Without Rhyme or Reason.

Reviewing slush is a strange thing, sometimes. There seems less a process to it than a sort of madness of chance, timing, and whim, where hard criteria come second to a certain ineffable something that seems to decide yes or no before I get any say in it. Sometimes, looking back on my own decisions, objectively they make no sense. In the same day I rejected a sub with beautiful writing, requested an R&R on a sub with rather undeveloped writing, and sent a full request for yet another sub whose sample pages had average, but not wholly original writing.

Probably not the choices most would expect me to make. Most would expect me to acquire the well-written one, reject the undeveloped one, and send an R&R for the average one, right?

Wrong, because those aren’t the only factors that affect my decisions.

Some of it has to do with technicalities. The sub with beautiful writing just didn’t suit the Ever After or Flirt lines. The R&R had a good voice, but the plot wasn’t where it needed to be if I was going to put the work into honing the author’s writing. The full request looked like it might be a good commercial fit for the lines.

But there’s something more intangible than that. Something that feels right; you just know it when you read it, but you can never really explain it in a single word. Some people have called it a click; others a spark. I don’t think either of those is correct. Clicks and sparks are instantaneous, singular things, entirely fleeting – while this is something more deeply woven, interlaced into every page of the story, lingering with you and telling you, deep down in your gut, that this is the one.

This knowledge isn’t something that can be taught, but it’s something that can be acquired with time and experience. It’s a matter of instinct, and the more time you spend acquiring and editing, the more you learn to trust that instinct. That instinct will make you reject a book that might sell 500,000 copies for another publisher, but that you know would completely tank with yours. That same instinct will make you pick up a book dozens of others have passed over, and see the potential not just in the story, but as a good fit for your publisher, their capacity to market it, and current industry trends.

As a writer, there’s a similar instinct that tells you when a story isn’t working, and warns you to change course before you write yourself into a corner. To be honest, some writers don’t have that instinct. Some writers will get an idea in their heads and charge forward, convinced that no matter what they do to the story, it’s made entirely of pink sparkle ponies and glitter farts because they’re writing it and that makes it just the bestest thing ever lolololol. These are usually new writers who haven’t developed their literary palates, and haven’t acquired the instinctive, almost subconscious knowledge of good story development that comes from not only practicing your craft, but reading widely to understand the craft as a whole.

You might scoff at that, but don’t. I scoffed at wine tasting until I tried it. I swear to you it all tasted like dry, bitter crap to me…at first. I didn’t know what all these pretentious douchemonkeys around me were talking about. Oaky. Nutty. Full-bodied. Fruity. Whatever. I was fruitier than that crap, and you don’t even want to know about the time I embarrassed myself asking, “What the f*** are tannins?” Red wine was red wine, and it was nasty.

Slowly, though, I started to notice the difference. I started to pick up the subtle undercurrents that could hint to a wine’s age, fermentation techniques, numerous other factors that shaped the flavor in almost indefinable yet still distinctive ways. It didn’t make me like red wine, but it made me appreciate it. It made me understand the subtleties of flavor, until I could instinctively tell a good vintage from a bad one even if I was looking for the first opportunity to spit it the hell out.

Maybe I should’ve used scotch for this example. I actually like scotch.

Anyway. The point is that you think you know everything about taste until you realize you don’t. I still don’t know everything. For example, even though I read literary fiction in my off time, I’m not devoted enough to it to trust my instincts. I’d never acquire literary fiction, because my tastes just aren’t honed enough. I don’t have the instinct for it.

I have, however, spent a rather long time developing my instinct for commercial genre fiction. And what I look for when reviewing subs is a writer who has that same instinct, and trusts it to tell him or her when the story is going in the wrong direction. A writer who uses that instinct to tell a story with an engaging voice, strong characterization, a beautifully woven storyline, tight pacing – and yes, with spark, but more still than even that. A truly great book is more than the sum of its parts, to the point where those distinct pieces blend together into a whole that takes on a life of its own.

And when I find it I know, without rhyme or reason, that this book is for me.

So, yeah. I’m dancing.

I might as well get right on out and say it:

My novella, From the Ashes, just sold to Entangled Publishing as part of their 2012 superhero anthology. Not only that, but I’ve been recruited as Senior Editor for Entangled’s Flirt and Ever After lines.

So, yeah. I’m dancing like a fool.

image by MeiTang on sxc.hu

It’s kind of funny how things happen, really. Back in January, Savvy Authors ran their EditPalooza writers’ workshop; back then I was working as an editor for Lyrical Press, and when Liz Pelletier asked for participating editors from various publishers, I joined in. EditPalooza was a lot of fun; I got to meet some really cool authors, and got to work with Liz, who turned out to be pretty awesome.

Then life went back to normal. I took a break from editing for a while; I needed to simplify my life and destress, as I’d managed to work myself to the edge of a nervous breakdown fueled by the fact that I wasn’t coping with my grandmother’s death as well as I thought. Things calmed down, I settled back into my daily routine in the day job as a freelance business writer, and got back into the habit of writing fiction on the side. I’m not sure what chain of links led me to Entangled’s website, though I’m pretty sure it had something to do with Twitter. It always has something to do with Twitter. Twitter will be responsible for the downfall of the western world.

Well, no. But it’s pretty much destroyed my attention span.

Anyway. I ran across the Entangled website, recognized the folks from Savvy Authors, and thought what they were doing was pretty cool. I also noticed the submissions call for their superhero anthology.

A week before the final submission date.

Meaning I had four days to churn out a 30k story if I wanted time to let a few beta readers hack it apart.

I don’t know how I did it. I do know I didn’t sleep, but that’s not news. Somehow From the Ashes made it out the door in time, and so help me but I’d have embarrassed myself if not for my friend Amanda, who is just about the best editor in the world and who caught my more cringe-worthy mistakes. I wasn’t expecting to hear anything for a few weeks, so when I saw an email from Liz the very next day, I think I died a little inside. Wow, I thought. That was fast. My story must’ve been really bad.

But it wasn’t a rejection. It was a note from Liz asking if I remembered her from Editpalooza, and asking if I was interested in joining the Entangled Publishing editing team.

So. After I picked myself up off the floor, I sent back the coolest, most composed email ever, stating my interest. Yeah. Stop laughing. You know I was shrieking and squealing and grinning like an idiot even in text, but let me have my illusions. Liz said great, and I took the editing test to see if my editing style and skill level were a good match for Entangled’s needs.

Let me tell you something: everything you know about the agony of waiting for a response to a submission is compounded exponentially when you’re waiting for a response not only to a submission, but a job application – with the same people. I bit my nails down to the quick. I refreshed my email obsessively. I think I sprouted a few more grey hairs. I drove my husband out of his mind, constantly asking if he thought I should have made the story hetero instead of LGBT, if they’d hate the story but love my editing, hate my editing but love the story, or absolutely despise both and wonder how I ever ended up involved in publishing the first place.

It was more a “none of the above” situation. I’m pretty sure I deafened an entire city block when the email came. I had to reread it six or seven times to convince myself it was real, and yes, they wanted the story and wanted me. I’m 99.9% certain I made a rambly, awkward jackass out of myself on introductory phone calls with Liz, the inestimable Heather Howland, and K.L. Grady, the walking epitome of awesomeness who’ll be my editor on From the Ashes.

But jackass or not, there it is. I’m happy. I think “happy” may be the biggest understatement of the year, actually, but it’s a start. I’m really looking forward to working with the Entangled team, both as an editor and as an author, and I think 2012 promises to be an amazing year all around.

But right now, well…

…I have a slush box to clean out. ~flees~

No, it’s really not a choice.

It’s been a while. I’ve been busy — working, beta reading, writing. The latest project I’ve been working on is a 30k novella submission for an anthology call. In fact, I just sent in my query and submission a few minutes ago. I almost didn’t. I almost told myself it would get rejected right off the bat and I shouldn’t bother, because my hero is gay.

Don’t be silly, I told myself. This is a progressive new e-publisher that accepts LGBT submissions, and they didn’t specify no LGBT for this anthology. But I couldn’t help being paranoid. It was the same paranoia that haunted me throughout the story, that told me maybe I should turn Tobias into Tabatha, or Sean into Sarah, and make it a heterosexual relationship. My paranoia said that even though they accept LGBT, they won’t consider my story for the anthology because it won’t match the tone of the other stories, and might turn off potential buyers who only want to read heterosexual stories. I nearly talked myself out of submitting because I was convinced my submission would be judged not on the merit (or lack thereof) of my writing, but just because the characters are gay.

That paranoia isn’t without foundation. For decades stories of open homosexuality have been either rejected, or “straight-washed” before acceptance; Publisher’s Weekly posted a great blog about the topic, and the outpouring of vocal support from editors and agents who actively want LGBT submissions was phenomenal. Read the comments; there are some amazing and very well-known people speaking up to say “send me your stories. Send me your characters as they are.” They don’t care if they’re gay, straight, bisexual, or transgendered. They want good storytelling regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, and it’s the writing that matters. Some of the comments there will really brighten your day.

It wasn’t always that way, though. As I said, there’s been a stigma against stories with open homosexuals as anything more than secondary and tertiary characters, and even as acceptance grows that stigma lingers. It haunts writers, makes us cautious, makes us edgy, makes us paranoid. We can’t stop thinking about it. I thought about it while I was writing From the Ashes, and while struggling with the dilemma of my gay protagonist. I thought about how despite the acceptance and support shown in that one blog post, despite the personal support I’ve received from friends, we still don’t see that much LGBT fiction being published in the mainstream, rather than as niche fiction or through smaller e-publishers alone. It happens, but very rarely. It’s easy to put the blame on the publishers, and say we aren’t seeing it because they aren’t accepting it.

I can’t help but think, though, that we aren’t seeing it because we aren’t submitting it.

I think, out of fear of rejection, we’re straight-washing ourselves. Just as people in the LGBT community stay in the closet out of fear of homophobic and transphobic reactions, we straighten out our stories even though they’re not really the stories we want to tell. And sometimes, our books suffer for it. We don’t invest ourselves fully because we aren’t wholly behind the new, sexuality-switched or gender-reversed identities we’ve given these characters, and it feels like a lie–so we don’t give our all to writing it.

So many of us do it for different reasons. Maybe we’ve heard horror stories about agents and publishers rejecting stories based on the sexuality of the characters alone. Maybe we’ve had our own experiences with those rejections, or with being asked to straight-wash our stories. Either way, that fear hovers over us and affects the choices we make regarding what we write, and what we choose to submit — the same way the fear of being outed can affect how we behave, and the choices we make in our lives.

The thing is, while we’re beating this metaphor to death…being LGBT, whichever one or two of those letters you might fall under, isn’t a choice. Not for us. Not for me. So while we have the flexibility to shape our characters and make them into whatever little people we’d like them to be, in some ways their sexuality isn’t a choice, either. If it’s part of who they are, part of their story, then there’s really no choice about letting it be what it is — and there’s really no choice about whether you or I should continue to submit our LGBT stories.

The publishers are out there. More and more are opening their arms to LGBT novels; what they need to see now is more of them. More of us. More of our stories to show that they’re valid, they’re mainstream, they’re as compelling as every other story out there. Our stories may be part of the LGBT spectrum, but LGBT is part of the spectrum of life as a whole. Including our stories isn’t really a choice.

So don’t let it be a choice whether or not you’ll write them, or submit them. Write what you feel, whether it’s gay, straight, bi, tri, whatever. Write what you know, write what you love. Write through the fear of rejection, and trust that there are people out there who will judge your writing solely on its own merit and not for the characters’ sexuality alone. Write…and send it in.

I wrote my story. I sent it. Tobias is Tobias, Sean is Sean, and to hell with it. They’re in love. And if the story’s not good enough for the anthology, then I’m going to have faith — in this one publisher, and in every publisher I decided to submit to — that it’ll be because of a flaw in my writing***, not just because loving Sean helps make Tobias who he is. I’ll keep writing past that. I’ll keep improving. And I’ll keep submitting my stories, no matter the sexuality of my protagonists.

After all, they can’t accept it if you don’t submit it. If you don’t, you aren’t giving them much of a choice at all.

 

 

 
***Or, y’know, because I accidentally sent from my work email address and not my default email address. ~shakes fist at Thunderbird~

Guest Post from Jessica Zellman, author of Odonata: City of Night

From Adri:

Thankfully, Katrina doesn’t have segmented legs or multifaceted eyes – but she’s still as beautiful and graceful as a dragonfly, and as deadly as you never knew the odonata could be.

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Guest Post from Jessica Zellman, author of Odonata: City of Night

The idea for Odonata: City of Night literally buzzed past me while I sat in my backyard one summer afternoon. I had just finished reading a godawful vampire book (which shall remain nameless) and the feminist in me was on a rampage. Why were the vampire protagonists always male and so much more powerful than their young, naïve, human lovers? I wanted a kickass leading lady. Not a vampire hunter. That’s already been done by writers I admire. I considered a female vampire interested in a human male, but that didn’t seem original enough either. I wanted my characters to be equals, or at least on the same playing field.

Then a mosquito bit my arm.

Everyone hates mosquitoes. Nasty little bloodsuckers. It occurred to me that they are just mini-vampires, flying around, sucking people’s blood. On the other hand, I love dragonflies. They’re pretty and amazing to watch, and they eat mosquitoes. So what if there was a supernatural predator who, like a dragonfly, ate vampires? I did some research on dragonflies and found the Latin group name for my favorite insect: Odonata. “Oh-done-ah-tah.” That just sounds cool.

I read somewhere that dragonflies can’t move until the morning sun hits them. It made sense for a vampire predator to be a creature of the sun as opposed to vampires, creatures of the night.

My main character, Katrina, came to me pretty quickly after that. I imagined her standing in the bright Los Angeles sunlight, red hair blazing like a fiery sunset. She looked at me with intense blue eyes and said, “Vampires believe themselves to be the ultimate predators, but they aren’t. I am.”

To which my only response could be, “Okay then, let’s go.”

To my readers, I hope you enjoy the ride. City of Night is just the beginning.

And to Adri, thanks for being the best editor ever and for letting me take over your blog for a day.

-Jes

Guest Post From Ashley Christman

From Adri:

Plus, check out Wednesday Peters on the cover. Isn’t that thing (the cover, not Wednesday) freakin’ gorgeous?

Guest Post From Ashley: Where Did Originality Disappear To?

First of all, I want to thank Adrien for giving me this opportunity.

In researching The Witching Hour, I found myself not only choosing various pagan gods, but going back and reading stories about them. What I found in doing so was a rich tradition of story-telling not so different from what writers do today, that is, the ancients were taking themes and tales that already existed and putting their own spin on it.

We often hear people saying there is no such thing as an original idea anymore. In my research, I found that if you want to say there’s no such thing as an original idea anymore, you’d have to say there was never any such thing as an original idea. Since the beginning of time there have been several themes that resonates in each of us. Themes that have been a part of our lives since we were children.

For example, in The Witching Hour, the theme is a modern take on heroism and the conflict is man vs. god(s).

I took the idea of a hero like Perseus or Hercules, who were both sent on epic quests meant to test their fortitude by the gods, and made it something relevant to today. I also stripped the gods of their infinite powers and gave the power to the humans being tested. In doing so, I think I’ve managed to create a believable conflict of man vs. god(s).

But again, this is a theme that is ever present in books and movies, what I’ve done is just managed to give it my own spin.

The point is this–no, there are no original ideas, but there will always be original spins on old ideas.

Tragically Late: Guest Post from Liz Darvill, Author of BOUND BY BLOOD

Note from Adri: Working with Liz has been a hilarious comedy of errors from day one right up until her release date, when this blog was supposed to go up…until she got stranded in Austin, and right after that I got locked out of my blog for ages. To apologize she decided to write about how much she loves her editor instead of pimping her newly-released book, BOUND BY BLOOD, as much as she should (AHEM); in revenge, before I let you see that I’m going to write about how much I love my author(s), and pimp her book for her.

You may also take note of the links strewn throughout the post, and make with the clicky-clicky. C’mon. You know you want to.

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Liz:

So, I was a very bad author and was gone during the release of my urban fantasy, Bound by Blood, I also totally owed my BRILLIANT editor a blog….so this is my attempt at making amends and pimping my book at the same time. *grin*

Five reasons I love my editor:

1) He asked me which color hi-lighter I wanted him to use to…ehem…artfully and constructively tear apart my manuscript. In case you are wondering…I went with purple…it might as well be pretty right? Although I am pretty sure it looked like Barney the Dinosaur bled all over my manuscript by the time he was done with it.

2) He put lovely comments about “werewolf morning wood” in my manuscript…which led to me spewing coffee all over my laptop…through my nose…

3) He was constantly patient and understanding, even when my computer set out to doom us all.

4) He took my April fools joke about turning my dark urban fantasy into a musical featuring Tom Jones songs and my alpha hero Bryce wearing a sequined shirt…without murdering me.

5) He also hasn’t murdered me with his red pen, despite the fact I may have been stranded during my book’s release and didn’t supply him with a guest blog.

In all seriousness, I owe a great deal to Adrien for all the amazing insight, patience and help he provided me with throughout the process of editing Bound by Blood, and I am so proud of the finished product. So thank you Adrien! *passes you some Kona coffee, with a side of rum*

Now…that I have successfully groveled at my editor’s feet….*grin* I am going to pimp my book! If you enjoy urban fantasy, vampires, hot biting, lots of action packed gun fights, then you might want to check out Bound by Blood!

Thanks for letting me stop by…even though I was tragically late!

~Elizabeth Darvill
www.elizabethdarvill.com