{"id":8459,"date":"2016-11-06T12:56:18","date_gmt":"2016-11-06T17:56:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/?p=8459"},"modified":"2025-07-29T15:57:54","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T20:57:54","slug":"rook-takes-queen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/blog\/rook-takes-queen\/","title":{"rendered":"Rook Takes Queen"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A
*le sigh*<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So I dug an old manuscript out wondering how\/if I should rehab it. I wrote it so long ago, head-hopping was still acceptable, although on its way out. It\u2019s 84,000 words. And there are no f-bombs. (IKR?!) The thing about headhopping, at least for me, is that I could tell a story in so many fewer words with it.<\/p>\n

This story has a story.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Before this story\u2019s book began, I\u2019d written a massive under-the-bed novel (whose only remaining copy is in the hands of Tina McClelland Fontana, where it needs to remain). You know, the training novel we all write and then stick it under the bed to hide forever. Then I wrote what is now (massively rehabbed) Paso Doble<\/em><\/a> (it has a story too), for Harlequin. After that, I wrote the first iteration (of four) of what is now Bryce and Giselle\u2019s story<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Then, in 1993, I saw The Fugitive<\/em> with Tommy Lee Jones about 22 times in the theater (I have no idea how many times I saw it, but it was MANY!). I caught a serious crush (on the actor? the character? who knows?) and I was shipping his character with the nurse (Julianne Moore) with whom he traded all of three(?) lines. (Romance novelist to the core, people, with a slavish devotion to May-December ones.)<\/p>\n

That book got me 1) an almost-contract and 2) a literary agent.<\/p>\n

This is how a contract becomes an almost, and it was the second time something freaky had happened on the way to getting published (Paso Doble<\/em> was the first).<\/p>\n

I got a call one evening from an editor with Harlequin. This is heart-attack-inducing, folks. She said she loved the book. She loved my voice. And then<\/em><\/strong> she said, and I quote, \u201cI bought a book similar to this last month. Yours is much better. But I can\u2019t sell it to my editorial board.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ego strokes were nice. I guess.<\/p>\n

The literary agent was an interesting experience I will not relate, but she didn\u2019t sell it either.<\/p>\n

With 23 years between it and now, I read it, wondering if I could rehab it. After all, Bryce and Giselle, Paso Doble<\/em>, and Black Jack<\/em><\/a> didn\u2019t turn out too shabbily and I had had no intention of rehabbing those. I had no idea how I\u2019d feel about it, but Jack was the one who started me on this self-pub journey because I\u2019d re-read it after so many years and realized it was good. He broke my heart.<\/p>\n

You know what? The TLJ\/JM book was pretty good. For back in the day, for the line I wrote it, it was really<\/em><\/strong> good. It\u2019s a throwback clich\u00e9 today, but not too shabby, especially for an early-career book. I wouldn\u2019t be embarrassed now if it had gotten published way back then. And now I\u2019d be tempted to release it as a novelty, an extra on the website, as retro\/vintage\/early Moriah (hello, Morning in Bed<\/em>), but the problem isn\u2019t the headhopping or lack of f-bomb. The problem is I\u2019ve cannibalized this book so much it\u2019s got more Swiss than cheese. Anybody who\u2019s read my books will know exactly where and how I used which theme, marker, motif, and zinger.1<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

It was a nice, comfortable, not-embarrassing trip down memory lane and now it\u2019s time for it to go into the permanent archive.<\/p>\n

Good night, Rook. Good night, Frankie.<\/p>\n

\n

______________________________<\/p>\n

1<\/a>.<\/span>  I dunno. Maybe I should throw it up on my website in all its Courier-New, double-spaced glory.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So I dug an old manuscript out wondering how\/if I should rehab it. I wrote it so long ago, head-hopping was still acceptable, although on its way out. It\u2019s 84,000 words. And there are no f-bombs. (IKR?!) The thing about headhopping, at least for me, is that I could tell a story in so many […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[424],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8459"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8459"}],"version-history":[{"count":34,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16550,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8459\/revisions\/16550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}