This year was my third time to attend the Romance Writers of America National Conference. I knew there’d be great workshops, fun times at the special interest chapters’ evening parties, interesting conversations in the bar, and amazing moments of meeting favorite big-name authors. But nothing could have prepared me for how special it would be to attend the conference as a Golden Heart Finalist who just sold her first book. I felt like Cinderella at the ball and walked about two inches above the ground the entire event. (Well, maybe not after the author dinner when I decided to wear heels. …

The Janes are discussing rejections all this month and today it’s my turn. Head on over to See Jane Publish to participate in the discussion of how to learn to live with rejections and what constitutes a good rejection. In the writing world, rejections are so common that Dictionary.com uses “The publisher rejected the author’s latest novel.” as an example for how to properly use “reject” in a sentence. In other words, if you want to be a writer, you have to learn to handle—or at least live with—rejections. It took me a long time. I wanted people, specifically people in the …

I’m hanging out on Bark today, discussing Esther Honig’s amazing social experiment “Before and After.” She sent a picture of herself without makeup and with her hair pulled back to graphic designers all over the world with the simple request: “make me beautiful.” The images she received in return are astonishing and allowed her to examine how beauty standards varies across cultures and countries. Here’s an example from Germany, to the right of the original picture: Kamagra Pills increase energy purchase levitra during an intimacy and achieve complete satisfaction during an intimacy. Challenges The discount brand viagra robertrobb.com first and greatest challenge …

It’s been a while since the last one, so it’s about time for another Free Book Day! I’m still on an adrenaline high after selling my first books to Sourcebooks. It’s such an incredible honor to work with a company who publishes some of my favorite writers. Among them is Shana Galen and to celebrate my new contract, I’m giving away a signed copy of her The Rogue Pirate’s Bride. Here’s the blurb from Ms. Galen’s website: The Marquis de Valère escaped certain death in the French Revolution and is now an infamous privateer. Out to avenge the death of his mentor, Bastien discovers himself …

No matter what Jim Hanas says about writers being caught up in the lottery of “rejection porn,” I love reading about successful writers who made it after a gazillion rejections. I’m a sucker for lists that tells me how many times authors like J.K. Rowling, Louis L’Amour, Dan Brown, and C.S. Lewis were rejected. Why? Because knowing others found success after rejections is what kept me submitting my manuscript even though I gained a total of forty-seven forty-nine rejections. (Update: after I sold, I received 2 more rejections from retracted queries.) Fifteen of those were on full requests. And, to make things worse, …

One of the things that continuously amazes me about the romance writing community is the support and encouragement the writers give other writers. Meganame bestselling authors take the time to mentor wanna-be-newbies. Peers congratulate the competition when they receive an award or win a contest. This is not what I experience when I go to non-romance writing conferences. Sure, I see established writers encourage new writers there too, but the ego-less, unselfish, genuine support romance writers give each other is unique. I couldn’t write without the help I receive from friends and family. And it would be a drudgery, uphill, …

The Romance Writers of America sponsors two incredibly prestigious writing awards: the RITA® for published writers and the Golden Heart® for unpublished writers. This year I was one of the lucky finalists who got “the call,” letting me know that my VALHALLA’S KING manuscript was a finalist in the paranormal category of the Golden Heart. Around 1,200 romance manuscripts are entered in the Golden Heart each year. The project has to be completed and longer than 20 000 words. The preliminary judging is done by RWA members and those entries who earn a 90% or more advance to the final …

(x-posted on Bark) Back in the late 90s, I worked in a software company that hired  full development teams to other technology companies. We provided expertise that our clients might not have in-house, which meant we usually worked with new technology on cutting-edge projects. When the internet opened up to e-commerce, the company signed up new clients at record speed. One of the marketing managers explained to my coworker Angela and me that the internet was finally useful now that people could use the web to make a profit. After that meeting, Angela created a secret slogan that we would sometimes whisper to each other …