Romy Sommer

Waking up in Vegas is complete! I collected my official winner's certificate on 27th November, which was just as well since this last weekend was manic and not another word got written. The best thing of all about this NaNo is that, though I wrote fairly slowly and didn't achieve the lofty word counts of some of my friends and team-mates, this first draft is quite a clean draft. Since I did a fair amount of planning in October, and then broke the cardinal rule of Nano by editing a little as I went along, the first 30k words are in good shape, and the task of editing that last 20k is not nearly as daunting as it could be. I cannot thank my Team Khara team mates and all the lovely people at Savvy Authors enough. They not only inspired me to keep going, but they made this NaNo the most fun I've had writing in a long time. Well done to all of you who finished NaNoWriMo 2012, and for those who didn't, I hope you at least have more words than you started the mon...

For the first time ever I get my own name on a book! The Minxes of Romance have released an anthology of eight scorching hot stories featuring the fire fighters of Coombethwaite. This book was a fun collaboration that started as one of those silly ideas that happen late at night, but which turned into something with a life all its own. Please, please buy a copy, read and review it. I guarantee that there is something for everyone in this book, from sweet to sensual to scorching, light and flirty to downright intense.  Blaze is available from Amazon and Amazon UK . Also on the good news front, I'd like to congratulate Jennifer Drogell for her So You Think You Can Write win. Well done, Jen, and I can't wait to buy my own copy of The Divorce Party .

Two of the blogs I follow have both had posts recently that dove-tailed together really well to remind me of just what inspired me to write my last two stories. Bob Mayer did a post on the kernel idea of every story, and Sue Moorcroft has also been running a series of guest posts about dreams to celebrate the release of her latest novel, Dream a Little Dream . The characters of my Nano novel, Waking up in Vegas, first came to me in a dream back in 2009 in which a Prince made a stirring coronation speech, and watching in the crowd was the great love of his life, a very ordinary young woman. Yes, very Prince & Me . Once Upon a Time , my previous book, also began as a dream, in which a young woman with a super rich Daddy works for a charity that occupies space in her father's building and who is very 'off' men as she is constantly being hit on by men who only want her for her Daddy's money and favour. The story changed a good deal from there, but the charact...

I'm guesting over at the RNA blog today. Please stop by and say "hello". We're half way through Nanowrimo and I've reached the halfway point in Waking up in Vegas . I'd love to be further along, but really, what with a day job and kids, I should apreciate how far I've come in such a short time! The best thing for me about #Nanowrimo 2012 is the help I got up front from the Entangled Press editors. Having a clear idea of the story, the characters, and their conflicts and motivations before I even started has not only prevented me from going wildly off track as I have in previous years, but it's also kept my interest and motivation up. Because I know where I'm going, I'm not staring at a blank page and freaking out. I'd like to thank my team-mates on the Entangled Smackdown. You ladies motivate me, and I won't let you down. Also, to all the ROSA Bootcampers - your friendly support of each other is so inspiring, and some of thos...

Freda Lightfoot , bestselling author of family sagas and historical romances, invited me to take part in a blog event entitled THE NEXT BIG THING - a series of questions and answers about what’s happening next in my writing life. The Next Big Thing  What is the title of your book? An Innocent Abroad , which went on sale yesterday! How did you come by the idea?  This novella started life as a single scene: a young woman standing at a window, looking out through a curtain of rain at an Italian landscape. The scene is still in there, though the landscape became a seascape. What genre does your book fall under? Historical Romance Which actors would you choose to play your characters if it were a movie? Ooh, this is a hard one, and I don't really know.  Isobel is blonde and blue-eyed, and very young, sweet and innocent. Stefano is a little older, rugged, typically Italian and swoon-worthy. Perhaps my blog readers could offer up suggestions? W...

In the build up to Nanowrimo, we had a discussion on the South African romance writers' Yahoo loop about opening scenes and the use of prologues. At least one member admitted to skipping prologues completely. I tend to read them, but then I read everything, even the fine print on cereal boxes. Which is probably why I wear glasses. The discussion reminded me of the one prologue that was not only well worth reading, but a must read. Two friends independently recommended the book to me, and both also commented on the prologue, so of course, I had to read it. The book is Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase. It's the only time a prologue moved me to tears. It gives the back story in a way that hooks you in so completely you cannot put the book down. Don't believe me? Download the sample chapter from Amazon and see for yourself. While I do like a good prologue, don't get me started on epilogues. If the book ends with hero and heroine a year later cooing down at t...

Since this has become a discussion among both the Entangled Smackdown and Minxy groups, I thought today I'd clear up the difference between tropes and archetypes. A trope is a concept, while an archetype relates more to character. So as an example, 'Reformed Rake' might be the trope, while 'Bad Boy' would be the archetype. A cop or sheik might be an archetype, but their story could be any from the lengthy list of tropes , for example, Boy Next Door or Stranded. And this is exactly why I think the romance genre will never be boring or formulaic. There are endless combinations of characters, settings, conflicts and tropes, so every story is different from the one before. Add in the author's own voice and no two stories are ever really the same. However, just as a trope can head into cliché territory if not handled properly, so weak writing can turn an archetype into a stereotype. The line between the two is thin, but very clear. An archetype is a universa...