My last decade... began with a flop!

I’d always wanted to be a novelist. And ten years ago it looked like that would finally happen.

But then my first novel (a humorous work of women's fiction) got great reviews, and then died a fiery death at the bookstore.

Then my publisher said "you're dead to us."  So that was fun.

My next book failed to sell to any publisher at all. I still can't read the acknowledgments page of any novel in women's fiction without finding the name of an editor who rejected me. (Hi girls!)

But ten years is a long time. I switched to romance just because I thought I could do a good job at it. I submitted it under a ridiculous pen name that KJ Dell'Antonia picked out. (She said "your stripper name is your first pet plus the street you grew up on.") That pseudonym got thrown away before publication, obviously. 

"It sounds really fake," said my editor at HQN. Gosh, really? :)

But that book took off. As did the next one.

So the second half of the decade was completely transformed. I hit the USA Today bestseller's list 13 times. Four of those were last year. 

The moral of this story: It takes a while to find your stride. Sparkle on, author friends!

*

P.S. for all of you who are asking! That stripper name was Daisy Belfast.