The HEA Cafe

Author Archive

Forgive me, but I’m too excited not to indulge in shameless self-promotion this month.  My ebook, Suburban Secrets, comes out on Friday and it’s all I can do not to squeal.  This isn’t my first book (it’s my second) but I’m just as excited as the first time around.

Suburban Secrets

Lindsey Dameron, desperate for money after a divorce she never saw coming, has a new job with a private investigator.  Her assignment?  To blend into suburbia and uncover suburban secrets–not stumble across a dead man and a missing socialite.

Local pariah and former defense attorney Ethan Wayne needs to clear his name before he’s arrested for the disappearance of his soon-to-be ex-wife and the murder of her lover.  But all he can afford is Ace Investigations, and the only person available is a woman who looks more like a soccer mom than a private eye.   She doesn’t even have a license.

Lindsey hates lawyers, Ethan needs a real investigator.  But when a reward is offered for his missing wife, they team up to find her, and agree to

split the reward.  Will they succeed before Ethan is arrested and Lindsey loses the only home she’s ever known?   Or between dodging bullets and explosions, will they find love, instead?

One more plug – Laura did a great job of explaining the Unleash Your Story event, but I want to encourage you to support the writers of RWA Online who are participating.  CFF is a great organization working to heal our kids.

I’m not a reality show fan.  I’ll watch Survivor, but that’s about it.  However, this summer my husband is working a good bit of overtime and I’ve was looking for a little light entertainment.  I’ve been a dancer most of my life, so I thought I’d take a chance on a show called ‘So You Think You Can Dance’.  I confess – I got hooked.  But what does this have to do with writing?

Plenty.

My favorite couple on the show was Joshua and Katie.  Week after week, they came out and danced from the heart, holding nothing back.  Their talent and love of the art was breathtaking.  Katie almost didn’t make the top twenty dancers, however.  When it came down to the last girl’s spot, it was between her and her best friend, Natalie.  The judges asked both girls to come onto the stage for the announcement.  Before the judges told who they’d picked, though, one judge asked both girls that if they didn’t make it would they try again the next year.  Katie said no.  Turns out she’d barely missed the top twenty the previous year and the emotional toll, at that time, seemed to be too much.  Her answer displeased the one judge so much he asked for a recount.  The judges sent the girls out and debated once again who should be picked.  Katie squeaked by on one vote but the decision could have easily gone the other way.

Katie’s self-doubt almost cost her a spot on the show and could have even ended her career if she’d given up dance after once again losing a top twenty slot.  Time and time again, I’ve seen the same thing happen to writers.  They get a bad critique or review.  Rejection letter after rejection letter arrives in the mail.  Your family starts to question whether the sacrifice is worth it.  YOU start to question whether the effort is worth it.  Why ripe your heart out and lay it on the page if no one else cares?

Because you must.  I believe we wouldn’t be given the desire, a desire strong enough to make us sacrifice sleep, television, free time, to write if we didn’t have the talent buried within to succeed.  We just have to dig deep enough to find it.  How do we do that?  We write.  Over and over again until we get it right.  The great critique, the acceptance level, the glowing review.  The feeling inside when you read the words you’ve written and thought “I can’t believe I wrote something that good.”

Don’t give up.  Don’t become your own worst enemy.  Believe in yourself and keep writing.  I believe Katie’s going to become a star.  You can too.

I had the best of intentions.  I actually wrote my post for the blog a week ago because I’m on vacation this week in the Great Smoky Mountains and I wasn’t sure what type of access I would have to the internet.  Luckily, I have wired internet access since I forgot to upload my post before I left.  Unfortunately I didn’t bring the drive I’d saved my blog on when I packed up the laptop, so I’m winging it. 

 Not a comfortable feeling for me.  If you read Linda’s post on introverts, you’ll understand.  I think I answered true to each and every item on the list.  I’m as introverted as they come.  Why am I taking a chance to write something I haven’t had a time to edit, polish and reread four times before I hit post?

 Because I made a commitment.  Time after time writers say the most important part of writing is the story.  I agree but I think the second most important is keeping your word.  If you volunteer to help at Nationals, serve as an officer for your local chapter or agree to write a monthly post to a group blog, then do it.  Don’t wait to see if something better comes along or slid out with a feeble excuse if it gets too hard.  Why?  Keeping commitments is an important part of becoming a successful writer.  Publishing houses need writers to meet deadlines.  Miss too many and you might just have trouble selling that next book.  If they can’t depend on you, people don’t want to work with you, whether that person is a member of your chapter, your dream agent or a publisher. 

 So, even if you have to come in from the hot tub with the view of the mountains while rain patters on the tin roof to write a blog post off the top of your head, do it.  You’ll feel better about yourself and find that keeping commitments becomes a habit.

The sun is shining, the daffodils are spearing out of the ground, the birds are chirping.  It’s springtime.  What am I thinking about?  Cleaning.  This time of year I get the urge to clean out closets, scoot out the refrigerator and vacuumn the coils, dust off the picture frames.  It’s a sickness.  Really.

But this year I’m going to try a new type of cleaning and I’m going to suggest you do the same.  This year I’m wiping my mind of all the rules of writing.  You know the ones.  The hero and heroine must meet in the first twenty pages.  Head hopping is a big no-no (anyone hear of Nora Roberts?).  Prologues and epilogues are wasted space.

Don’t get me wrong – some of the “rules” were created for a very good reason but I think we as writers get too bogged down in how we’re writing and forget why we’re writing.

Writers and readers love a good story.  If you have fleshed out characters with strong conflict and interesting plot, then the rules don’t matter so much.  So write.  Turn off the internal editor and sit at the computer and tell your story.  Then take a break.  When you come back and reread your work, you’ll be able to tell if that switch in POV during the love scene worked.  If you’re still unsure, get someone else to read it.  Here at RWA Online, we’ve got a great forum called Critters where you can post a scene or chapter and get multiple objective reactions.

Be true to yourself, true to your story, and forget the rules.  After all, spring is a time of rebirth and celebration of life and love.  Celebrate HEA for you and your characters!

I volunteered to be a homeroom mother for my son’s kindergarten class this year and I’m in charge of planning the Valentine’s Day party.  In addition to buying cards for his entire class, my son wants to buy something special for his girlfriend.  Yep, his girlfriend, in kindergarten, and he’s already learned the way to a girl’s heart is through gifts.

Or is it?

My husband routinely forgets our anniversary and he believes Valentine’s Day was created by Hallmark.  He thinks cards and flowers are a waste of money and says no restaurant can touch my cooking, so romantic dinners are out.  The last piece of jewelry he bought me was my wedding ring.

According to romance novels, he’d be a loser but I would have to disagree.  When I got sick, he took over cleaning the house.  If he doesn’t work on Saturday, he gets up with the kids and lets me sleep late, even if he’s just come off nights and has only had four hours of sleep himself.  He rubs my feet every night when we sit on the couch and not only rents romantic comedies for me to watch but sits beside me and watches them without complaining.

He’s doesn’t confess his undying love daily but when he stares at me with that special look in his eye, I know I’m cherished.  The little things he does day in and day out mean more than the big romantic gestures heroes are known for in our stories.  He’d flunk out as an alpha hero but he makes the grade as a husband.

What’s the point of this blog?  I wonder if we’re setting unrealistic expectations for men.  The only man I ever dated who bought me expensive gifts, took me out for romantic dinners and swept me away on faraway vacations I ended up getting a restraining order against.  Real men are more likely to order takeout from the closest steakhouse, buy the most expensive, but ugliest, piece of jewelry in the store and spend a fortune on hothouse roses that have no smell or appeal.  

When we compare the men in our lives to the characters in the books, our real life loves are bound to come up short.  Of course, fiction is about fantasy but do we really believe there are men out there who act like our heroes?

I’m a romance writer and long-time reader and proud of it but I sometimes wonder if the stories we write end up making our readers long for something or someone they’ll never find and maybe even make them unsatisfied with the person they’ve chosen.  Maybe I’m wrong.  What’s your opinion?