Happy birthday to me

by with No Comment Musings

Happy birthday, self. This is going to be your year … to enter the Golden Heart contest, to start seeking an agent, to get serious about your writing career.

You never intended to be pushing 40 and not have a published novel under your belt. When you were in high school, you thought you’d have hit it big by at least 35.

Well, sweetie, that mark passed you by three years ago. Now you’re 38 and it’s past time to get back to work on that elusive goal of getting published.

You, my dear, are a romance writer. You’ve tried writing other types of stories, but the romance always creeps in. Better yet, you write romantic comedy. Sure, the experts say there’s not much market for that right now … but in today’s world, we all could use a good laugh. And your stories provide that. So get to work! Get them out there so others can see them!

The only thing holding you back is yourself.

Love, Arlene

Why is it …

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I want to know why I seem to get more writing done at Starbucks than I do in my own home.

I guess it’s the distraction factor. At Starbucks, the TV is not on (though there is music), so I don’t get sucked into the lives of those poor hapless guests on “Jerry Springer,”  and there are no dogs running around trying to sniff my keyboard every five seconds, so I’m not constantly yelling at them to behave.

Plus, there’s no Internet to distract me from the real reason I turned on my computer. I have gotten better about working first and playing later, but I still let the siren’s call of Facebook get the better of me from time to time.

With the Golden Heart deadline looming and lots of work to do, I have a feeling I’m going to be spending a lot of time at Starbucks. I know I’ll be there Wednesday. It’s my birthday, and some of the gals from NARWA are having a write-in for me.

I can’t wait!

Definitely more work than I thought

by with One Comment ContestsMusings

Got my critique back this afternoon, and I was right: The manuscript definitely needs some help.

I’m not going to lie: It was a bit unnerving to see all that “red ink” on my pages. But it was also edifying, because she said a lot of the same things I’ve been thinking.

Just the other day, I started to wonder if I spent too much of the first page and a half setting the scene … and sure enough, Shea suggested I cut the first page or so and start with more action.

She also pointed out that I need to keep the thread about the book Erin gets for her birthday going — and I’d noticed it’s not as strong a presence as I’d like.

As for Brad, she didn’t exactly call him boring … but she did point out that he’s, well, “bland” … and that’s just a nicer word for dull as dirt.

So it looks like I have my work cut out for me. Good thing I’m up for the challenge. I got an e-mail confirmation today from RWA that they’ve received my entry.

Your manuscript, Operation Snag Brad, has been entered in the Contemporary Series Romance Category of the 2010 Golden Heart Contest sponsored by Romance Writers of America, Inc.  Please send six copies of the partial manuscript, six synopses, and one full manuscript to (address)

Guess I won’t be getting back to Kari and Damien anytime soon. Fixing up Brad and Erin is going to take up all my free time between now and Dec. 2. 😀

But when I’m done, it should be a much stronger — and hopefully sell-able — story.

Excited for my meeting

by with No Comment Musings

The next meeting of my RWA chapter, Northern Arizona Romance Writers of America, is on Saturday, and I can’t wait.

We’re going to have a guest speaker, Linda Style, talk to us about layering stories and subplots.

It should be interesting. It will pose a challenge for my diet, because restaurant meals always do. But I think I’m up for it.

Not much progress to report on the GH entry today. I shipped off my first 15 pages for the critique I won, and am now waiting for it.

I’m beginning to wonder if I get straight to the action quickly enough, though. I guess I’ll find out soon enough.

Know your characters

by with No Comment Musings

Reading an article in a recent issue of Romance Writers Report got me thinking about the characters in the story I’ve been editing: Do I know my heroine as well as I know myself?

I sure should, since she’s me … or at least more me than most. Sure, I put a little bit of myself in all my heroines, but Erin is special. She’s the me of 10 years ago: an education reporter at a small-town newspaper (which I was) who’s tired of being alone (ditto) and decides she wants to date one of her coworkers (which I did — desperately) who treats her like a kid sister (which he did, probably thanks to the extra 100 or so pounds I carried back then).

There is where the similarities end, though. For one, Erin’s not overweight (romance heroines rarely are). She also longs to leave her boring small-town life for the bright lights of a big city. Me, I decided the big city wasn’t for me about the same time I realized I didn’t really want to be the next Woodward and Bernstein, uncovering government corruption.

Yes, that’s why I wanted to get into journalism … well, that and the ability to actually make a living with my writing. I wanted to make a name for myself by uncovering a huge scandal. A year of covering cops, courts and city council cured me of that notion. I found government reporting mind-numbingly boring. Give me the features desk any day.

But to get back to my point: Sometimes I wonder if I know Erin well enough. Perhaps one of the reasons I’m having trouble editing this thing is that she’s not memorable or quirky enough. Her goal of uncovering a big scandal at the hero’s school (and using the story as a steppingstone to get a job at a bigger paper) isn’t clear enough.

It also hit me last night that my hero is kind of boring. Brad is, well, a bit of a Boy Scout (which makes it interesting when Erin suspects he might be involved in the big school scandal).

The other guy, Mike (the one Erin thinks she wants to date and who gets his own story — the last of three), is more interesting. Between his seemingly undeserved reputation as the office Romeo and his penchant for consuming mass quantities of snacks, he’s more memorable than Brad.

Uh-oh. I think that means I’m in trouble.