A time to write

Carving out time in the day to write can be very tricksome. My work day is obviously consumed by the high energy adrenaline rush of performing my urgent, life or death duties with utmost concentration, effectiveness and precision.

Evenings consist of snack-preparation, meal-making, colouring-book colouring, meal-eating, bathing, bed-putting and then being so brain-drained that the only option available is to collapse in front of Don Draper and Peggy for 45 minutes of vaguely boring, vaguely ominous, beautiful-looking television before crawling off to sleep.

Since I love being in bed by 10 and actually am deliciously excited when climbing under the covers by 9:30, staying up late is not an option. Weekends get eaten up by fun stuff, and when I do get the chance to write (like now, at a friend's cottage, while everyone's at the beach and I'm up here for the kiddo's nap) I work on "quick" stuff, which is usually blog or Internet-related...

All that being said, it can be challenging to actually work on creative-writing. Wah wah, I know, First World Problems.

I've made a new resolution for Fall though... Nights are longer, days are cooler, children are back at school, we're mere days away from a barrage of Christmas advertising ... The time seems right (of maybe I should say WRITE - hardy har har). I'm going to get up at 6 every morning and devote an hour to writing, not blogging or Internet browsing, but actually producing new material. It is time. I will do this. I will.

Judging a book by its cover

I am totally not a visual person. I can't really tell if something looks good on me, if a box will fit through a door or if a photograph has a good composition. I'm so non-visual, that when my husband and I have discussed rearranging furniture he has actually gone to the point of cutting out scale models of the items we're going to move and then given me the little cutouts to move around on graph paper, like a super boring game of paper dolls. While his plan didn't help me visualize what the room would look like if the table were over THERE, I think it assisted him in handling the frustration of trying to get decisions from someone who just repeats, "I have no idea what you're talking about," when he's trying to describe something.

All that to say that when it came time to choose a cover for my soon-to-be-released novel, Love's Bouquet, I was nervous. Covers, as I am learning, are vitally important, especially in the e-book, self-publishing world. Your readers have to take a leap of faith when buying your book. Because it hasn't been vetted by a publishing house, they have no way of knowing if you're the second coming of J.K. Rowling or if you view Snookie as a literary heroine. Aside from the short blurb you write about your book, the cover is the only tool you have to convey what it's about,  its tone as well as whether or not you're actually competent. That's a lot of pressure for one simple image.

Knowing I could never actually come up with something on my own, I searched the Internet until I found someone creating e-book covers in a vein I liked.

Judy at Custom Ebook Covers was great, especially considering I didn't really know what I was doing, and our communication was just an email version of "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Here's the cover:

While that's not how I originally conceived of Wendy, or the back of James' head, I think it coveys what the book is about: A fun, flirty romance involving laughter love and tulips, oh the tulips!

The Return of Love's Bouquet

The glory of e-publishing, as I am learning, is that you can resurrect all your old writing, and send it out into the world to find its readership. That's what I'm in the midst of trying to do with my first crack at a novel.

The genesis of Love's Bouquet was the back of a napkin in 1999. My friend Meghan and I had backpacked around Australia's East Coast, reading tons of old Harlequins we'd bought at a used bookstore. By the time we got to Cairns, we were convinced we could write one ourselves. We came up with the plot on the return bus trip from swimming in a tropical waterfall.

I went off and wrote it up -- typical Harlequin -- Wendy Blake, a plucky florist, falls in love with her womanising customer, James Crofton, hijinks ensue, love conquers all. The novel's first iteration was terrible -- long discourses on Kingston sights and sounds, wooden dialogue, absence of plot. I kept at it however, and slowly I learned how to write. I got rid of all that exposition, I spiffed up the dialogue, I started to think of Wendy and James as real people, not just Harlequin archetypes, and I tried to beef up the plot. Over time, I developed a respect for romance novelists, it's hard to make the same story - boy and girl meet, they overcome obstacles and smooch in the end -- fresh funny and interesting.

Eventually I thought it was good enough and I sent it to Harlequin. By then I'd done some serious research in to the romance field, was a member of the Romance Writer's of American and thought I had a shot of getting published. In the end, Love's Bouquet came close, with an editor asking for a few  re-writes before ultimately passing because the line it was aimed at -- one for humorous romances called Duets -- was discontinued.

Wendy Blake and James Crofton aren't dead yet, though. With the arrival of e-publishing, I'm going to see if those two crazy kids can find their audience. Watch this space -- Love's Bouquet is going to be released as an e-book.

PS I recognize that the title is TERRIBLE, but after more than a decade (!) of thinking about it as Love's Bouquet, I can't come up with anything else... if anyone's got any better ideas, please, lemme know!