Tag Archives: Romance Writers

January 4, 2015 · 2:30 pm

just one piece of advice…

During an interview recently – and I can’t tell you how much I LOVELOVELOVE saying I was “interviewed!” – I was asked about the one piece of writing advice that has stuck with me and gotten me through publishing hurdles, humps and heartbreak. It was actually difficult to come up with just that one exclusive iota of writing  wisdom that has resonated with me.

My first thought is the one I received from a literary agent many moons ago which I’ve written about before. Although this agent didn’t accept me as a client, she wrote a handwritten note at the bottom of her letter (this was pre-email, folks) stating, “…you are an excellent writer and I have no doubt I will be reading your published works one day soon. It only takes one “yes” to make a difference in your writing career…” I have never forgotten those words.

Another piece of writing advice that comes to mind is when I heard Nora Roberts speak at the National RWA conference in 2014. She was asked how she can be so prolific a writer and what was her secret. She replied, “Put your butt in the chair, your fingers over the keyboard and write. That’s it and that’s all.”  Butt in seat, fingers on keyboard, write. Can it be any simpler than this?

I would guess the piece of writing advice I’ve learned to repeat daily to myself, is actually one I gave myself  many years ago and had nothing to do with writing at the time I came up with it. I call it THE TAO OF NGUNGI ( pronounced na-goo-na-guy). It means, NEVER GIVE UP AND NEVER GIVE IN. I was going through a difficult period of my life and the days ahead looked bleak and scary. But when I started saying this to myself, it resonated loudly and I was able to get through the period relatively emotionally unscathed.

Now, when I want to have a writing pity party for myself, I repeat the phrase as many times as I need to in order to dig myself out of my depressing black hole. By practicing the TAO Of NGUNGI, I have pushed onwards all this years and finally have a publishing contract.

Never Give up and Never give in. One piece of really good advice – for life and for writing.

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January 1, 2015 · 12:53 pm

A non-resolution resolution…

I’m not one to make New Year’s Resolutions. I’ve always believed that if you want to change something at any time – just pull a Nike and DO IT! There’s no real reason to wait until a monday to start a diet, or until the kids are out of the house to write, or anything else. If the thought occurs, put action behind it right then and there.

Can you tell I hate to wait for things??

This year, I’m changing it up a bit. While I’m not making tried and true resolutions, I do intend to change a few things to make my life and the lives of those around me better this year. I call these things INTENTIONS, not Resolutions.

First and foremost, I INTEND to devote a lot more time to blogging. I was on fire last year when I started this blog, but with the passing of the year, I waned a bit. I intend to document here at least 3 times weekly ( sometimes, hopefully, more).

I fully INTEND  to have at least one more book ready for publication by my birthday in May. I’ve got two out to the publisher now, and another one in consideration. I want my current WIP ready to go to the publisher, done and completely perfect ( or as close as I can get) by my 55th birthday.

I INTEND to do two brand new, totally non-Peggylike things this year. One of them will be trapezing, The other is a secret for now. I’ll revel it at the end of February.

I have the fullest INTENTION of being a calmer, less stressed wife and mother this year. I know: this intention is really a challenge, but hey, I’m up for it! With my retirement date set for April 30, I think I will be better able to do this since I won’t have healthcare work issues to occupy most of my time anymore.

I INTEND to live a less cluttered life – physically, emotionally and spiritually. There are many things in my life and surrounding me that I need to let go, get rid of, and not replace. More on those things in later blogs, but suffice it to say I am having a helluva garage sale this spring!

So, my intentions are now written in laptop stone so I won’t forget them or shove them to the back burner. What are your intentions for 2015?

 

 

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December 13, 2014 · 1:24 pm

A few words about editing…

One of my writing Bibles ( and I’m not being sacrilegious here) is a book titled HOW TO WRITE SHORT  – Word Craft For Fast Times by Roy Peter Clark. I’ve mentioned this book before in blogs, but I was re-reading it today and  few key phrases jumped out at me.

I’m currently writing my newest book, and editing the one that came before it. I’ve noticed – as has my editor – that I have a distinctive writing style that sometimes goes on a little longer than necessary. Especially when I say the same thing several ways.

Here’s an example. Moira’s breath quickened, deepened in intensity, the speed of the breaths faster with each inhalation and then exhalation.

Now, aside from being a perfectly AWFUL sentence, I told you the same damn thing three times! Okay, we get it. Moira was breathing fast. I could have just said it like that. Moira was breathing fast. But that sentence has no punch, no pop, no…  Oh, dear, God, I’m doing it again!

Clark writes, “The best place for an important word in a short passage is at the end.” The italics are his.

So, rewriting the above wordy sentence into something shorter, I could have said, Moira was breathing fast. But using Clark’s notion to put the important word last, fast just doesn’t do it for me. Finding words to describe the fast breathing is the next step.  Quickened, accelerated, sped-up are a few ways to describe it. If I resort to the deadly “LY” words, I could say, speedily, rapidly, hastily quickly, swiftly.  So, which word works best for what I want to convey? Maybe none of them. Maybe I need to write a descriptive phrase to indicate what I want to say. But if I do that, I will be assured to over-word my sentence again.

Egads! I hate editing.

Sometimes your first gut instinct is the best way to go, so reworking the tense just a hair, I wrote this: Excitement rolled through her and Moira’s breathing quickened.

Not a bad sentence. Not pulitzer prize winning, but a much better conveyance of what I wanted, than  Moira was breathing fast. A total of 8 words instead of the original  18.

Woot!
Now, onward to the other 90,000 words that need to be edited…

Tedium…the definition of editing!

 

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December 11, 2014 · 12:04 pm

Call me…And I’m not talking about a Blondie song

For anyone who was raised Catholic, as I was, when you hear  someone has received The Call, you immediately know they have been “spiritually called” to join Holy Orders. Either enter a convent or go to seminary.

Now, even though my mother neonatally named me to enter a nunnery ( Margaret-Mary Bernadette, folks ) my Call did not come with an invitation to serve the Lord. No, my call was much different, but no less life changing.

At the 2014 RWA conference in San Antonio, Tx, I had made arrangements to briefly introduce myself to an editor at the Wild Rose Press who was currently evaluating a romance novel submission of mine. I had emailed her and found out she was going to be volunteering at the event and I wanted to meet with her face-to-face in order to thank her for being so gracious to me via all the email “chats” we’d had. When I introduced myself to her, I discovered one of the loveliest women I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet. She was not only as gracious as her emails had been, but sweet and kind as well. I thanked her, as I’d planned to do, for being so nice and patient, and she quite literally changed my life in that instant.

She told me that she had “good news for me.”

My heart stopped.

Literally.

I could feel my blood pooling in my feet, swelling them, because it wasn’t being shunted to any vital organs.

She told me that by the time I got home I should have a contract for publication waiting for me in my email. The Wild Rose Press wanted to publish my book.

Now, my brain stopped functioning from lack of blood. And shock.

I don’t know how long I stood there just staring at her. The poor woman probably thought I was having a stroke or some kind of medical emergency. All around us was the noise of the conference: people walking by, laughing and talking, heading to their next course; hotel workers moving about, delivering water jugs to the classrooms they were setting up; people checking into the conference.

After what seemed like a lifetime – but was probably just a few seconds – I found my tongue. I said, in a shaky voice, “there have been two times in my life I have been speechless. The first was when my boyfriend “told me” we were getting married, not asked. And the second is right now.”

I hugged her. I couldn’t help it. I was so overcome, I didn’t even realize I pulled her into my arms until she was there. And, as before, she was gracious and kind.

She had to get back to her volunteering and I had to get to my next course, so we parted, each saying we would be in touch.

I went to class. I can honestly tell you I have no idea what it was and have no memory of even being in it. After that I went up to my hotel room.

As I played the brief meeting out in my mind, I began to wonder if I had hallucinated it. I really did. I didn’t tell any of my RWA chapter mates who were at the conference as well, keeping my secret hidden – just in case I had imagined the entire two-minute event.

I didn’t want them to think I was suffering from delusions. It was bad enough I thought I was.

I got through the rest of the week and headed home. Sure enough, when I got there and checked my email there was a contract proposal waiting for me.

Third time in my life I’ve been speechless? When I opened and then read that email.

To say my life has changed since this is a totally inadequate way of conveying what has happened to me. My first romance novel SKATER’S WALTZ, book 1 in the MacQuire Women Series will be published in early 2015 and book 2, THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME, later in the year. I have officially given in my resignation to my day job, effective in April 2015 so that I can no pursue the lifelong passion I have always wanted to pursue.  I’ve begun learning valuable marketing tools to sell my books, and I now know the difference between an algorithm and branding. These days my head is not only full of plot lines and character profiles, but social media sites that promote authors and help with book sales.

In the Catholic faith, THE CALL is a life-changing, spiritual event. And although I didn’t immediately don a habit and enter a nunnery, my Call was no less  life-changing and spiritual.

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December 8, 2014 · 10:50 am

As a writer, what are your favorite words?

I wasn’t a normal kid. By that I don’t mean  I was abnormal. I didn’t have horns; wasn’t born with three eyes, or two hearts. I experienced the same childhood illnesses and complaints other children did and went to school on the correct chronological spectrum.

Where I was different, though, was in the material things kids want.

Growing up, children my age would ask for Christmas and birthday presents like a new bike, or an Easy Bake Oven. Barbie dolls were big, as were roller skates. When it came to writing out a Christmas wish list every year, I typically had three items:

  • Rock’em Sock’em Robots
  • Books
  • Pencils and paper

I was never going to get Rock’Em Sock’Em Robots, my mother explained, because that was a present for boys, not girls. Hey, this was the ‘60’s. People were still unbersexist and not afraid to talk about it.

But I did get the books I asked for and the writing instruments. My favorite present when I turned 8? A Webster’s Dictionary.

See? Not a normal kid.

Even as a child I loved words. Words lived in dictionaries. Words led to sentences, which turned into pages, then chapters in a book. And I loved books. More than anything.

I used to try and learn a new word everyday after I received my dictionary. Words like escarole and calliope; diminutive and xanthene. These wounds rolled off my tongue, harsh and alien at first, but after practicing them a thousand times, they were familiar friends.

So, with all the hundreds of thousands of words in our language, which are my favorites?

If you ask a parent “which child is your favorite,”what response do you get?

If you ask a chef what is their favorite taste, or flavor profile, what do they tell you?

Can an ornithologist choose their favorite bird? Will a philatelist be able to select a favored stamp?

My response would probably be the same as these: I don’t have a favorite because I love them all.

Words have power. They have depth. The can signify courage, fear; describe emotions and colors. They can make you think of a thousand reasons “why” and answer a thousand more times “why not?”

As a writer I use words to tell a story. But I use them for so much more, really.

Here’s a quick story: John meets Mary, falls in love with her, and they marry. Eleven words that tell a story. None of the words are repeated, all but two are monosyllabic, and yet they complete a circle – beginning to end.

It should be enough. But you know it’s not. How did John and Mary meet? Why did they, with the millions of other people on the planet to choose from, fall in love with each other? When did they marry? Who are their children? Their families? What do they do to make a living? All of this is the actual story  I can tell with – you got it – words.

Quite simply put, words make me happy. I like reading them on the page, speaking them out loud,  hearing them, learning them, using them and playing with them.

I can’t chose a favorite. It’s impossible for me. But then, maybe my favorite word is…words.

 

 

 

 

 

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December 4, 2014 · 10:20 am

A question of personality….

My daughter – just for fun, mind you – performed a personality profile on me the other day. This is the link to that profile: http://www.personalitypage.com/ISFJ.html. Apparently, I am typed as THE NURTURER. I am introverted, use my five senses to coordinate through life, feel a great deal of emotion about things, and am judgmental.

Uh – BINGO!

Part of the profile states, “has a rich inner world that is not usually obvious to observers. They( nurturers) constantly take in information about people and situations that is personally important to them, and store it away.”

Uh – BINGO, again!

Hellooooo!  Doesn’t this description sound like a writer to you??

As a pysch major, I know the value I put in my character’s motivations, feelings, habits, and lifestyle decisions. Every action has a meaning, reason, and reaction and it’s my job to keep them all spinning in the air on the page so the reader is entertained and the characters are ultimately fulfilled. But just like people, every character has his/her own distinct personality. And again, it’s my job to know every facet of the character, every flaw, every quirk, every subtle nuance that makes them, well, them.

When I used to write mysteries, I did detailed character profiles, especially for my villains. I needed to know exactly why they were doing what they were doing – namely, murdering people. Since I am not a murderer myself ( thank you, Jesus!), I needed to know what goes into the psychological makeup of a person that would entice them and then compel them to kill another human being. I had to dissect their internal motivations, compulsions, and desires to find the one fatal piece of their internal makeup that could enable them to take a life.

At the time I read extensively on the “Killer’s Mind.” Book after book, page after page of forensic psychology on why killers kill. It was a dark time in my mind and I think it showed in the kind of work I was producing. When I found myself going to dark places in my head once too ofter, I stopped writing for while. Or in this case, about five years.

Then I started writing happy things again like romances. Believe me, my brain – and my family – thank me daily.

Even though I am no longer writing about people who have slunk low on the  humanity scale, I still need to  know who my characters are. So I still do mini psych profiles of them in order to get inside their heads while they are inside mine.

Okay, this is starting to sound like a Stephen King book premise….but I think you get my drift.

You can find many personality profiles on line if you like arm chair psych-pop, but you can also get insights from a few well known books as well. My three favs are:

Writer’s Guide to Character traits, by Linda N. Edelstein, PH.d

A Writer’s Guide to Characterization, by Victoria Lynn Schmidt

45 Master Characters, also by Victoria Lynn Schmidt,

You will get a wealth of knowledge and insights into internal and external motivations for characters’ responses, as well as an ability to track and assign personality traits to your characters, if you are in need of that knowledge.

Oh, and my own personality profile – the one I listed at the top of this page – it was spot-on accurate. You might want to click around on the link and find out how you are characterized, and discover just what it is exactly that makes you tick.

Eyeopening is a good way to describe how I felt when I read mine through. Eyeopening and maybe just a tad frightening as well.

 

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December 2, 2014 · 12:24 pm

What motivates you to keep writing?

NaNoWriMo2014 is over and I was lucky enough to reach the goal of 50,000 words early this year, due to a kick-ass and thorough plot line/outline and the ability to devote time to it every single day. I’m not done with the story yet, not by a yardstick. This challenge is a huge motivator for me to keep on writing after November 30th rolls around. The fact I’ve been able to keep the writing momentum up and sailing is a major reason why I’m so far along in my w.i.p.

With the holidays just next door, this ability to devote so much time every day to writing may – out of necessity – take a back seat. I don’t want it to, and I’m planning on it not, but life does intervene. It’s difficult for anyone, whether they’re writing, or training for a marathon, to keep the momentum at such a high level. So this got me to thinking: How do you stay motivated to keep on writing? What, exactly, motivates you to continue?

For me, the story and the characters won’t leave me alone until I commit them and their antics down on the page. This is the truth: I get woken up from a deep sleep many nights by storylines and characters intruding on my slumber. They want their stories known. Now, before you start to think I suffer from delusions or latent schizophrenia, hear me out.

When my mind rests ( as in sleep ) my characters come out to play in my dreams. They say exactly what they want to say, do exactly what they want to do, and basically tell me what I should be writing about them.

Okay. So maybe it does sound a little delusional and schizophrenic.

What can I say?

Anyway. These characters and their stories inspire me to put their lives down on paper.

And there are a lot of them hanging out in the backroom, tiny recesses of my mind. They will not leave me alone and get out of my head until they are locked into my laptop, so I have to give them a platform. This kind of sounds like a Stephen King plot line: irate characters torment fiction writer until they literally pop-out on the page!

You know…..

So, for me it’s the characters and their desires to be freed from the confines of my imagination.

What motivates you to keep writing? What will be your driving force to keep the momentum going  after NaNoWriMo 2014 is but a memory?

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November 28, 2014 · 7:00 pm

No, it doesn’t take a village; it takes a …..library

 

There’s an old adage in surgery that goes “you see one, you do, you teach one.” Hey, why do you think they call it the “Practice of medicine?” Why am I telling you this medical saying when I usually blog about writing? I’m glad you asked.

No one can actually teach you how to write. You either have the innate, God-give talent, the desire to create pictures with words on the page, the all consuming need to tell your stories, intrinsically. It must be a part of your makeup, your creative DNA, so to speak. No, the talent of writing can’t be taught.

But you can learn the mechanics.

I’m a much better writer today than I was even yesterday ( and the years before) because of books and manuals I’ve studied which have helped and foster my ability to write.

I’ll admit I’m not the best speller in the world, sometimes my tenses get mixed up and I often tell you more than I show you in my stories.

But…

All those things can be taught, improved upon, and ultimately make you a better conveyor of the stories you need to tell.

I’ve listed some of my all time favorite manuals/books here; the ones that I’ve devoured and have helped me become a better writer, and which have helped me find the road to publication a little easier. If publication is your goal, you will not get past the very first reader/agent/editor, if your craft is shoddy and unpolished. Your work must be clean, mistake-free, and tell the reader/agent/editor that you are a writing force to be reckoned with.

Even the best and most prolific writers in the world need a refresher course every now and again.

Here’s my list. See if some of yours are on it. And let me now your favorites if you don’t them listed here.

G.G.C. Goal, Motivation and Conflict  by Debra Dixon

The Emotion Thesaurus, by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi

Writing the Synopsis by Pam McCutcheon

Show, Don’t Tell by William Noble

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November 24, 2014 · 6:42 pm

Fan girl crush

Is it weird to admit – at my age – I have a fan-girl crush?

Not the wacko stalker kind. But the kind of crush that makes you smile without knowing you’re doing it or the reason why you are?

Okay, so here’s my confession, then. My fan-girl crush is on Nora Roberts.

Yeah, THAT Nora Roberts. Author of about a gazillion books, all of them wonderful. Creator of the “In Death” series, which features two of the best characters ever put to the page: Eve Dallas and * sigh * Roarke. Master plotter, publishing wunderkind, and one of the most proliferate authors on the planet.

I had the absolute pleasure to meet her, shake her hand, get an autograph and listen to her give a master lecture this past summer at RWA 2014. I think I smiled the entire time. Well, not when I cried when I met her, though. But even through the tears, I was smiling with glee!

I’ve read every book she’d ever had published, some of them two or three times. Why? Because she is – to me – the penultimate master in romance writing. The way she can convey an emotion, a look, a thought, is pure writing genius.

She is a completely humble woman, as well, and she gets a million kudos for that. She could be the most conceited, arrogant writer you will ever meet. But she is not. She is warm, open, damn funny, sarcastically spot-on and just a delight to listen to with her smoker’s gravel voice, and her characteristic way of turning a phrase.

If you ever have the opportunity to attend a lecture she is giving – GO! As a writer you will learn more than you ever thought to, be inspired like you never dreamed you would, and be entertained thoroughly.

Yes, I am a 54 year old wife-mother-nurse-writer and I have a fan-girl crush. Deal with it.

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November 20, 2014 · 11:36 am

How do you “see” your characters?

My friend was sitting in my writing lair the other day and happened to see a bunch of index cards with color photographs of various head shots with written descriptions next to them. She asked me what they were. I admitted they were my cheater cards for characters. When she gave me that quizzical look we as writers can all describe: brown furrowed, a subtle squint in the corners of the eyes, I explained these were what I envisioned my characters in my current WIP looked like. I like having an actual picture to work from than simply a written description.

How do you see your characters? Are you like me and you need a visual prompt? Or can you simply see the person in your mind and bring them to life on the page?

Up until a few years ago I tried to paint the picture of what my peeps looked like in my head and then transfer it to the written word. The problem I encountered was I needed to keep going back to the original description if I mentioned eye or hair color again, because I would invariably forget how I described them. I got the idea to start using photographs of celebrities, or people I’d see in print ads, one day when the person I wanted to describe looked exactly like a very famous actor. I figured as long as I didn’t state he was dead ringer for my character, but describe his attributes instead, I would be okay.

And I was.

I printed out a picture from an on-line site and then went on to describe his features, including height, approximate weight and body type. From that moment on, whenever I needed to refer to a characteristic again, all I needed to do was look at my picture.

Then I had a divine inspiration: I not only printed the picture, I pasted it to an index card and then physically wrote down every description of the character I might need. Body type, weight, height, any physical ticks or quirks, eye color, hair color. For men, if they would typically sprout a five o’clock shadow by, say, 3 pm., I’d add it. If their chests were hairy, matted, or smooth got included so during the love scenes I wouldn’t have mistakenly “shaved” a guy with hair and made him smooth to the touch.

For the women, waist and bust size along with shapeliness or a lack of it was documented. Were their smiles full, sexy or sardonic?

You may ask isn’t this a bit much to fit all on an index card? No, it’s not.

This system has worked so well for me, I haven’t had a mistaken blue eye substituted for a brown one in years.

However you envision them, however you remember their attributes, whatever works for you is fine.

This is the easiest way for my rapidly deteriorating menopausal memory to deal with information that needs to be repeated.

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