If you absolutely have to make a living and you need to do it right now, writing romance novels or anything else may not be a good career choice. You may actually need a day job while you toil away on your masterpiece in your off-hours. If you feel you’re a writer stuck in the body of an administrative assistant, you can set aside time each day to write.

Do you want to write in your spare time but find yourself putting it off? I’m as good a procrastinator as anyone. Probably better than most. I can always think of things to do to avoid writing. Dumb things, like reorganizing a drawer or polishing silver that I’m never going to use. It took me an embarrassing number of years to figure out a way around that. I made a promise to myself that I would write 1,000 words a day. It’s surprisingly easy, for me, at least. At just 1,000 words a day, I could write a novella in a month and a novel or a screenplay in a few months.

Do you kind of feel like you might want to be a writer? It’s probably never going to happen because it takes tenacity, unless you’re going to be the only person to read your writing. And you’ll need to grow a thick skin. All of us in the creative arts—writing, music, acting—face a lot of rejection. At best, it’s somewhat encouraging although a turndown. At worse, rejections can be indifferent or even nasty.

But writers today have advantages over scribes of days gone by. Think about what it was like to write romance novels before the Internet. Research now is at your fingertips, shortening the process immensely. Research? You mean you can’t just use your imagination to write a book? You can if you know what people wore in the 1500s and what they ate. And what the roads were made of, and who the important people were and what holidays they celebrated and where they bought their shoes.

Good writing takes time. But you can’t just sit there and wait for inspiration. If it can’t be your 9 to 5 job, think of it as your second job. And it helps if you feel compelled to do it.

Most fiction writers know a good story needs conflict. Without conflict, the story lies flat on the page, lifeless. Romance writers most often make the conflict between the male and female protagonists. This is harder than it sounds, at least to make the conflict believable.

My pet peeve when it comes to romance novels is a story in which the female lead rejects a handsome, wealthy, humorous, thoughtful man because of some trumped-up reason. Another man broke her heart years ago. Or she can’t possibly get involved because her younger siblings need her. Or, unbeknownst to him, her mother was a courtesan. Please. No woman in her right mind would continually rebuff a borderline perfect man.

To enjoy a novel, we must suspend our disbelief, as they say. For the time it takes to read this story, I am going to believe that a handsome, wealthy duke will choose a lonely wallflower. I am never going to believe that any woman with half a brain would not want a handsome, wealthy, humorous, thoughtful man. Never gonna happen, at least not on my watch. My belief cannot be suspended that far.

Another conflict that bugs me involves women who are too prissy or righteous. I realize they’re going to mature and grow throughout the story, but if I can’t stand them at the beginning, I don’t want to read the book. I only have so many minutes left in my life, and I’m not going to use them reading something that bugs me. The best romance novels, to my mind, are the ones in which the conflict occurs between two intelligent, witty, strong people. No wimps allowed.

Another approach is to make the conflict be against our intelligent couple. They may be fighting the evil stepmother or the outlaw seeking revenge. This type of conflict can heighten interest because it involves bullets, poison, swordplay or other action.

To review, you want your conflict to be believable. The conflict isn’t supposed to be between you and the book you’re reading.

When personal computers first came out, I jumped on the bandwagon and bought one. I remember my dad watching a news show on TV around that time and asking me what “Windows” was. I had no idea. Back then, if I had any problem with the computer, I knew it was my fault. Now, while I have eight or ten windows open at a time, I know when I have difficulty with my computer, it’s usually the computer’s fault.

Over the years my outlook on my writing has also changed. I once took more stock in what others said about my writing than what I believed about it. Now I have the strength of my convictions. I know what I like and I write what I like. I don’t like everything I read, so I don’t expect everyone to like what I write. But that doesn’t make me like it any less. I have my own unique voice, and if you don’t like it, go read something else.

That doesn’t mean I can’t benefit from observations or advice from an astute editor or reader. I send all my ebooks to my oldest friend Chris, who walked to school with me starting in the first grade. She’s one of the smartest people I know and has always been wise beyond her years. She’s also a voracious reader and fearlessly blunt in her opinions. Call me opinionated myself, but I have much more faith in evaluations by an intelligent, avid reader than by a 25-year-old publishing house assistant editor who scans 20 manuscripts a day.