are a few things you can do to help ensure your manuscript doesn’t make her do something rash. Like running off to Las Vegas, where she’ll stand around on the street sucking down suspiciously disguised beverages, for example.

10 Things You Might Want to Doublecheck in Your Manuscript Before Subbing to Angela James:

1. Make sure none of your adverb adjective combos or whatever they’re called are hyphenated. (”Softly-mounded” for example.) I keep putting them in, she keeps taking them out.

2. Be certain, especially in love scenes, that none of your characters’ body parts are autonomous. Hands and eyes that go a’roaming remind her of Thing from The Addam’s Family. Funny, but not so much with the sexy.

3. Check, doublecheck and triplecheck your timelines. She bags me every single time I convince myself nobody will catch a timeline glitch. They’re one of her “things”.

4. If you’re one of those writers who fires off a draft, figuring you’ll polish it up if she accepts it because that’s what editors are for, you might want to submit to a different editor. At a different publisher.

5. Watch for a lot of thens and and thens. I’m especially guilty of this synopsis-like construction during love scenes and fight scenes—scenes that I’m heavily choreographing in my head and trying to translate onto the page. (Yes, the following comment exchange is for two paragraphs in a love scene and there were more on the page. Ouch.)

6. Pronoun confusion. Make sure every one of your pronouns clearly belongs to the character/item/whatever it’s supposed to. Angie’s very hung up on pronoun clarity. Also— Reflexive pronouns. Umm…I’m still not sure what that even means. Certain usages of himself or herself, for example, will earn an editorial handslap. Since I don’t quite get this rule, I just write and then change it when she points it out. Better for you, though, if you do it right.

7. The dreaded ECHO. I’m not sure how an author can really check for this other than reading very, very thoroughly, but using the same word too often too close together is a common author quirk and a common editorial comment. If you can get rid of this, you’re that much cleaner. She has some kind of magic Repetition Radar.

8. Make sure modifying phrases are modifying the correct subject. This is HUGE with Angie. Another of her “things”.

9. Don’t give a lot of characters names beginning with the same letter. She’ll notice. And right now you might want to avoid naming all of your characters “C” names because…well, just because. (A little inside tidbit from NO SURRENDER: The young woman the DG has to rescue will always be named Claire in my heart. In the book it’s…something else. Isabel? Isabella? Something that doesn’t start with a C.)

10. The standard warning to avoid starting multiple paragraphs with the same word, whether it be a name, the or and. And watch the junk words—just, so, that. She hit FOREVER AGAIN so hard on my “that” usage, I still shudder to remember the edits. I think it took several books for her to break me of that habit. Do a find on “that” and challenge every single one.

As a matter of fact, she was rather traumatized the first time she had to ADD “that” to one of my books. I, of course, gloated.

Okay, if you made it all the way through that overly-long post, comment to enter to win a DIGITAL book from my backlist! Ask a question if you’ve got one or make a comment or just say hi and at 9:00 am est Friday Sunday I’ll randomly draw a winner!