Make A Living Writing Romance

You’d think, as a romance writer, that your emotions would be helpful to your writing. And in fact, when you’re actually writing they can be. However, they can also get in the way.

The biggest culprit is fear.

Fear can and does squash your writing voice. Have you ever thought, as you’re writing, that you’re being too outlandish? Too sexy? Not sexy enough? Too emotional? Too wordy? Not wordy enough? Too simple? Too confusing? All of this worrying and fear about your writing actually limits you. It prevents your creative flow from…well, from flowing.

Doubt is also a limiting emotion. Do you ever doubt your writing is good enough? Do you doubt your manuscript is on the right track or that your characters are interesting, consistent, or compelling enough?

Both fear and doubt also tend to keep writers from promoting their work enough. Whether you’re writing a query letter or giving a pitch, how you feel about your work shows in what you say and how you say it. Confidence and pride go a long way. Doubt and fear do too, unfortunatley.

So how do you get past doubt, fear and other limiting emotions?

As a writer you already know it’s a roller coaster of emotions. One minute you may feel like you’re a great writer. The next minute and your manuscript is the worst thing ever.

Get off the roller coaster of emotions!

Instead, try to look at your writing as a job. Yes, it’s creative expression but it’s also a business and your manuscript is a commodity.  Your job is to entertain. Some days you’re going to be better at your job than others. That’s just the way it is because some days are better than others. Adopting this mindset can take a lot of the pressure off of being perfect. It can help you set aside fear and doubt.

Love your job and work hard to be the best you can be. Strive to learn and improve and accept that some days your writing is going to be amazing and other days are going to be a struggle, as it is with any job.

Grab a pen and paper and make a list of the things you’re going to do today or tomorrow.

My list for today looks something like this:

• Finish client report
• Clean kitchen
• Finish laundry
• Take kids shopping for school supplies
• Revise 3 chapters and add new elements to chapter 1 and 3.

(I live an exciting life, I know!)

Now take a look at that list. Where do you place yourself and your dreams? In the past, all of the tasks on my list came first. If I had time or energy at the end of the day then I’d focus on writing and revising. Guess what?! That’s backwards!

Are Your Priorities Out of Wack?

Your romance writing dreams and goals should come first each and every day. Not because you deserve it, though you probably do.

Your personal dreams and goals have to be made a priority otherwise they’ll never be reached. You have to put yourself first, not last, if you want to become a published romance writer.

Write BEFORE laundry

Write BEFORE shopping

Write BEFORE cleaning

and

Write BEFORE you work on your day job, whatever that day job might be. Even if you can only devote 10 minutes each morning before you go to work to working on your romance novel, do it. Make your romance writing dreams and goals a priority so they can become a reality.

Only Ten Minutes?

Now, if you’re thinking 10 minutes in the morning isn’t going to help me, you’re wrong. It will. Not only will take positive steps toward your goals each day but that ten minutes of writing will stick with you all day. You’ll find yourself thinking about your story and squeezing in writing time throughout the day to jot down your ideas. That first ten minutes will help you find more time during the day to write.

Can You Commit to More than 10 Minutes?

And of course if you can commit 20,30 or even 60 minutes first thing in the morning to write, by all means do it! Your book can’t be published until it’s written. And it can’t be written unless you’re actively writing it and putting words on paper each day.

Try this, try writing for a minimum of ten minutes each morning for three weeks and see what happens. Commit to it, every morning for ten minutes regardless of what’s going on in your life. You can find ten minutes for your dreams, right?

After those three weeks look back at what you’ve accomplished. I bet you, you’ve accomplished more in those three weeks than you have in the past three months combined.

Make it a daily habit, take one powerful step toward achieving your romance writing dreams.

It may seem a bit strange to be talking about health on a romance writing blog however, your health is vitally important to your productivity and ultimately to your success.

What you eat gives you energy, right?

Eat the wrong things and your energy gets all messed up. My husband is a fantastic chef. He bakes, he cooks and I’m very very lucky. Generally, he also focuses on making healthy food too.

However, he made these peanut butter chocolate bars about a week ago. They had peanut butter, graham crackers, powdered sugar and chocolate in them. Not healthy and downright addictive. (It probably didn’t help that I ate an entire box of chocolates over the course of three days either. But I was on vacation!)

I found myself eating two or three a day. And guess what happened? My energy spiked and plummeted. Repeatedly. I couldn’t figure out why I was so exhausted.

And let me tell you, I was also not getting nearly as much done on my WIP as I need to. I have a deadline and here I am snoring on the couch.  The reason…too much sugar.

Exercise also plays a very important role in giving you energy.

It boosts your metabolism and that’s good for maintaining weight. But what I’ve found to be the biggest benefit of exercise are those endorphins. Those feel good hormones that are kicked out. And you don’t have to run a marathon to feel them, either. A jog around the block gets the job done.

Endorphins help stimulate your creativity. You’ll be amazed how many story plot or character problems you solve when you’re exercising. I like to exercise outside because the vitamin D (or just good old fashioned fresh air and sunshine) do a lot to clear my head and improve my mood too.

I’ve fallen off the wagon…

Between the sugar bomb peanut butter bars and the 101 degree days, I’ve stopped eating healthy and I’ve stopped exercising like I should be. And my writing has suffered.

Want to get back on the wagon with me?

I’m going on a three week sugar elimination diet – no sugary sweets, no soda pop or even diet soda. Just good, nutritious food. (You don’t have to do anything that restrictive. Just cut back)

And I’m going to add 20-30 minutes of cardio back into my day by taking a quick jog around the block in the early morning or late evening hours when it’s not too hot.

Care to join me?

No sugary foods for three weeks and 20 minutes of exercise each day?  You’ll be amazed how much more energy you have and how much more creative you feel.

If you want to join my on my three week challenge post a comment here and motivate others to join. Share your experiences!

Fan us on Facebook before Sept 15, 2010 and you’re entered to win!

Whether you’re just starting out with your romance writing adventures, or have been doing so for quite some time now, exercises in writing romance can always be a handy tool to help you grow. They can help provide you with ideas for future works, or get you out of that ever-popular slump of writer’s block in the middle of your story.

There are many places you can find a variety of wonderful exercises to help you obtain a different perspective, provide ideas for future projects, or simply grow as a writer by improving your skills. These types of exercises can be found in various books at your local bookstore or library. You can find them online in a multitude of places. By simply searching on Google, you can come up with hundreds of links, all wanting to provide you with one type of exercise or another to help you get those ideas flowing again.

I decided to make things a bit easier than that. I’ve added here some of the best ideas I have found to get that literary part of your brain jumping again, ready to get the ideas flowing from your mind to paper in no time flat. The great thing about some of these quick little exercises is the fact that you don’t have to worry about perfectionism. Some, if not most of these practice works aren’t meant for publication, therefore you don’t have to worry about letting a secret out of ‘the vault’, or making each and every exercise your best work ever.

1)      No matter what type of romance story you’re writing, whether it’s fantasy, suspense, paranormal or something altogether different, don’t let the cat out of the bag too soon. Keep some secrets from your readers. They don’t need to know all of the juicy, suspenseful and thrilling details in the very first chapter or two. Keep them sitting on the edge of their seats, just aching to read a little further to find out what’s next.

You can practice this with a short story. Keep the one, most important detail until the very end. Only one person in your story knows this detail, and it can be something as simple as where the car keys are. Or you can go completely in the other direction and make is something as complex as figuring out who stabbed the babysitter. Just practice keeping that final, crucial detail to the very end.

2)      Write a short biography of your life, or the life of someone in your family. It doesn’t need to be very long; let’s say approximately 500 to 600 words.

3)      Write a descriptive text about your home, as if you were about to put it on the market for sale. You want to forego any real estate agents, and want to make sure anyone reading your ad understands all of the nooks and crannies you adore.

4)      Pick a piece you have already written and change the tense of it. You may decide not to do an entire novel this way, but choose a chapter or two to adapt in this manner.

5)      Write about your earliest childhood memory with as much detail as possible. If you like, this can become two exercises; one for a good memory and one that wasn’t quite as pleasant, allowing you to get a better perspective for different tones.

Now of course these aren’t the only exercises you can do, but they will give you quite the head start. If you find yourself still coming up short or running into some road blocks, here’s a list of a few books and websites you can take a look at to help you out even more.

My favorite source for romance writing exercises and also the best romance writing guilde/course I’ve ever taken is AWAI’s How to Write for Love and Money. It’s a fantastic course full of all of the worksheets, blueprints and tools you need to write your first or your tenth romance novel. I know many people who purchased this course only to go on to publish their next novel. It’s THAT helpful.

And of course you can visit our Romance Writing Exercises here too!

Here are some other good books for romance writing exercises.

Writing Fiction For Dummiesby Randy Ingermanson, and Peter Economy

Writing a Romance Novel for Dummiesby Leslie J. Wainger

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Writing a Novelby Thomas F. Monteleone

The Art of War for Writers: Fiction Writing Strategies, Tactics, and Exercises by James Scott Bell

What If? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers (3rd Edition)by Anne Bernays, and Pamela Painter

Crossroads: Creative Writing in Four Genresby Diane Thiel

Websites

http://fiction-plots-pacing.suite101.com/article.cfm/5_fiction_writing_prompts_for_plot

http://www.writingforward.com/category/exercises/fiction-writing-exercises

http://fictionwriting.about.com/od/writingexercises/Writing_Exercises_Advice_Creative_Writing_Exercises_and_Advice.htm

http://mysite.du.edu/~bkiteley/exercises.html

http://io9.com/5544829/three-science-fiction-writing-exercises

http://www.meredithsuewillis.com/writingexercises.html

http://fictionwritersjourney.blogspot.com/