Everyone has dreams and ambitions, don’t they? At least, I hope everyone does because dreams can be one of the most fun things in life – there is nothing like sitting somewhere (anywhere) and indulging in a daydream. You can dream about anything – let your mind wander and suddenly you can do whatever, be whatever… then, when you’ve come up with a really good one – you can try to write it down… Cue the start of the author’s nightmare!!! Seriously though, if we didn’t dream, we couldn’t achieve things right? And often to make your dreams become reality you have to be brave. It can be terrifying to throw in the good, stable job to chase the career in the high risk area you dream of, it can be damn scary letting your mum read the love scenes in the novel you’ve written, and I figure it’d be frightening when you’ve saved every cent you can so you can go jump out a plane at however many thousand feet – just because you’ve always wanted too … what were you thinking??!!!!! I think sometimes, to be able to realise our dreams, to be fearless, we need the help…

Before I decided to take my writing seriously, I was many authors’ worst nightmare. I was the person who always said – some day I want to write a novel. One day when I have time, I want to be an author. You name the eye rolling phrase about wanting to be an author, or desiring to write and I said it. I said it but I did nothing about actually achieiving the goal. People would ask me jokingly if I had finished that novel yet.I won’t bother to rehearse my excuses, just know that they were good and that I never finished a manuscript. I would start and then, something would happen. It never seemed as good on paper as in my imagination. Or life would get in the way. I won’t bother to rehearse my excuses, just know that they were good and that I never finished a manuscript. I would start and then, something would happen. It never seemed as good on paper as in my imagination. Or life would get in the way. What changed my attitude? In short, I became ill with gall stones and thought now or never. I became determined to achieve my…

During a recent newspaper interview, the reporter made an observation that completely surprised me: “Your romance books are about finding men while your women’s fiction novels are about getting away from them.” Huh? I started to write women’s fiction because I had stories to tell that didn’t fit the romance mold, but I’d never thought about it in that light. Romance novels portray a beautiful fantasy—the forever joining of two souls meant to be together. Since I’m a divorcée it’s pretty obvious that fantasy didn’t work out for me. (And given my bad date stories it might never. Tip for men—during that first-impression conversation, leave out mentioning throwing up your dinner, ripping your underwear with too-long toenails or seeing your 85-year-old father’s naked buttocks.) That said, I don’t consider my women’s fiction to be a celebration of ditching men, but a celebration of women taking charge of their lives, of stepping off the martyr train and striking out for a destination of their choosing. I could have written about women quitting bad jobs or leaving dull towns but relationships are more important to women and involve more of their identities, thereby giving me the chance to tell a deeper story….

When the man sitting in the front row raised his hand, I was curious about what he would ask. There weren’t many men in the audience, mostly women who’d come into the bookstore to hear four local romance authors discuss their craft. And this fellow had arrived early. He’d parked himself belligerently in the front row, right in the middle, as if daring us to ignore him. And he’d been eyeing us ever since — rubbing his jaw, biding his time — like a predator waiting to strike. And strike he did. Why did women read romance novels, he demanded. Was it because we were frustrated? Were we trying to escape reality? Was there something wrong with our (sex) lives? I thought we did an admirable job of answering him. No one got excited. No one lost her temper. We took his questions seriously, answered rationally, compared reading novels to other forms of entertainment, including sports. We talked about fiction in general, romance novels in particular, told him why love stories touch our lives. Was he convinced? Doubtful, although he stayed until the end and bought a book. Who knows if he actually read it, though. Maybe he did —…

I want to thank everyone here at Fresh Fiction for inviting me to blog today. I was sitting at my computer this morning trying to settle on an interesting topic for today’s blog. My new series? My future plans? My typical writing day? Instead, I found myself thinking about the gift of writing—or should I say gifts, plural. Writing has brought so many layers of good to my life—new friends, new challenges, new skills—that describing those gifts would take all day. Then, the best “gift” of my life announced she was awake for the day. That was the moment I realized a toddler’s chattering was the perfect place to begin—and focus—this blog. Did writing bring about my two-year-old? No, but my writing career taught me to work hard and chase my dreams. In life, just as in writing, there aren’t any shortcuts. Our daughter came into our lives after a ten-year pursuit of parenthood, and I wouldn’t trade a single moment of the journey. After all, each step brought me to this wonderful moment filled with alphabet songs and questions and belly laughs. My writing journey has been no different. Writing—like life—is about doing the legwork. Writing is about believing…

To celebrate the release of The Marriage Recipe, out this month from Harlequin American Romance, I’m celebrating a month of home cooking and made-from-scratch recipes. My heroine is a chef and the hero a lawyer (and also a single-engine pilot). Toss in falling in love with the boy-next-door and the girl who longs to return to the bright lights of the big city, you have a recipe for some craziness, kisses, and love. Writing The Marriage Recipe was a lot of fun. One of the most important areas of character development is what the characters eat and drink. Seriously. If I’m writing a character who’s from New Orleans, I bet he or she has had crawfish. If not, what does that say about him or her? My characters located in St. Louis eat toasted ravioli and gooey butter cake; while in Morrisville, where my characters live, they would drink “pop,” not soda. Knowing regional food tastes and verbiage helps build a character in subtle ways. This is why I always set my books in places I’ve lived or visited. That way they come across as real. Setting is also another character—could you imagine Pretty Woman taking place in Chicago instead…

When I wrote SWEETHEART LOST AND FOUND, the first in a six-book Wedding Planners series–a series about friends who are wedding planners, that I wrote with real-life author friends–I had no idea what great fun I’d have, or how many memories the series would open up. For one, writing with friends is a blast. The other authors are all terrific women, and amazingly talented writers. Brainstorming was more like brain exploding–we all fed off each other and created some of our best work yet, IMHO. The ideas flew faster than our fingers could hit the keyboards. Then the best part was reading all the finished stories and seeing how our vision became real love stories. But more than that, writing a series about wedding planners made me revisit my own wedding 18 years ago (next month, actually). All those memories of flowers and bridesmaids (oh, those ugly green dresses…sorry gals!), veils and gowns, came rushing back, filling me with a sense of romance and nostalgia. I forgot the stress of planning the wedding, the last few days of ‘oh my goodness, what am I thinking’ and the first few years of ‘oh my goodness, what was I thinking,’ LOL. I…

Wanderlust – once you succumb it’s like a chocolate addiction, tantalizing and almost impossible to kick. Growing up in a small south Texas town my childhood was a comfortable cocoon of sameness. I went from learning my ABC’s to the angst of puberty with an identical group of kids. But even while I was cruising the streets with my carpool buddy’s I knew I was destined see the world. I just didn’t know how far reaching that would be. Now let’s fast forward to my life as a nomadic Air Force wife. At times the travel and moving was frenetic and sometimes it could even be exasperating, but it was always an adventure (all 23 moves). I had an opportunity to meet new people, to see new places, and to create my niche in places all over the world. I skied in New England and Bavaria, hiked in the Pacific Northwest, explored Roman ruins, stuck my toe in the North Sea, the north Atlantic, mid-Atlantic, south Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean, got up close and personal with a lobster trap and watched the America’s Cup race from the deck of a Coast Guard ship. What a…

Thanks to Fresh Fiction for the invite to blog! It’s great to be here. This month marks the publication of my fourth and fifth books – one under Stephanie Tyler called Beyond His Control and the other called Unleashing The Storm under Sydney Croft, the pen-name I co-write under with Larissa Ione. And I’ve learned a few things since getting the call. For one thing, every book is harder to write than the one before it. I recently had an aspiring writer – a solider working on his memoirs from Iraq – ask me if writing ever got any easier. My words of wisdom were – you get better but it never gets easier. Or, at least it shouldn’t. And by that, I mean, you have to try to grow with every book you write. I’ll admit that writing Unleashing The Storm with Larissa was the easiest book writing experience ever. Beyond His Control, my 3rd Harlequin Blaze, was the hardest book I’d ever written to that point. I say that because, having written 3 books and a novella since then, my current book is currently kicking my ass. I know I’ll look back and see that it was a…

Thanks so much, Fresh Fiction, for inviting me to come and blog with you today. I love reading all the various blogs and getting to know writers (and thus adding to my TBR pile) in the process. I’ve been writing romance fiction since the mid 80s and am currently working on my 61st book. For quite a few years I would amuse myself on long car trips by seeing if I could name the books and the heroes and heroines in order. Then I started seeing if I could name them in any order. Now I just write the books and think fond thoughts about all those lovely men in my past. Sometimes, though, there’s one who doesn’t get his happy ending in one of my books and he turns up, rather like a bad penny, demanding one of his own. That was what happened with Flynn. Six years ago Silhouette published a single title of mine called The Great Montana Cowboy Auction. It was part of a series of books I’d been doing for them since the mid-90s called Code of the West. TGMCA ran to 97,000 words, which should have been long enough to give everyone in Montana…