Mary Ricksen won a Rebecca York book by commenting on Rebecca's blog here! Congrats, Mary

Deb Kaufman won a Stephanie Bond Body Mover book. Congrats, Deb.

Look for a visit with the adorable and talented Karen Kendall here tomorrow!

Please help me welcome talented author Stephanie Bond. I remember when Stephanie announced her first sale. I also remember seeing one of her books in a bookstore in England. Boy, was I impressed.

The Year of Writing Dangerously

Last year I disappeared. Fell off the face of the earth. My friends didn’t see me. My family didn’t see me. The members of my local writing chapter didn’t see me. I didn’t answer the phone. I put a Do Not Disturb sign on the door of my condo so my neighbors wouldn’t come knocking. You see, in the months prior, I had committed to a LOT of writing projects—it just sort of happened that way. I write for Harlequin Blaze and I also write a humorous mystery series for Mira called Body Movers. I had pitched an idea for a back-to-back trilogy for Blaze called Sex for Beginners, and my editor took it. THEN my editor for Mira, responding to reader complaints that the Body Movers books were spread too far apart, asked me to write a back-to-back trilogy to boost momentum for the series. I was thrilled for the opportunity and agreed, but in the back of my mind, I knew it was going to be a tough schedule. Especially since I had also committed to writing two novellas! (I still vividly remember the days when rejection letters filled my mailbox, so it’s difficult to turn down projects.)

At the end of 2007, I took a deep breath and, looking forward, decided to dub 2008 as my Year of Writing Dangerously. I put myself on a daily page quota, cleared my social calendar, put my friends and family on notice, put my head down…and wrote!
I wrote every day from about 9:00 a.m. all the way to 2:00 a.m. I took a break each day to work out, and again when my husband came home so we could have dinner together, but afterward, I went back to my computer. And I kept my weekly appointment with my critique partner to exchange work and refill the creative well. In short, I got into a routine and stuck with it.

The worst part was not being able to attend social activities. When people asked me to do things, the regret was twofold—that I couldn’t accept their invitation and that I had to work while everyone else was having fun! When people said, “Oh, come on—you need to take a break!” I had to resist giving in because I knew later I’d feel even more stressed over having to make up those hours. Because, as everyone knows, a lunch date turns into a huge chunk being cut out of the work day, and 30 minutes on the phone with this person and that person, and suddenly, your afternoon has evaporated. Out of necessity, I became anti-social.

Over the year, I wrote 3 Blaze novels, 3 single titles for my Body Movers series, and 2 novellas. That’s over 2500 manuscript pages in Courier, 12 pt. How did I do it? By setting daily goals and taking one day at a time. By reminding myself that I’d made a commitment to my editors. And by telling myself how good I would feel when it was all over and I had all those books in the pipeline!

It was a rough year, worse than I even imagined. I would not recommend it to other writers. It was a dangerous year, all right—dangerous to my social life, my mental well-being, and my waistline! But now that it’s over, I feel like I could do just about anything my editors asked of me or anything I ask of myself. And it made me realize I need to find ways to make writing fun again, so this year I’m tackling some unorthodox projects, like writing a screenplay. I’m back to attending monthly meetings of my local writing group, Georgia Romance Writers. And I’m taking time to reconnect with friends I haven’t seen in a while. For 2009 I have a new mantra: Fewer books, more wine!
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Atlanta author Stephanie Bond has written over 40 romance and mystery novels. She currently writes romantic comedies for Harlequin Blaze and a humorous mystery series for Mira called Body Movers. Look for books 4, 5, and 6 in the Body Movers series to be released back to back in April, May, and June 2009.

Stephanie’s website and her blog offer a chance for her readers to get to know her and for writers to pick her brain about the craft of writing.
www.stephaniebond.com

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