I know several romance writers who are compulsive about keeping their pen names secret. They work in sensitive jobs or they go to conservative churches or they have snobby friends or they have uptight relatives. Whatever the reason, they figure it’s best if nobody knows exactly what they write. I can sympathize with this feeling—back […]
I’m a plotter, which means I usually work out the plots for my books in advance. I even have an Excel spreadsheet I got years ago from Delilah Devlin’s plotting bootcamp that makes you lay out your story chapter by chapter. I have to admit—the plot usually changes once I start writing (and I’ve been […]
So how long should it take for the hero and heroine to get it on? Once upon a time, the buildup to the big event took most of the book, but lately the trend seems to be to shorten that period by quite a bit so we get to the good parts early on. I’ve […]
I recently read a novel I’d define as chick lit—first person, hapless heroine who eats and drinks too much and then berates herself, comical plot in which heroine at first seems headed for personal and professional disaster but where she ultimately triumphs, and perfect boyfriend. That last one may come as something of a shock, […]
So I’m just back from the four-day Romance Writers of America (RWA) conference, and I’m still stoked from the experience. Great workshops, interesting publisher spotlights, and free books by the cartload. But a lot of the people there had a very odd reaction when I mentioned the Romantic Times convention (RT to most of us)—they […]
As I’ve said before, I used to be a college teacher, which meant I used to go to lots of conferences since I had to give presentations as part of my job. Believe it or not, there’s a dress code for these conferences—nothing written out, of course, but a code nonetheless. We wore suits, for […]
I’m a fairly eclectic romance reader. Although there are a few genres I don’t read much, I’m open to most of them and I’ve sampled lots. There’s one big exception, though: I’m just not a fan of time travel. I think my problem with time travel is that it strikes me as a somewhat limited […]
So I’m reading the reviews at Rotten Tomatoes one fine Monday afternoon, just because it’s an entertaining quick snapshot of how a particular movie did over the weekend, and I stumble across the reviews of The Lucky One. For those of you who have already forgotten, this was the latest Nicholas Sparks movie, starring Zac […]
I was going to organize this post around a central idea originally—signings, maybe, or going to RT in a group—but I’m still a little too woozy from the whole Romantic Times Convention experience and all I’ve got are bits and pieces. So bits and pieces it is, as in several random things I learned at […]
Recently Nick Mamatas wrote a nice blog post about advice experienced writers should stop giving inexperienced writers, and the first thing on the list was “Never Give Up.” Mamatas pointed out that some people definitely should give up, and before telling them to waste more time on a fruitless enterprise, writers should perhaps consider the […]
