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Published by Heart of Iowa Fiction Authors
Region 2, Chapter #135
April 2009
WELCOME
Welcome to the April 2009 edition of Heart
of Iowa, the monthly newsletter published
by the Heart of Iowa Fiction Authors!
A big thanks to Cindy Kirk traveling to our
March 2009 meeting and presenting her
wonderful workshop "The Selling Synopsis".
Check out Cindy's newest
release, Claiming the
Rancher's Heart, a would
Silhouette Special Edition
release.
For more information, visit
Cindy on her website,
www.cindykirk.com.
OLD NEWS
2009 RWA CONFERENCE
Conference Bound? Register by May 31st
for the early member registration fee of
$425 ($500 for non-members). Registration
information is available on the RWA website
at www.rwanational.org.
This year's conference will be held in
Washington D.C. and will feature such
exciting speakers as Janet Evanovich,
Linda Howard, and Eloisa James.
MARK YOUR CALENDAR!
Our meeting in May will be on the 16th, and
we will be making the trek to Des. Moines,
where we will visit our sister chapter, Iowa
Romance Novelists. If we have enough
interest, we may plan an overnight
"brainstorming" session. Mark your
calendar and plan on joining us for a chance
to meet other aspiring authors!
March 2009 1 www.hifarwa.org
MEETING PREVIEW
April 2009
CARRIE LOFTY
"Snakebite Scenes and Hollywood Plots:
Adding Emotional Action to Romance."
This month HIFA
like to
welcome Carrie
Lofty! She'll share
plotting strategies
as well as
meaningful ways to
draw the hero and
heroine together in
a way that forces
intimacy, creates a shared history, and
brings their budding relationship into
focus. These "snakebite scenes" can be
found in almost any romance, but
they're most effective in action-oriented
stories where a good jolt to the system
helps the hero and heroine realize what
they mean to each other.
Carrie Lofty was born in California, raised
in the Midwest, and found the love of her life
in England. She earned her master’s in
history with a thesis on Old West outlaws
.What a Scoundrel Wants, the hot,
adventurous tale of Will Scarlet and his
dangerous lady love, was a December 2008
Zebra Debut, and Scoundrel’s Kiss, the
sequel featuring a Spanish warrior monk
and an opium addict, will follow in January
2010. www.carrielofty.com
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Published by Heart of Iowa Fiction Authors
Region 2, Chapter #135
April 2009

NEW RELEASES
CONTEST RESULTS

"And Then There was Wildfire by Roxanne Rustand is a 2009 Write

One" Touch Reader's Award Finalist! Way to go Rox!

by Take No Prisoners by Cindy Gerard is a 2009

RITA Finalist! Congratulations Cindy!
Bura Randolph
Freeman Are you entering contests? Please keep us
and apprised of your contest entry results! We love
Mary Freeman Boardman to boast about our members!

Available on www.amazon.com 2009 Program Schedule

Below is the anticipated program schedule

for 2009. Stay tuned for any changes or
"Night and Day" additions to the schedule. It's a year full of
talented authors and exciting programs you
by won't want to miss!

Sherri Hansen
Jaunuary 24th - Cindy Gerard

February 28th - Lois Greiman

Available on www.amazon.com "Beyond the Honeymoon"

UPCOMING RELEASES March 28th -Cindy Kirk/

"The Selling Synopsis"
May 2009
April 25th - Carrie Lofty
Deadly Competition - Roxanne Rustand
June 2009 May 16th - Trip to Des Moines I.R.N
Colorado Secrets - Jacquie Greenfield
July 2009 June 27th - Jacquie Greenfield &
Terms of Attraction - Kylie Brant Pamela Nissen
August 2009
Save the Last Dance - Roxanne Rustand July 25th - Michele Dunaway
September 2009 "Channeling Your Inner Superwoman"
Waking Nightmare - Kylie Brant
Final Exposure - Roxanne Rustand August 22nd - Kylie Brant
October 2009
September 26th - Leigh Michaels
Waking Evil - Kylie Brant
Feel the Heat - Cindy Gerard October - Roxanne Rustand
November 2009
Waking the Dead - Kylie Brant

March 2009 2 www.hifarwa.org

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Published by Heart of Iowa Fiction Authors
Region 2, Chapter #135
April 2009

Jan and Jen's Excellent Adventure

Part Two: "Onward and Upward"
By Jan Schliesman, HIFA V.P.

There are two ways you can look at the creative
endeavors of our mutual admiration society. You
either acknowledge our blatant attempts at filling
space in the monthly newsletter or you believe our
warped sense of humor and creativity will
eventually lead us to great fame and fortune.
Don’t ruin our fun and voice your opinion quite yet
because we are just getting warmed up☺
Last fall after the October meeting, Jen
and I decided to team up and hold each other
accountable for our writing. The best way to do
this (for us) was to pick a contest with a realistic
deadline that wouldn’t send either one of us into
freak-out mode. Jen was a contest virgin and I
hadn’t entered a contest in almost five years so it
was a good starting point for both of us.
The GOTCHA contest offered three
critiques on your first fifteen pages for $25 and I
think the deadline was around Thanksgiving. We
spent a couple weeks shooting pages back and
forth to each other, trying to provide useful
comments up until the final day. Then the entries
were gone and the holidays were upon us. We
both got a little side-tracked and suddenly the end
of January was upon us. Jen remembered the
GOTCHA results were supposed to be announced
soon and I came home to a phone message
saying I had placed in the contest.
We shared our contest critiques with each
other and tried to pin down our judges comments
into three categories: valid, possibly true and
simply ridiculous. At first it was easy to strongly
dislike the meanest judge on both our entries.
She either had an ax to grind or hated all of
humanity and would probably kick kittens out of
moving cars and brag about it. What kind of nasty
person would choose to judge a contest and then
be so harsh to our fragile egos? We were
incensed.
But a few weeks later, after we had time
to stop taking the criticism personally, things
began to make more sense. What if the mean
judge knew what she was talking about? What if
she wasn’t a whack job out to destroy all of our
positive plans with her negativity? What if she
was right?
We flipped to a clean sheet of paper and
wrote from the assumption that the worst
comments were the most valid. This meant
different things to each of our stories. Jen got
many comments about her heroine being too
needy and unrealistic. She re-wrote the first
chapter and created the character the judges
expected to read about and boom…her story took
on a new direction.
I got a lot of comments about my overuse
of ellipses (…) and words ending in –ly. At the
end of my first chapter I also had my heroine
giving up her gun just because the hero asked her
to. Easy enough to fix with a couple comments
like “fat chance” or “you first”. Of course it’s not
PERFECT and it’s not ever gonna be perfect, but
it was BETTER. And I finally realized getting a
little bit better is a great goal.
And speaking of goals, when was the last
time you had one? It takes effort to track your
progress and hold yourself accountable in any
endeavor. But writing is a beast with fangs that
takes some taming. And Jen is a lot braver than I
am.
I entered a couple contests and got icky
feedback and never wrote a word for TWO
YEARS! Jen entered a contest, got icky feedback
and got over it! (Maybe she drinks heavily when
I’m not looking…)
I wrote a few manuscripts, got rejections
from a couple agents and convinced myself to
hide everything in a file cabinet. Jen wrote a
manuscript and sent it straight to an editor! How
brave is that? She also makes me accountable
when it would be a hell of a lot easier to fall back
into an old routine.
So, onward and upward with our mutual
admiration society. You’ve got to aim high if you
want to reach your goals, and Jen and I are
headed to the top!
Jan Schliesman is the Vice President of HIFA and a
2009 finalist in the GOTCHA! Contest.

March 2009 3 www.hifarwa.org

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Published by Heart of Iowa Fiction Authors
Region 2, Chapter #135
April 2009

A Writer's Core
by Carrie Lofty

I am obsessed with “So You
Think You Can Dance,” where raw,
enthusiastic dancers get their shot at
achieving their personal best under
intense circumstances. I even go so far
as to watch the versions from other
countries. Only two weeks until the
Australian finale!
See? Completely obsessed.
But my interest doesn’t
necessarily stem from my background.
Although I was a bellydancer and
competed in amateur college ballroom
competitions, I love watching those
dancers progress as artists. They work
hard, put their hearts into every
performance, and battle inner demons.
A dancer who messes up a step will
dwell on that fault much more intently
than on any applause or praise.
Sound familiar?
Even if you can’t tell your pas de
deux from your samba, you know, as a
writer, what that creative struggle feels
like. We try to progress and learn and
appeal to the market, while also
remaining true to that ever-elusive
“voice” that makes us unique. But we
also tend to dwell on the negatives,
which does us no favors when trying to
craft beautiful happily ever afters!
We as authors must develop a
strong core. This term is used in dance
and fitness to indicate a well-developed
core of abdominal muscles, from which
most movement originates. Core
strength is essential to control,
endurance and the craft of dance, but
the same idea can be applied to writers.
Without a central core of self-belief and
a strong sense of our worth as
storytellers, we can be pummeled by
negative reviews, harsh comments, yet
another rejection, unsupportive family
members or friends, or any number of
mean inner whispers that say we should
never try again. Those of us who can
mature a strong core of self-confidence
and worth will persevere against untold
trials and become successful, no matter
our personal definitions of success.
Geez, I sound clichéd…and that
isn’t my self-doubt talking. Go to any
conference and you’ll hear a
motivational “I’ve been in your shoes”
speaker who recounts her trials,
successes, and struggles against doubt.
My personal favorite was Sherilyn
Kenyon as the PRO speaker at
Nationals in 2007. She tells a mean
story—complete with a happy ending, of
course—and I was in tears by the
conclusion. The point remains that we
say these things to each other because
they’re true, and because we need to
protect each other from the rigors of a
business that is, after all, based around
two incompatible things: money and art.
One way you can strengthen your
core belief in yourself is to identify what
triggers the most stress and what works
to relieve it. What makes your doubts
swell to ten times their normal size, and
what can you do get back to creating?
Personally, I’ve discovered that waiting
is the most damaging. We wait for

March 2009 4 www.hifarwa.org

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Published by Heart of Iowa Fiction Authors
Region 2, Chapter #135
April 2009

feedback, wait for The Call, wait for
news about a contest or a new contract.
It’s exhausting! The more time between
successes, the more time I’m able to
dwell on those negative demons. Maybe
I’m not good enough! Maybe my agent
or editor is ready to drop me. Maybe my
idea is too pedestrian or, on the other
end of the spectrum, too “out there.”
And what if—that ultimate horror—I’m
just not good enough?
But like a dancer who keeps her
core muscles strong and ready for
anything, the only balm for all these
doubts is to keep working. Keep flexing
those creative muscles. Draw support
from your cheering section, because
really, every writer needs a group of no-
holds-barred girlfriends who’ll be there
in times of despair and uncertainty. And
this may seem counter-intuitive, but take
a few days off if the stress gets too
overwhelming. I tend to watch TV just
long enough to get bored out of my
skull. Then the ideas start pounding,
demanding to be let out, and I’m back at
a keyboard. The solution is to keep
working, keep dreaming, and keep
strengthening that core belief in your
worth as a storyteller.
Speaking of TV, I’m going to go
watch the SYTYCD Australia Top 8
results. I need help….
Carrie Lofty was born in California,
raised in the Midwest, and found the
love of her life in England. She earned
her master’s in history with a thesis on
Old West outlaws .What a Scoundrel
Wants, the hot, adventurous tale of Will
Scarlet and his dangerous lady love,
was a December 2008 Zebra Debut,
and Scoundrel’s Kiss, the sequel
featuring a Spanish warrior monk and
an opium addict, will follow in January
2010. www.carrielofty.com

MAY CONTEST DEADLINES

Deadline: May 1
Golden Acorn - $25 entry fee, sponsored by the Charter Oak RWA
Golden Claddagh - $25/$20 entry fee, sponsored by Celtic Hearts RWA
Maggie -$20 entry fee, sponsored by the Georgia RWA
TARA - $20/$25, sponsored by the Tampa Area RWA
International Self Published Book Awards - $100 fee, sponsored by Writer's Digest
Summer Sizzle - $20, sponsored by the Ohio Valley RWA
Deadline: May 9
Ignite the Flame - $20/$25, sponsored by Central Ohio Fiction Writers
Deadline: May 15
Aspen Gold - $20-$35, sponsored by Heart of Denver RWA

Information taken from the website of Stephie Smith. For a complete listing of contest deadlines, entry
fees and entry requirements, visit: www.stephiesmith.com

March 2009 5 www.hifarwa.org

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Published by Heart of Iowa Fiction Authors
Region 2, Chapter #135
April 2009

ROMANCE WRITERS OF AMERICA HIFA MEETINGS

Romance Writers of America® Heart of Iowa Fiction Authors currently

National Headquarters meets the fourth Saturday of every month,
14615 Benfer Rd. with the exception of November and
Houston, TX 77069 December. Meetings are held at 10:30 a.m.
832/717-5200 Phone at:
832/717-5201 Fax The Longbranch Restaurant
info@rwanational.org 90 Twixt Town Rd. NE
www.rwanational.org Cedar Rapids, IA 52402

A national, non-profit corporation founded in An optional lunch buffet is available after the
1980 to encourage mutual support among meeting. The cost is $12 per person and
romance writers. Annual dues are US $110 for
includes tax.
the first year, $85 for renewals.
Joining HIFA
HIFA INFORMATION You must be a member in good standing
with National RWA to join the Heart of Iowa
Board of Directors 2009: Fiction Authors Chapter. Annual dues are
Roxanne Rustand, President rrustand@mchsi.com
$30.
Jan Schliesman, Vice President 319-358-9219
Jennifer Arnold, Secretary 319-754-1711 We welcome visitors, members, and their
Denise Lloyd-Lawrence, Treasurer 319-437-3451 guests.

Maggie Rivers, Webmistress ADDITIONAL NOTES

Email: Maggie@maggierivers.com

Jennifer Arnold, Newsletter Editor Dear Readers:

Email: arnold516@msn.com
Website
www.hifarwa.org
Newsletter
Submissions will be edited and published at
the discretion of the newsletter committee.
RWA chapters reprinting articles must give
credit to Heart of Iowa and the author. Non-
RWA groups or individuals are required to
secure permission from the author of any
article they wish to reprint. All information
contained in these pages is offered in good
faith. HIFA makes no warranties, expressed
or implied of any material offered herein.
In the words of Carrie Underwood at
this year's ACM Awards, "I got nuthin'". I
think my brain has been fried by jobs, kids,
in-laws and my always-on-the-back-burner
writing habit. I hope you are finding time in
your daily lives to continue your writing
quest, page by page, paragraph by
paragraph, and word by tedious word.
Oh, and while you're at it -
pray for spring, will ya?
Until next month!
Jennifer
HIFA Newsletter Editor

March 2009 6 www.hifarwa.org