Finding Your Fit

A question for writers...Or writer-wannabees like myself   ; )
 
How do you balance your voice with a (very) particular line...or do you? Do you find yourself curbing your  natural tendencies in the hopes of making an easy **ha! scoff!** sale?

This is the conundrum which has been tripping me up through edits and rewrites of my current WIP. I'm struggling to secure my "voice" amidst strict writing guidelines and am now up in the air about completing "Divine Deception" as it began. I have admitted that I don't do well with shorter pieces, but is there more to this than I originally thought?

Maybe it's not only the shorter word count tripping me up as much as it's the taming of my natural writing voice. I haven't perfected it yet, trust me, but trying to write for one specific line is making my mind vomit very formal - even boring in my mind. I'm not hoping to insert excessive cursing or anything like that, but I tend to think and first-draft write as I would talk to my sisters. We're a pretty vocal group and we tell it like it is, always with love and affection...yet I haven't stretched myself to try writing in this manner.

I think I'm going to have to set aside "DD" for now and focus on me: what I really want, the roller coaster a few new characters want to drag me on, and what I'm ultimately hoping to accomplish. Who knows, maybe I'll do something right.

Oh, and I've talked about them a lot, but here we are for your viewing pleasure:  1, 2, 3, and 4 - but not in that order.  : )

Finding Reasons not to Write

It happened last pitch-time round, and history's repeating itself. Though I came away from the NB pitch with a "down but not out" attitude, I have yet to make significant strides in my edits. Instead I find myself surfing or reading, anything but writing.

Not good, Hetal. Get on with it.

I think the biggest reason for my change in perseverance is this: I'm not writing to my strengths. I love portraying the artistry of fight scenes, looking up cool weaponry, imagining the fantastical in ordinary places, and twisting the H and h in my web until they cry uncle. Plopping my H and h and in bed for the sake of time doesn't appeal to me one little bit. Even with a shared history - as in the novella I was pitching - my H and h were giving me a hard time about hitting the sack together.

Looking back to every short I've written there is one blatantly obvious trend: I write fantasy more than romance. I've suggested as much to my sisters, my original CPs, and they were pretty on board with my process, except I felt something was lacking in my writing that other fantasy author's nailed.


World building (love Wikipedia). Maybe my imagined venues weren't intricate enough, the locals not flavorful, the paranormal played out...

And then it hit me a couple of days ago. Some of my favorite UF authors manage to thread the unreal through the everyday, connecting two schools of mind with little effort. Yes, I still enjoy getting lost in made up settings, but I am personally more interested in threading what I know with the unimaginable.

Eureka!

So what now? Well, I promised myself that I would send in this NB, so I need to knock it out and send it in by Feb 10th. That's it, I will hold onto it no longer. Then the fun can begin. Two potential fantasies = two new worlds to explore!

~Hetal

The Results are in

But I unfortunately did not win this round. I wish all of the pitchers, including my CP Ju, the best and hope you get request for fulls from Anne Leslie Tuttle. As for me, I'm going to finish this story and send in through slush - with a whole new blurb.

I realized my fatal error when I read through it again today. If you read only the blurb, my story sounds more urban fantasy than paranormal romance. I knew it was kind of leaning this way, and I thought I fixed the problem, but I didn't. Instead of focusing on the love story, my blurb highlighted the plot which drives the romance.

Why didn't I catch this sooner!  Aargh!

Oh well. Like I said, I'll finish, but I'm waiting until after the editor chat with ALT (Feb 9th at 1 pm) to make sure I've covered all of the points she's looking for. Onward!

~Hetal

Return to Reality

This weekend was spent cheering on baby sis at a dance competition, eating A LOT of crappy-for-me food, some laughs, some bad moods, with cold drinks (gotta have those), and family. It was nice to take a break from my writing after agonizing over a two paragraph pitch blurb or an entire week. I even bounced it off of my non-romance reading brother and sisters - thank goodness too, they pointed out ambiguities I hadn't even noticed - and finally sent off what I thought was a pretty concise, action & romance packed blurb.

I managed to keep it at 178 words, no small feat for me as I tend to overthink and therefore overwrite, and I was fairly happy with it. In a moment of "I just can't look at this anymore" I sent it off, now it's time to play the waiting game.

I really need to get back to the MS now, but having just got home means catching up after the weekend. Oh well, as always, writing comes after life. Usually, late at night after baby's down for the day...

Speaking of Monkey, she's trying to play peek-a-boo with me, which means she covers my eyes instead of her own, so I've got to go. Mommyhood calls.

~Hetal

Pitch Sent

I'm actually out of town but wanted to say:

My NB blurb has been sent...let the wait begin!

~Hetal