Warrior Wednesday: Tales of the Unpubbed Welcomes Calisa Lewis

Hi All! Welcome to another segment of Warrior Wednesday. I am tickled pink to introduce to you my critique partner Calisa Lewis.



Thank you for having me here Melinda.



I’m Calisa Lewis. I’ve been reading the other Warrior posts each week and nodding my head so much my husband thought I had a crucial screw loose! Man can I relate with the others when it comes to the long road to publication.

I don’t have a tall stack of rejection letters yet, but I have my share. The thing is- if you don’t finish a manuscript, if you never send it in and get those painful scars racked up- you won’t learn. What’s that saying? If it doesn’t hurt, you’re not doing it right.

My writing began very early though, and pain free. Picture it. 10 years old, Mr. Matthew’s fifth grade class, Connell elementary in Washington State. I was bored in class one day and decided to write instead of listening to lessons. On plain note paper I wrote my first book. I think it was only eight to ten pages about bubblegum—with pictures drawn by yours truly. I took that book to the school library and donated it. I was thrilled that the librarian actually put the book on a shelf as a loner! I checked it out one day just because I could!

I got to thinking about that little ‘book’ a couple of weeks ago and looked up the school and called them. Cathleen, the woman I spoke with, agreed to research and see if my little book has somehow survived the years somewhere on school property. I don’t hold much hope, but if it is still there she agreed to help me retrieve it, or at least a copy.


I’ve always loved horses, ranches and cowboys…yum! But when I was younger those things were nothing more than a part of life. The cowboys I hung out with were more pest than hero because I was ‘one of them’ and knew who they really were. Or so I thought. So back in my early writing days I wrote poetry that had nothing to do with heroes and heroines, or even love. Then I graduated when I discovered boys. Love entered the poems and I found music in a deep way. Moreover, I discovered the cute men who sang. I started writing again because of those cuties. All of my stories then revolved around musicians on summer vacations and long weekends.

Then my cowboys had resurgence. I realized a very important fact- I was no longer ‘one of them’. They are hot, sexy men who no longer seemed pesky—and now do sinful things to a pair of Levis!

I still have those early pathetic efforts in my office. I pull them out now and then and read just for the pure joy of it. I don’t cringe over the horrendousness of non-craft or head hopping (I do have to close my eyes to those things though). I go back in time to when my writing bug hatched. Will I ever revise those into ‘real’ manuscripts? Probably never happen. I will move forward.

My first attempt to ‘really write’ took a year from a thought I’d had once, and after my daughters were all mostly grown. I had scratched a beginning and that was it. I pulled out those scratchings and wrote Contract For Love. I found authors Brenda Nyveld and Robbie Grady (before Robyn agented up or sold her first Modern Heat or Desire) on eHqn when they offered to become my first critique partners. I can’t tell you how much I learned from those two literary angels during that year of edits! On July 3rd, 2005 I mailed my first ever 3-chapter partial, with synopsis and query letter, to Silhouette Desire. I received a request from the editor to send a partial to Silhouette Special Edition and then, also to send the full to Desire. Within 3 weeks I received my first rejection letter from SSE. I called the Desire editor almost 2 years later and was told that she’d ‘passed the full to another genre editor’. I never got a rejection from Desire because somewhere along the way the full was actually lost and not passed on.


Heads up Warriors- it happens. One thing I learned about that is to follow up after a reasonable amount of time. You may need to resubmit a lost submission. I currently have a second cowboy story partial with SSE, and will soon be sending a follow up query since it’s been seven months with no word.

In August 2010 Melinda came to my new and wonderful CBC crit group with a challenge. HQ Medicals was running a fast track special event. Why don’t we write a chapter and submit just to see what happens. I struggled for two weeks and came up with one chapter. Two days later the editor asked for the first three chapters…as yet unwritten. I spent a month writing two chapters that shouldn’t have taken me a week to write. I sent those off. Two weeks and one day later the editor emailed. When I get the full ms written, she wants it!! I spent the next two months writing Perfect Doctor Viv. On Dec. 18th I sent it to her. I was shocked when just five weeks (Jan 24th) she sent me a five page revision letter! So I struggle now, not just to write, but to make this promising story sell. Melinda has asked me to remember the spelling of her name. I won’t forget Mel!

I am determined this is my year to leave the ranks of struggling, aspiring writer as a graduate to still struggling, published author! Can you imagine how much my little Bubblegum book might one day be worth when I’m a NYT bestselling author!?! Wooot

Thank you Calisa so much for guest blogging! To continue to follow Calisa on her journey to publication, click here.

Warrior Wednesday: Tales from the Unpubbed Welcomes Nas Dean

I'm so glad you've decided to join me for another segment of Warrior Wednesday: Tales from the Unpubbed. The authors I've asked to be guests I've met from various places all over the web, and I am happy to call each of them friends.

Please welcome my next warrior and friend - Nas Dean...


Thanks very much to Melinda, who asks unpubbed writers (warriors) to show their scars. God, these scars hurt too much, yet being a warrior so here I am.

My love story with books started when I was around nine years old and had appendicitis removed. Bored, alone and crying in hospital, my dad brought me some books to cheer me up. For me this was a special gift specially and not to be shared with other siblings. Yay! I was in heaven. So books became my special passion. Later the same year after coming first in my class I received a big colorful picture book of “Gulliver’s Travels”. The world depicted in that book kept me enthralled for hours. So I was away in my dreamland most of the time. Though poor, our family life was happy but rather than squabbling with other siblings I preferred to escape in my books. The common refrain from that time is “Earth to Nas!” because I was always dreaming about my characters and their stories!

Then came Enid Blyton’s The Famous Five series, Secret Seven series, Nancy Drew series (I loved the little bit of romance amid the mystery and the thrill!) The Hardy Boys, The Three Investigators. I still remember character names from all these series.

Later, when I discovered Mills & Boons, mind you, at the time (1979-80) the covers were not that hot but still I covered the novels with newspapers so my parents would think it’s school work! I read one M&B in two days. Now I finish one in a day, by the way. Many times I’ve burnt food while cooking because I’m too busy reading. I blame M&B for that and these other things, eg. Being a virgin till the wedding night (around that time all heroines were virgins!) then later expecting romantic gestures from my husband without telling him!

And all these times I wrote. Not exactly a journal, but whatever caught my fancy. I have whole note books filled about my trips abroad. About the hotels, hire cars, exchange rates and the sightseeing.

By the time I had my first baby, I had read so many baby magazines and books that for a while I wrote articles for a community newspaper ‘The Community Globe” on Baby Nutrition, Mother/Child Nutrition. It was a new publisher trying its hand at publishing but folded up later. This was in 1987-88.

I think I was a closet reader and writer. Living in Auckland, New Zealand, I became a member of Manukau Libraries and took out books. All my colleagues and contemporaries were skeptical and I was asked a lot, “You still read?” They went out dancing or nightclubbing and I preferred to spend a quiet night in with a book.

It was only last year, August 2010, that I heard about HM&B Medical Fasttrack, and I decided to submit for the first time ever. God, that rejection hurt! But I had by then discovered the subcare on eHarlequin forum and the support, advice and hugs were awesome! The multi published authors hang out with aspiring writers and answer all their questions and give so generously of their time and support, it simply is staggering. I made many friends online and one such friend (Nancy) asked to see my work. She did a line by line critique of almost five thousand words! I can never forget her generosity. She was gentle with me and said she believed in my plot. And advised me a lot.

It was then I saw that I needed to work on my craft, technique, and the mechanics of writing. I started spending twenty three hours on line out of twenty four! Visited all published authors websites for writing articles and honing the craft articles. For example there’s Liz Fielding, Kate Walker, Lynne Marshall, Michelle Styles and many more authors who all have articles for aspiring writers. Then there are writing workshop handouts from RWA America conferences, hundreds of articles from previous few years. I was submerged in these for some time. At the same time I was writing a Nocturne Bite, using the mechanics I was learning. Start all chapters with a hook, end with a cliffhanger, see that the story and plot moved forward with every scene. Michelle Styles and Donna Alward advised on the forum when I asked about writing craft, to get Kate Walker’s 12 Point Guide To Writing Romance and a few other craft books(Writing Romance Novel for Dummies by Leslie Wainger and Donald Mass’s Writing the Breakout Novel). So I invested in these books from The Book Depository. I think it must have been my best move.

I submitted the Nocturne Bite and started on a Medical. Almost but not quite! forgot about the subbed NocBite. After a turnaround of twenty eight days, I received another rejection, but it hurt less! This time the letter contained the magic words,” Although your story contains some of these elements, it lacks others.” This meant I was doing something right. I also realized that I have to make my presence online. So I started a blog and found a whole new world out there. Almost everyone was blogging about their writing so what could I blog about that would be different, I asked myself. My writing journey is not that interesting!

After winning books on blog giveaways I remembered the RWA handout saying that the whole purpose of book giveaways is to create a buzz by word of mouth of the book. It’s marketing strategy by authors to do giveaways yet I realized that the winners were keeping quiet about the books after reading… so I decided to start blogging about all these new release books after reading them. And I invited the authors to talk about their latest releases on my blog: www.nas-dean.blogspot.com. Yet again I must be doing something right as my followers increased and I have a presence online.

Now for the next step I asked HM&B Desire Author Rachel Bailey:
I don't have critique partners or belong to any writers organisation, the nearest being RWA Aust/ RWA NZ.... the membership is not a problem but the airfare is!.....can you recommend any online writing groups/courses?

I think it's a definite advantage to join RWAust or RWNZ even though you're not in the country. Both organisations have members living in other countries - and a lot further away than Fiji - Switzerland, America, Scotland, etc. You can get the monthly newsletters online or posted (I'm just retiring as RWA's newsletter editor, so I'm biased, but they're choc full of info and craft articles), you can join the CP scheme and match yourself to someone, or a group, be on the e-loop and ask authors questions, etc, etc. The only thing face to face you might want is the annual conference, but not everyone goes to that anyway (RWAust has a Claytons Conference online for those who can't make the main one each year).

Rachel Bailey is another such multi published author who takes time out from her busy schedule and answers any questions I may ask, so huge thanks to her and all other authors I’ve mentioned. I’ve also gone to Joanna St James for advice, so you are also included.

At present I have a partial in the slush pile from the first week of November 2010, v-e-r-y- s-l-o-w-l-y moving towards the editor at the Medical HM&B!

Thank you Nas for guest blogging this week. To continue to follow Nas on her journey to publication, click here. And, join me next week as I spotlight another warrior fighting their way to publication.

Warrior Wednesday: Tales from the Unpubbed - Joanna St. James

The new year is here, and with it comes new dreams, expectations and the chance to build our arsenal of tools for the ultimate fight: getting published.

No, I'm not asking you to go all G.I. Jane, but it's a basic story we can learn from. Don't give up, and don't let anyone tell you you can't.

I'm starting a new segment on Wednesdays to honor my fellow battle-scarred warriors and to share a few tales from the frontlines. Tales from the Unpubbed is about the unpublished author's experiences and hopefully will encourage other warriors to keep up the good fight.

So, without further ado, I'd like to introduce my first guest - Ms. Joanna St. James...


You know one thing I have learned in my little while here on earth is that every individual is stressed out just up to their maximum limit. One other thing I have learned since I started blogging, is that it is always good to be able to share your experiences with people who understand you. So when Melinda told me about this series I jumped at it mainly because, I thought it would be a wonderful opportunity to let other writers know that there are loads of us in the same boat as you.

Amongst other books I read the complete works of Shakespeare when I was eight years old (I did not understand the olde english but I read it anyway) so you see my love for books started before I can remember. It also did not help that I had a dad who inspired me to reach for the stars - he encouraged me to write when I was a kid but I said I would whenever I became ready after all 'how hard can writing be?' - I now like to refer to this as my ego induced haze.

This haze/era lasted till I became an adult and had a baby two years ago, I felt empowered by the birth of my son and my shiny new and hard earned masters degree so I picked up a notepad and a pen and started to write.
I did no homework, all I knew was that I was going to write for harlequin and they would love me, and then it all started to go wrong; my story could only go as far as 5k words (I eventually reached 7.5k), I looked at the harlequin website and the only line I could submit my word count to was Spice Briefs so I sent my plotless and sweet story to Spice Briefs and even had the nerve to get huffy when they told me they would get back to me between 2-4 months - I got rejected six weeks later.

Of Course I was not well equipped to handle a rejection so I went into hiding for another 2 years, I did not write but at least I did my research, read articles and anything I could get my hands on till June 2010. In May my family moved to Corsica and I decided I was going to follow my dreams, I quit my job and decided to stay home with my kidlet and write. In two months I completed two first drafts and then on August 2nd I heard the HMB medical line was offering a fast track to newbie writers like me, so I jumped on that train and now have a requested partial in that office with my fingers crossed.

My rejection count to date is 2 rejection letters (I hope it stays that way because my writer's skin is still kinda tender) During the day I spend time with my toddler and you bloggers, then I write in the dead of the night when everyone has gone to bed usually from 12-3 or 4am, I wake up at 9am or earlier sometimes and start the day over again.

I know my life as a writer might sound tame compared to some of you but believe you me, that is about all I can handle. Does anything about my life resonate with yours? and of course I love hearing advice on ways to get pubbed.

Thanks for having me Melinda.


Thank you for being here Joanna!! To follow Joanna on her path to publication, click here.

Stay tuned next Wednesday for yet another special guest and more war stories.