My Weird, Wacky, and Sometimes Wild Ride to Publication

Hello, my name is Kathleen O'Reilly, and I'm a romance author.  Sigh.  It's a very weird feeling to say those words aloud.  I've been writing fiction for five years, and my "novels" were my secret that only a few people knew about.  Now that I'm about to be published (YAY!), I've officially outted myself. 

I'm a romance author.

When I was a kid, I read every romance novel in our school library, public library, and church library, many twice (especially the good parts J).  Everyone always said, "Kathleen, you're going to grow up and write "those novels".  I always laughed because I knew that romance authors didn't make any money and I wanted to be rich and drive a Porsche.

Somewhere along the way, I wrote two computer programming books (people said they were funny AND informative, high praise indeed for programming books) and I really liked being published.  Then I wanted to write a Visual Basic book, but well, the market was flooded with VB books, and I thought, "Hey, I'll write a romance novel!"

Famous last words.

For five years I read how-to books, read all the romance bestsellers (tough job, aye?) and started to write.  It was so much fun, and I was so bad.  Well, okay, I've never been an awful writer, but my first book was pretty purplish and very melodramatic (hey, the hero was just that kind of guy!).  And then my book was set in Russia.  I like to say that's the reason the editors passed.  It soothes my pride.

I had two wonderful critique partners who started writing romance about the same time I did.  Both had their first books published in 2000, and one hit the USA Today list this year.  Okay, it was intimidating as all get-out, but I was determined.  I may be slow, but I'll get there eventually.  Any author needs to have a positive outlook; this is not the business for those that are easily dissuaded or depressed.

I wrote another ½ book set in Russia before the marketability light-bulb dinged in my head.  I needed to write something that had a good chance of selling.  I abandoned my historicals and wrote a romantic comedy intended for Harlequin Duets.  Finally I could write with an American accent!  I loved the book and immediately shipped it off to Harlequin -- where it sat.  And then started writing another historical.  Set in England this time.  With a hero who studied dragons.  I loved Colin (I still love Colin), and I loved writing Touched By Fire.  (I don't know if you've noticed the trend or not, but I ALWAYS fall in love with my own books.  You can say I'm an egotist, but really somewhere I along the way I stop writing my books, and just let my characters live).  I won several contests with my manuscript and had a couple of editors request the manuscript, so I decided the next step (if I wanted to be published before my children graduated from college) was to FIND AN AGENT. 

I made my list of all the agents I wanted to query, and then I started at the bottom.  I know that's a little weird, but if my proposal stank, I didn't want to find that out with the one agent I really wanted.  I got a few rejections, polished my proposal a little bit more, and then queried my #1 Most Favored Choice of Agents Above All. 

God smiled, and she loved it.  We worked together for a few months, getting it ready for editors, and then, surprise, surprise -- Harlequin called.  They wanted to buy my romantic comedy.  My first romance novel was to be published.  And then, to make my year completely fantastic, I got a call a month later (it was actually 28 days and five hours later; I was counting J).  Jove wanted to buy my dragon-loving, woman-fearing hero of a historical.

Ah, now life is somewhat calmer -- NOT!  I've been learning about promotion; how much time, how much money, what is not for me.  I've written two more proposals that I'm hoping to sell this year, and I've invested in a chiffon robe trimmed with feathers.  (Gotcha!). 

All in all, the road to publication is a lot of hard work (much more determination than inspiration).  The odds of rejection are high, words of praise before you're published (except from your mother) are few and far between.  However, there are few words that I have more fun writing than,

Hello, my name is Kathleen O'Reilly, and I'm a romance author.