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Filed in: blog | publishing | slice of life Tags: male authors vs. female authors | rants
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I don’t do these often. If you blink you might miss it.
I went to the bookstore last night with my critique group. Checked out the new releases section. All the male authors’ books were bigger (i.e. taller) than the books by female authors. I kid you not.
Maybe it was because most of the female authors were women’s fiction/romance? I’m not counting the larger trade paperbacks, just the mass market paperbacks.
Really, go check it out at your local bookstore and tell me if I’m off my rocker. Paperback new releases. That’s my rant.
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Filed in: blog | publishing Tags: cover art | deviantart | feimo | schumy330 | tang dynasty images
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The going statement is that writers have absolutely no say over what goes on their covers, but my publisher did ask me to send some images that I thought might be useful for the covers, though they already had many images in mind. I wish I was more artistic! I sent a couple of images that have inspired me in terms of the period and clothing but now I’m wondering if I should have sent more in the way of setting and location? Then again, I was a afraid of sending too much since they have an art department that thinks about these things and I’m so not a graphic artsy person that I didn’t want to mess with it.
Of course there’s the swordwoman in red that I use as my avatar. I’ve always loved that since my heroine starts and ends the book wearing a red wedding dress. It’s also very flowing and dramatic.
There are a couple of other artists I found on deviantart whose style I quite like.
schumy330′s work captures the ethereal quality of Tang dynasty costumes. Her portraits are so fresh and innocent.
 http://schumy330.deviantart.com/gallery/ Feimo is a bit edgier and more seductive
 http://feimo.deviantart.com/gallery/ I’m quite excited to find out what the covers will look like. It has me quite giddy. That also means that soon, hopefully soon, I will have definitive news of a release date. 
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Filed in: blog | friends and family | publishing Tags: motivational
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What if you took that elusive thing called “talent” off the table? What if you didn’t believe there wasn’t anything that any Stephen King or Nora Roberts had that you couldn’t have if you just wrote and wrote and wrote?
I’m not debating whether this is true or not. I’m just saying, if you believed there was no such thing as “gift” and that agent, that contract, that call was within anyone’s grasp, would you be able to stick it out until you got it?
Gwen Hayes, another one of my writing buddies just got the Call and I’m nearly in tears about it because it’s right at the end of the year and this has been such a fabulous year for so many people I’ve been working with. I can be egotistical and say it’s because we have so much talent bouncing off of each other.
But I think when I look at the people I know who’ve gotten agented or contracted or both this year, I think it’s more uplifting to think there is no such thing as talent. We just all started trying for that gold star about the same time and never stopped.
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Filed in: publishing
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Well, I suppose it’s time to grow up. I was playing pretty loose and fast with excerpts on my blog and I really enjoy Excerpt Monday, but it’s come to light that since I’ve contracted two of those works and since I’m also hoping to contract the others, I shouldn’t be posting my works in progress so indiscriminately.
So the excerpts are all going down until I have approvals on the contracted stories. Then the “official” excerpts will be posted on my site.
Thank you so much to anyone who came by to read and especially to anyone who provided encouragement and comments. I really appreciate the fact that people have enjoyed the writing.
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Filed in: Asian fantasy | craft | publishing | research | The Bookshelf | writing Tags: brainstorming | historical paranormal | plotting series | Tang dynasty | Tao sorcery | wuxia
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I’ve been tossing around what to do next and my CP helped me find my way — which is why it’s important to have partners that are good at the things you suck at. For me it’s coming up with ideas and where to put commas.
So I wondered if I should leave medieval China, try something else. Something maybe more “marketable” in case this China thing doesn’t work. But I just couldn’t. So if anything, I’m going deeper into the wuxia genre that inspired me by adding paranormal elements.
It’s quite exciting! The supernatural is so prominently woven into Chinese history and culture that I practically feel like I’m still researching a historical rather than worldbuilding for a paranormal romance. There are major texts on the supernatural and a city that is well known to contain the gate to the underworld. I mean, so well known that there’s practically nothing mysterious about it. I’ll have to change that in my book. And it’ll have all the things I love — swords, honor, melodramatic characters – LOL.
I’m trying to learn something new by brainstorming a series. All my previous stories were related, but standalone. Plotting a series you need to think of the series arc as well as each story arc. It’s quite fascinating. I don’t have what I call the “Big Bad” nailed down yet, so things are still pretty loose.
But I do have nearly all five couples mapped out. I realize that I don’t start with character sketches or outlines or even worldbuilding. I start by matchmaking. I figure out the hero and the heroine and gauge if there’s enough conflict and chemistry for them to carry a book. I don’t know much about them other than whether they’ll spark. I guess that’s why at the heart of it, I write romance.
Oh, a hint? Tao sorcery, exorcism swords…a Secret Service team that works for the Emperor (inspired by my research for Unusual Historicals). I think I can start writing by this weekend. Giddy!
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Filed in: Asian fantasy | publishing | writing Tags: unusual historicals
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 I’m totally thrilled that I’ve been invited to join the Unusual Historicals blog! I love how they concentrate on a theme per month like “Food” and you can go to learn just a fascinating array of information from different cultures and time periods. With history (and I suspect most things), the more you learn outside of your sphere of expertise, the more cross-connections you can make, and the richer your experience becomes. I suppose that way of thinking may come from my cognitive science background.
Since the Golden Heart® award ceremony so many authors have contacted me to tell me how inspirational it is to see an unusual setting break into the historical romance market. This is premature. I mean, the book isn’t even near the shelf yet! But people have told me about their struggles writing in WWII or Italy or 17th century France.
Wow! I never thought so many people would connect to my writing adventures. Who would have thought that a western setting, something that would seem familiar to readers, could also be such a difficult sale? Apparently, many people feel that if you’re not writing a Western or a Regency, you might as well be writing in, say, medieval China!
I’m still scared to death.
There I said it. I feel like I’m fighting to stay alive now with every word because there’s so many more unknowns. I’ve heard “no market”, “risky”, “too difficult” so many times in this journey. But I hope that in this case, “No market” could possibly mean, “Untapped market.”
Fingers crossed.
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Filed in: Asian fantasy | events | publishing | travel | writing Tags: golden heart ceremony | jade lee | rwa conference 2009 | unusual historicals
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I had to fly from the conference in D.C. directly to Vegas. On the surface it sounds glamorous, but I want nothing more than to be home right now. I feel like I’ll never sleep again and my feet hurt like heck from running around in cute shoes. By the last day of RWA, I decided my conference bunny days were over and it was flip flop time.
 Everyone is doing conference wrap-ups. I wish I had enough time to focus enough to get my thoughts together. Not to mention grabbing pictures from everyone! So excuse this mish-mosh of a conference vignette. Please know it’s a good representation of what’s in my head right now. Hey, take a gander at the stage setup for the RITA/GH® awards. It really is like the Academy Awards of romance!
 Highlight of my conference? The moment that really made it hit home for me was telling Jade Lee about my sale. Jade is one of my favorite authors and an inspiration to me. I even brought my copy of The Concubine with me to get signed. (I’m wearing a Jade Lee tiger T-shirt now as I type!) A couple of friends got me a picture with her after the awards ceremony.
Aftermath of conference: I can’t catch up with the e-mails. There’s a flood of congratulations, info about loops I need to join, conference gushing. I definitely need to get this under control!
StatCounter: A pox upon you Lisa and Laura! I signed up for StatCounter a couple of weeks ago and it’s like crack, soma and substance-D all rolled into one. This is probably no big deal to anyone who’s been blogging for a while, but as of Saturday, I seem to have gone international! I know exactly why. It’s largely because of fellow Harlequin author Michelle Styles and links on e-harlequin. Apparently, many authors of unusual historicals were cheering for me when I gave my acceptance speech about selling a historical romance set in China.
I need to print out the next chapters of The Dragon and the Pearl so badly. I told my agent it would be done in two weeks. That was before I knew how crazy things would get and that I’d have to go to Vegas to handle some paperwork.
Am I going to gamble in Vegas? Probably not. No girl can be that lucky all at once.
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Filed in: Announcements | events | publishing Tags: butterfly swords | golden heart | historical romance | rwa | speech
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 When they were getting ready to announce my category, my husband took my hand. I held onto him so hard as they read the names of all the finalists. Yes, I wanted to win even though I had a contract. Don’t we all hope and dream for the moon?
And I did win. I won, I won, I won! I can always boast that Butterfly Swords won the Golden Heart® for the best historical romance manuscript of 2009. No one can take that away. Ever.
Is this ungraceful of me to strut like this? I do admire and genuinely hope the best for my GH® sistas, especially in the historical category. In fact, I have a feeling a couple of them are also really, really close to signing. One in particular, but I won’t name names. 
It’s just been such a long journey with so few celebrations up until the very last few months. And even with the contest placements and manuscript requests, I was getting scared. The best agents in the industry and the top romance editors were saying my Asian setting was too risky.
When I got up on stage for my acceptance speech, do you know how I felt? I felt like that moment at the end of the movie, The Pursuit of Happyness. They finally announce that Chris (Will Smith) has earned the job he worked so tirelessly for without any promise of success. The executive says, “Tell me Chris. Was it as easy as it looked?”
Chris fights back tears as he replies: “No. No it was not.”
13 Comments
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Filed in: Announcements | Asian fantasy | publishing | writing Tags: butterfly swords | first sale | historical romance | mills & boon
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Dear friends,
As of this morning, 10:57am EST, Butterfly Swords, has been sold to Harlequin Mills & Boon.
I’m at RWA national conference, among friends, among many of the people who helped me get here. This couldn’t have happened at any better time. Many, many more stories later.
Kudos to Lisa & Dara who may have noticed that I also quoted The Pursuit of Happyness when I signed with my agent. Last Friday was the day I first received the offer.
This is a dream come true. I’m happy.
-Jeannie
9 Comments
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Filed in: events | pitching | publishing | travel | writing Tags: networking | RWA conference | writing journey
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I’m off to conference for the rest of the week. I probably won’t be blogging here unless there is…*ahem*…news.
In case anyone’s wondering — YES! I’m a wreck. An absolute basket case. For a bunch of different reasons. The outer sense of zen calm I may exhibit *snicker* is only a defense mechanism to hide a squirrelly bundle of nerves.
But it wouldn’t be me if I didn’t at least attempt to reflect a little and put some order to all this. Last night I was thinking of all the RWA conferences I’ve been to. Each one sticks in my mind as a milestone.
- 2006 – Atlanta: My first writer’s conference ever. I stayed by my lonesome in a free room I got from hotel points. I hardly knew anybody and I had 8 chapters of my first novel done. I attended workshops back to back and tried to soak up everything. This conference motivated me so much. Real people did this, I could do it too!
- 2007 – Dallas: This year I was able to rope one of my critique partners into staying with me in a dinky hotel room outside of the conference hotel. My book was still about four chapters from finished. I was too scared to pitch — in fact, I didn’t even know how to sign up for an appointment! I met my beloved Romance Divas including Crystal Jordan who had received an offer right on the eve of conference! I watched Trish Albright, my chapter-mate, vie for the Golden Heart® award. She didn’t win the pendant, but she did win a contract with Dorchester. That’s the real prize, right?
- 2008 – San Francisco: I jumped in with both feet. I had two books complete by now. The first one took 2 years, the second one, two months. (disclaimer: first draft only) I pitched to agents and editors for the first time and received three requests for fulls and a couple requests for partials. I schmoozed at chapter parties. I volunteered and lugged books around until my back was sore. I did that magic thing people always mention — I “networked”.
- 2009 – Washington D.C.: I’m going to conference this year as a Golden Heart® finalist with the support of my wonderful agent and so many friends. Butterfly Swords is sitting on the virtual desk of publishers. I can hardly sleep with excitement.
RWA conference gives me a marker to stop and say, am I getting closer? Every year, this conference has given me new hopes and dreams. Sky’s the limit this year, I truly believe that.
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