It’s my pleasure to welcome Kensington editor Hilary Sares to Writeminded. Hilary is my editor and she made my dream come true. I can vouch that her advice is golden (and timely).

Got talent? Great. Work it to the max but don’t forget that determination and patience count just as much in the long run. Once you’ve sold and the long wait to see your work in print is over—yay!—it may seem that fame and fortune are just over the horizon. Um, no (except in a few rare instances). So let’s say you took two years to write that first book. What made that happen? Lots of hard work on plot and character development, plus tons of polishing and maybe some critiquing if your ego could take it, and random semi-insane noodling in the wee hours of the night that produced some of your most original scenes and memorable lines…anyway, eventually you finished the damn thing and an editor liked or loved it and bought it.

You took your time with it and that loving attention showed upon nearly every page of the finished manuscript. Time, time, time! Add that word to talent for a winning combination and a nutty little mantra. Time-talent-time-talent-time! Mumble it often (but not on public transportation). You need both to succeed and they are inextricably linked. Keep in mind that it will most likely take another two years and sometimes longer to establish your name with readers, reviewers and publishers, and also to establish your personal brand—that means the kind of books you are known for. (Some writers like to explore different genres during their careers and they usually use more than one name, because they are essentially creating more than one brand.)

Anyway, your first baby is on bookstore shelves and you visit it shyly, like a new parent in a hospital nursery. You grow bolder and turn your book face out on the shelves when the staff isn’t looking, the bookstore equivalent of parading your offspring in a frilly bonnet or mini-slugger micro-sweats. Then…you get complacent. Baby is doing just fine, thank you. Or you get crazy busy. Life happens and you got stuck with the consequences of all that happening life. Time vanishes. Hoping to coast for a while? You can’t if you want your second and third books to do well.

They are just as important as the first: a new writer is not likely to garner sales numbers that will boost her reputation with booksellers. And if she or he hasn’t put in the time to make each subsequent book compelling and interesting…hello, returns and remainders. It takes time to write well, that’s all there is to it. Which brings me to the point of this post: if you are putting far too many hours into blogging and hanging out in chat rooms and joining discussion groups and boinging around on YouTube and so on, you are really not making the most of your available time—and you don’t get time back. Yes, writers have to market their work and yes, writers need to communicate with each other and with readers. All of the above are effective and wonderful ways to do that, but when they become more important than the actual writing…well, the books suffer.

Editors know that. We’re in this business for the long haul and we’re always looking for writers who can maintain the intensity and rich complexity that made their first book such a grabber. Takes talent and time. And now you get to talk back…

Thanks, Hilary!

Vicki Wurgler won an autographed copy of Falcon’s Mistress by Donna Birdell. Congrats Vicki!

Thanks to everyone who entered contest #1 this month.

There’s still time to enter contest #2. Check the contests page on my website for details.

There’s been a thread going on a loop about women coloring their hair. My first reaction was to skip them all, since I’m a licensed cosmetologist and I often am tempted to give my professional opinion. I know that’s seldom wanted, but still– I’m tempted. 🙂

The gist is that women tend to color their hair too darkly as they age, and it looks fake. Yeah, doh! This isn’t news.

I’ve preached this for years, and urged my clients to lighten an overall color, and add multi highlights. Heck, even a simple “reverse highlight” makes a huge difference to how old a woman looks, and doesn’t chain a client to a salon and touch ups every month.

Simple rule of thumb is make the hair look natural, and that often takes multi layers of color.

Enjoy my interview with Kat that was originally posted on Writeminded.

Jan: I’ve heard more than once how easy it was to “break in” to the romance genre back in the 80s. What difficulties did you encounter getting your first novel, Magnificent Passage, published in 1988? And what stumbling blocks have you’ve encountered since in your writing career?

Kat: I find that so funny! When I started everyone was saying how easy it was to “break in” in the 70’s! The truth is, Magnificent Passage, my first book, was turned down by every publisher in NYC. Then Crown publishing decided to start a new line and they bought me as their lead. Not much money but a nice break. Unfortunately, the line was shut down after my first two books! Again I was turned down by everyone in New York. I finally got picked up by Berkley, who was starting a new line. They featured me as a lead, which was another nice break. I’ve had plenty of ups and downs, have worked for just about every publisher in the city and not because I loved moving around.

Jan: Do you and your author/husband Larry Jay Martin brainstorm/critique each others work?

Kat: Larry and I definitely do NOT critique each other’s work. Good way to wind up divorced. We figured this out fairly early on in our careers. Larry does, however, help me a lot with plotting, particularly once the book is underway and I run into walls I hadn’t expected. He’s great at making me think it through, helping me figure out what is plausible and what isn’t.

Jan: Since you’ve written several series in multiple genres, what appeals to you most about plotting connected works? What do you find is the biggest challenge in writing a series?

Kat: I really prefer to write single books, non-connected. Gives me more versatility, a completely new story with completely new characters. But readers really seem to like connected books. I tried it and it seemed to help sales. I did it again, same reaction. I think connected books are much harder as you need to develop an umbrella from the beginning, covering all three books in the trilogy. I am really just learning how to do that. The biggest challenge is the limitations placed by the characters…for instance three sisters…it’s hard (though not impossible) to have something suspenseful happen to each one.

Jan: You’ve consistently had two or three novels published a year. Do you have any trouble adjusting to the different voice, pace and tone when you switch from historicals to contemporary? Which genre is more challenging to write?

Kat: I write two books a year. Sometimes the publisher stockpiles them and puts out three in a year but really I write two. That is about as fast as I can work. I really enjoy switching from modern to historical because I believe it keeps me fresh. I am getting ready to write 3 historicals in a row, which I would rather not do, but it will make it easier to stay in the time and keep the characters straight, since they are 3 brothers. I think each of the categories are equally challenging, just in different ways.

Jan: What’s next up for you? Any pearls of wisdom you’d care to share about writing?

Kat: As I said, I’m getting ready to start a new historical trilogy—the bride series, about 3 brothers and the women they marry. In the meantime, the last book in my Heart trilogy will be out end of December, then the last book in my contemporary paranormal series is out in July of next year. So I am BUSY!

Pearls of wisdom…? I guess my best advice would be to persevere. Writing is a tremendously difficult business. The task is daunting in itself, and then there are editors and publishers to deal with, and distribution issues. The only way to make it is to put your head down and just keep working—and try not to let the bad times overshadow the good.
Best of luck to all! Kat

Jan: Thanks for stopping by Writeminded, Kat!

I just finished mowing the yard–all four acres of it–and I can say with certainty that the dog days of summer are here. Wow, it’s miserable hot and humid.

Added to this chore is the sickening fact that my lawn mower is about ready to give up the ghost. I know a cylinder blew the last time I mowed, and I’m running on one. Crawling better describes it. The guy who fixed it in the spring said if it went again, that was it. Bury the *$%@ and buy new. *sigh*

The only grass that had grown was the crappy stuff–saw grass, water grass, crab grass. It looks ugly standing tall, and uglier cut short because it’s just a bunch of browish stubbs then.

Do I care? No!

I don’t have a lawn service–wouldn’t have one even if I could afford it. There’s too much poison out there already without me contributing. Besides, if I fertalized, re-seeded, de-thatched, aerated, watered, yada, yada, I’d have to mow grass more often.

That takes time–my writing time. So I’ll be content with the spotty lawn and strive just to keep it down until the summer is history.