"Oh I may be going down, but I'll take in flames over burning out." -- Uncharted -- Sara Bareilles
Hats off to Serenity Woods for helping me overcome my bout of too-off-the-wall-itis. Her notes from Romance Writers of New Zealand conference shored up my decision to barge ahead with the story idea. Specifically the bit where in her notes on Lucy Gilmour's chat (paraphrasing her notes) 'Be unique! Take on controversial topics. Twist themes!'
Soothes the worry about the decision I'd already made to steamroll ahead.
Hi Amalie! Thanks for mentioning me, and I'm glad someone found the notes I made useful, lol. It was my first conference, and I had such a great time; I'd thoroughly recommend it to anyone else who's thinking about going next year :) Good luck with your WIP!
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome! I really did need to see that right now. I struggle with coloring inside the lines, and am constantly convinced that my story ideas are too far off the beaten path to be acceptable.
ReplyDeleteGood luck to you, too, and congrats on the R&R and eHarl comp win! Well deserved.
I think that's the beauty of epubs like Carina etc though - they seem to be open to much wider interpretations of genres and cross-genre stories. I seem to recall your name from New Voices last year, am I right? Are you entering this year?
ReplyDeleteYep, I entered last year, entering again? Are you? I can't remember if you already pubbed with Carina?
ReplyDeleteI entered under my real name. Amalie's a pen name. My entry was Unlikely Aphrodite(the one that started with a fairy smashing into a car windshield) in the Paranormal cat. I think it wasn't dark enough for Nocturne, so there wasn't a lot to be done with it. If I had to give it a genre it'd be: paranormal romantic action comedy:)
This year I'm focusing on contemporary. My voice is too irreverent for the HMB paranormals, and that's okay. I'll finish Unlikely Aphrodite, eventually, and send it elsewhere. I'd intended to finish it up after the full request from the Med Fast Track, but I rewrote that sucker so many times that I only sent the full request in 11 months after I got it. And then it was time for NV again... So working on that.
I thought I remembered! I remember your story too :) I have a full-length coming out with Samhain in November so I think I could just qualify, but I don't think I'll enter this year. I was one of the 45 requested partials after last year's, and would you believe they still haven't read it yet? The original email got lost, and then delayed... blah blah. I've withdrawn it to offer it to Carina. Too impatient to wait!
ReplyDeleteActually, it looks like any kind of contract for a full-length DQ's from entering, but hey, that's a hell of a good reason to be DQ'd from entering a contest. Good luck with subbing it to Carina.
ReplyDeleteI'm fairly certain I'll get nowhere in the NV sub, but I'mma try! Think I'm going it sans CP this year though. My CP seems to have disappeared!
The rules did originally say you weren't eligible if you'd earned money from a full-length novel, which I haven't yet as it's not out until November, but it's possible they've changed it. But I won't enter anyway. Far too much on my plate! I need to cut down on the amount of comps I enter. Too stressful! (I won the Aviator comp and was supposed to have a finished mss - I had 2k words, lol. Am frantically writing now.)
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear about the CP. If you need any help with cheerleading and encouragement, feel free to pop over to the Mutual Admiration Society (the link's on my blog.) We started up fairly recently, there's now about 10 of us I think, (2 have joined over the last two days), and most of us post daily with word counts and to cheer everyone on. New members are always welcome!
Good luck with your entry - I'll keep an eye out for you ;)
Go go go on the unfinished mss! You can do this. I was in the same boat with the Fast-Track but uhh, it was my second attempt at writing a book. :/ That's why it took so long. I threw out more than 65K words on that book before starting on the 3rd draft. Kept learning and knowing that the current incarnation was full of STINKINESS.
ReplyDeleteI'll definitely stop over at Mutual Admiration. I'd seen the name somewhere, but either didn't see a link or didn't investigate. Will do so now! As soon as I finish feeding these tiny kittens a local feral mother cat decided we should take care of for her...