It is my extreme pleasure to welcome fellow Austin RWA extraordinaire Robyn DeHart to the blog today. Robyn is the author of the incredibly Legend Hunters series and recently won the Borders Reader’s Crown award. You’ll be able to find Seduce Me 
as well as the second book in her series, Desire Me at the end cap of all Borders bookstores or where ever books are sold.
Plus as an added bonus, Robyn has an autographed copy of Seduce Me for one lucky commenter, so leave a comment and check out a fabulous historical romance author!
Put Your Heart On The Page
There are so many elements to the business of writing. There’s the actual writing, which involves craft and persistence, then there’s promotion and networking and with the internet and social networking sites, this is becoming bigger and more complicated everyday. But what about the emotional impact of writing?
The Professor (aka my husband) gave me this quote from Rocky Balboa, the newest movie in the Rocky franchise:
“But it ain’t how hard you hit; it’s about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward. How much you can take, and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done.”
This really hit (sorry for the pun) home with me and my writing career.
Every profession comes with its own unique hard stuff, it’s just like life, not everyday is perfect and shiny and wonderful. And sometimes, in the midst of everything you realize the hard stuff is actually the best stuff.
I knew this business was a difficult one before I sold (hell, it took me 7 years to sell my first book, that was part of the difficult!). I didn’t realize HOW difficult it could be though until after I’d sold. I don’t say this to discourage any of your aspiring writers out there, but rather to give you insight into the reality of the profession you’ve chosen.
When I first started writing, I was under the delusion that it would be easy. I don’t think I consciously thought, “oh, this will be easy”, but I just didn’t realize all the challenges that would arise. I hadn’t really considered the business end at all, so I was missing out on the difficulties in that area.
But in this business you’ll get hit a lot. It happens a ton before you sell, waiting for that first sale can be brutal and demoralizing and a real test in patience and passion. How badly do you want it? How many times will you get back up after someone knocks you down? It’s good to know up front how badly you want it because after that first sale the business can eat you up if you’re not careful. You have to remember how passionate you are about your craft and you’re the stories you tell.
Okay so the difficulties in the business surprised me, and I was so green that I didn’t realize that when you write well, it’s VERY hard to do. That old adage that good reading is damn hard writing. I just didn’t get that. For some foolish reason, I expected the writing to be the easy part.
I don’t remember when it hit me, but I remember when it did, it became like a mantra to me, “writing is hard.” I repeated it (whined about it) often (frankly I still do). But at the same time, it gave me a strange sense of freedom and peace. Acknowledging that it was difficult somehow made it more appealing and more of a challenge and it started me on my quest to master the craft of writing. I wanted to tackle the beast and win.
One of the first realizations I had was that writing is intensely personal. Not only the actual writing, but every aspect of it from your actual process to your career goals. For whatever reason it took me a while to grasp this concept, especially the part about the actual writing being personal. Again I’m showing my stupid side (hey, I was young when I started writing) but it was actually a surprise when I realized that my own emotional junk would end up on the page. Somehow I expected I’d just make everything up and it would go smoothly. Try that and you’ll end up with flat characters that no one cares about. But to put yourself on the page, your fears, your dreams, your pains, that brings characters to life and makes readers give a damn.
Now let me be clear, I’m not talking about writing autobiographically. I can assure you that I’ve never traipsed through castle ruins hunting for Pandora’s Box nor have I brutally murdered someone, but I have felt obsession and anger and passion and humiliation and those emotions get transferred to my characters, and put directly on the page. It’s not easy to do. It’s not easy to let yourself go and it’s just not easy having to relive some painful moments simply to make them real in the book. But to make emotion authentic, to lay it on the line for your readers and your story, sometimes you have to bare your soul.
This is just one aspect of the writer’s journey, there are plenty of other difficulties along the way, just as there are so many joys. But I wanted to share this with you as I think readers appreciate knowing that their authors put themselves into the stories. It’s part of why you sometimes feel as if you know an author after reading several of their books.
Thanks, Jess, for letting me join you today. And I’d be remiss not to mention that the first book in Legend Hunters series, exciting romantic action adventure in the vein of Indiana Jones, SEDUCE ME, recently won the Readers Crown for Best Short Historical. Starting on August 17th you will be able to find it as well as the other winners on special displays in your neighborhood Borders Bookstore. In the meantime you should be able to find book 2 in the series, DESIRE ME as well as my novella in The Mammoth Book of Regency Romance available in stores. 