Because I can do better, that's why

I've never shared this story except with my family and a couple of my writer pals, but I did something rather unusual after turning in my last contracted manuscript to my Harlequin "Love Inspired" editor: I admitted that I didn't believe what I had given her was my very best work.

I'd been laboring under a tight deadline, and I'd run out of time. So the day before it was due, I overnighted my manuscript to New York City. It wasn't perfect, but I figured that was okay because my editor was bound to ask for one or two small revisions. When I addressed those, I'd have an opportunity to tighten up the story. And then by the time I mailed in the revised manuscript, I'd have produced a novel I was as proud of as I was of my first three books.

Things didn't go according to my plan. My editor called to say that she "loved" the book and that she was sending off the paperwork so somebody would cut me a check for the "on manuscript acceptance" portion of my advance.

What followed was the most humbling experience of my career. I admitted to my editor that I wasn't satisfied with the manuscript I'd sent her. Then I asked if I could have it back for two weeks.

Not necessary, she said. I love the book you've written.

But I can do better, I insisted. Please let me have it back.

She was plainly shocked. She was very familiar with authors requesting deadline extensions, but I gathered it was the first time an author had asked for a manuscript back after she had accepted the final submission. She tried to talk me down from what she no doubt believed to be an odd case of nerves for a previously-published author, but in the end she gave me two more weeks. I worked twelve- and sixteen-hour days, but when I sent that puppy back to New York, I was happy with it.

That book, At His Command, was published in the autumn of 2008. While it's my least favorite of all my books (because it was Book Three of a six-author "continuity series", and I had to weave in subplots and minor characters that appeared in the other books), I'm still very proud of it.

Those of us who aren't kids anymore can remember the TV commercials Orson Welles did for Paul Masson wines some thirty years ago: "We will sell no wine before its time." Well, I promised you all a brand new novel this month, and the month is almost over. Until this morning, I still thought I could pull this off: I'd simply run through the manuscript one more time to check for typos, and then I'd spend the next couple of days formatting and uploading it to Amazon's Kindle Store and Barnes and Noble's Nook catalogue and so on. But I've been uneasy about this planned release for the past week or so, and my conscience is now demanding that I give the book some more time.

Look, I know I don't belong on stage with the world's best romance writers. But I like to think I'm a decent writer who has occasional flashes of brilliance, and more than a thousand of you (yes, really!) have written or e-mailed to tell me that you have enjoyed my novels. So please take me at my word when I say this new book is simply not finished yet. "Good enough" is not good enough for me, and I don't think it's good enough for you, either. So if it takes two more weeks or even a whole month of polishing to make sure this novel is the best I'm capable of offering you, then I am going to take that time.

Your understanding and patience will be very much appreciated. If you want to follow my progress, be sure to watch this blog and my Facebook page.

Real writers aren't quitters

Just ran across this bit of silliness at Times Online:

Book piracy on the internet will ultimately drive authors to stop writing unless radical methods are devised to compensate them for lost sales.

This is the bleak forecast of the Society of Authors, which represents more than 8,500 professional writers in the UK and believes that the havoc caused to the music business by illegal downloading is beginning to envelop the book trade.

My initial reaction to this gloom-and-doom prediction paralleled one of the article's commenters, who stuck his tongue firmly in his cheek and wrote:

Not writers too! I remember when all the artists stopped releasing records and Hollywood stopped making films because online piracy was so rife.

Another commenter responded this way:

Writers will never stop writing. We couldn't stop even if we wanted to.

Most writers realize they'll never make a comfortable living banging away at their keyboards. But does that stop us? No. In fact, millions of us are already writing for nothing at all. (We call those writers "unpublished.")

It's often said that anyone who can quit writing should quit. This is a hard business. Sometimes even your best just isn't good enough, and agents and editors won't soften the blow to your delicate psyche but will tell you flat out that they just don't want your stuff. Even if you score a publishing contract, you can still end up with lots of wounds to lick. Your publisher might not promote your book and you might not sell enough copies to earn out your advance. Reviewers might trash your writing. And every time you open your mouth to complain, somebody will tell you to toughen up, because that's the business.

Writers who keep going in the face of real obstacles like those aren't likely to stop writing just because somebody has uploaded all of their books to an internet file-sharing site. Real writers are, by definition, not quitters.

I'm embarrassed that a writers organization has suggested otherwise.

Are there too many romance novels being published these days?

Today at Romancing the Blog, Kassia Krozser writes that she is "terrified by the number of romance novels published each month." Yeah, I think she's indulging in a little hyperbole there; I really don't think she's that easy to frighten. But she writes:

The industry is burgeoning — new players every day. The industry is changing — new formats are ascending. The industry is morphing — new genres and sub-genres are emerging.

But are romance readers really being served? Are the books being published, sold, really the best of the best? Or, as I suspect, are we seeing an increase in quantity with a slackening of quality?

Yep, that's right: She'd like to see a limited selection of books on the shelves, and she'd like all of those books to be of high quality. She writes:

What if there were fewer books but the [reading] experience was more satisfying?

Kassia knows that I admire her and have been a faithful reader of her blog, Booksquare for several years. But every once in a while she writes something downright goofy, and here's a fine example of that. The problem with her suggestion that only "the best of the best" books should be published is that she would want to decide which books were worthy of shelf space. And since she and I have very different reading tastes, I'd worry that she would advocate trashing some of the books I consider treasures.

I happen to agree with Kassia that the romance sections of today's bookstores are mostly full of junk. But since Kassia and I--and the rest of you--will never agree on exactly which books deserve to be published and which don't, I think that broad selection is a very good thing for all of us.

Nobody's keeping you from being published

Spend fifteen minutes on any given day perusing literary or writers' blogs and you're sure to find someone yammering about commercial fiction being "safe" and literary fiction being exciting and edgy. In a powerful post over at Galleycat, Ron Hogan neatly sweeps up those tired assumptions and puts them out with the trash. He then offers this challenge to whiney writers who believe "literary" writers face dismal odds of getting published because books by hacks and sellouts who write what the masses are clamoring to read* are hogging all the shelf space:

...any number of independent presses abound, catering to all points on the aesthetic and ideological spectrum. And, frankly, the ease with which anybody can self-publish these days means that no author can use a lack of interest from publishers as an excuse any more. If getting your uncomfortable message out to the world and forcing it to think and react means that much to you, stop waiting for somebody else to do you a favor and publish the book yourself.

Is that a hard path? Yes. And the odds are good that you won't make a lot of money at it, especially if you're a quitter. So you have to ask yourself: Is your message so important that you'd be willing to give over a huge chunk of your life to getting it out? And if you can't say "yes," then why should you expect anybody else to care about your book either?

Go read the whole post. It's brief and very much to the point. Good stuff.


* The smart-alecky romance novelist in me insisted on italicizing those words

How to write a book and get it published

Lately I've been getting more than the usual amount of e-mail from people wanting to know how to write a book and get it published. My website contains eight pages of advice for those primarily interested in writing romance, but I've found some more general information over at the website of Poets & Writers Magazine, which lists the Ten Top Questions Writers Ask:

How do I publish my work in literary magazines?

How do I publish my book?

Do I need an agent?

Where can I find information on grants and awards?

How do I avoid scams?

Do I need to copyright my work?

How do I publicize my work?

Where can I find a writers' workshop, conference, or colony?

Should I pursue an MFA?

Are there literary organizations that can help me?

If you click over to the site, you'll find that each of these questions is linked to a series of helpful articles.