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From Her Ottumwa Home, Leigh Michaels Spins Romance for a World of Readers
His lips brushed ever so casually against her temple, and Kit jumped as if she'd collided with a high-voltage wire. Her foot landed in a puddle of spilled soda and slipped out from under her, and wildly she tried to regain her balance.
Instantly Jarrett's arm curved around her, warm and solid and supportive. "Careful! You never know whose lap you might end up in around here."
"Thanks," Kit managed to say. Idiot, she told herself. You're acting as if he meant to kiss you!
-- The Billionaire Date
It's 2:00 a.m. on a dark moonlit night, and a woman is sitting in front of a typewriter precariously balanced on a coffee table. "I know this is working," she whispers, as she types the last word of her seventh attempt at a romance novel.
The first attempt was unceremoniously burned when the author was at the tender age of 15. Five other manuscripts over the next ten years suffered the same demise. But eventually, on that fateful moonlit night, The Grand Hotel--Leigh Michaels' first romance novel published by Harlequin--was born.
Let's jump to the present and visit with Michaels, one of Harlequin's best-selling authors, who has already completed an extraordinary number of contemporary romances--59 to be exact. Five of her novels have been finalists for Best Traditional Romance Novel of the Year in the RITA contest sponsored annually by the Romance Writers of America. One of her novels, Family Secrets, received a reviewers' choice award as best Harlequin Romance of 1994. And 15 of her books made the Waldenbooks Romance Best Seller List.
So, off we go to Ottumwa--that's right--Iowa. Now why would a fantastically successful author of such colorful and dramatic works live in a small Iowa town? For love, of course. Her husband lives there. Besides, she says, it's a good place for a writer. She doesn't need to deal with traffic, or waste time getting around in a huge sprawling metropolis. "I love this," she says about commuting ten feet to her computer. It keeps her down-to-earth, and it offers her the blessings of small town life.
The Romantic Midwest
All of Michaels' stories are based in the Midwest, either in existing cities or in fictional small towns with the characteristics and feel of the Midwest. She says that novels set here are very popular with international readers. Why? Perhaps it's because it's the least highlighted area of the country to foreigners, she says, and so adds to their curiosity. Her novels have sold more than 25 million copies worldwide in 600 editions. Her work has been translated and published in 120 countries in 24 languages--so far.
What are all these readers getting in a Leigh Michaels romance? A "sweet traditional," says the author. Her works "focus on the feeling aspect of romance and close the bedroom door." She says that this leaves the rest for the reader's imagination. "It allows her to fill in the blanks and get what she wants out of it, which is far more effective and enjoyable for readers."
Piecing the Puzzle Together
So what is it like to be a fabulously successful romance writer who can churn out four books a year for her countless loyal fans? "People may think it's glamorous, and that you get this brilliant notion in the middle of the night--and that by morning, it's all written--but it doesn't work that way," she says. "Writing a book is like working a 10,000-piece jigsaw puzzle because you can't do it all in one sitting. You have to figure things out--and if you put one piece in wrong, it affects everything else. Fortunately, I like jigsaw puzzles."
This romance writer is a lover of the game. Her romantic tryst is with the puzzle at hand. She says she would be writing stories whether someone paid her or not. And she writes romances because she "loves love stories and happy endings."
"It's a way I can work in a format that I love and also have the benefit of a worldwide organization that's distributing my work," she says.
The Itch to Write
For her, writing is an impulse that cannot be denied. "There's always another story, and I couldn't let it not be written," she says, adding, "Writers write!" In fact, she avows that if she doesn't write for a few months, it drives her crazy. On a long-needed two-month vacation to London (her only one in the last 15 years), she couldn't help herself from at least keeping a journal of travels.
But who needs a vacation when you're living the life you love? For Leigh, this means writing--and writing every day. "When I'm working on a book--it's every day, seven days a week at your computer, even 24 days in a row sometimes." She loves the flexibility of making her own schedule. "It really is a dream to not have the nine-to-five routine--not to have to punch the time clock. It requires self-discipline because there's nobody checking up on me--my editor's 6,000 miles away in London."
Unlike most other authors, Leigh finishes the entire novel first, and then gets feedback from her editor. And, in fact, on her last seven books, her editor simply said, "I love it," and no revisions were even necessary.
It's not surprising when you consider her past achievements, such as earning her B.A. degree from Drake University after only three years--while maintaining a 3.93 grade-point average--and receiving the Robert Bliss Award as top-ranking senior in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, and even winning a national William Randolph Hearst Award for feature writing as an undergraduate.
She's smart--and she's driven, writing four novels a year. Her first draft takes about four to five weeks. She leaves it for a few days, and then goes back for revisions. Between novels, this romance writer takes care of business matters, such as the huge stack of mail that always looms before her. She also answers fan mail (each and every one), works on her newsletters, articles, columns, and puts on her teaching cap. She teaches an annual summer workshop on the romance novel at the University of Iowa, and teaches at her local community college regularly.
Writer's Block
But she admits that even when she's in the writing mode, there are days when passion wanes and writer's block waxes. And even a wildly successful writer will say to herself, "Why am I doing this? Characters won't cooperate, the story feels like it's going nowhere!" But Michaels says that it always works itself out. And for the most part, her characters do cooperate, especially since all her heroes are based on her husband, whom Michaels asserts is quick-witted, lively, and charming.
She remembers one of those trying days, when she went out to lunch with her husband and told him, "This book is going nowhere . . . I don't like it--it's not a romance, and I think I'll burn it!" Her husband just rolled his eyes--he'd heard it all before. By about four o'clock that same afternoon Leigh had worked it out.
It's a Wonderful Life
This is the adventure that this romance novelist lives: "One day after another of putting a story together and seeing what these characters are going to do--and sometimes they even surprise me," Michaels says, declaring she wouldn't do what some of her heroines have done, being fairly conservative by comparison.
And at 43, this young-looking author says that what has touched her so deeply, what has affected her self-image so positively, is knowing that the stories that are so important to her are also important to other people. It's getting letters from fans thanking her for helping them in some way, or even just thanking her for taking them along on her fabulous adventures.
So let the romance continue with The Billionaire Date, The Playboy Assignment, and The Husband Project. The first two books from her new trilogy are already out, and the concluding book just came out in May.
