Harlequin Romance Group Author Blog

Loglines.Premise. The Story Idea. The Pitch.

For a newbie like myself,these can seem bewildering concepts which are only relevant to screenwriters and of no value to fiction writers.

Book Trailers

I belong to a group of multi-published genre fiction authors.  Over the several years, I’ve heard a lot about book trailers.  Have you ever even seen one?  The only time I have is when one of the other authors writes she has a new one up.  Then I’ll click on the URL and watch.  Fascinating.  Every single one I’ve seen makes me want to rush right out and buy the book.

   Rebecca's still experiencing technical difficulties, but here's her post for this week!  I dare you not to be intrigued - when I read it I was instantly transported.  Is it any wonder she's a reader favourite?

Eleventh hour | Eleventh day | Eleventh month

Today, member countries of the Commonwealth (particularly) recall those who lost their lives during the many engagements of World War 1. Hostilities famously ended at 11am on the 11th November 1918 when the Armistice was signed. It is a day when the dying strains of the Last Post ring out over two minutes of silence around the world. It is a day when simple words have galvanised the world to remember those who were lost.

And technology is winning!

For those of you who were here on Friday, you realize that I also posted then. Why? The Google Calendar we use to keep track of the Harlequin Romance authors blogging each month seems to be having weird hissy fits. I've been deleted and added back in on dates that I SWEAR I have not chosen. I've dropped off dates I've chosen and magically reappeared only to disappear again.

They tell me (they being my more technologically savvy kids) that this is my fault. I am doing something wrong. Really? There's a secret handshake? LOL

Nope, the kids reply...You're clearly missing a step, not clicking an icon or hitting save or walking around your desk three times while chanting nursery rhymes.

A cat, Creamsickle, plays a leading role in bringing the hero and heroine together in THE MAGIC OF A FAMILY CHRISTMAS. This isn't an accident. My cat Sophia has done some remarkable things. She can cheer up anyone. She keeps the rodent population to a minimum in our little section of town. She meows if I yell...even if I'm "yelling" to call someone to dinner. Which has turned me into a much quieter person. But she doesn't get along with our other cat Fat Fluff.

We've figured out why. She believes she's a member of the family and Fluffy is just the cat. The pet.

It all goes back to the day we got Sophie. A few weeks before we'd had to put Fluffy's brother Basil to sleep. I couldn't seem to get over his loss. He was a wonderful, huge black cat who loved to hide in poinsettias. So it was awful.

My niece Kelli just happened to be driving home from Pittsburgh one Saturday and they found poor Sophie on the road beside a stretch of woods. She was so tiny she fit in the palm of Kelli's hand. She was also covered in dead leaves, and sneezing. A new mom, Kelli couldn't leave the poor kitten, so she brought her home and my sister suggested they call me since I had just lost a cat.

Some of you may have noticed that I enjoy music. A lot.

YouTube is amazing. There are people who have gone to the trouble of loading video and music tracks onto the system so that the rest of the world can enjoy them for the price of broadband.

When I am writing I need background instrumental sounds.

...or rather writing one, since even the people who love me beg
me not to sing.

It was nearly two years ago – another November – when I had a breakfast meeting with my editors at the plush Churchill Hotel in the west end of London to discuss what I’d write in the year ahead.

Four years ago this week, our family lost a valued family member.   His name: Puddin’ Ho.

I haven’t seen the movie, The Proposal, yet, but when I heard about it I started thinking about memorable proposal scenes from movies, and television series. Some that came to mind immediately were: 

I am definitely a carrot kind of person. Not in the literal sense (though, I have nothing against orange vegetables), it’s just... I find I work VERY well under a reward system – get x amount of work done and I earn a treat. Acknowledging the achievements of my minor goals makes me feel good about myself.

Well, the odds were good but ultimately the winner of a copy of Montana, Mistletoe, Marriage is Laney4.

Laney, drop me a line at donnaalward @ hotmail.com (no spaces) with your snail mail addy and I'll send out your prize!

Donna

The other big change I see in the world of technology for me is how I interact with other writers.

Way back when, after I had first published 3 books with Harlequin Romance, my then editor told me about an organization called Romance Writers of America.  It happened that RWA was planning a conference in Seattle that summer and she wondered if I would be attending.  I had never heard of RWA, but sure, I’d see about attending to get a chance to see my London editor only a short distance away instead of having to fly to London.  

My first ‘kiss’ for Harlequin comes out in time for Valentines Day next year. It got me thinking about first kisses...

I had two first kisses. The true first doesn’t count because I wasn’t a particularly willing participant and it wasn’t much of a kiss, frankly. It was more of an initiation and the kiss-er didn’t seem much more enthused about the task than the 13 year old kiss-ee.

So scratch that one. Instead, I’d like to share with you the story of my first real kiss. One that counts. Nearly a quarter-century ago now (oh, boy, that hurts).

This weekend my husband and I traveled to a small town in East Central Pennsylvania, near Gettysburg, to make applebutter with the church ladies (and men!) at my husband's brother's church.

In A DILEMMA. A choice has to be made between two equally bad - or two equally good- alternatives.

 I can assure you that one of the biggest things authors worry about once their book is written is – the cover!!

Rebecca is having some computer issues and so I am posting the following on her behalf.... 

It has occurred to me that I spend more time than the average woman looking at pictures of…well, of guys. I tell myself (over and over and over) that it's because I need to find the perfect "look" for the next hero in my next book.

...and sometimes doesn't find a home straight away.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that authors, who live a mostly troglodyte existence with only their computer screen for company, need to get out and about occasionally to “fill the well” with experience and exercise their rusty vocal chords.

Anyone who knows me knows I’m at the mall more often than the grocery store ;-). My reward for finishing a book, sometimes simply finishing a scene, is to head to the mall. Peek at those cool new shoes I saw in the Macy’s ad. Or pick up a pair of jeans (or three ;-), now that the weather is cooler.

Women and fashion are almost interchangeable words. But men and fashion…not so much, at least for most of the men I know. And according to this article on Marie Claire, I’m not the only one who cringes at some male fashion choices.

October is Breast Cancer month in Australia.
Rather timely considering what I've just been through.

Yes, I had a rough week, with an odd, tender spot in right breast. As soon as I felt it, I worried for a few days before making a doctor's appointment. She immediately sent me for an ultrasound, which I had on the weekend.

The young guy who did it asked me how often I did breast checks, then tried to scare me by mentioning I was having the ultrasound to check for cancer.
Well duh!

Though he hummed and ahhed a bit, I got the general gist that everything was okay. Have no idea what the problem is, but it isn't anything 'nasty.'

I walked out numb, relieved, but numb. Made me think of all those women who aren't so lucky.

I, for one, will be more vigilant in checking from now on.

I love secondary characters. I find I have a strong affinity with best friends, and bridesmaids, and those smart-mouthed, wise-cracking types who know the heroes and heroine’s minds better than the heroes and heroines do. For me, the cast of secondary characters can make or break a book or film, which is why I adore films like Notting Hill, Four Weddings and a Funeral and ensemble pieces like Love Actually.

Part of the joy and the fun of writing books is that an author can have her heroine do and be all the things that the author would like to do and be. It’s like having 500 hours in a day.

My first book, Come Into The Sun, was published in 1983.  If any of you read it--you’re really old.  That was published 26 years ago.  Of course, I was a mere child at the time.  A prodigy, you know.  Anyway, I was thinking the other day of how publishing--for me--has changed in the past almost three decades.

I wrote that first manuscript on an old manual typewriter, evenings and weekends, working around my real job schedule.  I sent it all the way to London. In those days Harlequin Romances were published in the U.S. with a note on the copyright page--first published by Mills and Boon, London.  So off it went to Brook’s Mews in London (doesn’t that sound very British?) --at the cost of $27 US.  Yikes. 

One of the greatest enemies to a writer is a crisis of confidence.  We lot tend to be a bit insecure at the best of times, but when things in the story don't go well - and this happens more often than we probably care to admit - we take it personally.  The crows of doubt feed on it and suddenly we have no idea what we're doing and the powers that be were foolish to take us on in the first place...we'll miss our deadline, our career is over.

Last week my husband and I celebrated our20th wedding anniversary.  Over the summer we talked a lot about marking the milestone with some kind of grand gesture - a weekend away at a romantic bed and breakfast or maybe splurging on some high-end Red Sox tickets.  (Yes, in Boston, Sox tickets count as romantic, particularly since the tickets cost more than the weekend at the B&B!) 

If this question surprises you… imagine for a moment a world in which writers work for long hours at their computer every day… wrestling with disobedient characters, striving to strengthen their conflict, or to deepen the emotion, or to overcome any one of the many challenges involved in writing a romance, but… when the book is done, the words simply disappear into a black hole and they never hear whether those stories end up in the hands of readers.

I have to tell you, those writers would quickly change jobs.

Getting paid is important, sure, but you, dear readers are our true reward. Your interest in our stories is our oxygen, the carrots on our sticks. Your approval is our Holy Grail.

We love to know that you are out there, curled up in an armchair, or cosy in bed, or lying on the beach, or before the fire, on a train, at the hairdresser’s, or in a doctor’s waiting room…

We love to know that for a little while you can forget the bills, the worries and pressures of the real world, and that you can trust us to take you into another world where emotions run deep, but everything turns out right in the end.

Checking my emails Saturday morning, I had a lovely email from my editor, inviting me to be a part of a new miniseries within Harlequin Romance.

I'm super excited about it and want to share details, just need to make sure it's ok (and my lovely ed's away until next week so promise to let you know as soon as I can.)

What this means for me?

September 1 is really my New Year's day.  I say that because there is no time of year that feels more like a fresh start.  While autumn really doesn't start until the 21st, I adore September.  It means back to school.  It means harvest.  It means back to a regular schedule (a big one for me, I'm a major creature of habit).  It means bringing out the long pants and cozy clothes, tea in the evenings, the pheasant babies somewhat grown and blustering around the neighbourhood...and in my opinion it's also the most beautiful season in Canada. 

This year fall is even BETTER.  Because I have a couple more new beginnings in store.

FILLING THE WELL...

Buon giorno, Bonjour or Kalimera?

When you see these words in a Harlequin Romance novel, what happens?  
Do they bother you enough that you want to throw the book across the room?  
Do they intrigue you enough that you actually look up the meaning?   
Do they stop the flow if you don’t know their meaning and don’t want to know ?
Do they enrich the text?

I’m afraid I’m guilty of putting in foreign words.  For me they add authenticity and flavor, thereby enhancing my enjoyment of the book.  I’ve never had a reader complain about them.  Then again no reader has told me they love the addition of them.  Some readers have told me they learned something new in my book and that pleased them, but I’m not certain they were referring to the foreign words.

The following is a passage out of one of my novels.   The couple in this story are in their sixties and have worked on an estate most of their lives.     

Well, it’s about time. Someone finally did a study to prove whether chocolate makes you happy. I could have saved them the money and time, though, and just checked YES on the questionnaire. If they’d had fill-in-the-blanks, I would have added new shoes as a second way to make me, at least, happy;-). 

I was sitting at Brisbane airport recently on my way home from the Romance Writers of Australia annual conference. The airport was the first time in six days that I’d been alone, had time to think. My brain was buzzing with new information. But I’d been mulling over for four days a question asked in one of the forums – why do you write? Keynote speaker, Mary Jo Putney, said that all the talent and experience in the world were nothing without the drive to write and she asked us what drives you?

One of the biggest criticisms thrown at romance novels is that they must all be the same. A beginning where a boy meets a girl. Trouble in the middle. Happy ending. But of course, as we insiders know, the how and the why and who of these meetings and troubles and endings can be infinitely variable.

What do you think shapes certain people into readers, and others into non-readers?

I've been thinking about this for weeks - since I had a conversation with some people who claimed they never read fiction and had no desire to do so.

367 days ago, I turned forty. My mother, numerous women’s magazines and my older girlfriends all warned me that once I hit a certain age things wouldn’t just droop south they’d expand east and west too. If the waistbands of my jeans are to be believed, I’ve hit that certain age with a vengeance.

There are several things that happen when you are a writer with a contract and a deadline as opposed to a writer who is pre-published. Things which you do not expect – at least in my case. No doubt there are many wise and organised authors who had expected these phenomena and adjusted their lives accordingly. I wish I was one of them.

In my case these include:

* A Non-Einstein-ian contraction of the space time continuum.

As in – Oh **** !  What do you mean it’s July already? What happened to June? How did I miss it?

I adore a strong, commanding, gorgeous hero with a killer sense of humour.

I love reading them, I love creating them.  (Hugh Jackman inspired Ethan, my hero in the upcoming A TRIP WITH THE TYCOON, and I think he has all those lovely qualities in spades!)

A new blog, what fun.  I read the recent one and wondered how to start.  Then I thought--with what I like as others have said.

I like happy endings.  I like to spend my limited leisure time being put in a good mood.  So whether movies or books, I want to know there is a happy ending before investing several hours of my life getting involved.  And that’s what I do--get totally involved.  I’ll laugh with the characters, cry with them, fear for their safety or life, and yearn for the same things they do.  At the end, I want to walk away thinking--whew, they came through that just fine and will be happy forever.

My little grand son is grasping with the concept of forever.  He’ll say things like “I’m going to grow up and be tall like my daddy--for-evah”.  When our number three daughter made her move off to college this past weekend, and we told him, his eyes got large and he asked if she was moving away for-evah?  

My very favorite stories--and I see fewer and fewer of these themes --are marriages of convenience.  Or mail-order bride books.  I have written a few, and it’s not easy to have virtual strangers come together in such an intimacy as marriage--even if they have separate bedrooms.  Business arrangements, health reasons, financial difficulties, inheritance issues--all are used to force marriages of convenience.  But then something changes.  All bets are off and the original rules of the game are no longer pertinent.

I went to a fancy dress party on Saturday night.  There's always a panic when you know you've been invited to a fancy dress party, isn't there?  The horrible fear that a) you won't be able to think of anything to go as and b) everyone will laugh at you no matter what you dress up as.  I decided to bypass the whole fear element by embracing the silliness.

Once upon a time there was a young woman.  She wasn't a great beauty - that title belonged to her older sister - but she was pretty, popular, and fun to be with.  She was engaged to her high school sweetheart, the breathtakingly handsome football star who was, at that moment, stationed in post-war Germany.

When you were a child (or anadult), did you ever wish you could juggle?  That is, if juggling isn't already one of your skills.  I did.  An awkward child, I nonetheless aspired to be able to toss and catch more than one thing at a time.  I tried it a number of times, too, although not nearly diligently enough to perfect any kind of skill. But it occurred to me the other day that while I'll never be a juggler of balls or knives or chain saws (ew!), the writing life has taught me to juggle a whole lot of other things.

Long before I was a writer, I was a reader.  When I discovered Harlequin Romances, I was fascinated and intrigued by them.  I have to admit I was drawn to the reunion stories.  The word ‘reunion’ connotes so many feelings and emotions from euphoric to haunting or traumatic.  Such a range has provided years of reading and writing pleasure for me, but because I stuck to that theme, I missed out on a lot of other themes and denied myself other worlds of reading pleasure. 

Nowadays when I get the opportunity to talk with readers, I discover people who are like I used to be.  They have such strong feelings.  For instance they say ‘no’ to sports, office romance, twin stories, or European stories.   ‘Yes’ to sheiks, babies, second chance at love or American stories. 

What does a writer do all day?  I love the romantic novelists kit in Little Britain, the one where the pink clad romantic novelists lies back on a sofa, eating chocolates and dictating to her secretary.  I want to be that novelist!

Instead I sit on a chair that has radically reshaped my derriere over the years and write.  It's what I've been doing non-stop for the last two weeks.  Nothing else.  Finishing the book.  I haven't read a book, seen more than a glimpse of the news on the television, had a life.  My hero and heroine, Josie and Gideon, have had every last moment of it.  Their story has consumed my own.
I've been getting up at 5am to write when the world is quiet.  No distant murmurings from a radio.  No, "I'm not going to disturb you, but..."  No sudden realisation that it's Tuesday and I haven't put the rubbish out so I end up sprinting up the drive in my nightie clutching a couple of bin bags.

My first website was actually a birthday gift from a friend, CJ Houghtaling. I'd written, probably, 15 books and still didn't have an Internet presence. CJ, being the generous person that she is, created a really nice website for me.

Welcome to the Harlequin Romance Group Author blog!  Jayne very kindly has set us up and we're very excited to be blogging here at eharlequin.

There is a fantastic lineup of authors ready to post.  Please join us for a wide variety of topics - anything from the story behind the book to shoes to chocolate and much much more!