How long have you been writing books?

Cathy Lamb I wrote my first book, for Harlequin Presents, when I was 19. I wrote it from college, sent it off, and actually got a personalized, as opposed to a computerized, rejection slip telling me exactly what I had done wrong. Over the next years I wrote another four or five books for Harlequin, all rejected. The last rejection was brutal and I decided I could no longer go down that route, even though I had huge encouragement from a senior editor to send all my future work to her.

I wrote Julia's Chocolates, the book I really wanted to write, and it sold quickly.

Lesson: When you are banging your head against a publishing wall, in a certain genre, repeatedly, and you have tried and tried and tried to break into that genre, but can't, switch genres.

That's what I did and I'm now writing my ninth women's fiction novel and have written (ironically) six short, romantic novellas in anthologies with people like Fern Michaels, Lisa Jackson, and Debbie Macomber.

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