Glenburn novelist advises aspiring writers to ‘get out’

BANGOR – If you’ve written a book and want to find a publisher, “Get out of Maine and educate yourself about the publishing business. You have to go where [agents and publishers] are buying and selling books.”

That’s the advice romance novel writer Janet Chapman of Glenburn gave an audience of 20 at Bangor Public Library recently. Her talk was part of January’s Bangor Reads series of events.

“When you read,” she said, “you want to be transported to another place. You want to leave yourself behind. A well-written book doesn’t jar the reader out of the dream of the book.”

Chapman’s first book, “Charming the Highlander,” is now in its fifth printing.

“I know I’m moving on up the writing food chain,” she joked. “On my latest book [‘Dangerous Protector,’ which will be out in May] the cover has my name embossed with silver foil.” On her previous books, her name simply appears in print on the cover.

A graduate of St. John’s School and John Bapst High School, both in Bangor, Chapman did not aspire to write.

“I hated writing. I never wanted to write,” she said. “I preferred to read.” That preference, she believes, gave her an innate sense for how books are written. But in the fall of 1993, “a switch turned on in my head and it came to me that I could write a book.”

And that’s exactly what she did. “I have no idea where the story came from,” she said. “I think I was looking for something to read so I wrote my own book.” She since has come to believe that her characters and stories “come out of the universe.”

In fact, she wrote two books that first year. Eventually she wrote 10 books, but did not submit them for publication. The manuscripts are still stacked up in a closet of her writing studio where she works each day.

“I still did not think of myself as a writer,” she said.

What turned that attitude around was membership in Romance Writers of America, an organization of romance novelists and those who aspire to write romance novels. She began attending the organization’s meetings in New York and going to writing workshops in Cincinnati.

“I kept thinking, they are all crazy people down there. I don’t stand a chance,” she said. But at the romance writers’ gatherings she was thrown into the company of star-quality romance novel writers such as Nora Roberts.

In the last few years, as a result of tapping into the networking opportunities afforded to romance writers, Chapman has gone from “a housewife who hid her writing for 17 years” to being a full-fledged writer of seven romance novels published by Pocketbook. She has a contract for four more.

When she begins a book, Chapman said, she asks herself three questions:

. Who are these people [the characters]?

. What do they want?

. How do they plan to get what they want?

“At that point logic mixes with imagination and the book gets written,” she said.

Her final bit of advice to those aspiring to write and get published was down-to-earth and practical: “Don’t spend all your time learning how to write a book,” she said. “Write it.”

To learn more about Janet Chapman and her writing, visit www.janetchapman.com.