Today's Special - - Lenora Bell

PJ here.  Remember how I mentioned in a recent RWA blog about how you meet the nicest people in the hotel bar at romance conferences? Today, it's my pleasure to introduce to you a lovely woman I met when I stopped to chat with Tessa Dare in the hotel bar at July's RWA National Conference in San Antonio.  She's smart, engaging, an accomplished writer and this year's Golden Heart® Award winner for historical romance. And she has great taste in shoes!  As her official bio says:

Lenora Bell writes fun, sensual Regency-set romance novels that feature strong, sexy heroes who can only be reformed by the most extraordinary heroines.  
           

Past careers include sultry lounge singer, vintage store owner, and, far less romantically, salmon cannery grunt.

Lenora has lived and worked on five continents and currently shares a home in Bolivia with her carpenter husband, cranky twenty-one-year-old cat, and precarious piles of books.


Connect with Lenora online at Facebook, Twitter and her Blog.

I'm looking forward to the day when I can welcome her here as a published author. Today, I've asked her to share with us her writing journey to this point.  Please give a warm welcome to 2014 Golden Heart® Award winning writer, Lenora Bell!  

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What do you dream about in the dark? When your mind roams free from the day’s tether, and you can be anything, do anything?

I dream about my name curving over chiseled abs or flowing satin on the cover of a historical romance novel.

I’ve scribbled romance plots on cocktail napkins and grocery receipts the world over. Australia, France, China, Vietnam, Thailand, Bolivia. The constant in my shifting world is this crazy dream. Someday. Someday my books will be on the shelves in my tiny Alaskan hometown library.

There’s not much to do except read during those long, dark Alaskan winters. I fell in love with Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, Luisa May Alcott, Virginia Woolf, Anaïs Nin. But it wasn’t until 2005 that I read my first mainstream romance novel, Eloisa James’ Potent Pleasures. I devoured it in one night and I was hooked. 

I immediately started writing my own historical romance. I pounded out three hundred pages...of complete drivel. Seriously. She was a squeaky-clean missionary’s daughter dragged into the seamy underworld of 1890’s Shanghai by a bad boy opium trader. Unfortunately, the star-crossed lovers didn’t meet until page 60. And there was not even a hint of romance until page 100.

The next year I entered the Avon Fan Lit online writing contest and met Tessa Dare and Courtney Milan and a group of other supportive writers who were passionate about romance. We became friends and critique partners. I’ve followed their supernova careers with so much happiness and pride, celebrating each new success and adoring every book. Have you read Courtney’s latest, The Suffragette Scandal? Talk about the perfect combination of smart and sexy. She blows me away every time.

I left romance writing to pursue a master’s degree and start a new career that took me overseas. But every now and then, Courtney or Tessa would ask me when I was going to start writing romance again. It’s because of their gentle nudges, encouragement, and inspiration that I finally worked up the courage to enter a book in RWA’s Golden Heart contest.

I thought of the title CHARLENE AND THE DUCHESS FACTORY before I started writing. It popped into my mind while I was thumbing through Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I thought, hmm…this is kind of like a romance novel plot--a rich, successful, powerful guy who needs an heir to his empire. What if I wrote a novel about a duke who invites a group of ladies to his estate to compete for his title? Sort of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory meets The Bachelor. It felt right.

Later, while my husband was cheering on his Green Bay Packers, I started writing romance again. Clay Matthews’ biceps might have had something to do with it. Anyway, that was the start of what became my Golden Heart winning manuscript.

When I found out I was a finalist, I didn’t think I’d be able to go to the conference in Texas because I was working in Bolivia. But then one of my best friends planned her wedding in Alaska the week before the conference. So I could justify the trip because of the wedding. Romance all around! I went to my favorite Brazilian shoe store and found a pair of red sparkly golden heart shoes that turned out to be my good luck charm, and a great conversation starter in the elevators.

I was utterly shocked when my face appeared on the screen at the awards ceremony. I had honestly never considered winning. I thought there were too many talented writers in my category. You can see from the photos that I have that lemur-caught-on-camera look. I was stunned, saucer-eyed, overwhelmed. 

RWA’s Golden Heart contest is an unmatched opportunity for unpublished romance writers. Nothing can guarantee you success in the romance business, but the Golden Heart final helps ensure that your pitch is heard by agents and your manuscript floats to the top of slush piles. It’s a big part of the reason I connected with my amazing agent, Alexandra Machinist with ICM Partners.

Wait, what? I have an agent? I still can’t believe this is my life right now. 

I am one step closer to my dream.

And that’s really all you can do. Open your heart to inspiration. Surround yourself with support and love. Solder words into sentences, and then fuse those sentences into pages.

Put one foot in front of the other.

And keep dreaming.

So, what’s your secret or not-so-secret dream?

Have you ever found the absolute perfect pair of shoes for an occasion and loved them so much it was almost kind of weird?

How much do you adore Courtney Milan and Tessa Dare? I know, right? Other favorite historical authors?

I’ve created a little Bolivian gift basket that I’d love to share with a randomly chosen commenter. It includes a box of yummy organic Bolivian chocolates, a cute fuzzy llama, a colorful woven basket, and a small purse made from Bolivian fabric and leather. (open internationally)

Hugs!

Lenora