Special Guest: Lisa

Hey y’all! Another reader post for your Birthday Month Saturday! This one is also a little special/different. You’ll see why. ;D [Also… more things to come. So yay!] If you need more of an introduction for Lisa – you can check it out here.) Oh – and, last time I had a chance to email back and forth with Lisa about the book covers. Here… I’m just using those from the authors she mentioned. So :X That’s all on me. (If you couldn’t tell, this month has been… well it’s been.) Anyway, hi Lisa – hope you approve! :X

Also, as you see, the cover of A Week to Be Wicked totally refuses to play nice. Despite formatting. … I blame Colin. ;D

The Chronicles of a Fledging Aspiring Romance Author

Hi Everyone.  Limecello was kind enough to approach me about becoming a semi-regular blogger here at ALBTALBS. We decided that it may be fun for me to use this as an opportunity to document and share the ups and downs of my writing journey. I am an aspiring contemporary romance author working on her very first manuscript.

So, let’s start at the beginning. As I mentioned in my first blog here, I started reading romance back in high school. Since then, I’ve been a huge fan of the genre and have devoured as many romances as I could manage. But until very recently, it never occurred to me that I could be one of those authors.  Oh, I’ve had characters and story ideas running around in my brain for years, but at no time did I ever think I could actually write a book and get published. I had a myriad excuses-I was too busy and had to focus on school/work, I didn’t have enough time, I was too undisciplined, publishing was too hard, I wasn’t talented enough, etc etc etc.

But everything changed last summer when I attended the RWA Literacy Signing in New York City. (Just as a sidenote: If you ever get a chance to attend the Literacy Signing, go!  The experience is totally fun and insane, but you get the opportunity to meet your favorite romance authors, and all the proceeds go to charity, so it’s win win win!) Anyways, that night, while I was running around like a madwoman trying to make sure I met all the authors on my must-see list, and doing my best to keep the squeeing and fangirling to a minimum, something fabulous happened. I got swept up in all the giddiness and positive energy of being surrounded by so many romance writers, readers, and fans.  It got  me thinking “I want to be one of those authors sitting there”. Also, that was the day I met Tessa Dare and Katharine Ashe in person, who are two of the nicest, kindest most generous people you’ll ever meet.  I got the chance to chat with them and when I mentioned that I was thinking about writing, they were incredibly kind and encouraging. I am incredibly grateful to them for giving me the push I needed.  That was the day I decided that it was time to stop making excuses and really give the writing thing a shot! If not now, when? I came to realize that if I didn’t do this, I’d always look back and wonder “what if” and I didn’t want that to happen.

In the interest of full disclosure, I must also confess that I failed pretty spectacularly at the not-glomming and fangirling, but that’s a story for another time!

So now that I’m ready and determined to embark on this writing adventure, it was time to get down to the nitty gritty. What was I going to write about? One idea I’ve had that’s stuck with me was the story of four best friends who’d met in college who live in New York City and encounter life, love and all the ups and downs that entails while being there for each other.  Essentially it would be sort of my take on Sex and the City. This was an idea and theme that really spoke to me because I am a firm believer in the power of female friendships and think it’s important that every woman have good circle of girlfriends around them. Girlfriends can get you through anything, and I wanted to have a positive portrayal of female friendships instead of woman constantly competing with each other and tearing each other down, which you see everywhere  on TV and the media these days.  The first book, the one I’m currently working on stars Liz, a law school graduate who just landed her first job at a law firm and Matt, who works at said law firm. Except whoops, she sorta reports to him, and whoops, his father is one of the founding partners of the firm so he’s her boss’s boss’s boss. So far, Liz and Matt’s story has been quite the learning experience, which I will be sharing in future blog posts.

So until next time: For any aspiring writers right there-what inspired you to get started? Did you always know you wanted to write? Did you have someone who gave you much needed encouragement and support? And for everyone-when was the last time you did something you always wanted to do, but didn’t for some reason or another? What pushed you to finally do it?

0 thoughts on “Special Guest: Lisa

  1. Liz

    Hi Lisa! Great post! I would love to go to an RWA conference. Once the kids are a little older, I plan to go. I grew up wanting to be a writer, ever since I found out that S.E. Hinton (who wrote The Outsiders among others) was 14 when she published it. I wanted to be her. But of course that was 20 some years ago (ahem) and I just didn’t know how to go about getting published. I wrote constantly through high school, got out of it when I got married, and then a few years ago I was bored and scrounged up one of my old manuscripts and started to rewrite it. I’d just gotten my kindle and read my first paranormal romance (before that I was straight modern romance, or historical western romance). It was like a whole new world opened up for me. I wrote and wrote and wrote and it wasn’t until I made internet-friends with someone on an author discussion board who encouraged me to pursue writing that I began to think of it seriously. A few authors I really love have gone the route of self-publishing, and I decided to give it a go. My friend offered to beta-read for me and she was that great mix of encouraging and critical so I began to grow and write more. And I totally love it.

    I love your idea for your books. Since I don’t know if I would have taken that all important first step without the support of my friend, I can say just how important female friendships can be. I wish you the best of luck and I’ll be waiting to see your next post and how things go for you!

    Reply
  2. Mary Kirkland (@scarymary66)

    Hi Lisa, This was a great post. When I was younger I always thought I would be writing books and even tried once. I wrote what I thought was long enough to be a book and it only filled up about 200 pages of double spaced typed pages. I set it aside and re-read it a few years later. It just wasn’t that good. lol So it was a few years later that I found a place where I could write articles about something I’m passionate about…small animals. So now I write articles on how to care for small animals like rats, hamsters and mice.

    It’s not what I had started out intending to do but I think it worked out even better than what i thought I wanted.

    Reply
  3. jeannemiro

    Hi Lisa!

    I love the premise of your book! My first “real” job was as a secretary in a law firm for the summer. I was a small town girl and it was also my first introduction into the real world. Let just say that all three lawyers represented some pretty “shady” characters! I can say this now because it was in the late 1960’s and I now live in another state!

    I love your idea to have Matt’s father be one of the founding partners of the firm so he’s your “heroines” boss’s boss’s boss. I can’t wait to find out all the twists and turns that will make to their relationship! I can only imagine how many late nights that must have given you!

    Reply

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