Samhain Publishing Ltd. Weblog

Red-Hot Summer Anthology

I’m pleased to announce the books chosen for the Red-Hot Summer Anthology:

Reckless by Maya Banks
Color My Heart by Red Garnier
Heat of the Moment by Leeanne Kenedy
Lady Sings the Blues by Mallery Malone

Congratulations!

Thanks to all who sent in submissions. With almost 60 submissions, many of them very strong, it was an extremely difficult decision.

Jennifer Miller
Editor, Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
www.samhainpublishing.com

The Joys of Rewrites

It’s been a long arduous journey—weeks, months, maybe even years in the making—but you’ve done it. You’ve finally finished your book. And whether it’s your first or your twenty-first, you know what has to be done next…

Rewrites.

Thirteen Things Final Line Edits (FLEs) Taught Me About Writing

Samhain writers, get out your rotten tomatoes and let them fly. I am the person at Samhain you most love to hate. I am the fussy, picky, pedantic, acid-tongued Final Line Editor Angie James inflicted on you in a moment of unadulterated sadism. (She’s proud of it too. Look at her buffing her nails as I type that.) I will question your spelling, your punctuation and word choices. I will point out the plot thread you dropped in chapter six and never picked up again. I will tell you when your hero crawled into bed wearing the heroine’s Jimmy Choos and the dog’s socks. I know what the weather was like in London in February 1815, and I’ll be delighted to show you the contemporary sources to prove it. I am all your editorial nightmares rolled into one.

Strangers in the Night Valentine's Anthology

I’m pleased to announce that the following stories have been selected for the Strangers in the Night Valentine’s Day Anthology.

Torn Hearts, Bonnie Dee
Like a Thief in the Night, Bettie Sharpe
Erotics Anonymous, Veronica Wilde

The competition was incredibly tough and there were some awesome entries, so this was a very difficult decision. Thank you to everyone who entered. :D

When Your Plot Gets Hijacked

I’m a pantsy-plotter, which means while I plot I fly by the seat of my pants to get to the end. Why? Because I have to steal time to write, that’s why. So, while I’m at work or cooking etc, part of me is submersed in Jenn’s World where my characters live and breathe. It’s hard to stay on course when that happens. I don’t keep my outline in front of me all the time while I’m thinking about my stories, therefore, surprises happen. I myself was a surprise for my parents so that may have something to do with it. Mama says I was a happy accident. You say tom-ah-to and I say, well, actually, I say ‘mater. But really, it’s all about where you’re coming from. ‘wink’

Six impossible things before breakfast

Like the White Queen in Alice Through the Looking-Glass, I can believe all sorts of things.
I believe the earth is round, despite being able to see perfectly well that it’s flat.
I believe that one day I’ll be able to write a blurb without taking all day over it.
I’m willing to believe in the existence of telekinesis and photons and love at first sight, even though they all sound equally unlikely.

Within the pages of a book, I’ll believe—temporarily—in things that are even more far-fetched.

Trust in me

By now, I’m pretty sure you’ve all seen the kerfuffle happening on many of the romance review blogs. I’m not going to spread the linky love, because if you haven’t heard about it, my advice is to just stay out of it.

Writing as a solitary business?

We all know that getting a book published is a team effort.

The author must come up with the idea and write the story, first and foremost. Without the idea, there’s nowhere to go, no product to put out there for the reader to purchase and enjoy and tell their friends about.

The editor must work with the author to polish that story to the best of both abilities. Often times, like here at Samhain, there’s more than one level of editor as well, so it’s polishing to the best of many abilities.

Real life vs fiction

Fiction and real life are not quite the same. I know, it’s an obvious statement. But I do find it fascinating when I realize that what makes good fiction is not necessarily “real life”. The best and most obvious example is dialogue. If you were to transcribe real dialogue, often it would be meandering, repetitive and boring to read. With lots of repeated words, ums and allusions to things which are obvious if you’re actually there, but not obvious when being read.

Dialogue has to be crafted to give a sense of real-life dialogue, but it’s fictional. If two people are very excited, you don’t actually want to puntuate every sentence with an exclamation mark. Strong writing—and an exclamation mark here and there–will convey the appropriate intensity.

Relationships are like this, too. In real life, they can be confusing and hard to make sense of. It’s not much fun reading about a relationship that is hard to make sense of. It needs to be crafted and, sometimes, simplified. Fiction is not as complex as real life, after all. That doesn’t mean fiction can’t be fascinating, insightful and multilayered.

Historical romances can be especially tricky. They need to be accurate, yes, but most importantly they need to convince—to simulate a different time and place—without portraying said time and place in a way that is known to be wrong. (Unless, we’re dealing with alternate history.) The language can’t sound too modern and yet, it’s unlikely to be exactly how they spoke in Middle Ages and it won’t be how they spoke in Rome!

So fiction does not equal real life, but it can provide a fascinating window on it.

Submissions

Over the past few weeks, I’ve heard from many authors wanting to know how to get a submission read by an editor at Samhain right now. As it states on the submissions page of our website, Samhain is temporarily closed to submissions.