The Rest of the Story . . .

I’ve had a number of requests from people to expand on my news and share a few more details. So, here it is. Sorry, but this is going to be long.

Anybody notice the pictures of my grandkids in my signing picture?

As anyone who’s followed this blog over the summer knows, I received a request for a full from Rhemalda Publishing (one of many I'd considered submitting to and had researched) for my adventure romance last spring. I was so excited and encouraged. It ended up being a rejection, but the best kind of rejection: revise and resubmit (aka R&R).

Now I admit the idea was both heady and intimidating.

I remember reading an article by Ben Bova who gave Orson Scott Card an R&R for Ender’s Game (yeah, the Hugo winner). Bova made a very interesting observation. He said he was always nervous when he did that because he never knew how an author would react. Some are so arrogant that they will never entertain changes. Others actually make the book worse. He was thrilled when Card not only was willing to make changes but crafted a much better book in the process.

So there I was, faced with this R&R. I’ve always tried to stay teachable, and I'm willing to consider anything that will make my book the best little story it can be (with my skills at this time—because we’re always looking to improve, right?).

Would the recommendations for change to my book be things I could live with?

What if I couldn’t live with them?

I’ve been running around the blogosphere and am a member of a number of writing organizations where authors talk about their publishing experiences. Some have shared experiences where the R&R they received would change the very nature of their story, the essence of their characters.

I lucked out. None of the recommendations did that. Instead of arguing in my mind about making the changes, I was excited to find ways to make the suggestions happen and took nearly three months working on them. So, after a few of my awesome online critique partners and writer friends gave me some feedback, I resubmitted.

And the wait began again.

Now, let me explain a little bit about where I was in my real life a few weeks ago. I normally love my day job, but we’ve got stuff going on that’s really killing the moral of my organization. I'd even been the focal point of a couple of local newspaper articles because of a decision I had to make. My sleep had been restless for days, my stomach a roiling mess.

I returned to my office and checked my cell phone in case I’d missed anything. My email accounts come to my phone, and my heart stopped when I recognized the email address. With shaking fingers, I accessed the email and read it.

The words that stood out were “your changes did not disappoint.”

With my fingers clutching the phone, I lifted my hands in a silent squeee. One of the attorneys peeked her head around the corner of my door, saw me, and asked if I was all right.

Um.

I cannot begin to express the surreal feeling of that moment. On one hand I was in the pits of despair and the next moment it was like my feet wouldn't stay on the ground (imagine Harry’s aunt floating away in Prisoner of Azkaban). My hands shook the rest of the day.

To make this long story short, we scheduled a time to talk. I was offered a contract, which I then had reviewed by a couple of attorneys. The publisher has been wonderful to work with and very up front about everything. I know a few of the authors who publish with them, and they talk about how the folks at Rhemalda are wonderful to work with.

And that’s important to me. It’s all about the experience, about being a partner in this publication process, about the fruits of my creative labor being treated as more than a bin of apples or a pound of beef for sale at the market.

It’s an understatement to say I’m excited.

Seriously. We need more words in the English language!

A to Z - Ender's Game

Well, Ender's Game, the Hugo winning, freakin' amazing book, is finally going to be made into a movie. Harrison Ford is going to play Colonel Graff, and Ben Kingsley is going to be Mazer Rackham.

Scott Card has held firm when the folks in Hollywood kept wanting to up the ages and make it a teen movie. He also commented, at the end of the audiobook, that it's difficult to take a book where so much takes place inside the main character's head. It all came together when they realized they needed to have it be about Bean, too.

Since I love Bean--who got his own story in the Ender's Shadow series, that totally works for me. I recently finished Shadows in Flight. *sniff*

Ender's Game Book Description:
In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race's next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Peter and Valentine were candidates for the soldier-training program but didn't make the cut--young Ender is the Wiggin drafted to the orbiting Battle School for rigorous military training.

Ender's skills make him a leader in school and respected in the Battle Room, where children play at mock battles in zero gravity. Yet growing up in an artificial community of young soldiers, Ender suffers greatly from isolation, rivalry from his peers, pressure from the adult teachers, and an unsettling fear of the alien invaders. His psychological battles include loneliness, fear that he is becoming like the cruel brother he remembers, and fanning the flames of devotion to his beloved sister.

Is Ender the general Earth needs? But Ender is not the only result of the genetic experiments. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long. Ender's two older siblings are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. Between the three of them lie the abilities to remake a world. If the world survives, that is.

Bear in mind that Ender is only 12 at the end of the book. What a world when a 12-year-old kid could be considered as a general. Kinda blows the mind, doesn't it?

Have you read Ender's Game? What did you think of it? If you haven't, why not?