Matter Gently Touching Anti-Matter

I had a horrible thought the other night. A nightmare, actually. I woke up all wild-eyed and sweaty. What if, the demon in my dream shrieked, What if both vicious Michael Moore and viperish Michelle Malkin are right?

So Here We Go Again

I’ve had five novels and a non-fiction book published in the last three years, and two of them won EPPIE Awards and one was optioned as a screenplay, so some of you are probably thinking, Well, here’s a guy who has found his so-called ‘voice’, so it’s easy for him to blather on about anything.

Maybe, but let’s take a closer look. Two of my books, Devils and The Heart of Desire, are science fiction. Two of them, Hollywood Havoc: The Trouble With Fat Boy, and Hollywood Havoc: The Llama Goes Up, are action/thrillers. The fifth one, Foul, is a murder mystery. All of them have a strong M/F love interest thread, but none of them are what you might call romances. In fact, my wife, who is my dearest fan, will also readily tell you that as a writer I am somewhat of a relationships retard.

So about a year and a half ago, I decided to do a story that aimed to be more relationships driven. I decided to do a war romance, something nostalgic and sad and true, like The English Patient, The War Lover or Brideshead Revisited.
Now, long ago, in my foolish youth, I lived through a brief period in Vietnam that few today realize (or are willing to recognize) ever existed-those few years after the French left and before the Americans took over the war. All was unstable as the colonialism faded, the insurgency was on the rise, and the Stars and Stripes were not yet in evidence across that old land with its moist, warm tropical climate and quaint, harsh, beautiful, and corrupt traditions. It was the most dangerous, colorful, and exciting time of my life, and I decided to write a story about some of the wonder and terror I’d seen and felt and some of the experiences I’d lived through.

And that’s how The Freight Train of Love was born—90,000 words that you might describe as a classic war romance with strong threads of action and a sense of nostalgia.
Now put on your thinking caps: If you were me, who would you send that book to? Well, my current publisher Double Dragon is excellent, but The Freight Train of Love didn’t seem to fit their list of sci-fi, fantasy & horror.
Me being a novice author in the romance biz, and also eager to get on with the next project, I didn’t do my homework and simply e-zapped a query off to one of the bigger romance publishers for what I was convinced would be a certain sale. And here’s the reply that came back a few days later:

Dear John,
I have read FREIGHT TRAIN OF LOVE and am sorry that I must pass on this project.
Although you have a wonderful story-telling style, this story seems more about Claire discovering herself through Jack’s reminiscing rather than a romance. The doomed love affair between Jack and Mia isn’t really a romance, since the definition of romance is “boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-gets-girl-back” and a Happy Ever After. Jack lost Mia to Joe Bates. If they are to be together at the end, then the story begins there, with their romance, instead of having Claire tell the story.
We have a saying in romance, SHOW, don’t TELL. Because it is assumed the Claire is the heroine, the reader is expecting her to have a romance. Instead, we are drawn into the tortured memories of a man’s past and his doomed wartime love affair. This premise is more of a mainstream novel rather than a romance. I think you would do better to sell it as such since it is intricately woven within Claire’s own observations of her neighbor and friend.
Thank you for considering us in your publishing efforts and good luck with your writing career.
Take care and write on!

So, let me ask you again to put on your thinking caps: If you were me, who would you send that book to? I don’t have a clue. So, don’t you think maybe I should have done all that research before I started tapping out the first glorious page?