I am thrilled to introduce you to Romance Author Dee Knight. Four weeks ago, I wrote about Dee Knight and Jan Selbourne and their combined newsletter. Two weeks ago, Jan wrote a guest post about her award-winning books, and this week, Dee, another award winner, will take the reins.

Dee has written an excellent guest post, and she not only describes her journey to become a successful author but also offers fantastic advice to new and struggling authors. I like all the points she makes, but I couldn’t agree more with her assertion that to write well and succeed as an author, you must write every day if possible. We are all busy, so if you want to be an author, it is unacceptable to say you have no time to write. You must find the time, so get up an hour earlier, write during the fifteen minutes while you’re waiting for the kids to get out of school, or key punch during your break at work. Look for those tiny gaps in your day when you can squeeze in a few minutes of writing.

Before I take over Dee’s post, I’ll hand it to her. Her words are not only inspirational but also instructional.

Welcome, Romance Author Dee S. Knight.

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So many authors say they were writers as children. Indeed, some even give the impression they were developing the great American novel before they even came out of the womb. Sadly, that wasn’t me. Oh, I’ve always had a knack I suppose for spinning a tale. But to write it down? No.

I take that back. In fifth grade we were assigned the task of writing a story. I liked mysteries, being a Nancy Drew buff, so that’s what I decided to write. It was truly a dark and stormy night and murder was afoot. I killed off one character by page three, and by page five, when the murderer was creeping up on the house to off the next character, I scared myself so badly, I quickly had the police scoop up the bad guys and happily wrote THE END. I think I decided then that the writing life was not for me.

Even when I worked at a county library in Virginia and my coworkers suggested I take up writing, I smiled and said yes, maybe someday, I knew I didn’t have the interest. So why, when in my 50s and with a couple of months’ time on my hands I decided to write a story I’d been building on for years, I have no idea.

Writing the story was my husband’s idea. He was working as a consultant and had two months left before we would be leaving town to go to the next contract. There was no use in my looking for a job, so he told me to try writing a book. Truthfully, it sounded fun and easy. I mean, how hard could it be? I had the story in mind. All I had to do was type it out and fill in a few blanks. So I set up the keyboard on a TV tray and typed while Jack was at work. In fact, I typed from when we got up and finished breakfast until it was time to fix dinner, and again after he went to bed until the wee hours of the morning. I typed like that for a month, when I ended with 95,000 words and a finished romance novel.

I was astounded! I had written a novel, a real novel! And it was fun and easy! I’d read articles where people said writing a book was hard. What ninnies, I thought. Writing was a breeze, compared to teaching high school kids, driving a tractor-trailer nationally, or brain surgery, all of which I’d done. (Well, not brain surgery. That was a little poetic license.)

Anyway, now that the writing was done, I was ready to take the publishing world by storm. Except, I had no idea how to do that. I looked up publishers online and came up with a few ideas. I sent inquiries off to five, and promptly received four rejections. The fourth publisher was more encouraging. I like your writing style, she wrote back. However, we are a publisher of erotic romance and your book doesn’t have enough sex in it. If you decide to write an erotic novel, I hope you will consider us.

Sex? She wanted sex? Who can’t write about sex?

So I sat down for the next month and wrote a 95,000 word sexy romance—or what I hoped was a sexy romance. Until then, I’d never heard of erotic romance and had no idea what made a book erotic. I must have done all right because she accepted it and set me on the path I continued taking for the next sixteen years. In that time, I’ve written a variety of romance sub-genre, nearly all erotic. There have been space romps, ménage, paranormal, time travel, contemporary and historical, and one non-erotic novel. I write using three pen names: Dee S. Knight, Anne Krist, and Jenna Stewart.

I have to admit, I’ve enjoyed these years of writing, though getting the books on paper (or disk or whatever) hasn’t always been as easy as it started. At times, beating my head against the wall would have been more fun than getting words out. I started one book, Passionate Destiny, in February, and by October swore that if I didn’t have it finished by Thanksgiving, I’d toss it out. Fortunately, I completed it a week before then and sent it off. It became a Top Pick in Romantic Times magazine. Other books—some easy and others more difficult—have won awards from RWA (Romance Writers of America) chapter contests. I’ve been lucky enough to win the prestigious Maggie award from Georgia Romance Writers, and most recently, Only a Good Man Will Do, won Best Erotic Romance of 2019 by the Las Vegas Romance Writers.

It’s humbling to submit your work to someone else to review and judge, but submitting to contests is something I would suggest to writers. Unless you simply want to write for yourself or your family, you have to let others read your work eventually. Contest judges critique the entries and make suggestions, helping you grow.

Another suggestion I’d make is to consider online publishing. When I started, my goal was to get in with New York publishers, to have an agent and to see my books on bookshelves. It was a big disappointment to learn that bookstores will not consider print-on-demand for their books, and back then, success with an ePublisher wasn’t considered worthy by NYC publishers. It took years for ePublishing to get its act together and prove their editing and authors were not only good enough but in some cases excelled over the print world. Now, I’m happy with ePublishing and the advantages it offers—excellent cover art and more say in the cover, excellent editing and some back and forth in what is accepted, and faster publication.

I would suggest for novices to publish through a publisher before giving into the temptation of self-publishing. With opportunities like Amazon and Draft2Digital, it’s easy to put your ideas into electronic format and sell to the world. But working through a publisher first means you see the great advantage of working with an editor and cover artist. Those things are very worthwhile and will help shape the kind of work you present to readers. It’s like walking before running. I was with publishers until very recently, and each taught me something new.

I haven’t written thousands of books, but I have written a few. So, if I were to give any advice to beginning writers it would be:

• Writing takes discipline. This is something I wish I’d understood early on. Set aside some time for writing a bit every day.
• Write every day, and keep on writing. You think that taking a break is okay and that writing again will be easy. It isn’t. Take it from me.
• Don’t second guess yourself by thinking others are better than you. They aren’t. They’re different from you, but that doesn’t make them better. Believe me and my experience, and don’t talk yourself out of writing because you think you can’t write XYZ better than another author. Be your own voice.
• Learn to self-edit before submitting your work to publishers or agents or contests. One of the best ways to do this is to read your work out loud. Believe me, if I can read my sex scenes out loud and not die of embarrassment, you can read what you’ve written. It doesn’t have to be in front of anyone, just so you hear the words as they are on the page and not in your head.
• Learn the craft of writing. When I wrote my first several books I had no idea what point of view was, or conflict, or internal/external goals. I just wrote. But once you know all that stuff, your books will be better.
• If you can find a critique partner, it’s a good idea. But, find someone who will be honest and not just nice, someone who will support you and not knock you down, someone who respects you and your work. That isn’t easy to find, but when you do, you’ll see how invaluable such a person is. If you join a group, make sure it’s not too large or you’ll be spending all your time trying to sift through contradictory comments to find what’s right. Trust me, when it comes to critiquing someone else’s work, everyone has an opinion.
• As I said earlier, enter a few contests. Not all of them cost a lot of money and the feedback is worthwhile.
• Don’t give up your day job. Treat writing as a business (instead of a hobby) but don’t expect for it to pay as a business. Not right away, anyway.
• Write. Always write. The only way you learn how to do it and do it well is to do it.
• Develop writing habits. If you have good habits, it will help your writing. If you have bad habits, you’ll spend a lot of time redoing your work.

Thanks, Robin, for letting me share!

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Thank you, Dee. I enjoy meeting authors who write in genres other than my own. I find it difficult to write love scenes in my novels, let alone erotic romance scenes, so maybe I should get a few pointers from you!

I agree with your advice for new authors. Authors today have many publishing options, but they are not all good choices, and too many scam artists prey on those eager to publish their first book. Do your homework before you sign a contract.

In my next post, I plan to write more about Dee’s advice for authors and offer a few tips of my own. Dee has inspired me!

Robin Barefield is the author of four Alaska wilderness mystery novels, Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, and The Fisherman’s Daughter, and Karluk Bones. You are invited to watch her webinar about how she became an author and why she writes Alaska wilderness mysteries. Also, sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska, and listen to her podcast, Murder and Mystery in the Last Frontier.

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