I’ve had some writer’s block recently (okay, three years of it, off and on). I think I finally broke it this month. I turned a smutty little 5K short story into a smutty 16K novella, and got it delivered to its editor at a new publisher. When they announce it, I will share the happy news.
It was a great experience. I’ve been hitting stop-and-start pacing on Moro’s Shield and The Leopard of Saba, because of day-job exhaustion, financial stress, and how-much-sex-can-people-realistically-have-while-running-for-their-lives? plot problems.
With this little book, I had few of those issues. It’s contemporary erotic romance, so I didn’t have eons of worldbuilding to do. I had a month to think about and work on it, after signing the contract on October 1. It’s tentatively scheduled for an early February 2016 release.
I’d already written the core scene as a 4K M/F erotica short story for a charity anthology; when that was rejected, I rewrote it as M/M erotic romance for two romance anthology publishers, adding more emotional depth with each version.
The antho editors still rejected me. But hey, I got personalized rejections with pointers. That’s kind of a jackpot, for rejections. One, you know you came close because most editors do not write a lot of these. Two, they’re offering to show you why you missed the mark. If you get to the personal-rejection stage, pay attention.
A quick digression to an earlier topic: Laura Harner’s plagiarism of other M/F authors for her own M/M self-published books. I established to myself that it was relatively easy to strip and switch a sample text, but I have to add again I would never intentionally do this to another author.
My own earlier work is fair game. Sometimes I can write M/F romance, sometimes I can’t. This novella only took off when put-together blonde Lissa Ellson became impeccably-suited blond Leo Ellson, equally prim in public, equally mischievous in private. Go, Leo!
I wrote 10,600 words in a week and a half, expanding this story. Of course there’s smut; but since I’m me and unable to turn down listening to a character’s sob story, there’s also a bit of plot.
I’m looking forward to editing this one, and seeing what the publisher does for a cover.
Author note: I think I made my accountant snarf coffee out their nose earlier this week, when I asked if pantyliners were a legitimate business expense for romance writers…