Robyn Rychards - Tougher Than You Think

Please welcome Robyn Rychards to the blog today! I really enjoyed Her Knight in Shining Armour - great characters and an intriguing plot line!

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Most authors’ journeys to publication are a long, winding, rocky road.  I know

mine was.  Therefore we have a love/hate relationship with writing because the journey to finishing the book is just as difficult as publishing it.  Anyone who gets published must have a good amount of grit, guts and tenacity.

We start off writing as children because it’s fun, little knowing where the road will take us.  For some the road is a short one and ends when life becomes busy.  But there are those of us who have stories running through our heads at the strangest times.  A few of those stories become imbedded in our brain where they grow and grow and grow until they are screaming to get out.  Really, to a certain degree, we have no choice but to be a writer.  We HAVE to tell those stories so they will just SHUT UP. 

My first full-length novel was that way, and it is still a work in progress that I am determined will be published someday.  My debut, Her Man From Shilo was a story that started with a dream.  I wrote about half a chapter before life (read children, etc. here) got in the way of my being able to write for quite a while.  It didn’t stop Daimee and Raff from telling me their story though.  For over a decade I imagined them in different scenes until life gave me a chance to get it out of my head and onto virtual paper.  Since it was in my head so long, it will most likely be the easiest (relatively speaking of course) book I’ve ever written.

After receiving such positive feedback from those who read it, including some people I didn’t know, I decided to put my toe back in the ‘let’s-get-published’ sea.  It wasn’t my first foray into these deep, dark, scary waters, so I was familiar with the sting of rejection and willing to take the risk again.  Which helps you appreciate the kind of breed we authors are.  We are willing to take a painful shot to the heart when a publisher tells us they don’t want our book and throw ourselves back in the shark-infested waters ready to get chewed up again.  I wanted to be published by Harlequin SO BAD I was willing to put myself out there again and again.  And willing to wait an eternity to get those rejection letters.  And willing to rewrite, rework, redo my story until one glorious day I got a letter from Kate Cuthbert at Harlequin Escape that said ‘We would like to publish your book’.  We writers may live a lot of our life in our imaginations, but we are tougher than you think on the inside.      

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Her Knight In Shining Armour

She may not need a knight in shining armour to save her, but that doesn’t mean she’s going to look a gift knight in the visor...

Paisley doesn’t need a knight in shining armour to rescue her from her high-powered, abusive ex-husband. She’s got it covered on her own: she's changed her name, liquidated her assets, and has a plan to disappear in the Rocky Mountain National Park.

Psychiatrist Sterling James has absolutely no intention of being anyone’s saviour. The only woman he has any time for is his sister. But circumstances change when Sterling finds Paisley in an unexpected and life-threatening situation. Brought in to the drama of her escape, Sterling finds himself invested, and he can't move on until he knows Paisley is going to be safe.

It should be a simple enough exercise to get Paisley out of the park and into her new life. But nothing is ever as simple as it should be, and Sterling soon discovers that even if her ex-husband buys the set-up, he might not be able to watch Paisley go...

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Robyn Rychards

Robyn Rychards grew up in the granola bowl of the United States, Boulder Colorado, a town filled with fruits, flakes and nuts. She considers herself a Jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none and has taught herself to sew, paint, play the piano, garden, cook, the list goes on. But now that her books are published, she’s thrilled to finally be considered a master of one. At least as much as a person can be, for the learning never really stops.

She feels her active imagination is a blessing and a curse, with the blessing far outweighing the curse since it has led her to fulfil her dream of writing for Harlequin. Robyn started writing stories when she was a teenager because she didn’t have enough books to read. Sometimes she finds it hard to believe that people are willing to pay her to do something she enjoys so much, but mostly she’s happy to have such a wonderful excuse not to cook and clean. And a job that means you can stay in your jammies as long as you want? Priceless. 

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How about you? Has this publication journey made you tougher than you were?