Mentors I Have or Haven’t Known

Last week in my accountability group’s HOW I WRITE series, I talked about why I love historical romance. This week we’re talking about our mentors, whether they realize they influence us or not.

Mentors Who Are Aware They’re Mentoring

Photo of interconnected hands.My local San Diego RWA chapter has a great image it shares with its members. The image is a powerful one of one hand reaching forward and another reaching back. No matter your progress along your writer’s journey, there’s someone ahead of you who can lend a helping hand and someone else who may be just starting out that you could help in return. As a PRO member, I fall squarely in the middle of the pack. I may not always feel like I have a lot to offer in terms of writing, but I’m always willing to help where I can.

I first met Jodi Henley at Romance Divas. She very helpfully absolutely shredded my newbie offering in the critique forum. Since then, I’ve had many aha moments while chatting with her, reading her critiques for other people, and reading her blog. This quote from Galileo Galilei sums up my best experiences with reading Jodi’s pearls of wisdom:

“You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find it within himself.”

You’re still here? I’m surprised you’re not off reading everything on her blog. I’ll be here when you get back.

So many things we hear, read, even experience, don’t sink in and click until we’re ready to hear them or are ready to recognize how it fits in with our own world views. One of the things I love about Jodi is how she makes me think.

I also consider my accountability group as mentors as well. There’s always something to be learned with this group, whether it’s about writing, balancing life, setting goals, or something completely random, the ladies listed at the bottom of this post are truly inspirational and supportive. I also still mentally include Bria Quinlan in this group she started. Thank you all. Again, there’s this wonderful feeling of being able to reach out and find helping hands.

Certainly not least of all is my husband. What can I say, I’ll follow him anywhere. He’s a super creative guy: MFA in poetry, and competent in art, fiction, music, game design and I can’t think of anyone who’d be as patient as he has been to put up with reading some of my horrendous first drafts without falling down laughing. It was his books on writing that caught my interest and introduced me to the person who actually set me off on this writer’s journey.

Mentors Who May Not Be Aware They’re Mentoring

I credit Dorothea Brande as setting me on this journey because after reading her book, On Becoming A Writer, I was bitten by the bug. Her voice cut across the decades and spoke directly to me. She believes in me all over again each time I re-read those pages. She’s my go to confidence booster and somehow, she also manages to say something new each time (sound like something Galileo said?) despite having written the book in the 1930s.

I also regularly read the blogs of the following people:
Kristen Lamb
Anna DeStefano
Joanna Bourne (especially her Technical Topics posts!)
James Scott Bell (his craft of writing books are wonderful and very straightforward!)
Scott Myers (Go Into The Story)

Each of them have provided a different lens to look through and discover new facets about writing or myself. I may never be able to thank them in person, but their insights and assistance are appreciated all the same.

Then there are the authors of everything I read. It’s hard to read for pure pleasure any more. I’m always thinking about story structure or character arcs and trying to figure out just how the author managed to wring such emotion out of a particular scene.

Everyone I interact with on social media has also had a hand in shaping who I am as a person, as a writer, as an artist. It doesn’t take a lot — pointing out a cool site, showing off an interesting photgraph, relating a personal experience, offering an opinion in the comments section, an offhand tip to others with similar interests — those all count!

I guess I’ve just been thinking a lot about who I can/should be reaching forward to and how I can be reaching back to lend a hand. So, c’mon… take my hand. It’s gonna be an interesting trip!

If you’d like to read more about who the rest of the group considers their mentors, you can find their blogs here:

* Alexia Reed * Kimberly Farris*
* Angeleque Ford * Danie Ford * Emma G. Delaney *


Your Turn: Who do you consider your biggest influencers? Do you consider yourself influential to others?

Why I Love Historical Romance

Photo of luxurious fabric to be made into a cape.Last week in my accountability group’s HOW I WRITE series, we talked about 3 Things I Love About My WIP. This week we’re talking about why we write in a particular genre and what attracted us to it. Also, we were asked if we like to read any genres we don’t or can’t write? Why? And would we like to try a different genre? I’ve already answered the “Why Romance” question, but I’m not sure I’ve ever covered Why Write Historical Romance, and Regency Romance in specific.

What attracted me to Historical Romance?

I grew up reading a variety of historical romances pilfered from my mom’s stash: Kathleen Woodiwiss, Kat Martin, Rosemary Rogers, Shirlee Busbee, Virginia Henley, Johanna Lindsey, and many, many, more. I’ll freely admit I was looking for escapism and a bit of the bodice ripping excitement promised by the covers. It was a slightly different kind from what I was finding in Science Fiction and Fantasy in that this was real world stuff, not wholly made up! Westerns/Colonial American, Medievals, Regencies… all were fair game. I never read the contemporary romances then. Probably because they all had boring object covers instead of those wildly passionate clinches.

So why settle into the Regency Era?

The romantic notions like titles and balls, the escapist fantasy, the slower/different pace of life, the layers and intrigue in the rules of society. The descriptions of men’s fashions, especially the mysteries revealed when a man removes his cravat. While I love me some eye-candy, there’s something to be said for leaving things to your imagination too.

They’d also just done away with the powdered wigs, patches, and panniers of the Georgian Era. Nasty stuff. Not practical and not attractive. Medievals were too much fantasy compared to the historical reality of fleas, sandy grit in the bread, women being literal property. In the Regency that last hadn’t changed legally, but the authors were showing their heroines more as partners than dependents. Victorian Era was too hypocritical for me in many of its attitudes around sex. I never really got into Edwardian Era books because anytime they drive up in a car or the phone rings, my immersion is shattered. Yes, I love Downton Abbey, but yup, the phone and the cars were jarring at first there too. I suspect my problem is more with books where the setting isn’t firmly established in the beginning and those things sneak up on me.

What else do I read besides Historical Romance?

What don’t I? The most represented genres on our shelves (well, the ones *I* read anyway) include Science Fiction, Fantasy, Young Adult, some Contemporary Romance, some Romantic suspense, historical time travel, a handful of chick lit mysteries, and a selection of urban fantasy. Again, it’s usually the escapist aspect that draws me to these genres, something removed from my ordinary world.

If not Historical Romance, what else would I try to write?

Maybe contemporary romance, Urban Fantasy or some fantasy, but it’d probably be flavored in some way by the historical aspect and it’d likely still have lots of romantic elements. But for now, I’m focused on finishing the current crop of characters in my head who all reside firmly in Regency London.

And if you’d like to read more about what’s got the rest of the group excited about their genres, you can find their blogs here:

* Alexia Reed * Kimberly Farris*
* Angeleque Ford * Danie Ford * Emma G. Delaney *


Your Turn: What’s YOUR favorite genre of book to read and why?