After graduating from college, I worked full-time designing computer software.  I enjoyed the work… or at least I did until I started to develop pain in my neck and lower back.

I couldn’t figure out what was wrong.  I thought I was too young for aches and pains like that!  Like most young(ish!) people, I ignored it for a while, hoping it would go away, but it didn’t.  It wasn’t quite debilitating, but it wasn’t fun, either, and it got to the point where I started having trouble sleeping at night, because the pain wasn’t going away.

I guess I should mention here that at about this same time, I took up writing novels.  Since I worked full-time, I was writing at night and on the weekends.  Are you seeing a trend here?  Yep, I was spending entirely too much time hunched over a keyboard.

But I couldn’t quit my day job, and I didn’t want to give up writing. What’s a girl to do?

The first thing I did was take up yoga.  A friend of mine talked me into trying a yoga class.  I went along for the ride, not expecting too much.  Wow, was I wrong!  Our yoga instructor took one look at my tortured posture and told me I must work at a computer all day.  She showed me how to stand, how to stretch and untwist my knots, even how to place pillows so that when I was laying down, my body wasn’t repeating the same mistakes I made when I was sitting up.  I learned how to pay attention to the tiny twinges I felt (instead of just ignoring them), so they didn’t turn into fiery arrows of pain. She told me that the best thing you can do for your body was to drink a lot of water— not only because it keeps you hydrated, but because it will force you to get up frequently to use the restroom, thus allowing you to stretch your muscles and allow your eyes to relax and focus on objects in different ranges and preventing eyestrain.

The second thing I did was to learn about ergonomics, which showed me that the desk setup I had at work was pretty much designed with torture in mind.  When you’re sitting at your desk, you should be all 90-degree angles:  Your feet should be flat on the floor, your calves should be at a 90-degree angle to the floor, your knees should form a 90-degree angle, your thighs should be at a 90-degree angle from your torso, your arms should hang naturally at your sides and form a 90-degree angle at the elbow, so that your hands are aligned right over the keyboard. Your wrists should be almost straight, with a slight downward angle toward the top of your hand (ergonomic keyboards or using a wrist-rest can help keep that sensitive area— where carpal tunnel so frequently strikes— aligned correctly).  The monitor should be straight in front of you (so you don’t have to turn your neck at all), slightly below your line of sight (so you aren’t craning your neck up to see it).  The biggest danger is having a desk surface that’s too high— this was my main problem— forcing you to shrug your shoulders up in order to type.  If you are using a pull-out tray for your keyboard (the other problem with my desk setup), make sure that your mouse is the same height as the keyboard so that you’re not having to lift your arm to reach the mouse on the higher desk surface (which causes you to shrug that shoulder up continuously).

Most desks are built for 6-foot-tall men, NOT for smaller female frames, so women are at a disadvantage to begin with.  You may need to move your seat up (hopefully it’s adjustable) and use a stool under your feet to achieve the proper setup, depending on your height and the height of your desk surface.

A couple of years ago, I readjusted the IKEA desk in my home office, lowering the height.  I got rid of my office chair and now sit on a balance ball instead (another trick I picked up at my yoga class).  Since you can’t slouch on a balance ball without falling off (the way you can in a comfy office chair) , it forces you to keep your spine aligned correctly.  And since your stomach muscles help to keep you balanced, you’re working out those core muscles, too, just by sitting there.  A two-fer! 

I pay a lot more attention to those little twinges today and make the necessary adjustments to stop them.  My husband made fun of some of my changes (especially the balance ball), but after having back surgery a couple of years ago, he’s not teasing me so much these days.

Whether you are a writer or a reader, you probably spend a lot of time in front of a computer.  Do you suffer from back pain?  What tips and tricks have you learned to keep back pain away?  Are you a fan of yoga?  Why or why not?

“I do not think there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature.”
— John D. Rockefeller

My 10-year-old son just joined the cross country team this fall — his first experience with daily practices, training, meets/invitationals, scoresheets and placements. He’s the youngest boy on the team by a full year and one of only three kids in his grade who make the trek over to the big junior-high building every afternoon.

When he told me he wanted to be a part of this sport, I’ll admit, I kind of squinted at him and mumbled something about that being “very interesting” and that we’d “talk about it later.” Later came, however, and he still wanted to join. He liked running, he stated. He reminded me that he and his dad ran together every weekend. He assured me he could do it.

So, I hugged him and said, “Whoo-hoo! Well, okay, then. Let’s get your stuff!” 

Later that week, I signed him up, bought him his uniform, filled out the paperwork and paid the fees. My husband got him new running shoes while I marked on our calendar all the dates of the upcoming meets and blocked off the 2 hours every weekday that he’d have practice. Then my husband and I drove to his first meet and held our collective breath as he began to run. How would our baby boy do against the stronger, faster, taller, older, more-experienced, etc. (you name it, they had it) competition? Would he finish the two-mile course? Would he be discouraged if he didn’t come in within the top 10? Would he make friends on a team comprised of kids who were mostly 7th and 8th graders, many with visible body hair and shockingly well-defined biceps? Would the coaches and the crowd encourage him or ridicule his efforts?

Well, we all watched in awe as he ran that first race. He is an incredible little runner for a 10-year-old but, against the others on the field, he wasn’t even close to their finishing times. He came in dead last.

Thing is, though, the kid didn’t stop running. He ran ever single step of that race. He ran even when the older boys had crossed the finish line 8 minutes ahead of him. He ran even when he didn’t know the pattern of the course and came upon a confusing section. He ran even when he saw some of the other kids cutting corners — not going all the way around the flags, which is cheating — but the officials didn’t see them so they got away with it. He chose to run honestly, he told us later. Nothing stopped him from crossing the finishing line, running at a slow but very steady pace, all by himself until the end.

We weren’t sure how he’d feel about his placement and his time, but he was okay. He wasn’t thrilled, of course. He would’ve preferred to have won or even come in ahead of one other person…but the coaches praised him for his stamina. A group of 8th-grade girls declared him “really cute” in an affectionate big-sister way, and they cheered him on. The few girls he knew from his grade told him how proud they were of him for finishing. And we told him the same.

He kept going to practice, and the next meet came: Last place again. His big victory was that, in addition to finishing, he’d improved his time by a whole 5 seconds. More kids, parents and random observers cheered for him at that second meet. He just had so much determination, and so much heart.

The third meet was an invitational with 24 schools and hundreds of kids. Again he was trailing the pack, even with so many other boys out there. At one point we lost sight of him (they run behind bushes and all kinds of things during these races) but, when he emerged, he had a slightly different expression on his face — a cross between excitement and mystification. We soon learned why. Another boy had all but dropped out of the race. He was walking. And our son, not trying to pass him, not even expecting to do so, nevertheless, did just that. Our little boy was still way at the end, but he did not come in last and, even more impressively, he’d bettered his time by almost a minute.

Another week, long practices and a budding new confidence followed. Then meet #4. He clocked in at 66th place out of 68 but, wow, he finished STRONG. We all know he still needs to work on his form and on his speed and on his endurance and probably on a hundred other little things, but he made visible progress that day. An improvement right there at the end. He really kicked it for those last several yards and sprinted to the finish line, arms pumping, grinning the whole time. Knowing without our having to tell him that THIS race was a better one than any that’d come before.

He’s still nowhere close to winning, of course. Or even being in the top half. He needs more experience. He needs to get taller, stronger, older and much, much faster. But I could see him learning a life lesson right before my eyes: Perseverance and practice pays off. It’s a frustratingly slow process sometimes, but it’s REALLY NOT all about winning. It has a lot more to do with rising to a challenge, one you fought for at every stage and with every step. To reach a new level of skill in a game where you were WAY out of your league at the beginning. I was so proud of him. And even prouder that he’d learned a lesson like this decades sooner than I did.

I started writing fiction seriously because of my son. FOR him. It was MY dream, yes, but I was a new parent. I felt strongly that it was the parents’ responsibility to show their children by example how to joyfully and dedicatedly pursue a passion. I didn’t want to ever make the mistake of trying to live my life through my child… I wanted to be so secure in following my own path that I wouldn’t at any time trod on his.

It took me nine years to cross my personal finish line. Years of making every possible mistake in form and speed. Lots of people sprinted passed me who were more experienced, stronger and so incredibly talented. But while publishing is a very different kind of race than cross country, the similarities are too marked to ignore. I worked at this game. I studied it. I put in hours upon hours of practice, writing well over a million words before I sold. Every single early indicator would’ve predicted that not only should I have dropped out of the race, I never should’ve entered it in the first place. But I’m stubborn. I wasn’t going to let anyone tell me I couldn’t make significant progress if I stuck with fiction. I wasn’t going to let the mere fact that this is a hard, crazy-making industry deter me from pursuing a passion I loved. So, I didn’t quit. And — published or not — neither did any contributor to this blog.

I’m looking forward to cheering on every one of my writing friends as they experience the intangible triumph of holding their first book in their hands. Even though I’m not a runner, I can tell you, it feels a whole lot like racing down hill, the wind at your back, the sun warming your face. Today is the release day for According to Jane…and I’m giving away two copies (hot off the presses) to two commenters, along with two individual packets (one of each flavor) of Starbucks VIA™ coffee . Thanks to all of you for celebrating this day with me!

If you’re a writer, you’ve undoubtedly heard that editors and agents like to see a lot of white space in manuscripts—translated as go heavy on the dialogue.  That’s because readers love dialogue, which ultimately creates a faster paced novel.  I’m not referring to the how’s-the-weather variety of conversations but rather pithy, witty repartee.

My bio page at the 2009 GH multi-author blog http://RubySlipperedSisterhood.com lists my Ruby Sister nickname as Ruby Queen of Snark.  Granted, I may not be the actual QUEEN of sarcasm, (I think that official title was claimed by someone known as Venomous Kate, the author of an abandoned blog, queenofsnark.com), however, I rank at least as high as a princess or duchess in the art of snark.  My mouth has gotten me—and my characters—in serious trouble on more than just a few occasions.   Therefore, it’s no big surprise that I’m also a devotee of novels and movies with snappy comebacks.  One of my favorite old TV shows is The Golden Girls.  I love Dorothy’s (Bea Arthur’s) snide answers to Rose’s (Betty White’s) dumber-than-dirt questions.

Since I’m inevitably drawn to books and movies rife with clever quips, there’s little wonder I have trouble keeping irreverent wisecracks out of my serious family dramas.  I suspect that’s part of the reason I’m a two-time winner of the Golden Heart award and still unpublished.  In 2003—the first time my work was a finalist in a contest—I received the following comment from one of my judges:  “What a terrific voice!  Great dialogue—I SEE these people sparring—like Spencer Tracy & Hepburn.”  Hepburn in this plot plays a heroine who discovers she has a half-sister with leukemia-not exactly a funny situation.

In my experience, a few great lines of dialogue can be the difference between a good movie or book and an exceptional one.  And even if profound or snappy remarks don’t make the film great, they at least make it memorable.  For example, who could ever forget the lines “You had me at hello” and “Show me the money!” from Jerry MaGuire.

Some quotes from movies have become so renowned you can immediately identify the film from them.  And a few have been quoted so often they’ve become clichés. To illustrate, let’s play a little game.  I’ll list lines from ten different movies, and you guess their titles. (But don’t post the answers and ruin the fun for everyone else.  I’ll list the ten titles later this evening.) Since I’m a romance junkie, most of them are—duhhh—from romances, but a few aren’t.  On some of them, I’ve include two or three lines from the movie because I loved them all so much I couldn’t choose.

1.  “Stores are never nice to people.  They’re nice to credit cards.”

2.  “Oh, yeah, you blend.”

“This is a tough decision.  Get my a** kicked or collect $200.  Hmm . . . I think I’ll collect $200.

“Now, I ask you.  Would you give a f#*% what kind of pants the SOB who shot you was wearing?”

3.  “You can’t handle the truth!”

4. “Now I can see I bring out the worst in you.  Just let me stop you from saying something you’ll torture yourself about for years to come.”

“I wanted it to be you.  I wanted it to be you so badly.”

5.  “You make me want to be a better man.”

6. “Your boss is the Chief Executive of fantasy land.”

“Let’s take him out back and beat the s**t out of him.”

“Just stay away from DuPont Circle.  I hear it’s murder this time of day.”

7.  “Ditto.”

8.  “Uhh—that you’re the only living heart donor.”

“We were up to our elbows in your underwear drawer.  It was like touching the Shroud of Turin!”

9.  “You’re crème brûlée.  You can never be Jell-O.”

10. “Life is like a box of chocolates.  You never know what you’re gonna get.”

How did you do?  If you recognized seven out of the ten, I’ve made my point.  Relevant, entertaining dialogue is one of the most important elements of a good book, and crafting it can be one of the most difficult skills to master.  Naturally, being cursed with the smart aleck gene, my preference leans toward witty retorts.  It’s why Susan Elizabeth Phillips is one of my favorite authors.  Nonetheless, dialogue doesn’t have to be funny to make an impact. Examples 3,4,5,7, & 10 from above are great examples of how dramatic, romantic, or profound statements can stick in our minds.

Witty repartee doesn’t just happen.  It takes revising and polishing to perfect the thrust and parry of the ping-pong dialogue that makes our characters’ conversations larger than life.  Readers love and admire that the hero and heroine always know the perfect thing to say at any given moment. (Unless, of course, the heroine happens to be Kathleen Kelly in You’ve Got Mail.) 

Have you ever noticed the movies you watch over and over and the books you enjoy rereading are usually ones with great dialogue?  Now it’s your turn to share those titles.  What are some of your favorite lines in them?  What kind of dialogue do you prefer—dramatic, witty, poignant, etc?   Which authors can you rely on to deliver entertaining or compelling dialogue?

I recently updated my photo albums, a task that lingered on my to-do list for years. Five years, to be exact. And it took me a year to do it! No kidding.

I began keeping photo albums when I was fourteen. I am now on photo album #41. Forty-one! Yikes! When you factor in that I am several years away from turning 55 (14 + 41), that amounts to an average of more than one photo album per year.

In my defense, my first 8 albums didn’t hold many pictures. By the time I reached photo album #9 at the age of 21 following a three-month backpacking trip to Europe, I realized I needed to progress to the Fattest Damn Photo Albums the World Has Ever Seen. That trip alone took up 3 albums.

Will anyone other than me ever look at these albums? Won’t they just wind up in a post-Cindy’s-funeral dumpster someday?

Maybe, but I don’t care. I love keeping albums. Yes, even in this digital age, I insist on keeping them. My process has definitely changed, however. Back Before Kids, I updated my albums whenever I received a roll of developed film from the drugstore. Now, I have a drawer in my writing desk where I store items for my next Great Photo Album Update: pictures, newspaper articles featuring family members, ticket stubs and souvenir items, etc. The idea is that when I can no longer close the drawer, I update my albums. However, usually I just move a box into my office and move the pile of stuff into that box, begin refilling the drawer anew…then forget about the box.

I refuse to give up and never update my albums. This last update took so long because I ran out of albums. For some reason, rather than hopping back down to the drugstore for a couple more last fall, I allowed several months to pass and by then I had filled the darn drawer again!

Another way my photo album collection has changed…I used to keep 99% of my developed pictures. Even the utterly crappy ones. I think this is because photography itself has changed so much in the last 35 years. Getting pictures developed in the mid-Seventies was not cheap, so no way was I letting any of my pictures go to waste, no matter how crappy they were.

My first camera was a 100 Kodak Instamatic that used 126 Kodacolor film. I know this because I wrote the information inside the cover of my first album. My Instamatic looked something like this:

 No offense to Kodak, but it took lousy pictures (or maybe it was me). Evidence:

Yes, a photo featuring a cat that’s not even looking at the camera is definitely a keeper!

In my defense, I was only fourteen.

I figured I must have progressed to a better camera sometime during my teen years, because the pictures became larger (3 x 5 inches) and the resulting photos much more clear (or maybe it was me). But I didn’t notice a decided improvement in my photography until I received my first 35mm camera at 20, a Pentax K1000.

Then, wow, it was like a whole new world opened up to me. I loved that camera. A Pentax K1000 is pretty indestructible (I know, because I accidentally bashed it on a temple in Greece to no ill effect a few months later). It’s the perfect learning 35mm camera (BDP – Before Digital Photography). I could manually focus! Actually, I had no choice, because the K1000 didn’t feature automatic focus.

Here’s my now-husband (right) and his brother heating all our “emergency rations” our first night in a Paris hotel:

Talk about an improvement! (Or maybe it was them). (You gotta admit, they’re pretty cute).

I loved the K1000 so much that I eventually coerced my husband into buying me a zoom lens for it. Sometime during our marriage, he decided we needed a point-and-shoot camera. We invested in a compact Canon that cost more than what digital cameras cost now. I can’t recall using it much. The DH did.

Then, in 2003, we bought (or he bought, I was still addicted to my K1000) our first digital point-and-shoot, a Canon PowerShot S45.

We still have this camera. I take it to RWA conferences for ease of fitting inside a purse. It snaps good pictures, but I can’t manually focus and the zoom capabilities don’t even begin to approach my old K1000’s. Evidence:

My K1000 was 23 years old when I snapped this photo in the days before the 2003 RWA conference in New York City.

My husband traveled with me, bringing his new Canon S45. Remember I said the K1000 survived a smack-down against a Greek temple in 1981? Our new digital point-and-shoot didn’t even survive our trip to New York! My husband accidentally shattered the LCD display screen when he collided with a table in an Abercrombie & Fitch.

Alas, my K1000 didn’t survive NYC, either. When we returned home, we had the digital Canon repaired. But my 23-year-old K1000 had begun to get finicky about film. I don’t know if the gadget that holds the film inside the Pentax plain ol’ wore out or if film grew skinnier, but when I opened the camera after filling a 36-exposure roll with photos, I discovered that half my NYC pictures were missing, because the film had never caught on the gadget. Sob!

This had begun happening to my films at about the 21-year mark. After our NYC trip, I gave up. I put away the K1000, and I have never used it again. I converted to digital…but I always mourned the loss of my 35mm camera.

In fact, now I realize I stopped updating my photo albums following that trip to New York. Could it be I was in such grave mourning over the lost of the Pentax that I could not :::sob::: bring myself to update my albums? (Sounds better than laziness, no?)

However, now I own this baby along with a 300mm zoom lens, my Christmas and birthday gifts from last year:

A Canon Digital Rebel XSi. After five long years without a 35mm or a zooms lens, I am in heaven! I can manually focus again (I love manual focus). I can get creative…

 ”Cat Paw, with Foot”

I adore my new Rebel! The problem with digital photography, however, is that I take wayyyyyyyy more pictures than ever before. I save them to my hard drive, but I also get some developed for my photo albums. I try to be discerning. When I upload my camera card to the photo kiosk, I only choose those pictures I think I absolutely must have developed into prints. And then, while updating my albums, I realize I don’t need to keep a good 10-20% of those I’ve had printed. Finally, after all these years, I’m learning. No more pictures of cats not looking at the camera (unless the idea is that you don’t want the cat to look at the camera).

How about you? In this age of digital photography, do you keep photo albums? Did you ever keep them? How far behind are you in your updating? Does anyone have more than 41 albums? (I ask this so I don’t seem so weird).

As a Personal Branding Coach, I’ve had the opportunity to work with hundreds of authors on their Brands – what they write, how they package their work, how they present themselves on line –  even what they wear at booksignings. At some point during every one of those interactions, whether one-on-one or in a group, I’ve heard the same lament: I can control everything else… but I can’t do anything about my covers. I have limited (or no) sway over the marketing department, I don’t write the copy, I can’t even pick the cover models!

No matter if these authors were new or solidly mid-list, they all had chilling stories about The Horrifying Cover To End All Covers, or they were convinced that a Career-Killing Cover was just around the corner. I’m talking about the cover with the broken-necked heroine whose hair – gorgeously coiffed despite the driving rainstorm surrounding her – swirls and flies as if it has its own character arc. The cover with the hero, looking mysteriously androgynous from the neck up, and shockingly male (though hairless) from the neck down, who is gripping the heroine in a hold that would be considered illegal in most Blue States. The cover where the hero and heroine are bold! They are impassioned! And they look nothing like the characters in the book! To add insult to injury, the title has been changed from “Forgotten Whispers” to “Tantalizing Tongue Tango in Telluride” (though the book only mentions Telluride once… in a two-minute phone call…) and the back cover blurb appears to have been written by a breathless fourteen-year-old whose idea of true love starts with “I never thought it would happen to me…” You know… That cover.

Which got me thinking: What DOES convince a buyer to make an impulse purchase of a book, particularly in today’s economy? Is it the cover art, the title, the blurb on the back? The genre? The author’s name? The publisher?

I had this experience myself, this week. I was in a bookstore to buy something specific, and the store didn’t have the book I wanted. So there I was, with a coupon burning a hole in my pocket, and nothing in particular to buy. Should I leave without buying a book? That’s really not a possibility in my world. However, I was in a hurry. So I made a new selection within about 30 seconds, and I was off to the counter. How did I do it? Let’s run through the options that could have impacted my purchase:

1.  The Author?

Never heard of her. Still can’t remember her name, though I have a feeling I will after I read her book.

2.  The Title?

It wasn’t brilliant, but it caught my attention as a cheeky title for a paranormal (or a mystery, I wasn’t sure at first)-and I thought it was cool that the book had a subtitle, indicating that this book was part of a series. Importantly, I was only marginally hesitant over the fact that I might be coming into a series midway. There was nothing to indicate that this was “Book 1″, “Book 2″ or “Book 16″, but I didn’t care. I was hooked.

3.  The Cover Art?

Oh, yeah. It was period and gorgeous and slyly humorous, and the blurb at the lower left indicated without a doubt that the book was a paranormal. So a historical paranormal with humor, and it had a good cover quote by a “New York Times Bestselling Author”. I’m a bit cynical about those, but I know of and like the author who was quoted, so that still was a bonus for me.

4.  Publisher?

Never checked prior to buying the book. But you can bet I will going forward, particularly if the book lives up to its promise.

5.  The Back Cover Blurb?

Yup. After the cover art, a quick (and I mean QUICK) scan of the blurb tripped my trigger – it validated the cover’s approach to the book, and deepened it. In addition, the clear sense of continuity the book offered (that it was part of a series) made me think this was a world I might want to spend some time with.

And that was it. I spent somewhere around $5 on the book, with my coupon, and was wholly satisfied. I’ll stay satisfied until I read the book, too, and then my opinion will be improved or damaged depending on the quality of the work. Importantly, this is not a book that I must read by midnight tonight – because, truly, only a Must Read Author gets that kind of treatment from me. But it’s definitely in my To Be Read pile, and I’m absolutely intrigued with it.

So, in short: Those authors lamenting their dismay over The Horrifying Cover To End All Covers? Well, they have a definite point. Consumers today are harried, overloaded, and short on time and attention. Money is tight, and trying out a new author in particular is always a gamble. A cover can make the difference – but it still depends on a great story in many cases: if you have a so-so story, then not only will you not live up to your packaging, but chances are you won’t have an amazing cover. If you have a BRILLIANT story, you have a much better shot at a brilliant cover… fabulous blurb copy… and a sale.

For me, choosing a book by an author new to me was made easier by a combination of art and back-cover blurb. A great author quote can’t hurt, even though I know that’s probably just spin. If I had to nail it down to JUST ONE THING, however, it’d take the cover blurb for me to make the decision – but in most cases, the art would still help get me to read that blurb.

What about you? Why do you pick up a book-and what convinces you to buy it, especially if you don’t recognize the author? Are there any covers that you can recall that stuck with you-for good or ill? (Speak in generalities only-remember, every cover out there DID seem like a good idea to someone at the time!)

We’ve discussed heroes on this blog (and on countless other blogs), and most readers and writers can quickly tell you about their favorite movie actor or literary hero. Writers and readers alike know the qualities we want to see in our heroes: handsome (of course), empathetic, generous, savvy, exotic, attainable, stalwart, amenable, kind, strong, and loveable.  This is of course not a complete list.  And just as there is no perfect list for what makes a hero jump off the page for the reader, there’s no perfect list for making the heroine come alive, either.

As easily and quickly as I can shout Hugh Jackman, Tim Daly, Jim Caviezel, or Hugh Jackman (oops…did I mention him already?) when I’m asked about my favorite hero prototypes, I found I have a harder time finding a prototype for my heroines.  I’ve always enjoyed watching Meg Ryan’s films (Kate & Leopold, for example – and yes, Hugh is in that film), Julie Roberts’ films, and Emma Thompson’s work.  But I noticed that when I’m writing my heroine, the qualities are there, but I don’t automatically “see” an actress or model who fits the part.  And before you think all of my heroes look like/talk like/act like Hugh Jackman, they don’t.  But it’s much easier for me to come up with a leading man.  I have to work at drawing my leading ladies.  It’s much harder for me.

When I’m writing my heroines, I seem to gravitate toward the qualities of the woman who’ve impacted my life: my mom, my mentors, my daughters, and my friends. These strong women are not perfect, but they are heroines, each in their own unique way.

Writers and readers alike – what draws you to a particular heroine?  Is she feisty?  Must she be thin and beautiful?  Can she have issues and baggage?  While we will have as many preferences and differences here as we did with heroes, share your thoughts on what makes a great heroine, if you would!  Examples are always welcome.

And the only way to stay alive was to leave your life behind and enter the witness protection program.  During the middle of the night U.S. Marshals appear at your door and whisk you away from your home and across country to a new life.  Hopefully it would only be temporary until you testified and put the killer away, and he had no psycho friends to come after you.  But what if it wasn’t temporary and you had to disappear forever? 

I’m currently writing a romantic suspense series based on the Federal Witness Protection Program.  (Book one was requested by an editor, so please keep your fingers crossed for me.)  While researching this series, I thought about how my life would completely change forever if I had to enter the program.  I couldn’t imagine leaving behind family and friends.   However, it had me thinking, if I DID have to enter the program, where would I go, what would I do????? 

As a writer, I could do my job anywhere.  However, if I was published I would have to cut ties with my editor and agent—which will have taken me a gazillion years to land—and I couldn’t use the sales of past books as a marketing point for selling new books.  Also, retaining old careers and hobbies is a big witness protection no-no cuz that makes it easier for the bad guys to track you down.  Although many witnesses often do it.

When I really thought about what I would do if this ever happened to me, I had to pretend I was without a family or close friends, or I couldn’t even fathom entering the program.  And that my life was at a dead end and that entering the program would offer me a fresh start and a chance to reinvent myself.  I am currently knee deep in a mid-life crisis so the thought of reinventing myself, at least my career and lifestyle, holds a certain amount of appeal.

Deciding on a name was more difficult than deciding where to move and what to do.  I always found the name Beth a bit boring and wanted a more exotic, unique name, like Alexis, Ariana, Giselle…  I finally decided on the name Bridget Daly, honoring my Irish ancestry, even though the program suggests you keep the same initials and same first name if it’s not too unique, so that you can catch yourself if you are about to write the wrong name.  However, if I’m changing my entire life I’m gonna at least have a cool name.   

I love San Francisco, so that would be at the top of my list for places to move.  Of course in my new life I would have to make way more money to afford it since the cost of living is much higher than in Milwaukee.  When the U.S. Marshals relocate someone they might ask that person to list the top ten places they would like to live.  They would then tear up the list and tell that person those are the last places they are going cuz they have likely mentioned their desire to live there to others at some point.  I have no ties to San Fran except I travel there for work on occasion-but have no clients actually located there to run into. 

It’s a very cultural city, big into the arts.  I am very passionate about art and would earn my masters in art history so that I could own a successful art gallery, specializing in Chagalls.  In between selling multi-million dollar works of art, I would pen best-selling suspense novels about art forgery and thieves—even though my local U.S. Marshal agent would frown upon me continuing my writing career.  I would just have to shy away from big book tours and promotional gigs and be one of those mysterious reclusive authors. 

If you had to start over somewhere and reinvent yourself, where would you live and what new career would you embark on?  What name would you choose and why?

We have rats in our house. Three. Choco, Chip, and Cookie. They are of the fancy hooded Norwegian variety and they like Ritz crackers dipped in peanut butter.

When my daughters got their first set of pet rats, I was in serious denial. For almost two months I refused to use the “R” word. To me, they were “small friendly rodents that are particularly good with young children.” But as I watched my daughters cuddle the critters and discovered how smart they really were…I fell in love with the unlovable.

I bring this up because I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE villains. I love to read them. I love to write them. I love to get in their heads.

So what makes a good villain? Here’s my short take:

Villains must be passionate about their cause. In Romantic Suspense in particular, villains usually drive the conflict, pushing our beloved heroes through life-changing journeys. By book’s end, they will “die” for their cause, literally or figuratively.

Villains must have some redeeming qualities. They can’t be completely despicable or they cease to be characters we can connect with. Think Hannibal Lecter. Everyone agrees this Silence of the Lambs villain is a monster. Yet some of his most compelling scenes are the nurturing, obscenely gentle mentor moments with Clarice Starling. Brrrrr!

Villains must be smart enough, strong enough and motivated enough to take on our heroes. Who likes a lopsided Super Bowl or an NBA Finals sweep? Yech! Give me two evenly matched characters and a last-minute shot at the buzzer.

As for me, Cruella de Vil of 101 Dalmatians is deliciously diabolical as are almost any of Karen Rose’s villains, particularly the game-playing creeptoid in Die for Me.

So let’s talk villains! Who does bad really good? Not into bad guys? Then tell us about any unusual pets you’ve had.

One more thing for all of you aspiring authors, my 2009 Golden Heart group launched a new blog today and for the next month they’ll be featuring proven tips on getting your romance manuscript in Golden shape. Check ‘em out. Joy & Peace!

Readers tend to think writers live glamorous lives.  I mean, how hard can it be?  Write a book, get rich, wallow in luxury.  Maids clean the house, nannies tend the children, reservations take care of dinner, and the writer churns out delightful tales that entertain and enthrall.

If you believe this, the next stop is padded walls and psychotropic drugs because somebody’s living in la-la land, and trust me, it isn’t the highly imaginative, hears-voices-in-the-head writer!

I’m not saying there aren’t wealthy writers.  There are.  But they are the exception, and few (very few) went from rags to riches with a single book.  Truth is, writers who have accrued wealth earned every penny.  They wrote and wrote, edited, polished, submitted, were rejected, wrote, edited, polished and tried again . . . and again and again. 

Once they sold, they established themselves as reliable professionals with the publishing industry, provided a satisfying product for readers, developed and maintained a loyal fan base, and continued to meet the expectations of all of the above . . . again and again and again. 

Seeing a pattern here? 

Publishing today is nothing like it was when the romance genre spread its fledgling wings.  Anyone who read romance back in the 70s and 80s has read a bad one.  The genre took off so quickly contracted writers couldn’t write fast enough to meet demand.  Some publishers, desperate to milk the newest cash cow but knowing little of either romance or its readers, gave passable writers the nod—a faux pas that still haunts the genre.

As Chad and Jeremy crooned, “But that was yesterday, and yesterday’s gone.”

Today’s competitive market has no room for the passable, no place for the unpolished writer whose talent might once have been recognized and developed by a perspicacious agent or editor.  Now, the writer must develop his or her own talent, learning, growing, persevering until they have a saleable product—and then try to sell it.

I once heard an editor say, to break into publishing, a new writer has to be better than anyone they already have.  In other words, good isn’t good enough; you need to be exceptional just to get your foot in the door.

It’s a tough business.  It’s also a lonely business.  When a writer sits to write, it’s just the writer, the characters, and most of the time, the computer.  No one to help make the decisions, no one with whom to argue the merits of a course of action. 

Yes, there are (thank heaven) writers groups, both physical and cyber, and a good critique partner can prove more valuable than gold—especially in the beginning.  But the bottom line?  It all depends on the writer’s determination, work ethic, willingness to listen, learn and adjust as the business, and the market, changes.

Success or failure, the writer bears the responsibility.

Having had people assume that being a writer equates with rolling in money, let me tell you about the average writer’s life.  While not yet published in novel-length fiction, I have numerous friends who are.  Not one of them will contest what I am about to reveal.

Myth:  Cabana Boys, Exotic Drinks, and Gauzy Gowns

FW (fictional writer) swans by the pool, a dewy glass sporting a festive umbrella and fresh fruit in her manicured hand.  Her silk georgette cover-up, tugged by a playful breeze, molds her toned and tanned bikini-clad body.  People gather around, awed by her success, basking in her celebrity.  Young men wearing well-packed speedos, biceps and pecs bulging, gluts and thighs deliniated, abs so toned they render bellies concave, hover, eager to do her bidding.

Reality:  Get ‘er Done

In this vignette of FW’s daily life, two things are obvious:  1) She doesn’t need the income from writing.  2) Her agent and/or editor isn’t at the party. 

Why, you ask, are they obvious?

1)  Does FW need the income, writing is her job, her priority.  She must keep her agent, editor, publlisher, and most importantly, her fans happy so they continue to buy her books and she continues to get paid.

2)  The more successful a writer, the more fans clamor for the next book.   The more fans clamor, the harder agents, editors, and publishers push to get it on the shelves.  The public is fickle.  Celebrity can be fleeting.

A writer’s Sword of Damocles is the deadline.  To miss a deadline is to put myriad production schedules out of sync.  Altering schedules costs money.  Unless previous sales guarantee that loss can be recouped (translation:  writer consistantly writes Best Sellers), there better be a darn good reason why the deadline passed unmet.  If not, the sword could fall, maiming or killing a career.

Myth:  Mansions and Hired Help

FW opens the damask drapes and watches the gardeners prune the roses.  She looks around her bedroom at the gleaming furniture, the dressing room housing neat racks of designer shoes and bags, closets bursting with designer clothes, and sighs, satisfied all is as it should be in her world.  She rings for her coffee and dons a lacy negligée aware she hasn’t much time this morning; her personal trainer is due after luncheon. 

The maid arrives bearing a silver tray upon which, along with the morning latte, is a Baccarat vase containing a single, perfect rose.  She carries it straight to the balcony before fetching FW’s sunglasses and laptop.  FW settles herself on the velvet chaise, the robe’s skirt arranged in graceful folds, and prepares to work.

The phone rings.  The maid emerges and mouths, “Your editor” as she give FW the handset.  FW rolls her eyes, waves the maid away, and plasters a smile on her face.  “Darling,” she coos, certain the smile will translate through the phone.  “Just the person I need.  I’m having trouble with the first scene, and you know how I value your expertise.”

Reality:  Sweats, Gardening Gloves, and Dust Bunnies

Instead of being a fictional writer, I write fiction (can you tell?) and try not to hate Hollywood for their misleading portrayals of writing professionals, including agents and editors.  

Negligèe?  My outfit du jour is sweatpants and an oversized work shirt.  My concession to the seasons?  Red flip-flops in summer, and fuzzy red slippers in winter.  Gardeners?  That would be me.  Personal trainer?  Mine is a 45 pound ball of energy known as Wicket. Unfortunately, if my expanding assets are any indication, she’s not holding up her part of the bargain.

Maid?  That would be me, too, but I can’t gripe about that.  Having someone in the house when I’m trying to work makes me crazy.  I’m aware.  I hear breathing, footsteps, doors.  And run the vacuum?  My head’s in the Middle Ages.  Leave it there.

I’m not alone. 

It’s difficult to get lost in another time, another place, another mind while distracted—which is why most of my writing gets done in the dead of night.  The dogs are sleeping, the phone is silent, and I’m receiving a gentle massage as my beloved’s sonorous snores vibrate anything within twenty feet of the bedroom.  Still, there are dust bunnies that make Chewbacca look like an Ewok.  I fear they may be feral (shoes keep disappearing) and they propogate at an alarming rate—as bunnies, regardless of origin, are wont to do.

Mansions?  Mine is honey-colored stone with mullioned windows and crenelated turrets sitting amid formal gardens alive with blooms.

Until I wake up.

Castle or cottage, hovel or hayloft, tract house or trailer, a writer will find someplace to write.  One writer I know writes in the family camper.  Another uses a little shed out back.  Some writers commandeer the kitchen table or work in their cars.  Some hie to the public library, it’s quiet and the reference section is handy, while others have a favorite coffee shop where they escape taunting dust bunnies that smack their linty lips as they nibble shoe leather.  Dirty dishes and piles of laundry have been known to snicker and chortle too.  A writer either escapes or MUST do something about the cacaphony.

That sword is still hanging.  The chores will wait. 

In the Real World

Many writers, both published and pre-published, hold full or part-time jobs.  In the published group, most understand, unless they consistantly write bestsellers, advances and royalties won’t pay the bills or keep them fed between releases.  (It can take up to 24 months from signing the contract until the book hits the shelves in traditional publishing.  Add another six to twelve months, if sales exceed any advance, before the author sees a royalty check.)  These are the writers firmly planted in midlist—where the vast majority live—hoping to, one day, write the novel that will rocket them to fame.  Meanwhile, they have families, homes, pets, and health issues, just like everyone else. 

In this day and age—because you know writers have tons of spare time in which to indulge their penchant for storytelling—they must also self-promote, i.e. schedule and do book-signings, write blogs, maintain web-pages, and a dozen other things once the province of marketing departments.  It’s enough to drive a sane person mad.

Good thing most of us are a bit crazy.  Self-defense, don’t you know.

Why We Do It

I have a quote by Margaret Chittenden hung in my messy, overcrowded office that pretty much sums up the truth about writers: 

Lots of people hear voices.  Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stare at the walls all day.  Some of them are called writers, and mostly they do the same thing.

Writers write because they must.  Some have tried to stop, step off, escape the gerbil’s wheel on which they found themselves.  But like the squeak of that wheel, the stories begin to grate on the nerves.  The characters refuse to be silenced.  They are relentless, insistant—and no amount of oil will quiet them.  So writers write.  The need to do so is basic, as basic as the need to breathe or sleep.  There is no other reason sufficient to explain why a relatively sane person will endure the uncertainty, the rejection, the hours, days, weeks, months, and often, years of what might prove fruitless labor. 

The FWs of the world are an illusion fostered by Hollywood writers with keen, if somewhat warped, senses of humor.  Hollywood promotes illusions, caricatures, fiction.  Even their so-called reality shows, if you can believe the participants, are managed to ensure the tension and drama that attracts viewers.  True reality doesn’t hold the same allure.

In the real world, writers are your neighbors, friends, or (gasp) relatives.  The person whose coffee you jostled at the PTA meeting could be a writer as could the wretch who took the last parking space or blocked the grocery store aisle.  You’ve probably spoken to a writer at the pediatrician’s or vet’s office, the dry cleaners, or pharmacy.  Writers are everywhere.  Your hair stylist, your lawyer, your child’s teacher, the nurse in the emergency room, or the doctor who perfomed your surgery could be a writer.  Writers come from all walks of life, all educational levels.  They look and act normal despite the voices clamoring in their heads.

In Conclusion

FW closes the drapes and prepares for bed, mulling the events of the day.  Recalling a biting but amusing comment she overheard while dining with her publicist, she gasps and hurries to the night stand, grabs the tablet and pen she keeps there, and scribbles it down.

A gleeful smile curves her lips.  She puts the pad and pen down and rubs her hands together.  That comment will read wonderfully.  It will also enhance the characterization of the bitchy model slated to cause her heroine endless trouble.

FW climbs into bed, her mind already arranging and rearranging dialogue in order to get the most punch from those overheard words.

No myth this time.  Writers are inveterate and unapologetic observers.  Anything you do or say may appear on the pages of a book.

You’ve been warned. 

During a random conversation with friends, I was recently reminded of my college roomies. Ah, yes. Those people. The ones who were somehow destined to be my perfect match based on answers to three essential, profoundly insightful questions:

1) Are you a smoker?   Y   N

2) Do you consider yourself MESSY or NEAT? (circle one)

3) Are you more of a NIGHT or MORNING person? (circle one)

Amazingly–I know, it’s hard to imagine–but my college roommates and I were NOT perfect matches despite our compatible questionnaire responses. Just to prove how incompatible we really were, here are a few of the highlights for your shock and enjoyment:

Roomie #1: The Dream Team Food Hoarder. From trips to visit her parents’ house every weekend, she was able to maintain a two-year supply of Chef Boyardee, homemade cookies, and various junk food stored beneath her bed AND on the entire top shelf of her closet–right next to her wall covered in NBA Dream Team cutouts. And no, she was not Mormon. Just very prepared for a natural disaster. And a young boy’s basketball theme party.

Roomie #2: The Manic-Depressive Lice Sharer. When this 22 year-old junior (in the freshman dorm) wasn’t asleep by 9pm, she was either crying on the phone or secretly washing my bed sheets while I was in class in order to prevent telling me she’d caught lice from her best friend’s daughter. Unfortunately, I found out myself, halfway through a haircut. Nothing like having to slink out of Supercuts with wet “what’s wrong with her” hair to buy RID at a pharmacy. Word to the wise: a pack of Tic-Tacs does little to bring subtlety to a box of lice killer traveling on a store’s conveyor belt.

Roomie #3: Dysfunctional Three’s Company. This one is actually a group, since I eventually lived in a condo with two gals and a guy, whom we nicknamed “Jack Tripper.” There were lots of strange goings-on here, but the most notable usually involved the hotline counseling, yo-yo performing girl whose best friend was a gal who liked to watch her fall asleep by candlelight, and whose mother enjoyed calling periodically to claim she was about to commit suicide–typically while we were in the middle of doing keg stands with the neighbors.

There you have it, people. The wonder years. Aptly dubbed, given that I’m still wondering how on earth I survived. Is it any surprise I ended up a writer, with such juicy fodder? Stranger than fiction, folks.

What about you? Any crazy roommate stories? Share with the group and you may very well win a ribbon for the Worst Roommate Award!