Romance Weekly Blog Chat for September 30, 2014

Do you like to read romance novels? Wouldn’t you like to know more about your favorite authors? Well, you came to the right place! Join the writers of Romance Weekly as we go behind the scenes of our books and tell all…… About our writing of course! Every Tuesday we’ll all answer the same questions and after you’ve enjoyed the blog on this site, we’ll direct you to another. So come back often for a thrilling ride. Tell your friends and feel free to ask us questions in the comment box.

Hello, welcome to this week’s edition of the Romance Writer Weekly Blog Hop. Thank you for hopping over from the talented Collette Cameron, http://blueroseromance.com

This week’s three questions are from one of our amazing authors, Vicki Mixon.  Are you ready? Let’s get started….

 

1.    Was there a defining moment in your life when you knew you were going to become a writer? If so, what was it?

I’ve always loved writing. When I was a child in elementary school, I remember our second grade teacher would occasionally post a picture from a magazine on the chalkboard and ask us to write a story about it. I loved those assignments! I never had any problem coming up with a plot and a story to tell about those wonderful photographs.

As a young girl, I spent many hours writing stories and reading. In those days, I started so many stories but truth be told, only finished one or two. I loved writing the beginnings – getting to know the characters, writing about their dilemmas – but I would get bored when I got past those parts. Today I realize that I wasn’t mature enough to sit down and tough it out through the hard bits, where the story sometimes can bog down.

I even submitted a couple of short stories to a contest held by American Girl Magazine, which was and still is a great magazine for tweens.  Unfortunately, I received my first rejection notices for both stories, and that was a bit of a setback to a budding author.

As a senior in Highschool, I decided to take an Independent Study class. Assigned to one of the English teachers, I wrote a short novel called “Summer’s Lease”. I found it a humbling experience and I realized when I was done with it, that I hated working to deadlines. How naive I was at seventeen!  Deadlines were to become my constant companion in college and during the next thirty-three years of my career in systems engineering.

When I finished that short novel, and thought how hard it was to write under pressure, I changed my decision to major in English Literature in college. I believe today that this change in focus was a huge mistake, but there you are. Decisions of seventeen year olds always seem so wise at the time, but so incredibly stupid when one is older.

For a number of years, I put my desire to write aside. It would resurface from time to time, but never enough to do anything about it. Finally, in 2007 the writing bug bit me, and it bit hard. For the next five years I worked on and off on a full-length novel. “Alabama Angel” was the result, and I love this story.

Since moving to Florida over a year and a half ago, I’ve joined a wonderful chapter of RWA and I’ve learned so much. I have rewritten and revised “Alabama Angel” several times, and after a request for the full manuscript, it is currently under review with an editor at Entangled Publishing. Wish me luck!

 2.    When you write a story do you see it unfold as one big picture, or do you add layering in subsequent drafts?

I usually start with a very high-level overall idea of how I want the plot to move along and what I want the characters to do. Once started, I’ll write several chapters and then go back and rework and rewrite, adding some things that I realize were missing as I moved farther into the plot. It’s almost as if the beginning is a throw down of all of my ideas, but they are still unformed, and it isn’t until I get closer to the middle, that I realize I’ve forgotten some important bits and pieces. Therefore, I layer as I write. I go back and fix things once I’ve finished, so one might call that adding layers as well.

3.    How many drafts do you usually write before you send your work to your editor?

It’s hard for me to answer this question since I’m currently unpublished, but I will answer based on my experience with my first two completed novels that are out for consideration with publishing houses.

Once I think the novel is complete, I review, edit and rewrite as much as I think I need, before I turn my novel over to my critique partners. After they get through hacking away at it, I make those changes, and then send it on to a Beta reader. Our RWA chapter is wonderful and provides Beta readers when asked. After I’ve completed these steps and it can take several months, I cross my fingers, hold my breath, and either pitch the novel at a conference or send out query letters.

 

Well, that's it for me. I hope you enjoyed your visit! As you leave, don't forget to jump over to the wonderful Victoria Barbour, at her blog site  http://victoriabarbour.com

See you next week!

 

Warmly,

Mikki Cober