Jan
Well, you asked for me….
Hey everyone! I’m Jenna Petersen, your next guest blogger here at Romantically Inclined. I read through Shane’s blogs, though and I think she pretty much covered everything, so I guess I’ll be going…
What? I can’t get out now? Okay, okay… I’ll try to come up with some witty and informative things to say for the next week.
So, about me. What can I say? Well, I write historical romance for Avon Books. My debut release was Scandalous, which came out in October 2005. It was recently nominated for Best Sensual Historical Romance of 2005 by the Romantic Times Reviewers, which was a very nice surprise to end my 2005. I also write erotic historical romance as Jess Michaels.
I wrote my first book in college. It was a lark, I wasn’t really thinking about publication or anything. I printed it out page-by-page and gave it to the girls on my dorm floor to look at. It was a giddy feeling to have people come to my door at 2am to see if I had ‘just one more page’. But I never went anywhere with it seriously until 1999 when I dragged that ugly manuscript out and started some serious revision. I was hooked and I worked at this writing gig full-time, and very unsuccessfully, until 2003 when I got my first ‘call’ from Red Sage Publishing, a small, RWA-recognized press that publishes a popular collection of erotic romance called SECRETS. The novella I sold was I think the fifteenth manuscript I’d written.
It was a little less than a year later that I got the Call I had been waiting for. My agent told me that Avon had bought two of my historical romances. Like Shane, I didn’t believe her. I told her it wasn’t a funny joke and then I told her that no, wait, she wouldn’t joke about this because that would be mean. And she said she wasn’t being mean. So I realized she wasn’t kidding. It was one of the most amazing, incredible, exciting moments of my life. A culmination of five+ years of work and tears and fear and waiting. I’m still not entirely sure it all really happened until I look at the bookshelf above my head and see copies of my books.
Some of you may also know me as The Passionate Pen, which is the website for aspiring authors that I started in mid-1999. It contains resources about publishing (including the Romance Publishers listing that is the heart of my site), agents, articles for aspiring authors and the Diary I kept of my journey to publication and beyond (I started the diary in 2001 and there are archives there for every year). I get a lot of questions from a LOT of aspiring authors every year due to that site and there is nothing I like more than helping other people along this road.
So… my question to you today is… what do you want to know? Are there any topics that you’re just dying for me to cover this week? I’m pretty open. We can talk about the long journey and not giving up while on the way. We can talk about the support of authors. We can talk about craft (character development is one of my favorite topics when it comes to craft) or other process of writing type things. We can talk about the publishing industry (things like agents/submissions/working as a team after publication). We can talk about professional jealousy. We can talk about the first year after you sell. Whatever strikes your fancy most, I’ll try to comment on! Just lead me!
Oh I just read Haven’s introduction again (I was caught up in the ‘wonderful’ part LOL). I can definitely talk about juggling if you want to hear about that.
January 22nd, 2006 at 11:27 amTalking about juggling would be cool. I’d also like to hear your take on the first year after you sell.
January 22nd, 2006 at 12:06 pmHey, Jenna. I’m not a member of RI, but I’d love to hear about how you promote. SCANDALOUS had such a fab debut. What are you doing right? I’d also love to hear about professional jealousy. A lot of the ladies on this blog are probably nearing the cusp of selling or will be in a year or so. How do you deal with professional jealousy, when your friend sells and you don’t or when another author hits a list and you don’t?
Shane/Shana
January 22nd, 2006 at 12:15 pmCool, I’m writing down some topics, but feel free to keep suggesting! You never know… even if I don’t blog about something here, it might end up in my own blog or as an article at Passionate Pen!
January 22nd, 2006 at 1:05 pmWhen you create characters do you picture someone specific for that character? Who were your character inspirations for Scandalous and who do you picture as the hero and heroine in the book you have coming out this summer?
Clarisse
January 22nd, 2006 at 1:06 pmJenna, I heard something interesting recently in that editors often feel that it is not the first book, but often the second or third book that is the test for an author. The first book (or series) is one which has been germinating for what is often years; it’s when that is published that the writer suddenly gets writer’s block, nerves or a dearth of ideas.
I’m not saying that about you, but I thought it was interesting. Is it something you’ve heard, or even agree with?
Mahaira
January 22nd, 2006 at 2:56 pmHi Jenna and a very warm welcome to the Romantically Inclined blog! We’re all very happy to have you here
I’d love to hear what you have to say on character development, especially if it’s one of your favourite topics (I find that people tend to excel in what they enjoy).
Also, and I don’t know if this is anything you could even blog about… But synopsises… It’s my current fear. A huge fear. Like… monumental. It’s currently on my list of top fearsome things (along with heights, spiders and squiggly things slithering around in the dark - imagined or not! - )
January 22nd, 2006 at 4:41 pmHi Emmie,
I’ve been talking a lot about synopses lately, so I probably won’t blog about them here, but I did blog about them at my own blog about a month ago:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/jennanjess/2005/12/02/
January 22nd, 2006 at 7:14 pmYou know, it’s an interesting topic Mahaira, the idea that authors stuggle more with the second sale than the first in some ways. I think if you sell the first book you ever write, that is probably true. You go from having taken years to perfect your masterpiece to your editor asking you to produce another book in at maximum a year (and if you really want to build yourself as an author, you want to have a book out at less than a yearly interval).
However, I did not encounter that. I sold my tenth manuscript. And I’d written another… probably close to ten more after the one I wrote that ultimately sold (I was selling novellas in romantic erotica, as well as I tried my hand at some contemporary in the interim from the time I wrote SCANDALOUS and the time I sold SCANDALOUS more than a year later). I know I can write a book and was already writing two or more books a year (generally three a year at the stage where I sold).
Plus, authors who have multiple manuscripts under their belts often sell those ‘back’ manuscripts as their second book or in their second contract, so there is a little less pressure.
So I guess it really just depends on the author’s situation. But if you are writing toward publication, I would highly suggest keep writing. Don’t just write one book and then concentrate only on rewriting and submitting, rewriting and submitting it. Move on. Write more. Because if you do sell, that’s what’s going to be expected of you and you might as well practice now!
January 22nd, 2006 at 7:20 pmSo glad you could join us Jenna. Right now our blog as writers at almost every stage.
Something I’m always interested in hearing about is how you keep the drive to write strong. I know each author has their own little secret so please share hehe.
January 22nd, 2006 at 9:05 pmOn a side note…do you listen to music while writing? Several of us ladies do, so I was just curious.
As far as a blog topic, I’d really like to hear how you do character development for your heros. Where do you come up for inspiration, get the ideas for their conflict/internal struggle, etc?
Michelle
January 22nd, 2006 at 10:37 pmI’m actually doing a whole thing about Character Development today, so hang tight on that one Michelle!
But I don’t listen to music while I write. Lyrics distract me and I find even melody drags me out of my zone. So I don’t listen to anything when I’m writing generally.
January 23rd, 2006 at 8:13 am