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I wrote my first novel in seventh grade. Well, it felt like a novel though it was more like a novella in grown up life. The title was A Black Rose Means Death and it was horribly dramatic with dying heroines and symbolic roses. My father, who had read it and didn’t laugh, asked that I take it to my writing teacher. I didn’t want to, even then I was afraid of rejection, but I did as he asked.

She didn’t get it. Her only comment was to ask about why I’d used Black Roses.

No one understands an artist. 

I have to admit that her lack of response had a negative impact on my writing. It was many, many years before I showed anything to anyone ever again.

Lesson One - Don’t let anyone, I mean anyone – stand between you and your dream.

In high school I was reading Harlequin Romances, you know – the books where the man was Greek and sardonic and the heroine was blonde, eighteen and English. Oh, and don’t forget – she was either a nurse or a secretary and most of all…a virgin. Most evenings my manual typewriter and I would be up late writing stories that mirrored the Harlequins of the day.

Mental Note – burn box of faux Harlequins hiding in my closet.

Over the years the space under my bed and in my closet grew sparse but it never occurred to me to try and get published. In my late twenties I joined RWA and went to my meetings religiously. I also belonged to a brand new technology, CompuServe, an information service similar to AOL.

There was a little group of writers in an area called the Literary Forum and they were my new best friends. Not only were there a number of writers like me, there was a plethora of published authors and I mean the Big Names were there. Judith McNaught, JoAnn Ross, Diana Gabaldon and Laurell K. Hamilton long before she was the Laurell K. Hamilton.

Finally, a place where I fit in.

We had a critique group though I was very shy about submitting my stuff to be read. Remember the teacher who’d blown me off? Finally, I decided it was time to put my Big Girl panties on and see just how serious I was about writing. I submitted the first three chapters of an unfinished novel, The Gatekeeper, and I waited eagerly for the response from the other writers.

I didn’t have to wait too long before a very nice woman posted a response to my story. She hated it totally, utterly and completely…and the message she posted was never meant to be seen by me. She’d addressed it wrong.

Lesson two – always check to make sure your messages are addressed correctly!

I was crushed utterly and completely. I’d been writing for almost twenty years at that point and I felt as if I would never be able to successfully write and publish a novel. Not only did she hate my novel, she had completely humiliated me – it was one thing to be called a failure…it’s something else to be called a failure on a billboard in the center of town.

But there was a silver lining.

Another author who had just been published offered to read my chapters. I resisted but she wouldn’t allow me to say no so I sent them off, all the while bracing myself for whatever was to come. This author printed out my chapters and wrote a detailed, line by line critique. It was as if a light had gone on in my head and Carole had handed me the key.

Lesson three - when someone tells you they hate your book but don’t give you constructive criticism, ignore them. They’re reflecting their own writing or life shortcomings on your work.

Later, a close friend of hers confided that the first writer was going through a divorce at the time of reading my work. She was feeling bad about herself and she took it out on me. After I was published I worked with a critique partner who really helped me get my technique together and she was looking out for my best interests, not hers.

After Carole’s critique it was like someone lit a fire under me. I wrote all the time and in a variety of genres though most were still paranormal titles. But the funny thing was I never finished a novel. Not one. I would work and work and work then suddenly walk away. I was totally incapable of finishing a story.

It was then that I got, The Call.