Purple Hearts

Just a reminder that we will be giving away a copy of Nancy Haddock’s debut book, LA VIDA VAMPIRE, at the end of the week.  Please visit Nancy’s guest blog on The Long and Winding Road and post a comment to be eligible.  A lucky winner will be chosen at random on Friday afternoon.

The Long and Winding Road

I’ve been a member of RWA for 24 years now. Last February I sold my first book in a two-book contract to Berkley, and La Vida Vampire, my debut in this new series was released on April 1st.

So, was I a horrible writer during my first 23 years in RWA?

No. Though I’m a better writer now than I was then (ya think?), I placed in and won contests early on. I had a great agent within a few years of joining RWA. I received good rejection letters. Published friends who read my work asked why I wasn’t published yet.

So, why was my road to publication so long and winding? I attribute it to three main reasons.

First, balance in my writing life. When we join RWA, we tend to join one or more chapters. We may tend (like me!) to get involved in volunteering for the chapter, or even volunteering at the National level. I found myself accepting an appointment to serve an unexpired term on the RWA Board less than a year after I’d joined, and this was at a time when the Board members chaired virtually every job to be done. We had one full-time employee, and the organization was growing by leaps! Talk about time devouring! I met wonderful people who are still friends. I learned how to break my comfort zone wide open. I gleaned information about the publishing business just by having meals with other writers – some published, some not.

What I failed to do during all my Kamikaze volunteering days was to balance doing the jobs with doing the writing. I let job deadlines consume me instead of letting the flow of writing consume me. So my advice to those who tirelessly lend their expertise to organizations – writing, PTA, whatever – is to create balance in writing and volunteer activities. Find out what a job requires in as much detail as possible, including the daily/ weekly/ monthly time it takes. If this is a new kind of job for you, double the time you think you’ll spend on it. You may not use double the time, but if you don’t, you get to write!

A second reason for the winding road was that serious family issues came up, such as my middle management husband being “downsized” out of a job. During this period, I also faced challenges with my children, and I went back to teaching. I tried to write in spite of the chaos, but found myself frozen. I couldn’t write in the upheaval – not for publication anyway. I just couldn’t shake the internal editor who had me changing words before I’d written a complete sentence. And I don’t mean a compound, complex sentence! When the internal editor took over, concentration and confidence vanished.

So, if you have a yappy internal editor, I beg you to destroy that negative voice now! Think twice before you let him/ her out again. Ever. I let mine out during my revisions of La Vida Vampire, and banished her again within minutes. She hadn’t mellowed a bit, and still had nothing constructive to contribute! Whether internal or external, surround yourself with only the constructive voices!

SIDEBAR: One of the positive outcomes of going through intense family times was that I came out of them with clear experience in conflict, confrontation and combat. Since the major criticism of my writing had been that I hid behind humor rather than letting characters confront, the lessons paid off when I began writing in earnest again! There’s always an upside!

The last component of my long, winding road had to do with finding the courage to write what I wanted to, the way I wanted to, rather than “following the market.” I came into RWA in a time when new writers were expected to break into category first. If you proved yourself, you might move up to Single Title. Lead title. Mainstream. But you didn’t simply burst onto the scene in single title. In this sense, we all followed the market, more or less.

When I came back to writing for publication in the late 1990s, romance publishing was no longer quite so restrictive. For the first time, I wrote romantic suspense … with humor, though, so that didn’t pan out. When I moved to St. Augustine in 2002, I decided to release the stories I’d been working on in order to start fresh. I let the energy of my new hometown permeate me, and my story ideas. I was actually working on a cozy mystery series when the idea for La Vida Vampire gripped me and wouldn’t let go.

I’m still working on the cozy series, but my first loyalty is to Cesca, Saber and the gang of La Vida Vampire. It may have been a long and winding road that I wouldn’t wish for anyone else but we must all find – and follow – our own paths. I trust that yours will be shorter and straighter!

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Thank you, Nancy!

We will be giving away a copy of La Vida Vampire to one lucky winner at the end of the week! Post a note to the comments section to be eligible. The winner will be chosen at random on Friday afternoon.

Way back in August, Marley Gibson joined us as our Honorary Heartlette.  At the time, we knew that her first two books would be making their way into the world, and we are thrilled to report that they both have been released TODAY!

The books, Zeta or Omega? and The New Sisters are written under the pen name Kate Harmon.

These are the two launch books of a much anticipated new series and we wish Marley the best of success with them!

We have been so fortunate with our Honorary Heartlettes and our guest blogger for May is no exception. We are thrilled to welcome debut author, Nancy Haddock, to the Purple Hearts!

Her new book, LA VIDA VAMPIRE, was released by Berkley Publishing on April 1, 2008, to great reviews!

Nancy is the model of poise and persistence and we are honored that she will join us to share her advice. Please stop by for her blog post on Sunday, May 4.

Riding the Romance Rollercoaster

I’ve had the opportunity twice in the past few months to stand in front of a group of people and talk about my life as a romance writer. Both talks ended up being a little tour of the highs and lows of life as an author. After giving them, the thing that really struck me was how high the highs seemed and how low the lows felt and the dizzying ride in between. It’s been a veritable rollercoaster ride.

Unfortunately, I hate rollercoasters.

I’ve never liked that terrifying feeling that I’m going to fall off the edge of the tracks. I detest the way my stomach drops as the train rushes down and I loathe having the G forces pull my cheeks back. It doesn’t thrill me. It makes me dizzy and frankly, a little nauseous.

Looking over my writing career gives me the same results.

I remember the day my agent called to tell me I had a two-book deal from Pocket Books with their new Downtown Press line with the same amount of detail that I remember the birth of my first child (have no fear, I won’t recount that to you right now although you should know it involves a car battery on a motorcycle trickle charger, a taxi cab doing about 90 miles per hour down the Eisenhower Expressway at one in the morning and has moments of great hilarity). It was a dizzying climb up an unimaginable peak with nothing but the sky before me. It was thrilling. It was exhilarating. It made me glad that I’d done those Kegel exercises because it was so scary I was afraid I was going to wet my pants.

Unfortunately, I can also describe to you what it’s like to find out that my most recent release has a print run so low that my career might be over. I can describe how the blood rushed from my head and my stomach dropped two stories. Honestly, it’s not like there were a lot of years between those two events and in between there were a lot of hairpin curves and surprises.

This business is like that. Sub-genres (and sub sub sub sub-genres) come and go. Trends peak and crash.  It’s unpredictable. It’s maddening. It’ll give you whiplash if you’re not careful.

So, I had to ask myself, why am I still doing it?

I found the answer, as we authors so often do, in the writing. Loving writing was what got me into this business in the first place. To extend the metaphor a little further, it had been my ticket to get on the ride in the first place. I decided to try something new, something different. I decided to push myself to learn something new and dare myself to put it out there. I started writing a dark, gritty romantic suspense. If you’ve read my light, flirty, funny chick lit, you can understand why this was such a big change.

It was a little scary, but it was so much fun! I was writing it for the pure pleasure of writing. I was writing it for me. I didn’t even tell my agent about it until I had three chapters and a synopsis.

She was a little surprised when I told her about it, but – bless her heart – didn’t let me know if she was dubious about it. She read it and she told me to write more.

I didn’t think my editor would like it, but we sent it to her first as a courtesy and I ended up with a new book contract with an editor that I love at a well-respected publishing house.

So here I am, chugging back up the big hill of the rollercoaster ride. My romantic suspense, UNTHINKABLE, will come out in March of 2009. Will it be my breakout book? Will I keep climbing higher and higher up the track? Or will it tank? Will I take a precipitous drop around the next corner?

I don’t know. It scares the bejeesus out of me, but I’m still doing it. I get sick to my stomach and I shake. Here’s the thing though, I could totally get off this rollercoaster. Trust me, I am well aware that there are people waiting in line dying for my spot on the ride, but I’m not going anywhere. I like the ticket too much. They’re going to have to wait a little bit longer.

-Eileen 

We are so pleased that Eileen Rendahl has agreed to join us as our April Honorary Heartlette.  

Eileen Rendahl is the author of four chick lit novels. Every once in a while, she gets an award for one of them. She likes that a lot. She lives in Davis, California with her kids and her cats and her fiancé and her somewhat kooky family. She has had many jobs and lived in many cities and feels unbelievably lucky to be where she is now doing what she’s doing.

And we are thrilled that she’ll be with us, doing her thing, on Sunday April 6. Tune in for Eileen’s post on the ups and downs of publishing.

I’ll admit, I didn’t think I’d be ready for the Golden Heart deadline and, being the superstitious Boston Irish that I am, I feared I’d final.But I didn’t. No surprise there.

The happy surprise is that, while not moving on to the final round for the national award, I’m pretty sure I won.

When the first deadline came about in December, I had been writing for about six months. I loved my story. I loved my characters. I liked my writing. But I had a lot to learn, and in the last several months I’ve submerged myself in it.

Craft books, workshops on CD, self-editing guides, reading for more than just enjoyment, working with amazing women on the Diva board (the entry never would have been in the mail without Mamad, Kaige, Lanie, Neith and a lot of help from those as I did chat drive-by’s) and partnering with the Lovely Ann as my CP.

The experience has been hair-raising. My Murphy’s Law fear pushed me to be as close to complete and polished as possible. My availability pushed back. And the friction that caused - well, it bettered my writing by an unimaginable amount.

Sentence structure, word choice, tight prose all became more consistent.

And now for the big “author confession” - I’m dyslexic. I can’t see those mistakes that are obvious to everyone. And I thank God every day since January when we started for my CP Ann. She corrects errors and points out potential errors. She also asks the hard questions and tells me straight forward when something doesn’t work or she just plain doesn’t like it.

So, my advice for those aiming for the December’s deadline:
o Get a Critique Partner. Don’t know how to set that partnership up? Read these guidelines
o Don’t fluff the deadline - strive for it as if it were publication, not a contest
o Plan ahead - start NOW
o But most of all, do it for the joy.

I’d like to take this moment to give a very special shout out to KRISTAN HIGGANS - our very first Honorary Heartlette. Kristan finalled in the published author’s equivalent of the Golden Heart - the RITA.

So, pick a goal and run at it, but mostly, Go Write.
-bria

BREAK INTO FICTION – WHAT IT TAKES TO GET PUBLISHED TODAY

Today we have double the pleasure. Dianna Love AND Mary Buckham are joining us, and they’re offering some fun giveaways, so stayed tuned for more on that in a minute. First, I’d like to tell you a little about our guests.

Dianna is a Rita-Award winning author (WORTH EVERY RISK) who also owns her own business (www.ArtProductionsInc.com) where she designs, fabricates and installs unusual outdoor marketing projects for Fortune 500 companies. She’s excited about her next project, PHANTOM IN THE NIGHT (Pocket/June 200 — a romantic suspense collaboration with #1 NYT Best-selling Author Sherrilyn Kenyon.

Mary is a popular national speaker and writing instructor who has two award-winning books to her credit (INVISIBLE RECRUIT is her latest). She is also one of the driving forces behind www.WriterUniv.com — an on-line university by and for writers.

Their topic today? Breaking Into Fiction – What it takes to get published today!

As I mentioned, Dianna and Mary are offering door prizes! All you have to do is post to be entered in the drawing, both geared toward aspiring authors. The first is a drawing for a set of 5 BREAK INTO FICTION™ templates from the highly successful Break Into Fiction™ Template Teaching Series (www.BreakIntoFiction.com).

The second is a critique of your query or cover letter to get you one step closer to a dynamite proposal package.

And now for the blog…

We often wonder what it takes for writers today to break out of the pack of hopefuls to become a published author. As relatively new authors themselves, Mary and Dianna delved into this mystery and are here to share what they’ve observed while working with hundreds of aspiring writers. And they want to hear your views on what you feel it takes to get published too.

Dianna–If you’re a voracious reader like me, you have stacks of books by favorite authors who are multi-published. But what about the debut author whose first book hits the shelves and no one has heard of him/her? Prior to selling, I sought books by new authors to see what was selling. That was how I read Mary’s debut book MAKEOVER MISSION — a fast romantic suspense — before I ever met her in person. I enjoyed the surprises I found this way and think that’s why I’ve continued to seek out debut authors. When Brenda Novak told me about the Fog City Divas Blog, I found Monica McCarty, debut author of HIGHLANDER UNTAMED. Brenda knows I read suspense since I write it, but she might not have known that I enjoy historicals as well — so, bam, I’m introduced to a new author.

The month my first book — WORTH EVERY RISK — came out, I was approached at the Romantic Times Convention by a woman who said, “I bought your book and really enjoyed it.” I was blown away by anyone knowing who I was and told her I was flattered and thrilled. She said, “No, you don’t understand. I didn’t know who you were, but I saw your name and book everywhere I turned so I finally had to buy it.” That was a “wow” moment I’ll never forget, which made me feel better about the time and expense I had put into marketing the book, since we rarely have any idea if our marketing works.

Mary—After working with hundreds and hundreds of writers over the last few years whether in a classroom teaching environment, working one-on-one with synopsis or query help or through the Break Into Fiction™ PLOTTING weekends there are several elements that I’ve seen that sets some writers apart and gives them that extra edge needed to break out and into the ranks of the published. The first is attitude. There’s a mind set that is loud and clear dividing those who will be published from those who’d like to be published. The first group will do what it takes, regardless of the obstacles, work or time involved. When they receive rejections they mourn, but then get right back to sending out another query, another proposal, getting more feedback if needed as they continue to press forward. They do not start their conversations with phrases such as “But I have a job…young kids…school-age kids…aging parents…no support…little time…” You fill in the blanks. Those who will be published will offer no excuses.

The second issue is the willingness to take feedback and apply it. Not to say that all feedback is spot on, but those who will be published will keep pushing themselves to learn from others and apply what they learn so that their work and their process of working continues to improve. The ones who will be published continue to work at the craft of writing, whether it’s taking online classes or conference workshops, or analyzing other writers or improving what they already do well. The ones who will be published never give up, because that is a guarantee of non-publication.

Dianna – Once you’ve decided you’re “in” for the long haul, you can never, ever, ever stop learning or trying to improve your writing. I hope to still be learning something new the day I draw my last breath. I attack every story with gusto, wanting to drive my characters and plot to a new level. Mary and I often read for each other and I love the way she never fails to surprise me with the way she thinks. I want books that catch me off guard so that’s what I’m after when I write. We both analyze everything we come into contact with – novels, movies, short stories, characters, writing craft and style. If one of us finds something interesting we share it and the other will dig a little deeper for a new nugget of information. We love the time we’ve spent with all the thousands of students we’ve worked with on their stories while sharing our Break Into Fiction Template Teaching Series, but realized there was no way to reach everyone. That’s what led to the nonfiction book we’ve written that is coming out in 2009.

Mary – The great news for writers everywhere is they have the choices daily to commit and work toward their goal of publication or not. They have the power. Many times as unpublished writers we think all the power is in the hands of editors or agents, but it’s not. It’s in your hands and the day you decide that nothing will stop you from being published is the day you’ll never turn back. You’ll make different choices as to how you spend your time, who you will associate with, how you will invest in your career. The greatest power to break into fiction publication rests with you and we’re here today to let you know that.

Now what about you? What do you see as the greatest obstacles to publication and what sets those whom you know have published apart?

We are so excited to announce our Honorary Heartlette(s) for the month of March! 

On Sunday, March 2, please join us when award winning authors Mary Buckham and Dianna Love Snell, founders of the Break Into Fiction - Power Plotting Workshop Weekends, stop by to share their time and expertise with us. 

Stay tuned!

We’re lucky in our friends here at Purple Hearts, but there’s nothing lucky about Tina’s being named to the Spring 2008 Book Sense Children’s Pick list.  It has everything to do with her being hard-working, talented and witty!

She was one of only 7 authors listed under teen reads. Here’s what they had to say:

HOW TO HOOK A HOTTIE: A Novel, by Tina Ferraro (Delacorte Books for Young Readers, $8.99, 9780385734387 / 0385734387) “Ferraro captures the high school voice perfectly with this enjoyable romp about a smart young girl’s desire to make money, only to come up with a slightly harebrained plan that is not what she bargained for. A good, fun read for girls 14 and older.” –Maureen Palacios, Once Upon a Time, Montrose, CA

Check Tina’s Guest Blog out HERE and her author’s website HERE.