RWA recap Part 2

Aand here's a summary of the last two days of the conference!

Friday

More workshops and seeing awesome people. Bonus: I got to hang out with Beverly Jenkins in the smoking area and didn't embarrass myself fan-girling.

I also had dinner with my Boroughs editor and aside from my release schedule, we talked a lot about Game of Thrones.

But the real highlight of the day was that both of my publishers had their parties back to back. Okay, technically their dinners were at the same time, but luckily Boroughs had a fun meet and greet. They had me come in early because they're making a video about us authors, so I experienced my first time in front of a camera. I'll share the video when they finish it.

Me with Editor Chris Keeslar and publisher Michelle

Me with Nikki Prince and Deena Remiel

Me with Christine Ashworth

Me with Emily Mims

I got to socialize with everyone and get pics with my fellow authors as well as my editor and publisher before I had to go to the Sourcebooks dinner.

The Sourcebooks dinner. OMG.

First we met in the lobby and I had to take a picture of Shana Galen looking FABULOUS! She's so elegant, I'm so envious.

Deb Werksman cheering us on!

 Then we took a shuttle to Coronodo where we went to this amazing restaurant called Il Fornaio, where we were treated to a 6 course meal of decadence. The calamari, holy sh*t! They gifted us with monogrammed shawls, except for M. L. Buchman, he got a tie. And there were fireworks and I got to sit with Theresa Romain, Shana Galen, Amy Sandas, Amanda Forester, and Caridad Pineiro! It was all so elegant and awesome and I felt so spoiled!

Saturday

First up was the Sourcebooks signing. Holy wow! It was the most successful signing I've ever been a part of. I had people lining up to get copies and I also scored a ton of books from my fellow Sourcebooks authors.

I did make it to another workshop, but I skipped a ton to talk with authors I admired. M.L. Buchman eased my guilt about this by pointing out that much of a convention takes place in the halls. And he was right because I learned a lot and made new friends.

The evening was dedicated to the RITA ceremony. This is like the OSCARS for romance authors. I sat with some Boroughs authors and others and made even more friends.

As I told my boyfriend, the RITA is even bigger than the Oscar. It's a big gold lady with a book on a huge base and it's really shiny and... I WANT ONE! 

Maybe some day. :D

Apparently there were a ton of fun parties afterwards, but Terry and I had to go to bed early to catch our planes.

Sunday

After getting up at the crack of dawn, Terry's friend took us to the airport.

Now it's time for me to act like a giddy little kid. This is only the second time in my adult life that I've flown. Last time I didn't get a window seat, but this time I did and took some pics.

Holy wow, we're on top of the clouds!

Over the mountains!

INSIDE A CLOUD!!!

Over Portland

Over mountains above clouds!

RT Recap Part 4: The last day.

Saturday was the day of the Giant book fair. Holy Literacy, Batman! There were a ton of people! I'd forgotten to bring a bag for the books and shirts I got, which turned out to be a huge mistake. The lady at the checkout said that I could just take my purchases back to my room and come back with a bag. Nope, didn't work. By the time I made it back, the fair was open to the public and there were lines of hundreds of people stretching out through the entire floor of the hotel. I can't handle crowds, so I popped a Xanax and fled with my tail between my legs... which turned out to be a good idea because apparently things got so packed that those who got in couldn't get out. I heard that the signing made the Guinness Book of World Records.

At least I got to get books from Ashlyn Chase and Kresley Cole. So I got my book collection boxed and mailed home, then I soaked in a warm bath and dressed up for the evening. By the time Jess escaped the mobbed signing (I think she sold out all her books) we were famished. We finally got to go to Oceana's, a place she'd been raving about since I arrived.

Our server was like the coolest guy ever. For an appetizer, we split an order of BBQ shrimp. Holy hell, check out the size of those things!!!

Then I had red fish covered in creamy crawfish sauce. I didn't get a picture because I fell upon it like a ravening beast.

Our server was also a bad influence. He talked us into getting drinks. I had my 1st Hurricane and Jess got this crazy yum Bananas Foster cocktail.

So I was a little giddy when we showed up at the private party that my publisher, Sourcebooks threw. There were drinks there too. I got permission to bring crashers. I had to show my editor, Deb Werksman, the cover of the anthology Jess wrote for: "The Real Werewives of Vampire County." She loved it. I also got to talk with Deb and my associate editor, Susie Benton, about book 3 in my Scandals with Bite series. This is Rafe's book. Rrrrrrrow!

I also bounced around and chatted with Ashlyn Chase, whom I'd been dying to meet in person and introduce to Jess, as well as Terry Spear, Elizabeth Staab, and others.

Sourcebooks also made cool placards with our book covers! Here's mine and I totally took it home and will set it at my table for my first book signing.

The party wrapped up quicker than I would have liked, but we had another one to go to: the Fantastic Day Party. There were more free books. I picked up DUKE AT MIDNIGHT by Elizabeth Hoyt and OMG, it's like a Regency Batman! And apparently there are a ton more books in the series. So while I was jumping up and down to my new friends saying, "OMG, REGENCY BATMAN!" They nodded then pointed at another table. "Oh yeah? OCD Werewolf!"
And that's how I was introduced to the fabulous Shawntelle Madison.

I was then delighted to meet Dorothy Shaw and Kimberly from Book Obsessed Chicks, and Joy from Joyfully Reviewed, who thankfully wore bunny ears so I could recognize her. I took pictures with all  them and we talked books until we were dying on our feet. 

Jess and I then took off and considered going to the Harlequin party but we were starving and tired so we went to Popeye's, which I'd never had before. I decided that I like KFC a bit better but Popeye's had superior biscuits.

Then we went straight to bed because I had to catch the airport shuttle at 4:55 AM.

Surviving the Sophomore Manuscript: Guest Post by Tracey Devlyn

Book Two. Second manuscript. The sophomore book. No matter what one calls it, the follow-up story to one’s debut can be a terrifying and paralyzing adventure for some authors. I definitely fall within this category.

I had years to write and polish my debut novel, A LADY’S REVENGE, without the pressure of a looming deadline or editorial pet peeves swimming around my head. Not so with book 2, CHECKMATE, MY LORD. Don’t get me wrong. I had plenty of time to write the manuscript. In total, about twelve months. Yep, you read that right. Many authors can write two, three, or even four books in the same amount of time.

Without going into the gory details, the ten months following THE CALL were not what I expected. Because of that, I spent a lot of time worrying, thinking, spinning my wheels, and starting the beginning of book 2 four times. My lack of self-confidence resulted in good deal of lost time and thousands of wasted words.

On top of all that, I couldn’t see beyond the midpoint. The last half of the book was nothing but impenetrable darkness. And that’s when the fear set in. True fear. Especially when I didn’t finish the rough draft on the deadline date I had set. A date I would change two more times before finally finishing the draft (absent the final two chapters).

When I eventually reached the end, I was so lost that I couldn’t write the climatic chapters. Plus, I only had a few weeks until my deadline. Not enough time to ship the manuscript off to my awesome critique partners, get their feedback, and revise. Talk about going it alone. Yikes.

My husband, who reads a ton of mysteries and thrillers, had just finished reading the advanced reading copy (ARC) of my debut. Out of desperation, I asked him if he’d be willing to read my current manuscript. Without hesitation, he agreed. He might have been motivated by the help-me-I’m-dying look I was flinging at him.

So I buckled down and line-edited the manuscript while my dear husband read it for the picture stuff. As it turned out, we made an awesome team. He asked great questions and pointed out little nuances in the plot that I had missed.

I made my deadline with one day to spare.

Moral of this story?  Bear with me—I have more than one.

1.    Try to block out the white noise.

2.    The more time you have to write, the more time it will take you to write.

3.    Put your nose to the grindstone and push forward.

4.    Don’t allow yourself to dwell in I Can’t Do This Land or I Don’t Have Enough Time Land or It’s Too Much Land for long. It’s not healthy and will negatively affect your productivity.

5.    Have faith in your abilities. They got you to this point and they’ll carry you through to the finish line. Never give up.

6.    Surround yourself with a positive support group.

7.    Ask for help.

And don’t forget to have fun and bask in your incredible accomplishment.

Where are you in your writing process? Have you ever fought with self-doubt? How did you overcome it?

Don’t forget to leave a comment for a chance to win A Lady’s Revenge. (Contest is open only to U.S. and Canada)

* * *

BRIEF SUMMARY OF A LADY’S REVENGE:

A British agent flees her French captor’s torturous dungeon and falls in love with the decoder responsible for her imprisonment.

British agent Cora deBeau has spent the last three years seducing secrets from the most hardened of French spies while searching for her parents’ killer. When her latest assignment goes awry, she suffers at the hands of her French captor until Guy Trevelyan, the Earl of Helsford and master cryptographer, saves her during a daring rescue. Scarred and wary of men, Cora shies away from the one man who could heal her savaged heart.

After rescuing Cora from a French dungeon, Guy discovers it was one of his deciphered messages that led to her captivity. Guy strives to earn her forgiveness while outwitting their enemy. But will he find the scars on her wounded soul run too deep?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Tracey Devlyn writes historical romantic thrillers (translation: a slightly more grievous journey toward the heroine's happy ending).

She’s a member of Romance Writers of America, International Thriller Writers, Australia Romance Readers Association and the Windy City, Beau Monde, Women’s Fiction, and PASIC Romance Writers of America chapters. Tracey’s also co-founder of Romance University, a group blog dedicated to readers and writers of romance, and Lady Jane’s Salon-Naperville, Chicagoland’s exciting new reading salon devoted to romantic fiction.

An Illinois native, Tracey spends her evenings harassing her once-in-a-lifetime husband and her weekends torturing her characters. For more information on Tracey, including her Internet haunts, contest updates, and details on her upcoming novels, please visit her website at:

TraceyDevlyn.com  |  Twitter.com/TraceyDevlyn  |  Facebook.com/AuthorTraceyDevlyn

LadyJanesSalonNaperville.com

Shh, I Have a Secret! Guest Post By Shana Galen

One of my favorite things about little girls is how they love to tell secrets. There's nothing as much fun as lying around with a bunch of little girls, who whisper secrets in your ear with bubblegum-scented breath. The secret is usually something like, "Hi" or "You're nice," and of course these aren't secrets at all. I suppose that, even from a young age, something about secrets appeals to us, though. It's fun to have a secret no one but you knows.

Unless, of course, your life depends on keeping that secret.

When Brooklyn Ann invited me to blog, she mentioned secrets as a possible topic. I hadn't really thought about how often I write characters who keep secrets from one another, but when I started thinking about this blog, I realized it's almost a theme in my work. In The Making of a Duchess, Sarah is a spy masquerading as the fiancee of a duke in order to discover whether or not he's passing valuable information to the French. Getting caught could mean her life, but when the duke catches her, she realizes he has secrets as well.

In The Making of a Gentleman, the hero Armand has been in prison for 12 years. He doesn't speak, and Felicity is hired to tutor him. What she discovers is that Armand has a reason for keeping silent. He carries an dangerous secret inside him. Felicity has secrets of her own, and they prove equally dangerous.

In Lord and Lady Spy, Adrian and Sophia have been married for five years. They're also elite spies for the Barbican group, and their identities are so closely guarded they've kept their secret identities even from one another.

Finally, in my most recent release, The Rogue Pirate's Bride, Raeven's secret is that she is the daughter of a British admiral. Bastien is a pirate who has had more than his share of run-ins with the British navy, so when she ends up stranded on his ship, the revelation of her true identity is not welcome news.

Why do I keep coming back to characters who keep secrets from one another? Because secrets add suspense and keep the reader turning pages. Most of us want to read books that are fast-paced. One element that quickens the pace is when one or both characters have secrets from the other. The reader is left wondering, at the end of every chapter, when the secret will be revealed and what the reaction will be.

This strategy is only effective if the reader also knows the secret. Have you ever been reading a book where, out of nowhere, a character reveals some deep, dark secret? It stops you, may make you flip back in the book to look for clues, and makes you question the character's reliability. How is it he or she had this deep dark secret and you, the reader, who has been in his or her head for X number of pages never realized it? You feel tricked, and justifiably so.

So the first rule in writing a book where one or more characters have secrets is that you have to let the reader in on the secret. You don't have to do this on the first page. You can hint at it and build up to it, but the secret must be revealed to the reader reasonably early in the novel.

The second rule is that the character must have a good reason to keep the secret a secret. This rule becomes increasingly important the longer the character keeps the secret. Of course, if the writer doesn't reveal the secret until the end of the book, this means more and more suspense for the reader. But it also means the hero and heroine have been through a lot together and have, presumably, developed an intimacy. The intimacy will be questioned with the revelation of the big secret, so the reason for keeping it must be life-threatening.

In The Making of a Gentleman, Armand does not tell the heroine or his family why he has refused to speak for so long until the last quarter of the novel. Felicity reveals her secret even later, but both characters have extremely good reasons for keeping their secrets. Armand is trying to protect his family and Felicity from the evil men trying to get to him because he holds valuable information they want. Felicity is trying to protect Armand from the life-altering machinations of a man from her past. Note in both cases, the secrets are kept to protect others. And in both cases, the character fears for his or her life or the life of others he or she cares about. The less serious the secret, the sooner it needs to be revealed.

Finally, the last rule when writing about characters who have secrets is that the reaction when the secret is revealed must make sense. In The Rogue Pirate's Bride, the pirate Bastien wants Raeven off his ship as soon as he discovers who she is. It doesn't matter that he's attracted to her. The threat of the British navy is bigger than his attraction. In Lord and Lady Spy, Adrian and Sophia are married and more or less stuck with one another, despite their secrets. They have to learn to work out their trust issues and come to know one another in a new way. The reaction to the revelation of the secret, and the consequences of the secret, cannot be glossed over. The writer must deal with the fall-out from the secret in a way that satisfies the reader.

Do you enjoy reading books where one or more characters has a secret? Have you ever read a book where the author handled a character's secret either very badly or very well? I'm offering two copies of my new release, The Rogue Pirate's Bride, to two people who comment (open internationally). Thanks again to Brooklyn Ann for hosting me today!

Shana Galen is the author of numerous fast-paced adventurous Regency historical romances, including the Rita-nominated Blackthorne’s Bride. Her books have been sold worldwide, including Japan, Brazil, Russia, Spain, Turkey, and the Netherlands, and have been featured in the Rhapsody and Doubleday Book Clubs. A former English teacher in Houston’s inner city, Shana now writes full time. She’s a wife, a mother, and an expert multi-tasker. She loves to hear from readers: visit her website at www.shanagalen.com or see what she’s up to daily on Facebook and Twitter.

The Sh*t Just Got Real.

Dio always knows the right thing to say. These are indeed words to live by...even though they're a little blurry.

Okay, so I finally got a book deal. Now that the ecstatic joy has gone down to a sane level, (okay, as sane as I can be) I need to begin focusing on what this means for me. The obvious being, no longer can I be considered by anyone (or myself on a bad day) a hobby writer.

Because, the sh*t is real now.

My editor said we have a lot of work to do: namely edits and working on my career path. As it says on their website: Sourcebooks publishes authors, not books.

Career...I haven't heard that word applied to me since I got my degree in automotive. A degree I can no longer use. However, I've been treating my writing as a career for the last two years. I've made self-imposed deadlines, gone through line edits with friends, built up a humble platform, and discovered the value of social networking (other than winning free books.)

But now it's a REAL career. The deadlines will be real, the edits will be through trained professionals who are not going to take it easy on me. My platform and social networking could impact my sales.

I know the work my editor referred to is going to be a lot more than revising BITE ME, YOUR GRACE. Speaking of, when I said that to my husband, he said, "But, I thought you edited it already." The house practically shook with my hysterical laughter.

Anyway, besides polishing that work, there's going to be a multitude of preparations before I make my debut. Namely, what project will be the next focus? No longer can I willy-nilly hop around sub-genres. Not right now, anyway. At first that sounds restrictive...until I remember the anxiety that came from: "What project should I work on next? I have one idea here, and another there!" Now, I will have guidance and help in shaping my personal brand. And that comes as such a relief.

What am I doing now, so early on my journey?

As you can see, I've deleted the progress bars for my other projects from my site until I figure out what I'm working on next. Also, I've finally figured out how to add pages to this blog. Aren't the tabs cute? Those pages are pretty bare for now, except for the one where I list my upcoming guest posts. Check it out. I got some good ones lined up already. The "books" tab is for now a source of happy daydreams of what's to come. As for the "About Me," I'm going to do my best to seem awesome. :)

Because my career is REAL now. Hey, do you think if I say that to the kids, they'll behave and let me work when they're around?

No? ::sigh:: That's what I thought.

Thanks to all who are here for me and been supportive of my journey so far. I'll pop back in and say "Hi" later. Now I gotta go to my Idaho Writer's League meeting, where Shelley Martin and I are interviewing everyone as their characters. To keep the Halloween spirit, we're also bringing some spooky goodies. I carved a pumpkin to "barf" up smoked salmon spread and made deviled eggs to look like eyeballs. Shelley's got pumpkin bread, lady fingers...and a chocolate fountain. It bears repeating: A CHOCOLATE FOUNTAIN.