First Novels, Why I (re) Wrote Uriel's Fall (again), & Coffee
Okay, so there's not really any coffee here. I drank it all. But we have this spiffy single-cup coffee maker here at home, and both coffee and tea, so place your order, and we'll all shared a cup. We also have hot chocolate if that's more your thing.
A lot of you know bits of this story, but I'm feeling reflective, so I'm sharing anyway.
Almost six years ago, I wrote a novel. I'd written others before then. Or at least, when I wrote them I thought they were novels. But six years ago I wrote the book that finally motivated me to get off my ass and start querying.
And query I did. The first queries were bad. So bad. They said things like "This isn't a novel about religion, but rather about acceptance, and change." And that was my blurb. And over the next several years, I revised (I'm honestly surprised I still have some of my writer friends for as many versions as they had to read), I queried, I entered every contest in the universe, and...
It was abysmal. Over 150 queries. I think I managed 2 full requests, 1 partial from an in-person pitch, and another partial from one Twitter pitch contest.
I got teeny, tiny morsels of feedback from those requests. You know the stuff I'm talking about. "Great book, it just wasn't for me." And "I don't see how I could sell this story in such a crowded urban fantasy market."
I had a sad :( Up to that point I'd been convinced I could be one of those few brave, mighty souls who actually did sell their first novel. Even if it wasn't technically my first, and even if only barely resembled what it had been when I first wrote it.
But after those last two bits of actual feedback, I faced the music. I said (for the five bazillionth time) that I was trunking the book. I went and wrote a category contemporary romance instead, and... WOOT! Someone wanted it. And the next two books in the same series. And some novellas. And yay!
And then, one day, I was talking to a CP about branding and marketing. I'm pretty happy with my romance brand, "Cubicle Dwellers Need Love Too." But she asked me if I could be writing anything at all, what would it be?
And as I thought about the answer (contemporary fantasy in a corporate environment, with lots of geekiness) I had to ask myself if it meant that much to me, why I hadn't done it yet.
I took a look at that trunked book, Uriel's Fall, and decided that's what was missing. It wasn't the kind of book I wanted to be writing.
Once again, I took it off the shelf, dusted it off, and rewrote it. Gone were the familiar-to-urban-fantasy elements of a diner, demons who only existed to corrupt people, and fire and brimstone. Instead, there are few things more evil to me than the bureaucracy of corporate America, and all the seedy, behind-the-scenes dealings that go with it.
The point of all this looking back? The first real novel I ever wrote will officially be out in a week. But it's started hitting shelves already. Only the name and a handful of characters are the same. But it's out there.
And YAY! I could never have done it without so much support (that's a HUGE thank you, btw, to anyone who put up with me going on and on and on about this book) , and without being willing to tear everything up and rebuild...over and over and over...
But it was worth it :D
Ronnie has the job any entry-level angel or demon would sell their soul for—she’s a retrieval analyst for the largest search engine in the world. Ubiquity is a joint initiative between heaven and hell. Because what better way to track all of humanity’s secrets, both good and bad, than direct access to their web browsing habits?
She might appreciate the position a little more if a) she could remember anything about her life before she started working at Ubiquity, b) the damned voice in her head would just shut up already, and c) her boss weren’t a complete control freak.
As she searches for solutions to the first two issues, and hopes the third will work itself out in performance reviews, she uncovers more petty backstabbing than an episode of Real Housewives, and a conspiracy as old as Lucifer’s descent from heaven.
Now Ronnie’s struggling to keep her sanity and job, while stopping the voice in her head from stealing her life. She almost misses the boredom of retrieval analysis at Ubiquity.
Almost.
Amazon.com | iTunes | Barnes & Noble | Smashwords | Kobo
A lot of you know bits of this story, but I'm feeling reflective, so I'm sharing anyway.
Almost six years ago, I wrote a novel. I'd written others before then. Or at least, when I wrote them I thought they were novels. But six years ago I wrote the book that finally motivated me to get off my ass and start querying.
And query I did. The first queries were bad. So bad. They said things like "This isn't a novel about religion, but rather about acceptance, and change." And that was my blurb. And over the next several years, I revised (I'm honestly surprised I still have some of my writer friends for as many versions as they had to read), I queried, I entered every contest in the universe, and...
It was abysmal. Over 150 queries. I think I managed 2 full requests, 1 partial from an in-person pitch, and another partial from one Twitter pitch contest.
I got teeny, tiny morsels of feedback from those requests. You know the stuff I'm talking about. "Great book, it just wasn't for me." And "I don't see how I could sell this story in such a crowded urban fantasy market."
I had a sad :( Up to that point I'd been convinced I could be one of those few brave, mighty souls who actually did sell their first novel. Even if it wasn't technically my first, and even if only barely resembled what it had been when I first wrote it.
But after those last two bits of actual feedback, I faced the music. I said (for the five bazillionth time) that I was trunking the book. I went and wrote a category contemporary romance instead, and... WOOT! Someone wanted it. And the next two books in the same series. And some novellas. And yay!
And then, one day, I was talking to a CP about branding and marketing. I'm pretty happy with my romance brand, "Cubicle Dwellers Need Love Too." But she asked me if I could be writing anything at all, what would it be?
And as I thought about the answer (contemporary fantasy in a corporate environment, with lots of geekiness) I had to ask myself if it meant that much to me, why I hadn't done it yet.
I took a look at that trunked book, Uriel's Fall, and decided that's what was missing. It wasn't the kind of book I wanted to be writing.
Once again, I took it off the shelf, dusted it off, and rewrote it. Gone were the familiar-to-urban-fantasy elements of a diner, demons who only existed to corrupt people, and fire and brimstone. Instead, there are few things more evil to me than the bureaucracy of corporate America, and all the seedy, behind-the-scenes dealings that go with it.
The point of all this looking back? The first real novel I ever wrote will officially be out in a week. But it's started hitting shelves already. Only the name and a handful of characters are the same. But it's out there.
And YAY! I could never have done it without so much support (that's a HUGE thank you, btw, to anyone who put up with me going on and on and on about this book) , and without being willing to tear everything up and rebuild...over and over and over...
But it was worth it :D
Ronnie has the job any entry-level angel or demon would sell their soul for—she’s a retrieval analyst for the largest search engine in the world. Ubiquity is a joint initiative between heaven and hell. Because what better way to track all of humanity’s secrets, both good and bad, than direct access to their web browsing habits?She might appreciate the position a little more if a) she could remember anything about her life before she started working at Ubiquity, b) the damned voice in her head would just shut up already, and c) her boss weren’t a complete control freak.
As she searches for solutions to the first two issues, and hopes the third will work itself out in performance reviews, she uncovers more petty backstabbing than an episode of Real Housewives, and a conspiracy as old as Lucifer’s descent from heaven.
Now Ronnie’s struggling to keep her sanity and job, while stopping the voice in her head from stealing her life. She almost misses the boredom of retrieval analysis at Ubiquity.
Almost.
Amazon.com | iTunes | Barnes & Noble | Smashwords | Kobo
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