About Romance Author
Cheryl St. John

As an author one of the most frequently asked questions I get is...How did you get started writing?

I've always written in one form or another. As a child I wrote stories, drew the covers, and stapled them into mini-books. My first rejection came at age fourteen when I submitted a romantic short story to Redbook Magazine. I still have the form rejection. I was crushed.

I wrote long hand off and on after that, occasionally typing a story on my Grandma St.John's manual typewriter. For years I pretty much dedicated myself to my family, and raised my four kids.

I used to read only horror, mystery and main stream novels, but I read a few Victoria Holts I'd received from the book club and found them appealing, yet somewhat unsatisfactory in some way I couldn't define at the time. On a whim one day, while browsing the store shelves, I bought Lisa Gregory's The Rainbow Season and LaVyrle Spencer's Hummingbird. Imagine that out of all the books available, I chose those two classic romances for my first taste of romance!

Needless to say, I was hooked from that day forward. I devoured everything either of those two authors ever wrote, and went on to Janelle Taylor, Jude Deveruaux, Johanna Lindsey, Francine Rivers, and Kathleen Woodiwiss.

When my youngest daughter went to Kindergarten, I was lost without her. In retrospect, it was empty nest syndrome, but instead of having another baby, which many women do, I decided it was time to write the novel that would launch me to stardom.

Yeah, right.

All The Tender Tomorrows and Soft Summer Magic are still on a shelf in my closet, along with a few others, and rightly so. Looking back on the manuscript preparation, the stories with no plot or conflict, and the volume of editors I sent them to is a humiliating, yet laughable experience. I can't believe I did that!

I wrote in a vacuum for years, reading how-to books from the library and sending stuff out to anyone in The Writer's Market whom I hadn't already pounced on.

My mom, who's always been my biggest fan, even when I was producing crap, clipped an article about Diane Wicker Davis from the newspaper. An Avon writer, she and her husband had recently been stationed nearby. Diane had started an RWA chapter. I was impressed.

But not in that league! So I continued on my solitary way.

Then one day in 1989, my brother, who is also a writer, brought me the Sunday paper with an article about another local writer from this RWA chapter. It took me weeks to get the courage to call that number. I was terrified that they'd all be professionals with college degrees, and here was little old me—clueless.

Well, I garnered all my bravado, attended a meeting, and discovered that though they were elementary teachers, criminal justice teachers, newspaper reporters, etc., that many were moms, and they were all "regular" people just like me.

Later, as the group grew and evolved, I served as program chairman, vice president, president, and PAN liaison of Romance Authors of the Heartland, the greatest bunch of writers you could ever hope to know. They've become my critique partners, my teachers, my mentors, and my supporters, but most of all, my friends.

With the networking in RWA, the teaching and guidance of my local chapter, and a terrific agent who took me on and believed in me, I sold my first book in 1992. Rain Shadow was released as part of Harlequin Historicals March Madness promotion in 1993, and my second book followed in October of that same year. After the sale of my third book, I quit the job I'd taken as a merchandising artist and started writing full time.

The second most asked question would be...Where do you get your ideas?

I always find this one of the silliest questions I've ever heard, and reply with a quip—that people take seriously!

"I subscribe to Idea Monthly."
They say, "Oh."

"I close myself in a dark closet, chant a mantra, and don't come out until a complete story has come to me."
"Oh."

"I remember everything everyone tells me and I use it."
"Oh."

"Little green men come to me and night and whisper plots in my ear."
"Oh."

Seriously, I have to wonder whether or not the people who ask that question have never had an original idea enter their heads? Writers get their ideas just like everyone else does. Ideas just come to you. As a writer, you learn to brainstorm and embellish on the original idea until it's plausible.

Many of my ideas come from hearing a song, watching a movie, reading a book, or from my research. Something will catch my attention, and I'll think "what if"? Then I play with the notion until I turn it into a story.

From the original concept, I develop the characters first. Exactly what kind of person will fit this role or this scene or this setting? Then I create the other lead character with built in conflict and an opposing goal.

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