I’m at the frightening place in my manuscript where I have a good smattering of scenes written, but no more than a few thousand contiguous words…. anywhere.  My manuscript is like a pile of confetti, with random pieces from beginning, middle, and end all piled together.  I jump ahead to scenes I know are coming, rather than beat my head against scenes I’m not sure about, and then jump back to fill in blanks.  That means that there’s some point–erm, that would be now–when I don’t really have a work in progress so much as a series of disconnected flashes, punctuated mostly by question marks.

Filling in those question marks is actually the most fun.  For instance, last week I figured out how the hero is going to solve a problem that crops up near the end of the book.  I wrote that scene, and realized that in order for the solution to be effective, the hero was going to have to rely on the availability of, some item.  Let us call it Dingbat A.  Now, you never want to have your hero reach into his bag of tools at the crucial moment and say, “Aha!  Dingbat A!”  Not unless you want your readers to complain that Dingbat A comes out of nowhere and is a complete deus ex machina.  You cannot do this unless you are writing episodes of Inspector Gadget.  So that means that I had to have a scene earlier on where Dingbat A is introduced.

Of course, you also never want to have an earlier scene where you say, “Oh, Dingbat A.  How I love thee.  I foresee that you might be useful, in the event I am set upon by ravening were-hedgehogs.” Because then your reader will get to the were hedgehogs and say, “Oh, for crying out loud, just use Dingbat A already.”  Ideally, you want to introduce your reader to the solution to Big Problem sideways–that is, you want to make Dingbat A present, or even better, problematic, rather than showing it as a potential solution.  (A side benefit:  This makes your characters appear smarter than they are.  Nobody needs to know you thought of the solution first and then figured out how to hide it in plain sight.)

I realize that all this sounds horribly circuitous.  Welcome to writing a book with Courtney.

In any event, I had this great idea for a scene that introduced Dingbat A.  It was sexy.  It wasn’t about Dingbat A, although you can see Dingbat A in use–and that’s always a good thing, because that means it’s a scene that’s a nice piece of misdirection.  Plus, it was funny, which is always a bonus.  It made me realize why I write my books out of order.  Because, you see, the scene starts at the point when my hero and heroine have Colonel Draven tied up on the floor and covered with petticoats.

You probably don’t think there’s anything odd about that (or at least anything odder than what I have said so far) and I suppose there isn’t.  But what I really really want to know is–Who is Colonel Draven?  How have they tied him up?  And why the hell are they covering him with petticoats?

Thus arises the minutiae of plot.

So, I do not have a book on Amazon, in case you were wondering.  No.  I do not even have an author page on Amazon.

What I have is a slice of an inkling of an existence on Amazon.  Try this.  Go to amazon.com.  Go ahead–open it up in another window.  I’ll still be here.  I’m waiting.

Okay.  Now in that big search box, start typing “Courtney Milan.”  Start typing it–don’t finish!  Wait for Amazon to give you search suggestions.  It will start out thinking you are searching for calendars or cell phones.  Then, as you type in more letters, it’ll suggest coldplay and coupon codes.  By the time you hit the “R”, Amazon will have figured out that maybe you mean courtney love.  Yes, yes–you love Courtney–but not that Courtney, or at least not that Courtney at this moment.

It isn’t until you get into the last name that I appear.  courtney milan, right below courtney martin.  I know, I know.  It is the least exciting thing in the whole wide world.  You can’t even believe I made you go to Amazon to see it.  In fact, you are probably thinking I might be crazy.

Because what I am announcing is something like this:  Squee!  I am now a figment of Amazon’s imagination!

Oh, we takes our joys as we can find them, we soon-to-be-published-authors.

So, does Amazon know that you exist?  Are you a figment of Amazon’s imagination?  And if so, how many letters does it take Amazon to imagine you?

They asked me if there were any actors who looked like my characters.  My initial answer, which I figured would not start my relationship with the Art Department off on the right footing, was, “Probably, but I don’t know who they are.”

Some people pick actors to represent their characters.  My problem is that I don’t remember actor names.  In fact, I am awful with names and face-recognition.  When watching movies I can barely remember the guy’s name in the movie, and if he changes his clothes drastically, I’ll turn to Mr. Milan and prod him and say, “who is that dude that just showed up onscreen?”  And Mr. Milan will be like, uh, the main character, the guy we’ve been watching for two hours?

So my first strategy was to sit down with Mr. Milan and have him list names of movie actors.  “Ben Affleck,” says he.  “Ben Affleck,” I dutifully repeat, typing it into Google Images search.  Images come up.  Ugly images.  My nose wrinkles.  “Okay,” I finally say, “That dude is not Gareth.  He’s ugly.”  No really.  Ben Affleck is ugly.  Seriously ugly.  I can’t believe it.  I know I’ve heard of him; I just did not realize that he was ugly.

“Fine.  Orlando Bloom,” he says, knowing that I actually think Bloom is cute.  But the answer is already no–Orlando Bloom always looks like he’s sharing a private joke with the world and Gareth is not so much into smiling.  So that is a no go.

We go through about twenty more names.  For some reason, Mr. Milan keeps feeding me extremely awkward looking dudes.  He explains that he thought I wanted someone that looked different.  Different?  Possibly.  Ugly?  No.  Finally he mentions John Cusack, I look up John Cusack, who is all wrong but at least cute, and I say, fine, John Cusack.

I e-mail my critique partners with the good news–which I ought to have done immediately, without bothering with Mr. Milan, who I now know has terrible taste in men–and Tessa says immediately, no, no, he’s Viggo Mortenson!  I look up Viggo when he is not being Aragorn and lo and behold.  He is, in fact, Gareth.

The moral of the story is that my critique partners have better taste in men than my husband.

So here are my main characters.  Hi, guys.  Nice to meet you.

Gareth (Viggo Mortenson)

Jenny (Laura Fraser)

As 2009 approached, and I realized I was going to have published material out this year, I realized I wanted a newsletter (shameless plug:  sign up for my newsletter!).  This lead to a site redesign.  Among other things, my site now changes colors every month, and it takes a page from Google–on some major holidays, and on a few very minor ones that you wouldn’t think of as holidays as well, it changes in less subtle ways.

For a limited time, go see my website in the future–as it will look on October 31, 2009.  Spooky!

Beyond the fold, I talk about what I was smoking when I redid my website.

Here’s the problem I faced.  The way my old site was arranged, the side menu fit between those black bars:

old page

You may be able to see the problem even now.  If I wanted to add a link in the sidebar, I had to redo the back graphic.  Which I could do, but it made me realize that the website I had built just wasn’t . . . it wasn’t scalable.  That is, it wouldn’t grow very well with my career.  It was fine when I had one or two books, but when I get up to twenty (and I hope I will), and I have pages–perhaps multiple pages–for every book, and pages that show how the books connect, and printable book lists, and pages for awards that I’ve won (and I hope I will) . . . well, you get my drift.  At some point, the website was going to get downright unmanageable.

So I decided to redo it.  As I started thinking about a redesign (and that other question, whether to implement the redesign myself, or hire someone else to do it), I spent a lot of time looking at other author’s websites, to try to find out both what was eye-catching–and more importantly, which websites I spent time at.

One of the things I discovered was that they were not the same thing.  There are some websites that have a ton of really cool graphics, but . . . how do I say this?  The graphics get in the way of the content.  You spend so much time looking at the graphics, and how neat they are, that what’s on the page.  Conversely, you can have websites where the graphics are so clonky that you don’t want to look at the page, too.  I began to realize that in my first page, the graphics were too central to the website.  The bright yellow and green was eye-catching, but maybe it was too eye-catching.  It made you look away from the text.

The second problem with it, I began to realize, was whitespace.  There was no literal white on the page–but more importantly, the text and the graphics were crammed together, and so once you got there you didn’t want to stay.

Then, as I read the text of the site, I realized that I had been trying really hard to sound professional.  Adult.  Authorial, even.  In other words, it sounded nothing like me.  I wanted someone to come to my website and get a feel for what my books were like, not just from the graphics, but also from the text.  Ultimately, words must sell themselvs, and the words I’d put on the page didn’t sell me.

Finally, I realized that I was bored with my color scheme.  What had seemed fresh and bright when I implemented the new site almost a year before now seemed trite and boring.  Ho hum.  Yellow and black.  The visual interest of the site waned–and I suspected that was true not only for me, but for everyone else.

It was about this time that I realized that if I went to any webdesigner on the planet and told them what I wanted, I would either (a) not get it, or (b) pay them $20,000.  Not having $20,000, I decided to boldly forge ahead and do it myself.

I wanted a site that would scale with my career.  It needed to have a lot of intelligent white space, which would draw the reader’s eye towards text.  I wanted enough graphical embellishments to give the site a minimal level of professionalism without losing a sense of fun, without overwhelming the words on the site–because after all, I am a seller of words.  And that meant the site needed to sound like it was written by me, so if people read it and liked the way it sounded (and not everyone will) they would think it might be fun to read one of my books.  Finally, I wanted a site that would change colors–one that was, in effect, “themeable”–with the months and the holidays.

Now, whether my use of white space is intelligent, whether my site is fun to read, and whether the graphics convey professional fun, is subjective.  I don’t think I did as well as a true professional could have, but the price was right. 

But I do have a scalable site–one where adding whole sections of the site is not only easy but almost automatic.  I have a site that is highly themeable.  Most of the themes are riffs on the January theme you see now: very light, inobtrusive, tasteful colors.

But every once in a while, on a holiday, I decided to have a little fun.  For a limited time only (a few days, until I put the password back, you can jump ahead into the future and see what the site will look like on Hallowe’en.  Check out my test site here. (If you get a message saying you need a password, it is because you checked too late).   Some holidays (like Hallowe’en) just have different (less tasteful) color schemes.  But others (I’m not telling which) have actual limited-time content.  Be sure to visit my website throughout the year–because you’ll never know when it’s changed. 

This might give you the impression that I am actually capable of writing a good query letter.  That impression would be . . . insanely offbase.  If you’ve been following me, you know that Sherry Thomas wrote my query letter.

My own query letters for the book…. they sucked.  So I’m posting the outtakes on this blog.

Query Letter number one:

The last person a scientifically-minded lord wants to consult is a fortune-teller. And yet Gareth Carhart, marquess of Blakely, finds himself doing exactly that in order to prove to his
gullible cousin that “Madame Esmerelda” cannot see the future.

Madame Esmerelda—otherwise known as Jenny Keeble—doesn’t need special powers to know scientific tests are bad for business. But just because Jenny’s a fraud doesn’t mean she’ll surrender. She decides to subject Gareth’s scientific mind to more illogic than it can bear. And so she predicts that the marquess will marry another woman, but only if he completes tasks.  Humiliating tasks. He’ll have to hand-make gifts. Sing in public. The only way he can disprove her predictions is to perform at her command, and she’s sure he’ll give up first.

Tasks or no tasks, Gareth won’t capitulate. There’s another way he can demonstrate Madame Esmerelda isn’t an otherworldly, metaphysical oracle. He’ll show she’s more than susceptible to his very worldly, very physical charms. But neither science nor séance can foretell the risk seduction poses to Gareth’s heart.

Sherry’s comment on this query letter was something like, gee, I see no internal conflict here.

So here’s my second attempt at a query letter, which also sucks:

Propriety usually consigns well-educated women who lack family and fortune to the depths of governessing.  But Jenny Keeble has never let a little thing like the crushing weight of society’s expectations stop her.  Instead, she earns a living pretending to consult spirits.  Business flourishes until Gareth Carhart, the scientifically-minded Marquess of Blakely, vows to prove she’s faking.

Just because Jenny’s a fraud doesn’t mean she’ll give up without a fight.  And so she tailors her predictions to challenge Gareth’s insular nature.  She expects he’ll retreat rather than give up his isolation.  When she discovers his cold, logical attitude is as much a facade as her gypsy clothing, though, victory slips from her grasp.  Because neither science nor séance has prepared her to grasp the intimacy she craves while holding onto the independence she’s earned.

My critique partner was like, “what are the depths of governessing, and what do they have to do with your book?”  My response:  They are like the depths of hell, except deeper.  When you are trying to explain the jokes in your query letter to your own critique partner, it’s probably a sign that it is not a funny joke.

Sherry said to this one:  You know, this isn’t very deep conflict.  Can you tell me more about what’s emotionally at stake?

I think I sent her about five pages of rambling, and then tried to sum up with this query paragraph:

Jenny Keeble’s talents as a fortune teller have brought her the respect and financial independence she craves.  The only problem is, she knows that respect is as false as her fraudulent prophesies.  And so when the coldly logical Marquess of Blakely confronts her with scientific proof of her fraud, she must choose between losing the social position she’s fought for, and earning the esteem of the one man who sees who she really is.

I think this is about the point where my critique partner said, “There is nothing about love in your query letter.  Where’s the romance?  You’re supposed to be writing a romance novel.”  At this point, I may have turned into a raging lunatic.  Query letters do that to me.  Sherry was also not really into this and asked me a number of questions about my secondary character, about Gareth.  And then she asked me the kicker:  “So, where’s the hot?”

That prompted me to write this:

Baseborn Jenny Keeble has won a measure of independence by pretending to tell the future.  So when Gareth Carhart, the Marquess of Blakely, threatens to prove she is a fraud, she won’t surrender.  Instead, she foretells that the coldly logical Marquess will fall prey to the emotions he scorns.  Gareth responds with a prediction of his own:  She’ll bed him before the month is up.  To her dismay, she finds herself increasingly attracted to the only man that can see through the web of lies she’s built.  But no matter how compelling Gareth’s counter-hypothesis is, Jenny’s not about to give up her hard-won independence for a man who is unable to postulate love.

At this point, Sherry gave up on my being able to construct a viable query on my own with help from her, so she read my pags and threw together in what seemed like a few minutes something that looks substantially like what Kristin posted on her blog.  So there you are–I suck at queries.  Yay for me!

Out of the whole query process though, I did get three good words.  As I was struggling to be clever in a very small amount of space, I kept trying to work in phrases.  You can see the “science or seance” thing earlier on, which eventually got ditched because it just didn’t work (and besides, the word “seance” had not entered the English language at the time when my book is set, so it is anachronistic).  As I was struggling the fifth time around, the phrase I kept trying to work in was “seduction by induction”–another one of those jokes that I think is funny and everyone else says, “WTF?”  At some point, I realized that this shortened very nicely into “Proof by Seduction.”  That is the title I used to pitch, and the title of the book when it went on submission.  It might even be the title of the book when it goes on the shelves–we shall see!

But this is a year when I’m going to see words that I have written first hit print.  And that means that not only do I need to write, I need to think about promotion.  I need to think about updates to my website, guest blogging, bookmarks, giveaways, newsletters, and book trailers.  In some small part, I look at these things–and some of the associated expenses and I cringe.  One question I ask myself is, is all this really worth it?  Everyone is making book trailers, and yet even the most-played trailers have youtube hit counts in the low hundreds.  Nothing that I can do stands out.  Funny book trailers have been done.  Live-action book trailers have been done.  Rap book trailers have been done, and besides, my book is set in the early Victorian era and I’d hate to get everyone’s panties in an anachronistic twirl before my book comes out.

Then there’s the website.  If you build it, they will come.  If you want them to come more than once, you have to update it.  Not just once, but regularly.  Of course, every author now knows you have to update your website monthly, and so we’re all fighting amongst ourselves for that rare spot, where we are the ones that readers choose to visit.

So here’s one unrealistic goal for the year:  I want to do things that have never been done before–at least as far as romance novel promotion goes.  And I want to do it in a way that leaves me plenty of time to do what’s most important:  writing the best books that I can.

And the good news is, I’m going to be unveiling Part One of Courtney’s evil master plan soon.  Very soon.  Any guesses as to what it might be?  And what would you want to see a romance author doing?

On January 1, 2008, I mentioned that I had three sets of goals–one for July of 2008, one for the end of year, and a ten-year plan.  I mentioned some of the ten-year goals, but left 2008 blank on this blog.  The truth is, the goals were too unrealistic–too high and mighty–for me to even bother saying them.  They were crazy.  They were things over which I had no control.  They were impossible, ridiculous, and completely unattainable.

Except that I attained them.  All of them.

I wanted to sign with one of my top five agents by June.  I wanted to sell my book, at auction, by the end of the year.  Craziness.   It’s nearly impossible to get an agent, and even more impossible to get a publisher.  To have an auction not only means you’d have to get at least two houses interested in your manuscript, you’d have to get them interested enough to say, “Yes, yes, we will bid early and often!”  And that’s just crazy.  It’s like lightning striking, except that is so cliched because lightning strikes all the time.

Some people work well with realistic goals.  I applaud those people.  Those are the kind of people who are extremely conscientious and very good about crossing all the i’s and dotting all the t’s.  They will never make spelling errors in letters to important people, or forget to cross-reference a citation.  They will not buy a present for a friend’s birthday and then leave it on their mantel for two months (sorry, Eve) because they plan to go to the post office never today, and always tomorrow.  They will never spend three months running a program on extremely powerful government computers only to discover that a memory leak on Line 426 invalidates all the results.  NOT THAT I HAVE EVER DONE THAT, ahem.

I’ve never been good at reality.  It was totally unrealistic to think I could sign with one of my top five agents.  And if I’d known that the top of my top five agents, the incredible Kristin Nelson, was only going to sign two clients in 2008, it would have made the whole dream even more unrealistic.

Still, I dreamed.  I knew it was a completely unrealistic dream, but that didn’t stop me from reaching for it.  Through the month of January, I rewrote that first book.  I would spend 12, 14 hours at work some days, and come home at 11 at night and write until 2 in the morning, only to wake up at 6 AM the next day.  I wrote, and I wrote, and I wrote.  I didn’t sleep.  When I was done, I revised and revised–and caught up at work, because it turned out that 12 hours a day in January hadn’t been quite enough to keep me on task.

At the point in late March when Kristin Nelson asked me to send her the full, I still had maybe 40 hours of work to do–and a huge project at work in the offing.  Somehow, I managed to get by on a bare hour or two of sleep for five days in a row, just so I could get it to her.

Out of the 88 full manuscripts Kristin requested, she represented 2 of them.  It makes no sense to miss sleep for an extremely busy week on the bare 2.28% chance that you’ll get an offer of representation.  But it didn’t matter to me.  I was certain–absolutely certain–she’d say no, but it didn’t matter, because if you make an unrealistic goal, you can’t let a little thing like reality stop you from your chance at it.

But Kristin said yes.  By the end of July, we had multiple offers on the book and we were going to auction.

Even though it’s been half a year since I met my insane goals, I still can’t believe I did it.  If I stop and look down at where I’m standing, I start to think that the ground is shifting beneath my feet, that it can’t possibly hold me.  That if I stop and look reality in the eye, I’ll realize this has all been a sham.

And I’m not the only one building a house on quicksand.  I’ve heard a lot of doom and gloom in publishing.  I know a lot of aspiring authors who think the world is collapsing and they’ll just have to ride out this economic cycle, unpublished until the bitter end.  Realistically, they’re right.

But don’t look down.  Look up.  Look far, far up, as far as you can see, and then imagine somewhere just beyond that.  That is what you want–that thing, way up there.  It’s unrealistic.  It’s unattainable.  It’s impossible.  It happens to nobody.

Except, maybe, you.

Now I’m off to set unrealistic expectations for 2009.  Who’s with me?