Tag Archives: Romance Writer’s Association

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 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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May 2, 2014 · 5:02 pm

Conference – Part 2

So it’s the first day of the NECRWA conference in Burlington. After checking in I received my “goodie bag” complete with program, name lanyard and my scheduled editor appointments for tomorrow morning. I get to “pitch”  my newest work in an 8 minute diatribe to two powerful editors at two distinct publishing houses. How do you define nervous? I’ve done this before at other conferences and that feeling of nervous anticipation coupled with sweat-producing dread never seems to go away. I know I have nothing to be nervous about – after all, I talk for a  living. But I think it’s that little nugget of self doubt that always permeates my soul when I talk about the stuff I write. Will the person like it? WIll they understand the story line I’m talking about? WIll they think I’m a complete illiterate moron? Will I stutter, falter, spit?  And God forbid – will I forget the story line I am pitching? All  these things run through my mind when I think about the pitch.

I’m a confident woman. Really. I know myself and I know my stuff. I can articulate – most of the time – well. I write fairly well, or so I’ve been told. But when it comes to talking about my writing with a complete stranger – who, by the way,  may be  my ticket to publication – I turn into an inarticulate, thread of thought losing toddler. That’s just dumb!

I’m not going to think about it for now. For today I’m going to attend the meetings I’ve chosen, learn from the masters, and just relax and enjoy the moment. I’ll think about the pitch later…probably all night long…and I won’t sleep, and I’ll be bone tired tomorrow and then then  I really will forget the story line, or falter, or stutter, or spit.

Oh god! What have I gotten myself into?

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May 1, 2014 · 9:08 am

Conferences

In my professional life – the one that pays me a salary – I have to attend several educational conferences every year in order to keep my licensing credentials up to date. These conferences are usually long winded, many times boring, and often soul draining because of the tedium involved with the materials. This weekend, I get to attend a conference I am eagerly looking forward to with joy and anticipation. The NECRWA Let your Imagination Take Flight Conference in Boston. The featured speakers list is a who’s who of amazing romance writers, editors and agents,  including Judith Arnold,  Bella Andre and Angela James. I can’t wait to hear all their pearls of wisdom.

Let’s face it: conferences can be expensive and time consuming. Most are usually never near where you live, so there’s always travel time and gas money involved, or in some cases, plane fare. With the travel goes the obligatory hotel stay. I usually stay in the hotel where the conference is being held just because I’m lazy and don’t want to shuffle from one hotel to the other. Then you’ve got to include the cost of meals if the conference doesn’t provide them. Even with all that, I am still an eager and willing conference attendee because I always learn something and the chance to interact and network with others who love writing as much as I do is very rewarding. I’ve always thought that if I learn one new thing and make at least one new writing friend at a conference, then the expense was more than worth it. I’ve never been let down with this thinking.

So I’m off to the conference today and will be live tweeting @peggy_jaeger and blogging here about all the fabulousness and info that I’ll be collecting.

Next weekend it’s off to Nashua for the Deb Dixon Book In  A Day conference – another great experience in writing. Deb Dixon is a writer/speaker who wrote the quintessential instruction book Goal Motivation  and Conflict, a must have for any writer. More about that conference at a later date.

 

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April 26, 2014 · 10:19 am

Why I write romantic fiction

Those who know me personally already know the answer to this one. Sometimes, though, it’s good to lay it all out so everyone knows the same thing.

For most of my life I’ve loved reading mysteries. As a kid I read Nancy Drew and the Trixie Beldon mysteries like they were sustenance for my starving body. As I got older I discovered Agatha Christie and by the time she died I had read every one of her novels and short stories at least twice. I never really read what was called “love stories” until after I had my daughter. I was browsing through the book store one day, looking for a new author – since most of the ones I liked had died! – and I spotted a Nora Roberts paperback. It was Irish Thoroughbred. I read the back jacket and it seemed like I’d like it, so I took it home and read it. In three hours. I was absolutely hooked by the way she wove a story. The same day I went back to the bookstore and bought the other three titles they had in her name. They were devoured within three days. For the past 25 years I have read everything published by Roberts, including her JDRobb works. By opening my reading world to romantic fiction, Roberts introduced me to a wealth of  other  romance novelists who have made my life so much sweeter and more exciting with their writings.

When I decided I wanted to try and write romance, I sat down and made a list – really! a list – of why I loved reading it so much. These were the highlights:

  • there is usually a happy, relationship-resolved ending. And who doesn’t like a happy ending?
  • the female characters are always independent, smart, many times funny and witty, go-getters, nurture-ers, thoughtful and someone I would like to be friends with.
  • the male leads are usually – but not always – alpha males, successful in almost everything but love ( hence the heroine!), smart, charming, family oriented ( usually) and someone I would like to have in my life. The beta males are pretty hot, too.
  • the secondary characters seem real to me, not walk on’s who come in and then go, usually just to deliver a message, like so many other kinds of novels I’ve read. You never see them again and they serve no purpose in the character’s life except to tell them one piece of info. In romance writing, the secondary characters are real people, just like you’d have in your own life. And they serve real purposes in the main character’s lives.
  • the sex is written from an emotional viewpoint, and not a clinical one. I’ve read enough “popular fiction” where the obligatory sex scene describes a going into b and then c happening. Boring. In romance, we get to hear and witness the character’s emotions, responses, desires and dreams. And a really good author will make you feel like the character’s emotions could be yours as well.
  • the stories told around the romance are fun, sad, exciting, mysterious, thrilling, though provoking and sometimes even just sweet.
  • who, after all, doesn’t love LOVE? Being in love, feeling loved, loving someone else. Even the Bible says “Love one another.”

Those are the main reasons I like reading – and now writing – romantic fiction. I’m sure if you ask ten different romance authors their reasons, you will get ten or more different answers than mine.

Some of my favorite Romance Novelists:

Nora Roberts, Tami Hoag, Julie Garwood, Linda Howard, Lisa Kleypas, Kasey Micheals,

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April 22, 2014 · 11:13 pm

You write WHAT?!?

For years I never told people my secret. I kept it between myself and my laptop. No one knew, suspected, or had any inkling what I did with my free time. Then one day, quite by accident,  I let it slip. The look I got from the person I told was comical and just this side of insulting.

“You write WHAT?!?” I was asked.

“Romance,” I replied.

“Why would you write that kind of book? You’re happily married and successful.”

I asked what that was supposed to mean and what connection it had to the kind of book I liked to write. The response floored me. “Romance books aren’t very interesting. I mean, the plot is always the same. Nothing new ever happens. They’re not very stimulating.”

Okay, did I say just this side of insulting? 

Romantic fiction has gotten a bum rap for a number of years, yet the sales statistics are staggering. Over 1.5 billion – that’s billion with a capital B – dollars in revenue in 2012. Compare that to its next highest competitor of mystery sales at just over 7 hundred million, and you can safely say romance sells. So why the bad rep? Why do people – professional writers included – feel that romance novels are the second class citizens of fiction?

You can probably get ten different reasons if you ask ten different people, but I’ll tell you the ones I’ve personally been told by friends and acquaintances.

“I don’t like books that have a lot of explicit sex in them.”

“The basic story line is always the same. The ending, predictable.”

“If I’m gonna buy a book,  I want to read about more than just  the two people in  the story.”

“I don’t like mushy writing.”

These are actually things that have been said to me when I asked. I’d like to address them individually.

“I don’t like books that have a lot of explicit sex in them.” This is so stereotypical that I’m pissed off I even have to address it. Romance novels come in all degrees of heat.  Everything from inspirational novels, where the two “love interests” don’t even kiss, to erotica, and everything in between. Some romance novelists are known for their heat level, jacking it up high and then cooling it down, just to fan it again. This is a normal romance roller coaster. The characters don’t hop into the sack on page one ( well, some authors in erotica do that). Their relationship grows in the novel until it reaches a point where the author either lets them act on their sexual attraction, or finds ways to keep them apart – interested – yet apart. It’s not all sesexsex on every page. That would be a boringly clinical book if it were, with nothing vested in the characters. You might as well read a sex manual.

“The basic story line is always the same. The ending predictable.”  Part of this statement has a smidge of truth – the last sentence. Almost all romance novels end the same way – with the heroine and hero discovering that they want to spend the rest of their days together. Marriage is usually the end product, but not always. The first part of the sentence is just flat out wrong. The basic story line of every romance novel is not the same. Sure, you have two main characters whom you’re rooting will fall in love, but how they get there, how they go on that journey, is different from book to book, character to character. Just like every person in real life is unique, every character in a novel is as well. Every person’s journey is unique, just like every character’s is. Nothing in life is predictable and neither are romance novels.

“If I’m gonna buy a book,  I want to read about more than just  the two people in  the story.”  This statement is surely made by a person who does not read romance. Yes, all romance books have two love interests. But just like in real life, there are people surrounding those main characters. Parents, siblings, friends, bosses, enemies and co-workers. Unless your story takes place on a deserted island and the main characters are shipwrecked, you’re gonna have more than two people in the story. Those secondary characters have their own story lines as well, again just like in real life. How they all intersect, intertwine and effect one another is the basis of sound story telling.

“I don’t like mushy writing.” Well, neither do I. Nor do I read it. What I read is dialogue that sounds natural, as if the two people were speaking in my own living room to one another. What I read is a plot that has a beginning, middle and resolution that satisfies me as the reader. I don’t read flowery sentences and purple prose, or any kind of drivel that makes no sense and makes my groan. I read well written, well plotted, superbly spoken works of talented writers. That these books have as their main premise a romance in them is frosting on the cake as far as I’m concerned.

Romance readers know what they want in a good story and romance writers strive to give them that with each and every book they pen. Numbers don’t lie and romance novels are here to stay.

Thank goodness for that.

 

 

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April 20, 2014 · 11:12 pm

But, what’s your book ABOUT?

I was speaking to an acquaintance the other day and she asked me what I was working on, writing-wise. I told her a new series of contemporary romance books concerning several members of the same family. She floored me when she then asked, “but, what’s it about?”

Really? Didn’t I just say it’s a series of contemporary romance stories about a family? What part didn’t she understand? A series of books? Contemporary Romance? Family members?

Then it hit me.

This chick is not a writer. Of anything. Not letters, not emails, not lists. I don’t think she even writes a check, just pays everything electronically with a swipe of her index finger on her smart phone. And it was me who wasn’t understanding her, not the other way around. If she had been a writer, or even remotely acquainted with some sort of writing, she would have understood the description I gave her. But she wasn’t, so she didn’t. She really did want to know what the book was about – everything from the plot line down to the characters and where it was taking place. To her, that’s what the book was about, not my clinical, yet apt, description.

Sometimes I take  for granted that people know what I’m talking about when they ask me about my writing. In truth, the only people who ever understand completely what you are saying when you discuss writing are actual writers. My non-writing friends do not know, for instance, what ARC’s are. Nor do they understand the difference between line editing copy and galleys. To them, ARC is what Noah sailed on – just spelled incorrectly. Writers know it’s an acronym for Advance Reader Copies of books. Line editing I still think is self explanatory(!)  and galleys are not the area in the bottom of boats where you cook your meals, but the final copy of your book  you need to check for any and all mistakes before it goes to print with those mistakes on the page forever.

I enjoy writing contemporary romances, but I love reading Regencies. I mentioned this to another acquaintance once and she asked, “what’s a regency?” Again, really? Not her fault. Her sum total of reading concerns biographies of celebrities, PEOPLE, and Cosmo. The funny thing is when I explained what a regency romance was and told her some of my favorite authors and titles, she actually became a fan. She asked once if it was possible to turn a regency romance into a contemporary one. Hello! Anyone remember CLUELESS!??

I really do need to have more patience with, and be kinder to, my non-writing friends –  of which all my close close friends are. There are so many times, though, I am  happy that I belong to the NH Romance Writers of America group and the national RWA. It’s so great to be able to talk about my writing with some people who never require detailed explanations of what my book is about! They get it on the first try.

 

 

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