I’m up to my eyeballs in novels at the moment!
I mentioned on an earlier post that I was submitting a novel to a major publishing house and I did. What I didn’t say is I also prayed, “Lord, if I’m supposed to self-publish please close this door.” before I did it. Since I was submitting largely to fulfill an old dream, I had more of a nothing ventured, nothing gained attitude than the intense emotional investment I’ve had in the past. That’s not to say I didn’t present a professional, well edited submission package. I did. The best I’ve ever submitted before and one I was proud of. What was different from years past is that I knew however the situation turned out was the way it was supposed to be so I didn’t take the rejection personally. In fact, it didn’t bother me at all.
Added to that, I found some company reviews I’ve never seen in all my years of research disclosing personal experiences with this publisher. While waiting up to three months to be rejected isn’t what any writer wants to happen, waiting eighteen months for editors to have multiple conferences about your book only to finally reject it wouldn’t sit well with me. Nor would waiting two years to have my book finally accepted only to wait another year or two to have it published. I’m not talking about going through the editorial/rewriting process. I’m talking about receiving the initial “Yay” or “Nay” to get the ball rolling.
The funny part is I didn’t discover any of that information until after I’d been rejected. It was weird because I typed in the same keywords I’d used before and these articles suddenly popped up at the top of the page I think it was a God thing – the confirmation I needed to go my own way. Release outdated dreams. You can think it’s coincidence if you want. Either way, I appreciated seeing a truth I’d never seen.
Anyways, from how things have changed since I started this journey many years ago, I’m not sure what the benefits of getting published by a major publishing house are for an unknown writer like me except some imaginary sense of legitimacy I don’t need that any more. I’m validated by having six completed novels in three genres, thirty plus fanfics, and one non-fiction self-help under my belt. I think it’s past time to lay that insecure part of me to rest. The part that felt I couldn’t call myself a writer until a major publishing house published me. Baloney. I’m a writer.
Now, it’s time to chase the more important dream. The one that says I write for the love of the story. I’m in a different place with my writing and my editing abilities than I was in the past. I’m in a different place with my story telling. I no longer work outside the home, so I have both the time and the resources to self-promote. I understand myself better at this stage of my life than I did when I was younger, too.
I know I can write anything I want to as long as it’s in my wheel house. Once upon a time, I could have written fantasy and sci-fi as well as romance because I lived in that world. I could have written supernatural romances. Again, I lived in that world. My creativity was wide open in my twenties and I embraced everything. However, I was limited by what I thought I could do. Although I wrote a contemporary romance – one that started out as a potential magazine short story written around prompts – I never believed I could write that genre. Three contemporaries later, yes, I can although it’s a recent development. I won’t pretend those books are anything more than they are – chick fic, easy beach reads – and I like them all. While I’m still several weeks from getting the books out there, I’ll know soon enough if the world feels the same.
While I enjoy writing contemporaries, I’m the most emotionally invested in Historicals/Historical romances. That’s to be expected. I love history and I love historical research. I enjoy creating interesting characters that are neither good nor bad; but human and flawed. Characters that can’t be judged by the same standards we’d judge a person today because the laws and the protections we have now didn’t exist then. I enjoy putting them on the edge of the precipice and pushing them over. I enjoy writing realistically and graphically in a way I won’t with contemporaries.
I’m also a bit of a ghoul when it comes to history and historical romances. While I enjoy viewing day-to-day objects like a Bronze Age bulla or an Etruscan earring, the skeletons affect me the most. Largely because of their humanity. Because that skeleton was a man or a woman just like me in all the ways that matter. I feel that deeply and respectfully. That person loved, hated, and bled. They lived. They died. I want to understand as much of their life as I can and those bones in the ground tell so much – a person’s general health, their age, what they did for a living, what area they originally came from, whether a female had borne a child, if a male was likely a warrior, farmer, or an athlete. Sometimes, how a person died. The list goes on.
This information is important from an archeological/historical perspective. It’s invaluable to me in developing my historical characters. When facial reconstructions are done, I get an idea of how a person looked from a different time period. That more than anything cinches the whole, “I am them and they are me” emotional bond I feel with, say, a girl named “Ava” who lived in Scotland 3800 years ago. Or with King Richard III. Since I’ve always believed he received a raw deal historically speaking, I was ecstatic when his bones were finally found. Getting to see how he might have looked through forensic fascial reconstruction was icing on that cake. As crazy as that sounds, since I first read his story when I was in my teens, I had a secret hope he’d be found in my lifetime. I never expected it to happen. When it did, it was a real, “Wow!” moment.
You might wonder what all of the above insanity has to do with writing. A lot for me when I’m crafting historical/historical romances. It’s invaluable. It fuels my imagination and my characterizations. Take Thor, yes, that’s his name since he’s based on a real person who lived in the 12th century. One we have, maybe, one or two short paragraphs about in the historical record. However, the little we do know was enough to fuel my imagination. He came to me fully formed in my mind based largely on years of historical research. I already knew what I envisioned was plausible in terms of his height, build, and coloring. I also knew the story and characterizations unfolding in my mind were plausible as well. Don’t get me wrong, my novel is fiction; but, the framework it’s crafted on is real. For me, that’s what makes a historical come alive.
For a post just meant to say that I’m actively working on Part III, I’ve meandered down a lot of bunny trails. What else is new? Being laser focused on a story is limiting. When I come over here, my desire to run free tends to get the best of me.
Until next time,
Calla
Tori Lennox Author 