Those amazing back cover blurbs

I’ve been writing non-stop for the past few days, in that weird sort of manic phase I get into when the story takes on a life of its own and I can barely type fast enough to keep up with the dialogue and action and just plain stuff that’s going on. It’s like my muse goes on steroids and I merely hang on for the ride. I love it when this happens. There’s a sense of magic when a story begins to flow across the page and it’s happening so quickly and so unexpectedly that I find myself wondering, even as I write, where the words are coming from.

Of course, the downside to this is that what I’m writing and what I told my editor I was going to write are two totally different stories. The characters are the same, but they’re certainly not behaving the way I expected them to as they resolutely march in opposite directions from the detailed synopsis I faithfully sent my editor’s assistant. You see, he needs that synopsis months in advance so he can write the “back cover blurb,” that paragraph on the back of the book that tells you what the story is about so you’ll pick it up, get hooked, and buy the book. Only, in this case, what I sent a few months ago is absolutely nothing like what I’m writing, and once again the back cover blurb will have very little to do with the actual story that appears inside.

Personally, I absolutely hate it when I read a blurb, buy the book and then read the book and discover it’s not anything like what I expected. I hate it, even though I know exactly how it happens, and while I’m sympathetic to the author’s plight, I find myself saying, “Now why in the heck can’t they get the blurb to be about the story inside?” even though I know why they can’t! And this, of course, is a lead up to the back cover blurb on Wolf Tales VIII, which comes out next week. It says:

In the shadows they transform into beasts possessed of boundless sexual energy, with the strength and stamina to indulge every primal urge. Now, six new Chanku have appeared—bold, brash, and very much in need of their elders’ wisdom. It is decided to split the young pack: three will travel to Montana to learn from Anton Cheval, and three to Colorado to be mentored by Ulrich Mason and his mate, Millie...

Having weathered a series of vicious attacks, the Montana pack welcomes the distraction of breaking in the novices. But everything changes with the arrival of a mysterious stranger whose connection to Millie will bring the she-wolf, her partner, and their protégés—including Matt, the sensitive alpha Millie has brought to his sexual peak—to Montana. The time has come for Millie to confront her past, even as the young Chanku prepare for a future of power, pride, and pure pleasure...

It’s not horribly far off, but Millie never really confronts her past and the mysterious stranger has a connection to Ulrich, not Millie, so it reads ALL WRONG to me, even though this is the way the story was originally conceived, so it’s my fault, but it makes me crazy! (I know...I’m whining...) Makes no sense, but that’s the “reader me” complaining, even though the “writer me” is the one at fault. So why am I wasting valuable blog space writing about this? LOL...well, I guess so you’ll understand why it happens—why the paragraphs you see on the back of the book will often sound as if they’re written about a totally different story. That’s because they are—they’re written about a story that was conceived and carefully planned in advance, but which took on a life of its own and turned out totally different from the original idea.

I hope you’ll buy the book anyway, because I can promise you that the story that comes out when the muse takes over is far better than it would have been if I’d written it entirely on my own. Of course, that’s the joy of writing—those bursts of inspiration that take is places we never dreamed to go. Better than any drug—if only they came with back cover blurbs!