One of my writing turning points

My first novel, The Lady's Secret, a Regency-set historical romance is just about to be published by Carina Press. It's a very exciting time for me. Like many authors, I've pretty much always wanted to write—since I started reading.

So I thought I'd talk today about one of the turning points on my writing journey. There have been a few of these. Some have come about externally—happy serendipitous moments that have made a big difference to me—like when I started working with my wonderful regular crit partner, Carolyn Crane. But the one I'm going to talk about today, was an internal revelation.

Despite wanting to write forever, I did virtually no writing until about five or six years ago. I thought about it a lot. I bought a lot of pads and pens and had whole evenings of staring at them. And then I read the well known statement of fact: a writer is someone who writes. Not someone who thinks about it, or wants to do it, or buys stationary in preparation for it. Someone who actually writes.

Reading that statement wasn't the turning point I want to talk about by the way...

One of my biggest problems had always been what to write about. In my vague imagination it was a weighty bit of literary fiction but it never really had a shape or structure or – well, anything really.

And a writer is someone who writes....

I went on holiday to the Lake District and the rental cottage had a bookshelf that contained, amongst the thrillers and cookbooks, one single, solitary Mills & Boon by Penny Jordan.

Now. I had had a period of romance reading in my youth. It began when I started reading my mother's pile of Mills & Boon romances. I swiftly moved on to the 'bodice rippers' in her collection (lots of medieval stuff, lots of pirates and slavers) and by the time I was a teenager I was braving the librarian's disapproval and getting romances out of the library myself.

This was a golden period of reading in my youth. I spent many happy hours reading romance (and other things). And then, age 17, I went to university. Just like that I packed up the romances, dyed my hair, bought a pair of Doctor Marten boots and—occasional illicit Mills & Boons aside—romance didn't get a look-in for another 15 years. Not till I picked up that Penny Jordan book.

Reading that book wasn't the turning point by the way....

I read the Penny Jordan. I enjoyed it and remembered all those happy hours of reading romance. And I thought: you know what? Since my problem is that I don't know what to write about, why don't I write a romance? Just for practice, of course.

You see that? Just for practice! The arrogance of me!

I began to write. An awful, awful contemporary romance. I can't bear to look at it now. When I finished it, I started another, equally bad.

But as well as writing, I did something much more important. I began reading. It started with more category romances. Then I found myself online, reading blogs and review sites, getting interested and involved in romance. I read more widely, single titles, paranormal, historical, sci-fi. Gradually I came to realise something very important: that romance is a valid reading choice. That wanting to read a book about falling in love isn't silly or childish.

And that I loved romance novels!

Yes!

That was the turning point, my friends. That was my Damascene moment. And I looked at my half-written second attempt at a book and put it away. I knew there was no point writing another word. There was nothing in there that was real or sincere. The person writing that book didn't even believe in that story. She was ashamed of it, in fact. And worse, she was protecting herself by being small and scared and not giving it her all.

I started again.

I thought about the books I loved and that I now wanted to write. And started again—sincerely this time, without holding back, knowing I might fail.

It led me here. And regardless of how many copies The Lady's Secret sells, what a sense of accomplishment! What a thrill!

A writer is someone who writes.