How Blue Diablo Became a Book: or, a N00b’s journal

By Guest  |  April 7, 2009  | 

PhotobucketTherese here. Today’s guest blogger is one of WU’s favorite urban fantasy/gritty romance authors, Ann Aguirre. If you missed our interview with Ann, check it HERE, otherwise enjoy the post!

How Blue Diablo Became a Book: or, a N00b’s journal

My best ideas come out of nowhere. With the Jax books, I just sat down and started writing. With the Corine books, it was almost that simple. I knew I wanted to write urban fantasy, of course, and it seemed natural to make use of information available to me via life in Mexico. I also knew I wanted to do something different: no fairies, no vampires, no werewolves. So humans it would be, gifted humans, and a world full of dark and secret magic. Beyond that, I had no real plan.

Those tidbits in mind, I started writing. The first 25,000 words came like a lightning storm. But in other ways, things weren’t going so well. Over the holidays (2006, going into 2007), I parted company with my first agent, after receiving a number of disheartening rejections. That left me to start the search all over again. I had a complete SFR manuscript to pitch, and I found myself lacking the drive to write. The agent search got me down (one agent called Grimspace unsellable).

Thus, the holidays came and went, and the new year began. I queried. I got rejected. Oh, did I ever. To boost my faltering resolve, I sent a partial of the urban fantasy to an editor who accepted unagented submissions. Little did she know, the book wasn’t finished. (This is a bonehead move, by the way. Do not emulate me. I was a n00b.) But my spirits were low, and I told myself (a) she’ll probably reject it, and (b) it will take forever to hear back anyway. By the time I heard, I’d have another finished book that she wouldn’t want. However, maybe with this as motivation, I’d get on the ball and finish the book?

Imagine my surprise when, six weeks later, she asked to see the full. Well, holy crap. I hadn’t made much progress. The book had been sitting in limbo while I hoarded agent rejections like a crazy cat lady and gorged on self-pity. It was a “Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, I might as well go out and eat worms” point in my career.

So anyway, I had a request for full … on a book I hadn’t finished. I told the editor that I needed to “polish” said manuscript, and could I send it as soon as it was ready? She said ‘of course.’ In retrospect, I do not recommend this strategy; however, that kicked my sorry ass into overdrive and I wrote the rest in 10 days. I was pretty sure it was terrible, but it was done at least. My husband did an emergency read for me that weekend, I tweaked, and sent the full by Sunday evening. After that insane rush, I suffered random aphasia, as if I’d used up more than my daily allotment of words, and it shorted out my brain. I went around sounding like Ralph Wiggum for two weeks thereafter. I also settled in to await the big R.

On a brighter note, I received some interest in the unsellable SFR, and in March, I signed with Laura Bradford. She promptly sold Grimspace to Anne Sowards of Ace. Perhaps two months after that, I received an offer on the urban fantasy. Talk about an embarrassment of riches. But this house didn’t pay much in the way of an advance, and Laura had concerns about their distribution. It’s an up-and-coming press, but she said, “I suggest you turn this down. I’m going to give you notes for revision, and then I think we can do better.”

There’s nothing more terrifying than refusing an offer. It nauseated me, but I did it. Then I revised the book according to my agent’s suggestions, which included totally rewriting the end. In all, I added 10K of new material. In late summer of 2007, we pitched it to my editor at Penguin. Anne bought the project on pre-empt. And then I got revision notes from her. In addressing her concerns, I added another 10K of new material, plus I rewrote the end again.

To date, this book sets my record for length added in revisions. It started out as a bare bones little thing, barely 75,000 words, and now it’s a sexy 95,000. Blue Diablo has a special place in my heart because I wrote it when I had no hope of ever selling anything. It reminds me that anything is possible, as long we have faith.

Readers, you can purchase Blue Diablo at a variety of online retailers (check Ann’s site for a listing HERE), or at an indie bookstore near you.
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15 Comments

  1. Livia on April 7, 2009 at 8:15 am

    Thanks for the story :-) I totally get aphasia after writing and end up substituting the word “thing” for any noun I can’t access. Kind of embarrassing when you’re supposed to have a novelist’s mastery of English.



  2. Jamie on April 7, 2009 at 9:21 am

    Thanks Ann! It’s refreshing to hear that published authors face the same struggles as us unpublished ones! Now if I can only figure out how to put down 95k in 10 days!



  3. Kristan on April 7, 2009 at 11:10 am

    Wow, what a story. I actually posted about something like this, wondering whether or not it could work:

    https://kristanhoffman.com/2009/02/02/are-you-that-somebody/

    Looks like the answer is Yes, but it’s NOT recommended. :P

    Congrats on coming out on top after such a crazy ride!



  4. Ann Aguirre on April 7, 2009 at 11:16 am

    Livia, my family went around finishing my sentences for weeks after that!



  5. Ann Aguirre on April 7, 2009 at 11:21 am

    Jamie, it was only 50K, not 95K. *g* ONLY, I say.

    But I had 25K done the book was 75K when I sent it to the editor. It grew to 95K in subsequent revision passes, as requested by my agent & editor. I’m actually very good at making changes on demand. It’s a useful knack.



  6. Ann Aguirre on April 7, 2009 at 11:24 am

    Kristan, I would not recommend that course to anyone else. It was super stressful and waiting for news is already stressful enough. However, if you can handle stress well, then maybe you can use the submission as motivation. That was all I intended. I honestly didn’t expect to hear from that editor so fast. I figured I’d have the book done long before she rejected me! *g*



  7. ArkansasCyndi on April 7, 2009 at 11:56 am

    Great story, especially that “Grimspace” as unsellable. You give hope and inspiration for an unpub’ed like me.

    I would LOVE to get my hands on Blue Diablo!



  8. Ann Aguirre on April 7, 2009 at 12:20 pm

    Glad the story offered some encouragement.

    Cyndi, I am giving away a copy on https://thebooksmugglers.com and my friend Angie is giving one away at https://wickedauthors.blogspot.com.



  9. Ann on April 7, 2009 at 1:22 pm

    Eep, that´s a bad link. Should be https://wickedauthors.blogspot.com.

    Also, I am thinking I´ll give away a copy of Blue Diablo here. Commenting enters you to win.



  10. Therese Walsh on April 7, 2009 at 1:27 pm

    I just fixed the original comment link, Ann. Great post! Thanks again for coming over today.



  11. Rie Sheridan Rose` on April 7, 2009 at 1:59 pm

    Tagging along after all you guys giving away books I want to read will mean I never get to write myself! ;) But I am commenting, because I really would love to win a copy of this one. It sounds amazing — just like you. :)



  12. Ann on April 7, 2009 at 2:26 pm

    Best of luck, Rie!



  13. Michele Lee on April 7, 2009 at 4:48 pm

    Unsellable?? Seriously?? Wow. You know you make it look effortless on this end.

    I cannot get over that. How different was the querying version of Grimspace from the final version?



  14. Ann on April 7, 2009 at 6:56 pm

    Not different at all. I got a ton of rejections on Grimspace before Laura fell in love it. I think I had a couple other agents looking at the full when she offered to represent me and I was like, ¨YES PLEASE.¨ And then I got to send the cool, ¨I¨m sorry but I have accepted representation elsewhere¨ emails.



  15. Kathleen Bolton on April 8, 2009 at 8:19 am

    I love stories about how persistence pays off, and also how books don’t just happen, they happen after revisions, re-writes, and plain ole hard work.

    Thanks for posting with us, Ann!