Why should a tough Canadian need a wussy wetsuit? We’re all polar bears, right? Um, not so much. I wear the wetsuit for safety, buoyancy, and warmth. Besides, the hubby thinks it’s hot! Isn’t every man’s dream to have his very own Bond girl?

So, what’s a wetsuit got to do with romance writing?

The Romance Writers of America is your wetsuit in the deep and chilly waters of romance fiction.

SAFETY: Through its myriad chapters, the RWA provides a safe place for a newbie to learn the endless craft of romance writing. Local chapters have monthly meetings and there’s the mega-conference known as Nationals. My local chapter, the Toronto Romance Writers, has offered fabulous workshops with amazing speakers such as Mary Buckham, Dianna Love, and Donald Maass—and that’s just in the last three months! Editor panels at the larger conferences give a peek at the inner workings of publishers large and small, print or electronic.

BOUYANCY: Got rejections deep enough to drown in, or plot problems sinking your story, or writer’s block pulling you under like cement overshoes? Fear not, there’s a whole raft of romance authors out there to boost you to the surface and float you along, giving you the strength to carry on. Critique groups, brainstorming groups, blog groups like right here at RWA-WF or From the Heart Romance Writers give a helping hand or a place to blow off steam.

WARMTH: Is there anyone better in the whole wide world than your romance “peeps” for a dose of the warm fuzzies to celebrate your achievements? Cabana boys and chocolate, champagne and roses, hugs by the score are delivered in real space and cyber space when you break through with that first stupendous sale.

Safety, buoyancy, and warmth by the lakeful, the RWA is a wetsuit for writers.

Where does your wetsuit hang?

Joan Leacott
heart, humour, and heat…Canada style

30+ years of writing for pleasure
16 years of formal education, including degree programs
A generous handful of writing workshops (note in margin: For best results, include Barbara Samuel’s Voice, Deb Dixon’s GMC, and Stephanie Bond’s POV)
RWA Membership
Active participation in several local RWA chapters

Mix thoroughly using critique partners instead of wooden spoon.

Heat over open flame for 5 years while writing full-time, until batter produces “finals” and “wins” when small samples are dropped into RWA-sponsored contests.

Sprinkle with the occasional sale from non-romance publishers like Cup of Comfort, fishing magazines and newspaper articles.

Carefully fold in solid advice from published authors such as Roxanne St. Claire, Kathy Caskie and Sophia Nash.

Taste. Add additional Barbara Samuel Voice class, as desired.

Pour into 60K pan and bake until done (note in margin: This is sometimes referred to as “the submission process.” If possible, ensure it coincides with the folding of Harlequin’s Next and Everlasting lines.)

Set oven timer for 2 ½ years.

Meanwhile, in a separate bowl, cream together a large dollop of patience with multiple revisions. Scoop mixture onto board well-floured with negative advice.

Knead. Dough will remain sticky so be sure to have a goodly supply of doubt nearby. If doubt runs low, add familial referrals to vanity presses and pay-for-hire editors. Temper with encouragement from critique partners and published authors.

Once mixture is ready for senior editor review, cover with a clean dry cloth and let sit for eleven months, or until patience is fully absorbed. Roll fondant to a paper-thin sheet.

When the timer goes off, check to see that Harlequin Ent. shows on display screen. Remove cake from oven and cover with fondant. Tears are essential at this stage of the process, so begin crying.

Take vintage bottle of champagne from bottom of refrigerator. Pop cork and enjoy with large helping of this month’s Harlequin American Romance, The Officer’s Girl, by debut author Leigh Duncan.

Debut author Leigh Duncan and her family moved fourteen times before the children graduated from high school. All that packing and unpacking led to Leigh’s long-standing philosophy that when dirt builds up in the corners, it’s time to call the movers. It also taught her that solid relationships are the foundation for true happiness. Married to the love of her life and mother of two wonderful young adults, Leigh worked as a secretary, a teacher and a government contractor before leaving those jobs behind to pursue writing, her life-long passion. Once the moving vans made their final stop in central Florida, Leigh settled in to write the kind of books she loves to read, ones where home, family and community are keys to the happy endings we all deserve.

Although her first love is Women’s Fiction, Leigh’s first sale was to Harlequin American Romance in May, 2010. The Officer’s Girl is in stores now, and her second Harlequin American is slated for release in early 2011. In her spare time, she’s finalizing a WF/RS for submission this summer. Leigh is a long-time member of the SpacecoasT Authors of Romance (Florida STAR) where she hosted the wildly successful Launching A Star contest for four years. She’s also a member of the Washington Romance Writers, TARA, CFRW and a charter member of RWA-WF.

Speaking of love. Let’s start with my husband, Garry, who, sweet and loving as he may be, thinks the open door to my office is an invitation to come in and chat about what’s going on in his day. These chats often include an invitation to—I know what you’re thinking but you’re wrong—have a break and a cup of coffee with him. What a golden opportunity to put my laptop on sleep and escape!

You see the rift emerging here?

There are days when I welcome the interruption, and days when I don’t.

There are days when I fantasize about an office of my own in another building miles from home, but that takes money AND the motivation to get up, get dressed in something appropriate and get out of the house! No can do, or no want to do…

I’m in the writing game to escape the suits, the no-time-to-ponder-my-broken-fingernail syndrome, the eight o’clock meetings and the hurry-up-and-wait aspects of the business world.

Another valiant member of my procrastination team is my cat, Emma, who thinks my sole occupation should be to look after her, gaze adoringly at her, pat her, and be her gofer-in-waiting. And what a source of procrastinating opportunities! After all, her long Maine Coon Cat coat needs to be brushed every day, and I’m the gal to do it.

And of course there are all the communication opportunities. Aside from the usual email, Internet and snail mail, there is the newspaper with its wonderful Sudoku puzzles, not to mention my coveted collection of Sudoku books. One must remember to exercise one’s mind, right?

When I think I don’t have another word to write, my favorite time waster is the telephone. During some of my worst moments of writing inactivity, I’ve even entertained the notion of talking to the computer-generated voice on the other end of the line!

Okay, so you see where I’m going. When I can’t seem to get the words flowing, I can come up with hundreds of reasons not to plunk my butt down in front of the computer.

I take solace in the notion that I’m not alone in this feeling, this waffling approach to my writing life. But is solace enough? How will my next book get written, if I don’t stop fooling around while gobbling huge chunks of my time all in the name of procrastination?

During one of my extended procrastination sessions, I watched Charlie Rose on PBS. I love his program, not only does it provide a wealth of opportunity for my delaying tactics, I actually learn a lot when I watch his program. Now, this particular day, he had Ian McEwan on his show, and he asked this incredible author how he found his next story, how he came to the writing process.

And guess what the man said? He “showed up” at his computer. He turned off the Internet and email and he simply wrote words, not necessarily words that would end up in his next book, but he exercised his writing skills while he waited for inspiration.

How simple could that be?

Well, we’ll see…

I’m going to try showing up every day at my computer for at least an hour in which I will WRITE. Not futz around with office stuff, get on the Internet, or daydream. I will actually write anything that comes into my head.

Stay tuned.

Stella MacLean writes for Harlequin Super Romance. Her next book, A Child Changes Everything, will be out in August. She’s also working on her first women’s fiction novel—Clouds Across the Sun.

Today was one of those days that quite simply did not stop. Up at Target by 830 for shoes and dresses for the girls. Strike out on shoes, mall doesn’t open til ten. Managed to get everything at mall and get home by 1. Both girls are acting funny but I just figured they’re tired. No sooner did I set oldest on couch with water does she pull a Linda Blair. All over the couch. Couldn’t she at least have aimed for the floor? Got her cleaned up, couch cover (thank heavens) in the wash, then hubby comes home and wants to do yard work. The major kind that involves transplanting trees and bushes. That gets done, then youngest starts heaving. Oh and forgot about housework in between shopping and yard work and dyeing Easter eggs. And that was before I ran back to the store at 9pm because I had NOTHING for Easter.

So how the heck am I going to write a sexy, loving scene at midnight after a day like this? Well, to be quite honest, I’m not. I’m going to write a murder. A vicious stoning in an Iraqi village that my hero and heroine have to try and stop. (This WIP is not my women’s fiction project, in case you were wondering;)

But the only reason I’m writing that scene is because a, it needs to be written, b, I’ve been avoiding it for a week, and c, I can’t move forward on my revisions until I get it done. Oh and I’m not tired yet, either.

Getting into the mood after an insane day is a tough one and honestly, it’s not easy. I usually have to go back and reread where my characters were the last time I left them is one way I slip back into the scene. Looking at notes frantically scribbled either on my note pad or document notes also helps pull me back into the story.

Music is one way that is almost guaranteed to put me in the mood. I have soundtracks made up for each of my books. For my women’s fiction WIP, the song that will put me right there in the scene, whichever scene I need is Red’s Mystery of You. Its a haunting song that symbolizes everything about the trouble between my hero and heroine.

Finding the right way into your piece after an insane day where you’re lucky you can take a long enough shower to shave your legs is tough but we’re writers, right? That’s what we do. So I’d love to hear how you slip into that scene and find the right mood when what you’d rather be doing is sitting on the couch drinking a beer.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a character to stone.

Jessica Scott
www.jessicascott.net

Like many of us, I’d dreamed of writing novels “someday,” had even dabbled in writing as a kid, but couldn’t get past the “flowery” prose. And to this day, flowery descriptions escape me. As for plot, well, what did I have to write about? Then, one day, on a cruise ship in the middle of the Caribbean, relaxing out by the ship’s aft pool, soaking up some sun and feeling absolutely at peace with the world, I burst into tears. My deeply felt and long-repressed feelings refused to be silenced any longer. I had to face the truth: I had to find my father.

And it was that journey that prompted me to write my first manuscript about, what else, but a woman searching for her father. I’d found my plot. And this theme runs through all of my manuscripts at some level or another. In the meantime, I began to reach out to other women who hadn’t known their fathers through a blog, and then, eventually, I wrote a book called “Myths of the Fatherless,” debunking Society’s myths of what not knowing your father means to a woman. I included other stories in my book from writers I’d met online who’d also experienced something similar.

Blog comments and emails revealed to me that I was not alone, and it was especially gratifying when others said my words had helped them. I even received a letter from a father asking my advice on how to go about contacting his daughter for the first time. But, eventually, this subject ran its course, and I retired the book to focus solely on fiction.

But in Kathie Lee Gifford’s book, “Just When I Thought I’d Dropped My Last Egg,” Kathie told the story of how during a personal crisis, a Catholic Bishop (she’s not Catholic) comforted her and urged her to offer up her pain for others. So she went to Washington D.C. to testify for underpaid workers of the world, and this effort turned a bad situation around for good.

This prompted me to reconsider retiring “Myths of the Fatherless,” and I made it available on Kindle just in case somebody out there would find it helpful. It’s such a personal story, and every time I try to rewrite the fictional version of it, the emotion overcomes me, and I put it aside. Someday, I tell myself, someday I’ll know how to write it.

So, then, the third inspiring event happened this week: our own JoAnn Ross blogged about her journey to find her father, to find her family, to find herself. She wrote it openly, honestly, and brilliantly. And JoAnn telling her story strengthened me and inspired me to tell my own story.

And I hope that my story will be a springboard for some other writer to share their story. We do have power as writers, and no matter where we are in our writing journey, our writing can help others.

Kathy Holmes

http://www.kathyholmes.net

Sure, I thought. I can’t even get my teenager to put his sheets in the washer.

“Really,” he continued. “As a writer, you have a huge influence.”

True. I wrote promotional features – ads that pretend to be stories – for magazines and I was very good at it. Unfortunately, I didn’t like convincing people that they’d be happier if they erased their hard-earned wrinkles with Botox or doused the strands of tinsel in their hair. I’d rather use my skills for good: entertainment and enlightenment.

So I decided to collect a dozen or so essays I’d written about my family, got my dad to illustrate them, and self-published. I thought my relatives – the fodder, as I call them – would enjoy the stories. My cousin Barbara phoned when a copy landed in her mailbox.

“I-i-i-it’s beautiful,” she sobbed.

“Thank you,” I said. “I count the day well spent if I can make my loved ones cry.”

She blew her nose. “I laughed, then I cried, then I laughed again.”

Well that’s something, I thought.

Scientists have proven that laughter strengthens the immune system.
There’s one person who won’t catch a cold any time soon.

My Auntie Lois was next. “I love it!” she said. “I’m going to do the same thing for my daughters.”

Since my Auntie Lois calls me about once every…well, she’s never phoned me…I was thrilled. Isn’t that great! I thought. One more family handing its tales to the next generation.

I put the essays on a shelf and finished a novel, which alas the publishing world didn’t care for. But a friend asked if she could read it, so I handed over the manuscript. A couple of weeks later she handed it back, saying, “Thank you. I really enjoyed that.”

Well, what else could she say, right?

I filed it, wrote another novel that New York didn’t want, and my friend signed up for her very first bike tour.

“Cool!” I said, surprised. “What made you decide to do that?”

“Your book,” she said.

Now when I think that I’m never going to be good enough or that New York’s never going to get me, I remind myself that, even unpublished, my writing has changed lives. Including my own.

And now that he’s grown up and moved out, I wonder if the teenager would have done his laundry if only I’d written him a note….

Rachel Goldsworth

http://www.rachelgoldsworthy.blogspot.com

Or whatever. He wasn’t interested in red-wine jus.

As soon as he’d loaded the china and silverware into the dishwasher and switched on the machine, he wiped his hands on a towel and headed for the owner’s cubby of an office behind the storeroom.
From the pocket of his good black Dockers he pulled a sheet of paper folded in quarters. He opened it and smoothed it against his thigh, then knocked on the battered hollow-core door.

  

The kid with the rough hands and the black pants is me. He’s probably you, too. Okay maybe not you, but almost certainly people you know.

  

“Come in,” the boss called.

The busboy grasped the knob but his hand slipped. He wiped his palm on his trousers and tried again. The knob turned. He pushed the door open firmly. It banged against something, oh a chair, and the owner peered around the edge.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hey,” said the busboy. “This is for you.” He thrust the sheet of paper at the owner of the four-star restaurant, who took it and glanced at it.

“Your resume?”

“Yeah. I want to be a chef.”

“Ah,” said the owner, scanning the paper. “Do you have any experience? Go to a cooking school? Apply for an apprenticeship?”

“I don’t have time for that. I just want to be a chef.”

  

Writers do this all the time. We write something. We believe/pray/hope it’s good (or good enough), and send it off. Agents and editors receive these pages of deathless prose (or unmotivated internal monologue) and sigh and recommend craft books or courses (or bonfires).

If I were spending my hard-earned money on a birthday dinner in that restaurant, I wouldn’t want the busboy to cook it, yet I’m quite happy to send a half-baked novel to agents and editors.

I bet Ann Rittenberg and St Martin’s Press are thrilled to see Julia Child’s Boeuf Bourgignonne land on their plates, but my underdone hamburger patty of a book?

Hey, it’s rare.

Although not in the good way.

Rachel Goldsworthy