Thursday, September 07, 2006
CARRIE FERON ANSWERS YOUR COMMENT QUESTIONS!
Back again! So enjoy spending time with all of you; keeps my mind off the fact that I am late in creating fabuloso titles for two mystery books. I also need to read about 10 submissions, talk to IT why our site was so late updating today, figure out how to get my expenses done, and go over some audio scripts that my wonderful assistant Tessa Woodward wrote all before meeting with an agent to discuss an author tour. Plus my daughter has to be picked up from the first day of school by 3:30 (no after school activities for the first two weeks of school -- how are single working moms supposed to survive?) So...the answer to the question how do I keep sane and organized is: I am not sane and I am totally disorganized despite being a Virgo. But I have a very charming daughter who is also very amusing, and a lovely boyfriend who shot a 69 in golf yesterday, and my authors are the best in the world. So life is good.
First the easy question. What would I buy? Probably a pair of really hot short boots. Or a new wallet because the one I have is just plain embarrassing. And then of course there is fellow editor May Chen's Black Tie Optional wedding later in the month. I have no "Optional" appropriate clothes.
The hard questions. What do we look for in manuscripts. We are looking for strong voices in our books, and I am always looking for a unique plot twist. It's so hard to surprise me since I have been reading romance books since 1969 (if you count the Children's Readers Digest version of JANE EYRE as a romance) or since 1972 (if you count THE FLAME AND THE FLOWER).
I loved the question about PG 13. Honestly, none of the Avon authors write PG 13 on every page; however, we are asking whatever you post on this site to be limited to PG 13 material. And if you really need to be more explicit, perhaps you should go the "Thistledown" route (see Eloisa James' blog on Avonfanlit.com today).
My editing style? It consists mainly of my gut reactions to items in the pages and a lot of really bad handwriting. Honestly, I just try to react to things the way a reader would. I think: would this confuse a reader? is there too much explanation? too little conflict? When I was young, my mother couldn't understand why I would read a book three or four times, but it turns out that all that rereading was just practice for what I do now.
Thanks for all your great feedback today. Looking forward to visiting again soon!