SECRETS I'VE LEARNED

My guest is romance author, Houston A.W Knight, aka, Hawk. Many may know her from her blog and also know she’s been deep in her writers cave the past few months.

Aspiring authors work hard to get their work published. Sometimes it feels like pushing a stone up a mountain. There is just so much to learn and apply.

Most writers I know are professionals with successful careers. These writers have worked hard for the measure of success they have.

Breaking into fiction writing, however, levels the playing field because they’re starting out entry level and dealing with rejections. A place many haven’t been in years. Oh, and let’s not forget most these writers are doing this while juggling life, family, jobs, and trying to carve out time to write. To follow a dream and build a writing career. 

I love hearing success stories. When any of my friends get THE CALL, I’m thrilled for them.  I know how hard they’ve been working for this day, this call. 

When I received a giddy call from Hawk (yes you were keyed up and giddy, my friend), I was so excited.  I asked her to please take the time away from her deadlines and talk about her journey to publication and what she learned along the way.

To be Published Or Not To Be Published, that is the question. To which I answered, I wanna be published!!!

And I have. 

First, let me reassure Sia, that my dog still has his hearing and no windows were broken in my house. Yep, she asked me that. I think she was a wee bit disappointed to hear I was very calm and business like when I received the call from the publisher. I wanted deadline details and release dates. Once it sank it I was excited and shared my news with friends. 

I know the frustrations, and doubts we struggling writers go through. I want to share what secrets I discovered to make my dream come true. 

I joined a writers’ chapter and learned a lot of basic things. The 'helpful' information given by the 'Pros' sounded good, but didn't really help. I wondered what secret information they were all dancing around and why they just didn't come out and tell me what I needed to know to get the job done. Being an Irish lass, I had to uncover their secrets. 

• First secret: I'm sure you all have heard it; Show Don't Tell.  

We all know that means showing how the hero walked into the room instead of telling the reader he walked in. But more importantly is picking the right things to SHOW. How do you know what to pick? You’re writing a romance, go for showing the deep POV of the Character (show their emotions) with a few details of the surroundings. What the Pro’s don’t tell you is YOU HAVE TO BALANCE THAT SHOWING WITH "TELLING" ~ so the rule 'show don't tell' didn't work for me because if you study published authors…they "show AND tell." 

• Second secret: They'll say, be sure to give the GMC (Goals, Motivations and Conflict). 

What they don't tell you is that you have to put that in the very first paragraph if you want a publisher to look at your work. Actually, your first three lines of your opening paragraph should be the heroines full name, her profession and her GMC and the forth line should be a hook. Pick up a book by a new author and check the opening paragraph and you’ll see just often this is true with new authors. Those already published will break this rule, but you're not published…yet  :-) you've got to play by the rules…for now!
 

• Secret three: What in the heck did they mean, "Focus on the romance." 

I’ll bet most of you said what I did ~ Well duh, I'm writing a romance…but what did they really mean? 

If you want to sell a book…every two or three lines should have an emotion. That's what they're not telling you. Go to your favorite author…don't read the book, read the lines and mark the emotions and see just how often she slipped in an emotion you weren't even aware of reading. SURPRISE!
 

• Secret Four: Giving the details. 

When they say give details, what they don't tell you is, we don't care if Tom passed the salt to Mary. What we are interested in is that as Tom passed the salt to Mary his heart was breaking because he couldn’t bring himself to confess his love for her. Now THAT'S a detail we care about. 

There are a lot of secret shadings in the advice writers are given. Advice that appears helpful but if you don't delve deeper…you'll spend years trying to understand what they want. 

Another key to getting published it watching what's going on around you in the business. There will come a time when you'll have to decide your options. Do you keep writing what you love knowing it won't sell or change and write what sells? I'm not saying chase the market…I'm saying study what's happening in the market. Know what’s selling and what’s not. Then be willing to change Genre. 

There was a time in my life when I was about to give up. We all hit those days. DON'T GIVE UP. I'm telling you right now…it won't work, you'll be like a druggy sneaking off to write a story and you'll tell yourself you're not really writing, you are…so, forget about it…you're a writer and accept you'll have those days. KEEP GOING!! Hanging in there is your only chance at getting your foot in the door. I don't care if you're hanging on by your last fingernail…HANG IN THERE…you can make this happen. 

It's A Grand Old Fourth and "Research" Fun

Hope everyone enjoyed all the bing, bang, and boom of fireworks this past weekend. From what I’ve heard from various friends, outside picnic tables were groaning from all the food with lots of laughter and family fun.

My mom had a swimming/BBQ party on Saturday. My mom had 6 boys and 3 girls. All but three have children—at least two or more, except me, with one. My mom has eleven grandchildren and seven great grandchildren. Even a small family gathering, meaning not all her children, is a big thing. So we tend to do potluck and since we never know for sure who will bring friends—especially the younger generation—we tend to bring extra. We only had a small group; twenty but had enough food to have fed easily twice that amount. We Celts are big on family, food, music, and fun. We had all that as per usual. No fireworks, but plenty of everything else.

 

I had a ball in the pool with the littlest of our clan, my 7-month-old grandniece, Nikki, who thinks she’s part fish. *eyeroll. I spent most of the time trying to keep her face out of the water. Good luck with that. She wanted to do what big sissy, two and a half year old Joss was doing or she wanted to get to great grandma, or my son, Jake. Nikki watched him swim under water grab his aunt; Nikki’s grandmother and I saw that measuring look in her eyes. Ohhh no you don’t you little mer-baby. She wanted to though. Teach me to read aloud from Judi Fennell’s Mer books when she was a tiny thing.

My husband had planned to take our son and I to a big firework display, but my son opted to stay down with his cousins. They live within walking distance of Skyfire, one of the biggest firework shows in their county, held at the local airport. So we decided to stay home. Not that I missed out on fireworks. I may live in the middle of nowhere, or as I call it, out beyond the back forty, but I have neighbors within a mile radius that do some awesome fire power every year. All I have to do is go out in the yard, pull up a chair and watch the three pyro-neighbors try to outdo each other. At this rate, I’m going to start selling tickets, lol! My horses are not thrilled with all the noise, even as far away as the neighboring ranches are, and tend to stay up in the home pasture. Poor babies.

Writing? Pffft. Not this weekend, but I’m jumping into it the rest of the week.

• So, how was your weekend? C’mon, share some stories. :-)

Help me ease my conscience so I can pass off all the activities, more than listed here, as research. Yeah, that’s what it was, a research weekend.

Well, that's my story and I'm stickin' to it. :-D

Thank you for the Award, Hawk!

• This week: Will be announcing winners of Kathryne Kennedy's, Fire Lord's Lover.

See my Review of Wild Irish Sea by Loucinda McGary.

•  
• I have a friend I'll be interviewing with regard promotion styled contests.

• Friday, I have Debut erotic romance author, Kilt Kilpatrick. He should be fun.