The End of One Journey, The Beginning of an Even More Exciting One

The crest of Salas de los Infantes tells the Lara side of the story. 

I spent two years writing my darling baby novel and more years revising it (see some of that saga here and here), but nothing happens before its time. All the elements have finally aligned for Seven Noble Knights. Bagwyn Books will publish it in late 2016.

It was the day of my and my husband's return from ten days in Spain, our favorite place in the world. It's a long flight, but because of the time zones, we left Madrid a bit after noon and arrived stateside at about 2:30 pm. Having breakfast in Madrid and landing, only a little later in the day, somewhere so different it gives you culture shock even though you recognize everything—it creates severe nostalgic ache to go along with the raw fatigue. Moaning and groaning ensues. We took in the scenery, my husband kept reaching for the clutch in our automatic transmission, and we made it home to unpack in less than ten minutes, our few souvenirs bizarrely out of context now.

Yet some of the euphoria of the journey had imprinted on our minds and would be extended by an unexpected but long-hoped-for email. I was taking care of business when at 6:44 pm, a message came in with the subject SEVEN NOBLE KNIGHTS from the publisher I had so jubilantly submitted the full manuscript to in February. Up until now, these messages have been disappointing, so I braced myself.

"Dear Jessica," it began. "We have now finished our preliminary review of SEVEN NOBLE KNIGHTS..."

Yes, yes, but... I waited for the punch.

"...and have decided we are indeed interested in publishing."

Did I read that right?

This is a yes?

I never knew it would be so beautiful.

"This novel is very well done and hard to put down!"

That's when the tears welled up. To see my hard work pay off!

My husband entered the room and I squeaked, "I think my dreams are coming true."

It's taken a few weeks to iron out the legal mumbo-jumbo, but I can now look forward to working with professionals who specialize in medieval and renaissance fiction... on even more revisions. But really, when I came across Bagwyn, I was impressed that it's the fiction imprint of the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. I already own a few of their books! I can't imagine a more appropriate publisher for Seven Noble Knights.

Thanks to all the writers and historical fiction lovers who helped me through the drafts and the many revisions. You know who you are. I'll name names in the published acknowledgments.

Seven Noble Knights in Modern Life

My recent trip to Spain had many life-changing moments. Most relevant to my writing, I got to see the legend upon which I based my novel Seven Noble Knights "out in the world." The events, if they ever really took place, happened more than 1000 years ago. That's a lot of time for historians, minstrels, and everyone else to make the story their own.

Most amusing to me was the way entrepreneurs could use the characters' names and count on their buying public to know what they're referring to. For example:

Mudarra Café and Grill in Salas de los Infantes

This restaurant is named for the hero of the second part of the saga, who redeems the González family after fifteen years.

Los Infantes Bakery in Salas de los Infantes

An enterprising pastry chef knew "Los Infantes" (the seven noble knights of my title) would lend his wares credibility.

Doña Lambra Hotel and Restaurant

More surprisingly, this hotel and restaurant flaunts the name of the legend's supervillain, Doña Lambra. Granted, it's located in Barbadillo del Mercado, her territory.

Barbadillo also boasts a Lambra Street!

And a twentieth-century sculptor was moved to honor Barbadillo's most notorious ruler with a rather nice statue. The inscription reads, "Doña Lambra. Between history and legend, she ruled this village in the high Middle Ages, immersed in the events that would end with the betrayal of the seven noble knights and Mudarra's revenge (10th century)." Behind Lambra, on the left, is an impression of her husband, Ruy Blásquez, the seven noble knights' uncle. On the other side, Mudarra, the great hero. The statue tells a lot of the legend with no need for reference elsewhere. My husband and I weren't sure where the statue was, so we walked what we thought was the whole town with no luck, and then asked a couple of different residents before we found it. I was thrilled to be able to speak the name of the antagonist of my novel and see recognition on people's faces. They needed no explanation!

Stories are powerful, and apparently they last through time. I'm proud to continue the legend of the seven noble knights.

My book of stories, Unpredictable Worlds, releases for Kindle on May 15 with a softcover edition available the same day. Unpredictable Worlds is already available for preorder for only 99 cents. Once it’s out there in the world, the price will go up, so save at least 66% now and have this strangely amazing book delivered to your device on release day. 

(Originally posted at jessicaknauss.com)

Revisions

Yes, I killed some of my darlings. 

It took a number of months of intense writing and fretting, but at last I completed the revisions and rewrites planned out in the previous post. I was pleased to think I was cutting down the word count, but that was before I reintegrated the important details from the gutted chapters and added some more great scenes to move the story and character development along. Seven Noble Knights ended up being just about as long as it had been before the extreme cuts.

The strangest thing happened when I was nearing the home stretch of revisions: a publisher I had queried before I had my epiphany requested the full manuscript. Well, that's flattering! The first bad sign was that their website indicated a month to six weeks for such a response, and in reality it took six months. The second bad sign was that I wrote back to explain that I was currently revising and would send the full manuscript by a certain date, and never had any response one way or the other. I happened to know a couple of authors with that publisher, so I asked one of them to confirm or disprove the qualms that were awakening in me with those signs.

I'm glad I did it, but it was an unexpected roller coaster! My author friend wanted to let me make my own decision, but gave me the unvarnished truth of her experience with the publisher. A general carelessness, a my-way-or-the-highway attitude, not being taken seriously in the business because of a consistent lack of professionalism, a poor contract, no promotions budget, and the most egregious of all, no proof copy for the author to inspect resulting in glaring copyediting issues in the finished product—all this made me glad they hadn't gotten back to me sooner. I might have just sent the manuscript right off to a destiny of schlocky obscurity.

I stuck to the deadline I'd imposed on myself in the one-way correspondence with this publisher, and when I had Seven Noble Knights just about the way I wanted it, complete with trusted feedback and an objective copyedit, I looked back in my records and found a different publisher. I felt in my heart and confirmed with research that they were a great fit, so I prepared the query and sent.

They requested the full manuscript the same day.

I cried tears of joy.

And now it's back to the waiting and hoping. I've been doing a lot of that lately! It would be a dream come true for this publisher to take on Seven Noble Knights. Oh, the validation!

In the meantime, the wait is over for one important part of my life: soon I'll be heading to Spain. I plan to take loads of photos of places in Seven Noble Knights and other historical novels in planning and share them with you here! ¡Olé!