My brain is mush at the moment. I’m just not firing on all cylinders — two snags short of a barbie, as we’d say here in New Zealand. (Snags being sausages, and barbie being a barbeque, just in case you were wondering.)

I can’t even think of the correct words for common, everyday things! I know what I want to say, but all that comes out is stuff like this:

“We have to get that thing done.”

“What are you talking about, Mom?”

“You know what I mean. That thing you do when you’ve taken photos on a camera that isn’t digital.”

“You mean develop the photos?”

“Yeah. That’s what I mean. Develop the photos.”

“What photos?”

“The ones on those thingies I gave you to take on your trip thingy.”

“You mean the disposable cameras I took to Japan?”

“Yep. Them’s the ones.”

Tragic.

Anyway, it’s the mushy brain which has led to this week’s Writers Gone Wild post. Because, earlier on today, I came up with a brilliant idea for a post. A topic that would be interesting and insightful and thought-provoking. A topic I could be quite proud of. Go me! And….

And you can find out what went horribly wrong over at Writers Gone Wild.

;-)

M

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The Clendon Award is unique. Our entrants submit full, completed manuscripts, which are then read by patrons of Barbara’s Bookstore — people who love reading romance and have a passion for all it’s many genres.

There are also no categories in The Clendon Award. Readers choose which manuscripts they wish to read based on category listed on the entry form, but in the end, all categories are equal: It’s the top-scoring manuscripts which go through to the final round, which often makes for a hugely varied mix of genres!

The other thing that makes the Clendon Award stand out is the three-page scoresheet — the most detailed and cleverly devised scoresheet I’ve seen in a romance writing contest. (And believe me, as a contest-slut from way back, I’ve seen a few in my time!) Even when a reader judge gives no comment, the way the scoresheet sections are devised means that the entrant gets very detailed feedback on just about all aspects of the manuscript.

The final wonderful thing about The Clendon Award is the hard work and incredible dedication of the two people who make it possible: Barbara and Peter Clendon.

Barbara had this to say about the entries:

“RWNZ members are incredibly good writers, and it is a privilege to read your work. Many of our readers really, really want to be able to buy the Clendon Award stories they’ve read, and have great reluctance sending them back for other readers.”

She also said:

“All of the Highly Commended manuscripts in the 2010 Clendon Award, could have been sent to New York. If your manuscript was Commended or Highly Commended, you can be HUGELY proud of yourselves, as the standard is exceptional.”

How’s that for feel-good feedback? It really doesn’t come much better than that.

Well done, everyone!

2010 Clendon Award Finalists:

Soraya Nicholas, Special Edition
Wendy Vella, Historical
Michelle de Rooy, Fantasy
Sharon Kelly, Historical
Allison Withers, Historical
Shirley Wine, Special Edition
Bernice Greenham, Harlequin Presents

2010 Clendon Award Highly Commended:

Michelle de Rooy, Romantic Suspense
Soraya Nicholas, Young Adult
Lisa Rose & Caroline Jameson, Paranormal
Joanne Graves, Special Edition
Kerri Lane, Harlequin Intrigue
Kendra Delugar, Harlequin Superromance
Jenny Yates, Silhouette Desire
Jennifer St. George, Mills & Boon Sexy Sensation

2010 Clendon Award Commended:
Shirley Wine, Special Edition
Alister Livsey, Historical
Lisa Rose & Caroline Jameson, Paranormal
Rae Roadley, Romance
Gwen Reekie, Historical
Pamela Gervai, Paranormal

One final thing: admin for the contest is still ongoing. Consequently, as in previous years, entrant scoresheets will be made available during the RWNZ conference from 20-22nd August. For those entrants not attending this year’s conference, I’ll have your scoresheets returned to me at close of conference, and I’ll post them off as early as humanly possible the following week.

Cheers!

Maree

I’m in the throes of delete key hell at the moment, trying to lose about 20,000 words from Scent Of A Man, the fantasy that I’ve just contracted with Red Sage. It started out at around 90,000 and I need to get it to around 70-75,000 *sobs piteously*

Anyhoo, while I’m on the subject of Scent Of A Man, it has a short, 180 word long prologue. It introduces the heroine and let’s the reader know that she’s just arrived in enemy territory, and she’s on a mission to rescue the hero before he “ripens”. Chapter One launches with the hero’s story, and remains in his POV for the next few chapters.

Now, I’m undecided about prologues, even though many of my manuscripts feature them, LOL. So over at Writers Gone Wild today, my topic is: To prologue or not to prologue? That is the question!

BTW, this is mega-important stuff, people, because if I do decide to delete the prologue from Scent Of A Man, that’s a whole 180 words off my total ;-)

:-)

M


Woohoo! And can’t wait to see what they come up with for the cover.

So, with Kat On A Hot Tin Roof coming out in Secrets Volume 30, I’ll have two December releases.  It’s gonna be a busy month…. but in a good way.

Merry Christmas to me!

:-)

M

Right now, I’m comforting myself with the thought that he is so vividly drawn, he might one day justify an entire story of his own.

His name is Talmai, and he’s Captain of the Scentinels. And I thought I’d share a couple of his deleted scenes from Scent Of A Man, the fantasy that I’m currently rewriting as an erotic romance for Red Sage.

Enjoy!

Deleted Scene 1:

Talmai waited patiently for the maid to rap on the door and introduce him. It’d been hardly any effort at all to convince the innkeeper’s wife that he had a legitimate and most urgent reason to call upon Lord Wychwood without making a prior appointment. A slight relaxing of his will to allow the merest hint of his scent to exude from his pores and waft into the air…. She’d been his to command. As was this young maid.

Once, a long time ago — when he’d been new to his power and still thought it a wondrous gift — he’d attempted to analyze his own particular scent. From his ripening, the only time he’d smelled his own scent, he recalled a fragrance reminiscent of the jasmine-scented skin of his first lover: a perfume infused with the unsurpassed scent of the woman’s skin and her desire for him. And for years, Talmai had made a point of asking each woman he ensnared to describe his particular scent.

Fresh-baked bread, said one.

Ripe apples…blueberry…no, loganberry! insisted another.

New-mown grass on the first day of spring.

Vanilla scented soap.

Fine wine infused with tiny bubbles which burst on the tongue and exploded in one’s mouth.

Musk. Lemon-grass. Mint. Cinnamon…. The list had been as infinitely varied as the women he’d seduced. He’d finally stopped asking, when a woman that he imagined he might have fallen in love with under different circumstances, provided the ultimate answer: “You smell like an angel.”

Hers had been a death he truly regretted. He hoped she was truly happy there, in the Heaven she had believed in, with all its angels.

Deleted Scene 2:

Joseph blew air from his nose in a rush, the resulting sound halfway between a laugh and a snort. “And I was being sarcastic, as you well know. So, Captain Talmai, tell me about yourself.”

“Talmai will suffice. And I was just about to request the exact same service of you.”

“Given I have yet to decide whether or not to trust you, Captain, and that I’ve already been accused of naivety once this evening, what leads you to believe that I would willingly tell you anything?”

Talmai rapidly increased his estimation of Joseph. Untried though he might be, it would be a serious error to consider him entirely naïve. Now for another test of his character. He swirled the port about in his tumbler, watching as the deep ruby liquid clung thickly to the sides, momentarily coloring the glass. It reminded him of freshly shed blood. “I could make it an order.”

“Regardless, you would still find yourself disappointed. Until I’ve reached the palace and been fully integrated into your ranks, you have no authority to command me…unless I choose to allow you to do so. To clarify, you may think of me as free agent who may follow your commands if I think it makes sense for me to do so.”

He passed with flying colors. A potential leader, not a follower. “Well, given that our Liliana will be struggling to remove that gown of hers without assistance and given that she is far too stubborn to request assistance, we have a little more time to fill. What would you like to know about me, Joseph?”

He shrugged. “Anything you care to tell me.”

Another test passed. Joseph was obviously well aware how easy it was to let slip important information when one was forced to talk. Talmai was far too wily to make that error, despite Joseph’s careful maneuverings. “Let me tell you about life in Europa.”

Joseph nodded consent and Talmai began to expound at length upon the Europan way of life. As he talked, he processed the data that he’d collected from Joseph and Liliana thus far.

Given Joseph’s proprietary air toward Liliana, he obviously imagined himself halfway in love with her. It was not unexpected. Liliana was an endearing young woman. She’d rescued him from a vile fate and given him a chance of a new life. How could Joseph help favorably comparing Liliana’s liveliness, her competence, her self-assurance and unabashed sensuality, to the meek and prim females that he’d previously encountered? Liliana eclipsed the insipid Anglian females in the same way a polished gem outshone pebbles.

Your women are given a great deal of freedom,” Joseph mused in response to Talmai’s statement that Europan women owned businesses and freely engaged in commerce.

“Given?” Talmai shook his head. “Our women are not given freedom, as one might reward a child or an animal for good behavior. Our women expect it. ‘Tis a right for every Europan, whether male or female.”

“And yet you give me understand that you have servants, as do we Anglians.”

“Yes. But our servants are not bonded, as yours are. It is employment, nothing more. And unlike the Anglian class structure, in Europa, even the lowliest servant may rise in rank and overcome the accident of their birth.”

“Oh?” Interest flamed in Joseph’s eyes. “How so?”

“Well, there are the usual methods of course. Diligence, a run of luck at the card table, an unexpected inheritance, royal favor.” He answered Joseph’s many questions, appreciating his obvious curiosity.

Joseph’s current infatuation for Liliana would easily be overcome. Enforced isolation during his training would begin the process. And exposing a young, sexually inexperienced man to numerous lushly beautiful women trained in the arts of seduction, would soon cure him of any fancy that he might be in love with Liliana. He would have use of the most desirable women that Europa had to offer. And, as numerous young Scentinels before him, he would soon become arrogant and jaded enough to dally only with exceptional beauties during his off-duty periods.

To Talmai’s mind, the problem was not Joseph but Liliana. That she had indulged herself in Joseph’s body during a mission was a serious infraction but it could be explained away. Obviously, she had succumbed while she’d been ill and not quite herself. Cite delirium and weakness, hint at the possibility that she’d been adversely affected by some drug the Anglian quack who had attended her might have administered, and he was confident that Vashti could be persuaded to forgive Liliana’s momentary lapse of judgment…especially because the girl was a favorite of hers.

But he knew Liliana well enough to realize that this situation with Joseph was no momentary lapse in judgment. Liliana openly took the occasional lover to indulge her sexual needs, just as any other healthy young Europan woman did. And when the affair was over, she ejected the man from her life with nary a backward glance. She’d never shown any sign of caring for any man at a deeper level. Until now. With this man. What Liliana exuded was love. Not desire. Not lust. Love.

Damn. Why this particular man?

“How did you meet Liliana?” Joseph asked.

“When she came to the Empress’s attention, I took her under my wing. I trained her.”

“I commend you, then. Having seen her in action, she truly does you credit.”

“For a mere woman?” Talmai prodded.

“Now you are putting words into my mouth. I’ve seen what she’s capable of and I would wager Liliana against most men.”

“What have you seen her do that impresses you?”

“Aside from her refusal to show any sign of weakness, you mean?” Joseph proceeded to narrate the details of his first encounter with Liliana and how she’d dispatched the dog with an ax.

Talmai was intrigued to note the pride infusing his tone, even as he went on to describe the incident in the cave where she’d so easily bested him. Such a pity that Joseph was who he was. Or more precisely, what he was. Perhaps in another life….

Talmai, pragmatic Scentinel Captain, master of seduction and Vashti’s most cunning assassin, the man who supposedly had not a single weakness, did not want to bear witness to Liliana’s hurt after she was rejected by Joseph — as she inevitably would be. And anyone who knew Talmai, or thought they did, would have been shocked to realize how fond he was of the young woman.

They would have been still more shocked to learn he did indeed have a weakness, a secret known only to himself. His one weakness was the daughter he’d gotten on a young itinerant woman he’d rutted with whilst traveling back from a particularly trying mission. The girl had compounded his original lapse of judgment by taking steps to discover who he was after her baby was born. She’d thought to blackmail him. And Talmai, unwilling to suffer demotion for getting a bastard on such an undesirable, had ruthlessly employed all his considerable abilities to extricate himself from her clutches. He fucked her senseless then efficiently smothered her.

He’d felt nothing as her murdered her. No remorse. No guilt. Nothing at all. He still felt nothing. He couldn’t even remember what she had looked like any more. She’d completely faded from his memories and if it hadn’t been for the gift that she’d left behind, he’d likely not remember she’d existed at all.

That night had been a defining moment for him, one he would vividly remember for the rest of his life….

As his daughter grew and enshrined herself ever more deeply in his heart, he vowed to protect her as long as he had breath left in his body. He never failed at anything he set his mind to. It was inconceivable to him that he would fail to keep Liliana safe.

“I found your company in the 2010 Guide to Literary Agents and thought I would query you despite the fact that you are not representing children’s books. I figured the worst thing you can say is “no” or not respond at all.”

No, the worst thing I can say is “See you on SlushPile Hell.”

*Snort!* I’ve written many a shocking query in my time. And when I look back now at those early ones, I just want to cringe. They’re frankly, terrible! Worse, they’re embarassing — dive-under-the-quilt-and-stay-there-for-the-next-week embarassing, even. I soooo wish that I’d had access to blogs like this one, and other informative agent blogs, so that I didn’t make a complete dork of myself back in those early days. But alas, I started out with the 2004 edition of Jeff Herman’s Guide to Book Publishers, Editors, and Literary Agents and I thought I was pretty darn savvy! Oh, how wrong I was, LOL.

So today over at Writers Gone Wild, I’m sharing a couple of the dumbest things I ever wrote in my query letters, and I invite you to snicker at my folly.

Hey, if you’re brave, you might like to share your dumbest moment when writing a query in the comments, too. Fellow Wild Woman Liane has already started the ball rolling and it’s a goodie! So don’t be shy. I can guarantee whatever you’ve done, one — or all! — of us will have made the same mistake!

:-)

M

For the first time, I was going to skip my scheduled Writers Gone Wild post — especially considering I was supposed to post it at 5pm yesterday, and when I got round to it this morning, I had no idea what the heck to write about.

And then I remembered that I’d had some good news: the final revisions I turned in on From The Ashes have been accepted and my editor tells me we’re good to go. Yahoo!

I figured the journey I went on with this particular manuscript might be of interest some of you. I couldn’t have done it without an editor who believed in me, and refused to let me cop out and hide in my comfort zone. And she’s the reason I’m sharing this story.

So if you’re interested, hop on over to Writers Gone Wild and check out this post: “I’d Like To Thank My Editor“.

Judith, this one’s for you. Muwah!

:-)

M

I can only speak for myself and, since she’s only in her first year of high school, my daughter. Daughter is a voracious reader. Loves paranormals. Is always picking up the books I’m reading and checking out the blurbs. Or at least, I hope that’s all she’s checking out!

It was pretty easy to monitor her reading material at first. Since I’m a big reader of paranormal YA myself, inevitably, I’d read a book first and then pass it on to her. I trusted that if she had any issues with anything she read, she would approach me about it and we’d have one of those frank mother/daughter conversations. You know, the ones that tend to send your menfolk running screaming from the room with their hands over their ears going “LaLaLaLa” ;-)

Nowadays, daughter’s buying her own books and ordering books in from her library. Frequently, she’ll read a series and recommend it to me…. And there’s bound to come a time when I’ll freak at the mere thought of her having read a particular scene! Hasn’t happened yet, but it will happen.

Anyhoo, this all got me thinking… and blogging over at Writers Gone Wild today about  “real life” issues in today’s YA books.

As always, I’d be interested in your opinions, so if you feel inclined, pop on over and have at it!

Cheers,

M