Deborah Cooke: Author

Today my guest is Monica Burns. I’ve known Monica for ages, through RWA Online, even before she was published. So, I’ve been very excited to witness her success since her first sale – and wow, do I respect how hard she works. It’s a treat to have her come and visit today, especially as Monica is always doing (roughly) ten thousand things.

Please welcome Monica!

My Passion

Before I start with the post, I’d like to thank Deb for asking me to visit her blog. I consider her a mentor, and she is always ready to answer any question I ask about the business, which for someone who’s still clueless is a godsend. I’m sure everyone here knows she’s an incredible lady, but I just wanted to emphasis my admiration for her work, her industry knowledge and generosity in sharing. Now that I’ve made her cyber-blush, on with the post.

Everyone has a passion. Mine is writing. I’ve been writing since I was nine-years-old. At least that’s the first time I can remember actually writing something that I saved. I had these spiral-bound notebooks I wrote my romance stories in. I’ve always written romance, I’m not sure I could ever write something that didn’t have a romance element to it. Like I said it’s a passion.

Following one’s heart is not always an easy thing to do. When I was in high school, I told my mother that I wanted to submit a story I’d written. Her response was “be prepared for the pink slip,” pink slip meaning a rejection letter. I know now that my mother wasn’t telling me not to submit, she was simply trying to prepare me for the rejection letter(s) every writer gets, but I didn’t realize that at the age of sixteen. I thought she was saying I wasn’t good enough to be a writer, even though she’d not read any of my work. So I never sent off that short story. I don’t even remember what I did with it.

Fast forward a couple of years, and I was in the U.S. Army’s recruiting office. I wanted to be a journalist for their newspaper the Stars and Stripes. After a personality test, they told me I couldn’t be a journalist because my personality was too “excitable.” Once again, someone told me that I couldn’t write, and I listened. Interestingly enough, my “excitable” personality was just right for being a nuclear warhead technician. Umm…can we just say the recruiter wasn’t too bright? Do you really want an “excitable” person around a nuclear warhead? *banging head on desk*

Several years later, while I was in my mid-twenties, I wrote my first full-length novel and sent it off to Harlequin. I was convinced of my brilliance and certain they would snatch me up. About eight weeks after I mailed off the manuscript. It came back with a Dear Writer letter. I was devastated. Here was that rejection letter my mom had warned me about. Certain I wasn’t capable of achieving my dream, I put the manuscript away and accepted my fate.

But you see, a passion never dies. It simmers beneath the surface, and in 1990 before my first daughter was born, I tried again. I submitted another book I’d written to Love Swept. I waited on pins and needles before that manuscript also received the usual form letter rejection. At this point, I knew I was just barking up the wrong tree, and I threw myself into motherhood. After all, that’s a good passion to have, but always in the back of my mind there were stories spinning their way through the cobwebs of the doors I’d closed with ever rejection.

So in 1994 I started writing a new book, a time travel this time. I wasn’t even a quarter of a way into the book when my mother developed leukemia. I’d just returned to college, and as she was three hours away, I spent most of my time working the day job, attending night school, studying when I had a free minute and drive six hours round trip every weekend to spend a lot of time in the hospital with my mom where I studied while she slept. While driving back and forth from Richmond to Roanoke, I would plot out my book on a hand-held tape recorder. Still, life just got to be too much to handle, and when my mom died, I buried my passion. I figured it just wasn’t in the cards for me to write another book.

Then in 2002 I developed pneumonia, and I was out of work for two months. After the first couple of weeks at home, I got bored with the little there was to watch on over 200 TV channels. Desperate for something to do (I get bored easily), I started cruising the internet. In doing so, I stumbled upon a couple of writer sites and the passion that had been buried in the rubble of my life stirred. I discovered a romance writing community online that I never knew existed. The more I interacted with the group, the more my passion for writing pushed its way up from the darkest recesses of my mind. I found other like-minded individuals, and for the first time in my life I had a connection to others who loved romance just as much as I do.

My passion for writing grew stronger like a fire slowly taking hold on a piece of wood. Setbacks were numerous. Rejection letters would make the flame die then the embers of determination ignited the flame once more. Then in 2005 I contracted my first story with New Concepts Publishing. From that point forward my publishing journey has only strengthened my passion for what I do.

Come next Tuesday, I will see my twelfth book released. Inferno’s Kiss, the third book in my Order of the Sicari series is aptly name when I think about this post. My passion for writing is like an inferno. It consumes me every day, and if I’m not writing, I’m not happy. There are still mountains to climb, but my passion has seen me through this far, I know it’ll help me scale the next peak along my path.

So, what do you love? Is there something you want to do, but just haven’t had anyone tell you to reach for the brass ring? Tell me what your passion is.

***

Thanks Monica – and yes, you did make me blush with your kind words! Before we get to comments, let me add the info here about Monica’s next book, and how you can find her online – then you can all leap in to answer her question.

Inferno’s Kiss by Monica Burns
Book 3 in The Order of the Sicari series
Penguin/Berkley
ISBN – 978-0425243145

The laws of desire…

Dante Condellaire, heir apparent to the Sicari Lords, knows that being a true leader means sacrifice. For Dante it was relinquishing all erotic pleasures. But he never expected his willpower to be tested so fiercely by Cleopatra Vorenus, expert assassin of the Order, and daughter of the man he is positioned to succeed.

The rules of battle…

Cleo prefers working alone—until she meets Dante who shares her goal: to destroy a Praetorian stronghold where Sicari women are imprisoned for devious purposes. Bringing the mission off without a hitch pumps up more than their resolve. It sets off a sexual spark too combustible to ignore.

Are all made to be broken.

As their attraction flares like an inferno, the stakes are raised. So are the risks. Before the mission is over, Dante and Cleo will be plunged into a dangerous conspiracy where a traitor threatens the very foundation of the Order, as well as the fiery bond between Dante and Cleo—warriors and lovers now torn between duty and desire.

And you can find Monica online in all these places:

Website – http://www.monicaburns.com

Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/AuthorMonicaBurns

Twitter – http://twitter.com/MonicaBurns

Blog – http://monicaburns.blogspot.com/

Now, tell Monica about your passion!