Jacqueline C. Thomas - Romance Novelist

Self Doubt

Querying, Job Hunting and Homemaking

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All ready for another job interview

I think I broke a record yesterday, four query rejections in one day! That’s gotta be some sort of record, right? The day before I set a record with three rejections and I thought that was something, but you know what? I’m not upset about it. I am honestly grateful. The speed in which queries are coming back is fast, and that is awesome! At least this way I know it is a “no thank you” and I can move on. After almost two years of querying different projects, I can honestly say I’ve developed some pretty thick skin at this point. I think one has to develop thick skin to do this, I mean this is only the query point. What happens when you make it all the way to publishing and the public doesn’t like the book? Thick skin is a must.

In the past week I’ve also done #PitMad- Twitter’s pitching competition where you pitch to agents via Twitter. I love #PitMad! I do it every time and will continue for the foreseeable future, until I land an agent. This past competition was a strange one though. It felt much bigger than in competitions past. I’ve always found moderate success when pitching, usually snagging a few “likes” from agents who I later pitch to. This time I got none. I’m not sore about it, I just found it odd. I talked to a few fellow authors who also thought that this past competition was a bit odd in feeling and activity. I also noticed for the first time ever that I kept getting “likes” from bogus accounts on my pitches. While this might not seem like a big deal to the average person, to authors who are glued to Twitter on PitMad, each like can be a potential agent. So when I saw a like, I was all excited in thinking it was an agent….. oh well! Fellow authors also encountered this phenomena this time around as well.

As a real glutton for punishment, I’ve also leaned into job hunting too. It feels like the right time to pick up the remnants of my career in marketing and PR. Job hunting has been a wild ride this go around, more so than querying! I was just telling my husband that my next book should be about my experience job hunting, entitled: A Year in Interviews: The Good, Bad, and Ugly. There really have been some ugly interviews, where I’ve walked away gobsmacked- and I am in PR! Obviously I won’t dish because I don’t want to shame, but man guy’s its been wild. It feels like working through Covid had stripped away a layer of professionalism that was always there.

I am also much more cautious when job hunting this time. I don’t just want any job, I want the right job. In one of my more recent professional experiences I encountered some pretty harsh gaslighting by a superior. I didn’t know what it was at the time, I’d been very lucky to that point and had always been well respected in all of my previous roles. That experience left me wiser in so many ways. So my strategy this time is to apply to companies that have a good track record with their current and former employees.

While I’ve been moving forward with querying directly to agents, and continuing to look for work, I will say my daily writing is not as productive as it could be. Right now, I am giving myself a pass, and really practicing self-care. If I need to step away for a bit, that is okay. I am reading a lot right now. I just got the new Christine Feehan book over the weekend, Lightning Game. I am reading it slowly, trying to devour and savor each word. Reviews for this book said it was one of her best thus far. I’ve read the whole series and I have not been a big fan of some of the books in the series, but I am hopefully for this newest one. I am sure I’ll write a review of it when finished.

I’ve also dove into other projects away from my computer. Over the course of the pandemic I improved on my quilting skills. I made a pandemic quilt, I call it, with over 300 tiny squares! The project took forever but I loved doing it. So, I finally took the plunge and set up a sewing spot for myself in my basement. I am so excited to dig in and work there. I also learned over the lockdown last spring, that sewing is great for writer’s block! It was fun to create a space of my own and I can’t wait to get to work down there on a new project.

All in all, that has pretty much been my week. To some it may look like a rough one, but I choose to look at the positives. I know that this is a time of growth and recovery and I embrace the journey, even if my natural impatience doesn’t appreciate it.

Life is Vivid, Rich and Creative Right Now.

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Life truly is beautiful!

So I finished another novel over the weekend. As cliche as it sounds, I dreamt this one too, or at least the basis of it. I am always fascinated in the ways that inspiration comes seeping up into my writing. I think there was a lot of influence from current events and the political landscape. This work was a little different than anything I’ve ever written before. It is set in the future in an ultra-conservative/ religious America, where birth rates have dropped and the ultimate goal is to repopulate the world, but as a romance novel. It sounds strange but guys, it came out so incredible!

What I found particularly interesting with this book is that at no point did I have a major attack of self doubt. With every book I’ve ever written, right before the halfway point I usually have this sense of doubt, like the story is garbage, the characters aren’t believable and I should just stop writing. Most of the time I push through this feeling and in the end, I am usually really pleased with the finished product. To this point, I’ve not produced a work, where I’ve thought, eh you should’ve stopped. With this newly completed project that doubt didn’t come, and I don’t know if that means anything or not but I am grateful.

It really is the strangest thing, life has changed so much in the past six months, from reaching major career goals, and moving to the top of my field to now being home and writing full time. Life is weird guys. I was thinking back to a conversation I had with an old boss last year, we were talking about homeschooling and while I loved and romanticized about the idea, I never saw it in my future. I couldn’t put my career on hold to educate my kids. A year later, my kids are home elearning and I find myself being a part time teacher to support my kid’s education. What is also neat about this is my kids are seeing me write. My daughter has taken to becoming a writer herself and often writes short stories during her breaks. They’re dramatic and dark, and adorable.

So, two months into being a full-time writer, I am really loving it. I feel so pleased to have completed another novel. The last one I finished was in February pre-Covid, career change, furlough, and life basically turning upside down. I am really excited about the book I just finished, I really think it may be some of my best writing yet. I cannot describe how wonderful the feeling is to get up in the mornings and know that I have all day to write. For so long, I worked full-time, while completing my Master’s Degree, and I still managed to write. I would write after my kids went to bed in the evenings, on lunch breaks, or on weekends. Now I can write whenever the mood strikes and it is WONDERFUL!

As I write this blog post I am looking out the window at my treeline on my property rich with fall color. I know how odd this must sound, but I feel like everything is richer in experience this year, even the fall colors in my backyard. I don’t know if this is because I have the time to sit back and enjoy them or if they are truly more vibrant. I feel the same about my writing right now too, it just seems more substantial for some reason.

Creatively, all cylinders are firing right now. What I find truly amazing was that I really pushed to finish this last novel so I can start my NaNoWriMo novel. I already have the idea, and I know where the story will goes. This is unheard of at least for me. Normally I search for months thinking of the perfect idea of my Nano book. This year, the idea came hard and strong, and I was like, well finish the novel you are currently working on and you can start on your next one. Seriously, muse?!? Believe me I am not complaining! If I can pull this off I’ll have completed three novels this year and one short story collection… WOW! I am not bragging, I am just in awe of my endeavors especially in light of everything going on with a global pandemic.

In between writing, I’ve also been querying for my first book Sailing in Silicon Valley. While I have yet to get a bite, I am still pressing forward. I’ve also been toying with the idea of releasing The Lake Michigan Affair, which is a novel I wrote for my first NanoWriMo. It is the story of a devout woman who falls for a Catholic Cardinal, together they put everything on the line for their love. I queried the book for over a year, and after countless rejections, I think I might just self publish it. I’ll be interested to see how the book does on Amazon. My only experience is Quarantine Stories, which has met my expectations sales wise but hasn’t been a massive hit. I know that I have a few things working against me there, first I am an unknown author, second it’s a short story collection, and third short romance stories are kind of odd.

So in the meantime with the five days before NaNoWriMo starts, I’ll do a little research about the next project. I will also continue to query for Sailing in Silicon Valley. Overall, I will continue to enjoy life with all of the vivid richness it seems to possess right now.

New Year, Better Me

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Caffeine and Pilates

Whew, the holidays are finally behind us and I don’t know about you, but I am glad that they are over. Don’t get me wrong, it was a great season filled with family, friends and indulgence, but I am grateful for life to return to “normal.” Between my last post and now, my husband travelled for work for ten days, big things happened at work, I got sick, the hubs got sick, my daughter got sick, we had Christmas, New Years and then my last semester of grad school started, and I found pilates. Whew, I’m exhausted just typing that all out, but the best part is I started a new book in the midst of all of that! Yes, you read that correctly, I started a new book.

The idea came about after I started NaNoWriMo this past year. I dove headfirst into a story that, three chapters in.. I hated. I was stuck. Normally I’d force myself to push thought but even I didn’t like my characters, and I created them. I knew it was time to abandon ship. Then when it looked like all hope of a book was lost, the new idea floated by and I lept. While the new book is still a romance, this project is different from anything I have written before. One character does not rescue the other, or fall more in love and chase the other, the characters in this project rescue each other, and I love that! It is much more difficult to write for sure, and I hope it will be worth it.

Normally, I write fast, when an idea is smouldering away- like I can write 60K words in eight or nine days! My average time to write a novel is about three weeks, and that is taking into account my fulltime job and finishing up my Master’s degree, not to mention being a wife and a mother. This book, I have been writing since late November. Yes, you read that correctly, late November. It is not that the book is massive or some giant epic, it’s that life has been busy. It is also why there’s been such a pause in between blog posts. I’ve written when I’ve either had that time or made the time. I haven’t pushed so hard, and I am seeing the benefit of not, I think of it like giving the story the time to breathe. I have given myself days to thing about plot and character, and really take the time to build a richer context.

I am just around what I think will be the half-way point in it and I really love the characters. They’re real and raw and looking for an anchor in the storms of their lives. I have also found a great album that I have been writing this book to. It is the album entitled Delta by Mumford and Sons. I like their music, but I would not consider myself a massive fan. I heard the song Woman on the album and I was swept away by the emotion of it while I wrote. I knew this was the song that embodied my characters. If I am ever lucky enough to be published, aside from my amazing support network, I want to dedicate the book to the band that sung me through.. through writer’s block, heartbreak, happiness, plot holes and ultimately a beautiful love story.

I am really enjoying writing again. I have made healthier choices in the new year as well. I took up a pilates reformer class, which left me wondering where this magic has been all of my life. I find it to be an amazing workout, but more importantly, it is time set aside for myself where I cannot concentrate on anything else other than my body in that moment which is a treat in this day and age. I also completed dry January, where one does not drink alcohol for the entire month of January. This too was a great experience, and as we roll into February, I am happy to keep this up. I find more mental clarity and just feel better. I am also paying more attention to what I am eating, making sure I am eating lots of fruits and veggies, and sweets in moderation. I am feeling better than I have in a long time, and it has been rewarding creatively too, over the past two weeks. I have had two book ideas in the past two weeks. Both warrant loosely planning out.

The new year is out to a good start so far, fingers crossed that it only improves from here.

My Writing Year of 2019

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This has been an interesting year writing-wise. I came into 2019 having just finished three completed novels, in fact, I finished the last one on December 22nd of 2018. I came into the year on a creative hot-streak! There was a lot of change for me personally last year too, a career change, followed by another one in short succession. I would’ve thought that change would’ve stifled the creative process but it didn’t. I couldn’t write fast enough. The creative juices were flowing, they were overflowing!

I came into this year without any expectations for writing, other than, I would continue to write. With six completed works under my belt I wanted to change direction, I wanted to find an agent. As I read everything I could get my hands on about finding an agent, one thing that became clear was that I needed to build a platform- hence the birth of this website. I set to crafting the perfect query letter and all I can say is I had a lot to learn, and probably still do if I am being honest. I put my head down, got to researching and started querying. Let me just say for those of you who have never done this- it is rough.

My writing comes from somewhere deep inside of me. That being said, when I reach out to an agent for representation, I am putting my work out there, and it is no longer mine and mine alone. I have to be open to changes that will come to the story and the characters along the way, it is no longer my own fiefdom, that is terrifying. There is also the emotional response of hoping it’s good enough and that my writing isn’t a joke. Bottom line, querying is an emotional landmine, but that being said, it is a necessary process. So far, querying has had its ups and downs but it has also helped me grow as a person. I have had to learn to handle rejection in a way that I never have before- it’s humbling but good. As 2019 rolls to a close, I am still currently seeking representation, but I am not deterred. I am emboldened to keep going. I believe through and through that, I have to work for the things I want in life.

Aside from querying, I did write this year. I wrote McKinley Park and published it a chapter at a time on this very blog. In fact, it was this blog that prompted the completion of McKinley Park. As I wrote on the McKinley Park page, I had started the story awhile back but had gotten stuck and had shelved it. I knew if I said I would finish it here on the blog, that the public pressure would force me to complete it. I was right! Writing a book and publishing it a chapter at a time, in a new genre, what could go wrong? McKinley Park stretched my skills as a writer. It also made me kill my darlings! Don’t worry, I won’t share any spoilers, for those who haven’t read it. This was an amazing exercise as a writer! Thank you to all of you who read along!

Writing-wise things were humming along, I was querying, writing McKinley Park and then everything ground to a halt for an unexpected and life-changing surgery. After surgery, it seemed that all of my bandwidth was used just keeping my professional and student life going, and at times I felt like I was barely keeping my head above water. What I did not expect, nor prepare for was the emotional cost of my operation. It was like a grenade going off in the middle of my life, I feel like I am still picking pieces of emotional shrapnel out of my skin. For most creative people who have been through a life-changing event, they can tell you, your creativity takes a hit too. I wasn’t prepared for that either.

For the first time in a long time, I didn’t want to write. I tried to force it, and that did not go well. I was terrified that I had somehow broken that special creative part of myself. Then one night I dreamt about all of the characters I had created and as woo-woo as this sounds, I felt like they were encouraging me to try again. I knew that creatively I couldn’t start something new, I wasn’t there yet, so I rewrote my first book- the project that made me fall in love with writing. I thought this would be an easier lift, as I didn’t really have to create much, the world was built, and the characters were there… Again, I was mistaken. Rewriting is HARD, but it was exactly what I needed to get back on my feet. Like a muscle that had atrophied, my rewrite started off slowly and then as time went on, my writing got stronger.

As November came around and NaNoWriMo kicked off, I tackled it with the same enveloping enthusiasm that I always had. I love Nano, but between school, work, and a renewed querying effort, I just didn’t have the bandwidth- something had to give. I refused to look at the truth of the situation, I could do a few things really well, or all of the things I was trying to accomplish poorly. Querying demands your very best, you can’t phone that in, neither can you do a half-assed job working on your Master’s degree. To top it all off, what started as a great idea for my Nano, fizzled and then eventually came to a grinding halt. The story just didn’t work. I had another idea on the back burner and I enthusiastically set to work on that, and the writing went well but I simply just did not have the bandwidth. Recognizing my own limitations, I stepped back from Nano for the first time ever. That was painful.

With the end of the year less than a month away, I have started another project! One evening while I was driving home from work I had an idea for another novel. This wasn’t a moment, where I thought to myself “oh that’s an interesting idea,” no this was a sledgehammer of an idea, more like “WRITE ME NOW OR I WILL CUT YOU!” The force in which the idea came was powerful. It was welcome! It was my inspiration, roaring to life! So I’ve started writing this book, with Joe and Noelle and I am telling their story. I don’t know exactly where it goes yet but I have a pretty good idea. Do you want to know what the best part is? I am having fun writing again! Even more important, the feeling that writing is a necessary part of my life is back! I could not be happier to get started with this. If you are asking yourself, about the bandwidth thing dear reader, all I can say is two words Christmas break. I am on Christmas break from grad school, I now have the bandwidth to dedicate all of me to this project and I could not be happier.

My hopes for the next year is to find an agent for The Lake Michigan Affair and to continue writing. I am excited about the possibilities a new year brings! I am also grateful for the good and difficult times this past year has brought. Life is a learning experience, and I have learned a lot this year!

Happily Ever… Never

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There are lots of ways to tell a story, just look at all of these romances!

 

For the past week, I’ve been thinking about his blog post, about romance writing, and happily ever afters. I had the post loosely sketched out in my head and then yesterday something happened. I was scrolling through Twitter on my lunch break and I saw a post about romance writing and happily ever afters and how a story wasn’t a romance if the story did not end that particular way. I wanted to comment but scrolled past, then I went back, I was compelled to comment, against my better judgement. Side note, I like to think I usually have better judgement. I commented with the utmost respect, in fact, I even said in my tweet, “I mean this with the utmost respect.” Then it happened, I had voiced my opinion on the subject, knowing it’s not popular. It took all of twenty seconds later for the backlash to start.

Now, I know that when you participate in social media you had better put on your big girl pants because not everyone is going to be nice. I was told that if my work did not have a happy ending then 1. it’s not romance, 2.I’ll never get an agent, and 3. my work will never sell. Ouch! Maybe it’s true, maybe it isn’t and I will say the majority of my works end happily. I had intended to write an opinion piece about romance and stories that end happily, but instead, and probably equally as unpopular, I want to talk about genre.

I know some stranger on the internet really shouldn’t have mattered to me so much but, the comments were not kind, and written from a fellow romance author. I was under the impression that we romance authors stuck together, and stuck up for each other. Another commenter on the thread felt compelled to direct message me the definition of romance according to the RWA (Romance Writers of America, the national organization for romance writing) and to let me know that I am not a romance author if all of my work does not end happily.

I tried to shrug it off and go about my day. After an impromptu dinner date with the hubs, he suggested a trip to the local bookstore. I am always game for a trip to the bookstore! As we walked through I made my way to the romance section, which has grown considerably over the past few years. I took a seat on the small stool used to reach books higher on shelves and studied the covers. There was your alpha-male, cowboy adventure, a cartoonish woman on the front, and then your erotica all on the same shelf. (Note: I am NOT knocking any of these subgenres!) As I looked at the shelf I began to wonder, “am I a romance author, does my work belong on this shelf?”

Before I could a full-blown existential crisis, my husband wandered over with his book choices under his arm. I turned to him and asked him flat out, “Am I a romance writer, or do I write fiction with romantic plots,” as another tweeter had felt compelled to tell me. He stood there for a minute, I could see he was perplexed by the question, and I wondered if the tweeters were right. I felt the pit of my stomach begin to burn as I waited for his answer. Like the amazing man that he is, he gave an amazing answer.  “Your work belongs on that shelf,” he said as he pointed towards the romance section, “or any other shelf you want it to in this whole damn store.” Then he asked me, “do you think Stephen King lets people tell him, that he doesn’t write fiction, or his books aren’t scary enough to be classified as horror? No, he writes what he writes because he loves it. You write whatever stories are inside you, and don’t let someone else tell you who or what you write.”

Guys, I was speechless. Now my hubs is a pretty smart guy and occasionally he says something resonates with me. I say occasionally because we’ve been together for almost twenty years at this point, it takes a lot to really shock each other. What he said last night will be imprinted on me forever! I woke up this morning with a smile on my face thinking to myself, that my stories and all writers have their own way of telling their stories. Gatekeepers do their genre a disservice in curtailing what should or should not be classified. Writing is an art, sure your work can be classified as different types but at the end of the day, art is unique.

At the end of the day, I write the type of romance I want to read. I like writing and reading dramatic, high-stakes romance that sometimes has a happy ending and sometimes it doesn’t. I don’t feel like I’ve wasted my time, reading a romance novel if it doesn’t end happily. In the end, I ask my self two things, first, was there a great love story, and two, did it make me feel for the characters? If I can answer yes to both of those questions then to me, I’ve just read and or written a great romance novel.

NaNoWriMo 2019 Eve

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To most people October 31st. is celebrated for Halloween. For the writers in your life this day is known as NaNoWriMo Eve. This magical day is the eve of one of the largest collective novel-writing programs to kick off in the United States. NaNoWriMo, or Nano as I call it, stands for National Novel Writing Month. The idea is you dedicate one month to write a novel, at least fifty-thousand words. When my husband and I met, he was the prolific writer in our relationship. I dreaded November because I know I became a “book widow,” as he feverishly typed away in his home office. I didn’t understand what all the fuss was about.

After I wrote my first book, a couple of years back, my husband challenged me to do Nano. I believe it went something like this, “you’re a writer now, I bet you have another book in you. Do you think you can do it?” Never one to back down to a challenge, I committed to completing my first Nano ever. I wrote The Lake Michigan Affair in three weeks. At the time I was working for a local organization that threw a massive Christmas celebration for the town and I knew that I would not have the bandwidth to organize that event and write. I had the idea, a devout Catholic woman who falls in love with the new Catholic Bishop of Chicago, but little else. I set off and working under pressure, the story grew before me. I look back at it in awe. Two years later after several re-writes and copy edits, I am seeing representation for The Lake Michigan Affair. It amazes me, I still can’t believe I had that story in me.

Last year for Nano, I wrote another novel. It was the story of friends who work together. They go through a horrific tragedy and are brought together in grief. There’s only one catch, she’s married, he isn’t. What drew me to this story is that the characters had always had a “thing” for each other, an attraction that neither had ever acted upon until this turning point in both of their lives. What I loved about this project is the main character Emily, is flawed, she breaks Gabe, her love interest’s heart, not once but twice! This was a challenge to write and still make her likeable. I started this book with an idea of unrequited love between two friends that blossoms into something more, spurred on by tragedy.

There is one scene in this book that I especially love. It is where Emily has hurt Gabe badly, and she comes to him to reconcile, not even realizing that is why she is there. Gabe has just lost his mother and is back home to sign over the keys for the sale of his childhood home. She comes over to be supportive of Gabe and they end up sleeping together. I love this scene because it is so intimate. They end up getting stuck at Gabe’s childhood due to a snowstorm. Together they build a fire in the fireplace in the living room to stay warm when the power goes out. However, they have no trouble staying warm, making love to each other all night. I love this scene!

This year as I gear up for another Nano, once again I have my idea in mind. I feel like I have my main character loosely configured and her love interest or interests. This time there is no marital affair, other matters of the heart are afoot though. I am so excited to be able to start Nano this year. I love this program so much. Life is busy, and finding time to write is a struggle but for me, knowing there is a deadline, that the first draft should be done by the end of the month is exhilarating. What excites me, even more, is the story that is yet to come. I guess I am easily entertained because I am always in awe when I complete a work, that I came up with that story.

The one thing I am not looking forward to is the halfway point. It is usually at the end of the first act, or before the climax that I have a crisis of confidence and am tempted to scrap the entire thing. I have done this with everything I have ever written, with the exception of Come Sail Away with Me. Here’s hoping that this year’s doubts are manageable and I won’t give up. My personal motto has always been one word, “relentless.” Be relentless in goals, that means not giving up and telling myself, even if the book turns out to be garbage, I didn’t give up. I have never finished a book and thought it was trash, by the time I got to the end. Sure, it might need a massive amount of work, but the story is there. So if I can give one piece of advice for those of you who are doing Nano this year it would be this, DON’T GIVE UP… KEEP GOING!

See you all at the end of the month with our books in hand!

 

If you’d like to learn more about NaNoWriMo, click here.