Books of the Heart
You'll hear a lot of authors tell you to write the book of your heart. Well, what the hell does that mean?
For me, a "book of the heart" is one you feel like you have to write, regardless of what's hot in the market. It's the book that won't shut up inside your head. The one whose characters feel so intertwined with you that you need therapy. ;-) (Please . . . if I ever went to a therapist, I think he or she would run shrieking from the room.)
I've written 20 books, give or take. I have genuinely liked all of them. But some were books I wrote to fulfill two- or three-book contracts, in a specific genre, and I may have liked them--REALLY liked them--while writing them, but in some sense, they weren't organic. That is, I knew I had to write another romantic suspense and so . . . plot, characters, book, voila. Others--my heart books--were these books that, even when it was horribly inconvenient, they demanded they be written. The Roofer is one of those. Spanish Disco was another. In both cases, I abandoned other manuscripts entirely to work on them.
A book of your heart does NOT, though, mean they are easier to write. For me, I often wrestle with tougher themes, or with darker material . . . or I am just exhausted by the pace with which the book is pouring out of me.
Here's another thing about books of the heart. You write them often without really thinking they might sell. You write them because you have to. For the last ten months, no one in New York has been looking at chick lit. Even though I still have another RDI to come out next year, the market itself got so glutted, so belittled by the media and even writers themselves, that you couldn't sell a comedy to save your life. BUT . . . I had a very funny proposal--I'd written about 50+ pages of a book that I thought was hysterical. In fact, when I re-read it, I still laugh out loud. My agent sent it to two houses, and one editor said, "Very funny, but we aren't buying ANY chick lit. It's done. Over. The end." But this book was a book I really wanted to write. So you know, I just thought, so what? It's NOT chick lit, it's a comedy, but you can't sell comedy--but sooner or later, people will want to laugh again. And guess what? All of a sudden, there's new interest. It may sell. It may not. But that's besides the point. EVENTUALLY it will sell, and in the meantime, I laugh as I type.
So write the book of your heart. At least for me, this is what I mean when I say that.
Thoughts?
For me, a "book of the heart" is one you feel like you have to write, regardless of what's hot in the market. It's the book that won't shut up inside your head. The one whose characters feel so intertwined with you that you need therapy. ;-) (Please . . . if I ever went to a therapist, I think he or she would run shrieking from the room.)
I've written 20 books, give or take. I have genuinely liked all of them. But some were books I wrote to fulfill two- or three-book contracts, in a specific genre, and I may have liked them--REALLY liked them--while writing them, but in some sense, they weren't organic. That is, I knew I had to write another romantic suspense and so . . . plot, characters, book, voila. Others--my heart books--were these books that, even when it was horribly inconvenient, they demanded they be written. The Roofer is one of those. Spanish Disco was another. In both cases, I abandoned other manuscripts entirely to work on them.
A book of your heart does NOT, though, mean they are easier to write. For me, I often wrestle with tougher themes, or with darker material . . . or I am just exhausted by the pace with which the book is pouring out of me.
Here's another thing about books of the heart. You write them often without really thinking they might sell. You write them because you have to. For the last ten months, no one in New York has been looking at chick lit. Even though I still have another RDI to come out next year, the market itself got so glutted, so belittled by the media and even writers themselves, that you couldn't sell a comedy to save your life. BUT . . . I had a very funny proposal--I'd written about 50+ pages of a book that I thought was hysterical. In fact, when I re-read it, I still laugh out loud. My agent sent it to two houses, and one editor said, "Very funny, but we aren't buying ANY chick lit. It's done. Over. The end." But this book was a book I really wanted to write. So you know, I just thought, so what? It's NOT chick lit, it's a comedy, but you can't sell comedy--but sooner or later, people will want to laugh again. And guess what? All of a sudden, there's new interest. It may sell. It may not. But that's besides the point. EVENTUALLY it will sell, and in the meantime, I laugh as I type.
So write the book of your heart. At least for me, this is what I mean when I say that.
Thoughts?
Labels: books of the heart, comedies
posted by Erica Orloff at 9:24 AM
11 Comments:
I'm writing a paranormal thriller with romantic elements in which the male romantic lead is a pastor. I've had people question that up one side and down the other. Why can't he be something else, they ask... and the answer is, because this is the book as it appears to me. This is the book as I have to write it. It's not about the book selling. It's about the book writing.
Is it a book of my heart? I don't know. There are other books I long to write, books that are easier, more fun. But this is the book I have to write, I have to finish. And I'm faithful to it.
Jen
Hi Jen:
I've done a lot of things in books that people have questioned . . . but I guess I always felt like . . . I am very open to my editors, but I also have a strong sense of why the books are the way they are. I have a romantic suspense that I am halfway finished with and the hero is a former priest. But he HAS to be.
:-)
E
Erica,
I say just call it something else. The issue of genre seems so arbitrary to me. They used to be called autobiographies and now they are called memoirs. It amazes me that books can be rejected based on the genre and not the content. Craziness!
K
kelly:
Definitely. Agents know all the ways it can be viewed. :-) But what remains, I guess, are editors reading and thinking "It's chick lit"--it all goes to marketing . . . I think for people in the biz, they immediately go to the shorthand of genre.
My next RDI is a comedy. Period. But we'll see what happens as it gets marketed/reviewed.
E
Paranormal Romance was in, then it wasn't, now it is. Wish I'd kept writing them when it was out--I'd have lots banked by now.
But for now, I write from my heart. My goal is to finish the series while Paranormal is still in.
Great post!
kathy;
look at it this way--if it's not "in" when you're done--it WILL be in again at some point!
E
kathy:
And a P.S. to that is that nothing is ever "dead"--it may be in a coma for a while, but eventually, publishing will paddle it back to life and it will be hot again.
E
The book that landed me my agent was the book of my heart. I always figured you only got one of those, but the project I'm working on now is turning out to be that sort of book too.
Hi Naomi:
I think you can have several over a career . . . I have four kids--love 'em all with all my heart. Books are sort of the same thing. :-)
E
I stopped reading chick lit for a couple years (no certain reason), but I'm back to reading it again. There's some great stuff out now! I think this coma has been good for it. Now I hope it comes out of the coma, soon!
(Diary of a Blues Goddess, Mafia Chic, and Marian Keyes are the only chick lit I didn't give away, btw.)
Hey Spy:
Gracias. That's quite a compliment. :-)
E
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