Emily Greenwood is a new voice in historical romance. She writes playful, sexy Regency romance. Emily has written a three book MISCHIEF series and I'm highlight the first, A LITTLE NIGHT MISCHIEF.
Emily's road to publication wasn't fast or easy but along the way she learn the value of associating with fellow writers. I'll let Emily tell you more about that.
Thanks so much for having me here today. Love the site
music!
I’m pulling up my cup of herbal tea (wish I could drink
coffee, but it does me in) and letting out a big sigh at the end of this month
of promotion for my debut, A LITTLE NIGHT MISCHIEF.
Seems like the release of this novel has been a long time
coming. I started writing it several years ago, put it away for a while, reworked it, and sent it out. I got requests from agents for partial and full
manuscripts, and some really helpful suggestions from a few agents that helped
me improve the story, but no offers. There was a little angst J
So I put that book aside and started another one. But when
the Golden Heart submission deadline was looming, it wasn't ready to go. A
writing pal suggested I enter the first book, A LITTLE NIGHT MISCHIEF, and I
figured I had nothing to lose, so I made another pass at editing and entered it
in the 2008 Golden Heart under a different title. It finaled! I was surprised
and delighted.
Finaling brought me some great attention and also allowed me
to connect with the other writers who finaled that year. We called ourselves
the Pixies, and were immediately a great support network. Having this
connection with other romance writers really made a difference in my publishing
journey and helped me keep motivated as everybody shared inside knowledge and
successes and failures on the road to publication. Finaling in the Golden Heart
also helped when querying A LITTLE NIGHT MISCHIEF and the book I’d written
after it. Two years later I signed with a terrific agent.
Then began the process of reworking my stories with my
agent’s suggestions, which took a number of months. If there’s one thing I can say
about writing, it’s that it takes a lot of time to get a finished product!
Also, I hadn't really picked up on the whole “books in a series” thing, even
though as a reader I’d enjoyed, like, Mary Balogh’s Slightly series. Somehow I
hadn't figured out that I needed to write books that were linked together. A
little slow on the uptake, wasn't I?
Finally the books were ready to go out on submission, and
Sourcebooks picked up A LITTLE NIGHT MISCHIEF as part of the three-book
Mischief series. Yay! The publication date was two years off, which is not
uncommon, and it was a good thing, because it gave me extra time to write those
other two books in the series.
Balancing writing and life is a struggle, but I suppose if I
truly had loads of uninterrupted time to write, what I wrote would get stale.
Or at least I tell myself that when I can’t write because I need to cook
dinner, take kids to appointments, exercise, and do all the other things that
can nibble up a day. They’re all also things I’m grateful to have in my day J
But it can be very hard to get back into the story when I've
been away from it for a day or more. And it’s especially frustrating when I
need to read all the way through to get a sense of how the story is working and
I have to keep putting it down for interruptions. I try very hard to do
something with whatever I’m working on every day.
So, there
have been tears and smiles, and I’m sure there will be more, but one thing that
is definitely a fun part of publication is interacting with readers through
blogs like this one!
A LITTLE NIGHT OF MISCHIEF
Emily Greenwood
Every Prize Comes with Complications...
A game of chance saves James Collington from the prospect of debtors' prison, and grants him ownership to Tethering estate. Little does he know that his winnings come with serious complications--not least of which is a beautiful but impoverished young lady who insists his new manor belongs to her.
If He Can't Stop Her, He Might as Well Join Her...
Felicity Wilcox is determined to run Mr. Collington off her land, Though James's charm and devilish good looks are a serious distraction. What she doesn't know is that she may be haunting him right back.
EXCERPT (scroll down to excerpt heading on Publisher site)
BUY: AMAZON, B&N, BAM, INDIEBOUND
Emily Greenwood has a degree in French and worked for a number of years as a writer, crafting newsletters and fundraising brochures. Bur she far prefers writing playful love stories set in Regency England, and she thinks romance is the chocolate of literature. A Golden Heart finalist, Emily lives in Maryland with her husband and two daughters.
