It’s really easy to look at someone else’s career and think they have it perfect, but the truth is they probably don’t. They probably suffer from the same doubts, fears, and insecurities that you do. I think if you aren’t worried about your next book, worried that you are making it the best you can make it, then you probably aren’t digging deeply enough. Maybe I’m wrong, but that’s the way I feel about it. If something doesn’t hurt while you’re writing, then I’m inclined to think something’s wrong.

Unless, of course, you are writing humor. Maybe humor doesn’t hurt, but deep emotion certainly does. Or should, at least in some way. If you aren’t touched by what you’re writing, how do you expect anyone else to be?

So maybe I’m feeling the blues because I’ve turned a book in and I’m waiting for the inevitable revisions. Believe me, it needs them. If my editor didn’t give me any, I’d really be worried!

Or maybe it’s all the gloom and doom in publishing today. Every day, there’s some new article about the death of the bookstore and the predatory nature of a certain online retailer.

I’m sure it’s any number of things, but the truth is I’m just at one of those low points in the cycle where I think maybe the gig is up and my editor is going to figure out that I don’t know what I’m doing. And that my agent is going to quietly stop answering my emails and start avoiding me at conferences.

Oh, I also believe at these times that I couldn’t write a good story to save my life. This is not the time to look at reviews, I tell you. Because someone definitely agrees with that assessment (though thankfully there are plenty who don’t!). Every idea I look at in my file seems trite. That single title manuscript I’m supposed to be revising? Lame, lame, lame.

Times like this, I just want to say, “I quit.” But I won’t. It’s like that old Lynn Anderson song: I Never Promised You a Rose Garden. There is no rose garden in publishing.

So what can we do to get past the writer blues? Here’s my imperfect list. Feel free to add suggestions in comments!

1. Realize that this too shall pass. All moods are temporary.

2. You really aren’t as important as you think you are — which means there is no giant conspiracy of people out there talking about how awful you are either.

3. Do not read reviews. Yours or others. If you can be disciplined about not reading yours, but you still go see how Suzy Author’s praises are sung to the high heavens, that’s going to make you feel bad too. Don’t do it, at least until this mood passes.

4. Disengage from negative people. There will always be those who make you feel worse simply by their own complaining and whining — whether it’s about writing or life, it’s still going to get you down.

5. Go back through your praise file. You do have one, right? That file where someone told you how wonderful your story was (and if you are unpublished, this could be your CP’s comments or a contest judge’s), the good reviews you did read and keep (RT Book Reviews, for instance), and your editor’s praise about something you wrote (if you don’t have an editor yet, see aforementioned CP and judge comments).

6. Go for a walk or a run or something that gets the endorphins flowing.

7. Read a good book (unless that depresses you too). I love reading a good book because it always makes me say, “Oooh, I want to do that!” Good books never depress me; they motivate me. Though don’t read Suzy Author’s book if you went and read her fab review and you’re feeling bad about it. Read something else. Save Suzy Author for later when you feel better.

8. Indulge in a hot shower or a nice hot bath. Or go get a pedicure. Something to pamper you as the person, not you as the author.

9. Find something good about your work and celebrate it. Champagne (or sparkling juice, etc) is always appropriate. Finished that awful chapter? Celebrate. Wrote 1K today? Celebrate. Realized that scene doesn’t work and you have to cut it? Celebrate, because you recognized something important about your writing.

10. Remember that everything is in cycles. Next time, Suzy could be the one reading this list because she’s feeling the blues. A career trajectory is not straight to the top like a rocket blasting off. It’s more like one of those barnstorming planes, with high climbs, dizzying dives, loop-ti-loops, and a lot of screaming.

So that’s my list. And you know what, I already feel better by writing it. How about you? What are your suggestions for staving off the writer blues?

Book 1: SPANISH MAGNATE, RED-HOT REVENGE – Epilogue. It wasn’t necessary, but since it was my first book I think I thought I needed it. It doesn’t add anything to the story.

Book 2: CAVELLI’S LOST HEIR – Epilogue. This one had a purpose, which was the show the heroine settling into her new life and being happy. There was also a thread about her mother that I tied up here.

Book 3: THE PRINCE’S ROYAL CONCUBINE – Epilogue. Once more, this one had a purpose. Since Cristiano and Antonella were on opposite sides of conflicting nations, and their relationship affected their countries, I wanted to show them a couple of years later and show how relations between the nations had changed.

Book 4 (a novella) – KEPT FOR THE SHEIKH’S PLEASURE – Epilogue. It’s a year later and I needed to show how Genie was doing in her new life. Not only that, but Zafir had some things to get used to about her job, so that’s in there too.

Book 5: THE DEVIL’S HEART – Epilogue. It was necessary to tie up a thread from the book. Also, I believe it takes place two years later.

Book 6: BEHIND THE PALACE WALLS – No epilogue. The story was complete without it, though I did move ahead in story time by about a year in the last scene, so I technically had an epilogue-type wrap up without the epilogue.

Book 7: THE MAN WITH THE MONEY – Epilogue. There were a couple of threads from the story that needed tying up. No time jump. It takes place right after the last chapter.

Book 8: STRANGERS IN THE DESERT – Epilogue. It’s needed in this book to answer a major question that the story raises.

Book 9: CAPTIVE BUT FORBIDDEN – No epilogue. It’s all tied up without it, though I do give a quick summary of the next couple of years in the last paragraph.

Book 10: MARRIAGE BEHIND THE FACADE – No epilogue. The story is all tied up without it and there’s nothing left to resolve or explain.

There are other books which I’ve written that haven’t come out yet, but I’m not going to talk about those. Clearly, I have a predisposition to write epilogues. I think I just like knowing that the characters are going to be all right, and I figure my readers like to know that too. If the relationship has been particularly rocky or in question throughout the book, I think an epilogue showing how the characters have adjusted is appropriate.

Not everyone agrees with me. Some writers like to end on that high dramatic note and then that’s it. Some readers don’t seem to mind at all. But I do. As a reader, I really want to know it’s all going to be okay. I want to see them together and happy, and know it’s going to work. Just because this is a romance with a happy ending doesn’t mean I believe the happy ending will last if I’m not comfortable with how the characters are as a couple throughout the story.

Once more, that’s a personal preference. So now I want to know what you prefer. Epilogue or no epilogue? Do you have any favorites in books you’ve read? Any that were totally superfluous (like my first book)? Any you hated?

And I thought, Yeah, that sounds right. Because I’ve always seemed to work better at night than I do during the day. I can sit and stare at the computer, write some words, surf a bit — and then it’s time for the hubby to come home and I’m making dinner, etc. If I’m on deadline, I go back to work after dinner. And work gets done. Much work.

When I first started writing, I was working retail and I had the usual crappy shift. I went to work at 1:00 PM and worked until we closed the store. This usually meant I got home sometime after 10:00. And then I went straight to my computer and often worked until 2 or 3 in the morning. If things were going really well, I’d be at it until 6 or 7. I got a lot done, but I hated the schedule.

Fast forward a few years, and thankfully that retail job is long gone. My schedule is my own. And yet, though I get up early and start to work, I often don’t hit my stride until afternoon. And sometimes not until the evening.

So I sent this link to my husband and told him that this was so me. His response made my jaw drop — and made me think. He said, “Bullshit.” He pointed out, quite rightfully, that I work best under pressure. If I have a deadline, I will meet it. I will write non-stop until I do. (I always have a deadline these days, but how far away it is determines my level of panic and productivity.)

And then he pulled out the big guns. He said, and I’m still cursing him for it, “Nora Roberts would say that the best time to write is right now.”

Damn and double damn. I have apparently mentioned La Nora and her amazing schedule one too many times. He’s right, curse him. The time to write is now. Not later, not when you feel like it, not when the sun and moon and stars are all in perfect harmony. You may have a natural rhythm, and that’s fine — but you have to be able to adapt too. Sometimes your schedule gets thrown off — life gets in the way. Hubby says that if we all relied on the “right time” to accomplish tasks, nothing would ever get done.

He’s so right. Doesn’t mean I can’t make the most of the times I feel super-productive, but it also doesn’t mean I have to wait for those times. The best time to write is now. My only problem is getting this damn beginning right. Yes, I am still waffling over how and where to begin this latest book. Some books start perfectly, others reveal themselves slowly. This one is probably the slowest yet. But when it’s right, it’ll be RIGHT.

In other news, there are some sales on a few of my books. If you missed Behind the Palace Walls, or just want to give it as a gift, you can get it on your Kindle for $2.74 or in paperback for $2.88. And The Devil’s Heart is an amazing $1.37 in Large Print paperback!

The Man With the Money is $2.70 on Kindle and $2.70 on Nook. And The Prince’s Royal Concubine is free to borrow if you’re a Kindle Prime member.

How’s that for Happy Holiday shopping?

Beginnings are tricky creatures. You have to establish so much in the first few lines. You have to establish that there’s a problem and a sympathetic character. Sympathetic in that the reader wants to know more about this character and how he or she will handle the problem, not sympathetic in the respect that it’s the world against the character (though that can certainly work too!).

In the short category format, you don’t have a lot of room for build up. You have to establish the problem pretty early (like immediately) and get those characters moving toward the resolution. It’s challenging, and so incredibly important to get right. Personally, I like to jump into the action with dialogue and the characters face to face — and yet in my published books, about half of them do that and half don’t. Not because I didn’t try, but because the story just didn’t work that way. It doesn’t always have to start with dialogue, or with the characters in the same room.

But it does need to start with a dilemma. In my first book, SPANISH MAGNATE, RED-HOT REVENGE (Aug 2009), the heroine has just gotten off the phone with someone who informed her that her company has been taken over. A few lines later, her phone rings again and it’s the hero. Naturally, he’s the one who bought her company — and they have a past together. By contrast, in THE DEVIL’S HEART (April 2011), the hero is being held at gunpoint by the heroine (not that he knows it’s her) who was once married to him. In BEHIND THE PALACE WALLS (July 2011), Alexei hears a scream. A few minutes later, the heroine barrels into him as she’s running across the dark, snowy cobbles of Red Square. In STRANGERS IN THE DESERT (March 2012), the hero learns that a woman resembling his dead wife, whose body was never found, is living halfway around the world and singing in bars.

See, instant trouble, whether or not it starts with dialogue or both characters together in the same space. No one is getting out of bed in the morning, getting into the shower, thinking about their day, making breakfast, driving to the office, etc. If your character needs to get out of bed to start the story, then maybe the other character needs to crash through their roof and land on the bed seconds later. (That’s a joke.)

Believe it or not, you have plenty of time to get the whys and wherefores into the story if you launch with immediate problems. You simply feed it in as necessary to establish what’s going on. Think of it like this: if you were walking along in the mall and saw a fight break out in the food court, would you need to know why the fight was happening or would you be instantly intrigued? You, and a bunch of other people, would probably stop and watch while mall security raced to the scene to stop the fight. You’d listen to the participants yell at each other, watch the struggles as they tried to break free of security, and wonder what was going on.

You wouldn’t need to know up front that these were former best friends who’d become enemies because one of them stole the other’s husband, and that the husband and the thief were now getting married, and that the ex-wife has two children at home that belong to the husband. You wouldn’t need to know the fight started because the thief taunted the ex-wife as she was walking by, or that the ex-wife is struggling to make ends meet and this was the last straw for her tonight.

You’d only need to see two women in each others’ faces, shouting and coming to blows, to be intrigued.

Remember that. Start with a problem that hooks the reader in and then give them just enough information to keep them hooked. Don’t show all your cards at the beginning, but don’t hide everything either.

I’d started with the wrong character but I didn’t know it until I wrote 200 words. It was fine, but not dramatic enough. So I moved the scene to a new location and put it into the hero’s POV. This is a man who is supposed to be on top of the world, who has everything going for him, but who feels dead inside while everyone around him thinks he has the perfect life. He doesn’t, and I needed the reader to know that before I could go on. The heroine is on the scene now, and everything is about to slide sideways. I love that moment, when the characters meet and nothing goes as they expect. It’s so delicious it gives me a thrill to imagine what I’m going to do to these people today!

To recap:

1. Beginnings should be compelling enough to hook the reader in, but you don’t have to hit them over the head with a fight or someone crashing through a roof. Problems, problems, problems – that’s the key.

2. A sympathetic character isn’t necessarily a character for whom everything is going wrong or who is downtrodden. No, a sympathetic character is also one for whom everything seemed fine (or nearly fine) until recently. Downtrodden works too, of course. The heroine who is homeless and has a baby to feed probably didn’t get that way overnight (though it’d be interesting if she did!). You won’t want to detail every step that got her here, but you’ll want to hammer it home pretty quickly that she’s in a bad spot. Likewise, a heroine who is on top of the world until she gets a phone call that her company has been bought out from under her is also sympathetic because we’ve just watched everything change in the space of a heartbeat. Change is the motor that drives the beginning.

3. Don’t be afraid to shift the beginning if it’s not working. Sometimes the perfect line is perfect — but not the right place to begin. The line I had for this story will remain, but it will be the first line of the scene in which I shift to the heroine’s POV. Still there, but moved. Never be afraid to shift, or to start over completely if it’s not working.

4. Trust your gut. If you find yourself piling on words in an effort to explain that perfect beginning, then maybe you need to listen hard and realize that it’s not perfect and that you need something that doesn’t require so much explaining. You need the metaphorical equivalent of that mall fight, something that intrigues and causes rubber-necking and the need to know what’s happening.

5. Don’t think up something huge and dramatic just to hook the reader and then the rest of the story isn’t like that. The beginning needs to fit. Don’t put in a car chase or a skydiving mishap and then the rest of the story has nothing to do with either of those things. Sometimes, the most dramatic opening isn’t correct. In CAPTIVE BUT FORBIDDEN, out now in the UK, I originally started with the heroine at her father’s funeral and the hero coming to kidnap her because of a threat against her (he’s been hired to protect her). It was dramatic, but wrong for the characters. Now, the story starts with the heroine hiding from the public and her responsibilities, just for a few moments, but the hero intrudes on her private time. Before she can get rid of him, she’s forced to rely on his expertise when the lights go out. A much more fitting opening to who they are and their situation.

And that’s it for the moment! My wisdom, such as it is, on beginnings. Questions?

I want to go shopping. I want to have lunch with friends. I want to read and do some things around the house that need doing. I want to wake up and have the whole day free to myself.

I love what I do, make no mistake. But sometimes it’s so lonely that I just want to pick up the phone and call a friend (and I’m not much of a telephone talker, I assure you). I think I’m also a bit irritated about things going on in publishing these days. It’s an exciting time to be a writer. There are more opportunities than ever to get your work out there, but there’s also a whole lot of gasbaggery going on in regards to the various publishing methods and who thinks they are right, right, right about which method is best.

All the white noise makes it hard to concentrate sometimes.

Perhaps there’s so much discourse online because we’re all living that solitary life, and that’s where we turn for interaction. It’s good to have that online connection, but it’s also isolating in its own way. I know I should turn it off, and yet at times like this, I think if I turned it off I’d have no interaction at all.

And then there’s the fear and uncertainty while working on a book. Is this the worst book ever written? Or is it pretty good? Will this one end my career? Or will I get fan mail telling me how much someone loved it? That’s one of the hardest things to deal with, friends. The idea that you don’t want to disappoint anyone, but knowing you will. Knowing that someone will hate your work no matter what you do and will take to the internet to say bad things about you, the book, and your poor cat too.

You can’t write with the aim to please everyone, and I promise you I don’t, but it’s difficult sometimes to imagine all the crap you’re going to get for that virgin heroine, or the secret baby, or the bodyguard hero. There’s a lot of second-guessing in the writerly life, I think. There is for me, though I’ve never changed something or done something just to make it easier for someone to stomach.

So, I’m back to these revisions while turning my head to stare out the window from time to time and sighing wistfully. (Yes, I know I just spent two weeks in Europe, and maybe that’s part of the problem — like going from 100mph to a full stop in the space of a second.) In the meantime, I’m going to think about the upcoming holiday, the fact my in-laws will be visiting, and all the yummy things we’re going to eat. And then I get to look forward to a friend’s visit where we will discuss books and plots and all things writerly for one nice long weekend.

Yes, writing is a solitary life — but it’s also a pretty darn good one. I’m writing this in my pajamas and there is no commute.

But if you do, if you wave the white flag and say, “This is not for me, I quit,” then thank you for leaving the field of battle to someone else who will, one day, find victory. Harsh? Maybe, but that’s exactly what you’re doing. If you quit, you’re making it easier for those who remain because you will not be there to compete. More chances for the others if you give up.

You might think it’s fine for me to sit here and be all snarky and superior when I’m a published author because, really, what do I know about it? I have an editor, contracts, books in the pipeline, books in stores, and books translated into other languages for people the world over to read. Lucky me, right? Oh yes, lucky me.

But you know why I have those things? Because I ultimately did not quit. Oh, but I did quit for a while — eight years to be exact. That’s right, eight years.

One day, many years ago, I decided I wanted to write a romance novel. I loved historicals, so that’s what I decided to write. I researched for a year. Wrote for another year. And then I submitted it. I had a little bit of interest — requests for fulls from agents and editors, contest wins — but in the end, the book was rejected. I couldn’t get an agent, and I couldn’t sell the book.

I was upset, of course. Because everyone (critique group & husband) told me it was a great book (it really wasn’t, but I believed it at the time). I was destined to be a writer, so why couldn’t I sell this book?! If only they would really read it. If only they would wait until I explained everything and the story got seriously interesting on page 100.

But they didn’t, so I started another book. I never submitted that book. I started a third book, which I never finished and never submitted. See, I’d begun to believe it just wasn’t worth the effort. If I couldn’t sell that first brilliant (snort) book, what chance did I have of selling anything?

So I quit. It hurt too much to keep flinging myself at the gates of publishing. I decided to go back to school, finish that pesky college degree, and then go on and get a Master’s degree. I moved to Europe with my husband and got busy traveling and going to school. It was fun! Who needed writing?

I did, because in truth I never quite stopped. I kept writing shorter stories, and of course I wrote a ton of college papers. But I just knew I’d never get published. It wasn’t for me. I wasn’t good enough to get past those gates.

But then one day I got an idea for a contemporary romance and I started to write. I just wrote the darned thing for fun! And I never did submit it. By then, the bug hit again, and I started to get involved with my work. And this time, I decided I wasn’t quitting for anything.

So I did come back, and I did keep trying — and I won a contest and sold a book. If I’d quit for good, I wouldn’t be a multi-published, bestselling author today. Don’t you think I ask myself what would have happened if I hadn’t quit? Would I have sold sooner? Would I be farther along in my career today? I’ll never know that, will I?

If you’ve suffered defeat today, hugs. You have two choices facing you right now.

1) Hang up the keyboard and the pain that comes with it. Live your life and have fun and think about writing every once in a while. Sigh wistfully when you remember that story you never finished. Think fondly of your writing pals and be amazed at how successful some of them have become. But you’re happy because the pain is over and you never would have gotten published anyway, right?

2) Don’t stop. Get mad, get sad, wail and rage and cry. Eat some chocolate, drink some wine, or run ten miles and collapse. Watch your favorite shows, indulge yourself for a few days, and then perch yourself at the computer and type onward. Finish the story you started, or start another if you can see it’s too flawed. Though, really, it’s ONE chapter — how flawed can it be? Rip it apart and start again if need be. Just keep writing. Never give up. And one day, you might be a bestselling, multi-published author too. That’s the only way to get there. Never give up.

So which choice is it going to be? It’s up to you, though I hope you’ll go with option 2.

But, yesterday, I was goofing off at a point where I didn’t quite know what came next in my WIP and a headline on CNN caught my eye: Making New Friends as an Adult. Sounds interesting, right? I thought so, therefore I clicked.

Let’s just say that what came next was a head-shaker. If you want an example of how NOT to write your stories, look at this article. The writer starts off talking about cheese sticks, finally meanders to the one lunch date she had with a coworker that was perhaps a tad awkward, and back to cheese sticks.

Cheese sticks! She was trying to use them as a metaphor for something, but honest to God, the miss is a mile wide. For once, I don’t mind saying so because a) everyone in the comment trail thought the same things* and b) we write in two entirely different genres so that I’m pretty sure the writer won’t pop over here and see me using her work as an example of what not to do.

Remember when starting your stories that you’ve made a promise to your readers. You should know who your characters are and what their core problems are, and that’s what you should write about. Don’t spend the entire first chapter in setup before you get to the meat of the problem. This article that was supposed to be about making friends as an adult was more about cheese sticks and their affect on the author’s life than about making friends. It would have been okay, maybe, if the reader had thought she was getting a story about cheese sticks — but she thought she was getting a story about how to make friends.

Don’t promise your readers a story about a man and woman falling in love and then give take them a meandering side trip through the history of viticulture. If your characters own a winery, fine, use some of that information in weaving the framework for the main story. But for goodness sake, don’t spend those valuable first pages on it. The cheese stick writer wasted valuable space talking about cheese sticks instead of her core topic and lost a lot of readers as a result. Don’t do that, friends. Start with a bang and keep your story focused on the main problem. Cheese sticks are fine so long as they don’t take over and become the main topic. Or, if they are the main topic, don’t mislead readers with a story about something else entirely.

I suppose the cheese stick story would have been fine if I hadn’t expected a tale about how to make friends, but it was so far off base from what I was expecting that I was irritated with the writer for misleading me. Two-thirds of the article is about the cheese sticks. One-third is about her lunch date and how it didn’t go quite the way she was expecting. Big miss.

Do not do that in your writing! Thus ends today’s mini writing rant.

*Comment trails on articles in public forums are usually enough to get my blood pumping in all the wrong ways, but this time, I agreed with the basic sentiment, which was “Huh?”

I’ve watched a lot of this show in reruns because it happens to be on at a time of day when the Hubby and I are relaxing together once he comes home from work. I admit it took me a little bit to warm up to the show, but then I began to see the humor in it.

And I liked all the characters for who they were. They were always true to themselves, no matter how screwed up they might be. Alan messing up a relationship with a woman because she told him that Judith said Herb was the best lover she’d ever had. Charlie wanting so desperately to keep random women on the string but cutting them all loose because he truly loved Chelsea. Herb and Alan finding common ground through their relationship with Judith.

I probably haven’t seen any of the last season’s episodes, so I can’t say whether or not the show was growing stale, but I’m really irritated at what the writers did to get rid of Charlie. They weren’t true to his character, no matter how funny they tried to make it. Charlie Harper was a good guy. But they forgot they were supposed to be writing for Charlie Harper’s exit and instead wrote one for Charlie Sheen. Because Chuck Lorre was pissed at Sheen and wanted to prove he was the guy in control.

Well, yeah, he is the guy in control. But I think he’s shot himself in the foot with this one. You have to be true to the character. And he wasn’t. I’ve read the reviews, and apparently the funeral was a big joke. Alan didn’t cry? Really? The guy who cried when he got sex for the first time in ages didn’t cry when his brother died? And Jake might be nothing more than a teenager who wants to eat all the time, but he actually loved his Uncle Charlie as a kid. Would he really not feel even a shred of remorse? Or how about Charlie’s mother?

She was always portrayed as a cold bitch, but would the woman who once stood on Charlie’s balcony and told him that she was going home because he’d just said he loved her and he could only screw it up from there really only be concerned about selling his house?

I just can’t buy it, and I won’t be tuning in. If I’d been in charge, I’d have replaced Charlie Sheen with another actor. I’d have let Charlie Harper go on living and fornicating and doing all the usual stuff he did. I can like Charlie Harper without liking Charlie Sheen (who I believe is not a nice man at all). Soap operas had a knack for replacing characters. At the beginning of an episode, they would announce “Today, the part of Storm Handsome-Moneybags is being played by Joe Fabulous.” And the show would go on.

Maybe Two and a Half Men is done. Maybe it was already growing old and stale and its time was up anyway. But it’s definitely up for me. I can’t watch it now because I can’t forgive the writers (Lorre in particular) for cheating their character and making it personal. It just isn’t the same show anymore, no matter how young and handsome Ashton Kutcher is (without the long hair and beard – don’t know what’s up with that, but it’s not flattering).

Maybe replacing Sheen with another actor wouldn’t have worked either, but at least Charlie Harper would have still had a chance to get things right in his life before the show ended. The lesson here for writers, I believe, is to think long and hard about what you do to your characters. Make sure it fits their character and is fair to who they are. I’ve killed off my characters when I was sick to death of them, but that was only for me because I deleted all that stuff and continued on with the story.

You have to be true to your characters! You’ve set them up to be someone, with flaws and wants and needs, and you can’t thwart that at the end or you risk alienating your readers. I suppose it’s different for television writers, when an actor becomes the embodiment of the creation, but the viewers still fall in love with the characters and expect justice for them in the end.

I don’t like what they did to Charlie Harper, but I had no say in it. Now, for God’s sake Chuck Lorre, don’t you dare kill off Sheldon or Leonerd or Raj or Howard or Penny! Or Amy or Bernadette!

As I was the lucky winner of that first competition, I can tell you that I was terrified when the moment came to reveal my work to the public. Everyone was nice to me, but I did see much later where a couple of people said nasty things about my first published book (which grew out of that chapter) and how they didn’t understand how I won the competition. Probably, these were people who followed the comp and either entered it themselves and got nowhere, or didn’t enter for various reasons but felt if they had, they would have won. Some people might have been readers only, though it’s perhaps less likely they would follow a writing competition. (Though anything is possible.)

I’m telling you this today not because I’m complaining (I’m really over those comments after writing more than 10 books for Harlequin now), but because I know that many of you are terrified of encountering a nasty person if you enter the contest and have your work available to the public.

Basically, the truth is this: when you stick your work out there for the public to see, not everyone is going to be nice. That’s hard to take when you’re so full of hopes and dreams, and when you’re sticking your work out there for the first time for strangers to pick apart. And they will pick it apart. Someone (maybe more than one) is going to hide behind the anonymity of their computer and say nasty things about your hard work. I can guarantee it.

This is a terrifying prospect, I realize! But you absolutely can’t let that stop you from putting your work out there if you really want to take advantage of this opportunity. Never let ONE person stop you. If you win the contest, or even if you don’t but you sell something later or somewhere else, I can promise you there will be people who don’t like what you write. It can absolutely be soul destroying to have your work torn apart by strangers. It feels like they are saying evil things about you personally.

In some cases, they are. But in many cases, it’s simply a reader’s response to the work and not directed at you personally. It’s still hard to take, believe me. I try not to read the negative reviews, but I have to admit that some of them have crept past my personal filters. If you want to see what I mean, just go read some Amazon reviews sometime. Or Goodreads. If you read mine, you will see where one person thought I must be a man or a computer. One person completely missed where I explained something in the book and went on to gripe about how it was never explained. It was, and he or she is the only one to say it wasn’t thus far.

On Goodreads, some kind soul has put me on a To Avoid list. Makes me want to say, “But what did I ever do to you? I’m nice, I swear! People like me!” But, though it stings, that’s probably not a personal criticism so much as a preference not to read the kind of stories I write (dark, heavy, intense alpha males). People are not obligated to like you, or even to care about your feelings when they are plunking down their hard earned dollars for your book. They can say what they will, and while I wish they were nicer about it, I have to accept that they don’t have to be.

When you put your work on the New Voices site, you’ll be hoping for the best and fearing the worst. And while no one is paying money to read what you’ve written (yet), they will still say whatever they feel like saying. You just have to get beyond it. If you start to read a comment, and it’s negative, skim it or stop reading. Or get a friend to read the comments for you. If you’re pretty sure you can handle whatever someone is saying, then read away.

But never, ever argue. Even when they are wrong (factually, as opinions aren’t wrong), you’re the one who’ll look bad for arguing. You simply must get used to this now, because as a published author, you’re going to have to be professional about reviews. You have to accept whatever people say and you have to do it without disintegrating publicly. The best policy, for me, is NOT to look. Because I am sensitive and I am hurt when someone complains about my book. I try to realize that most of them aren’t criticizing me personally, but it can still be hard to take. Therefore, not looking is the best policy for me.

I’ve told you all this today so you will be brave when it comes to New Voices! Don’t let the fear of that one person who hates your work or tells everyone to avoid you stop you from taking this chance. Take it with hope, optimism, and pride — because you were brave enough to put your work out there for others to see. It’s a training ground, friends. When you are published, you’ll get all kinds of comments. Some are great and make you bounce. Some are bad and hurt your feelings. Some are downright ugly and make you want to break things.

It’s like anything in life. Not everything you do is going to succeed. But if you don’t at least try, you’ll never succeed. That is guaranteed. Best of luck to all you entrants! Be brave, do your best, and never, ever be ashamed of your work.

Yesterday, I lost a whole day’s work because of that feeling. I was writing a scene that was so hard to write it was like trying to pull words from molasses. It took me a whole day to realize why: I’d gone the wrong direction.

I only lost about 1200 words, which isn’t a lot, but my first clue should have been that it took me a whole damn day to write those 1200 words. When it’s coming that slow, there’s definitely something wrong. But I kept thinking I’d bust through the barrier and the words would flow. They did not, and I finally had to admit defeat.

How do you know when you’ve taken a wrong turn? First, ask yourself how hard it is to write forward. Are you fighting for every word you put on the page? Are you staring at the screen and wondering what happens next — or, worse, clicking over to Facebook and Twitter and seeing what’s happening there? If so, you might have a problem.

Not every difficult patch means you’re going the wrong way. I wish I could tell you how to know for sure, but for me it comes down to being unable to envision the story continuing this way and seeing it happen another way. Yesterday, when I saw the black moment if I took another direction, I knew I had to do it because I hadn’t the first clue what the black moment was going to be if I kept forcing my book down the path I was going. The surest clue for me was that I could see a way to the end, complete with character growth, if I took the new direction. The old direction had me stumped.

Sometimes, your subconscious throws this stuff at you out of seemingly nowhere. Through eleven books for Harlequin Presents so far, I’ve learned to listen to that subconscious. That’s one of the skills necessary to having a publishing career. You have to write steadily, and you have to know when to cut. Perfectly pretty words with no goals or stakes for the characters aren’t doing you any favors. Likewise, words that might have a purpose but seem to rehash things that have already happened also need to be looked at hard. There is certainly some amount of characters thinking about what happened — but if you begin a scene with a recitation of everything that’s happened up to that point, you might need to look again.

I find that I can write a whole lot of pretty nothing when I’m spinning my wheels. It’s recognizing that it’s nothing and cutting it before it does more damage that’s the trick. Fortunately, I was able to do that yesterday. And what happened when I cut it and started over? I gained the words back pretty fast, and then some.

Never be afraid to cut when it’s not working. Never be afraid to try a new direction. You might surprise yourself when you do.