Untold stories

I heard from my editor last week. You may recall she's contracted me for two more books, this time contemporary romances. I sent her a synopsis for a story, but she requested a change that would impact the plot so greatly that I shelved that story and started a new one. I'd really grown to like the first story idea, although I admit I like this new one even better.

The story idea rejections I'm accumulating makes me wonder about the number of untold stories floating around out there. Counting my ideas alone, we have the two sequels to On Fire, my September 2007 romantic suspense; the first contemporary idea, which my editor just rejected; the sequel to You Belong to Me, my November 2006 romantic suspense; an epic fantasy trilogy; and my island mystery series, which is generating rejections as we speak.

It's not my intention to throw a pity party. Honestly. I know it may sound that way, but that's not my intention. I'm truly fascinated by the fact that we may have millions of orphaned story ideas hovering around us.

I'm obviously incredibly naive. All this time I thought, as writers, we'd come up with ideas and, as long as we told the story well, it would find a home. But this experience has shown me, the market has much more to do with the stories I sell than I originally thought.

Patricia