I’ve done it! Submitted my novella to a lovely editor at Entangled.

I’m happy with what I sent. Okay, I did attach the not-quite-optimal version of the synopsis (hint: if you decide to do some last minute tweaks, DO NOT attach the document while the tweaked version is still sitting on your desktop unsaved, you will be sending the old version!), and my blurb for the query letter sounded a little too generic rent-a-romance for my taste (by that stage I was way too tired and last-minuted to do a good enough job on this, unfortunately).

I just have to hope the story speaks for itself and he likes it!

I’ll know within the next three weeks, anyway. The great thing about Entangled is the short wait times. Also, everything I’ve heard (and my personal experience with my last sub) says the editors there give the best rejections around. Getting R’ed sucks, anytime, but a nice friendly personal rejection is soooooo much better.

So, tonight I’ll just wait for the post-submission crash. I’ve run on diet cola and adrenaline the last five days, getting this story written and edited.  Off to the Day Job in the morning. The Thursday I can start work on the Writing Shed. Sitting crosslegged on the bed with my laptop on my knees works okay for short stretches, but can be a killer for twelve hour plus writing stints three days in a row! My back and neck are not happy right now.

Getting back into some carpentry again will be fun. I’ll be insulating the shed, and lining it with pine tongue and groove boards, then building in a desk and shelving. After that, once I’ll make curtains or a blind, and a couple of cushions, it’ll be ready to move in. I got a lovely white cane office swivel chair on ebay for £8, which made me happy (compared to £60 for a new one)!

My Writing Shed will rock!

In the meantime, I’ll move on to a different writing project too - the rewrite of the Valentine’s Day novella to send to Entangled. Seeing an Entangled editor say in the July Wish List she wanted small town romances made me very happy as well - maybe the Haven Bay series? They also need complete rewrites, but I love those stories!

I also need to catch up on the lessons and homework for the online writing course I’m doing, which will mean more planning on the big fantasy romance.

I just found out (thanks to Lacey!) that Harlequin are doing So You Can Think You Can Write 2012 in September, though they’ve changed the rules (again!) and it’s more like last year’s Mills and Boon X-Factor style New Voices contest. Guaranteed publication for the winner again. I’m guessing that means NV won’t be happening this year. Interesting!

I’m not sure I’ll enter, as I’m feeling I want to be monogamous with Entangled right now.