Slightly Off the Mark

Time Off For Writing, Not From Writing

I've taken on a rush job that will push me away from other writing, and most social media, until the end of October. This is no surprise: I've been trading one writing task for another so often I have to read my own stuff to find out what I'm working on.

In 2018, just over eight years ago, I submitted a novel titled Fire On Mist Creek to the Harlequin Special Edition line. Two months later an editor there praised my first three chapters and synopsis, and asked for the full manuscript, which means I made it further through the gatekeepers than most writers do.

Yay!

What should a writer do while waiting to hear back on a submission? Write more! It keeps you from sitting around, reloading your email. So I wrote a sequel to Fire On Mist Creek, temporarily titled The Rescue Case. Then one November I decided to write a Christmas themed novel, which I titled Christmas On Mist Creek, because it was set in Mist Creek on Christmas, so there you go.

This was an incredibly bad idea. I should have written something unconnected.

Maybe I should have gone straight to Penguin Random House; we stumbled across this place on an Indiana trip. Printing or warehousing, I assume.

In October, 2020, I wrote to ask if the editor had a chance to look at the manuscript yet. I wrote the same thing in January, 2021. The second time she responded instantly, to inform me she'd lost the manuscript and could I please send it again?

These things happened. I sent it again.

Then she ghosted me.

Just over a year later, in February, 2022, I wrote to check on progress. No answer. Next email I copied to other editors connected to the Special Edition line. No answer. In June, 2023, I wrote to something like four editors, including the original one, and asked that they withdraw my story from consideration, even though I suspected that had already happened. It had been five years.

No answer.

Many of you are wondering why I would deal with them again. Well, they're Harlequin. Despite what some will tell you, if you want to be published traditionally (another question), the publisher holds all the power. Some of my novels are romantic comedies, so my white whale has become the biggest publisher of romance.

At the beginning of October the Special Edition line announced a "blitz", inviting authors to submit for one month. What they were asking for was right up my alley: contemporary small towns, friends and family, the very thing my romances have been about. But, as I explained to my wife, they were not taking submissions from anything they'd already rejected, so I couldn't send Fire On Mist Creek.

"Yes you can," she pointed out. "They never rejected it."

Holy crap. They never did--just radio silence. On the other hand, when I went to the website that tracked my submissions, I learned they'd marked it "completed". I'm not much of a rule breaker, so in the end I told Emily I'd instead send in one of the other Mist Creek manuscripts, and worry about the possibility of a series later.

I settled on Christmas On Mist Creek, because Harlequin also mentioned liking holiday themes. The only problem is, the manuscript was several thousand words too short, and I hadn't done the synopsis yet. You might remember that with the Hoosier Hysterical II manuscript I had to cut out about the same number of words. Too bad I couldn't just paste them from one to the other.

So I have ten days, as I write this, to polish the first three chapters, write a synopsis and a query letter, and get it turned in. Then I have a few months to fill out the rest of the manuscript, in case they want to see it for the second phase of the contest.

That's what I'll be doing.

But I won't be sitting around waiting for a response.

I may not be as active, but I’ll still be here:

· Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO

· Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/search?attributes.contributorId=13727646

· Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter

· Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/

· Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/

· Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ozma914/

· Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter914

· Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrhunter/

· Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter

· Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRHunter

· Substack: https://substack.com/@markrhunter

· Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/ozma914

· Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ozma914

· Audible: https://www.audible.com/search?searchAuthor=Mark+R.+Hunter&ref_pageloadid=4C1TS2KZGoOjloaJ&pf

Remember: Behind most great books stands a formerly discouraged writer.

No Prize for a Plant Guess

Only a couple of photos on this week's photo blog, because I've had an opportunity that will keep me busy for the rest of the month. Mostly I'll be off social media, although I will do a post this weekend to explain why. Probably.

Earlier in the year we moved one of our potted plants, and accidentally broke it off at the stem. It's not exactly an uncommon plant, but even the most common are unsafe from my brown thumb reputation.

I moved the planter to the front porch with the intention of disposing of it later. But then one day Emily glanced down at it, and we realized the plant had come back to life.

No surprise: Even I haven't been able to kill its cousin, in another planter. No, the surprise was that while the planter hung out on the porch--in range of the rain, fortunately--a completely different plant started growing in it.

A seed could have been dropped in there by birds, squirrels, even the wind. I still haven't figured out how an extra sized bird dropping managed to land on our porch picture window, unless the bird let it out while hitting the glass. (No, I'm not showing you a picture of that.)

However, I am posing a question: What kind of plant do you think it is? Emily figured it out, surprising us both. Back in the early days of Marvel Comics Stan Lee used to give out a "No-Prize" to the occasional letter writer, so if you can tell me you'll also get a No-Prize, only it will be a Hunter No-Prize that, because I don't have Marvel's budget, consists of no prize.

Reading is a good way to pass the time while your plant grows, so check out our books!

· Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO

· Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/search?attributes.contributorId=13727646

· Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter

· Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/

· Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/

· Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ozma914/

· Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter914

· Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrhunter/

· Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter

· Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRHunter

· Substack: https://substack.com/@markrhunter

· Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/ozma914

· Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ozma914

· Audible: https://www.audible.com/search?searchAuthor=Mark+R.+Hunter&ref_pageloadid=4C1TS2KZGoOjloaJ&pf

Remember: A book doesn’t care what color your thumb is.

Notes About Autumn and Denial

I've often said I hate fall. That's not exactly true: I love the first part of fall, when the temperatures are reasonable and the colors are glorious. If that was immediately followed by spring, I'd be ecstatic.

But late fall leads into winter. It's like when I was a teenager and my mother made liver and onions: No matter how good the rest of the meal was, I knew that sooner or later I'd have to deal with the bad part. (I learned to surround little bits of liver with a gob of mashed potatoes, and swallow without chewing. I could do nothing about the nauseating smell.)

In September I go into denial. By mid-October the days are just short enough for my seasonal effected disorder to kick in, so I have to force myself to start prepping for winter. But it's also approaching the end of the year, and I go into panic about all the other things I was going to get done. For instance, the bushes I needed to trim as soon as it got warm in the spring looked like Mark Twain's hair by the time I finally tackled them last week.

Being retired doesn't change that a bit. People said I would have more time when I retired. They lied.

But prepping started out well, because I was able to get the furnace running--which means it's worked (eventually) for 47 years in a row! It's been a good fifteen years since I had to buy a part, which is good, because I doubt they make parts for it anymore.

Every time I check on the cost of a new one I get chills.

Meanwhile, in addition to preparing for winter--which between the age of the house and my procrastination is a big deal--I've got all the other things I'm supposed to do. For instance, the part time hours I work at the full time job I retired from. There's something fundamentally wrong with that concept.

Then there's the Hoosier Hysterical sequel, which was to honor America's 250th birthday. Okay, birthday year. Okay, we're not going to make the birthday year. I guess it'll come out in honor of my 65th birthday in 2027, which is not nearly as exciting.

How could anyone not want to read a book that has Orville Redenbacher in it? I don't know, either.

Then there's book promotion, which I have to ramp up in the fall because holiday time, big shopping season, buying presents, all that stuff. Am I going to make my goal of selling a thousand copies this year? I don't know, because like everything else, I've procrastinated on adding up my sales.

Probably not, though. 2025 was a banner year, because Haunted Noble County, Indiana sold really well. In 2025 I counted 979 book sales, but over 400 of those were Haunted Noble County, Indiana. (I guessed in January the total for all books would be 565 ... no idea why.)

But we didn't put out a book this year, so ... no. I'm going to take a term from sports and call it a rebuilding year. My goal over the winter: release at least a couple of more books and do a lot of promoting.

I hate promoting.

Most writers hate promoting. Why? Because we feel like we're selling ourselves, not our books.

"Buy me! Buy me! Typewriter not included."

I was taught that bragging is a mortal sin, right up there with stealing and not saying goodbye to the relatives at the end of Thanksgiving dinner. Every time I promote I feel like my Aunt Dorothy is going to walk all the way from Ohio and slap me up top the head. I'm not even comfortable when other people talk me up, although please do.

Don't even get me started on public speaking.

But I do it, and not because I plan to get rich--I became a realist a long time ago. No, it's because I want people to read my stuff, and enjoy it. There's no better compliment than hearing someone's day is a little better because of something I did ... and with my back, shoveling the neighbor's walk is increasingly not an option.

But first I need to clean the gutters, mow the lawn one last time and put the mower away, cover the air conditioner, put in new smoke alarm batteries, take the aluminum cans to recycling, get the oil changed, get tax stuff around ... and oh yeah, probably check in with the family once in awhile.

At least we're not doing the holidays again this year.

Wait ... are we?

You can relax at home, inside, by the heat, with any or all of our books:

· Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO

· Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/search?attributes.contributorId=13727646

· Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter

· Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/

· Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/

· Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ozma914/

· Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter914

· Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrhunter/

· Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter