Susan's Turn Up to Bat, Part 1

Hey, all. It’s my turn to answer some of your questions. I’m going to do it in a few parts, taking them in the order you all posted during Stella’s original blog. I love this--it’s fun finding out what inquiring minds wanna know. Because, you know me. I want to know everything.

LYNNE T, yes indeed, I, too, love a good eavesdrop. It gives me ideas for dialog. One time, years ago, I overheard a conversation going on behind me that was just too darn good not to stea—er, that is, use. I was at the DMV waiting for my number to be called to renew my driver’s license and I overheard a little girl asking her daddy what this, that or the other thing said in the paper he was reading. About the fourth time she inquired, he asked what she thought it said. Without hesitation, in a sweet little voice, she said, “McDonalds to-day!” I was writing Exposure at the time and just knew that was a perfect line for Gracie, my heroine’s daughter.

GILLIAN, first off, congrats on the Golden Heart nomination! I’ll be rooting for you a week from Saturday!

Regarding how I approach revisions, I prefer a whip and a chair. Okay, kidding--mostly. In all honesty, revisions are where I shine in my personal writing process—at least if you’re talking self-revised polishing. I find original writing killer difficult. But if I can get down the bare bones of my idea, no matter how sloppily written, then I can flesh them out little by little. At the end of each chapter I do what I call a print and polish, which is pretty much what it sounds like. I print the chapter and sit down with it and an erasable red ink pen to delete, add on, rearrange and expand. I plug the changes in, print it up, and start all over again, doing and redoing it as many times as I need to until I’m reasonably satisfied.

If you’re talking revisions suggested by an editor I employ what I call the Rule of Thirds. I try my best to comply with what she wants revised and often find that her suggestions make the book stronger. Invariably, however, there is something I absolutely feel too strongly about to change, so I end up writing a note as to why I can’t. It pretty much says the same thing each and every time. (Editor, I tried and tried, but something just won’t let me do that--so I didn't).

Next are the little things that I don’t necessarily see the need to change. But since I don’t feel all that strongly about them and they don’t alter the context of what I’m trying to say, I change them. Finally come the suggestions that I just plain ignore. And since I’ve played nice on the majority of the requested changes, I'm rarely ever re-asked to address them.

I call this one my neon hooker cover. Such a bad cover for a book I'm really proud of.

MARY, I was always (and remain) a rabid reader. Occasionally I’d try writing bits and pieces but they never went very far. It wasn't until I was thirty that I felt I had enough life experiences to attempt an entire book. Before that, however, I’d often put myself to sleep at night mentally writing scenes.

Growing up, I thought what I really wanted to be was a dental assistant (this was after my Princess stage). But then I became one (a DA, not a princess) and realized it wasn’t meant to be my life’s goal. I was also (among other things) a receptionist for a doctor and a couple dentists, a messenger girl, a file clerk, an office manager, and an auction coordinator. Gotta tell you: none of those jobs were quite as satisfying as being a writer.

BARBARA, you’re right: it often seems that the writers who could most use a boost get the least amount of promotion. I think the very best promo, however, comes from word of mouth. So if you love a book, talk it up. Even those of us who have been around awhile can use extra reader support at times, because genres within the genre rise and fall and it affects our sales.

It 'd certainly be nice if all books had a shot at good placement in the stores and a

good cover. They say that if a reader picks it up, you have a 50-50 shot of selling it. But that's hard to do if readers don't notice it in the first place. My early Zebra covers had covers that landed them, more often than not, in the thriller or horror sections. Consequently I had a lot of men and fourteen-year-old-boy fans, the latter of whose mothers would probably have been appalled to know their kids were reading books with fairly explicit sex in

them.

Nothing says romance quite like a knife through the heart!

I didn't discover Romance Writers of America until my second book was coming out. As an organization it is, hands down, unbeatable when it comes to disseminating industry information. The thing I found as a rookie writer was that editors didn’t volunteer information unless they were specifically asked—and at the time I didn’t have enough knowledge to know what questions to ask! But between RWA and the Internet, things have changed immensely since then.

Interviews at the time of our books' release is a good suggestion. We used to do that here on Quills. I’m not sure when and why they disappeared. Probably just because everyone got so busy.

See you all in about a month with the next installment. Meanwhile, Happy Reading, my friends!