It’s the fourth Thursday of the month, so you know what that means: Contest time! But first, two very important announcements. As we noted earlier, two Sweethearts are up for RITA Awards this year — Stephanie Scott for Best First Novel and Darcy Woods for Young Adult Romance and Best First Novel. Well, the RITAs are tonight and they will be live streamed! Tune in from 7 – 9 p.m. ET at www.rwa.org and keep your fingers crossed for Stephanie and Darcy!
Speaking of Romance Writers of America Awards! Yesterday the RWA Young Adult Chapter announced that Sweetheart Erin Fletcher’s ALL LACED UP won First Place in the Contemporary Category for its Athena Awards. Huge congratulations to Erin!
Now, onto our July contest, where we just happen to be celebrating the July 10 release of TIED UP IN YOU, the sequel to the aforementioned Athena Award-winning ALL LACED UP! This dual-POV story is about a hot hockey player and a brilliant STEM student who happen to be best friends and who happen to kind of, sort of, maybe, accidentally kiss and then things get, ya know. Complicated.
To win, take these simple steps:
- Make sure you are following us on Twitter.
- Leave a comment below letting us know your favorite sport (to watch or to play). Be sure to leave your Twitter handle in your comment so we know how to get in touch with you if you win.
- Optional: Subscribe to our posts! Simply input your email address in the “subscribe” box on our site. As always, you don’t HAVE to do this to enter, but you really, really should do it to make sure you never miss a Sweetheart contest or post! 🙂
One randomly selected winner will receive a signed copy of TIED UP IN YOU (or a free e-copy if you are outside of the U.S. and Canada)! Contest closes August 2 at noon, and the winner will be announced August 3.
Good luck! xoxoxo
There’s been a lot of fangirling around here this month as we welcome 
And then a sailing trip popped into my head. A sailboat, while promising something exotic and adventurous, can also be claustrophobic as hell, and the idea of my main character, Cassie, wanting to avoid at all costs this situation she’s gotten into with her mom but literally not being able to get more than 40 feet away from her without landing in a vast ocean was about as trapped as I could imagine, short of sending them both to jail.
Personal experiences. Certainly, my personal experiences and relationships have revealed themselves in stories at times. Characters will inevitably come to resemble people I’ve known or engage in behavior patterns I’ve observed from them. It turns out I’m a pretty kind author, and characters have tended to embody positive characteristics of my friends rather than anything else!
Professional Experiences. My work as a school psychologist has definitely impacted the topics and themes in my books. My first two novels, which dealt with topics such as life with autism, cyberbullying, and living with physical disabilities, came about after spending my days working at a school for students with severe autism and later, an area high school.
Readers/Publishers. And every time I’ve sat down to tackle a new project, I’ve certainly given thought to what people want right now. What are people going nuts over on social media? What’s showing up with that #MSWL (Manuscript Wish List) hashtag? Certainly, I believe it’s important and critical to stay true to your personal motivation and passion when considering projects, but it’s impossible to completely avoid the fear that you’re writing a story few people may have interest in reading if you don’t consider the pulse of the YA community.
Karole Cozzo: Man, do I struggle with action scenes! I’m all about the character development, witty banter, and romance, so when it comes time for me to buckle down and figure out the details and logistics of an action scene, I’m somewhat at a loss. For a recent project, my MC and her love interest were caught in an intense game of hide and seek in a laser tag arena. (I’d love to say more, but… spoilers!) I tend to draft really quickly, and it’s a challenge for me to slow down and capture all the movement and activity that comes together for an action scene. Typically, I need to sit back from my computer, close my eyes, and picture the scene playing out like a movie. I go back and jot down a couple of sentences at a time, then close my eyes again and try to pick up where I left off. While my eyes are closed, I ask myself — What is she seeing at this moment? Hearing? What physical reactions is she experiencing? Then I try to incorporate those sensory details to hopefully bring the scene to life on the page.
Robin Constantine: As much as I love writing kissing scenes, they are the hardest to get right. My first attempts are often clinical and boring. Sometimes I over-do it, and it becomes too cheesy. It’s hard to strike just the right balance. To push through, and make things interesting, I like to pick a song that puts me into the heads of my characters. When I’m writing, I’ll listen to it over and over again to establish a mood. I also try to make it unexpected — the best kisses are spontaneous and yet feel totally natural to the story.
Linda Budzinski: Is it bad that I’m having trouble picking one thing? But I’ll go with external conflict. Internal conflict is super easy. My characters are full of angst and insecurities and self-doubt. But external conflict — actually forcing them into painful situations — can be really tough. Conflict avoidance is my specialty IRL (and no, that’s not always a good thing), so I hate causing my characters misery. To push through, I remember the words of a former writing instructor who used to always say, “You have to chase your characters up a tree and then start throwing rocks at them.” The fact is, without conflict, you have no story. Fortunately, in romance, I know my characters will ultimately resolve their conflicts and have their happily ever after!
Darcy Woods: My brain hardly had to synapse to come up with an answer to this question: TRANSITIONS. To be sure and true, transitions are the bane of my authorly existence. Why? For me, writing those segues from scene-to-scene, chapter-to-chapter, holds the greatest potential for readers to see all the popsicle sticks, glue, and duct tape that are holding my story together. It’s peeking at Oz behind the curtain. Because those transitions can suddenly turn a book into a two-dimensional object, rather than the living, breathing world I seek to create. Which means I labor. I toil. I swear — often with flourish — to ease the story as organically (and interestingly!) as possible from one plot point to the next. So it’s not unusual for me to add placeholders that read: [INSERT TRANSITIONAL BRILLIANCE HERE] with the understanding I’ll need to go back and lovingly stitch those scenes together. And with great patience and profanity, eventually I do.
Erin Fletcher: It may sound weird coming from a romance writer, but I think kissing scenes are pretty hard to write! Almost invariably, my first attempts at these scenes are too short and not good enough. Then my (awesome) editor has to comment on them and say, “More! Give us more!” I think the reason I struggle is that describing kissing can be awkward! Sure, the actual act of kissing is fantastic, but when you try to put it into words, it can come across as robotic and boring. To push through this, I grab my favorite YA romances and read the kissing scenes, or watch scenes from my favorite romantic comedies on YouTube. That helps a ton! The only challenge is to avoid getting pulled into those awesome books and movies so I can finish writing own my book!
Stephanie Scott: My biggest writing challenge is making necessary plot information interesting to read. Mainly, avoiding the dreaded infodump. I’ve been working on uncovering the deeper emotions of the scene, or even determining a theme. Then I see if I can make the characters actively do something that relates to that larger theme, or put them in a situation where their secrets or insecurities could be exposed. That extra layer of conflict keeps the scene interesting.