The History of Skin Deep
Skin Deep, the first of my romantic suspense novels, and the first to be published under my pseudonym, Jamie Cortland. It is about Evelyn Valentino, an attractive divorcee’, who becomes involved with the wrong man. Ignoring the warnings of her friends and relatives not to rush into this new relationship with the handsome stranger, she ignores them. Once caught in his carefully woven web, he drops his mask and his madness is revealed. Her only thought is to escape, but is it too late?
James, Evelyn’s paramour, is both a schizophrenic and bi-polar. When he is medicated and receiving therapy, he’s charming and is a productive member of society. When he isn’t on medication and not receiving therapy, he self-medicates with alcohol to keep the voices away. At that point, James becomes a danger to himself and everyone surrounding him.
In regard to research for this novel, my primary sources included NAMI.com and my daughter, Loretta A. Creaney who has a degree in psychology and has worked in the field. You must be wondering if I have experienced living with one who is mentally ill and off his/her medication. The answer is yes… a distant relative who is now deceased. For the past few years, I have been a contributor to the National Association for Mental Illness and am dedicated to support groups of addicts everywhere. Without them, many would never find their way to recovery.
Educated in the fine arts, I have worked in various fields to include high fashion modeling, real estate, and for a brief period in the import business which proved to be quite exciting. Today, I’m a full time writer and have just now completed another romantic suspense novel titled “Never Trust a Stranger.” My next romantic suspense novel will be set in south Florida.
When I’m not writing, l enjoy attending live music performances, browsing through art galleries, taking long beach or nature walks and visiting with friends and relatives. I am a founding member of the Florida Writer’s Association, a member of RWA, Sisters in Crime, and am an affiliate member of Mystery Writers of America.
If you would like to read more about my books, please go to my website at http://weslynn.com and to my blog: http://weslynn.com/blog. If you are an aspiring writer, please note that Tips for Writers is available for you to read on my blog.
Weslynn McCallister
Jamie Cortland, pseudonym
Readers, Weslynn is giving away an autographed copy of Skin Deep to a random commenter. To enter, your first must leave a question or comment for Weslynn. Then to complete your entry, you need to either leave your email address in your comment or send a message to contests.bookblog@gmail.com. The winner will be chosen on Thursday, December 24.
Little did I know as a student nurse doing my psychiatric rotation at a state mental hospital in 1950 that, over half a century later, I would be writing a book about it.
Actually, I wrote the outline of Notes in a Mirror twenty years ago and tucked it safely in a drawer. Every few years it would call to me, as words do. I would take it out and read it, enlarge on it, then put it back.
I made contact with a psychologist who had done extensive research on Chicago State Mental Hospital, also known as Dunning, after the man who was involved in land transfer. He gave me an entire packet of information about the history of the area, starting from the time it was designated as the Cook County Poor Farm in the early part of the nineteenth century. Of course the pages had been reproduced numerous times so that most were undecipherable. But I was able to retrieve some interesting information about the place. There were pages listing the costs of various items. Also the number of patients admitted by age, type of work, and length of stay.
One of the most fascinating lists I came across was the supposed causes of mental illness. Here were the diagnoses at that time: religious excitement, marital infidelity, sunstroke, disappointment in love, alcoholism, abortion, puberty, overwork and, the most common cause of male insanity was thought to be masturbation. The medical profession has come a long way since then.
Two years ago I tackled it with renewed energy. I made it into a paranormal/historical, added a bit of mystery a tad of romance. I added mirror-image writing as the way the spirit contacts my protagonist. I chose this means of communication because I was born left hand dominant. But, at that time, girls were not allowed to write with their left hands. So the teachers in school forced me to use my right hand. In the process of retraining my brain, I was able to write mirror-image with my left hand. I decided to make my character somewhat like myself in that respect.
Finally the manuscript was ready to present to my writers group, The Southland Scribes. A few suggestions by the group and another revision and I was ready to seek a publisher. A big hurdle! After a number of rejections, I met Sue Durkin of Weaving Dreams Publishing. She loved the story and agreed to publish it.
Then the hard part started—marketing. That is a full time job. I belong to a number of women’s groups and they all buy my books. So far I have mailed 200 post cards, spoken at a number of libraries and bookstores. And we’ve only started.
After the holidays I plan to contact nursing schools and ask for a few minutes to talk to the students about how the profession has changed. There was no technology in 1950: no computers, no critical care, no CPR, and no monitoring devices. And the care of the mentally ill was archaic.
I tried to bring this out in Notes in a Mirror as I wove my story of Mary Lou Hammond, a shy impressive young girl, suddenly finding herself in a madhouse.
Even though the experience happened over fifty years ago, I remember it as if it were yesterday.
Helen Macie Osterman
Helen Osterman lives in a suburb of Chicago. She has five children and nine grandchildren.
She received a Bachelor of Nursing degree from Mercy Hospital-St. Xavier College. During her training, she spent three months at Chicago State Mental Hospital for her psychiatric rotation. Years later, she earned a Master’s Degree from Northern Illinois University.
Throughout her forty-five year nursing career, she wrote articles for both nursing and medical journals, including Geriatric Nursing, Nursing Management, Orthopaedic Nursing and Nursing Spectrum. She wrote a section for Clinics in Podiatric Medicine and Surgery in 1997.
In 1997 and 1998, she published two short novels about a nurse, The Web and Things Hidden, by Vista Publishing, a nurse owned publishing company.
She is also the author of the Emma Winberry Mystery series. The Accidental Sleuth, 2007 and The Stranger in the Opera House, 2009.
Helen is a member of The American Association of University Women and The Mystery Writers of America.
Helen can be reached through her publisher Weaving Dreams Publishing or at her website.
Readers, Helen is giving away a copy of Notes in a Mirror to a random commenter. To enter the contest, leave a comment or question for Helen. Then you must either leave your email address in your comment or send a message to contests.bookblog@gmail.com. The winner will be chosen on Thursday, December 3. Read More......
The Road After Publication
Or maybe this blog should be named the Holy Grail of Publication, Part II. With all the unpublished writers who are trying so hard to become published, no one seems to think much about What Happens After Publication. Writers go to conventions, enter contests, belong to RWA chapters and/or critique groups, have beta readers, network, use Twitter, Facebook, Red Room and a zillion other social networking sites. Everything a person can possibly do to become published.
And then one day, it happens. You're offered that contract, you land that agent, you get that publisher you were aiming for and you're caught up in the Twilight Zone. *queue scary music here* Sometime later, your book, your baby, is released, born into the world. People say they love your writing, people say they hate your writing and some people will be indifferent to your writing.
You've worked hard, spent many hours perfecting your technique and some smart person loves your work enough to publish it. It is getting tougher to be published, so it is a true accomplishment. Publishing is a tough, competitive business. Manic, in some ways. One day you are on cloud nine because a well-respected reviewer gave you a glowing review. The next day, you're down in the dumps because you think you can't write.
Being published is the start of your publication journey. I used to think that having the book come out was the culmination of all my hard work. It's a big one, don't get me wrong, but it's only the first step. Unless you're a big name writer, the promotion budget for your novel is the cost of the cover art. That's all.
The published writer is expected to know how to interact with the media and the public and promote the heck out of their novel. And pay personally for all the bookmarks and “swag” items to promote your book. Pay to attend conventions. Pay to go on a book tour. Pay for a web presence. The publisher doesn't do these things, the writer does. Getting published can be a costly proposition, so you have to choose your marketing efforts wisely because simply throwing money at promotion is not enough and it's wasteful. The return on dollars spent on promotion is difficult, if not impossible, to calculate.
Another part of being published is that writers tend to be solitary creatures but are expected to be outgoing in public. Writers tend to live in their heads. We like it there. We can control what happens to our story and our characters. The writer is omnipotent in this interior world. But suddenly, writers are expected to instantly grow another persona, an extroverted person who is at ease with people they've never met. I'm not saying writers are socially backward but we chose writing because we get to be alone in our heads. That's what we're really good at. So polish your social skills and learn to be the universal welcoming committee.
This is when the real work starts. Developing your name brand, writing brand and industry brand should come before getting published but I only determined mine last month by taking an online workshop. Every writer needs to find people who like their variety of writing and will buy their work.
So to recap. Congratulations on being contracted/published!!! It's an exciting time. Now you need to figure out:
- Name brand
- Writing brand
- Industry brand
- To go or not to go to conferences
- To go or not to go to bookstores for signings and readings
- Learn to be a publicity magnet
- What promotion efforts will serve you best
- What technology will serve you best (ie. Facebook, Twitter etc.)
- What your web presence should look like and the image to project
- Develop an outgoing personality
This is the beginning of your journey. Have fun!
Brooke London
Heart-pounding, mind-twisting romantic suspense
Lies. Spies. And Dangerous Guys
Website: http://www.brookelondon.com
Blog: http://brookelondonromance.blogspot.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/brookelondon
Pitch Dark Excerpt: http://www.jasminejade.com/productspecs/9781419919282.htm
Reviews for Pitch Dark: http://www.brookelondon.com/Reviews.html
Brooke's debut novel, Pitch Dark, can be purchased online at the following sites:
Cerridwen Press http://www.jasminejade.com/pm-7358-543-pitch-dark.aspx
Barnes & Noble http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Pitch-Dark/Brooke-London/e/9781419959660/?itm=1&usri=Brooke+london+pitch+dark
Amazon http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1419959662?ie=UTF8&tag=itsallaboum07-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=1419959662
Ebook is available at http://www.jasminejade.com/pm-6985-543-pitch-dark.aspx
Readers, Brooke is giving away an ecopy of Pitch Dark to a random commenter. Leave a comment or question for Brooke and be sure to either leave your email address in your comment or send an email to contests.bookblog@gmail.com (after you comment) to be entered in the drawing. The contest will end on Sunday, November 29. Read More......
ANGEL PATROL by Sheila Roberts
The idea for Oprah’s Angel Network was positively inspired, and it’s a great way to connect with other people wanting to make a difference in the world. But even if you haven’t joined in on that particular movement, you can still make a difference in the world.
At least that’s my opinion, and I wrote an entire novel based on it. The premise of my new book, Angel Lane, is that we can all make the world a better place if we each cover our own little corner of it.
Yes, I’d love to go on Oprah’s show and hand her a big, fat check but I’m not holding my breath (either for the big, fat check or an invitation to go on the show). That won’t happen for most of us, which is why, if you visit the website (check out http://oprahsangelnetwork.org/how-to-help/overview) you’ll find lots of great suggestions for creative and practical things you can do to improve life for others. Sometimes it’s as simple as poking our noses out our own front doors and taking a moment to look beyond our own busy lives.
I’m starting in my own community by trying to be a good neighbor and sharing goodies from my garden and my oven. (Fortunately, I don’t have any resident lounge lizard to contend with like my poor character, Sarah Goodwin.) Sharing food is a great way to make friends and get some of that baked temptation out of the house! Anyway, it works for me. So does giving my neighbor a ride to church, having the girls over for coffee, and picking up discarded pop cans when I walk around our little lake. None of that is exactly on a par with achieving world peace, but you know, I’m convinced that the best place to start fixing the world is in your own back yard.
Being a listening ear or a shoulder to cry on, donating money to a worthy cause (get in the habit of taking that money right off the top when you get your paycheck and it will be easier to pry your fingers off of it), visiting someone in a nursing home, giving to the local food bank – these are the kinds of activities that help others and make us feel good about ourselves. Talk about a win-win! And when enough people do them, they add up.
Angels have a lot of territory to cover. What if we all said, “Hey, I’ll cover my block”? I think we could make a difference. By the way, could you use some zucchini?
Sheila Roberts lives in the Pacific Northwest. She's happily married and has three children. Writing since 1989, she has had 24 books published, both in fiction and nonfiction under different names and in different languages. However before she settled into her writing career, she did lots of other things, including owning a singing telegram company and playing in a band. But writing and helping others to find ways to make their lives better are her greatest passions.
Her down-to-earth wisdom and quirky upbeat sense of humor make Sheila a popular speaker to groups large and small. Her books are becoming perennial hot sellers. Her book Bikini Season was a Bookscan top 50, a Target Breakout Novel pick and an Amazon Beach Read pick. On Strike for Christmas will be released this year for the third year in the row and has been optioned for film. Her new release Love in Bloom has been chosen as a Reader’s Digest Condensed Book. Now… if she could just get on “Dancing with the Stars”!
You can visit her website at www.sheilasplace.com.
A note from Jen... We have an ARC (Advanced Reading Copy) of Angel Lane up for grabs. Just leave a question or comment on this post or my review (found here) and be sure to leave an email address (or send a message to contests.bookblog@gmail.com). The winner will be chosen on Thursday, October 29.
I LOVE BOOK CLUBS
(and how it relates to my memoir Petal Pusher)
One of the coolest parts about having a book published is that your friends will usually, as an act of charity or obligation, ask their book clubs to read your book and then ask you to visit the book club when they meet to discuss your book. (First of all, I don’t know why they call them book clubs, why can’t we be up front about this, and call them wine clubs?) ANYWAY, I freaking love having book clubs read and discuss my book.
After visiting in person or cyber-visiting, around sixty book clubs since PETAL PUSHER’S release, I love the many ways that my book has been read and interpreted based on the readers’ own life experiences. A woman in my mother’s book club consolingly placed her hand on my mom’s forearm and said, “I don’t know what I’d do if I had a daughter like that.” Instead of crying, I choose to laugh at this remark since my mom has that unconditional love thing going when it comes to her children, and Lord knows, I was not a first daughter for the faint of heart mother!
Once I answer the questions that every book club so far has asked me:
Yes, my sister divorced the guy she married in the book.
My mother thinks that I exaggerate in the book; my siblings tend to see events the same way I did.
My dad loves me though there are parts of my book he does not love.
I changed the names of people I’m no longer in touch with unless they’re considered “public domain.”
My bandmates are okay with the book (there’s a lot I did not include). I sent them both galley proofs of the manuscript before it went to press (as I did with my parents, siblings, and husband), and there were no disputes or up roars – though it’s always important to remind memoir readers that I experienced the events in the book differently than did a lot of the characters.
Then, it’s my turn to ask the book club members what they thought the book was about:
An older woman told me she thought it was about women figuring out how to deal with their bodies.
Someone else thought it was about women and friendship and how “business” can really corrode those friendships.
Another said she thought it was about dealing with disease.
A lot of people think it’s about growing up or following a dream to fruition.
Some folks think it’s about loving music and falling in love.
I think it’s about my relationship with my father.
The cool thing is, there are no right and wrong answers. It’s all about absorption and interpretation, and I love how different we all are.
A Penchant for Procrastination
There is an unwritten rule of writing that the number of trips to the refrigerator a writer makes is in inverse proportion to how well a manuscript is going.
That’s a line from The Accidental Bestseller, the novel I wrote about four writers—friends for a decade— and the lengths they go to to save one of their own when her career and personal life begin to unravel.
The chapter is about the most commercially successful and most prolific of the four author characters and continues.
When the fingers are flying over the keyboard and the brain is fully immersed in the scene being created, food is completely unimportant. But when the fingers slow and the focus blurs, or worse, when the writer sees nothing but the blank screen and the hypnotic blink of the cursor, food beckons. As does, oddly enough, a load of laundry, the flossing of one’s teeth, and the complete rearrangement of a kitchen pantry or walk-in closet.
I wrote this based on personal experience and that of other writers I know. Actually, the whole book is my attempt to share what it is to be a writer in today’s publishing world. And one of the things I and other writers battle daily is the penchant for procrastination.
When I first started writing fulltime and the pounds started piling on, I thought it was because of all the sitting. And the fact that my office was far too close to the kitchen.
But as the paragraph points out, it’s not just food that can be more attractive than writing.
It’s anything and everything.
This is because writing is hard! For most of us, creating characters and the worlds they inhabit doesn’t happen at the first click of a mouse. Writing anything, and especially a novel on a deadline, requires a writer to write regularly whether he or she feels like it or not. Facing down a blank computer screen, especially at the beginning of a book or project, requires nerves of steel and the ability to take a giant leap of faith that you can actually do this and do it well. Again.
Therefore the food is not about hunger and doing the laundry is not about dirty clothes. They are legitimate excuses, at least for a short period of time, to get up from the computer and do something else; the writer’s equivalent of a reprieve from the governor.
A writer friend, who is incredibly prolific and disciplined, and whom I used to assume didn’t have this problem, gave a talk at a writers’ conference I attended in which she pointed out that ‘accountants don’t have a problem finding time to account’ and lawyers never tell you they can’t find time to….lawyer. (This is my word, not hers. It was a long time ago and I’m not quoting accurately.) But any time you’re around a group of writers, she said, they complain that they just can’t find enough time to write.
I laughed along with everyone else (well, OK she might have put it slightly better than I just did) and thought it was really neat when she handed out egg timers to everyone and suggested using them to keep ourselves seated and writing every day for a certain number of minutes. The idea was that we would at least write for that long and if we were lucky, we might be so into what we were writing that when the timer went off we’d just keep at it.
It makes a lot of sense, because really who can’t commit to doing almost anything for ten or fifteen minutes? Unfortunately, it made me realize that even an ultra-organized and highly disciplined person like our speaker sometimes had to trick herself into writing. That she, too, had probably bailed out to eat, or do the laundry, or organize her sock drawer. And then wasted gobs more time coming up with the egg timer strategy.
I wish I had solutions to this need to procrastinate while writing. But coming up with solutions would take even more time away from my work in progress (see egg timer), which seems like a bad idea. I guess I’ll just have to learn to accept the small diversions; the trip to the refrigerator; the need to immediately read an incoming email; the unexpected urge to call friends I haven’t spoken to in years, as part of my process. I guess as long as they don’t derail us permanently, there’s no real harm.
And there is some satisfaction in knowing I’m not alone. Each chapter in The Accidental Bestseller begins with a quote about writing. One of them is from Fran Lebowitz who said, “Contrary to what many of you may imagine, a career in letters is not without its drawbacks—chief among them the unpleasant fact that one is frequently called upon to sit down and write.”
Now stop procrastinating and get back to work!
Wendy Wax
Author note: No egg timer was used in the writing of this blog although three trips to the refrigerator, five email checks, and one long distance phone call were made.
Wendy is giving away a copy of The Accidental Bestseller to a random commenter this weekend. To enter the contest, you first must leave a comment. The second step is to either leave your email address in your comment or send an email to admin.bookblog@gmail.com with the subject Wendy Wax (and include your mailing address). The contest will end on Sunday, June 28 around 5 pm Pacific.
ART IMITATES LIFE
Warning. This blog is for readers 18 years of age and older. The material is NOT appropriate for minors. Also, to enter the contest, you must be of legal age.
My latest project, an e-book novella called NEG UB2 (which refers to Internet lingo some men conjure up on hookup sites to ward off HIV+ suitors by telling them that they are "HIV negative and you be too") deals with issues of getting an HIV positive diagnosis and personal responsibility. I found the following new story, which was reported just this past May, very timely, as it came out in the exact same month as my novella.
If you'd like to win a free download of NEG UB2, let me know when you leave a comment on this blog and I will pick one winner on Wednesday, June 24 and will post the winner's name here. To enter, you must leave your email address with your comment so that Rick can contact you to make arrangements for delivery of the ebook.
In May, 365gay.com reported that an HIV+ Toronto man had been arrested for having unprotected gay sex. Sahand Mahmoodi, 28, was charged with attempted murder and aggravated assault for allegedly having unprotected sex with another man and for not disclosing that he is HIV-positive.
What I find interesting about this whole mess (and it's not a unique mess and not confined to Canada) is a detail mentioned in passing in the news article, that the two men met online on a gay chat site. And, after meeting, they had unprotected sex. The word "unprotected" is key here. As of this writing, the "victim" has not disclosed if he actually contracted HIV from this encounter. But whether he has or hasn't makes me wonder: why isn't he looking in the mirror to find the culprit for his being exposed to HIV? Mind you, I am not excusing anyone who knows for a fact that they are HIV+ and then does not disclose that fact to a potential sex partner, but I am saying all of us bear our own responsibility for our sexual well-being. AIDS and HIV have been big news for more than two decades now. Who isn't aware of the inherent risks?
I am close to many HIV+ people and have known many who engage in barebacking (unprotected anal intercourse), some are responsible about telling partners and some aren't. I think the ones who aren't are morally reprehensible. But some of those morally reprehensible people have told me that they assume (and you know what happens when you assume) when someone is willing to engage in unprotected sex, they must be positive as well. After all, why would they do something so stupid and jeopardize their health by not even asking the status of their would-be Lothario? Although I don't excuse them on this point, I can kind of see it. They are just giving too much common sense credit to their sex partner. I once wrote a piece, back when I was writing a sex column for a Chicago paper, about a man who was on a hookup site looking for guys to come over to his garage and have unprotected anal sex with him (and he was the passive partner); the irony of all this, and why I felt compelled to write about it, was that the guy was insisting that his potential suitors be HIV negative. Now, here was a guy who was taking on all comers (pun intended), as many as he could get, and thought he was protecting himself by asking not for their names or anything personal (that would spoil the anonymous, garage tryst vibe), but hoping that his little caveat would keep away the infected.
How stupid is that? For one thing, even if everyone who showed up to this garage party believed he was negative, chances are there would be at least one who wasn't...and just didn't know yet.
I also have a friend who is HIV+, knows who infected him, and thinks the Toronto man pressing charges against his online hookup is a fool. He said, "That guy did just what I was doing before I got infected. Playing risky...taking chances. I have a pretty good idea who infected me. I'm pretty sure he knew he was infected when we had our condom free night of romance...and he didn't tell me." I wondered if he had any resentment toward this man, or thought he too should be charged with murder. "Hell, no. What he did was morally wrong. Yes, he should have told me. But I should have asked. And I shouldn't have allowed him to have sex with me without using a condom. I knew the chances I was taking and I took them. He won't win any medals for humanitarianism, but I certainly don't hold him responsible for my getting infected. The only person I can hold responsible for that is me."
I have to say that I agree with my friend. On the other hand, I also believe that HIV+ people should be held accountable for their actions, but whether this is a criminal matter or not is murky in my mind. How do you prosecute someone when their victim was a willing accomplice, not bothering to make the least amount of effort at self protection? And, if you do prosecute, how do you call it murder? Once upon a time, an HIV diagnosis was an automatic death sentence. But today, HIV+ people are living healthy lives for not just years, but decades. How can you charge someone with attempted murder when it's just as likely the victim could be felled by an accident, cancer, heart attack, stroke, or something else? I understand that people can and do die from AIDS, but those numbers have decreased dramatically since the onset of HIV, back in the early 80s, so calling a potential infection "attempted murder" seems like a claim that's ripe for further examination.
How do you come down on all of this?
Rick R. Reed is the award-winning author of ten novels and has been referred to as "the Stephen King of gay horror." Visit his website here and his blog here.
HEROES
Currently I'm doing an online read at www.eharlequin.com and a reader
posted a comment about visualizing heroes in romance novels as movie
stars/someone famous and asked if others did that and who they saw.
Truth is, often I do this. Perhaps its because I'm trying to
visualize the hero and take the author's description then transform it
as closely as possible to something I can 'see'.
I'm not one of those organized writers--oh, if only I was!--who does
plot boards and picture boards, but I do generally have an image in my
head when I write characters. Sometimes the visual is only in my head
and sometimes I'm thinking of a movie star/famous person.
So, I'm curious, how many of you visualize characters in books as someone famous? Do the heroes in romance novels transform into Patrick Dempsey, Hugh Jackmon, Daniel Craig, or some other yummy studmuffin? For those writers out there, do you use Hollywood hunks as the inspiration for your heroes?
For anyone interested, I'm also holding a contest over at www.eharlequin.com on the Single Doctor, Single Dad online read discussion thread and am giving away a book bag & autographed book to anyone who posts who they think the hero of my free online read looks like.
I'll give away a copy of Surgeon Boss, Surprise Dad (currently available at www.eharlequin.com), The Heart Surgeon's Secret Son (winner of the 2009 Golden Quill for Best Traditional Romance) or The Doctor's Pregnancy Bombshell (winner of the 2007 National Readers' Choice Award for Best Traditional Romance) to two lucky folks who leave comments! Jen will pick the winner on Thursday, June 18 around 5:00 pm PST. To be entered in the drawing, you must leave a comment and either leave your email address in the comment or send an email to admin.bookblog@gmail.com.
BIO: Janice Lynn has a Master of Science degree in nursing from Vanderbilt University and works full-time as a family nurse practitioner in a small, rural town in the southern United States. Juggling the aspects of day to day life and her life-long dream of writing happily-ever-afters, Janice lives with her husband, their four children, their three dogs: Lily, Trouble, & Jackson, their turtle Misses Turtle, and a lot of unnamed dust bunnies who have moved in
since she started her writing career.
As a teenager, Janice fell in love with romance while sneaking her mother's Harlequin novels. She dreamed of fictional worlds where good always triumphs over evil and where the girl gets her man. Since then, she's dreamed of creating stories that touch readers' hearts and
takes them into fantasy worlds of their own.
Janice belongs to Writers At Play, the Wet Noodle Posse, Romance Writers of America, and various RWA chapters where she's served in numerous capacities. She can often be found procrastinating at Facebook or www.writersatplay.com's blog when not working on her next
Harlequin Medical Romance.
A born and bred Texan, Donna Lee Schillinger has a bachelor’s degree in behavioral science and a master’s in cultural anthropology. She served in the Peace Corps in Quito, Ecuador, and continued to work in social services for 10 years, serving several years as executive director of a homeless shelter for single, young mothers.
In 2000, Donna “retired” from social work to take care of her elderly grandparents and homeschool her daughter. She soon began The Quilldriver, a custom publisher for nonprofit organizations and traditional publisher of inspirational nonfiction books.
Award-winning editor and publisher, Donna makes her writing debut with On My Own Now: Straight Talk from the Proverbs for Young Christian Women who Want to Remain Pure, Debtfree and Regretfree. She launched a nonprofit organization of the same name, with the mission to provide encouragement for young adults to maintain their Christian faith when they get out on their own. Visit her Web site at www.OnMyOwnNow. com. Donna lives in rural Arkansas with her husband John and children.
About On My Own Now:
“Freedom! Finally, life on my own!”
Excited about making your mark on the world, living life on your own terms and eating ice cream for dinner if you want? Being on your own is so great, but when the decisions get a little more difficult than “Do I wash a black-and-white striped shirt with whites or colors?”, this little book will be invaluable. On My Own Now shows you how to apply biblical wisdom of the ages to choosing everything from friends to underwear; exercising and exorcising (ooh, creepy); juggling commitments and balancing bills; taking mom and dad for all they’re worth (er, uh, we mean like taking their advice and stuff); and waiting, dating and maybe someday mating.
On My Own Now is about strengthening young women’s faith and preventing the screw-ups that can brand us for life. Donna Lee Schillinger draws on her eclectic past as a rebellious youth, Peace Corps volunteer, social worker, single mother, court mediator and executive director of a home for single young mothers. She uses gender-reversed Proverbs with real-life applications to wave the red flag of caution for young women, warning against the pitfalls of a post-modern, sexually casual, consumer-is-king society that is indelibly scarring youth with cynicism, sexually transmitted diseases and bad credit.
This compact collection of quirky vignettes is great for daily devotions, affirmations, confessions, benedictions and many other religious “tions,” all with the goal of keeping you on the yellow brick road. After all, you’re not in Kansas anymore – you’re on your own now (unless you live in Kansas, then you would still be in Kansas…).
Donna will be stopping by today to answer any questions you have for her. However, the contest will run all weekend. So on Sunday April 26 around 5 pm PST, a random commenter will be chosen to receive a copy of On My Own Now: Straight Talk from the Proverbs for Young Christian Women who Want to Remain Pure, Debtfree and Regretfree. Read More......
When I was a child, I used to dread Sunday mornings. Each week as I headed downstairs from my bedroom, I’d hear the r-r-i-i-p-p of newsprint, a sound that, to my ears, was equivalent to fingernails on a chalkboard. The culprit? My grandmother….and she wasn’t tearing out money-saving coupons. Oh no. Grandma was ripping the latest listing of spelling bee words. And no sooner would “ ‘morning, Grandma” escape my lips, she’d hand that list to me and my weekly task would promptly begin. I had to look up the words in the dictionary, learn their meaning, pronunciation and correct spelling, and then use each word in a sentence during the week.
While that once dreaded exercise led to my love of words, the next three events spawned my writing career. The first occurred at age five when I got my library card (and I’ve never been without one since); my second was my first typewriter, a green Tom Thumb (a gift from Santa), at age six. And at age ten, my favorite television show, The Girl From U.N.C.L.E., was cancelled — driving me to write my own spy adventures featuring April Dancer and Mark Slade.
After college, I moved to New York City and landed a job as an acquisitions editor, and eventually became the VP of Book Operations for that publishing company. After several years, I grew weary of the NYC of the mid-1980s (a city sullied by crack cocaine and horrific homelessness, despite Reagan’s assertion he saw no homeless people during his visit to NYC) and moved to New England where I opened an Italian-Japanese restaurant. One of my customers, Ruth Wells, (author of A to Zen and Farmer and the Poor God) suggested I take a stab at writing again. She thought the stories of my childhood were interesting and threatened to use them if I did not.
I began writing, short stories at first, and with Ruth’s encouragement, I sent them to a quarterly, and had a few published. One short story evolved into my first novel, Sweet Bitter Love, which was published by Rising Tide Press in 1997. Upon selling my restaurant in 2000, I decided to pursue a profession as a freelance writer.
In 2001, while researching the online archives of my hometown newspaper for a client, I made a keying error—a simple mistake that led me down a path I’d been avoiding most of my life; on a journey inside the world of my father, killed gangland-style more than two decades ago.
I wasn’t inspired as much as I was ‘led’ to writing this book. I began writing Painting the Invisible Man as a non-fiction, thinking I could take a journalistic approach to exploring my father’s murder and the truths of this man. When I had about 60-70 pages written I gave them to my partner, Michelle, to read. I trusted that she would be honest. She was.
She told me that the writing was lacking emotion. I remember her saying, ”There’s very little in here about you. None of the childhood stories you’ve shared with me about your childhood, the crazy things you did as a kid. Nothing about your parents’ relationship and the effect of your father’s way of life on their marriage. Why are you not writing any of that?”
I didn’t know why…at least not consciously. But as I thought about Michelle’s comments, I realized that in order to paint a true portrait of my father, I needed to paint a family portrait…and a self-portrait, as well.
I continued writing the story as non-fiction, yet I was struggling to reach my creative stream. My childhood memories, and emotions attached to them, had been sealed for far too many years. Hard as I tried, I could not tap that well.
Being a fiction writer, I understood the freedom that fiction affords. Whenever I began a new story, I awaited that moment when my fictional characters would take hold and begin to speak to me, to tell me their story. It’s a magical moment; it’s the point when my characters begin to breathe on their own. I knew that fiction would offer me the freedom I needed to explore the story with emotional honesty; to explore family issues and family secrets openly while protecting, to some degree, my family’s privacy. Since much of the story takes place during my childhood, I knew I, too, would have to re-create scenes and merge memory with imagination to bring some events to life. And after the A Million Little Pieces debacle, I did not want to risk being “Frey-ed.”
For writers thinking about exploring their personal stories, I will say this. Exploring one’s personal story is a highly emotional journey. I had to think about — and write honestly about — parts of my life I was not too proud of. Yet, in the end, what I learned about myself turned a painful journey into a joyful life.
Thanks so much, Jen and Jessica, for inviting me to be here with you this week! I love chatting with readers. I think it's because first and foremost I still consider myself a reader. I love all things book and could talk about stories and writing for, oh, a week :)
Recently someone asked me why I write comedy and at first I was stumped for an answer. For me, it's more difficult to write without humor than with it. It's a natural part of my writing voice -- and part of my personality.
I'm no stand-up comic, mind you. But in my household there's always laughter and that's very important to me. My husband and two sons are truly funny and endearing. My husband is Scottish and I wouldn't trade his dry wit for a truckload of gold coins.
In all seriousness, there have been times when a hilarious book saved my heart. They have helped me make it through the rough patches of life. Everyone faces obstacles in their life. It's how they deal with those obstacles that counts. Part of my coping mechanism is laughter and a hilarious book helps heal me. I write comedy because I want to have that same impact on readers. Is there much better than a delicious story that makes you laugh and brings you out of your doldrums? I think this is especially true now with the financial struggles everyone is currently facing. The global economy, our national economy, layoffs, the stock market plummeting -- they all make you crave a laugh-inducing pick-me-up, doesn't it?
Writing comedy can be difficult because a sense of humor is quite personal. Not everyone laughs over the same things. What one reader finds hilarious, I may find sad. What I think is funny may leave another reader cold. To me, there's a fine line between pain and laughter -- like a curb you're balanced on, go too far to the left and you fall in the gutter. Go too far to the right and you're on the grass.
While I generally write a mix of character-driven and situational comedy, I tend to lean toward the character-driven. When I look over the stories I've written, they often are about universal themes that women face. Hot Flash explores themes about empty nest, coming to terms with aging, female friendships, and learning that what you want may not actually be what you most need.
It's my sincere hope that a majority of women will "get" the themes in Hot Flash and find something about themselves in the story. All writers' greatest wish is for readers to "get" their stories.
The heroine of Hot Flash, Jill Morgan Storm, sends out surveys to happily married women in an effort to discover what makes for a successful marriage. I've recreated the survey on my website and would love for readers to come take it. Perhaps we'll all learn what makes for the most successful marriages. My bets are on a shared sense of the absurd!
Jill is a chef. When at my website (http://www.KathyCarmichael.com), you might also be interested in the recipes she makes in the book. Not only will you be able to discover her recipes, but I have posted some of my own and I've invited readers to post theirs as well!
Thanks again for having me as a guest! I'm wishing for a little more laughter in each of your lives.
Kathy Carmichael
Readers, Kathy is giving away two copies of Hot Flash to random commenters this week. So, comment here, on the excerpt or on my review of Hot Flash. The contest will run until Thursday, March 19 sometime around 5 pm PST. Please be sure to stop back by the blog or see if you're a winner or leave your email address so we can contact you.
Books, books, books!
By Kim Smith
What is your favorite book?
This seems like one of the most asked question of authors in interviews. I don’t know why, as it is normal for a writer to be an avid fan of books, and therefore, a reader. And all readers, whether they are authors or not, have favs. My daughter is not an author, but she is a heavy reader and her favs are books found in the classic section of the bookstore. With the exception of Harry Potter books. She loves the HP books with an unstoppable passion and I have found her in arguments with her friends over which of the books are better, the Twilight series, or the Harry series. She is good at pleading her case too, so few of her friends have succeeded in winning the argument.
As for myself, my tastes really run the gamut. I fell in love with reading when I discovered huge tomes like Gone with the Wind, Treasure Island, The Arabian Nights, and The Lord of the Rings. When I was younger, there was nothing I would not read. I could be found curled up on the couch or draped over a chair deep inside a fantastic voyage, or fighting goblins with sword and dagger, or sipping tea from fragile tea cups as I sat with kings and queens on fine settees.
As I have gotten older, my tastes are more settled, with mystery and suspense keeping me up at night, and fabulous romance keeping me over late from my house cleaning. I also love good nonfiction that is about the writing life, and have a good collection of it on my shelf. I am known for reading several books at a time, and sometimes my family or friends will ask how I manage doing that. Many of them find it difficult to fit one book a year into their busy lives.
It’s easy, I tell them. You have to find places to put them! Places where you are apt to sit down and read.
I keep one in the first bathroom in my house, one in the back bathroom just off my bedroom, one on the nightstand, one in my purse, and one on the treadmill. Right now I am reading Native American nonfiction in the back bathroom, a mainstream fiction in the first bathroom, a literary classic on the nightstand, a good old-fashioned romance in my purse, and a cozy mystery on the treadmill.
The one in the purse is a must do. You never know when you will have spare minutes with nothing to do. I read while riding in the car with my husband, while at the gas station and he is filling our tank, while sitting idle at the doctor’s office, dentist’s office, or at the vet’s. The biggest time for me to read is when it is my week to back up the receptionist at my office job. For one hour and thirty minutes a day for a week, I have time to do nothing but read and answer a phone. Geez, I LOVE that!
The fun thing is figuring out which one I will finish first!
My goal for 2009 is to read 52 books. I figure if I keep at least one going at all times I will succeed. I would love to learn how to do book reviews. If I read enough, maybe I will attempt to do a few of those too!
So many books… so little time!
************
Kim Smith was born in Memphis Tennessee, the youngest of four children. After a short stint in a Northwest Mississippi junior college, during the era of John Grisham’s rise as a lawyer, she gave up educational pursuits to marry and begin family life.
She has worked in many fields in her life, from fast food waitress to telephone sales. “I always got the seniors on the phone who were lonely and wanted someone to talk to. My boss couldn’t understand why in the world I spent so much time talking to them and not enough time selling. That was when I realized I love people and care deeply about their lives.”
After the birth of her two children, she gave up working outside the home for the more important domestic duties of wife and mother. When her kids decided they wanted to pursue theater as an extracurricular activity, she gave up her free time to drive them to rehearsals, training classes, and plays. During those years, she found herself bored with nothing to do to while away the hours stuck in a car. She began thinking of stories to entertain herself and pass the time. Before long she started telling her husband about her stories and he assured her she could write a book if she really wanted to. She put the idea away once she landed a job as a network administrator for a small corporation, and together the Smith’s started their own video production company.
Writing was a dream, hidden but not forgotten, and soon Kim began to talk again of trying her hand at it. She played with words, and wrote several poems, one of which was picked up for an anthology
One day in the early nineties her husband came home with a desktop computer and sat her in front of it. “Now you have no more excuses,” he said, and she realized the truth in his words. Procrastination, now no longer an option, she took off on the pursuit of penning her first book. Though that book, a young adult fantasy, was lost due to unforeseen circumstances, she kept going, writing a historical romance, and another YA.
When she decided to try out her hand at mystery writing, she discovered her true love and niche in the writing journey. She has since had four short stories, and her first mystery novel accepted for publication.
Kim is a member of Sisters in Crime, and EPIC. She still lives in the Mid South region of the United States and is currently working on her second book in the mystery series.
You can visit her website at http://www.mkimsmith.com.
Kim is giving away an ecopy of her book Avenging Angel. Kim will stop by the blog to answer any questions you have for her. To enter the contest, comment either on this post or on the excerpt from the book. This is a one day contest, so the winner will be chosen tonight, Friday February 13th around 8:00pm PDT.
Angels and Demons: It’s all about Character
I’m often asked whether I’ve ever written myself in as a character in one of my novels. When I hear that I’m tempted to nod and then describe myself as one of my murderous psychopaths (or something worse): “Sure, I’m really Jeb Taylor in Bloodstone, would you like to meet up and discuss this further, perhaps late tonight in a deserted parking lot?” Or “absolutely! Didn’t you recognize me as the sniveling psychiatrist Dr. Evan Wasserman from The Reach? I’m experimenting on poor defenseless children in my basement right this very moment!”
I wonder if a certain bit of curiosity is what’s really behind the question; is this a variation of the more common one we horror writers get where we’re asked how we can write “that stuff?” In other words, are we really that twisted, and if so, why haven’t we been committed by now?
Or maybe it’s a variant of another common one: “where do you get your ideas?”
It may be hard for people who don’t make stuff up for a living to understand how we writers create people who seem (if we’ve done our jobs right) to be so real. The truth is I have never dropped myself, whole and unharmed, into a novel or story. But I think a bit of me bleeds into every character I create, whether it's a way of thinking, one particular viewpoint, mannerism or physical characteristic. After all, they're all figments of my imagination, these people in my head, and as such, they have to be coming from some part of me... Villains most of all, because to me, the very best villains are those who are complex, who have reasons for why they act the way they do--even if you might loathe them in the end.
Take Wasserman from The Reach as an example. He’s a pretty sick man in many ways, and what he does to young Sarah in the name of science is horrible. But readers can (I hope) understand how he reached that point, even if they don’t agree with it or believe they would do the same. He’s haunted by his own past, unable to live up to his own or others’ expectations, a man who is, in many ways, far weaker than casual observers might think, although he puts on a good show. And he’s in love with a woman who just might be more vicious than he is, although he doesn’t yet know it.
Dr. Wasserman has been pushed into a corner. He’s desperate, and lonely, and afraid. Who among us hasn’t been there at some point?
This is what makes a good villain: one who is fully fleshed out and alive, who makes “bad choices,” as my seven year old might say, but has his or her own reasons for doing so.
On the flip side, a true hero should have a fatal flaw, and more than that, they should be tested at some point during the story and pushed near the breaking point. Perhaps they’ve done something they’re not particularly proud of, something that just might, in the eyes of another character or person from their own past, paint them as a villain. Perhaps that one terrible act comes back to haunt them before too long, and overcoming it is part of their journey. It makes for very compelling fiction.
Let’s face it. Life’s not black and white. We all are heroes to some, villains to others (and before you protest, think back on some of those people from your past you might have hurt in various ways. Relationships that ended badly? How do you think those people would describe you, if asked?)
Good fiction should be about complex characters who live and breathe on the page. And sure, the characters I create are all a part of me in some way, and in order to write them, I must understand them. I must put some little piece of my own heart and soul into their creation, because if I don’t they’ll be flatter and more lifeless than a cardboard cutout.
After all, life isn’t that simple.
Even the devil was an angel, once upon a time.
****************
Nate Kenyon's latest suspense thriller, The Reach, has received raves from readers and critics everywhere, including a starred review in Publishers Weekly, which called it "superb" and said it would "leave readers breathless." His first novel, Bloodstone, was a Bram Stoker Award Finalist, P&E Novel of the Year award winner, and a Five Star bestseller in hardcover, garnering enthusiastic reviews from places such as Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and many others. His third novel, THE BONE FACTORY, will be released from Leisure Books in July 2009. He has a science fiction novella, PRIME, forthcoming from Apex Books, and has published short fiction in magazines such as Shroud, Terminal Frights, Monstros and The Belletrist Review, among others. A member of the Horror Writers of America and International Thriller Writers, Kenyon lives in Massachusetts with his wife and three children. Visit him online at http://natekenyon.com, on MySpace at http://www.myspace.com/natekenyon, or Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1609961&ref=name.
Nate will be giving away copies of The Reach
Greetings from Southern California. I’m thrilled to be blogging here at Book Talk with J & J. Although I must confess I don’t have the exact release date yet, I get more and more excited about the release of Marrying Minda, my Western historical romance, tentative early 2009, at the Cactus Rose line of The Wild Rose Press.
Marrying Minda is a book of the heart. I know: snore, that’s such a cliché. But it is so true. I invented a fictional little Nebraska town based on one of my favorite areas of the Cornhusker state, Platte County, and named it Paradise. And the time period is one that I love to research, the late 1870’s. If it weren’t for my personal preferences of flush toilets and antibiotics, I’d just love to live there.
My mail-order bride Minda Becker sojourns to Paradise and finds herself married to a man whose kisses melt her toes. The pretty spinster has waited a long time to find a man to love her like she deserves.
Only her handsome bridegroom is the wrong guy. Cowboy Brixton Haynes can’t wait to hightail it back to Texas, leaving her in charge of a passel of orphans. He can’t deny he’d like a honeymoon with his beautiful bride, but he’ll never give his heart. Leaving can’t happen soon enough…until outlaws threaten the family he never thought he’d want.
So..what’s a California girl doing, writing about Nebraska? Well, in my humble opinion, it’s a vastly over-looked setting for Old West romance. It’s so rich in history and beauty, with the rolling prairie, the knolls and rivers, The Oregon Trail and Chimney Rock, the native tribes and the blazing sunsets. Not that I don’t appreciate Texas —my current release, Midnight Bride, is set there. I’ve had one reviewer compare it to the writings of Diana Palmer. And I’ve set a current wip in the gold country of Southern California.
Nonetheless, Paradise will likely always be “home.”
I’ve dabbled in other genres. I had an editor seriously serious about a proposed trilogy of action-adventure. Until the line closed. But I always come back to the Westerners who make up the heart of America. I guess my childhood camping trips in the High Sierras started it all. I clearly recall the first time my dad showed me Indian grinding holes and a pioneer graveyard.
Later on, my college years in Nebraska and student-teaching in Colorado kind of cemented the whole thing.
Throw in a career teaching English, both writing and American Literature. I honed my own writing skills while teaching it, and absorbed all the history that goes along with American Lit. So writing Westerns ended up running through my veins.
But how to begin writing romance? Well, I found out one of my teaching colleagues had published a romance novel! She directed me to the indispensable Romance Writers of America. I joined my local chapters (OCC and LARA) right away, awestruck at meeting real authors, some whose names I recognized, whose books I’d read.
I listened, I learned. Took online classes. Read books and more books. Got a critique partner. Fortunately, mine happens to be the multi-published, best-selling and award-winning writer of Harlequin Historicals and Silhouette Desires, Charlene Sands. She got me to start my first novel The Outlaw's Woman with a better scene. I entered it in a contest and got published after it finaled. That’s when I knew what I want to do with the rest of my life.
I hope you’ll enjoy your Christmas present from me and the Cactus Rose Line at The Wild Rose Press. My holiday story, His Christmas Angel, will be a free online read in a couple of months. The story is set in my fictional town of Paradise and features the fine-looking young schoolteacher, once Brixton’s rival for Minda’s hand. I figured he deserved a happy ending all his own.
Please check my website for actual release dates for both of these projects. Join my mailing list, too, and be my friend at MySpace.
All participants this week will be in a drawing for a copy of Marrying Minda when it’s released. I promise you the book is worth the wait. It received first place honors in two recent fiction contests, the Merritt “Magic Moment Contest” sponsored by the San Antonio Romance Authors, and the “Ignite the Flame” Contest at Central Ohio Fiction Writers.
To read the entire award-winning excerpt, check out the Biography page on my website.
Now, on to you all. Who are your favorite authors? What romance genres do you like best? (I just met a fireman on myspace who sent me his erotic Western! I’m eager to give it a try. I’m so fond of firemen I married one!)
If you’re writer, what are you currently working on?
Let me hear from you!
Many cyberhugs,
~Tanya
http://www.tanyahanson.com/
http://tanyahanson.blogspot.com
http://www.myspace.com/tanyahansonbooks
This week we welcome Jessica Barksdale Inclan to Book Talk with J & J. I met Jessica on Facebook and she answered my call for author promos. She has provided us with a guest blog and an excerpt from her new book Intimate Beings. And she is going to be with us this week to talk with you and answer any questions you have for her.
Now for the contest that y'all are waiting for. Jessica is giving away an autographed copy of Intimate Beings to a random commenter. You can ask Jessica a question on this post, comment on her guest blog or excerpt, or go to her website at http://www.jessicabarksdaleinclan.com and tell us something of interest you've found there. Or if you've read one of Jessica's books before, tell us about it.
The contest will run until Friday, October 3rd at 5:00 PDT. You know the drill... and contest rules are posted on the left sidebar.
Thoughts about Writing Romance
Hello! It is wonderful to be blogging here. My name is Jessica Barksdale Inclan, and I am the author of five paranormal romances—the fifth, Intimate Beings comes out the 30th of this month!
I haven’t always been a writer of romances. In fact, I have moved around in many genres, writing poetry, short stories, literary/contemporary novels, and romances. Once a few years ago, a friend and I decided we were going to write a screenplay. We read a few screenplays, read a couple of screenplay books, and we (writers both, published, long time in the field, etc) thought we could write a script that would be so great we'd end up getting an Oscar for our writing. We didn't exactly say that, but we thought we could. We fantasized a little about our eventual success. We imagined who would play the roles in the movie.
To our credit, we worked really hard at our script (a couple of years went by), and when the time came to have a "real" screenplay writer read it (I know a couple from my UCLA teaching), we learned the hard sad truth that our screenplay had problems. Firstly, it was a novel with intermittent dialog. Secondly, it just didn't work.
So we tried again (another year or so went by), this time reading some more screenplays, getting the screenplay writing program, working hard. Another screenwriter friend/former student read it, and wow. Not so good again.
Finally, we gave up. No Oscar for us, at least, not with these screenplays.
When I started writing romances--or, actually--before I started, I imagined that it was no big deal. Tell a love story. But then my screenplay writing experience kind of reared its ugly head, and I decided I needed to do some intense study. I spent one summer and fall reading about 100 romances. I went down to Orinda library, checking out a dozen books at a time reading one in the aisles before I left. I read and read and read. And then I wrote the novel that would become When You Believe (The Believe Trilogy, Book 1).
At the first read, my agent thought I was heavy on the paranormal and light on the romance, so I went back at it. And the good news was that someone bought it. And the better news was that I liked what I wrote.
Contrary to the beliefs of some out there, he writing was hard. To understand that writing a romance is hard was the same as realizing that writing a screenplay is hard. It's the same sort of knowledge that comes to most beginning writers--the ones who want to quit their day jobs and sell a romance and make it big. Danielle and Nora big. I taught a one day class about a half a year ago, and in the class, a woman actually said that, something like, "I am tired of working and want to write romances."
She meant it and was extremely peeved with me when I did not nod in agreement to her plan. I've met countless writers who want to write the next big mystery or thriller right now. Immediately.
Can I teach them how? they ask.
Damn, if I knew, I'd do it myself.
The point is, I had feelings myself about romance writing. I thought it was a slam dunk until I started reading. I saw that these writers were doing things I didn't actually know how to do. Plot was important, but more important was this connection they were building between the main characters, the couple, male/female, female/female, male/male (I stop at this point. While there might be other couples out there, that's as far as I go). Okay, a ménage a trois or several showed up, but really, there was always this underlying connection between two people. That was the thing I had to learn how to do and do well.
And I had to pull different tools from my toolbox. My editor said, "Look, you need to describe people, places, and things." I had to start working on the color of my nouns. Coming from a literary background, I eschewed the description of anyone's "heart-shaped" face and the like. Well, romance readers want to know what people look like. So I learned how to do it, and do it in a way that aligned with my ideas about writing.
Here's what I know. I'm not Nora or Danielle. I probably never will be that popular or even close. I'm not exactly sure I want to be popular in that way, either. But both of these women know how to really capture the connection between their two main characters and pull and twist the reader throughout the entire story, making us feel they will never get together. Will they? No. Will they? Yes. No. Yes. No. Yes!!
But I also know that this writing isn't easy, something you can do and quit your day job tomorrow (I still have both of mine). It's as hard as anything, any kind of writing. It's as hard as a screenplay. A mystery. A thriller. A literary piece. A poem. There are skills and talents you can learn, but some you may never be expert in. You may laugh at certain forms of writing, but my feeling is you never know until you sit down in front of your writing machine and try.
Jessica