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An Invitation to Sin
Publisher: Kensington Zebra

Pub date: February 2011

Agent: Jessica Faust




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My second novella, “The Naked Prince,” releases today. I’m excited to be in an anthology headlined by New York Times bestseller and romance icon Jo Beverley. I’m hoping her fans—and those of the other authors, Vanessa Kelly and Kaitlin O’Riley—will enjoy my story, too, and be motivated to seek out my backlist—and to snap up my next book, The Naked King, when it comes out in June. And I’m happy to have another release out in the world, especially since I write only one book a year.

Wait a minute! Only one book a year, you say? Isn’t that sacrilege in romance land? If I can’t write two—or three—books a year, of course I should be knocking out a novella. Writing a shorter story—my novellas are 25,000 to 30,000 words, about a quarter the length of my novels—should be a snap, right?

Not exactly, at least not for me. Some writers are bristling with ideas and can write wonderful stories quickly and consistently. Sadly, I am not one of them. I agonize over every word, often to a fault. And short definitely doesn’t mean easy, IMHO. I find it quite a challenge to create three-dimensional characters, a coherent plot, humor, and a believable happily-ever-after ending in a style my core readers expect in only 100 rather than 400 manuscript pages.

How do I write a novella? My first step is choosing a suitable plot and main characters. The plot can’t be very convoluted, and the characters can’t have an elaborate backstory—or at least a backstory I feel compelled to explore in depth. Actually, I discover my novella heroes and heroines in my novels. I didn’t know Lord and Lady Kenderly’s story when they appeared in the The Naked King, but I knew they were going to be the stars of “The Naked Prince.” (This was a bit tricky, as I wrote the King first and then had to go back on copyedits and revise the novel to make it consistent with the “Prince.” Time is often a little out of sync in publishing.)

Once I have my characters and plot, I try a variety of things, probably concepts familiar to you, to tell a complete story in a relatively small amount of space. I’ve limited the setting—“The Naked Prince” happens on one country estate. I’ve limited the story’s duration—the "Prince" takes place over a couple of days. I still have a fair number of secondary characters, but I don’t spend as much time with them as I would in a novel, and I limit point of view to only the hero’s and the heroine’s. If I have any subplots, they are minor. As I say, my novellas and novels are all loosely connected; this is fun for me—and I hope fun for my readers as well—but I have to constantly guard against getting carried away with that, especially in a novella. There just isn’t room for extraneous stuff.

But no matter how long or short the tale, I want to leave my readers sighing and smiling and wishing the story wasn’t over when they reach the last page. I want to make them happy—and, of course, I want them eagerly coming back for more!


USA Today bestselling author Sally MacKenzie writes funny, hot Regency-set historicals for Kensington’s Zebra line, and her books have been translated into Czech, Japanese, No

Penguin Group (USA) has relaunched Dutton Guilt-Edged Mysteries as a digital imprint. Dutton editor-in-chief Ben Sevier will oversee the imprint.

Dutton Guilt-Edged Mysteries will publish original crime short stories and novellas as Penguin eSpecials. Every year, the imprint will publish “at least one writer” from Book Country‘s online fiction workshop community.

Two projects in the works include Murder in Mumbai, a debut novella by NPR news editor Krishnadev Calamur and an original Dismas Hardy story by prolific crime novelist John Lescroart. Follow this link for more details on submission guidelines.

Here’s more from the press release: “From 1947 to 1956, Dutton Guilt-Edged Mysteries was a pulp noir publisher that specialized in hardboiled detective fiction, including the work of noir icon Mickey Spillane, whose first seven Mike Hammer novels were published under the Guilt-Edged logo. The new program will be dedicated to publishing original crime short stories and novellas as Penguin eSpecials. The imprint will launch in Summer 2012 to coincide with the 65^th anniversary of the Guilt-Edged publication of Spillane’s first Mike Hammer novel, I, the Jury.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

HOBART 14 (nonfiction, novellas, short-shorts, comics)

For our next print issue of Hobart we're considering publishing a much longer piece or two than we ever have before; and shorter pieces, too; and we'd love to see some more nonfiction. And comics!

Specifically, for shorter pieces, we like series or portfolios or collections or whatever you want to call them, of 3-7 pieces, that somehow work together. And with nonfiction, we tend to like essays that are personal in nature but their primary focus is on some exterior thing (past favorites have been "about" Magic: The Gathering, Leisure Suit Larry, luck, and boxing). We're already a little overwhelmed with submissions, but keep overwhelming us (until the end of the month)!

For more details, check out our online submission manager.
deadline: March 31, 2012

PS Publishing are celebrating their 10th anniversary by selling Anniversary Gift Boxes of their books at a reduced price. As an early Christmas present (or rather a late one as I won't receive them until after the holidays) I ordered a collection of Ten Novellas that would have originally cost £100. I can't wait to see what books I receive.

Remember my blog post of December 1st when I was high from completing NaNoWriMo and I had such big, big plans? They're already floundering. I predicted the second draft of 'Theatre' would be at 20,150 words by now. It currently stands at 10,156 - but they are 10,156 brilliant and superbly plotted words of course. ::wink::

Taylor, Laini. 2009. Lips Touch Three Times. With illustrations by Jim Di Bartolo. Scholastic. 272 pages.

Will I close my eyes?
Will I hold my breath?
Will I wanna cry?
Will our souls connect?
I've been thinking about it when I go to bed
at night I wonder - wonder.

There is a certain kind of girl the goblins crave. You could walk across a high school campus and point them out: not her, not her, her. The pert, lovely ones with butterfly tattoos in secret places, sitting on their boyfriends' laps? No, not them. The girl watching the lovely ones sitting on their boyfriends' laps? Yes.
Them.
The goblins want girls who dream so hard about being pretty their yearning leaves a palpable trail, a scent goblins can follow like sharks on a soft bloom of blood. The girls with hungry eyes who pray each night to wake up as someone else. Urgent, unkissed, wishful girls.
Like Kizzy. (13)

Kissing can ruin lives. Lips touch, sometimes teeth clash. New hunger is born with a throb and caution falls away. A cursed girl with lips still moist from her first kiss might feel suddenly wild, like a little monsoon. She might forget her curse just long enough to get careless and let it come true. She might kill everyone she loves.
She might, and she might not.
A particular demon in India rather hoped that she would.
This is the story of the curse and the kiss, the demon and the girl. It's a love story with dancing and death in it, and singing and souls and shadows reeled out on kite strings. It begins underneath India, on the cusp of the last century when the British were still riding elephants with maharajas and skirmishing on the arid frontiers of the empire.
The story begins in Hell. (69)

Six days before Esme's fourteenth birthday, her left eye turned from brown to blue. It happened in the night. (145)

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