BEING A SUCESSFUL PUBLISHED AUTHOR—MAGIC OR WORK? (Part Two)

~Sia McKye~
As an author, nothing can be quite as exciting as receiving word you’ve sold your book and it’s going to be published. You are over the moon and flying high. Maybe even dreaming of the NYT Best Sellers List. Finally, you’re getting validation for all your work and hours of writing. Everyone you know hears about it. You’re discussing galleys, Arc covers, the artwork, blurbs, and author endorsements on your cover. Tossing terms around like Pub dates, Arc mailings, targeted print campaigns, web promotions and Reviews, library marketing, and author events. Your book finally hits Barnes & Noble and you find yourself going in just to look at a book with your name on it. You take pictures. You start being obsessed with Amazon figures on your book’s placement of the day or week. You’ve got it made, right?

Keep in mind that just having your book in print doesn't mean it will automatically sell—books don't sell themselves, even if they are listed on Amazon—or on the shelves of Barnes & Noble. As a friend of mine recently reminded me: “Over 195,000 new novels are published by publishers in the U.S. every year. Of those, 70% sell fewer than 500 copies.” A sobering thought.

Here’s another reason to aggressively promote yourself and your books and the importance in building a reader base.

Debuting authors are lucky enough to get a first print run of 10,000 for their book, depending upon the genre and your publisher’s confidence in your work (some can be as high as 25,000). You might think 10,000 is a big number until you start calculating book stores and Amazon. It’s really a small run and it’s not going to hit the best sellers list with that number. If they sell only 500 copies or less, then the publisher eats the cost of having the other 9500 shipped back to them, at full cost, and made into pulp. Publishers are not happy when this happens, but they have a contract with you, maybe for a three-book deal. Maybe they’ll recoup their losses on the second book? If they don’t will they take another three books from you? Or drop you like a hot potato? Can you see where active promotion and publicity is vital?

On the other hand, you’ve worked your butt off with promotion. You’ve built up name recognition on the Internet through Facebook, Wordpress, Twitter, and Gather, MySpace and other social networks. You’ve worked hard at blogging and building presence and attracting your consumers—readers. You started this long before your book was even sold. You continued even after your book was sold. You’ve written book reviews on books similar to yours, written anything and everything related to your books and also to you as a person. You’ve made yourself a personality, with likes, dislikes, and interests. In other words you’ve become a real person to your readers. They see you share the same interests as they do, you chat with them. You build characters in your books; surely it isn’t that hard to project yourself to your readers?

Because your potential readers like you and have gotten to know you somewhat, they do name-dropping about their “good friend, the author.”

“Oh yeah, I know Anna Campbell and she just released TEMPT THE DEVIL. Highlanders, honey, you have to look for it.”

“I just read the best suspense/thriller recently, A SPARK OF HEAVENLY FIRE, by my friend Pat Bertram. We’re talking danger and a story of ordinary people becoming extraordinary to survive. You’ve got to order it.”

“My good friend Judi Fennell wrote this cool series about sexy mermen and a kingdom under the sea. The first book is called IN OVER HER HEAD, you gotta read it!”

“Cheryl Brooks is just the nicest person evah. She writes some real sizzlers, we’re talkin’ hot and sexy. She writes The Cat Star Chronicles and just released ROGUE.

It’s that simple and any debuting or popular author’s name can be slipped in there. Why? Because you’ve worked hard to be assessable and real to your readers. Because once you knew your release date, you started building anticipation for your book. So now, your book is released and sells through at 80%, or 8000 books. Your publisher is very happy and is patting him or herself for their ability to find talented writers. They decide a second print run is good business. Because you’ve built a buzz you probably will do well on the second run. Your publisher decides for your next book (for a debuting author that can be as soon as two-three months later) to start out with a first print run of 25,000 and a much larger presence on the bookshelves of Barnes & Noble and more pressure for the staff to push your book.

By the way, to hit the NYT best sellers list? The book needs a first print run of at least 35,000 plus. Maybe Nora Roberts or Christine Feehan may get first runs in the 1-300,000 book range but look at all the time they invested in marketing and promoting themselves and their books. As a debuting author, you’re not going to get that with a first run.

This type of marketing/promotion also works for POD authors. True, you don’t have to deal with print runs and costly returns, but if your books are on the shelves in bookstores, the return cost are still a bite and one you as the author have to foot. In reality, most Print On Demand books are not on the shelves of National bookstores. You can order them from Barnes & Noble, or Borders, but due to the higher price for the average trade paperback, they aren’t always carried physically.

It’s smart business; again it’s your business, to have these books sell through. You want to be successful and to do that you need a solid reader base as much as, or perhaps even more than, a traditionally published author. Collecting dust is not the image of your books you want in the bookstore management’s eyes or your own, especially if you want them to continue to carry your books. Shelf space is not a guarantee of sales any more than having a book with your name on it is.

Stirring up publicity and marketing yourself as an author and promoting your book is, many times, the least favorite task for an author. The point is if you want to be a success as an author then it’s going to take hard work. A third of your time is spent in writing the story and the rest is spent in selling it to a publisher and then promoting the book and yourself as an author. Building that all important reader base. It’s a necessary part of business.

Writing is a business. The author is the proprietor of that business. Products have to be promoted to be a success. It’s as simple as that. Once we realize that, we put ourselves in the right mindset to be a success.
There are no magic wands, treasure maps of shortcuts, or guarantees to be a successful author. Or to being published.

Just a dream and a lot of hard work.
***
Sia McKye has spent over twenty years in marketing and promotion. She's written and published various articles on writing, marketing, and promotion. She's a Marketing Rep by profession and also writes fiction.

Setting the Mood

My guest today is Dana Fredsti, author of MURDER FOR HIRE: The Peruvian Pigeon. Dana also writes erotica under the nom de plume Inara LaVey. Her latest release is Ripping the Bodice. Dana is a fascinating woman who has worn many professional hats in her career, but today she talks about the contrast of writing before being published and what it's like to write under contract.

When I write, I like to set the stage. Kind of like a woman preparing for what she hopes will be a super romantic date. You know, candles, the right music, the perfect food, and no distractions. Creating an atmosphere conducive to a particular outcome.

When I lived in Glendale (part of Los Angeles, near Griffith Park and the L.A. Zoo), we had a fireplace in the house so on days that were chilly enough (we don't really do 'cold' in the majority of Southern California); I'd build a fire. I confess to using a lot of non-environmentally, unfriendly faux fire logs back in the day. I’d draw the curtains to shut out the noise of the neighborhood (we lived on a busy corner, complete with bus stop and the only roundabout in Glendale), light some candles, and settle in on the couch with my computer and whatever music best suited the mood of my current project. The cats would curl up the couch next to me or in front of the fireplace and I'd write for a couple of hours. It didn't always insure a productive writing session, but it generally helped keep distractions to a minimum. The fact I worked at home doing freelance transcription also helped; I could pick and choose my writing schedule.

Then I moved to San Francisco and I lost the fireplace, but I gained a four-block walk to the beach, a quiet neighborhood and several cats. Easy access for a beach stroll and the lack of shrill, obnoxious teenagers improved the ambiance for writing. The cats? Not so much. Nothing says 'distraction' like a thundering herd of felines racing through the house, using one's lap and laptop as part of the racetrack. And I can light all the candles (and matches) I want, but when you're fostering kittens during the phase of weaning them from kitten kibble to adult food...there aren't enough matches in the world to mask the gaseous warfare that ensues.

Now if I'm working on one of my hard-boiled cozy mysteries, kitty poots can inspire such lines as 'he hung around like a fart in a phone booth.' But when working on erotic romance for Ravenous...not so much inspiration as watching my muse hightail it out of the room with a promise to come back when I've bought her a gas mask.

I also gained a full time job; including a 40-minute commute each way. The necessity of paying bills not yet covered by my writing income has severely cut into my creative schedule. However, over the last year and a half, I've been published three times. One traditionally published mystery novel, and one short story and novel for Ravenous Romance, an erotic romance e-publisher, co-written a non-fiction book about what women really want in bed (sleep!) with my childhood pal Cynthia Gentry http://www.cwgentry.com/ and have a contract for seven more books with Ravenous.

I don't have time to create the perfect ambiance for my writing now; I get home from work, toss down some dinner, park in my rocking chair, and fend off felines while working for a couple of hours. Sometimes I work with one or two cats draped on the top of my arms, my hands and laptop keyboard barely visible below the furry bodies.

Weekends are better: I get up and go for a long walk on the beach (Must. Collect. More. BEACH GLASS!), come home and putter for an hour or so, and then settle in around noon to write for most, if not all of the afternoon and evening. Some days I listen to music. Other times I have a movie playing quietly in the background. Something about bad Sci-Fi original movie about giant snakes/dragons/alligators/spiders and zombie movies just fires the creative juices. I think it best not to analyze why this helps me write erotica. Some things are better left to the mystery of the muses, doncha think?

What does this all mean? I'm not entirely sure, but it seems the less time I spend trying to set the perfect mood for my writing, the more time I spend actually doing the work.

And I finally understand what people mean when they say 'writers write.' It still makes me want to smack 'em, mind you.... but at least it makes sense now!

***
Dana has been involved in the entertainment world for many years as an actress in film and theatre. She has worn the hat of actress, producer, and writer much of that time.

Dana's love of all things feline has involved her in volunteer work with both large exotic cats with Exotic Feline Breeding Facility/Feline Conservation Center, and ongoing urban feline rescue. She has been writer and associate producer of several award winning documentaries on the subject.

Dana was co-producer/writer/director for a mystery-oriented theatrical troupe based in San Diego. These experiences were the basis for her mystery novel MURDER FOR HIRE: The Peruvian Pigeon. She is at work on the second in the series, Murder for Hire: The Big Snooze. Writing as Inara LaVey, she has a short story, Succubusted, and a novel, Ripping the Bodice, and is currently working on Champagne with Ravenous Romance, http://www.ravenousromance.com/ a new e-book site focused on erotic romance.

MURDER FOR HIRE: The Peruvian Pigeon is available through all fine bookstores in the US and Uk, on-line through amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com and other internet sites. Also available direct from the publisher at www.rockpublishing.com

Doggone Writing

My guest today is Lesli Richardson, the author of Trouble Comes in Threes, which was released February 20, 2009 and sold 600 copies the first week.



It’s a quarter till five in the afternoon and the insurrection has begun. Bubbles the bulldog starts “talking” to me in the whining bark that she only uses for dinnertime. To anyone else, it’s merely annoying. To me it screams, “Get your fat ass off the laptop and FEED ME, Mom!”

Of course, when Bubbles starts, that’s the signal for my other five dogs to chime in. (Yes, I have six dogs. No, I don’t want another one. Yes, it’s a lot of dogs. And yes, it’s a long story. Actually, I currently have seven dogs because I’m babysitting one for a good friend of mine.)

I wouldn’t get up from behind the computer if it wasn’t for my dogs and my husband and son. And trips to the coffee pot.

Coooofffeeeeee.

Ahh, the elixir of life.This is my day job. I’m a writer. I knew way back when that I wanted to be a writer. Ever since I was a kid. (And my twentieth high school reunion is this year, if that tells you anything.) Yes, I spent a few years writing non-fiction full-time. I let my fiction slip to the side because I didn’t have time to “play” with my writing. I never stopped honing my craft, never stopped learning, and never stopped trying to better my writing and editing skills.

I’m nobody special. I’m a wife and mom and staff to six dogs (and two birds and a cat that shall remain nameless because he’s the spawn of something evil). I have worked my patookie off to get where I am today. Am I making Stephen King money? No. (I wish!)

Am I paying my bills? Thankfully.

What frosts me is sometimes when people hear that some of my books are e-books, they say, “Oh, I thought you wrote real books.”

Um, according to my mortgage company, it’s real money.

I love what I do. I am living my dream—writing fiction full-time. I love that I can take people and drop them into an imaginary world and they willingly come along for the ride. I really love it when I get an email from a reader saying they couldn’t put my book down.

My equivalent of scoring a touchdown and getting to spike the ball is when a reader emails me and says I made them laugh or cry or that they read my book more than once and can’t wait to see what happens next if it’s a series.

I love that.

Not that my dogs could give a hoot. As long as kibble magically appears in their bowls by the appointed hour, they’re happy. Otherwise, the daily insurrection starts.

My dogs don’t care that I’m a writer. It’s humbling. No chance of me getting a swelled head when a black Lab has his nose stuck in my face while another tries to make off with my trackball. I tried to explain to them and negotiate with them that by writing, it allows me to buy them the quality homeopathic kibble that doesn’t contain chemicals, and hence maybe just once the insurrection could happen a little later, at least until this scene is written?

Bubbles and the gang couldn’t care less.

I love that I can wear my Sponge Bob pajamas all day and have a ten-foot commute. I love that I don’t have drive to get to work. I love that I can spend all day long playing with imaginary people and get paid to do it.

I love making people feel the way I feel when my characters come to life in my imagination. It’s a good feeling. Especially in economic times like these, knowing that I’m taking someone’s mind off of the “real world” for a while is really cool. I feel honored that people trust me with their time.

And I’m thankful beyond measure to readers, who are the reason I’m blessed enough to be able to do what I do. I can’t begin to express how much I appreciate that.

My dogs appreciate it too, although they might not say so in quite that way. Now please excuse me while I go rescue my MP3 player from a felonious canine.
***

Lesli Richardson is a bestselling author writing in several genres as herself and under the name Tymber Dalton. She's a snarky, stubborn native-Floridian Taurus who lives in southwest Florida with her husband, son, and a houseful of neurotic, misfit animals. She currently has over a dozen current and contracted releases, including "Doggy Style," "Love Slave for Two," "The Reluctant Dom," and "Cross Country Chaos." Available on Amazon.com. You can find her websites at: http://leslirichardson.com and http://tymberdalton.com

GETTING PUBLISHED—WHAT MAGIC WAND?

I’ve been in marketing/publicity for quite a few years. I’ve sold, promoted, and publicized various products and services over the years. To be effective one has to know the product or service being offered—which in this case is selling you as an author and your book. Knowing the business end of the product you’re selling, which in this case would be publishing.

I write quite a bit about marketing, promotion, and publicity. I work with a couple of small independent publishing companies to promote their authors and increase sales. I am also a writer. So learning about the publishing field is a must. As I learn about it, I write about it. I get comments, sometimes emails from aspiring authors who want to be published and want to be a success. I’ve had questions from published authors on suggestions I might have on marketing.

One unpublished author wrote to me: “I am an aspiring writer. However, I am having a bit of a time getting published. I know it is nearly impossible to connect with a large publishing company. So I am trying to decide if I want to do self-publishing or use a print on demand service. Any suggestions?”

I hear things like this frequently. Everyone wants a shortcut. I have no magic wand. I share what I learn. This is actually a two-part question. The first part is how to get published and the best route to accomplish that. The second part is how to be successful as an author once you are published. I thought about it and answered.

As an aspiring author trying to get published, the main thing is belief in yourself and in your ability to tell a story. The second thing is polishing your craft. That means learning and applying—what works and what doesn't. If you receive critiques or suggested changes from editors, agents, or your writing group, don’t get on your high horse and think your words are sacred and descended from God. Be willing to look at the critiques and suggestions and see if they’re valid. Third, keep an eye on what’s selling out there. What do you see on the bookshelf—especially in your genre? How does your writing compare in premise, character development, and presentation? Fourth, as a published author, building a reader base by marketing yourself and your book.

POD (Print On Demand) isn’t a shortcut, although many think it is. A shortcut denotes a quicker way to get from point A to point B and going POD isn’t going to give you that, other than you have a book out there with your name on it. POD can be a good place for some to start. You can build a readership base, see what works with plots and story lines and what doesn't. An author has more control over their books and any profits generated, which is why some choose that route. Many POD publishers also make the books available as an E-book on places like Amazon. POD has changed considerably over the years and it's not at all like the old Vanity press of years gone by when a person could self-publish anything—most of it poorly written. They went the route of self-publishing because they couldn’t get a contract from a larger publishing house and part of the reason was the story was not saleable due to the way it was written. What came first? The chicken or the egg?

Unfortunately, some POD books out there are still poorly written and there is a reason for that. If you choose to go the route of Print on Demand, be careful which POD publisher you go with. If you have to pay them to publish your book, this is not the one for you. If you find a reputable POD publisher your work is still cut out for you. This is where an author discovers that POD isn’t a shortcut. There are very few POD publishers with an editing staff to filter your writing. That’s up to you as the author. They’ll print your book at no cost to you, they will also offer you a contract—be sure to look it over carefully—and they will offer a percentage of the profits on each book sold and send those royalties to you either monthly or quarterly. Once you receive the proof book back from the printer, be sure you really proof your story well before it goes to final print. Presentation is everything and in this case, it’s up to you to make sure it looks professional and error free.

The thing to keep in mind with POD is it will require an enormous amount of work on your part to promote yourself and your writing. You don't get an advance to work with and funding for publicity and promotion is very important. You don’t have the avenues available to you in promotion and publicity that a traditional publisher can offer. You are writer, agent, and business manager, all wrapped in one person. Getting your name known is daunting but necessary. This actually needs to be started before you have your book in print. Build an interest in you as an author, and create expectation for your book. Creating that interest can seem overwhelming to a debuting author, regardless of whether you are published traditionally or POD. But, it can be done through the Internet, via blogging and social networks such as Facebook, Gather, Twitter, MySpace, and a host of others. Keep in mind; you still have to allow for time to continue writing. Producing a product to sell. That isn’t an easy juggling act as most authors also have a day job and families.

If you don’t want to go POD, and there are many who don’t, make it a point to look into some of the smaller Independent publishing companies. There are a few good opportunities to get on with one if you write genres they publish. Still, even with a small publisher or even a major publishing house, you will be required to promote yourself and generate publicity for your book—unless you’re a debuting Dan Brown—there isn’t much in the way of dollars for marketing/promotion available for debuting authors.

Regardless of the route you take to being published, caution is necessary. Make it a point to check out the company or agent you’re considering with Editors and Preditors. Consider them the Better Business Bureau for writers. There are a lot of scams out there, predators with basically a storefront, whose sole purpose is to make money off your dream and give little or nothing back. The horror stories I’ve heard would curl your hair.
Agent Query has a good list of agents and their submission requirements and they also have a good list of small independent publishers as well the big boys. It’s worth looking at and then doing some research on them. Writing isn’t just a creative endeavor. It’s a business. You are the proprietor of that business.

So, as an aspiring author, you need a strong believe in your ability to tell a good story, spend time perfecting your craft as a writer, and keep abreast with what’s currently selling in your genre on the market. Be willing to invest time in building name recognition long before you’ve been published.

But what if you’ve already sold your book? What can you do to help sell your books? I will discuss this in part two, Being a Successful Author–Magic or Work?
***

Sia McKye has spent over twenty years in marketing and promotion. She's written and published various articles on writing, marketing, and promotion. She's a Marketing Rep by profession and also writes fiction.

Author Cheryl Kaye Tardif is “Finding Bliss” on her iPhone 3G

My guest today is Cheryl Kaye Tardif, the Canadian author of four best selling suspense novels. What do you do if you have a great idea hit you for a story but nowhere to write it down? You grab your iphone. Cheryl discusses the newest phase of iPhone novels.


It all started when I saw a commercial for Hershey’s Bliss chocolates in their individually wrapped foil packages. I saw the word BLISS on the TV and thought, “Wow, that would make a really neat girl’s name.” Almost instantly a picture came to mind of a teenaged girl with scraggly dirty-blond hair and torn jeans. Foster child, street child, pickpocket, and unwanted, unloved-the complete opposite of the word “bliss”. And Finding Bliss was born.

I didn’t want to lose any of my ideas for this novel, but I also didn’t want to stop watching the TV show that was on, so I grabbed my new iPhone 3G. There is a Notes application and this was the first time I used it. What was really great was that I was able to type in my notes on this new novel idea during the commercials and then email them to myself. Later, I went upstairs to my office, opened the email on my PC, copied and pasted the notes into a Word document and-voila! —I had started a new novel.

About 2 years ago, a writing craze swept across Japan; cell phone novels took the publishing world by storm in this small country. In the first six months of 2007, Goma Books and Maho i-Land published more cell phone novels than the major Japanese publishers did print books. And now, North America has its first English language cell phone novel platform through Textnovel.

I am very familiar with Textnovel. CEO Stan Soper heard about my iPhone novel Finding Bliss and he personally invited me to check out Textnovel. Since I always like to try new things, I submitted three short stories, serializing them over a period of time. You can find my novelette Remote Control there. Stan has shown great interest in Finding Bliss, and there is a possibility that my iPhone novel might show up on Textnovel in the future.

Recently, I was a guest blogger on Book Marketing Floozy and I talked about how authors have to “think outside the book”. Sometimes a book can be marketed even before it has been published, and once in a while even before it has been written. That’s what I’ve done with my iPhone novel Finding Bliss, a novel that has only 2 chapters written yet has already received much media attention.

To date, I have appeared on a number of television and radio interviews, and in newspapers, because I have chosen to write a novel in a completely different way. Another major company contacted me about Finding Bliss a month or so ago, and they too would like to be the first company to “release” this novel to the public. Let the bidding wars begin!

‘Finding Bliss’ will be an emotional, heartwarming story of a damaged teenage girl who must fight to survive in a world of abuse, lies and loss. As she struggles to find herself, Bliss will discover exactly where she belongs and she’ll learn that she is worthy of love after all.” [You can read the first chapter of this novel of Cheryl Kaye Tardif on her website.]

There is no publish date on this book as I have not finished writing it. Once I am done, it will be handed to my wonderful agent Jack Scovil to pitch to publishers.

***

Cheryl Kaye Tardif is the bestselling author of Whale Song, The River, and Divine Intervention. She is currently working with a well respected producer interested taking the inspiring message in her novel Whale Song and making it into a movie. Her books are available on Amazon.com, canada.ca, and your favorite book store.

Copy-Editing Hell

Today my guest is Pat Bertram, debuting author of A Spark of Heavenly Fire. Some of you may know her better as the author of the popular Book Marketing Floozy, and Bertram's Blog . Today she talks about a subject that all Print On Demand authors have to deal with in putting out a high quality and professional book.

I’m afraid that I’m going to be stuck in copy-editing hell for the rest of my life.

When I received my latest proof copy of A Spark of Heavenly Fire and found additional mistakes in the final proof copy, I screamed. Well, it was more of a bleat.

I’ve now decided that perfection at this point really is impossible.

I had the idea that single-handedly I needed to eradicate the POD publishers’ reputation for releasing less than stellar books, but there is a limit to what one (untrained) person can do. I am learning how to copyedit, though, and I do know one thing: however much copy-editors get paid, it is not enough.

The thing with mistakes is that they proliferate when you are not looking. You correct one, and in the process, create another. When I finished my novel, the manuscript was almost perfect — I’d read the thing out loud, so I would be sure to look at every single word, every single punctuation mark. Then . . . I did one final polish, took out all the extra justs and onlys, the particularlys and practicallys, the barelys and hardlys, the began tos, and the wases. The problem is, other words got deleted along the way (don’t ask me how, because I don’t know) and I didn’t catch them. Yikes.

And then there are the choices to be made. Is it ill-prepared or ill prepared? I originally had ill-prepared, but MS word said that was wrong, so I deleted the hyphen. And now I want it back for the simple reason that the hyphen is how it is commonly used. And what about brand new? My dictionary says it’s brand-new, but common usage has it as brand new. So which do I use? I think I’ll leave out the hyphen; that way there will be one less change to make.

Some of the changes that need to be made entail rewriting a sentence. In the proof copy, smelled is on two lines: smell-ed. Smelled can’t be hyphenated, so now I have to decide how to rewrite the sentence so smelled can fit on one line. I had “He fell silent for a moment, savoring the feel of her tee shirt- and jeans-clad body next to his. She smelled clean and fresh, like cucumber, or melon, or pear.” So how do I change the sentence, so that smelled can fit on one line? “savoring the feel of her thinly clad body”? savoring the feel of her tee shirt-clad body”? Neither of those do it for me. But now, writing this, I see what I can change. I can take out “for a moment”. (Yes, I know that the period belongs inside the quotation marks, but this is proofing, and perhaps whoever is making the changes to the print copy will think the period needs to be taken out.) See what I mean?

Copy-editors are not paid enough.

Well, now it’s put up and shut up time. Make the important changes, and try not to sweat the small stuff. I can guarantee, though, that whoever came up with that particular phrase is not a copy-editor. With copy-editing, it’s all about the small stuff.

***
Pat Bertram is a native of Colorado and is the author of A Spark of Heavenly More Deaths and Than One Fire. Bertram's books are now available for pre-order from Second Wind Publishing LLC.

A Day In the Life Of A Romance Writer or My Cup Runneth Over...With Cat Vomit

My guest today is a Romance author of six published books, Diana Duncan. She makes her home in Portland, Oregon with her “long suffering, patient as a saint hubby.” She has two daughters and has help raise a foster son and daughter. Diana shares with us the glamour of being a romance writer…

Ah, the idyllic life of a romance writer. At 9:00 a.m., the sun peeks through the curtains, nudging me awake to the twitter of birds. Eager to greet the new day, I leap out of bed. After a brisk morning walk, I enjoy a heart-healthy, energizing breakfast of oatmeal with skim milk and fresh fruit. I luxuriate in a leisurely shower, fix my hair and makeup and dress in a flattering, but comfortable silk pantsuit. I then stroll to my organized, creatively inspiring home office to spend the next few hours in writing bliss.

Yeah, right.

At 6:00 a.m., the alarm assaults my eardrums, jerking me out of a fitful five-hour sleep. I pry open my swollen eyelids to peer at the clock. Ugh. There ought to be a law against getting up this early. Howling wind pounds raindrops the size of beach balls against the windows as I grope for my glasses in the darkness and stagger to the bathroom. I swipe a toothbrush across my teeth, and run a hairbrush through my tangled mop in an attempt to tame my Don King-sized bedhead. A quick grope through the Mt. Everest of dirty clothes in the hallway turns up a wrinkled gray sweatshirt and fuchsia sweatpants with raveled cuffs and white paint smears across the butt from my time-before-last decorating spree. Mom's Taxi ferries Daughter #1 to her school in the predawn gloom and pouring rain.

Fifteen minutes later, after battling morning rush hour, I return home and fend off three cats that fight over the honor of who gets to sit in my lap while I hurriedly inhale a microwaved cup of lukewarm coffee. I have fifteen minutes to shower and find clothes - a clean sweatshirt and ratty jeans with a hole in the knee and blue paint streaks across the butt from my last decorating spree. No time for makeup. My hair dries on the vine as I throw dishes in the dishwasher and towels in the washing machine. Daughter #2 stumbles out of bed and the daily pre-departure hysteria ensues.

"Where's my science book?"

"Where are my shoes?"

"I need a note excusing me from PE."

"Sign this field trip permission slip."

"Where's my backpack?"

"Where's my coat? AHHHH! We're going to be late!!"

I chew four Ibuprofen dry, and Mom's Taxi ferries Daughter #2 and two neighbor kids to their school (which begins and ends at a completely different time from D1's school) in the early morning gloom and pouring rain.

Twenty-five minutes later, after again battling morning rush hour, I return to the cats, who express their extreme need for nourishment by climbing my pants legs. I fling food into their dish, transfer the wet towels from the washer to the dryer and toss in a load of jeans. The living room rug gets a fast vacuum as I simultaneously wolf a nutritious breakfast consisting of stale Cheez-Its and a "tall" Mountain Dew. Not bad. Three out of the four food groups ... salt, fat, and caffeine.

Time to work! I head to my office where I remove a pile of clean laundry, D2's science book and snoozing cats from the chair. Booting up my computer takes a mere thirty minutes today, and I fold towels while I wait.

Email check - can't start the day without it. Begin work. Uh oh. I can't locate my saved manuscript. A heart-pounding hour and one frantic phone call to hubby later, I find it in an obscure data file titled WINX4567.29Z. Re-read my output of the day before, consisting of two pages. Decide they are total crap and delete.

Just as the most brilliant sentence I've ever composed forms in my brain, the phone rings, forever erasing it from my consciousness. Maybe it's an editor! I snatch up the receiver.

"Good morning!" a perky female voice chirps. "How are you today? This is Nuisance Telemarketing Company, and we're taking a survey about whether you want the governor to raise your taxes, or whether you'd rather have the state legislature raise your taxes."

Click.

I stare at the blank screen and blinking cursor and can't think of a single word. I must need a snack. Might as well check Facebook while devouring a prescription strength Hershey bar with almonds. The fourth and most important food group...chocolate.

Time to get serious about working. Did I mention how much I hate that blankety-blank blank screen and blinking cursor? Two hours later, I've typed one page of less-than-sparkling prose, but at least it filled up the **&^%$ white space. I'm finally making progress! Now, for the most intimidating, challenging part of the entire book. The love scene. Three pairs of inquisitive cats' eyes watch from the windowsill as I insert a Dido CD into the player and attempt to dredge up an amorous mood.

Gabe smiled wickedly as he slowly began to unbutton Tessa's blouse...

The phone rings. Again. Maybe this time it's the editor!

"Hello, this is the principal of D2's school. D2's teacher was ecstatic that she finally did her oral book report, but felt that Why Men are from Mars and Woman are from Venus was inappropriate for seventh graders."

Humph. I don't see the problem. There's no species more akin to Martians than thirteen year-old boys. The principal doesn't appreciate my enlightened viewpoint. Click.

Dido croons in the background. Gabe smiled wickedly as he slowly...

The front door slams. "Moooom! I'm hoooome!" D2 hollers out. Not only do I know she's home, but so does the entire block.

"What are you doing here? It's only 12:30."

"Teacher planning day this afternoon, we only had to go half a day. Awesome, huh?"

Yeah, I'm thrilled. "Keep yourself entertained for a while, I'm writing."

The aroma of microwave popcorn drifts down the hallway, as enticing as a $2.00 hooker to a sailor on shore leave. No. Stay strong. As Sponge Bob Square Pants' teeth-grating screech blares from the living room, I wrench my focus to my computer. The cats leap from the windowsill, following the lure of a forbidden snack.

Where was I? My brain finally shifts back into sexy seduction mode. Oh yeah. Gabe smiled wickedly...

"Moooom! One of the cats just barfed on the rug."

Oh good grief. "You know you're not supposed to give them popcorn, no matter how much they beg. I'm busy. You deal with it."

Gagging noises. "Ewww! It's like totally gross! If I haveta wipe it up, I'll barf too."

That's all I need. I desert Gabe in his hour of need for cleanup detail.

Nothing like kitty vomit to throw cold water on a sexy seduction. When I trudge back to my computer, I decide I might as well check email again. Afterward, it takes thirty minutes to reorient myself. I punch the button to start Dido on her second round. Gabe...

"Moooom. What's for dinner?"

Teacher planning day? What, the teachers planned to gift me with a nervous breakdown? Gabe and his wicked smile are almost as frustrated as I am. "Dinner is too far in the future to worry about. Please be quiet. I'm writing."

Back to my screen. Gabe, take my advice. Remain a bachelor. You'll get way more accomplished. Especially if you want to succeed at sexy seductions.

Another hour and two pages later, Gabe manages to get Tessa undressed before the front door slams again.

"Moooom, I'm home," D1 announces, though not nearly as loudly as her sister. "What's for dinner?"

Argh! "I have no idea. Why don't you cook tonight?"

"I can't. I have play practice. I'll need a ride there and back."

D2 chimes in. "Yeah, and tonight's my youth group bowling trip, remember? I need a ride there and back, too, and $5.00 admission fee and snack money."

Mom's Taxi, on duty. There goes any possibility of working this evening. "Fine, whatever. Start looking under the couch cushions for spare change. I'm writing in here."

Gabe and Tessa, I don't know about you, but I am so not in the mood anymore. Maybe you should just bag it and go take a cold shower. They vehemently protest, so I proceed. After two hours of wrenching words from my soul with pliers, three measly paragraphs come together. Unfortunately, Gabe and Tessa don't.

The front door slams for the third time. "Honey, I'm home. What's for dinner?"

Snarling, I stab the power down button, realizing too late that I forgot to hit save first.

"Hey everybody," I yell. "Guess what's for dinner?"

"What?" three voices chorus in unison.

My smile is more wicked than Gabe's.

"Cheez-Its."

***

Forever In a Day Series—a few hours can change your life, has won Romance Top Pick Awards.
1. Midnight Hero (2005)2. Truth Or Consequences (2005)3. Heat of the Moment (2006)4. Lethal Attraction (2008)

Her Website is dianaduncan.com Stop by and say hi.