C.J. Miller

My husband and I have sold the house we've lived in for the last eight year and we're looking for another house. I thought the selling process was difficult - keeping the house spotless, leaving at a moment's notice for house showings, and negotiating a contract. Finding our next house is proving challenging as well. We have a great real estate agent, but I'm having flashbacks to when I bought our first home. I think I repressed some of the memories because the process was so traumatic :) 1. Please don't call it a bedroom if it's really a closet. The ability to jam a camping cot inside a space does not suffice as a bedroom. If I can't fit a twin bed in it, it's not a bedroom. 2. Is it an unwritten rule that if it's a foreclosure or short sale, the previous owner must trash the house to the point that it is unlivable? What are they proving by ripping the front off the kitchen cabinets? Putting out cigarettes on the wall? Punching drywall? Kick...

I'm currently writing my 4th book under contract with Harlequin. When am I in a position to help other writers? After the 5th book? The 10th? I know more now than I did when I put fingers to keys six years ago and wrote my first romance novel. Do I have enough experience to advise someone else? Enough knowledge about the industry? Can I provide a critique of a query letter or of a chapter that another writer would find useful? And if I do reach out to help someone else, could I be putting myself in a difficult legal situation? I've heard of writers suing authors for ideas or breech of copyright, and while many of those cases are tossed out or the judgement sides with the author, I don't want to put myself and my wallet in a legal dispute. How to help? Post in the Harlequin Community and find out if anyone would like a free critique or for me to answer any questions about my publishing experiences? What do you think? What are the best ways to pay it forward?

I noticed today it's been over a month since my last blog post. That's not to say I haven't been hard at work. I have two books coming out this year from Harlequin Romantic Suspense : Shielding the Suspect (September 2012) and Protecting His Princess (November 2013). I've been working on revisions, line edits, and the front matter for those books. Those books will complete the Truman brothers miniseries. The Truman brothers are based on my brothers and it was so much fun to write about them. I'd love to write a blog post featuring my brothers, maybe do some Q&A about their reading habits and thoughts on romance. I'll have to run it by them! I can call it : 'My Sister is a Writer' series. Or maybe 'Real Life Alpha Males on Romance.'

I am an organic writer. On writing loops, some call it being a "panster." This means while I have a basic outline for my book (in my mind), sketches of my characters (on paper), and some idea about the beginning and end, most of the text between the first chapter and the last are formed as I write. This means I do a lot of revising, rewriting, and layering. I was given the opportunity to submit books to Harlequin Romantic Suspense on proposal. That is, I don't need to submit the full manuscript, synopsis, and query. I provide the first 50 pages and synopsis and HRS may purchase the book based on that. On the plus side, if the book isn't what they are looking for, I haven't spent the time writing 70,000 words. If the editor asks for revisions to the plot, I have a chance to write the story closer to what they'd like the first time and not rewrite it. In the long run, this should save me time. Writing on proposal was a challenge. I wrote the first hundre...

I have an amazing friend who is also a writer. As yet unpublished, I suspect from the quality of her work and the feedback she's received from editors and agents that it's a temporary situation. One of the things that makes her so amazing is that in spite of life's occasional medical problems, day job work concerns, and here-and-there family hiccups, she still writes. And she still writes great books. She writes in the car, she writes in a notebook, she writes, writes, writes. I won't out her identity on this blog. I have a feeling she would be embarrassed by all this praise, but she's absolutely a wonderful person to have in my life. What spurred this post? After all, I've known this person for many years. This week, after several back-and-forths with a publishing company over several months, she was given a rather... unprofessional... response from them. Details not important, her reaction was to say that the back-and-forth made the manuscript better a...

How I format my manuscripts for Harlequin Romantic Suspense in MS Word: 1. Margins: one inch on all four sides 2. Line spacing: double 3. Indentation: Special - first line, each paragraph starts indented 4. Under Paragraph, check the box for "Don't add space between paragraphs of the same style." 5. Font: Times New Roman 6. Font size: 12 7. Word count (as of 2/2013): between 70-75,000. This comes out to around 250 typed pages. 8. Header: Last Name / Title on the left, page number on the right. 9. Chapters: type the word chapter and the number centered on the page. No extra carriage return between the last paragraph of the previous chapter and the first paragraph of the current chapter. 10. Scene breaks: use # between scenes. No extra carriage return between the last paragraph of the previous scene and the first paragraph of the current scene. 11. Sentences: one space between sentences How I format my synopsis in Microsoft Word: 1. Margins: one inch on all ...

Since receiving a Kindle Paperwhite for Christmas, which I love and have been enjoying so much more than I thought I would, I am much crankier about e-book prices. I get irritated when I see a paperback version of a book (purchased new) is more expensive than the e-book. I have found I prefer to buy the e-book (thanks to my ever-growing family of readers, shelf space is at a premium around here) and when deciding between two books, I will choose the book I can get for the Kindle less expensively. I cannot be the only reader who feels this way. It makes me worry when I see my e-books listed at the same price or higher than the paperback version. I don't set the prices and I have no say in how my books are priced. But I think competitively pricing Harlequin e-book could help drive sales. FWIW.