This week LUV's spotlighting Harlequin Presents author Amanda Cinelli! LUV: When did you know you wanted to be a writer? How did you embark on the journey to publication? Do you have any suggestions for others who want to write romance? Amanda: From a very young age, my parents believed I would end up as a fashion designer when I grew up because I had sketchbooks filled with fancy models in ball gowns. I was midway into a truly disastrous second year of a fashion design degree when I admitted to myself that it just wasn't my calling. It took me a few years of searching (and job hopping) to realise that the joy I'd found in my childhood sketches had always been in coming up with fancy names and jobs and stories for the characters that I created. I had always been an avid reader and creative writing was one of the few parts of school I enjoyed next to Art and Music. Romance was my favourite genre and like most readers, I always had those moments of - hey, I could write one of these! But it wasn't until I was twenty-one that I first considered taking a stab at writing an entire novel for real. That first book was really an exercise in learning what not to do, but I wrote fifty thousand words in thirty days (as part of *NaNoWriMo) and felt pretty darn good about myself! Sometime over the next year I began to target Harlequin and came up with the idea that would go on to become my first published novel, RESISTING THE SICILIAN PLAYBOY, a story about an uptight Irish wedding planner and the devilish Italian nightclub owner who is determined to unravel all of her control. I learned of a competition called So You Think You Can Write through the then-infamous Harlequin boards, polished up my first chapter, typed up a snappy blurb and entered. But when a real-life editor e-mailed me and asked to see the full manuscript, I panicked. The story wasn't written and I was busy planning a wedding of my very own, so I took a break to get married and have my first child. It wasn't until late 2014, when I was at home with my baby daughter and a pretty bad case of postpartum depression, that I randomly decided to enter again on a last-minute whim. Imagine my shock when I finalled and WON. It was a very unconventional path to publication, but one that I think was very suited to me and my anxious brain. There was no time to overthink during the mad dash to finish the manuscript for the competition, only pure adrenaline and panic! My advice to aspiring writers would be to not spend too much time researching and plotting and overthinking. Writing is like an apprenticeship. Sometimes you just need to roll up your sleeves and be ready to make a lot of mistakes in those first few years. What matters is that you learn from those mistakes and hone your craft bit by bit. Whether that is through self-editing and reflection or by finding a trusted place to get feedback on your work. Fear has always been my biggest enemy and I find that by admitting the first draft of an idea is going to be pretty rough, I can give myself permission to relax and figure it out as I go. *Editor’s Note-NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month happening every November. Check out https://nanowrimo.org/

Posted by LUV Team at 2023-04-17 19:00:47 UTC