Devyn Quinn's awesome call story! Love this one!
Winner of prize Laurena! Laurena email me your address to lisarenjones@aol.com. Congrats!
Welcome and happy Monday! Today we have an awesome call story from Devyn Quinn and a signed copy of Siren's Call as a prize.
Just post your comment for a chance to win. I will post the winner for Cynthia Eden's prize later today on her actual post in red. Reminder– all contests run NOON to NOON MOUNTAIN TIME.
Onward to Devyn Quinn!
Call story:
For those of you who don't know me, I'm Devyn Quinn. Since 2007, I've written several titles for Kensington under their Aphrodisia imprint.
Readers familiar with Aphrodisia titles are aware these are some pretty steamy books that really push the boundaries. My style is very dark and devious and downright dirty, so imagine my surprise when I received an email from my agent saying that Lindsay Nouis at NAL was looking for some darkly themed submissions.
Since that was right up my alley, I quickly wrote up a proposal and chapter for a vampire/slayer series I'd had in mind and sent if off. An answer soon came in from the editor. She liked my style of writing and saw potential in the proposal…But she wanted something differently dark.
She wanted mermaids.
Now picture Devyn sitting there scratching her head. How had a vampire series morphed into mermaids? I emailed my agent back to make sure I was reading the note correctly.
Correct, says my agent. Dark mermaids.
Well, as someone who lives in the desert and has never seen the sea (a nice mud puddle after a rain is as deep as the water gets around here), I was stymied. I knew nothing about mermaids, their lore, legend and I hadn't even seen The Little Mermaid. What did I know about mermaids? The short answer was nothing.
Still, I am one determined cuss when presented with a challenge so I quickly went online and began to research popular lore. Armed with what I thought was a good angle, I wrote up the proposal and sample chapters and sent them back in. My agent soon got back to me with an answer from the editor. The news wasn't good. Other writers were already using some of themes I had touched on and the editor wanted something else that didn't use those elements.
Curses, thinks I. Foiled again.
So I dug a little deeper into mermaid lore (and there isn't that much to work with, folks, these being mythical creatures and all…) Finally I hit upon the lore of the Assyrian mermaid and their goddess, Atargatis. Pretty soon a new story was boiling in my head.
I rewrote and resent the proposal. Once again the wait for an answer began. A week passed. Finally an answer came in. The editor liked the idea, but wanted some changes to the chapters to clarify some points.
By this time I pretty much figured I was well on my way to getting a turn down for the series. I went ahead and rewrote the chapters as requested, adjusted the lore a bit and sent the package back to my agent for forwarding. My initial hope wasn't so much to make the sale, but perhaps the editor would be interested enough in my work to look at other proposals at a later date.
The weeks passed. And passed. And passed some more.
As much as a writer hates it, getting a rejection is disappointing. I had gone ahead and put the proposal out of my mind when my agent called. NAL had just made an offer for a three book series chronicling the lives and loves of my three mermaid sisters, and their search for their lost world even as they attempt to keep their secrets while living among humans.
Holy cow, Batman! You could have knocked me down with a feather. I was so shocked I burst into tears when my agent hung up and cried for the rest of the day. (Good news tends to do that to me) And, to tell the truth, I was more than a little scared. Writing a proposal and a few sample chapters is one thing. But writing a whole series about a world I'd just made up was one scary prospect. I didn't have a clue of where to begin. After a few days of panic, I sat down and began to write. Slowly the story of Tessa Lonike and her sisters, Gwen and Addison, began to take shape on the page…
And that is how Devyn Quinn became acquainted with mermaids.
As I continue to write the series (Siren's Surrender, book 2, will be released 2/11/2011) I've come upon some really great pieces of sea lore and other sea creatures, such as the Nyx, which I will be introducing in book 3.
Oh, and as for the vampire/slayer proposal… It did sell to NAL after all, and Darkness Descending, the first book in my "Vampire Armageddon" series will debut in August 2011!
Visit Devyn at http://www.devynquinn.com/
Let the comments begin!
