The HEA Cafe

With summer officially here, many authors are getting into the swing of vacation travels, conventions, and/or trying to find activities that will keep the young ones busy while you find your muse and continue to write.

For years, I looked forward to summer and its various and sundry, day-to-day activities like time at the community pool, play dates and visiting with friends. Anything and everything that would keep the kids safe and happy and me from pulling out my hair.

Not now, and not especially when I have a deadline looming in the horizon. So I mute my cell phone, close the internet browsers and pray that my muse will cooperate and give me those perfect words and phrases, riveting dialogue and the right touch of sensuality that will push my current WIP into the best book I’ve ever written.

A couple of questions, then. Is summertime writing different than other times? And, if so, how do you structure your days to make time for writing in the summer?

Ana

Ana Aragón

Sidelined by Love available at The Wild Rose Press

Strike Three-You’re Mine will be available this fall at The Wild Rose Press

Promoting it, of course! 

As a recently-published debut author, I’ve spend as much, or more, time on my website, building up my Myspace page, blogging, and posting on various loops to get my name out than I did on writing the book in the first place! 

I’m published by a small, print publisher who sends all of their titles to various review sites. They have a full-time marketing person who helps with promotion, and other authors who give advice on websites, banners and the like. But other published authors, even those on the NYT list, have said they work hard to keep their readers informed of their upcoming books through author-specific Yahoo groups and updated websites. 

Wait! You mean Sherrilyn Kenyon, Suzanne Brockmann, Janet Evanovich and even La Nora spend precious writing time on promotion? 

Well, probably not with websites and such (some have fan clubs and paid staff to take care of some things,) but they certainly do spend time pressing the flesh and talking with their reader fans at conventions and book signings. I know, because I’m one of those writer/readers who stand in long lines to get my scant 30-60 seconds of meet and greet with my favorite authors. 

Patience, they say. It takes time to build a following. But in the meantime, there are four things authors can take heed of from watching our heroines (NYT bestsellers, of course!) in action: 

1. Be gracious and friendly in public, even when your feet are killing you and the migraine that’s been stalking you for days has finally taken over. You never know who’s watching, and that person you just snarled at could be a bookseller assigned to stock books for all the B&Ns in the Southeast. 

2. Treat other writers as equals. No one in New York understands what makes one talented writer a bestselling author and an equally-talented writer a one-shot wonder. Just because you’re on top today doesn’t mean you’ll be on top tomorrow (ask Sherrilyn Kenyon.) Guess what? We’re not in competition with one another. As romance writers, our job is to write engaging books that will keep and expand the reader base for romance. It doesn’t matter whether they’re more comfortable reading a print or e-book. What matters is that they read…a lot…and keep coming back for more! 

3. Write a great book. And then another…and another. Keep pushing to make each subsequent book better than the last. There is nothing that will make a romance reader an ex-reader quicker than reading her favorite author, only to become disappointed with the results. 

4. Give back. Give back to your readers and to the organizations and people that helped you get here. Donate your time to judge writing contests. And when you do, remember to be gentle and give positive, constructive criticism, if it’s called for. Remember, there’s a flesh-and-blood person at the other end of that partial manuscript who had the guts to submit their baby for your eyes. 

Attend other author’s booksignings and BUY their books. And if you happen to spot that author who has the unfortunate bad luck of being assigned the seat next to a bestselling author at a convention, make your way to her table stocked high with unsigned books. Look her in the eye, shake her hand, and ask for a personalized autograph. Remember, but for the grace of God, go I! And you just may be shaking hands with the next Nora Roberts! 

What about you? Do you have a personal favorite? What about your own experiences? Do you have some words of wisdom for this author? 

Ana Aragón is a recently published author with The Wild Rose Press. Her road to publication has been long and arduous, but along the way she’s made some great friends and learned a thing or two (or three…or fifty!) from the authors she’s had the pleasure of meeting. 

Her next book, Strike Three…You’re Mine! will be available in 2008 from The Wild Rose Press. 

www.anaaragon.com 

www.myspace.com/anaaragonwrites 

Yikes! After debating for over a week what my post would contain, I up and forgot to post it! Sorry, folks.

The week following Christmas has been a blur, hasn’t it? And here you are, reading a post when you should be writing, right?

Well, here’s your opportunity to write a little fiction (just kidding) about your own resolutions for this upcoming year. 

I’ll go first. Setting aside my first few resolutions that revolve around my perennial goal to lose weight and/or get back in shape which, by the way, never seems to make it past January 15. I think it has something to do with the weight/shape I want belonging to someone who looks more like Angelina Jolie and less like me. After two weeks of looking in the mirror, I realize that’s not going to happen in this lifetime.

Okay, so here goes:

1. Quit procrastinating and finish the draft of my current WIP during January Jump-Start.

2. Get up ten minutes early, and use that time to organize my day before the day organizes me.

3. Write at least five days a week. (E-mails and posts don’t count…ouch.) I’m a writer, right?

4. Take one class on some aspect of writing at least every two months.

5. Stay active in my RWA chapters.

6. Congratulate my fellow writers on their accomplishments and help those who are struggling. Remember that I’ve been, and will continue to be, somewhere in that continuum and know how important it is to share both my successes and failures with someone who understands.

So what are your resolutions for 2008?

Like many writers, it seems I’ve been at it for years. I joke about submitting to Archie and Veronica comic books when I was seven or eight but, honestly, that’s when I got the writing bug. I submitted faithfully for two or three years without getting even a rejection letter to my name.

Throughout junior high and high school, I kept at it, writing poetry, songs and short stories, dreaming of becoming an author. But college and kids and life got in the way and I put those dreams back on the top shelf in the back of my mind. I plugged away at the technical writing work I’d been fortunate to get, telling myself that I’d get back to it tomorrow, or next month, or next year. It isn’t surprising that it took forty plus years to finally get my name on a fiction book.

Friends (aspiring writers, all) ask what finally got me off my duff (or, rather, back on my duff and in front of a computer monitor) to pen my first full length novel.

Well, it wasn’t the money, that I can promise you. After publishing a sports magazine geared to kids, I already knew how hard it is to make a decent living in publishing. Yes, there are multimillionaire authors out there, but for every one of them, there are thousands like me who just hope to make a little spending money after the marketing bills are paid.

The hard truth is I did it because I realized that tomorrow, and next month, and next year had come and gone. I’d been waiting for the perfect time and finally realized there is no perfect time.

Has my life changed since making the decision to try to make my dreams come true? You bet your sweet bippie it has (if that doesn’t date me, nothing will!) For one, I’ve chosen to immerse myself in the writing life. When people ask what I do, I tell them I write. I surround myself with yeah-sayers instead of naysayers, other writers who understand how hard this business is but keep plugging away. I drag friends to RWA chapter meetings, plug RWA Online, and volunteer at conferences. I shamelessly self-promote and buy lots of books from fellow authors, hoping they’ll do the same for me. When opportunities to travel for research present themselves, I pull out my credit card and jump in with both feet.

Over time, I’ve learned to take constructive criticism well, and to look at my writing not as something written in stone, but as a product I’m willing to rework over and over until it shines to perfection. I never stop working at the craft of writing and I plop myself in front of my computer nearly every day. I’ve got one book under my belt and two in the hopper.

I don’t have time to wait. Tomorrow is here!

Have a great day!