Without the help of other writers and their generous sharing of techniques, time and tips, I never would have gotten as far as have, or learned so much.

So here are some of my tips for writing and handouts and just general advice on the writing life I have developed over time.

3. Set small goals; so many pages a day, rather than finish the novel by next month.

4. Push yourself to go past your goals. Give yourself pats on the back when you meet or exceed your daily goals.

5. Wipe the slate clean each day. In other words, don’t flog yourself with guilt if you fail to meet your goals.

8. Do whatever works for you, get up early, stay up late, use a tape recorder, write in the bathtub, but don’t get the computer wet.

9. Remember if you were not around, your husband and kids would not starve to death, and Pizza Hut delivers. (Demand respect and time for your writing.)

10. Play your stories in your head, like a movie. Rehearse scenes you’ve already written and let your characters run on with the next scene. (I like to do this while falling asleep, or waiting in line. Doing it while I’m driving can be dangerous.) The next scene will flow onto the paper.

11. Write through brick walls. When you feel stymied, just write. If it is slop, you can edit it out later. You may be pleasantly surprised by the quality.

12. Identify your problem spots and avoid them. Don’t like a blank page, never leave your writing at the end of a chapter; start the next one. If you reread what you’ve written frequently, turn off the computer screen. If you backspace and respell too often, turn off spellchecker. If you’re not sure of a word, or a piece of research, flag it and check it later. Watch too much TV, make yourself give it up for two weeks. (Anything good will be back in reruns for the next twenty decades.) Play too many video games, make it a reward for meeting your writing goals. Read too many books—don’t we all—glut yourself as a reward for finishing a novel. (Writing one that is.)

13. Don’t start a new project until you finish the first. Use the energy from the next project that begs to be written to complete the one you are on. You’d be surprised how anxious you are to finish when you don’t allow yourself to commit your next story to paper. (Not even a synopsis. A story idea worth writing won’t disappear, and one that won’t hang around, probably isn’t good enough.)

14. Remember how far you have come and not how far you need to go. Then dig in and start the next one.

Have you ever arrived at the midpoint in your manuscript and had to send your hero on a long, long journey? I once made a hero sail to America, catch a bunch of codfish and sail back home to England. He wasn’t even a fisherman. Have you hit the two thirds point and created new obstacles for your hero and heroine to overcome? Like being kidnapped, struck by lightening and caught in a shootout between the Hatfields and McCoys? Chances are the romantic pacing is off.

When your characters are ready to walk down that aisle and pledge their undying devotion for each other, but you have to fit in another 100 pages of story to fit any line at all, you’ll need to take a hard look at where the hero and heroine committed too soon. Trust me it doesn’t work when the author starts throwing in a bunch of hurdles that keep the poor hero and heroine jumping through hoops to get to that happy ending. Hint, hint—it makes your plot episodic.

Lest an editor, throw that cryptic phrase, concerns about the romantic development at you, here is the list I use to make sure the romance is on track. I’ve stolen it from various places and modified it to suit me. The pace isn’t necessarily the same for both the hero and heroine but they should both arrive at number 8 in the last few pages of any manuscript and neither should arrive at number 6 before the two thirds mark. Okay there are exceptions to every rule, but I don’t advise trying them without a safety net, a stout heart, a big bottle of aspirin and lots of Kleenex.

1. Dislike and distrust. Basically when the hero and heroine distrust the other. For instance take a fireman who has sworn never to get involved with a woman with children because he thinks she’s after a daddy and breadwinner discovers that a newly widowed mom, who has sworn off men in a high risk professions, has moved in next door. You get the picture—lots of distrust there, but well, neighbors have to get along.

2. Attraction This one ought to be a given, but surprisingly many writers forget to include it. And I don’t mean we have to have heavy panting, notice every body part, feel every tingle, scenes to show attraction—well put them in if you want them, I certainly don’t mind—but the characters need to notice things that attract them emotionally and cerebrally. She likes the way he kneels down when talking man-to-man with her three-year-old’s Teddy Bear. He, while holding a new scrub brush designed to clean an appliance he doesn’t own, admires the cool way she escapes the wily tactics of a door-to-door salesman. This is the part that shows why these two are right for each other and are going to stand the test of time.

3. Admitting attraction and acting upon it. This about the time for the first romantic encounter, most often a kiss. Unless you’re writing hot and spicy, then there’ll probably be some groping involved. Sometimes the order is reversed. The hero could touch or kiss the heroine and then realize he is attracted.

4. Caring. For some reason stages 4 and 5 are the two most often skipped. Here is the place to really add depth and Ah moments to the story. Often when the characters are ready to admit undying love and I Love You sentences come out of their mouths, this is where they should be. Now in manuscript parlance, caring is when your characters start thinking about the other and are concerned about how events affect the other person. In chapter one when the heroine locks herself out of her house, the hero just thinks she’s stupid. But if she does it in chapter six, he might wonder if the key bandit at her office has struck again and how dangerous this guy really is. This stage requires that the pair know more than superficial things about each other.

5. Showing Caring This is a Big One. This is where the hero and heroine start sacrificing his/her own well-being to take care of his/her soon-to-be significant other. It doesn’t have to be great big things like her jumping in front of speeding car to keep it from hitting him. I really don’t recommend anything that dramatic. It’s sort of hard to pursue a successful romance while on life support. It should be little things. For instance; although he’s expecting an important phone call and is battling pneumonia, he races outside in the rain to help her stow her new lawn furniture under the deck. She, of course, will make him wrap up in warm blankets and feed him chicken soup. The blankets are from her bed and the chicken soup was for the church dinner, which she’s now missing to take care of him, even though she knows she’ll suffer through a whole sermon from her mother later. This is often where the first love scene occurs—Okay, forget the pneumonia. We don’t need them both sick. The big love scene, consummated or not, is either proceeded or quickly followed by …

6. Love Okay now they love each other, and it out to be pretty clear to the reader. But our hero and heroine are normal people and love no doubt scares the bejeepers out of them. They probably think they have a way out this still—Hell, they are quite sure things won’t work out. After all, he’s still fighting fires, a rather high risk profession, and she still is a mom looking for Daddy material—right? Now is the time for the conflict to come to a head. I hope you have kept it going. Something should happen that points out how wrong they are for each other. In other words, Love should come hand-in-hand with the dark moment.

7. Admitting love to self and others. Okay now they’re scared out of their minds. This is what makes the dark moment darker. Because it’s almost too late when they realize they’re in love, but Yea! It’s a romance, and love conquers all—at least in our type of fiction. So this grand old dame of emotions gives the hero and heroine the courage and the willpower to overcome their conflict and on to the pay off . . .

8. Declaring love to the lovee. Time for the hankies and happily ever after. I hope you have held this off to the end, because if the hero and heroine have declared their love for each other on page 86, THE STORY IS OVER on page 86, well maybe page 87. I can’t emphasize this enough. A story where the hero is in love midway through chapter four and spends the next eight chapters pursuing the heroine is (snooze) boring, and tends to leave her unlikable. The other common failing is to take the hero and heroine to step 6 and then, knowing they can’t commit until the end, take them through a series of external contortions that would keep a Chinese gymnast from tying his shoelaces, let alone let our couple whisper sweet nothings to each other. Or my favorite, send the misbehaving hero and heroine to separate corners of the earth. Well not my only favorite, remember my pirate I sent fishing? His swashbuckling bride was busy getting herself kidnapped, by his uncle no less. Needless to say I’ve learned a thing or two since then. For instance, don’t marry anyone with relatives you don’t like. Seriously, check the hero’s pace and the heroine’s pace, slow them down if they’re galloping ahead too fast, and remember the Romance is the Story.

As a kid I loved roller skating. As soon as my shoe would fit into strap-on skates, I laced them on my feet. I skated in circles around the basement and on sidewalks where metal wheels on the roughened surface vibrates feet to numbness. By fifth grade, roller rinks provided a regular outlet for my passion.

One evening before the dated music and the referee whistles began herding the masses in the proper counter-clockwise direction, a school friend sat beside me on the carpeted bench. As we laced on our rental skates, she turned to me and said, “I’m a really good skater.”

Never having seen her skate, I took her word for it. She asked if I was any good.

Well, I considered myself a doggone good skater by that point. I skated backwards, forwards, sideways and occasionally in circles. A number of turns completed my repertoire. When the crowds thinned, I poured on the speed.

Before I had a chance to answer, she added she considered herself good because she never fell down.

I fell down all the time. If never falling meant you were a good skater, then I was pretty bad. I went so fast that occasionally I slammed into the wall. My knee and a pole tangled resulting in the most lovely shade of deep purple decorating my kneecap. Frequently, I sprawled across the floor impersonating a mop. Only God knows what color my butt was half the time.

Skating is a lot like writing. (Well, maybe not, but bear with me.) When you push your limits and learn new skills, failures crop up. Learning, stretching, growing as a writer comes with falls and bruises. Improving means picking yourself up and trying again when you don’t succeed the first time. Publishing means taking risks. After all, if you never send a query letter, you’ll never get a rejection. You won’t get a sale either. Writing means loving the process enough to continue, in spite of the knocks.

I compare the disappointments of rejections to the falls. Being willing to risk falling, made improvement attainable. Getting hurt and loving the exhilaration when it goes well and tolerating the pain when it doesn’t is part of the learning process. If I had given up the first time I tried a turn and fallen down—and I fell every time I tried a new way of turning—I never would have learned the joy of mastering the skill.

My friend skated slowly around the rink. She didn’t cling to the rail and had learned to roll forward instead of taking those lurching Frankenstein steps. She looked bored.

“You’re really good,” she said with sort of a sheepish awe. “How did you learn to skate backwards and stuff?”

With my father’s recent visit the TV, normally a silent beast much of the time I’m writing, has been my background music. Well, not so much background, if it’s on, I tend to turn from my computer and watch. Not that I’m interested in his choice of programming; Sports. Tennis, basketball, arena football, car racing, thank goodness he’s never been into fishing or that would have been on too. So what grabs my attention is the commercials.

I’ve been hearing a lot of commercials, and you know, I think maybe those advertising people are on to something. They often capture the spirit of living and encapsulate into a ten second sound bite. Well, maybe that “Whazup?” doesn’t capture much more than the male brain at it’s lowest ebb, but there is more to life than drinking beer and watching grown men play with a ball. Many of the quickie slogans offer profound advice.

One of my favorites is Microsoft’s, “Where do you want to go today?” Like most of the evil empire’s messages it does require interpretation. It makes me question what my goal is, and what I need to do today to get there. I have this slogan printed and hanging over my monitor. Below it are my daily page goals.

Of course Nike wins when it comes down to slogans. Their “‘I Can’ [campaign] is about being a positive influence . . . and creating opportunity for people to realize their dreams,” said Bob Wood, Nike Vice President of USA Marketing. On days when you receive another rejection letter, or fail to place in a contest, there is no replacement for faith in yourself. Believe in yourself and your ability to succeed and good things will follow.

Nike’s philosophies are right on target. In their own words “When athletes become larger than life, sometimes we take for granted what it took them to get here,” said Sue Levin, Women's Brand Director. Substitute authors and the sentiment is the same. Superstardom requires daily sweat and toil, something we often forget to do in our own pursuit of publishing. I’ve heard Stephen King writes every day except Christmas.

Nike also reminds us that competition and effort aren’t bad things. “Emotion, power and ambition are things we all need more of, not less,” says Levin.

But of course it all boils down to one final thing. Are you going to show up on the page, commit yourself to the work? Will you expend the effort to finish the book, submit the query, stick your neck out into the cold, cold world of publishing again and again? I submit to you that Nike has the answer to that. “Just Do It.”

Recently I came across a quote and it struck me as profoundly true and made me examine my approach to writing. I have a dream. My dream is to be a successful published romance author, a dream I’m sure I share with many of you. But even if your dream is as simple as a finished manuscript, a trip to Hawaii, or just to teach Spot to use the newspaper instead of shredding it into slobbery dog confetti, the following quote from an Apollo 12 astronaut could impact you too.

"The most important quality I have noticed in successful people is that they have a dream. They want to be someone or something. They want to have something. They want to go somewhere.

"I often ask people who tell me their dream, ‘What did you do today to move closer to your dream?’

"Eighty-five percent didn't do anything. They're planning to do something next week; they're just too busy today. These eighty-five percent will probably never see their dream come true.

"Ask yourself the same question: 'What have I done today to make my dream come true?' If the answer is nothing specific, then you probably won't make it unless you change." ALAN BEAN

A dog needs daily training—husbands too, but that’s another thing—and constant praise for getting it right—husbands . . . never mind. A paradise vacation may mean you have to brown bag it for the next two months or two years, and to be a successful romance author requires daily toil.

Daily toil? Yes, I say. Lately, life has hurled King Kong boulders in my path, and some days to find fifteen minutes at the keyboard is a gorilla task. This quote came to me in a moment where everything in my life felt out of control, and my pursuit of writing had suffered not only from a lack of attention, but hopelessness. Yet, there is my dream that I won’t let flicker out. If daily effort is the ticket, I’m on that train.

So I started stealing, begging, and borrowing time for my writing every day, and let me tell you, time is a pretty tough commodity. It slips away if you don’t use it, and you can’t save it from one day to the next. But like Alan Bean I want to not only shoot for the moon, but reach it.

I’m not saying you must write every day, but that is a plus. But everyone can do something daily to pursue their writing dream. Read an article while waiting in a doctor’s office, listen to a tape on your daily commute, jot down notes while burning dinner, or plot a hero’s torture while removing the correctly used doggy newspaper.

The odd thing is that when I got back on track with a daily commitment to my writing, I found an unexpected benefit of restored hope and faith in the process. So I ask you, “What have you done today to make your dream come true?”

For those of you who don’t know, my daughter sings in her own band. I am going to watch her sing this very night. She is talented, inspiring and going places with her art. I tune my radio to hear her songs play over the airwaves. I am awed, proud and jealous.

Jealous? Yes. I feel like a shadow artist to her. She composes the lyrics for all the band’s songs and beyond that she has a fantastic voice. She’s young and on her way up, with plenty of time to make it big if that is what she wants. This week she got back her first studio recorded album, and I’ve played it continually since. I also wrote like a fiend and managed to get to those happy words, The End, on my current manuscript. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

She inspires me to push my limits. I watch her budding career and want her to succeed with all my heart. I hope she doesn’t let half her life pass her by before she is willing to take the necessary risks.

Lately, I’ve had my own successes. Still there is nothing beyond a good healthy dose of competition to push me to achieve more. But the cool thing (or Kewl as she would say) about her art is I can revel in her achievements. After my initial spurt of envy about why her, why not me, I can turn that energy to my own work. And why not her? Why not both of us? Why not all of us?

There is something to be said about creative energy. I feed on hers and I hope she feeds on mine. It is no coincidence when the achievements of one person in a group lead to the success of others. Jealousy often is the spark that leads me to work harder, to focus better, and to dream bigger.

Tonight when I listen to her sing, I will feel the itch to write in my fingers. I will come home and type words on my computer. I will reap the bounty of her artistic effort and sow my own seeds of achievement, perhaps inspire someone else to jealousy. Use it wisely.

1. Read the rules—twice. Every contest has it's own rules for entries. Make sure you understand how many pages you can enter, if it is a first chapter only. Some contests are 35 pages total to include first chapter (prologue optional) and the synopsis. Others clearly state a five page synopsis and an up to 25 page chapter. Some just want the first 55 pages.

2. Use Courier 12 font. Unless the rules mention another font you can use, always stick to good old Courier. It is easy to read and easy to count words. Editors like it too.

3. Appearance counts. Use clean white paper—preferably bond of 20 lb stock and leave at least one inch margins all around with no more than 25 lines per page. Double space all text (synopsis and manuscript) and put your title in the upper left hand corner and page number on the upper right side of every page. Do not put your name on the entry unless the rules say you may. Put the title/synopsis in the upper left corner of every page of the synopsis. This may be inside the top margin.

4. Start chapters 1/3 to 1/2 the way down on the page on the page. Do not begin your chapter at the top of the page. Do not try to look like your trying to use every inch of available space.

5. Enclose a large SASE and adequate postage for the return of your entry for the return of your entry.

6. Always, always, end on a hook! When the judge reaches the end of your entry, she should want to read more. It is far better to end a few pages short of the allowed page count than to end in the middle of a scene or on one that has a wimpy ending.

7. Use a binder clip or large paper clip to hold the entry together. Watch rule number one. In most contests you can slip a colored piece of paper between the manuscript and the synopsis. My preference is to put the chapter on top, synopsis on the bottom.

8. Double check for typos and misspellings. Read your entry out loud. It helps you catch mistakes that your eye will skip right over. Look up any word you are not absolutely positive about. Then look up the words you’re positive about.

9. Send polite—not argumentive—thank you notes to your judges Sending a polite thank you note is one of the best ways to develop contacts in the industry. Include you name and e-mail and tell them you appreciate their help and would love to hear from them. This works especially well if they like your work.

2. Remind yourself that most judges are genuinely trying to help you make your work more marketable.

3. There are some crazy judges who think Kansas City rolls up the sidewalks at six, or ask if they really used forks during the Regency period.

4. Two out three judges aren’t wrong. If you have two judges who concur on a problem, you really do need work on that problem.

5. If you consistently score low in a certain area, say conflict, you need to address the issue.

6. Defending your choices to friends and family doesn’t get you anywhere but locked into a defensive stance. It won’t help you win the first sale war. Regard making changes as practice for working with an editor.

7. Be open to the comments and give them time to percolate before rejecting them. Sometimes it’s a slow process to understanding another person’s vision of your work, and seeing that another way of doing a scene may make the story stronger.

8. If you are confused by the comments, seek the advice of critique partners or other trusted writing friends.

10. If the comments seem way off base, then you probably have not conveyed a concise clear story line. Be careful not to use this as an avoidance technique.

12. Remember that while bad manuscripts usually don’t win, not all good manuscripts do well in contests, or in every contest.

13. If you are consistently winning, don’t be a contest hog. Retire manuscripts and move on to new stories or you risk looking like a contest junky. (Except Golden Heart, of course.)

1. Decide why you are entering contests and chose contest accordingly. Smaller contests may get you more detailed scoring and critiques. If you're really on the ball you can request a sample score sheet. Bigger contests like the Golden Heart only give you a score and if you're lucky a coveted read by an editor.

2. After you send in your entry, FINISH THE BOOK. Why? Because if you do get a request for a manuscript you want to be ready with a polished, completed manuscript.

3. Make sure your entry is a good fit with the contest you’ve chosen. Does the page count work for your entry? Can you write an adequate 2 page synopsis? If it isn't a good fit, can you tweak it? Can you create a prologue of the first scene so you end on a really climatic scene? Can you cut or condense a scene so you end on a great note. I've changed a first scene into a prologue and included a scene from a second chapter just to be sure I ended with a huge cliff-hanger. That's fair, just don't cut the first eighty pages to get in a juicy scene.

a) Establish the protagonist's character, give a hint of his or her internal conflict, and make the reader bond with him or her.

b) Show second actor’s (the future mate of the protagonist) character, give a glimpse of his or her internal conflict, and make the reader empathize with him or her.

c) Set the stage and give a feel for the setting and emotional tone of the novel. Connect the reader with sensory images to the story.

d) Show the major crisis that is sending the hero and heroine on a crash collision with a point of no return for them.

g) Raise questions to keep the reader turning the page to find out who? What? Why? When and where? You must do this on the first page and on the last page.

h) Establish the rhythm of dialogue to narrative. Preferably use a lot of dialogue with distinctive voices for each character.

a) Waste space. Every spoken word, every detail, every action, should further the story or show character.

b) Have weird margins or fonts. Personally a three inch left margin and a one inch right margin make me wonder if the author can use a computer. In dealing with editors professionalism is a must. You must look like a competent person capable of using modern technology even if you are a technophobe.

c) Have smeared or blurred letters or faded letters. Professionalism is everything. Well not everything, but it counts for a lot. And why should we care if you don’t care enough to make it look nice?

d) Have a Stop-Action sequence to describe a person or place. I can't tell you how many entries I've judged where everything comes to a complete halt while the author—in the heroine's viewpoint—stops and simply gives a description of the hero. Don't do that. Keep the action rolling and just sneak in snippets of what they look like. The reader will fill in with their appropriate fantasy guy.

e) Have action that doesn't move the story forward. Don't put in action just to have your characters do something. Everything that you write about should be moving the romance forward.

f) Switch viewpoints mid-scene. (Okay, personally I’m not a purist when it comes to viewpoint, but a lot of contest judges will knock you on this one.) Don't think that you've solved the problem by putting in a one-line break either. Move on to the next scene and then switch viewpoints.

g) Waste space with people saying hello, good-bye, nice to meet you etc. Make dialogue count.

h) Include a synopsis that doesn't make sense, and/or cover the story development and the resolution.

i) Wimp out on the end. Do not end an entry an entry—or a scene—with a scene with a character falling asleep or without raising a huge story question.

Business Elements

Dramatic Elements

Essential Elements

Non-specific words—Get specific

Some

Someone

Something

Few

Many

Bird—what species

Car—beat-up jalopy, cherry red mustang

Flowers-daisies, roses, orchids

Bad: He waited some time.

Better: He waited fifteen minutes.

Bad: Someone would bring her good news.

Better: The mailman would bring her good news.

Bad: He seemed to linger in the half light of the hall.

Better: He lingered in the half light of the hall.

Bad: She looked like a bird.

Better: She looked like a hawk.

Useless Ad-ons—Although they’re almost never quite missed.—They’re never missed.

Almost

Although

Very

Nearly

Perhaps

Sort of

At least—At the very least

Over

Rather

Quite

Really

The fact that

Even

For a moment

In spite of

If nothing else

Suddenly

And or but or while to start a sentence

Bad: He was rather handy.

Better: He was handy.

Negative construction—We won’t listen no more.

Bad: He did not catch the bus.

Better: He missed the bus.

Misplaced modifiers

Bad: He sat at the desk, smoking a cigar.

Better: Smoking a cigar, he sat at the desk.

Redundancies—How many ways can you say it?

Bad: The ceiling above him.

Better: The ceiling.

Bad: “Damn!” he swore.

Better: “Damn!”

Bad: He raced swiftly across the street.

Better: He raced across the street.

Adverbs—Is your verb flabby?

Words ending in ly

Bad: He walked slowly down the hall.

Better: He trudged down the hall.

Or: He ambled down the hall.

Reversed order—what happens first