Category Archives: Romance

July 3, 2014 · 11:29 am

It takes a village…

Writers need several things to be successful: imagination, talent, and drive being core ones. But they also need balance between their professional writing lives and their personal ones, and they need essential people  they can depend on and who are supportive of them and their writing needs.

Mega published writer Barbara Wallace, in her June RWA article, “Seven Habits of Effective Authors” makes the case that writers need balance between their two worlds: the writing one and the non-writing, or personal, one. We all work. Whether it is inside the home or out of it, writing full-time or part-time. But we can’t write/work 24/7. We would be zombies if we didn’t get away from the “work” aspect for a while. Why do you think employers give vacation days to employees? They know you shouldn’t be sitting at a job all day every day without a break.  You need a balance between the two. Being with family and friends and enjoying the time spent together, doing things and relaxing, strikes a good balance between the solitary work of writing and this need for social interaction.

Along with balance comes support. Writers must cultivate support on many levels and along many different avenues. Having a supportive family who leaves you alone while you work at your writing is great; it’s a gift, actually. Anyone who can do the laundry for me to allow me an extra couple hours of writing time is a blessed person in my eyes. But your friends and critique partners are solid support systems as well. They will listen, with friendly and critical ears, to your ideas, plot problems, deadline needs, etc. and are excellent sounding boards. They can offer advice, questions for clarification, and just point out inconsistencies in your writing that you may not have seen. And everyone needs a good old fashioned bitch session every now and again, and who better than your girlfriends to join you? Hopefully, armed with chocolate and adult beverages!

Writing is a solitary endeavor, even when you have a writing partner. Being able to balance your life and have good, solid support systems surrounding you, are very good ways for you to be more effective in your writing.

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July 1, 2014 · 11:27 am

All it takes is one “yes.”

Recently, I was a guest blogger at NHRWA author Mary K. Stone’s blog  http://marykstoneblog.com/ I decided to upload that entry to my site as well, so check it out here and then visit her website to see what she’s up to.

I’ve loved crossword puzzles since I learned how to spell, probably because I love words so much. My favorite birthday present when I turned 8? A dictionary.

So, what’s a 9 letter word for: refusal, dismissal, forsaking?

Here’s a hint: the answer starts with an r, ends in ion and can make you cry your eyes out and eat an entire package of Milano cookies in one sitting. Make that 2 packages.

Got it yet? Yup. REJECTION.

Some other words used to define rejection include: turning down, spurning, repudiation, and, my absolute favorite: the brush-off.

As a writer I have experienced my fair – and unfair – share of rejection from everyone from editors to literary agents, to publishers. I‘ve had synopses discarded, proposals denounced, queries snubbed, and outlines slighted.

I’ve been rejected in person, in print, in emails, in snail-mail, via phone and even once in a text.

I’ve experienced rude rejections (Ms. Jaeger, please do not query us again as we do not accept what you write) and form letter rejections ( Dear Writer: Thank you for your submission. We will not be asking for any further work from you)

Being a writer is fraught with enough problems without adding rejections to it. Finding time to write, liking what your write, having other people like what you write; editing, revising, restructuring; plot arc construction, motivation, goals and conflicts for the characters; deciding on a setting, theme, names of characters. The list is as long as my ingredients list for fruitcake!

The first time I ever got a piece I ‘d written rejected by an editor, I was 25. I’d already had over a dozen fictional story stories published in literary magazines, and had been writing non-fiction articles concerning health care and nursing for several years. I’d sent an article proposal based on my master’s thesis to a well-known nursing journal that had already published me twice before. I thought the topic was very timely and felt it would make a great addition to their monthly publication. I waited three months for a reply. Just as I was about to call them – this was eons before email was available and we were ALLOWED to call editors, I received a form rejection letter. Not even addressed to me personally, just “Dear Writer…” The editor stated the topic for the article was not relevant for their publication and that they were not going to ask for the article in its entirety.

Was I crushed? You betcha. Was I pissed off? To say the least. Did I want literary revenge? Hell, yeah! Did I do anything about it? Of course I did. When I finished the gallon of Cherry Garcia that I kept hidden in my freezer for emotional emergencies, I queried another nursing journal, telling them everything I’d told the first one. I got an actual phone call (remember, no email, no texting, no cells phones in the 80’s) from the Editor-in-Chief who wanted the article for their July issue, which would be featuring my UBER-RELEVANT topic from other health professionals.

The takeaway I got from this experience? Not everyone is going to like what you write. But someone will.

Flash forward several years to when I started writing book length fiction. When I was done with my first masterpiece, I began the literary agent query route. I sent out over 75 queries to agents all over the U.S. who specialized in representing what I wrote at the time: medical thrillers. Over 95 % of the responses I got back were form rejection letters addressed to “Dear Writer…” Three agents actually addressed me by name and told my why the weren’t choosing to represent my work, and two asked me to change the book completely around to what they thought might sell, and then they would consider – maybe –representing me.

When the box of Dunkin’ Donuts was gone, I picked up one of the responses I received that actually had been positive. I still have this rejection letter in my file cabinet today. The part that stuck out so plainly to me read: “While I do not feel I can devote the time and attention to representing this work that it needs, please be assured, you are a very good writer, and it only takes one person to say “yes” for you to be published. Unfortunately, I’m not that person, but I believe she or he is out there and that you will connect with them. Good luck, and I know I will see your name on a book jacket some day.”

 This was without doubt the nicest rejection I had ever received up until that time, and, to this day. If all rejection letters could be written this way, I believe we would have a lot less depressed authors milling about.

Now, the takeaway I got from this letter? You got it; same as before: not everyone is gong to like what your write. But someone will.

It only takes that one someone – be it an agent, editor, or publisher, and all those rejections that have been lining your file cabinet drawers will seem inconsequential and irrelevant. Or they will even seem like what they really are: the dues you’ve paid for persistence and perseverance.

As a writer, rejection of your work is part of the road you will travel on your way to publication. Yes, it hurts for someone to tell you they don’t like or want your work. Yes, it blows big time to have someone in a position of literary power tell you what you’ve written is not pertinent or that they don’t know how they could market it effectively. And yes, it destroys your soul when you’re rejected flat out, with no reason why, in a dry worded form letter.

But…

It only takes one editor, or literary agent, or publisher to say “YES.”

 

 

 

 

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June 27, 2014 · 9:11 am

Effective Habit IV: Marketing wisely

If you listen to anyone under the age of say, 25, they will tell you Social Media rules the world. People meet, date one another, share info – personal and not – buy things, and generally live by their media outlets. Most of these outlets are as easy to get to as typing in a few keystrokes into a cell phone, which is, literally, at the ready and with you all the time now. Words like Retweet, Like, PinIt, Hash-tag, are all now vital parts of our vocabulary. Using social media is also a way writers can get the word out about their most recent creations.

In multi-published author Barbara Wallace‘s article Seven Habits of Effective Writers in the June 2014 RWA magazine Romance Writers Report, habit no. 4 makes the case that writers who write effectively – meaning they get a lot of writing work done – use social media tools and marketing judiciously. They don’t jump on every band wagon out there and send off daily updates on blogs, websites, Pinterest, Twitter and GoodReads, to name a few. They aren’t trolling  review sites, writer blogs or shopping on Ebay.

No. Effective writers WRITE. They use their time to put words on the page. Yes, they market what they’ve written. When the bottom line for publishing houses and even self publishers is sales, you have to get the word out about your new opus. But the point is, you don’t need to be doing this as a full time job. Your job is to write.

Some mega-published authors are lucky enough to have people who work for them who will do all this marketing/media for them. From my mouth to God’s ears this happens to me someday. Establishing some sort of presence on social media appears to be a very effective way to drive buzz about your work. Even if two or three friends “share” your news with their other hundreds of “friends” – friends you don’t necessary have – that’s a few hundred more people who know about your book then did this morning. If you send out twitter alerts on a regular basis and ask followers  to retweet to their followers, well, there’s that domino effect again.

Before cell phones ruled the world, marketing consisted of advertising in magazines, on tv, on the radio. Authors were sent on multi-city book tours to promote, talk about and sell their books. Now, you can do several web interviews in a day from the privacy of your living room, or even guest host on a blog site, which I did just last weekend. The opportunities to get the word out about your writing is so much easier than it ever was due to the advent of Social Media.

Using it in a wise and shrewd manner is another effective habit that I am going to adopt, because really, my job is to write! An I would rather be doing that.

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June 24, 2014 · 10:04 am

Effective Habits, Part II

So the second effective habit Barbara Wallace talks about in her article in the June 2014 edition of RWA magazine is about establishing structure as a writer. Structure, when used here, doesn’t mean how you construct your stories. It refers to being consistent and regimented in how much you want to write every day.

Writing goals are wonderful yardsticks when you write. They can be anything from a daily word count, to how many scenes you want to do a day, to how many chapters you want to get on paper in a given time frame. On the days that I don’t go to my paying job, I routinely set a goal of 1000-2500 written words. They don’t have to be perfect, they just have to get written down. This translates, when I’m working on my WIP, to about 8-10 pages per day. Some days I write a great deal more, but I never write less. And if I’m not pounding it out on the novel, then I’d doing it in this blog. Most of my blog entries average between 600 and 900 words, so that’s a fair chunk of writing still, on those days the WIP isn’t going smoothly. Every November a competition called NANOWRIMO occurs. The acronym stands for National Novel Writing Month, and the goal is to write AT LEAST a 50,000 word novel in the month. I’ve done it for the past two years and both times I’ve exceeded the word count simply by setting a daily goal and sticking to it NO MATTER WHAT. This is the key to structure: doing what you’ve set out to do no matter what.

Many writers who are lucky enough to actually support themselves with their writing and do not have to have outside employment to survive, will all tell you the same thing: they treat writing as their 9-5 job. It may not occur exactly in those hours, but the reality is they work full 8 hour days or longer on their craft. Sitting down at the typewriter/laptop, and producing words-sentences-pages every day is how writers ,who are successful, write.

I’m a terrible deadline-er. This means that, 1. I hate deadlines, 2. I have never, ever, made one, and 3. I hate deadlines.I was that kid in school who always had their summer writing assignment done before july 4, who always had the term papers ready to be handed in at least a month before they were due, and I never studied the night before an exam. Never. I always had the full studying done long before that. In my adult life this hatred of deadlines shows its head in similar ways:  I amortized my mortgage so my house was paid for decades before it was supposed to be. I pay cash for most things because I do not like that monthly credit card statements that says “minimum due now,” and I am always ALWAYS early for work. How does this apply to writing? Well, if you give yourself daily goals, you will never be in that deadline crunch when you are furiously typing those last, critical pages for submission, and you can have the luxury of reading, re-reading and revising the work to make it the absolute best you can do.

Structure is a good thing. To a writer, it is essential.

 

 

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June 21, 2014 · 1:00 pm

Tips from the Pros

Last Saturday  I attended my monthly NHRWA meeting in Bow. The “featured speakers” that day were all members of our chapter who have had publishing success either traditionally with print publishers, or by self publishing their work. The round table discussion was a very informative one for me and the chapter.  Some of, but not all, the speakers included, Christyne Bulter, Susan A. Wall, Nora De Luc, and Maggie McGinnis.  This was a varied mixing of authors and styles, but they all had one thing in common: They were published authors, some of them many times over.

My take away knowledge from their discussion of their writing paths was that each writer has to decide for herself what she is hoping to accomplish with publication. For the self pub’ed writers, it was more of a sense of writing and marketing control that guided them towards that route. They wanted the final say in things such as distribution of their work, art design, publicity, and ultimately, the control of the monies earned from their sales. The traditional pub’ed writers were happy to give over those jobs such as worrying about cover designs, editing, publicity and distribution to the “professionals” and concentrating on what they loved doing most: writing.

I can easily see both sides of this literary coin, even though I have opted to try and fit into the traditional side of it.  I’ve opted to try and be published via the book route that arrives on shelves and flies into your hands to find its way to your home because, I’ll be honest,  I’m lazy. I enjoy writing. It is to me the oxygen that keeps me alive. I would rather be writing than doing almost anything else. Most days, anyway. If I had to worry about  the formatting font and type needed to upload a book on Amazon, or tracking my sales ( assuming I had any!) , or the licensing and regulations necessary for this to happen, and even the cover design, book jacket blurb, complete self editing, line copy and content-wise, and them having to promote the work myself, I think I wouldn’t like writing as much as I do. I don’t mind having other people who know what they are doing, well, do that, for me.

Having said that, the women I know who have self published their work are dynamos at all of this and I am eternally envious of that. They are organized, focused, determined and talented women who have opted to be in total control of their careers, and my hat is off to them. I  know myself too well to know that I could never be as dedicated, methodical,  structured and regulated as they are. Not to mention, they are a talented bunch of writers.

So, whether we are self published, traditionally published, or not published at all, it is good to know we have options as far as the routes we want to take our careers through. The New Hampshire arm of the RWA is a wonderful mix of talented, spirited, informative writers who make it a joy for me to come to every meeting. You can check out their website at:  NHRWA and maybe catch us at the next meeting. This is a very welcoming, supportive, and encouraging group of romance writers, and women, in general.

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June 14, 2014 · 12:42 pm

E-D-I-T is a four letter word

“So the writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads.”
― Dr. Seuss

I love me some Theodore Geisel!

Truly though, as a writer, I feel my words are my babies. I impregnate the page with them, nurture them through sentence structure and thought processes, expell them into a full story and then foster their development and maturation into a finished manuscript. Then I sit back and revel in their brilliance. And no one had better say a disparaging or unkind word about them or they will suffer my mamma lion wrath.

And then, reality sets in… and I edit.

Editing is a lot like trying to lose weight. You have all this extra weight ( the words) that is making you feel heavy and lugubrious (telling, not showing, non-action words, fragmented sentences). You need to go on a weight reduction plan ( edit) to loose those unwanted pounds. Along the way you struggle, cheat, become discouraged, plateau, feel deprived, and then – if you are lucky – shed that unwanted and not-needed poundage. Now, you hopefully have a beach body. Or, in other words, at this point you have a manuscript that is cohesive, thought provoking and tightly written.

I have been sequestered for days, foregoing all pleasurable aspects of life such a watching Housewives of NYC and Major Crimes,  eating, and exercising, in order to edit a piece that has a very good shot at publication.  I am determined to “get the weight off” this piece and make it the best thing I can write.

My hair is suffering from all the pulling I am doing and my fingers are beginning to go numb from typing. But, I am pressing on and killing my babies – as Stephen King says – and whittling down the words, the fat, the bloated sentences.

I will be beach body ready soon!

My words, though they flow, are more tell than show. So I’ll  cut them and prune them, and hope I don’t ruin them.

Dr. Seuss has nothing to worry about!

 

 

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May 24, 2014 · 11:49 am

Success

“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” Thomas. A Edison

What does the word success mean to you with regard to your writing? Do you consider yourself successful if you have sold a story or a novel? Are you a success if you’ve made a certain amount of money with your writing? If your writing has afforded you the ability to “quit your day job?” Are you successful because you were able to write 2500 words today and every day for the past week? ( That’s a goodie!) Would you consider it a success if you got a poem or article published in a local magazine?

What defines success to you as a writer?

I’ll bet if you ask ten writers this question you will get 10 different answers. I consider this a good thing, because we shouldn’t adopt the cookie cutter definition of the word when comparing it to your writing.

The New Oxford American Dictionary defines success as follows: SUCCESS: noun

  • the accomplishment of an aim or purpose
  •  the attainment of popularity or profit
  •  a person or thing that achieves desired aims or attains prosperity

For me personally, as a writer, success has several definitions. I consider any day as a success if I get some kind of writing done, be it this blog, my new WIP, or even journaling. The act of recording my thoughts I consider a success.

I also feel successful with regard to my writing when I finish a tough paragraph, chapter, or article. Writing for me is more than just thoughts on the page. I put a great deal of energy into getting things worded just the way I want them, so that they convey exactly what I mean to say. I’ve got a dog-earred thesaurus on my desk that actually has pages breaking away from the spine because I’ve used it so much.

Whenever I complete and post a blog entry I feel a great amount of internal success because I’m living up to the goal I made for myself earlier this year when my website went live. I vowed to write a bare minimum of three times per week – more if I could – and post. So far I’ve been successful at doing this.

Take a look at your own writing.  By your own definition, are you successful with it? Are you having doubts about it and thinking of giving up on it? Reread Edison’s quote above and then decide what makes you and your writing successful.

Any thoughts?

 

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May 10, 2014 · 8:20 am

Deb Dixon Conference

On this lovely day before Mother’s Day, I’m privileged to be attending the Deb Dixon  Book In A Day Conference in Nashua with my New Hampshire RWA chapter. This was the perfect Mother’s day present  I gave to myself. Deb Dixon has an amazing CV and her landmark instructional book, Goal, Motivation and Conflict, helped me plot my last two books. I was able to pen them so easily, I wished I had known about her book when I was a neophyte writer.

After attending two writing conferences in two weeks ( last week was the NECRWA conference in Boston), I am uberinspired with my writing. I’ve updated my goals and I’m going to be starting something new tomorrow. Each day that I can – and hopefully that will be everyday – I plan on putting a quote up on this blog and will try to relate it to my writing journey. I hope you will join me in this new endeavor.

For now, I’m off to learn from the master, Deb Dixon.

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May 3, 2014 · 9:46 pm

Conference end

Days like today always remind me why I love being a writer and attending writing conferences. Shared experiences, instilled knowledge, networking. This is why you come to conferences and why you should.

Today’s schedule included a class on finding your voice as a writer and how to use humor in your writing. I’ve done a previous blog on finding your writer’s voice and this class reiterated to me why it’s so important to be true to yourself and your writing style. It is distinctly yours and the more your write, the better it gets.

For our luncheon speaker today we had Cara McKenna take us through her journey to published author and gave us some advice on how to navigate through the sometimes tortuous waters of the publishing industry. With some colorful phrases and through a few tears, she made every writer in the room feel as if their journey was a worthwhile endeavor.

I attended a very good workshop in  the afternoon by Megan Frampton titled, Angst and Affability: Using Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice to Craft New Adult and Contemporary Romance. She drew comparisons and contrasts between the older books and their contemporary usages and it was quite fascinating.

Oh, and I did my two pitches. And survived! Suffice it to say, I had a VERY GOOD outcome with them. More will follow  ( hopefully) on that in the future.

I encourage everyone who writes to attend a writing conference at least yearly. I go more often because I can and, let’s face it,  want to. Even if you learn one thing you never knew before about writing/publishing/editing, whatever, or meet one person who can help change your life, the expense is always worth it. I’m going home armed with a new energy and desire to write. I have new writing goals for myself and am determined to see them through.

One of the most important things I learned this weekend was to keep at it. Keep writing and reading what you love. Don’t be discouraged if it isn’t your time to be discovered – it will be one day! Just keep at it and keep loving it.

Good advice.

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May 3, 2014 · 1:10 am

Conference – again!

So,the first day of the NECRWA conference is done. What a day! So glad I came. Two perfect standouts for me today. One was the Angela James master class b4youhitsend. I learned more in two hours with her in this class then I did in four years of college english and writing courses. The second was the dinner’s key note speaker, Bella Andre. She detailed her remarkable journey to publication both traditionally and digitally, and she made us all remember “It’s all about the book,” and “keeping your promise to the reader.”

I consider myself an okay writer when it comes to the mechanics of the craft: punctuation, tense, word use, etc. I’m usually a pretty fair to good editor of my own work. But after hearing Angela James speak for two hours about how to make your manuscript as perfect as it can be, and all the mistakes she’s sees with submissions,  I will admit I am an absolute  novice when it comes to editing. Simple things, like knowing when to capitalize words or how to use adjectives and adverbs correctly, I thought were second nature to me. Noooooooo. Right after I publish this I am going straight back to my WIP (Work in progress) and use the handouts she gave the class to go over every line of my manuscript with a fine tooth  digital editing comb. The class was pared down from an 8 hour workshop to 2, and believe me, even in those two hours my head was spinning with knowledge. I fully intend to take the 8 hour course when it is given and will consider it some of the best money I’ve spent all year on my writing career.

Super Best-Selling novelist Bella Andre’s speech was an inspiration. I am significantly older than she is and just starting out on my writing/publishing journey, but she said so many wonderful things that just touched my writing heart, the most important of which is to always keep the promise you made to the reader. The book is the most important and vital thing – not checking your social media for sales numbers, or reviews. The book itself, the story. That’s what should be uppermost on the mind of the writer. I am going to print that out and keep it next to my laptop at home. Every time I write I will see those words and remember.

Day two promises to be another gem -even though I have my two pitches!! Oh well, what’s the worst that can happen?
Details to follow tomorrow.

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