Thursday Thirteen #25 - 13 Things I Did to Become a Romance Author

I knew I wanted to be a writer ever since I was very young. I've actually been preparing myself for this all my life. Here are some of the things I did to acheive my goal. :)

1.) At the age of 7, I was bitten by the writing bug and wrote several original stories with colorful construction paper covers.

2.) I read many books voraciously as a child.

3.) I wrote many more short stories after reading my first romance at the age of 12, this time with romantic elements.

4.) I got heavily into poetry and filled notebooks with my own rhyming verses.

5.) I wrote a few short stories when I was 13 about a magical crystal, determined to get them published "someday". (Now, these stories are The Legends of Mynos).

6.) I passed my handwritten stories around to my classmates, my first fans, who threatened me upon pain of death if I didn't show up to school the next day with a new chapter. LOL

7.) I submitted a short story to a contest at school and won Honorable Mention. :)

8.) I took a typing class to learn the keyboard.

9.) I took Advanced Placement English and Creative Writing courses along with Psychology in order to learn more about the written word and human behaviors.

10.) I read many, many romances in order to get a feel for the voice, formula, pacing, point of view, etc.

11.) Participated in many writing exercises, short 1,000 word scenes that weren't part of a story, merely just part of a scenario you had to write about. Two of my books came from those writing exercises. ON EAGLE'S WINGS and UNDERNEATH THE MISTLETOE (in the Mistletoe Magic Anthology).

12.) I did a lot of research on many different publishers, submitting one book while writing another - never stopped writing, which is why I have such a large backlist nowadays.

13.) Even though I eventually got published, I have never assumed that I know it all, and therefore, I continue to learn about my craft on a daily basis. :)

~~Becka

http://www.rebeccagoings.com/