Chocolates and romance

I haven't dug into them yet. Although I did open the box and take a whiff – dark chocolate mixed with pink fruity nougat. I don't even know for sure what flavor that pink stuff is, but I know it's yummy, and goes very well with a cup of hot tea and a book.

Today is Valentine's Day, and it's cold outside. And I can't think of anything nicer than nibbling on chocolate while curled up with a favorite romance novel. Today perhaps you can find time to pull out an old favorite and find the good part. Just skip to the part that you know makes you smile, cry or sigh – whether it's the sweet love scene where they finally get together, the steamy bedroom scene where they really get together, the poignant return of the hero, or the entertaining clash of wills that makes you wonder if they'll ever get it sorted out (even though you know they will).

If I were going to spend a few minutes today with some long-time favorite couples from romance novels, I'd be hanging out with Ben and Willa or Matt and Meredith. But I'll probably spend most of the day with my newest favorites – my own characters, Tom and Megan, Matt and Kate, or Michael and Jennifer. And I'll be hoping that I've created characters who readers will fall in love with, and written scenes that readers will want to revisit again and again.

Today is Valentine's Day. Curl up with a love story!

Life gets in the way

ERG! I wanted to spend the day on my current work in progress, to hang out with my characters in their world and fine tune their scenes and experiences. Instead, I've spent all day fighting City Hall!
It's so annoying how often life pushes in and prevents me from doing the things I want to do! Collecting the mail every day is almost frightening. As it was this weekend. The Saturday mail arrived with the notice of a plan to take the property easement in our front yard and turn it into a bike trail. Seriously. A huge slab of asphalt through our yard. Can you imagine how lovely that would be?
So, I've spent the entire day tracking down neighbors and phone numbers and emails and contacting consultants and commissioners and city officials.
And not one single word has been written, added or plucked from my manuscript. Sigh. It's enough to make me want to hide away in a hole and ignore the rest of the world on a long-term basis!

Been there. Done that.

Some days when it seems like forever since I’ve heard from an agent, and my queries are hanging out in cyber space, I catch myself wishing I’d started this writing endeavor a little earlier. It’s such a long process.

But then I wonder what I would’ve written about? Newspaper reporting and suburban politics, twenty years in Corporate America, having kids, juggling career and family, losing loved ones, friends that come and go at different stages of life . . . These are life experiences that form the building blocks of believable situations and characters – the meat of story-telling.

I’ve been more places, seen more things, done more things than younger writers. Maybe younger writers put in more research hours. Maybe they don’t “write what they know.” Not sure. But today, at least, I’m feeling like more might be better. More been there/done that.

Heading west

Just made my reservations for the RWA annual convention in Anaheim, CA this summer. This will be my first conference, and I'm hoping to meet a lot of people, have fun with my critique partners and pitch two completed novels to editors and agents!
I already know it's a great location, and I'll be in good company. So conditions are right for a successful event. Just need that agent thing to come together! Fun times ahead!

Under construction

It's coming soon! My critique partners and I spent an entire day over the weekend setting up a website. We've got our domain. Now we're playing with layouts and content – posting pictures and articles and blurbs about our books. So excited to see it all come together. Hope you'll check us out when we go live, hopefully some time this week!

website workday

Just scheduled an all-day work session with my critique partners! Yay! Can't wait. We may do a little reading and critiquing that day, but mostly, we're going to design a website. Since we all write some form of romance, we're teaming up to create one site that will give each of us an online presence in addition to our individual blogs.
Published or not, agents and publishers say all writers need to build a platform and start reaching an audience on line. Yes, it takes away from writing time, but it's part of the bigger picture, the whole package.
Already we're building a backlog of ideas and articles to include on the site. Key lime pie, anyone? Watch for a great recipe from J that ties right into her novel set in fabulous Key West. We'll introduce ourselves, our stories and our characters, and share blogs and thoughts on writing, romance and publishing. And, hopefully, we'll have a little fun in the process.
Stay tuned!

New Year's resolution

Let's see. Here's an easy one. My goal for 2012 is to get published.

Oh, wait. I can't control that. Okay, my goal is to get an agent. Darn. Can't control that one, either.
Well, I guess my resolution will have to be to keep going – keep writing, keep revising and editing, and keep meeting with my critique group.
Not as easy as it sounds. With busy schedules it's hard to get together even once a week with my critique partners. It's hard to convince my spouse I'm not wasting my time because I'm not entirely sure that's true. It's hard to justify the amount of time I'm spending on my writing with no income to show for it.
Typical writer's angst, I suppose. As I write this, I'm reminded of a favorite movie, The Shawshank Redemption. The main character (Andy) tells a fellow inmate that hope is a good thing. His friend responds that hope can drive a man crazy. I have to agree with both of them. Hoping can be exhausting. But to not hope, is to give up.
So, I hereby resolve to continue reading and writing, to keep exploring and learning and, above all, to not chuck it all in the trash and stop trying.