Interests 63 through 64
You may have noticed this is an author newsletter. (Honestly I would understand if you hadn’t.) For content today, I’m telling the story of how my books became books. But first, a conflict of Interests:
63. Coffee
64. Not being overly caffeinated
A daily conundrum.
Now for that publishing content:
Interest #23 ALL THE BEST NIGHTS
I started this book on an iPad with a noticeably greasy keyboard because I was eating a lot of fried chicken sandwiches while typing it up. The working title was They Don’t Know About Us and the Easter-egg references to My Interests only intensified from there. It’s the fourth book I queried and I really felt like, “This one’s a real book.” Eventually I got lucky with my One-Yes-Is-All-It-Takes when Deb Nemeth at Carina read it and loved it. I didn’t know how to tell anyone this Big News and I tend to operate in the shadows. . . so I didn’t (much to the dismay of my Incredibly Supportive Romance Book Club). At the time, Kerri Buckley at Carina and my agent at Knight, Elaine Spencer, tried to make it a two-book deal but none of my off-the-cuff proposed book two blurbs were landing, until. . .
Interest #24 END OF THE DAY
. . . I had some time to start writing another book on my own. (Takeaway here: caring about the story helps it resonate with other people.) Once I knew what I wanted to do, we sent Carina a solid book-two proposal (that’s a synopsis and the first three chapters). And then I had a deadline. I was never afraid I’d miss that deadline—it’s not my style. But given my propensity for mysteriousness, I did find it unnerving to know people knew I was writing EotD. That it was Expected. I am thrilled to have had the experience of writing on spec and on contract because now I know I can do them both (and that I like one more than the other). Maybe because I didn’t have as much time alone with this one as the manuscripts I queried for months and months before working with a publisher, but it was harder to let go of once published. My brain wouldn’t stop working on it and I’ve got a running list of small details I would add if I could. (I’ll include them in a newsletter sometime if one of you cares and that one of you isn’t my mother.)
Interest #25 QUEEN OF DUST
After I turned in the first draft of EotD, while I was waiting for line edits, I sent my agent an email that read, “Also I have this kinda wild thing set in space.” It was a manuscript I’d written and queried before AtBN—a manuscript that had been Rejected Many Times. The timing hadn’t been right, but then it found a home at Carina too! Because I hadn’t worked on QoD in a few years, it was very fun to edit with Stephanie Doig’s guidance. I was free to tell everyone it was a masterpiece—multiple times—as time did that funny thing where it disconnected me from feeling like the person who’d written the story. QoD remains my most unhinged contribution to the romance genre while including a very on-brand Whitman in the acknowledgments.
Okay well! I hope that was informative or Of Interest to you. Maybe you can relate to not knowing how to talk about your accomplishments? (Welcome to my newsletter.) I know a guy who has shared some wisdom around that: “I exist as I am, that is enough, If no other in the world be aware I sit content, And if each and all be aware I sit content.”
I love that for us,
Hanna
