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

got published. After a major rewrite and extension. So then, I told myself, I had a new career. But it was still Fun. I was still Playing. Because by then the biological time clock had turned into a bomb, exploded, and we had Babies. So the writing was still for me. Something I rushed off to for a mental break when the boys were asleep, or on their one day a week in daycare. And I could write two books a year. Easy. Amazing.
    Then, after a few minutes, the boys grew up. Well that’s what it seemed like. One was at school and the other was at pre-school. And I said to myself, “That’s it. You’re a full-time writer now. You have all the time in the world. Five days a week. Nine till three. Go to it. Two books a year. Go get ’em, Lassie!’
    And I got writer’s block. Everything I wrote felt and sounded like rubbish. I gave myself Permission to Write Rubbish. I wrote Rubbish. And then I stared at a blank screen and became more and more depressed. And a few crappy reviews didn’t help. I wondered how the hell I’d ever gotten published.
    My editor asked me to write a Christmas novella, which I did. I had quite a few interruptions over that, and couldn’t always be at the computer, so a lot got written in notebooks and typed up later. Funnily enough, that seemed to work quite well, and some of my confidence returned. But it’s not an efficient way to work, is it? So I bought a second-hand Alpha smart from Presents author Trish Morey. I thought getting out of the office might help and most writers I know swear by Alphies, including Trish. Didn’t work for me. The small screen made it hard for me to keep the thread of the story. I tried for ages with the Alphie, but ended up scribbling scenes in a notebook and typing them up later.
    And I continued to struggle at the computer with the book that became A Compromised Lady . Eventually I had about 80,000 words of disconnected, and uneven story. Some was good, mostly the stuff I’d written in notebooks. Some didn’t fit and some was just terrible. I also had quite a bit of the book I’m finishing up now.
    That had flowed quite well onto the computer when I started it as a change from A Compromised Lady . With my editor’s encouragement and a lot of inefficient scribbling I got A Compromised Lady finished. Are you seeing a pattern yet?
    Recently I went off for my annual conference hit. This year the Australian conference was in Sydney, and afterwards I went to the New Zealand conference for the first time. We had the great privilege of having Jenny Crusie and Anne Stuart at both conferences, and something Jenny said in one of her workshops explained to me what had been wrong for the past three years.
    I’d forgotten that writing was supposed to be Fun. Play. Creative. By sitting in front of this damn screen day after day, telling myself that this was my job now and I had to do it, had completely frozen out what Jenny calls The Girls In The Basement. What some of us refer to as The Muse. I like The Girls In The Basement, myself. They sound like wicked, gossipy, old ladies who tell the snarkiest stories about everyone they know. I digress. I’d locked the door on The Girls. Occasionally they’d managed to get a message through to me. Mostly when I wasn’t at the computer, or when I’d switched off the manuscript designated as Work for the time being.

    Talk about light bulb moments. It was like the entire Electricity Trust of South Australia went off inside my head. I remembered all those great scenes I’d written in notebooks and typed up later. When I wrote, literally wrote, the ideas and words poured out. Got a word wrong? I’d polish it as I typed. Got a paragraph in the wrong place? Use an arrow to show where it ought to go. Inefficient way to work? Not as inefficient as staring at that blank screen.
    And you know what? The stuff I’ve written since I got home is great. She says immodestly. At least it’s flowing again. My writing is Fun again. There’s no