Friends, fun, and combat medics in San Antonio

More than 2,000 romance writers and industry professionals have descended on the San Antonio Riverwalk for the Romance Writers of America National Conference. For the fifth year in a row, I’m one of them.

The conference workshops don’t start until tomorrow, but I’ve been here since Monday and I’ve been busy, busy, busy.

Monday:

After a long morning of travel, I spent the afternoon and evening with three of my fabulous Kiss & Thrill blog sisters and a new friend. In addition to eating good food, chatting, and laughing, we brainstormed each other’s stories. I’m not usually comfortable getting feedback on my book or premise before the first draft is done, but after Monday’s session, I might be a convert. We came a ton of great ideas that I think will help get me back on track with Men of Steele book #2.

Tuesday:

Yesterday kicked off with a sunrise bus ride to Lackland AFB where we visited the National Military Working Dog monument and spent the morning learning about how the Air Force security forces (military police) train, and their various missions. I had no idea that one in six new enlisted recruits enters the security forces.

During lunch I got a chance to chat with a real live Air Force combat controller! It was the first time I’ve met a member of the special operations forces and it was great to learn about what motivated him to choose the USAF and special ops, and learn more about what he does.

After lunch we drove to Fort Sam for an informative session on Army combat medics. They showed us their state-of-the-art training facility complete with the sounds, smells, and feel of a real combat scene with life-like “casualties” that breathe, have pulses (or not) and blood pressure, and have gruesomely realistic injuries. We also had a Q&A session with several decorated medics who are now instructors at the school. As usual the tour with my Kiss of Death chapter was worth the trip to conference all by itself.

We capped off the day with dinner and a fun speech by suspense author Wendy Corsi Staub.

Wednesday:

Today I started with a sunrise run on the Riverwalk. Due to a lack of “you are here” stickers on many of the maps, I ended up running a couple more miles than I intended, but I can’t fault the view. From mid-morning on, the Riverwalk is packed with tourists, but before breakfast, the only people on this oasis below street level are the walkers, joggers, park police, merchants, and sidewalk cleaners. It was the break from chaos that I needed.

Despite getting back to my room later than planned, I made it to my Golden Network (for current and former Golden Heart finalists) retreat on time, and what a day. Robin Perini, Jennifer McGowan, Cathy Maxwell, and many others shared their words of wisdom, I made new friends, and I finally met several online friends in person.

After three nonstop days, this introvert-at-heart was ready for some downtime. I skipped the madness that is the literacy signing, ordered room service for dinner, took a short nap, and just decompressed.

Now I’m ready for the conference to begin bright and early tomorrow!

No leniency for heroines

On the few occasions a reader has expressed dissatisfaction with one of my main characters, it’s been with the heroine. This is a theme I’ve noticed when reading reviews of other authors’ books too.

The hero can be a womanizing playboy, an arrogant jerk (wounded underneath, of course), or a self-blind martyr and most romance readers will love him anyway. They’re incredibly forgiving of the hero’s flaws. But a flawed heroine? Not so much.

Sure, no one wants to read about a woman—or man for that matter—who’s too stupid to live (TSTL, as we say in the biz), cheats on her man, whines incessantly, or is perpetually helpless. But that’s not what I’m talking about.

Aren’t we all a bit selfish? Don’t we do the things that make sense for us, our goals, our situation, even at the expense of others sometimes? Don’t we all make errors in judgment?

As a writer, I can’t start with perfect characters, otherwise there’s no room for them to grow. If they don’t grow, the emotional element of the story falls flat. One character will generally have a bigger growth arc than the other, but both should face, and ultimately overcome, a fear or incorrect belief about themselves. It’s only after their metamorphosis that they earn the happy ending in the reader’s eyes.

A heroine can start out as a pushover, but by the end of the story, she needs to stand up for herself and refuse to let others tromp all over her. A hero might begin the story unable to ask for help, but he can’t have his happy ever after if he doesn’t learn.

As a romance reader myself, I’ve found that I too am less forgiving of the heroine. And yet, if she’s without fault, I’ll dislike her even more for being too perfect. It bothers me that I’m like this, and I’ve been trying to figure out why.

Since most romance readers are women, why are we so hard on the heroines? (And hence, ourselves as a gender?)

I’m sure a psychologist would have some thoughts on the topic. I only took Psych 101 in college, but I have my own theories. I’d love to hear yours.

– Secretly, we’re jealous. When it comes to attracting a man, (usually) other women are our competition. In our mind when we read a romance, we fall in love with the hero, and if the heroine doesn’t seem good enough for him, we’re angry.

– We can’t understand why the heroine would push away or spar with the hero—can’t she see how emotionally wounded he is? how much he needs her?—even though she doesn’t know what’s in his mind the way we do (thanks to mutliple points of view in most romances). [It would be a really short story if there were no conflict.]

– We live vicariously through the heroine. We want to feel like she’s reacting to her situation in a way that makes sense. The way we would act if put in her shoes. We want her to be the strong, brave, beautiful woman that we want to be, but sometimes forget that she has her own backstory that informs her goals and desires. It’s more important that she act in a way that makes sense based on who she is and what she thinks she needs.

– Sometimes when a heroine has a trait or flaw that hits too close to home, it makes us uncomfortable, even if we don’t realize that’s why.

– We’re still a product of our culture. I believe the idea that women are the “lesser” gender is internalized within us subconsciously, even as we rail against it outwardly. For example, even another woman might consider a woman who is aggressive in business negotiations to be a bitch, whereas a man doing the same thing is seen as powerful and confident.

(This Pantene commercial does a nice job of illustrating the dichotomy in perceptions about men and women under the same circumstances. I think both men and women subscribe–knowingly or not–to many of these stereotypes.)

While romance novels these days often provide great examples of women who learn to stand strong, speak for themselves, and push for the treatment they deserve, I’m not sure society has embraced that type of woman as a whole. You only have to look to the Internet and all of the mysoginistic comments on news stories and blog posts to see that we have plenty of room for improvement.

When a man reads a romance—yes, it happens—does he have the same but opposite reaction? Does he fall in love with the heroine? Is he more forgiving of her flaws? Does he feel like the hero is a schmuck who isn’t good enough to kiss her feet?

Or is this something only women do to themselves? And if so, how do we stop?

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Image credit: By Jiri Hodan [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

 

Help me support diabetes research with Brenda Novak

Author Brenda Novak’s son has Type I diabetes. Ten years ago, she decided to do something about it, and she launched Brenda Novak’s Annual Online Auction for Diabetes Research, benefitting the Diabetes Research Institute (DRI). In the past nine years, the auction has raised $2 million!

This is the third year my friends and I at KissAndThrill.com have donated to the auction, and I hope you’ll join us in supporting this fantastic cause.

Come check out our goody- and book-filled tote bag, and the amazing and fabulous items that others have donated. Some are author/writing related, but many are not.

Fancy a Led Zeppelin autographed copy of “Stairway to Heaven” sheet music?

Or maybe you’d like to take a hike in New Mexico with autor Douglas Preston?

You could be a character in one of several famous authors’ books (e.g. David Baldacci), spend a day with a world-class bridge player, get a critique from an editor at your favorite publishing house, or take an African safari for two.

All in the name of a cure.

I hope you’ll at least take a look. Thanks!

Letting go

Sometimes, we have to let go of our expectations. Of life, of others, and of ourselves.

Okay, well, we don’t have to, but we’ll probably be really unhappy…

I got a good reminder of this last week when I had a couple of trusted writer friends read my upcoming book. While they had good things to say, they also made some valid points about things that need to be fixed.

What? Now? But, but…this book is supposed to come out on May 13^th. I already had it edited, got the cover designed, had the proofreader scheduled, and…well, everything.

But what’s more important, speed or quality? For me, there’s no question. Quality trumps speed.

So I had to let go of my plan and adjust my expectations. The book needs more work, simple as that.

I’m incredibly thankful to my (honest) friends for bringing the story’s issues to my attention. (Funny how you sometimes can’t see these things until someone points them out to you, and then you think, “Duh.”) I’d rather have it be my friends/beta readers than my paying readers!

To those of you who were looking forward to reading Blind Justice in May, thank you, I love you, and I’m sorry. I hope when you finally read it, you’ll think it was worth a few more months’ wait. I sincerely believe the book will be much stronger.

And I’ve learned something about myself. I will continue to strive for better books at a faster pace, but I need to honor my process and be true to my characters and their stories. There are authors out there who can produce a book every two to three months. I applaud them!

At this point in time, I’m not one of them.

I’m trying to let go of unrealistic expectations—both in my personal and professional life—and focus on creating the best books I can. I know that little spot at the base of my neck that carries all of my tension will thank me. 😉

Has anything forced you to let go of your expectations? Please share!

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Photo credit: By U.S. Navy photo by Photographer’s Mate Airman Apprentice Eric Cutright [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Self-publishing surprises

Self-publishing can be rewarding, but also overwhelming. You have to be the author, publisher, and promoter all in one.

Turns out this works pretty well for me. I like the control of hiring my own editor, cover artist, and proofreader, and having complete discretion over my book release timeline—subject to my ability to write the books, of course! That also means I have to take time away from writing to find and work with the aforementioned professionals.

I also have to front the money to pay them.

For me, it’s been worth it so far. Here are a few of the things I learned along the way to releasing my first self-published novel.

1. Every online retailer has their own time delay before your book goes live. Amazon had BLIND FURY up within 24 hours, Nook and Kobo were close behind. CreateSpace took 3-4 days, iBooks almost ten. So plan for that when determining your release schedule.

(According to the iBooks rep I spoke to last weekend at my chapter retreat, someone actually reads through every book to ensure quality of formatting, etc. Their timeline is usually 5-10 days.)

2. It takes time to line up and schedule editors, artists, and proofreaders. My editor—whom I adore—usually needs about three weeks to get me on her calendar for each round, so I have to build that into my plan. The cover artists take 10-14 days. My proofreader about three.

What I’m doing now is working with the cover artist while my editor goes through her second round of suggested edits. This will allow me to have a cover reveal before the book is fully polished.

3. It takes me longer to write than I think it will. (Duh, right?) I recently wrote 25K in a week in order to meet a date I set with my editor for round one. Mistake. Next time, I’ll have the book finished before I scheduler her. That way the manuscript can simmer and I can look it over before turning it in, but I won’t be tearing out my hair and turning in crap that I’m paying her to look at.

On the plus side, I found that I can write 25K bad words in a week.

4. Even though I don’t have to meet a publishing company’s deadlines, my goal is still to publish books. So I’m setting my own long-term publishing goals to keep me on track. But I have the benefit of being able to move the dates up or back as needed to save my sanity (what’s left, anyway).

5. For some reason I didn’t expect to get returns on my ebooks. After talking to a friend, I found that my return rate (which is under 2%) was at or below normal rates for my subgenre. Apparently some genres (like Young Adult) have really high rates, so you might want to check before you hit Publish so you can be prepared.

6. Amazon reports are addictive. Big surprise, right? But they’re beautiful because I get up-to-the-minute sales info. I can immediately see whether something I did had an impact on my sales.

Of course, it can be frustrating to have an increase in sales and not know why too. If I don’t know where they came from, how can I repeat that performance in the future?

7. Keywords are key, at least at Amazon. According to the iBooks rep, when a reader searches, Apple doesn’t use keywords, only title, subgenre, and author. But Amazon uses keywords. So think about how someone might find your book and enter that word or phrase as a keyword.

For example, just to test this out, I added the keyword phrase “best friend’s sister romance” (which only counts as one keyword). Now, if you type that into the Amazon search bar, my book will show up in the list. I’ll also show up under “pararescue romance” and “special ops romance.”

You get seven keyword phrases, and you can change them at any time to experiment. I recommend you use all of them. It takes about 12 hours for Amazon to make an update any time you revise your metadata.

That’s a quick hit of things that I learned. Please share your own!

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Image credit: By takomabibelot [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons.

Inspiration for writing and life

Over the years, I’ve been collecting quotes that inspire me when I’m low, or need a reminder that it’s not supposed to be easy, or when I’m rooted in fear. I’m sharing some of them with you in hopes that one of them will inspire or help you when you need it.

You can fix a bad page. You can’t fix a blank one.
– Nora Roberts

It’s never too late, in fiction or in life, to revise.
– Nancy Thayer

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
– Aristotle

It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.
– E.E. Cummings

Not all those who wander are lost.
– J.R.R. Tolkien (Gandalf’s poem in LOTR)

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
– Mark Twain

Never give up on a dream because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyhow.
– Earl Nightingale

Don’t wait!
– Gwen Hernandez (Don’t wait blog post 5/15/12) [Yes, I’m shameless. :-)]

I don’t need an alarm clock. My ideas wake me.
– Ray Bradbury

I dwell in possibility.
– Emily Dickenson

When asked, “How do you write?” I invariably answer, “one word at a time.”
– Stephen King

Never let fear decide your fate.
– AWOLNation, lyrics from “Kill Your Heroes”

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Image credit: By User:Nauticashades/w:User:Nauticashades. (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC-BY-SA-2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

Waiting for a different call

With some of my Kiss & Thrill sisters: Golden Heart finalists in Romantic Suspense in NYC.

Every year around this time, thousands of romance writers are sitting by their phones waiting for “the call.” Not the one from an editor or agent, but from one of the members of the board of the Romance Writers of America (RWA) telling them their manuscript or book finaled in either the Golden Heart® (unpublished) or the RITA® (published) Awards.

These prestigious contests are sort of like the Oscars of romance, complete with a ceremony emceed by an author-celebrity, lots of fancy gowns, and a golden statue for the RITA winners. The only thing missing is the E! reporter.

I can tell you from experience that there is no day so nervewracking as finalist announcement day. (Okay, except the actual awards ceremony.) I’ve been through it twice (2010 and 2011) so far. You think you will distract yourself with writing, but find that you’re constantly checking the RWA web page, Facebook, and Twitter to see if your category is done. And every time the phone rings your heart skips a beat.

Rachel Grant and me on awards night in NYC.

In 2011, I was a Golden Heart finalist. I got the call in the middle of a doctor’s appointment with my son and couldn’t answer! I finally listened to my voicemail when the doctor stepped out, but it was vague. Still, I was pretty sure RWA wouldn’t call me on announcement day for any other reason.

That was the longest doctor’s appointment ever.

I got out to my car, returned the call, got my good news, screamed my head off like an idiot, and took my son out to lunch to celebrate. Hey, school could wait, he had to eat, and his mom was a finalist.

Getting that confirmation that my writing had improved was fabulous, but the best part of being a finalist was the new friends, many of whom now hang out with me over at the Kiss and Thrill site. The second best part was being treated like royalty at that year’s conference. 😉

For unpublished authors, a Golden Heart contest final opens doors with editors and agents too. I got some amazing feedback and a couple of revise-and-resubmit requests that year. Those—and some wins in other contests—eventually gave me the confidence to hire an editor and self-publish my GH-finaling entry, BLIND FURY.

Next year, I’ll be back to biting my nails at the end of March hoping for a RITA call, wondering why we do this to ourselves.
So, I’m raising a virtual glass to all of my friends who are waiting for their call today. I’ll be there to smile or console, and to cheer on the finalists in San Antonio this July. Good luck!

Finishing the book

In the last two calendar years I wrote 245,000 words of fiction without completing a single novel.

In fact, until Monday, I hadn’t written “The End”—actually I don’t write that anyway—on a fiction manuscript since I finished the first draft of Blind Fury in December 2011.

Which makes Monday’s finish of the first draft of Blind Justice kind of a big deal!

I was starting to wonder if I still had what it takes to write a book to its full conclusion. I’d done it before, plenty of times—in fact, Blind Fury was my fourth completed manuscript—but just not lately.

It wasn’t writer’s block, more like a lack of clear focus.

Scrivener For Dummies provided a distraction for a good part of 2011, but even after that I was all over the place. I started a follow-up to BF, but then worried that maybe I should write something that wasn’t linked, just in case BF didn’t sell.

Then I got to a certain point and felt like I wasn’t at a place in my writing where I could do that story justice, so I started something completely different.

I was halfway through that second something when I decided I was going to forge my own path and dive into self-publishing.

Instant focus.

The series is king, which meant it was time to return to the Blind Fury follow-up and drop the manuscript I’d put over 30K into. It’s amazing how knowing what you want, and what you need to do to get there, makes all the difference.

So, now I finally have that fifth manuscript under my belt, and a sixth one halfway done.

My advice? If you’ve never finished a book, pick a story, stick with it, and finish it. Don’t be distracted by the plot bunnies. Capture them somewhere—Evernote maybe?—and get back to work.

You don’t have to love the first draft—that’s what revisions and editors are for—you just have to get to the end. It’s a lot easier to write half a story than a whole one. Until you complete one, you’ll never know if you can.

And once you do, you’ll have the confidence that you can do it again.

Oh, and I’d recommend not waiting two years to make it happen. 😉

Image credit: By EWikist at en.wikipedia [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons