The Life and Thoughts of a Romance Writer :)

It's 5am on Saturday. I stagger to the kitchen and fill my mug with strong coffee to wake me up. I like rising early, before anyone else is out of bed, but I need my coffee to get my brain in gear. After settling at my computer, I check my messages and look at my Yahoo digests. All of them have something to do with romance writing or reading. Sometimes my own posts are there, but most groups only let you post Promos certain days of the week. That makes sense, but I'm so anxious to scream to the world that I have a published book that patience isn't always my strong point these days. I want to shout about SWEET SURRENDER and draw people to my website so that readers can at least check out the first chapter. If they don't know that my book exists, they can't read it. Also, I'm proud of my website. The woman who did it for me, really made it beautiful.

http://users.solarus.biz/~pammarshall/surrenderexcerpt.html

When I was a child, writing stories all the time, my parents told me I could never make a living as an author, that even good writers couldn't get published. As I became known in school for my creativity, I was told to give up my dream. For a long time, I did. My parents are right. Most writer's never get published by a NY publishing house. At the time, that was the only way to get your book out there. My parents weren't the only ones who discouraged me, so I bought into the "you can't" mindset. Life flew by and soon I wasn't a kid anymore. At twenty years old, I married.

I concentrated on my new husband and, eventually, small kids. Life became busy with work and home. I kept writing, but just for myself. I wrote because, like some people crave ice cream, I craved writing. It wasn't a choice. I didn't think anybody would actually read what I wrote, but I still did it. After my oldest son was born, I changed my work hours to evenings, and, when he napped, I sat down and wrote. And wrote. And I wrote some more. I started bringing pages to work and passing them out to see what my co-workers thought. They were full of praise, but I thought they felt they HAD to say nice things." Still, I kept writing and eventually I heard about e-publications and the writer in me rejoiced. What a great way to start! In my next blog I will explain how the hero in SWEET SURRENDER came to me, and how I write. I hope you come along with me on my writing journey. Maybe I can give out some tips on how to write a book, at least from a "fly b y the seat of your pantser" (one who goes with the flow and doesn't plot the story in advance.) Matthew Steele, the hero, evolved one day while I was watching the Milwaukee Brewers play baseball. A particular player caught my attention and suddenly Matthew was born...stay tuned :)