Jenyfer Matthews

My 500-word-a-day writing goals have gone out the window with the beginning of the kids summer vacation and my illness. I’ve always tended to write in fits and starts anyway so I don’t suppose it’s a huge surprise that my self-discipline has taken a nose dive recently. I plan to make up for it when I collect my new laptop from my mother’s house.

Just because I haven’t been writing much doesn’t mean I haven’t been thinking though. Fellow author and friend Anny Cook posted a interview and review of my book Here To Stay on her blog yesterday. I’m happy to say that she liked my book. It’s always a little nerve wracking when someone you know reads your work.

The thing I was thinking about after having done Anny’s interview was one question that authors often get asked: “Why did you start writing?” If I’m totally honest – and I can be here, right? – the reason I started writing was having read one too many badly written books. And I’m talking across genres here, not just romances. I figured if they could get published then why couldn’t I? I was always being told what a good letter writer I was. I got A’s in all my English classes in college. That qualified me, right?

It was a somewhat naive approach to the whole publishing game, but at the time I thought that all I had to do was write a good story. I hadn’t factored in writing credentials, who-you-know and just blind luck. I just figured everyone had to start somewhere.

I read somewhere once that Harlequin alone receives in the neighborhood of 10,000 submissions a year (this was years ago – they may get more now) and that they select about 2% of those for further consideration, even fewer for publication. That’s a 98% rejection rate. And given the volume of submissions they receive, most unsolicited submissions get less than a 5 minute assessment so you have to catch their attention quickly.

Fortunately I didn’t know how much the odds were stacked against me at the time and I blithely sent off my first story to Harlequin Intrigue. A few weeks later I was asked for the entire manuscript. I went back and forth with an editor there for a little while, changing things and tweaking before they finally just said no thanks. Looking back, the story is painful for me to read and I’m actually glad they rejected it, but it’s still staggering to me to think how far I got my first time out. Getting anything other than a form rejection letter is a miracle and a few personal editorial remarks is a gift for a new writer.

Having finally been published and getting good reviews is like winning the lottery.

Knowing what I know now about how much work goes into writing a book doesn’t make me a more forgiving reader though. It just makes it that much more difficult for me to find books to read that I don’t simultaneously edit in my head as I go along.

But editing is a topic for another day…

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