Ready, set, send

Whew. Chapter three was tough. But in the end, I increased my word count by 112 words, which actually surprised me a little. It’s going very well, so I am going to print the first three chapters and send them off to their fate with an editor at Kensington.

I am glad I have a query ready and a synopsis waiting in the wings. I don’t think that I found them harder to write than the book itself, but they are certainly in a league of their own.

So much emphasis is placed on a good query that every word is scrutinized and triple checked. But the problem I have is probably the problem many authors face: the query is supposed to reflect the voice and style of the book, while giving a very short description of the book.

Oh, and you’re not supposed to use descriptive adjectives. So my line “THE PROTECTOR is a fun and quirky homoerotic novel of suspense” is actually very presumptive.

But I just couldn’t get the humor and lighthearted fun that’s a major part of the book into the tiny, two paragraph description. So I mention “fun” and “quirky,” because I don’t want to give the impression that THE PROTECTOR is a traditionally serious suspense novel.

I am more Janet Evanovich than James Patterson.

• If you'd like to read the newly improved chapters one, two and three, head on over to my website (link to the right) and check them out.