Update:  Thanks so much for all of the comments!  Two winners were selected randomly, and those two are:  Colleen and Barb P! Congrats!!

Today I’m excited to have Brava author Lexi George as my guest.  Lexi has a great new paranormal romance out from Kensington Brava right now–you don’t want to miss out on the demon hunting fun!  And you won’t miss out–because one very lucky commenter will win a copy of Lexi’s book, DEMON HUNTING IN DIXIE.

7 Things I Haven’t Learned So Far . . .

Writers often write about what they’ve learned on the bumpy road to publication.  Here are seven things I haven’t learned:

1. How to turn off the internal nag.  Call her my muse, my conscience, my inner perfectionist—whatever.  I haven’t figured out how to make her be quiet.  She never stops.  Always with the nagging and the recriminations.  I hear her in the morning when I first wake up and the last thing at night before I drift off to sleep.  She talks to me during staff meetings at work, sermons at church—I know.  I know!—and in the car on the way to work.  The beyotch just won’t shut up.

2. How to hyphenate.  Every time I hyphenated a word in Demon Hunting in Dixie, Kensington took it out.  I knew I was comma challenged, but now I can add hyphen challenged to the list as well.  Notice I did not use a hyphen in the previous sentence?  Totally freaked out by that short little line.  Sigh.  So now I don’t bother to hyphenate.  I figure the hyphen fairy will supply them as needed.

3. How to write a sex scene without mint chocolate chip ice cream and red wine.  We all have our dirty little secrets.  I write sex scenes under the influence of chocolate, sugar and alcohol.  Nuff said.

4. Time management or how to pretend I don’t have a day job or a family.  I work full time and I’m a busy mom.  I also have the concentration spat of a gnat.  Finding alone time and the quiet I need in order to write continues to be a challenge. The dogs.  The telephone.  The children.  The husband playing computer games that generate strange wom wom phe-oww noises in the room next door.   Can I just say arggh!

5. How not to read bad reviews.  I know better. I’ve been warned.  A multi published writer in my RWA chapter told me not to read the darn things.  But it’s like looking away from a five-car pileup.  I can’t do it.  And then I’m sorry I read them, because there’s nothing you can do about bad reviews except grin and bear them.

6. How to be a plotter.  I am not a writer who has everything mapped out with flow charts and medical records and family trees for each character, and plot arcs pinpointed before the first word is written.  I am a pantser with a serious case of plotter envy.  Wish I could plot the whole thing out before hand, but that’s not the way I roll.  I start with the hero and heroine and the basic premise of the story—small town girl meets sexy demon hunter in pursuit of a rogue demon, chaos to follow.  I usually knock out 50 or so pages to get a feel for my characters and then I get nervous and sit down and come up with a list of plot points.  After that, I wing it for a while and try to connect the dots.  About three-fourths of the way through, I sit down and sketch out the remaining chapters to make sure I get everything in, and so I know how it’s going to end.  So, I guess that makes me a plotser!

7. How to be blasé about getting a book contract and an agent.  I am so uncool about the whole thing.  You see, I had decided it might not happen for me.  After 16 years of writing, three years of querying, and 145 rejections from agents, I was starting to get the teensiest clue that my dream might not come true.  And then it happened when I least expected it.  I walked around for three weeks after I got The Call from Kensington feeling like somebody had dropped a safe on my head.  I still expect someone to jump out and yell Punked! at any second.

To say that I was in a state of shock (and still am!) is to say nothing.  Though I’d dreamed and hoped and schemed and fought the good fight to get published for a number of years, I knew the odds.

Of course, I hoped to be among the lucky few.  But I knew that talent and persistence are sometimes not enough, that there are thousands of writers out there working to better their craft in the hopes of catching the attention of an editor or an agent.  Still, knowing my chances were slim did not stop me from dreaming.

I’ve heard that luck sometimes plays a part in getting an editor or an agent.  Now, I am a very blessed person, but I’ve never considered myself ‘lucky.’  I’m not good at games of chance and I’m not the kind of person who is likely to win the lottery.

Before now, that is.

My ‘luck’ came in the form of a smiling, blonde haired member of Southern Magic, the Birmingham chapter of the RWA.  Carla Swafford caught a comment I made on the Southern Magic loop that I was having buzzard luck in the querying process, because I was being told by agents that light paranormal romance is ‘very difficult to sell.’  After reading my lament, Carla emailed me at home.  She’d read an interview with Megan Records, an editor at Kensington, on the Southern Sizzle Romance blog.  In the interview, Megan said dark paranormal is hot.  No surprise there.  But then she said something that made me sit up and pay attention.  She said, “I hardly ever see funny paranormals. Shame, because I like those too!”

I queried Megan, referencing the interview and her comment, and she sent me back an email requesting the full.  Two weeks later, I got The Call.

Needless to say, I owe Carla Swafford Big Time.  If not for her, I might not have queried Megan.  If not for Megan, God bless her sweet heart and her funny bone, I would not have a publishing contract.

Turns out I’m lucky after all.  And definitely not blasé.

So, what are some things YOU haven’t learned so far?  A copy of Demon Hunting in Dixie goes to one commenter!

Update: Thanks for all the comments! A random winner was selected, and that person is…Angela M! Congrats, Angela! I will email you with prize details very soon!

Happy June!!  Summer, oh, yes, sweet summer is now upon us!

And do you know what goes well with summer? Books. Good books to read on a hot summer day.  So, I thought I’d do a giveaway on the old blog. 🙂

Are you in the mood to read some sexy novellas about strong bodyguards?  My friend Elisabeth Naughton is in the new anthology, BODYGUARDS IN BED–an anthology that looks like a great read.

Want to read an excerpt from Elisabeth’s story? It’s here!

Now…wanna win a copy of the book? I’ll pick one commenter randomly, and I’ll send that person a copy of BODYGUARDS IN BED via Amazon (you can get the trade version of an ebook version).  Just leave me a comment telling me if you would or would not make a good bodyguard.   Easy, right?

Thanks for checking out the contest–and have a great day!  (The contest will run until 5 pm on 6/2.)

Want to win an early copy of NEVER CRY WOLF? Then head over to the Brava blog! I’m giving away 5 copies there.  The contest will run until Friday at 8 a.m. Eastern time.  Good luck!

Update: The winner of MY FAVORITE COUNTESS is…Hilleary Peterson. Congrats!!

I’m so excited to have my buddy (and uber talented author) Vanessa Kelly here today!  Vanessa has a fabulous new historical romance out on the shelves now.  Welcome, Vanessa!

Playing Second Banana

My latest historical romance, My Favorite Countess, is now in stores.  As you have likely deduced from the title, the lead character is a countess.  A widowed countess, actually.    Her name is Bathsheba and she has many thrilling and occasionally dangerous challenges to overcome in the course of the narrative, along with her hero, Dr. John Blackmore.

The story, of course, is mostly about them.  But it’s not all about them.  There are several other characters in My Favorite Countess and their stories are important, both as sub-plots that support the main plot and in adding portrayals that enrich the book in their own right.

Secondary characters have always played a critical role in books, movies, and TV shows.  Take, for example, one of my favorite TV programs:  House.  Gregory House is the lifeblood of the show, with his caustic wit, his insane adventures, and his tortured psyche.  If he wasn’t on screen for at least 75% of the time, I think most viewers would get pretty darn cranky.  And Hugh Laurie’s portrayal is so commanding that he could probably read the proverbial phone book and make it interesting.

But one of the things that makes House such a great show is the way the main character interacts with the secondary characters.  Where would House be without Wilson to play faithful second banana, the one person who truly understands him and accepts him for who he is?  And how about his team of assistants, whose different personalities serve as foils to highlight House’s strengths and weaknesses, and also challenge him to confront the demons that bedevil him?  These characters aren’t cardboard cut-outs.  The portrayals are so fully realized that viewers care for them, both in their separate story lines and in how they relate to House.

Romance novels are often part of a series, and when they are secondary characters tend to play an even more vital role.  They help to pull the story forward from one book to the next, ensuring continuity and also introducing new themes and plot twists in the over-arching development of the series.

My Favorite Countess is the third book in my series of Regency-set historical romances, and I do have characters from earlier books playing key secondary roles in this one.  The most important are Stephen and Meredith, the Marquess and Marchioness of Silverton, and the hero and heroine of my first book, Mastering The Marquess.  In that book, Stephen and Meredith faced many challenges on the way to their HEA—including a poisoning and a kidnapping—and you would think that I would just leave them in peace to enjoy their happy lives together.

Not!  In fact, things have the potential to go very wrong for them, and it will be up to John and Bathsheba to save the day.

But Stephen and Meredith aren’t just devices to drive the plot and give my hero and heroine an excuse to be, well, heroic.  This pair of secondary characters inhabits a fully realized subplot, and it brings an additional strength to the story that wouldn’t be there if I had left it out.  When this subplot joins up with the main plot in the climax of the book, things get really hairy for everyone, and I think it’s all pretty darn exciting!

On my website, I have a bonus prequel chapter to My Favorite Countess, that kicks off Meredith and Stephen’s subplot several months before the main action of the book begins.  You might want to check it out, along with the regular excerpt for the book.

What do you think of secondary characters in romance?  How important are they to the hero and heroine’s story?  And who are some of your favorite secondary characters in romance novels?  One commenter will win a copy of My Favorite Countess.

Vanessa Kelly writes Regency-set historical romance for Kensington Zebra.  She also writes contemporary romance with her husband under the pen name of VK Sykes.  You can visit her on the web at:  http://www.vanessakellyauthor.com

Free bonus read:  http://www.vanessakellyauthor.com/books.html

Excerpt:  http://www.vanessakellyauthor.com/excerpt_mfc.html

Megan Records, Associate Editor at Kensington Publishing, has a great guest post over at the Danger Women Writing Blog. She’s sharing “10 Things You May Not Know About Your Editor” & giving away some absolutely awesome prizes.  Head on over if you have the chance!  Thanks!