Time Off For Writing, Not From Writing

I’ve taken on a rush job that will push me away from other writing, and most social media, until the end of October. This is no surprise: I’ve been trading one writing task for another so often I have to read my own stuff to find out what I’m working on.

In 2018, just over eight years ago, I submitted a novel titled Fire On Mist Creek to the Harlequin Special Edition line. Two months later an editor there praised my first three chapters and synopsis, and asked for the full manuscript, which means I made it further through the gatekeepers than most writers do.

Yay!

What should a writer do while waiting to hear back on a submission? Write more! It keeps you from sitting around, reloading your email. So I wrote a sequel to Fire On Mist Creek, temporarily titled The Rescue Case. Then one November I decided to write a Christmas themed novel, which I titled Christmas On Mist Creek, because it was set in Mist Creek on Christmas, so there you go.

This was an incredibly bad idea. I should have written something unconnected.

Maybe I should have gone straight to Penguin Random House; we stumbled across this place on an Indiana trip. Printing or warehousing, I assume.

In October, 2020, I wrote to ask if the editor had a chance to look at the manuscript yet. I wrote the same thing in January, 2021. The second time she responded instantly, to inform me she’d lost the manuscript and could I please send it again?

These things happened. I sent it again.

Then she ghosted me.

Just over a year later, in February, 2022, I wrote to check on progress. No answer. Next email I copied to other editors connected to the Special Edition line. No answer. In June, 2023, I wrote to something like four editors, including the original one, and asked that they withdraw my story from consideration, even though I suspected that had already happened. It had been five years.

No answer.

Many of you are wondering why I would deal with them again. Well, they’re Harlequin. Despite what some will tell you, if you want to be published traditionally (another question), the publisher holds all the power. Some of my novels are romantic comedies, so my white whale has become the biggest publisher of romance.

At the beginning of October the Special Edition line announced a “blitz”, inviting authors to submit for one month. What they were asking for was right up my alley: contemporary small towns, friends and family, the very thing my romances have been about. But, as I explained to my wife, they were not taking submissions from anything they’d already rejected, so I couldn’t send Fire On Mist Creek.

“Yes you can,” she pointed out. “They never rejected it.”

Holy crap. They never did--just radio silence. On the other hand, when I went to the website that tracked my submissions, I learned they’d marked it “completed”. I’m not much of a rule breaker, so in the end I told Emily I’d instead send in one of the other Mist Creek manuscripts, and worry about the possibility of a series later.

I settled on Christmas On Mist Creek, because Harlequin also mentioned liking holiday themes. The only problem is, the manuscript was several thousand words too short, and I hadn’t done the synopsis yet. You might remember that with the Hoosier Hysterical II manuscript I had to cut out about the same number of words. Too bad I couldn’t just paste them from one to the other.

So I have ten days, as I write this, to polish the first three chapters, write a synopsis and a query letter, and get it turned in. Then I have a few months to fill out the rest of the manuscript, in case they want to see it for the second phase of the contest.

That’s what I’ll be doing.

But I won’t be sitting around waiting for a response.

I may not be as active, but I’ll still be here:

· Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO

· Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/search?attributes.contributorId=13727646

· Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter

· Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/

· Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/

· Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ozma914/

· Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter914

· Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrhunter/

· Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter

· Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRHunter

· Substack: https://substack.com/@markrhunter

· Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/ozma914

· Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ozma914

· Audible: https://www.audible.com/search?searchAuthor=Mark+R.+Hunter&ref_pageloadid=4C1TS2KZGoOjloaJ&pf

Remember: Behind most great books stands a formerly discouraged writer.