Reading, Reading and Reading...

The first time I read a Mills & Boon novel I was 14 years old.
It was school holidays. My sister and I were visiting my parents who were working in Sharjah at the time.
After getting through my holiday reading of Agatha Christie paperbacks, my choice of entertainment was either watching wrestling on television or sifting for seashells in the sand in our backyard.
Then my father brought home a bag of books that someone had given him. Inside were dozens of Mills & Boon romance novels.

Heavens!

Romance novels had the same status of illicit drugs back in my school days – teachers warned you off reading them as they would "rot young minds"; students smuggled books in brown paper covers – books that had been ‘borrowed’ from the shelves of their mothers, aunts, elder sisters; and trades were done in the greatest secrecy under desks and outside school gates.

And here my father had given me a whole bag of the same.

The first book out of the bag was by Anne Weale. The title is lost in memory but I do remember being unable to put the book down.
"What are you reading?" my father asked curiously, when I was battling motion-sickness to keep reading in the car. It was another gem from the unexpected treasure trove of Mills & Boon.
 "Yes, read out loud so we can all enjoy it," encouraged my mother.

…His lips met hers in heated passion…his hands cupped her turgid breasts…

Fortunately, my sister seeing my face quickly provided a distraction by pointing out the window and asking guilelessly, "What’s that?"
Years later, my sister grew up to have the biggest collection of Mills & Boon novels in my household.
As for me, from that first moment I was hooked.

But like those famous words by Forrest Gump – "life is like a box of chocolates" – so are romance novels. You have to search for the one that doesn’t make you skip to the last page after reading ten lines of the first chapter. The novel that doesn’t make you roll your eyes and thrown a metaphorical bucket of water on the heroine or smack the hero for being a rude, arrogant pig (and no, saying ‘I love you’ in the last couple of pages doesn’t make up for 180 pages of bad behaviour). The novel that doesn’t make you rush out and plant a tree in place of the one that lost its life for such aggravating, nonsense.

Then, suddenly, you find it. Magic. In a Charlotte Lamb or Robyn Donald; an Emilie Richards; a Susan Napier and practically every single Nora Roberts. The ones you wanted to read from start to finish, then go back and read again.

When my mother started giving me an allowance. I spent it all on books. Not new ones, as that wouldn’t have bought many new-and-imported books from K.V.G bookstore on Galle Road, Bambalapitiya. But from the ‘Bookman’ who visited customer homes, through word-of-mouth recommendations.
He carried pre-loved books in a gunny sack on his head and he’d rent/sell books for between 50 cents to one rupee – depending on when the novel was published and the condition of the book.
The only bad thing about the Bookman was that he refused to visit during exams because he didn’t want to ‘spoil my studies’.

He really was a very nice man, but what would my romance writing journey have been like if the Sri Lankan public education system had Anne Mather and Catherine George on the curriculum instead of algebra and chemistry? Hmm…

Dealing with Rejection

I was in the middle of the ‘final edit’ of my latest manuscript for Mills & Boon/Harlequin, when I received a rejection letter for the previous submission.

I used to think rejection letters were "aaaargh!".
One minute I’d be having visions (read: delusions) of my name on a paperback cover, holding the publisher’s unopened envelope in my hopeful hands. The next minute, I’d be pouring my heart to my bewildered my dog about a ‘cruel, cruel world’, with my writer’s confidence lying in tatters after another ‘no, thanks’ had sunk in.
But after the five stages of grieving  (shock, anger, chocolate, acceptance and more chocolate), I’m finding that rejection letters are not that bad. In fact they are very instructive for a would-be author. Specially as the editors are getting more detailed in their constructive criticism.

Here are some examples :

Rejection letter - May 2006"Whilst we appreciate the care and attention that has gone into the preparation of your submission, regrettably we feel that your story and characters would not be suitable for  publication in any of our publishing programmes."

Rejection letter - May 2009"We have read this with interest, but regrettably have decided not to pursue this project further. Your material is competently written and you have obviously researched the genre. However, the feeling is that, while we enjoyed the lightness of tone in your voice, this isn’t currently being balanced by enough character depth in your protagonists. We are not seeing enough of (male) and (female)’s emotions and it is not clear what will keep them apart emotionally in this story. Furthermore, there are a lot of secondary characters who distract from our focus on the central romance."

Rejection letter - November 2010 (my favourite, so far)"We appreciate the care and attention that has gone into the preparation of your submission, regrettably we feel that your story and characters are not sufficiently developed for publication in any of our publishing programmes.
Here our top tips to bear in mind for your next submission (they’re expecting more, lovely!)
1.  Ensure that your story and conflict are character-driven
2.  Focus on the internal emotional conflict of your characters
3.  Use secondary characters to add richness and depth to your central romance but don’t let them take over!
4.  Target your work to a particular series - means you need to read current books in the series you are aiming for and understand what the series delivers to the reader.
…
Find more writing tips at www.eharlequin.com and www.millsandboon.co.uk"