Contest Feedback

This will be a very brief post because I've got to be up early tomorrow to be on set for the LG film shoot.

I got personalised feedback from the contest! The editor said she loved the intensity of my voice, my dialogue and my hero, but she also pointed out the weaknesses in my contest entry (namely the cliched setting, and the fact that I committed Sin #6 - see here). So she doesn't want to see more of this manuscript, but she has asked me to send my next partial for her attention. Whoopee, I'm out of the slush pile!

So "The Prince's Secret Mistress" has been filed away in File 13 and now I need to decide whether to re-look "The Playboy Duke's Reluctant Bride" (which I received a luke-warm critique on through the RNA New Writers' Scheme) or whether to hurry up and write something completely new.

A wise friend (thanks, Mandy!) has advised that I take a little holiday from writing until after Christmas, then make my decision. I'm going to do just that.

But right now I'm going to sleep. Good night, all!

Dirty Drafts

I notice that some writers call their first drafts 'dirty' drafts and I'm starting to understand why. I'm so close to the end of this first draft, with just the HEA left to write, that I should be dancing around with joy. I have a novel!

Or do I?

The bare bones are there, but the manuscript has gaping holes, weak spots and whole scenes where I'm not entirely sure what the scene's point is. I'm pretty sure the motivations are there, but sometimes they waver, a bit like a mirage.

I also have, as one of my CPs frequently points out, a tendency to write lots of short and rather unsatisfying love scenes. I need to consciously go back and add quality rather than quantity.

Then there's the fact that my heroine is a bit of a ballbreaker and needs to be made more sympathetic, and my hero is sometimes a little unloveable or doesn't behave like the true Alpha he is.

Dirty draft indeed. I can see its potential, but between real life, kids coughing all night, Nanowrimo and the Twilight saga, I'm so sleep deprived right now that I don't have the energy to even think about what I need to do to fix this.

So what fond name do you give your first draft?

Trilogy

I've been researching the region in which I've set the fictional principality for my next novel, The Prince's Secret Mistress, and got carried away putting together a fictional geography and history. This research lark is so much fun!

But as I've started to get to know the characters better, the Prince's two younger brothers have now started demanding books of their own. I think the only way to shut them up might be to put their stories down in synopsis form and hope they leave me alone long enough to get Phoenix and Max's story out of the way before Nano.

Being men, they're not that good at sharing information and I'm having a little difficulty discovering the name of their principality. I'm going to need some help, so I'll be dropping bits of intel here over the coming months and hopefully one of you loyal blog followers will be able to help me find the missing clue.

A rose by any other name

I know I should be thinking about my current novel, not the next one. But that would make this blog way too dull. So to liven things up around here, I'm going to hold a vote to look for a suitable name for my new hero.

He's a European prince who has lived in the States for several years. He's fun and easy-going and adventurous. Now he has to give up his nice life of freedom to return to his duties in the principality, which lies between France, Germany and Switzerland, so names that suit any of those cultures are ideal.

I love the name Sebastian, but used it for the hero of an erotic short story I wrote last year, and though the characters are poles apart, I'd like this one to stand alone. Anyone have any thoughts?

Here are the options up for vote:
A - Sebastian
B - Christian
C - Tristan
D - Fredrik (Rick)
E - Nicholas (Nick)
F - Any other suggestions?

And this is the inspiration for my prince...