Margaret Mayo got me thinking about beginnings yesterday.
How we first started writing...what we knew or didn't know...who helped us on the road to publication...
So continuing with that theme, I'll tell you a bit about the first romance I ever wrote.
It was a Harlequin Medical, with a doctor hero and a physiotherapist heroine.
Working as a physiotherapist at the time, I thought it would be easy (and no! It wasn't based on real life experience!) 'Write what you know' and all that...
Well, that book is the only one I've never finished. It sits languishing at around 25K words.
So what happened?
Apparently, working in the medical profession and writing about it were TOO close for me! I started to get bored. I didn't want to write about what I knew. I wanted to escape from all that, from the everyday reality of patients and orthopaedics and cardiac rehab and hydrotherapy.
I wanted to let my imagination roam free.
So I did.
And started writing plots I wanted to write, plots that came to me while mulling over yet another report, while flicking through a magazine at lunch time (my first book, THE TYCOON'S DATING DEAL, was born from a magazine article on speed dating while I was on a short lunch between patients).
So how did you all get started?
What inspired you to write?
Who inspired you to write?
Would love to hear your stories.
And there's a book in it for a randomly chosen response (numbered responses with a bit of scrunched paper picked out by my preschooler!), just because it's Christmas and I'm getting into the swing of the giving thing. :)
4 comments:
Nic, I didn't read my first M&B until I was teaching a unit on popular fiction to a Grade eleven English class. It was a case of -- "where have they been all my life?" I've been in love with them ever since.
I actually started writing when I was seventeen and devastated over my break-up with my first love! I wrote our 'love story' and it was DIABOLICAL. There was no conflict, no goals (apart from girl getting guy) and no motivation apart from attraction. But it got me hooked on writing and for that I'll be forever grateful to GARTH!
I wrote for about nine years before I read for first M&B and thought, similarily to Barb, why have I never found these before? Now I'm hooked... and hopefully my writing has improved a great deal and is continuing to do so...
I started writing in my teens to escape reality and a difficult family situation. My fiction initially centred on the crime genre. I have also been reading romance novels for years (including M&B), but eventually 'discovered' the romantic suspense genre. It was only in the last year or so that I realised I could combine my love of romance and my interest in crime in my writing too (duh!).
I had a period of 10 years where I wrote nothing due to an unpleasant critique experience in a writing course I was doing. Those 10 years were so difficult because I really wanted to write, but couldn't even put pen to paper.
What recently got me started writing again was (1)participation in RWAus's 'Clayton's Conference' and the mini writing comps involved; (2) the inspiring stories of Australian published romance writers' like yourself, Nicola (no sucking up here!); (3) the supportive romance writing community in Australia and the encouragement given to new writers; and
(3) my recent participation and successful completion of National Novel Writing Month where I wrote 54,000 words in 30 days.
Now I'm committed to a journey of learning my craft and improving my writing skills and techniques.
I loved hearing all your stories so much, I think you each deserve a book!
So check out my backlist on my website and email me your choice :)
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