This is Episode 8 of Write with Love and with Valentines Day coming up this week. I’d like to introduce you to 2017 Ruby award winner, Madeline Ash. Self-confessed introvert, Madeline writes sensitive, sexy contemporary romance.

Join my mailing list to receive a free preview of my book and lots of other inspiration.

If you like what you see you can become a patron for just a couple of dollars a month.http://Go to patreon.com/Sarahwilliamsauthor

Transcript:

Sarah Williams:            Today I’m talking to 2017 RUBY award-winner, Madeline Ash. Thanks for your time today, Madeline.

Madeline Ash:              Thanks, Sarah, it’s really exciting to be here.

Sarah Williams:            You write sensitive, sexy, contemporary romance.

Madeline Ash:              Yeah.

Sarah Williams:            Can you tell us about your journey to publication, please?

Madeline Ash:              Okay. Well, it’s been a bit of a long one, or it’s felt that way. Way back and uni I was studying professional writing, and the end of first year, we had a Mills & Boon romance author come in for a guest lecture. To date, we had learned non-fiction writing and short story fiction writing, but nothing about genre fiction. It was really engaging, and she was so passionate about the Mills & Boon category length, that I was just really intrigued, and I thought, “What a great way to learn story structure.” Because, at that point, I still had this vision of writing fantasy sagas. 200,000 word stories, and I had no idea how to start that.

Madeline Ash:              I thought what a much more digestible format, and word limit. I could start with a 50,000 word Mills & Boon novel, ’cause it sounded like so much fun, to learn how to create characters and how to plot, and all of the story basics that I would need to learn.

Madeline Ash:              I started writing my first Mills & Boon that year, and submitted it and got rejected. I was like, “Ah, I’d better try again.” And, then, I kept going, and after a few years I realized it wasn’t easy, just because it was shorter, there’s a lot to unpack, and a lot to learn in that length. Then, I was like, “That’s it, I’m gonna do this.” And I was hooked on romance, by that point. It had been a few years, so I joined Romance Writers of Australia, and I got a critique group, and I started doing online courses, and attending the conference, and sort of emerged myself in all of this information on how to write romance fully and completely.

Madeline Ash:              From some of that first lecture, six years on from that, I had written 12 manuscripts, ’cause I was working away at it, trying to not fizz out. I had every single one of those rejected by Mills & Boon in that time, as happened. But, by 2012 I had a full request, my first full manuscript request, which was then ultimately rejected, ’cause apparently it was too tragic.

Madeline Ash:              But, I disagreed with that, I’m like, “No, this is a really exciting story, and it’s not tragic, it’s got a lot of hope.” Then, I submitted that to Destiny Romance, which was Penguin Australia’s imprint at the time. And, within five days, they had accepted that for publication.

Sarah Williams:            Oh, wow.

Madeline Ash:              That was really exciting, and then following that, I had another two accepted by Destiny in a couple of years after that. And, then, I decided it would be really nice to try the American readership and the American market, and sort of expand a bit. ‘Cause I don’t write rural Australian books that are specifically tailored to the Australian market, or that specifically appeal to the Australian market.