My writing journey started back in 2000
when I made my first attempts at short story writing. It took a year of
rejections before I managed to get acceptance in women’s magazines and online.
I then had my second daughter in 2001 and most of us will know how a new born
can take over your life and everything else go on the back burner.
Once I started to feel capable of writing
again…and the baby started napping for a couple of hours a day, I went back to
my short story writing. Further success made me want to reach for my goal of
becoming a published novelist. After taking a long…long time to complete my
first novel, Searching For Sophie was accepted by The Wild Rose Press in 2006.
Since then, my career has gone from
strength to strength and as I am lucky enough to be a stay-at-home mum, I am
able to pretty much treat my writing as a full-time job.
After several novel and novella releases
with small presses, I secured a US agent in 2011. I am happy to say I now write
contemporary romance and romantic suspense for Harlequin Superromance and
Victorian romance for eKensington. The latest Superromance is Her Hometown
Redemption, the fifth book in my ongoing Templeton Cove Stories (each book can
be read as a stand-alone). My latest with eKensington is Her One True Love, my
fourth Victorian romance.
If people ever ask me what was the most
helpful in starting and extending career, I would have to say the wonderful
online courses on plotting, point of view, characterization and pacing available,
as well as entering the wonderful contests ran by the Romance Writers of
America chapters. I can’t recommend entering them enough for gaining feedback
and confidence.
I wish any aspiring writers who visit my
blog all the best – any questions, feel free to ask!
Rachel x
Finding the time to write is the hardest part for me. I work every day at school and when I get home, I'm tired and I immediately have to go into wife/mom mode until its time to go to bed.
ReplyDeleteI'm not one of those people that can "schedule" writing time. I did that a couple of times and it brought me to tears.
Of course now that I have two submissions out there, I have to "make" the time. Hubs and son know this and are completely supportive.
Its a time thing for me. I stopped reviewing books (maybe one a week) when I started working all the time so that I wouldn't feel so overwhelmed. I might have to give that up, too.
What time of time management advice do you have?
Marika/Harlie
Time management is the hardest thing when you desperately want to do something entirely for yourself - being a mum, wife and having a full time job will always take precedence...if you allow it. I am lucky enough to be a full-time writer these days, but when I started out, I made myself write at least two pages a day (500 words). This IS manageable. The secret? Allow yourself to write a crappy first draft - if you just write without second guessing yourself you will get those 2 pages done. Promise! The editing that comes later will be so much easier with full pages rather than empty pages. Good luck!!
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