Free A Valentine for Harlequin's Anniversary by Catherine Mann Page A

average American women Summoned to another world to fight an evil invasion of monsters. And, oh, how the words flowed. The plotting was harder, but by the time I’d finished my proposal, my agent said it was the best she’d ever seen, and I sold those three books ( Guardian of Honor, Sorceress of Faith, Protector of the Flight ). Life was good.
    Since I had my first sale, I’ve sold twelve books and am working on book eleven. Only this year have I been able to write full time (and still don’t think I’ve gotten the hang of it). I’ve coped with continuing rejections, books that needed massive rewrites, short deadlines, and nasty reviews. Sometimes the joy of writing, of following my dream faded until it vanished altogether.
    I still have support from my friends and family. I have author “whining buddies.” I have, on my website, artist exercises that if I follow will help me jumpstart my creativity. I have other books on writing, affirmation cards, fan mail that makes me smile in the darkest of hours. But all this doesn’t always help.
    Just a few days ago I finished VERY messy copy edits, tough enough that I couldn’t face those printed pages with marks all over them until the last, inevitable hours when they HAD to be done. Naturally, I liked the story as it was, but I had to cut. Too many words. So I did my job.
    And the next day I started writing new pages again, not revising, and what a joy to let characters roiling with emotions: laughter, surprise, anger, fear, walk out onto the page and take action. So freeing to just WRITE.
    Yes, the writing itself can get me through.
    Being open to the world around me, accepting of ideas. Letting those ideas play with people in my head. That keeps me writing.
    May you let your creativity roam free.
    — Robin D. Owens
www.robindowens.com
    #48
    At first I had absolutely no idea what to write for this blog. I don’t blog very often and I’m not entirely sure what keeps me writing. Except the knowledge that if I don’t I might just go quietly crazy. Or not so quietly.
    Of course there are all sorts of external incentives. Like bills to pay. And that new washing machine sitting in glory in the laundry, smugly reminding me that the last one was a total dud and only lasted five years. I’d look at that washing machine and hear it say, “Finish the damn book and you can pay for me.” So back to the computer, to stare at a blank screen and panic.
    The main problem is that this doesn’t work for me. It’s taken me three years to figure that out, and in the end someone had to tell me before I really understood.
    When I started writing fiction I was working. As in leaving the house every day for a reasonably well paid job that was driving me bananas. I’d finished a Masters degree in musicology the year before and I probably had a case of TWS, or Thesis Withdrawal Syndrome. I really, really, really missed my thesis. I missed the whole writing process. So I started writing. And instead of a doctoral dissertation on 20th Century English Song, I started writing a Regency romance. My writing was something I did for me. It was Fun. Play. A way to wind down in the evenings, because for once in my life, reading wasn’t quite cutting the mustard in the switching off stakes.

    And it was Fun. I relaxed. Things were better at work because when someone annoyed me I had this gorgeous world I could retreat into for a few moments, where I Was Completely In Charge. Most of the time. Until my characters became real to me and started answering back. But that didn’t matter. It was still My World. It was still Fun.
    In those days I wrote swiftly and joyously, straight onto the computer. Even though I was working full time and had various other commitments, the whole thing was done, all 60 000 words of it, in about six months. At that point I sent it to a friend—that’s Meg. Blame her if you don’t like my books. She loved that book and persuaded me to send it in to Harlequin.
    And I