Jacqueline C. Thomas - Romance Novelist

First Book

10 Day Countdown to the Launch of The Lake Michigan Affair- Sharing 10 Facts About the Book.

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Today marks the 10 day countdown mark for the the release debut of The Lake Michigan Affair on April 14th. To mark this countdown. I will be sharing a fact, excerpt, and interesting tidbits about the upcoming book. Each day I will share something new to get you all ready for debut day!

Fact #1: The Lake Michigan Affair was written during Nanao-Wri-Mo 2017

If you are not familiar with NanoWriMo it stands for National Novel Writing Month and is held annually each November. The premise of the program is that you have one month to write a novel. You can write at your own pace and log it on their webiste. This program is completely free, and through the month of November there are usually local meet-ups where authors can share, support and kick off the month together. If you want to learn more about this awesome program, look into it here.

The Lake Michigan Affair would be my second book that I’ve written. I knew that I wanted to write a romance with a power imbalance, and the nuances contained therein. I first thought that I this would be a story about a woman having an affair with a political figure, but as I mulled through it, I got a better idea of the character of Rosalie and I just knew that it had to be a priest that she falls for. However, it had to be bigger, not a parish priest, and that is how I came to settle on the character of Sebastian, being a Catholic Bishop of Chicago. I remember having the characters in my head at my first ever NanoWriMo meet-up. As the other authors went around the circle and shared what they were working on, my heart began to beat in my throat. As a Catholic, in a predominantly Catholic community, I knew that just the mention of the subject matter could result in serious backlash. So when my time came I simply said, “it’s about a woman who is in a terrible marriage and finds love through an affair.” That was enough to satisfy the group.

For the next month, I wrote like a mad woman. I had my characters, and I knew how I wanted the book to end but the rest came to me as I wrote. I completed the novel in the month of November thus “winning” NanoWritMo 2017. The book that I ended up with at the end of that month is not the book you’ll see in ten days. There have been wonderful revisions where the characters have revealed more of themselves, their desires, and their wish for a happily ever after.

BIG NEWS: I am self-publishing The Lake Michigan Affair, a steamy, high-stakes romance novel

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The closest thing I can aquaite my writing to is like having children. The work is born from deep within you, and it has to be coaxed, and carefully protected much like a newborn. Lord knows it requires all of your attention, even causing lack of sleep, concentration, and then you have a first draft. I think a first draft is a lot like a small child, it’s moody, requires so much attention and care, as you read through it, erasing parts and adding others. You see it’s potential and after your second draft, it’s more like a teenager, filled with sass, and angst, and still full of so much promise. Eventually, you get to a “final” revision, this is your high schooler going off to college, the moment where you push your baby bird out of the nest and hope it soars. I know this sounds over dramatic, and totally full of myself, but if you’ve ever created art that your passionate about, you’ll get what I’m saying. It is keeping this in mind, that I’ve decided to push my baby bird out of my nest. I’d hoped to give it a more sure footing going the traditional publishing route , but after 3 long years, 2 full manuscript requests, more than 150 queries, I’ve decided to publish The Lake Michigan Affair myself.

I did self publishing once with Quarantine Stories, it was not a slam dunk, nor did I expect it to be. I don’t think it was a failure either, I sure learned a lot, which is always a win. I’ve learned in life that those who are the most successful are those who can pivot, so that is what I am going to do. I’ve written a dozen romance novels thus far, all full length. I’ve qurreyed three of them so far, but the rest remain on my computer unread. I realized that they’re better off in the world as a self published work, for others to hopefully enjoy. I am pushing my most vibrant, healthiest baby blue bird out of my nest this spring. I am terrified, to send it out into the world, but with the overwhelming phenomenon that are the Sinners and Saint Series by Sierra Simone currently are, it would be stupid to hold onto this book any longer.

So dear readers, I want to introduce you to The Lake Michigan Affair. Here is the book summary that will be on the back cover of the book:

Devout Catholic, Rosalie is stuck in an abusive marriage, childless marriage. She is not looking for love, her fate is already sealed with her outwardly perfect surgeon husband Richard. No one knows the depths that Richard will take to keep Rosalie manipulated and broken, which is exactly where he wants her. Everything and everyone in Rosalie’s life blame her for the couple’s infertility.

Catholic Bishop, Sebastian Cole is new to the city and a rising star within the Catholic church. He’s a good man, honest and devout. One night at a charity gala he meets Rosalie and suddenly his world is turned upside down by the incredible woman that has come into his life. Faith, love and duty collide as the two fall into an intense love affair, that neither sought out, but both find as essential as oxygen. Together Rosalie and Sebastian must avoid a scandal, free Rosalie from her abusive marriage, and grapple with their own faith to find their happily ever after.

Over the next coming weeks, I’ll be sharing more about this exciting debut, and preparing my youngster (the book) for life out there in the big self-publishing world.

Adventures in #KissPitch Land

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Normally I try to post at least once a week, but I am in the midst of a transition, I have taken a new job, one that I have worked my whole career towards. I also finished the book I’ve been writing over the holidays. I love that story where the love interests rescue each other. So much hurt, and baggage and two people have to make the decision to look past all of the distractions and just love each other… swoon! Anyway, with a job transition, finishing up grad school, and finishing a novel, life has been BUSY! So busy in fact, that I almost missed #KissPitch, the Twitter pitch contest for romance writers.

I saw the announcement of the annual pitch contest two days before Valentine’s Day, the day of the event. How perfect is that, a romance pitching event on Valentine’s Day! I woke on the morning of Valentine’s Day still unsure of if I was going to pitch or not. I rolled over as my alarm clock went off and asked my husband if I should pitch or not. His response was tepid. As I got ready for the day I thought more about it, and thought maybe I should pitch one of the other finished books that I haven’t tried to query yet. I purposed this idea to my husband, who initially said,” yes, pitch the one with the PR lady.” He meant the book, What Was Meant to Be. It is the story of two best friends who have chemistry, ignore it while moving on with life and then through tragedy, can no longer ignore the obvious. It also has one of my most favorite scenes that I have ever written in it.

I thought about it and thought about the other finished works I had that I could pitch and my very first novel, that I rewrote over the fall, was ready to go too. It had been edited, although not professionally (confession moment!) I thought I would put that one out there too. I adore that book not only because it was the first one I ever wrote, but the male love interest, David is DREAMY! Sailing in Silicon Valley is about a young woman who falls in love with her brother’s older boss, David.

So as I drove to work I crafted my pitches and my strategy. The contest ran form 9 am EST to 9 pm.EST. Part of my strategy is to have my pitch retweeted as many times as possible, the goal being that it is seen more. I also wanted to retweet fellow romance authors who were pitching on the same day. I figure the more romance out there, the better, am I right? Spread the love folks. Anyway, I sent my first pitch out at 9:30 am, for What was Meant to Be, here it is:

“Everything changes in one tragic moment for best friends Gabe and Lis. Clinging to each other to make it through the aftermath, Friendship turns to passion, then love but a lot stands in the way of their happily ever after, like her absentee husband. #KissPitch #CR”

I sent out my second pitch around noon, for Sailing in Silicon Valley, here it is:

“Naomi is visiting her brother for the summer in Silicon Valley when she falls hard for her brother’s sexy, older boss. David isn’t expecting to fall in love with his most brilliant employee’s little sister. What begins as a steamy fling turns into so much more. #KissPitch #CR”

I had moderate success with both pitches and watched eagerly as those who meant well liked my pitches. In a Twitter pitch contest, only agents are supposed to like the pitch, supporters who want to be helpful are supposed to retweet instead. Each time I’d get a notification from Twitter that someone had liked one of the pitches, I’d eagerly hop on and investigate. By 3 pm. I had felt dejected. I thought about recrafting the pitches and sending them back out, you’re allowed to do up to four pitches in total. I thought about it and decided to just retweet what I had already put out there myself, and get on with my day. I did one last check-in at the end of the day and saw I had another like on the Sailing in Silicon Valley… and wait for it…. it was from a real AGENT!! AHHHHHHH! After I stopped doing the happy dance around my office I began to investigate the agent, it turns out I had pitched a different book to her almost a year ago to the day! This agent is like my dream agent.

I called my husband and told him this amazing news, not quite believing it myself. After the elation waned, fear set in, real fear. I had not had the manuscript professionally copyedited yet. I can envision my fellow authors reading this, screaming at the screen, “Then why did you pitch it!?!?” I had a plan, to run through it again, hire a copyeditor on Upwork and have it in the agent’s inbox before Monday. I only had to submit the first 50 pages after all, and a query letter. All Valentine’s Day evening plans went out the window, I had work to do. Dreams don’t come to you, you have to go out there and get them! So roses, steak dinner, romantic movie, all of it had to wait, I had work to do. I put the first fifty pages up on UpWork and shortly got a rejection for the project due to the adult content. It has a love scene in it. Panicked that I wasn’t going to be able to have someone else look at it, I reached out to my best friend. She was a senior assistant for the state government for her entire career, and nothing gets past her. She told me to send her the pages and she’d turn them around quickly too.

By Sunday morning I had my query letter done, and the first fifty pages of the manuscript had been scoured. I submitted them. Submitting a query is like no other experience I can think of. There’s excitement, adrenaline, reassurance, hope… then you hit send.. then comes fear, angst, nervousness… It is the worst. Meanwhile, I continued to pour over the book. My poor husband looked at me wondering if we were ever going to have a real Valentine’s day celebration. Aside from checking my inbox relentlessly, we did have our date. Word came on Monday morning of a polite decline from the agent. I knew that it was unlikely that this might be “it” my big break, but I still hoped.

So, that was an adventure and a learning experience for sure. I learned that one had better have work ready to be sent asap when pitching. I also learned that my writing has improved as I re-read through the re-written manuscript. I think I may table my current manuscript making the query rounds and might try this book instead. If it doesn’t work, there’s always another one waiting in the wings.

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!

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.

Back to Half Moon Bay

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It’s official, I have my writer’s groove back! Hallelujah!!! I wrote a very honest post a few weeks back about having difficulties returning to writing after going through a traumatic surgery. I couldn’t seem to focus, but more importantly the creative muscle just wasn’t flexing. I wrote about how dishearting and terrifying this was. I had made the plan to return to my first completed novel to rewrite it. I chose the project because I didn’t have to build the world, or the characters, the groundwork was already done. All I had to do was enhance, organize, and tell their story. Simple right? HA!

I learned through this process that rewriting so so much harder than writing from scratch. When you write from scratch, you have the freedom to create, when you rewrite there are limitations, you have to write in the world already built. The story is a romance between a woman visiting her brother in Silicon Valley for the summer, and she falls for her brother’s boss, a tech giant. I loved revisiting this steamy love story, which takes place in Half Moon Bay, California. My thought process for choosing this to help me get my groove back was that I loved this story, it was the work that wooed me to love writing.

There were parts of this process that were so much fun, especially adding rich detail into the story. Describing the feeling of his hair as she ran her fingers through it, how he thought she smelled to him, these seemingly small details made such a massive difference when I wrote them out. All the while I had to be careful to keep in mind the framework I was supposed to be working in, keeping with the narrative of the story. I loved doing this part of this rewrite, it made the characters so much more….more everything!

For as fun as it was, it was difficult too. There were entire chapters that didn’t make it into the new version. Have you ever killed an entire chapter? It’s brutal but necessary. Then there were the chapters that had all of the components to move the narrative forward but they were in the wrong order, a full chapter rewrite, ouch. I found chapter rewrites to be the most challenging and the most rewarding. The work was gruelling, and as cliche, as it sounds, I did have to kill my darlings, the things I loved in the book, in order to streamline the story and make it tight.

Being a full-time working mom and a graduate school student, to say that time is precious is an understatement. Another difference in a rewrite vs. a “regular” write is that I really had to pay attention to details. For each chapter I worked on, I would reread the chapter before it, before working on the next one, this helped keep continuity and move the narrative forward in a succinct manner. This means I spent as much time reading the book as I did writing it! On days where I was lucky enough to be able to write for a few hours, I would read large parts of the book. I was very strict with myself, knowing the importance of doing this. Re-reading the most recently completed chapter before writing the next one, made this process feel painfully slow. As someone who has limited time, this was an exercise in patience. It was important though, moving deliberately through the book in a slower way gave time to let ideas and plotlines “marinate.”

With NaNoWriMo coming up, I knew I needed to have this book done before I participated. I know I only have the bandwidth to work on one project at a time right now. I was so committed to getting this book done, I got up at 5 am. to write before work. This is a huge thing for me! I am not a morning person! If I didn’t have to be a functional person, I would be happy to write into the early hours. Life is quiet in the middle of the night. Each night before bed, I’d set my coffee pot to brew at 4:45 am, and my laptop on my nightstand. When my alarm would go off, I’d grab a cup of coffee and then sneak off to our spare bedroom, curl up on the bed and start writing. It was just me in the dark, with only the glow of the screen, and my characters. I fell in love with writing like this! If you haven’t tried it, I highly suggest it! There are very few things in life that will have me hopping out of bed in the morning happily, and this was one of them. What was even more amazing is that I found that my creative muscle would be in overdrive all day. I would come home from work, do homework, kids, dinner, bath etc. and race to get back to my computer.

Last night I “finished” the rewrite. I use quotations because as any true writer will tell you, a book is never finished, you just get it to a point where it is good enough. As I wrote my last sentence, tears welled in my eyes. I started this project as a lifeline back to writing. I needed these characters and a world already built, like writing training-wheels. My plan worked, I found my writing groove in such a strong, powerful way. As I stared at my computer screen looking at 106,000 words, I wiped tears from my cheeks and shut my computer. This book will always be incredibly special to me because it was the first thing I ever wrote, and it came flying out of me. Now, this book taught me how to rewrite but more importantly, it wooed me again.

So the plan for Come Sail Away With Me, as it is titled? I need to let it sit for a couple of months. I need to step away from it, it needs to rest. In the meantime I will be doing NaNoWriMo, the idea for this year’s project came while I was rewriting CSAW. Sometime this winter I will pull it back out and reread, editing and tweak along the way. From there, it is off to a professional copy editor and then….. query time! I’ve decided I am going to try to seek representation for it. Let’s see if this story shares it’s magic again and snags an agent.