Chelsey Emmelhainz | Morgan in Romancelandia

Dear Reader,

The past month and a bit since I sold my book to Avon has been a bit of a whirlwind of activity! I ended up more than doubling the length of Midnight In Your Arms, from just over 20,000 words to nearly 55,000—and I feel the story is much stronger and more substantial now. It’s been given the breathing space and room it needs to spread out into the story it was meant to be! That is always a good feeling for an author. No one wants to feel as though their story has been stunted, compacted into too small a space to really bloom.

I sent the final few changes to my wonderful editor at Avon, Chelsey Emmelhainz—and let me just take a moment to tell you how fantastic it has been working with her! She really gets what I am trying to do with my story, the mood and feel of it, as well as the style of my writing. She makes everything better without making me feel like I’m losing anything—a delicate balance. She is such an intuitive reader, which is the most important thing, I think, for an editor—because she must put herself in the place of (hopefully!) thousands of readers, and see the story through their eyes. That isn’t easy, but she does it with aplomb. I felt really comfortable with her, and the changes she made, from small to significant, have made Midnight In Your Arms into a story of which I feel very proud. It was a skeleton of a story only a few short weeks ago, and now it is fully fleshed out and dancing the Charleston! Whoot!

It’s hard to believe that it’s only been just over seven weeks since I wrote the first draft, sent it in, and got the call from Avon! I wish all projects ran this smoothly, with such satisfying results. I can hardly wait for October to come! Midnight In Your Arms comes out on the 30^th, just in time for my favourite day of the year—Halloween! Maybe I will dress up as my heroine, Laura Dearborn, the vampish 1920s medium who reaches across space and time to steal the heart of Crimean War veteran Alaric Storm III.

Now, Chelsey has advised me to celebrate with ice cream, even though it’s only 8 AM my time—and get on with the next story! I think I will do just that. I’ve been dreaming of a new hero and heroine who are clamouring to have their story told. Now that I’ve put the finishing touches on M.I.Y.A, I feel fully justified in indulging—both in ice cream for breakfast, and a brand new love story that makes the past as real as the present.

Love, Morgan.

Dear Reader,

It happened. It finally happened. I recently sold my first romance novella to Avon Impulse. It’s called Midnight In Your Arms, and will be coming out in time to chill your bones for Halloween 2012!

When I say that it’s my first romance novella, it really is true—I’ve never written a romance novella before. I’ve written two and a half romance novels, however. But that’s another story. Before Avon Impulse started putting out stand-alone novellas, and Harlequin did the same with their Briefs and Bites series, I wouldn’t have known what to do with a romance novella had I written one. For some reason, even though there are now places for them to go, I still didn’t write one until just under three weeks ago. Let me tell you, I’m sure glad I did! It’s been like an instant gratification party around here ever since. I wrote the story over the space of about 30 hours on May 29^th-30^th. I sent it in on May 30^th about an hour before midnight, using the electronic submission process Avon has now—and a week later, I woke up to an email from Chelsey Emmelhainz at Harper Collins asking me to please call her because she loves my novella and wants to make an offer on it! Her exact words? “I loved it and would like to make an offer on it!” A dozen little words that were music to my ears! Or rather, beautiful paintings for my eyes, since I was reading them :^}

As soon as I swallowed my heart several dozen times, I did just that—and we had a lovely conversation, in which we discussed releasing the novella as a stand-alone book, when I had thought it would be part of a collection, because I had written it in response to a call for submissions for a themed anthology. But Avon liked it enough to release it on its own! So it was even more exciting than I thought—because now I get my own cover, with my own name on it, and all of that lovely, self-important stuff that writers dream about.

I called my husband right away, and told him, and he was so excited! It’s wonderful to have support at home, and I’m really lucky. When he got home from work that night, he brought take-out from our favourite restaurant that is now very far away ever since we moved out of the city, so it was a special treat indeed. I love having someone to share all the special moments with—and isn’t that what writing romance is all about? Bringing two people together who weren’t quite complete living apart. Giving them each someone to love them and support them, cherishing their dreams as if they are their own. That’s what I want to do with each pair of lovers in every book I write. That’s what I want to do with Midnight In Your Arms, which, no matter what happens in my career, will always be my First—and as we all know, your First matters!

And now I will go, because I am elbows deep in edits, trying to make a stable time loop make sense.

You’ll understand when you read it.

Love, Morgan.