So I Think I Can Write
Last autumn, I discovered Harlequin Books was running its So You Think You Can Write? contest.
I had this completed draft of a romantic suspense novel, Grand Theft, Auto, sitting on my hard drive. It’s got some difficult content in it, content I wasn’t sure quite qualified as romance. It tackles domestic abuse, for one thing, and its heroine commits a crime, for another.
I dithered for quite a while, as you might imagine. I consulted my writing partner, whose “WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?” email reply blew my hair back while I was sitting at my computer monitor.
So I sent in the draft to the contest and prepared for it to sink without a bubble. I figured I needed the practice in rejection. I watched my story go up with 600 other stories on the contest website, and sighed.
A few weeks later my elderly car was having an attack of the shimmies, signaling time for a new clutch and a brake job. I was sitting at the red light near where I work, hoping the car would go just another block into the parking lot and then it could die its gory, smoky death. My cell phone rang. I couldn’t pick it up, but I glanced at the display: a number I didn’t recognize. My car and I shuddered into the parking lot, I tried to stop shaking, and then I listened to my voicemail.
It was Harlequin calling.
I stumbled into work, hyped on adrenaline from both the car AND the phone call. I went into a private office and called Harlequin back. They told me my story had made it out of the first round into the second round, one of twenty-eight stories of the original 600.
I was elated and terrified at the same time. That night I got to work prepping the full manuscript for submission to the next round of the contest.
A few weeks later, there was another call from Harlequin, only this time it was to tell me the story had moved on to the next round: top three selections, all available for public review, comment, and voting.
To say I was excited would be an understatement.
My little story was out in the world, and doing well for itself. The editor and I had a brief chat about what else the story might need done to it, and I set to work. It’ll be back in her hands soon!
I can hardly wait to see what happens next (other than my butt in the chair and my hands on the keyboard) for Abby and Cade and the stolen truck in the story.
