Mary A. Castillo Think romance author and...

Mary A. Castillo

Think romance author and I bet the picture that springs to mind is

a big-haired, pouty-lipped femme fatale who travels in limousines and

haunts the habitats of the nouveau riche for literary inspiration.

Hold that thought for a reality check.

Romance novelists Debbie Macomber and Laura Wright don’t sip

martinis at Hollywood watering holes for inspiration. Macomber

invites her readers to share recipes with her online “frequent eaters

club.” Wright, a first-time novelist, drives herself.

Both will join authors Jill Marie Landis, Charlene Sands and

Jeanette Baker to take part in an afternoon tea and book signing from

2 to 4 p.m. Tuesday at New and Recycled Romances in Costa Mesa.

The road to selling a book -- much less signing one -- is one

traveled by the stubbornly determined who brave rejection letters and

scathing reviews. They do it for the love of writing fiction for

women.

“Almost anything is easier than being a writer,” admitted Wright,

author of “Cinderella and the Playboy” and a former ballroom dance

instructor. “But the hard stuff is where the big rewards come from.”

Wright began her writing career four years ago when she took a

writing class at UCLA. She admits that first manuscript, an ode to

her literary idols Victoria Holt and Jude Devereaux, contained every

Gothic romance trick from the creepy housekeeper to the brooding

hero.

“That first manuscript got all those cliches out of my system so I

could develop my own voice,” she said.

Sticking to a schedule in which she wrote seven days a week,

Wright produced several manuscripts before she caught the attention

of Silhouette Desire’s senior editor, Joan Marlow Golan. Although

Golan passed on the manuscript Wright initially submitted, she asked

what else she had. Just like that, Wright sold “Cinderella” -- her

third completed manuscript -- and found herself behind the

book-signing table for the first time in July.

“I have a big schedule for the next couple of years,” she said.

Her second book, “Hearts are Wild” is slated for an October release,

and in December the first of her Fiery Tales series will hit the

shelves.

Wright is also proud that she sold six books in her first year,

beating Macomber’s record.

The two authors befriended each other at a conference last year

when Wright invited Macomber for a drink and plied her with

questions.

“I’m using Debbie’s career for a model of my own,” Wright said.

“Like Debbie, I want readers to feel like my books and characters are

part of their lives.”

Although Macomber has more than 60 million copies of her books in

print and has seen her name on the best-seller lists, she can vividly

remember “the call.”

“The first call was Sept. 29 at 4:39 p.m.,” she recalls. “I said

four words: Hello. Yes. Thank you. Good-bye. I had to call [the

editor] the next day and ask if she really called because I thought I

had dreamed it.”

The dream of being a writer had been a fragile one that Macomber

nursed in spite of being told in the third grade that she’d never be

a good student.

“I grew up in a time when we didn’t even have a word for

dyslexia,” she said. “I never told anyone that I wanted to be a

writer because I couldn’t hear why I couldn’t do it.”

But Macomber’s hesitation ended in 1978, when her cousin, David,

died of leukemia.

“God was saying to me that I couldn’t push that dream into the

future,” she said. “Up till then I always said I’d do it after the

kids [were] grown up.”

Macomber, then a full-time mother of four and a lover of Harlequin

romance novels, rented a typewriter and wrote at the kitchen table

while her husband and children were at work and school. Five years

and 4 1/2 manuscripts later, she made her first sale to Silhouette.

She wrote four more books on that typewriter until the “s” key died.

In total, Macomber published 79 category romances for Harlequin

and Silhouette. But in 1998, she took a turn in her career, focusing

on women’s fiction.

“As I’ve grown older and my children are grown and married, I

found that I had a hard time writing about 25-year-old heroines,” she

said.

Although she had been one of romance’s biggest stars, her readers

responded overwhelmingly to the new direction in her career. But

Macomber maintained that she is not abandoning her roots in romance.

In addition to “204 Rosewood Lane,” the second book in her Cedar

Grove series and a hardcover, “Between Friends,” which was released

in June, she will release a Christmas-themed romance and a category

romance.

“When I die I will have a book in progress,” she said. “I’m just

getting good.”