BABY, IT'S YOU

By John Lovelady

Good girl, bad girl…have to admit, ladies. They're you.

When I first started writing romance around fifteen years ago, I joined both RWA National and local chapters, at the time both Los Angeles RWA and NYC/RWA, and very soon after critique groups, most of whose members were women.

You came in all shapes and sizes and ages and you were, and are, intense, dedicated and aspiring.

Women writers, or at least women romance writers, have a purpose. They have stories to tell and they want to be published. Most of the women I know are purposeful and very often dedicated, but romance writers tend to be unique in that they are fully prepared and more than willing to talk about how to achieve those goals. They are practical and down to earth and startlingly pragmatic.

Does the plot work? Are the situations believable? Would a guy react that way? Would a woman? Yes. No. Maybe. Let's talk about it. Let me tell you what I know….

The social situation is totally different from the usual one between women and men. Women romance writers will talk about emotions, intimate situations and interactions between both sexes under all sorts of dramatic and ordinary conditions. And with the rise of erotica, how to express and make vivid intimacies that don't normally come up in professional discussions. And those opinions are as varied and heartfelt as the individual writer. Everyone has their own story to tell and whether we get into personal history or not, we get unique opinions on unique situations.

I can't imagine being able to write about women and men with the confidence I do without the input and passion you've expressed over the years. It has been, and continues to be, a great experience. Thank you, ladies -- both good and 'bad.'♥



John Lovelady has had several hundred short stories published in magazines that mostly no longer exist or are barely hanging on; an ebook that does exist even after ten or so years (let's hear it for ebooks!), NEVER LOVE A NAKED P.I. by Elizabeth Maynor, and is venturing into various types of erotica that seem to exist like spring flowers eager to bust forth in full bloom.


HEROES BLOG TOUR.  Starting June 1st, RWA/NYC's members will be talking about their heroes -- real and imaginary.  Do stop by and meet them!
 

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY!

To our troops everywhere, we wish you all come home safely and soon. 

Thank you!

THANK YOU!

 

CREATING CHARACTERS AND SETTINGS

By Karen Cino

Going over the Verrazano Bridge, I lifted my head for a brief moment and caught the sunrise between the two apartment buildings, which stretched approximately five city blocks, capturing “old school” Coney Island, stirring up good memories. The memories are so good that I now found the setting for one of the scenes in my new book. {This was an unexpected surprise, screaming suspense in the making.}

With the hero and heroine in place {Of course with long-winded character sketches, I wouldn’t expect anything less from myself.}, I need to build conflict. I need a character that stands out, one who will rock the relationship between the main characters. “News Flash” you don’t have to look far.

Hollywood has never captivated me in the past, but over the course of the past few years, I found that you could build characters on their alter ego. {Thank you Charlie Sheen.} There’s a good, dark, evil and insane side to everyone.

Look at your neighbor, always happy, smiling, helping and just overall amazing. The kind of man you wish belonged to you. When he walks into the house and closes the door behind him, what really goes on? Think about it, create it. Come on. Everyone has an evil side. Some act on it, while others bury it away. An unexpected turn from Mr. Perfect to the man from hell will really rough it up. {Lifetime movies like: The Perfect Wife, The Perfect Husband and The Perfect Neighbor emphasize this perfectly.}

I think two of my favorite characters that I find were outstandingly created were “The Fonz” and “Monk.” Their complex character traits continue to stand out. They are the characters we want to develop. Different, stand alone and most importantly unforgettable characters. These are the type of characters we want to create, the ones that leave an everlasting impression. {One that’s talked about around the “Water Cooler.”}

Finding that character is a challenge, but one worth working on. In my book, Mystical Wonders, Angelo Esposito displays both sides of the coin. The loving husband/stepfather and the bloodsucking, conniving and manipulating man who was on a mission to steal and destroy.

Make your character different. Don’t be afraid to think outside the box. The media has proven that. Give your characters an outrageous past and find that one thing in him that will complicate the situation. ♥

Karen Cino is an author, poet and former journalist. She’s been writing since she was 14-years old. She started her career writing poetry, short stories and articles for her high school newspaper and the Staten Island Register. After reading Jackie Collin’s LOVERS AND GAMBLERS, she knew she wanted to write women’s fiction; thereby, finding her niche. Her daily walks down the Staten Island boardwalk are what get her muse going. It clears her mind, helps her find realistic plot ideas and characters, and boosts her muse. She loves writing about local places that people can relate to. Karen is a single mom living in Staten Island, New York, with her two adult children, Michael and Nicole, and three cats. Visit Karen’s website at www.karencino.com. You can also find Karen on her blog, www.karencinobooks.blogspot.com and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/karencino.  To view the ROSES book trailer, visit Karen’s website at http://www.karencino.com/.  

ROMANTIC SUSPENSE: Following Hearts . . . and Red Herrings

by Margaret Birth

Like many people, I enjoy a good romantic suspense novel, or a mystery that has a touch of romance. Reading one is easy. It’s writing one that’s a challenge. Finding the right balance between romance and suspense and/or mystery can be the hardest part. Since I’m writing, here, for an audience of romance readers and writers, I’ll focus specifically on romantic suspense—which needs an entirely different balance than a mystery with a touch of romance.

After the years I spent working as a freelance manuscript reader for a major romance publisher, if there were one piece of advice I could give about writing a romantic suspense novel, it would be summed up as: Let your characters follow their hearts before they follow the red herrings.

There are two particularly common mistakes I’ve seen in romantic suspense manuscripts. The first is the author’s making the assumption that the external conflict provided by a woman-in-jeopardy plot is all the conflict it’s necessary to include. The second is equating lust with love, and/or equating making love with falling in love, and relying on hot-and-heavy scenes to give emotional romantic depth to an otherwise-exciting action story. In my years of working as a freelance manuscript reader, I saw that many aspiring writers of romantic suspense would put a man and a woman side-by-side in a woman-in-jeopardy plot, throw in a little sex-on-the-run, and assume they’d written a romantic suspense novel. They hadn’t.

A romantic suspense must, first and foremost, be a romance. The focus must be on the hero and heroine. If you’re writing a romantic suspense novel, there are a couple of questions you should be able to answer.

The first question is: What special qualities does each character have that causes the other one to fall in love with them? If some of these qualities are related to how the characters handle the difficult situation that they’re in—say, qualities of compassion and level-headedness—that’s all the better. Mystery/suspense aside, there needs to be a reason—even better, a whole set of reasons—these two people are attracted to each other. This is the case whether a story is sweet or sexy.

The second question is: How does the mystery/suspense affect the hero and heroine, both as individuals and as a couple? You can hardly put two people together in a dangerous situation without having the focus be not only on the danger, but also on how they react to the danger, and on how they react to one another under dangerous circumstances. Often, their reactions to this external conflict will cause them to clash—whether because of how one of them deals with the danger (for example, if the hero is angry because he believes that the heroine is putting herself into the line of fire), or simply because of the vulnerability that people naturally feel when they’re not sure what the future holds (think of devastating death-bed confessions, and then leave the characters alive to deal with the after-effects of those confessions).

If you can answer these two questions, then you should be well on the way to writing a romantic suspense novel that will leave your readers alternately sighing at the love story and gasping at your heroic couple’s close calls!♥



Margaret Birth is a Christian writer who has been widely published in short fiction, short nonfiction, and poetry, and is currently drafting a novel called A FAMILY FOR FAITH.

FEMME FATALES

By Mingmei Yip

China’s three thousand years of history has produced numerous femme fatales. These beautiful, talented and scheming females are referred to as SKELETON WOMEN because they could, with a mere blink of their mascara-ed eyes, turn men into skeletons.

In the course of history, skeleton women could be society ladies, courtesans, concubines, movie stars, spies, even empresses. They could steal hearts, husbands, state secrets, and, sometimes, the dragon throne itself.

What made these women so powerful and successful in a patriarchal society? It was beauty, talent, a scheming mind -- and total ruthlessness.

The most notorious skeleton woman in all of Chinese history was Empress Wu, who was the first woman in China to officially assume the emperor’s title of Huangdi. At thirteen, Wu was selected to be a concubine and entered the imperial palace. The then empress wanted to find a concubine – the emperor had as many as three thousand – who could seduce her husband to distract him from Consort Xiao, the Empress’ bitterest rival. For Wu this was the perfect opportunity to scheme her way to the throne. She bewitched the emperor with her beauty, intelligence, knowledge of politics, and of course, art of the bed chamber.

As she rose to power, not only did Wu murder both the empress and Consort Xiao, it was rumored that she even killed her own daughter as part of a successful scheme to frame the empress so as to turn the emperor against her. She exiled one of her own sons and even killed another one.

Even the most cunning man can become a fool for a beautiful woman. Friends’ warnings fall on death ears. Men blind themselves to the schemes behind the pretty face and the poisons in the beloved heart.

When clothes come off, thinking stops.

That’s why the thousand year old meiren ji, beauty strategy, or honey trap, though simple in principle, is timeless in effectiveness in destroying powerful men and toppling governments.♥

Mingmei Yip’s fourth novel SKELETON WOMEN (Kensington Books, June 2012) is the story of a singer/spy, a magician, and a gossip columnist, all scheming to survive the gang wars in the 30’s lawless Shanghai. RT book reviews describes SKELETON WOMEN as “A large, luscious box of chocolates…go on, you know you want to.” And Publisher’s Weekly, “Entertaining… diversion is (a strength of this book). Visit Mingmei at http://www.mingmeiyip.com/.

WRITERCARE: Sodium -- Why Writers Must Care

by Elizabeth Knowles Palladino



Salt sounds like a good thing, doesn’t it? We are the salt of the earth. We are worth our salt.

Salt is a nutrient necessary for life, and we need one-quarter of a teaspoon daily. Sodium controls the fluid balance in our bodies, and maintains blood volume and blood pressure. The problem is that an average American ingests five or more teaspoons of salt each day. A diet that is too high in sodium can raise blood pressure, resulting in swelling of the legs and feet. Water may collect around the lungs and cause shortness of breath. A reduced sodium intake can prevent or control hypertension, and can prevent cardiovascular disease.

If you want a long career filled with good health and lucrative book contracts you must watch your sodium intake. Almost 80 percent of all the sodium consumed comes from processed foods. Eat more home-cooked meals made from scratch. Lean toward fresh or frozen fruits and vegetables. Eliminate salty foods, reduce the amount of salt in cooking, and keep the salt shaker off the table. The Mayo Clinic recommends reading nutrition labels to determine sodium content in foods.

The American Heart Association strongly encourages a sodium intake of no more than 1,500 mg per day, but any reduction can only help your health—and your career!




Elizabeth Knowles Palladino lives in Kingston, New York, where she works in health care and writes medieval romance.

EVERYTHING IS COMING UP ROSES

By Karen Cino

I’m not going to bore you with a long explanation on how I’ve been writing since I was 14. I will fast forward to my first submission at 21, fresh out of college. I went to the bookstore and bought a copy of the WRITER’S MARKET NOVEL AND SHORT STORY, and with a red bingo crayon I underlined all the publishers I was sending my 500-page manuscript to. I sent my self-addressed stamped envelopes out, only to get them back within a week. The number of rejections was overwhelming. They were coming in faster than I was mailing them.

Through the years, I continued to write, always keeping my dream of being a published author in the back of my mind. It was a dream that I was not going to give up. I just needed time to write more and learn more.

I continued writing and switched gears to my other dream -- to be a sportswriter. Well, that dream was short-lived. There weren’t any women sportswriters working at any of the major newspapers, despite Phyllis George’s breaking the barrier in the mid 70’s. I used my knowledge of baseball to write two other novels. I still have them on the top shelf of my closet, as a reminder of how much my writing has evolved over the past 30 years.

In the late 90’s, I took a few classes at the Writer’s Digest School. I also worked for a couple of years as a reporter for the Staten Island Register. By the early 2000’s, I decided it was time to get back to my love of fiction. I wrote another book and began sending it out; only to get those same rejection letters again. It wasn’t until one night in February 2006, that I found a link to the RWANYC chapter. I attended the March meeting, and the rest is history.

Month after month, I attended meetings, took in all the information I was given, and then learned the mechanics of writing a novel. I learned how to revise, characterize, and perfect the POV in my story, besides making great friends.

Then came ROSES. I revised and rewrote ROSES so many times, but I always made sure that I never lost my voice. ROSES had started out at over 103,000 words, with an 18-page prologue. I threw out 60,000 words, and went right into the action. I swore that this was going to be the last time that I ever sent it out. ROSES had special meaning to me because it was the last manuscript that my grandmother had read; so off it went.

In less than 48 hours, I had an email from the publisher at Secret Cravings Publishing. I just stared at it. I knew what a quick response meant – thanks, but no thanks. But I opened it anyway. As I read the first sentence – words can never describe what I felt when I saw a contract attached to the email. My eyes filled with tears, I started yelling and jumping up and down. I just kept reading the email over and over again. My dream had finally come true. Well, not yet.

After weeks of going back and forth with my editor on revisions, it all came together when I went on line the morning of April 18, 2012, to see my book up for sale on the Secret Cravings Publishing website. Woo Hoo! Oh, what a feeling! I danced around in my slipper socks, across my bedroom. My dream had finally come true, and my career as a published author is now a reality.

And later this summer, Secret Cravings Publishing will release my second novel, THE BOARDWALK.

To celebrate, I slipped into my sneakers, stuffed my mini-notepad into my pants pocket, pen sticking out of my ponytail, and I was off to the boardwalk. It’s never too soon to start plotting out my next novel.♥

To view the ROSES book trailer, visit Karen’s website at http://www.karencino.com/.




Karen Cino is an author, poet and former journalist. She’d been writing since she was 14-years old. She started her career writing poetry, short stories and articles for her high school newspaper and the Staten Island Register. After reading Jackie Collin’s LOVERS AND GAMBLERS, she knew she wanted to write women’s fiction; thereby, finding her niche. Her daily walks down the Staten Island boardwalk is what gets her muse going. It clears her mind, helps her find realistic plot ideas and characters, and boosts her muse. She loves writing about local places that people can relate to. Karen is a single mom living in Staten Island, New York, with her two adult children, Michael and Nicole, and three cats. Visit Karen’s website at www.karencino.com. You can also find Karen on her blog, www.karencinobooks.blogspot.com and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/karencino.

LET'S CELEBRATE ROMANCE!

  

I am incredibly proud of my local RWA Chapter. RWA/NYC, Chapter #6 of RWA, is 26 years strong and populated with wonderful, inspiring writers. This year has seen some amazing success by many of our members on numerous fronts – certainly worthy of joyous celebration in and of itself. We’ve had first sales, multiple sales, awards won, terrific reviews garnered, manuscripts completed, and much, much more. Too, our members are not just writers, but they are professionals. In these tumultuous times, they have embraced new technology and forged into the 21st century to learn new ways to bring stories to the voracious reading public. Beyond these inspiring individual achievements, however, our members continue to be supportive of their Chapter-mates in myriad ways. The generosity of spirit among the Chapter membership is truly humbling.

But we are part of a large, energetic sphere of talented people who have made our genre the most successful one in the world of popular fiction, from page to reading screen, and beyond. So this is a perfect time for RWA/NYC to give a tip of the hat in celebration to those people.

I am pleased to announce here the recipients of the RWA/NYC 2012 Golden Apple Awards. We give these awards to pay tribute to the different players in the romance publishing industry who deserve recognition for their support of, and contributions to, our boisterous business. So, without further ado, here are the Award winners, who will be fêted at our annual Awards gala in September. Please join me, and all of the members of RWA/NYC, in applauding their work:

Eloisa James



Lifetime Achievement: Eloisa James, Author

Publisher of the Year: Secret Cravings Publishing

Editor of the Year: LaToya Smith, Grand Central Publishing

Agent of the Year: Louise Fury, Lori Perkins Agency

Author of the Year: Jean Joachim

Bookseller of the Year: WORD Bookstore, Brooklyn, NY

Librarian of the Year: Corinne Neary, Jefferson Market Branch, NYPL

Media Source of the Year: Romantic Times Books Reviews

My thanks to these Honorees for all you do.


Lise Horton
President, 2012
RWA/NYC, Inc.
http://www.rwanyc.com/
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