The two motivational speakers at the Valentine’s
Brunch on February 12, 2006, were Susan Lyons
and Kate Austin. For those GVC’ers who missed
the Brunch, here is a recap of Susan Lyons’
speech, as provided by Susan. We hope to recap
Kate’s presentation in the future.
There were years when I wondered if this day
would ever come—my first sale talk to my
local RWA Chapter. I’d like to tell you
about my journey, and the lessons I learned along
the way.
Lesson 1: Consider the possibility I might have
a creative bone in my body
No, I honestly didn’t think I did. Sure,
I’d written stories when I was young but
I’d put all that away through ten years
of university and various jobs. I got a law degree,
edited dry law books, managed a department, did
academic and professional writing. Of course,
I read like a fiend, and what I read was pure
fiction.
My friend Nick—to whom I’ll forever
be grateful—was the person who helped me
find my creativity. He gave me Natalie Goldberg's
Writing Down the Bones. I said, “Uh,
thanks, but why?” He said, “Because
you’re a writer.” I said, “I
don’t have a creative bone in my body.”
That book, and a school board night class, brought
alive a part of myself that had been neglected
for more than twenty years. You know how it is,
when sometimes you know very quickly that something
is just right. Well, writing was right for me.
Though I didn’t know it at the time, my
feet were firmly planted on a new path, one that
would prove more challenging and frustrating and
ego-threatening than anything else I’ve
ever done, and yet far, far more rewarding.
Lesson 2: Be open to the messages that come
your way
That first night school writing teacher, Heather
Conn, read my work and said, “You should
consider writing erotica. You do it really well.”
Erotica? I was writing mysteries. Well, actually
I was writing romantic suspense but I didn’t
know the term at the time. And my first book was
indeed pretty hot.
I was nervous about sharing that manuscript with
my mom and stepdad. After they read it, my mom
said, flushing a little, “Well, it’s
pretty sexy.” Oh-oh. Then she went on. “But
that’s good, because sex is what’s
selling these days.”
Since then, every book I’ve written, except
for one, has been pretty darned hot.
Lesson 3: Set a goal that you’re strongly
motivated to achieve
Every heroine needs a goal and motivation, right?
I’d been laid off a day job that paid me
an obscene amount of money but was incredibly
stressful. I was trying to figure out what I wanted
to do with my life. So, what did I love doing?
Writing. I’d already received a huge gift,
in discovering the thing in the world I most loved
doing.
I wasn’t rich, I had to make a living,
so was it possible I could make that living doing
the thing I loved? Now I had a goal—and
man, did I want to achieve it, and the sooner
the better.
That was more than ten years ago, and I’m
still a long way off, but that remains the goal
I’m working toward.
Now, of course a goal is just the beginning.
Lesson 4: Develop a realistic plan for achieving
that goal
One part of this was easy. I had to make a living,
but with a job that left me time to write. So
I cut back my expenses so I could live on about
a quarter of what I used to earn. Easy—because
I was writing, and that made it all worthwhile.
As for my writing, this was a time of exploring
my skills, testing the waters—and not terribly
efficiently. Looking back, I can’t believe
how naïve I was, and how hopeless about doing
the necessary research. No, I hadn’t joined
RWA®. I hadn’t heard of RWA®. Why
would I? It’s not like I was writing romance.
On the other hand, I did do a lot of things right:
- I finished the books. I didn't bail in the
middle or when I felt stalled, I pushed through
to the end.
- I diversified, writing short stories, but
never taking too much time away from writing
books.
- I edited the right amount. I didn’t
call my first draft perfect, but by the time
I was on perhaps the fourth or sixth draft,
I said, “It’s time to call it quits.”
- I started doing market research. What publishers
published the books I loved reading?
- I sent my work out. No editor was going to
come knocking on my door; I had to send the
work into the world and risk rejection.
- I didn’t quit or allow myself to feel
shattered when I got rejection letters. I sent
the work out again. I had the sense to realize
that rejection had to do with a lot of things
besides the quality of my writing.
Believe it or not, I had the guts and naiveté
to send a story to The New Yorker, and
a full manuscript, unsolicited, to St. Martin’s
Press. And both publishers were actually polite
enough to send my work back with a form rejection
letter rather than just throw it in the trash.
I did have some success with my stories. Three
finalled in literary fiction contests and were
published in Canadian journals. That validation
was huge. This is why I’m such a believer
in diversification. If I’d never written
and submitted stories, I would have gone over
ten years without being published. With the stories,
I had positive reinforcement plus the joy of knowing
my words had gone out there into the world—albeit,
for the tiny audience who reads Canadian literary
journals. And if I told someone I was a writer
and they asked, “Are you published?”,
I could answer “Yes!”
By the time I’d written a dozen or more
stories, one mystery novel and two romantic suspense
books, I was ready for the next lesson, one that’s
key to developing that realistic plan I mentioned
earlier.
Lesson 5: Assess my strengths and weaknesses
and revise that plan
I’m not upset it took me three books and
a bunch of stories to figure out where I was heading
as a writer. I needed that amount of time. But
at the end of it, I knew I needed to change some
things if I was going to achieve my goal.
On the negative side, I’d learned I couldn’t
plot my way out of a paper bag. On the positive
side, I wrote great characters and relationships,
and terrific sex scenes. And mostly, what I wrote
was romance.
And so, when I saw a poster at the library for
a workshop featuring local romance writers, I
decided to attend. You can guess how that story
ended. The workshop was sponsored by the Greater
Vancouver Chapter of RWA®, and I applied for
membership.
It was time to focus and be more professional.
To do my homework, figure out what was selling,
decide on the best match for my skills. I heard
that it was easier to sell romance to Harlequin/Silhouette
than to other publishers, so I diligently studied
the various lines and decided SuperRomance was
my home. Longer, relatively complex, character-driven
books. Perfect. I should be able to do this.
After all, I had a law degree, right? I’d
had a professional career, managed a million dollar
budget and two dozen staff, juggled numerous projects
at the same time. I was intelligent, professional,
organized, a hard worker, and motivated.
So, there I was, with a couple of years experience
under my belt, three published stories, a market
analysis and a great writing organization behind
me. I had my goal. Sell my first book to SuperRomance,
and carry on from there. I had motivation: I wanted
to make my living doing what I loved, writing.
I was all set.
Being writers, you know what came next. The conflict.
The editors at SuperRomance didn’t love
the first book I submitted. Or the second. Or
the third.
What I learned—and so many other writers
have learned—is that this is one of the
hardest businesses in the world to succeed at.
Law school was easy in comparison, and so’s
being a lawyer. There’s a set path, steps
along the way, and anyone with reasonable intelligence
and decent work habits, plus sufficient time and
money, can get there. That’s not true of
writing. And that was a huge, and scary realization.
Thank God I was still writing short stories.
I’d turned from literary to commercial,
persisted through numerous rejections, and was
actually selling stories to the American Woman’s
World magazine, to the tune of $1000 for
1500 words. I can’t tell you how amazing
it was to get that first cheque, then to see my
story in Woman’s World on racks
in my local drugstore and grocery store. Someone
in the world thought my writing was worthy of
publication, to be read by thousands of readers.
I won’t bore you with stories of all the
other highs and lows, but I will say I did lots
of the right things:
- Believed in myself. I believed in my writing,
my discipline, my professionalism, my ability
to write and be published.
- Kept writing and revising and submitting.
- Attended workshops and conferences.
- Honed my craft.
- Pitched to editors and sent the requested
work.
- Always, always tried to be as professional
as I could.
- Entered contests.
- Acquired a critique partner, when the fabulous
Nancy Warren joined RWA® and GVC. Having
another writer critique and discuss my work
helped me immensely, and critiquing her work
made me more analytical about what does and
doesn’t work in romance writing.
- And then, a few years later, acquired a critique
group. None of the books I’ve sold have
been solely my work. I am not a perfect writer.
I miss things that readers will pick up on.
Now I have three early readers, Betty, Michelle
and Nazima, and they save me from so many oversights
and mistakes, and help me make my writing as
strong as it can be.
- Became more and more a part of the community
of writers, especially in my two local Chapters,
GVC and the Vancouver Island Chapter. I learned
from my colleagues, gained a better understanding
of the realities of the business, and knew where
I could go for the appropriate mix of sympathy
and praise occasioned by getting a “good
rejection letter.”
And I survived rejection and persisted. I have
no idea how many times I stopped to wonder if
my fragile ego—and we writers have some
of the most fragile egos in the world—could
really handle this? Why was I beating myself up
this way? How many years could I go on, without
making that first real sale?
You've probably all heard the saying, “If
you can quit, you should
quit.”
Lesson 6: Decide whether I could quit
This is something I’d consider every New
Year’s, and during the year when I felt
particularly dejected. What I found was, I couldn’t
quit. If I went a few weeks without writing, I
felt like a part of me was shrivelling up and
dying. An important part, a piece that was essential
to who I am.
For a while, each New Year, I’d think,
“Surely this will be the year.” But
each year, it wasn’t. So I stopped setting
myself up for disappointment. I just decided,
each year, that I would write regardless of whether
I got published. I didn’t look twenty or
thirty years down the road and say I’d write
forever even if I never sold a book, I took it
one year at a time.
Lesson 7: Set short-term goals and rewards
The big goal of making my living as a writer
persisted, but I focused more on the small goals.
Write, keep submitting, enter contests, and celebrate
every victory like finalling in a contest, selling
a short story, getting a good rejection letter.
Two years ago I started writing down concrete
yearly goals, which I review periodically. I prepare
weekly goals every Sunday and share them, and
my progress reports, with another writer. I stay
on track.
Lesson 8: Spaghetti against the wall
What does it take to sell? The ability to handle
conflict and rejection, and persist. And yes,
it does take some actual skill, and a lot of willingness
to study and hone your craft. It takes practice,
practice, practice. It takes faith—belief
in yourself, that ultimately you can do this.
It takes studying the market but not being ruled
by it. It takes always being professional. It
takes having the guts to submit, be rejected,
learn from any feedback you get (but not be ruled
by it), and re-submit.
And to submit everywhere, anywhere, that your
work might possibly fit. GVC Chapter-mate Dani
Collins calls it the "spaghetti against the
wall approach." If you keep flinging the
stuff out there, at some point a strand is going
to stick.
That’s because there’s another thing
it takes, to sell. Luck and timing. The right
strand of spaghetti hits the right patch of wall
at the right time. That’s how I finally
sold my first book.
It sure wasn’t the way I’d expected.
I’d finalled in the Golden Heart, so of
course that was the book I pitched to Hilary Sares
of Kensington at GVC’s 2005 Spring Showcase.
She said, “sounds interesting; send the
full manuscript.” Now here’s where
the luck comes in. I had a 15-minute individual
appointment. We had time to chat. She’d
said earlier that Kensington liked innovative,
cross-genre books. So I mentioned I was writing
an interracial chick lit erotic romance. Her ears
perked up. She asked me about it. Then she asked
me to send along however much of it I was happy
with.
I went home, packaged up my 300+ page GH finalist
and 100 pages of Champagne Rules, then
realized CR needed a synopsis. Didn’t have
one, hate writing them, managed to put together
a page of bumf—and as an afterthought added
the note that I saw it as the first book in a
four-book series. Then I paid $70 to FedEx to
send off the package, came home and said to my
partner, “Well, there’s another $70
down the drain.”
He said, “Why do you do this?”
I said, “Spaghetti against the wall.”
Six weeks later I got a rejection letter from
Hilary, turning down my GH finalist and the book
I’d sent her the previous year. But you
know what, that rejection didn’t hurt too
badly—because a day earlier she’d
emailed and said she wanted to buy Champagne
Rules and the next book in the series. Kensington
had just decided to publish a brand-new erotic
romance line.
And there’s where the luck comes in. I’d
written a book that didn’t fit in any existing
imprint or line or even genre. But Kensington
had decided to get into erotic romance and they
were open to pretty much any style, so long as
the books were really, really sexy. Mine is. It’s
also Sex and the City comes to Vancouver,
BC. It’s also a long-distance interracial
romance. It’s funny and poignant and, did
I mention, sexy.
The right book, to the right editor, at absolutely
the right time.
And the luck continued. I’ve now sold all
four books in the series, plus a novella. I’m
busier than I’ve been in fifteen years,
more stressed out, and I still can’t quite
believe my dream is actually coming true.
I’m excited, thrilled and terrified. I’m
scared of all the demons lurking in my future.
Bad reviews. What if my books tank? What if the
line goes in a different direction and my books
no longer fit? What if I lose my editor and the
new one hates me? What if the line folds?
Lesson 9: I’m a writer
I can face the demons ahead because I survived
and persisted through all those years of not selling,
and I learned that I am a writer. Whether I sell
this year or don’t sell this year, I’m
still a writer. Editors can reject my books, but
no-one can take away from me the fact that I’m
a writer. Whatever happens with my career in the
future, I know I’m a success. Not because
I sold, but because I figured out who I am: a
writer.
Susan Lyons is a member of GVC. She made her
first sale, a two-book contract, to Kensington
Aphrodisia in June 2005. Since then she's sold
two more novels and a novella to Kensington.
Articles may be reprinted in RWA® chapter
newsletters, attributed to the Spotlight.
Non-RWA® newsletters may not reprint articles
without the permission of the authors.
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