Jordan Summers

Yep, Sylvia Day has gone and done it. She’s taken the first step in establishing a ‘Special Interest’ chapter in the Romance Writer’s of America for authors who write spicy. She needs to garner enough attention from this group to be able to present it to the RWA for acceptance. If you’re interested in joining, you can receive more info here. It’s brand new so there’s not much there yet. At least it’s a start.

When I first started to take my writing seriously, my main goal was to achieve RWA recognition. I wanted the organization to recognize me as a writer. Why was this so important? In retrospect, I don’t know. I suppose it was a way for me to measure my skills. At least that’s what I used to believe. Not so sure anymore.

In my last blog, I discussed the RWA (Romance Writer’s of America) and PAN (Published Author’s Network). This latest blog entry is not a bash on those organizations, but I do question the RWA’s latest actions. More information about publisher recognition just came out. These new ‘rules’ will go into effect in June. Brace yourselves boys and girls, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

RWA plans to change the recognition rules for small publishers. (READ: e-publishers) As of June, those who use POD (print on demand) to produce their books rather than standard printers will have to sell 5000 copies of one book in a year to qualify for recognition. POD is cheaper for small publishers to use and is one of the few ways they can compete with the big dogs. I know that number doesn’t sound like a lot, but it is for most small publishing houses.

Publishers who already qualified for RWA recognition/approval are being asked to present evidence to keep their ‘approval’. (ie ImaJinn, Ellora’s Cave, probably Red Sage to name a few.) Can you see a pattern? If you can’t see it, I’m sure you can smell it. Hmm…I wonder if they sent a letter to Harlequin? (snicker)

Right about now, you may be asking yourself ‘What’s the big deal’? Well, here’s the problem. There aren’t many small publishers out there who can sell 5000 copies of a single title book in one year. Because of this tiny technicality, most publishers will be removed from the ‘Approval/Recognized’ list. Fingers crossed Ellora’s Cave isn’t one of them, although I’m sure that the PTB would like nothing more than to do so.

With the new guidelines, small publishers probably won’t EVER see RWA approval again. This isn’t good because most small publishers take chances on wonderfully imaginative stories the NY publishers would never touch. To make the situation even stranger, publishers who use standard printers will only have to sell 1500 copies of a single book in a year to be recognized. Hmm… Does this strike anyone else as odd? Unfair? Strange?

I’m all for the RWA looking out for the authors so they don’t sign horrible contracts or work for free, but that’s not what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about singling out a group (IMO a very LARGE group) of authors who’ve chosen to take a different path to reach publication. I guess I just can’t see how this is helping me. Seriously, I’d love to hear your opinions. Maybe, I’m completely off base.

I know the battle has been building for a while, but the division is greater this time around. For those not sure what I’m talking about, I’ll give you a little background. Several years ago (approximately four) there was a HUGE fight within the RWA about author recognition. The division started out as a way to separate e-published authors from paper published authors. (That’s not what the organization said, but that’s essentially what they did by deeming one group of writers ‘real’ and dismissing the others as wannabies.) Authors who’d been recognized by PAN (published author’s network) suddenly found themselves cast out. We’re not talking ‘Survivor’ here folks. Feelings were hurt. Several authors left the RWA organization never to return. Paperback Writer actually has a wonderful sheep analogy called ‘Why PAN was the God of Sheep’ for this situation. Yes, I said sheep. (wg)

Why am I bringing up old news? Because the fight between the spicy writers and the non-spicy writers reminds me of this ‘old’ situation. The lines are being drawn in the sand. RWA is rumbling about changes ahead, which has my Spidey sense tingling. The FF&P (Futuristic, Fantasy, and Paranormal) list has been debating the merits of sex scenes in books all day. I truly worry that a whole new batch of writers are about to be disenfranchised again. As if that isn’t bad enough, we have people attacking from the inside. And this is only the beginning. Sigh. Grumble, Grumble, Grumble. Can’t we all just get along?


On an upbeat note, several heavy-hitting paranormal authors & an agent launched a new blog dedicated to the paranormal genre. It’s called Out of the Blogosphere. Check it out.

Well I guess things are shaking up over at Harlequin again. Randall Toye of H/S just announced this morning that as of August 2006, the lines known as Silhouette Romance and Harlequin Romance will cease publication. I wonder if this will be the last couple of lines to fold or if more will follow. Hmm…

My day will be spent editing and writing. I’m reading through AQ4 right now. I just returned from brunch with a friend, who recently came back from Africa. She had a wonderful time and took tons of pictures. (I can’t wait to see them.) She brought me a beautifully painted stone that depicted the world. Now I literally do have the ‘world’ at my fingertips. *grin*

Well I’ve talked about increasing my typing speed several times. I finally decided to DO something about it. I went out today and bought the latest Mavis Beacon typing CD. This latest version allows you to track your progress. I figure if I get faster that’ll be extremely encouraging. Wish me luck! I’ve never liked tests. LOL!

I also picked up ‘One Eye Closed’ by Karen Whiddon. It’s a Silhouette Intimate Moments about…werewolves. I’m hoping that Harlequin continues to make strides in this direction.

On a craft note, I’m reading through Word Painting by Rebecca McClanahan. I need to get better at writing description. I’m also going to order ‘Goal, Motivation, and Conflict’ by Deb Dixon. She’s speaking at a conference near me next year and I’d like to be familiar with her book beforehand. While I’m at it I’ll be grabbing ‘Writing the fiction Synopsis’ by Pam McCutcheon. That will hopefully put an end to my ‘craft’ book purchases. If I can’t get better at writing with what is on my shelf, I have bigger problems to worry about.

Lately I’ve been reading…gulp…horror novels. (I know I am pretty late to this horror game.) I have no idea why I’ve suddenly become so interested in these types of books. Frankly, it would be easier to explain why I’ve avoided them for so long.

See…looking left and right…I don’t like being scared.

I am not an adrenaline junkie who enjoys shocking their system on a regular basis. Sometimes I wish I was. I also don’t go to horror movies or slasher movies because they’ll give me nightmares. I’ve avoided horror novels for much the same reason. (Never to be confused with bad monster movies, which I love.) I’m a freak, I know.

Anyway, I’ve been picking up a lot of horror books lately, H.R. Knight’s ‘What Rough Beast’ and Richard Laymon’s ‘In The Dark’, and have been kind of shocked because they aren’t scary. (They have creepy moments, but not scary.) In fact, ‘What Rough Beast’ reads like a Sherlock Holmes novel because one of the lead characters is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. (The other is Houdini. Yes, that Houdini.) Imaginative to be sure.

My dh listened to me lament about this last night for several minutes before he turned to me and asked what I expected from the books. Without missing a beat, I said I expected them to be, well, scary. He laughed and told me most horror novels aren’t scary. (I’ve avoided reading an entire genre for nothing..?) He went onto say they deal with unusual situations and tend to lean toward the suspense end of the spectrum.

Okay, I’m confused. It says horror on the spine. Doesn’t that imply scary? When did most horror novels stop being scary? Have they always been a suspense in disguise? Has anyone else avoided an entire genre because of the preconceived notions they’ve held?

I think just about every character I’ve ever created, with the exception of four, have been based on movie characters. (Note: I did not say actors.) I tend to play with movie characters in my mind, morphing them into new ‘beings’. That’s how ‘Tears of Amun’ came into existence. I wrote the Mummy’s love story.

The reason I’m bringing this up is because I haven’t come across a really good character lately. I’ve seen a ton of movies, but no one has stood out from the ‘crowd’ so to speak. There are quite a few wonderful television characters, but even they don’t seem to warrant a story of their own. I wonder why that is?

The last character I toyed with was the Scorpion King. I still haven’t come up with a character for that character, but I admit the ‘Rock’ is truly inspirational. (evil grin)

I guess that brings me to why I’m blogging about this in the first place. I didn’t base my latest h/h on movie characters. I think it’s why I’m having such a hard time figuring out their personalities. My heroine is consistent with the first book in the series, but she’s not ‘behaving’. This minor problemo is what caused me to start ‘what if’ing’ AQ4 again last night. I realized during this exercise that my two main characters don’t have enough direct external conflicts. I’m thinking about adding ravenous wolves. LOL! Larissa says it’s a sure-fire bet.

Well, I’m up and running…sort of. I had another mostly sleepless night again, but strangely I feel a little better today. At this point, I don’t need logic. I’ll take what I can get.

I’ve been giving the career and writing more thought, since my attention span is shorter than a fly connecting to a bug zapper when I’m ill. That said, I’ve been grappling once again with what I should be writing. I’m convinced that is probably the hardest question ever for a writer to answer. I know some people are fortunate and know exactly what they want to write about. If that’s your situation, then bugger off you lucky bastard this post isn’t for you. LOL!

What got my mental ball rolling this morning was Cindi Myers industry newsletter. For those of you unfamiliar with this particular Yahoo group, Cindi Myers, a Blaze author, puts out a semi-monthly newsletter that outlines all the industry news. (Which editors are looking for specific types of books, word count requirements, publisher spotlights, etc.) This morning I received her latest installment and it highlighted Avon and Berkley. One of the Avon editors, Erika Tsang is looking for werewolf, vampire, and witch books. Yeah!!! They also accept email query letters. (no attachments) Avon has been doing this for a while, but I still think it’s cool. They want a one paragraph description about your story and maybe a paragraph about yourself. It takes three to four weeks to hear back from them. Oh, and the manuscript has to be finished. Berkley was pretty much the same thing minus the email query, but I digress.

All these openings are what has me re-evaluating my work. I think there are a lot of opportunities right now for darker paranormal stories. My plans originally included working on a different manuscript than my dark paranormal after I finish with AQ4. I’m trying to decide if I should continue on that path or rearrange things.

I also have to consider what spicy story to submit to Harlequin. My gut is telling me to stick with something that I can write without much of a struggle. (Contemporaries beyond novella length are a MAJOR struggle for me to write.) I have no idea why, but that’s always been the case. I think it’s because I like magical worlds. I want something beyond the ordinary.

I know I’m rambling and I apologize. It just helps to get these thoughts down. I am curious have any of you changed course since reading the industry updates here? If you’ve struggled with picking a genre, how did you eventually decide what to go with?

I was hoping to make a good start on the week. You know, get up, work out, write. Not sure it’s going to happen today anyhow. Slept like crap last night (what little sleep I did get). I got a sinus infection (at least I think it’s a sinus infection) at the RT Conference. It’s moved into my chest, so now I have a lovely dry, hacking cough. How’s that for a visual? LOL! It kept me up most of the night. I’m feeling a bit muddled from the lack of sleep. I do plan on entering the hardcopy I wrote for AQ4. At least I’ll feel like I’m doing something that way. Hope your week is off to a far better start. I’m sure I’ll be up to speed by Wednesday.

On a separate note, I picked up ‘Do You Believe?’ by Ann Lawrence. Anna Genoese spoke about this book at the Tor session. I thought it sounded interesting since it combines horror, romance, and fantasy. If that’s the case, then it falls into exactly what we’ve been talking about with submissions.

Sending out very warm wishes to everyone who wears the mother hat. And special snaps to two women who mean the world to me, my mom and my mum. I am beyond grateful to have you both in my life. Happy Mother’s Day!!!