Our special series profiling members of the Romantic Novelists' Association continues.


Great Writing: What inspires you to write?

Eileen Ramsay: I'm not quite sure. Sometimes it's a place - its sheer beauty - or it's a building that catches my interest. I find myself asking questions about it. Who lived in this building? Who loved or hated in it? At other times it's music for as Aldous Huxley said, After silence that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is Music. And as someone who lived in California for many years and now hungers for sunshine I find that the sun on my back can inspire me!

GW: What is it about the romance genre that appeals?

ER: That's very simple. Every living creature wants love; most, I hope, are created in love. I like the depth and width of the genre. There is nothing wrong with a simple love story, far from it, but the books I like to write and the books I love to read, have the romantic interest as only one strand in the thick rope of the plots. There must be more, other relationships, causes and effects.

GW: How do you manage to stay fresh in a genre that is to some extent formulaic?

ER: Firstly I don't agree with the perceived fact that romance is formulaic. If it is, isn't crime, isn't thriller? Romance - boy meets girl, boy eventually carries her off into the sunset - possibly on a white charger. Crime- man murdered - enter sleuth - discovers killer, possibly with a little romantic interest along the way - all ends well. Thriller, ditto. Rather simplified but fairly accurate and so why is romance formulaic and the others not?

But to answer your question seriously - I am trying to take my readers where they have never gone before, into a world that gives me enormous pleasure and so I want it for others. I want to make the arts accessible. To avoid the tag - formulaic, I change the structure of each novel. In Someday, Somewhere I wrote alternating chapters, in A Way of Forgiving the back-story came through in small snippets at the beginning of each chapter, and in the just-published The Stuff of Dreams the back story is told mostly in dreams. The manuscript I have just delivered to my editor has no back-story at all and so I could say I do not write to a formula.

Some critics might say the books are predictable but they miss the point. Who loves whom is not, to me, the most important part of the story. I am much more interested in how and why they are the people they have become.

GW: What is your writing routine? Are you disciplined in your work? How do
you prevent 'real life' from intruding?

ER: I am disciplined and I work very hard but I'm trying these days, as my husband says, to work smart. That means that I don't allow myself to feel guilty if I am not in my office.

As a rule I work every day, attempting to do a nine to five but that doesn't always work and so I will work occasionally in the evenings, but I prefer the mornings when I'm fresher. I want real life to intervene; my family and my friends are very important to me, a meal shared with my husband, a wander round the garden with a cup of tea, emails from and to my sons, all these are real. On the other hand I do have a husband who works at home and who obligingly always answers the telephone.

GW: Tell us the story of how you got your first novel published.

ER: Luck. I had brought a finished novel back with me from the States. The first few chapters had been seen by an American editor who thought it would ‘go' and so when - again by luck, I found an agent, I sent her the manuscript. She liked it but said no one in Britain was publishing Regency Romance. She suggested I try something else and I wrote a few ghastly ‘black' novels, which I showed no one. Then my agent phoned one day, saying that she had met - at a party - an American editor who was actively seeking Regencies. I sent it off and she took it. Sheer chance - it does happen.

GW: There's a certain preconception that certain kinds of romance novels are 'easy' to write. What would you say to that?

ER: Try writing one!

In my early twenties I read lots of Mills and Boon novels and like many conceited new writers thought ‘this is so easy, so formulaic. I'll write them and make a fortune.' I tried and was rejected.  By that time the Regency had been published and my agent suggested the Saga and so I wrote those for a while and they're not easy either.

GW: Are there any story themes or styles that appear more commercial or
easier to sell to a publisher?

ER: I don't think so. I've been writing a long time and have asked this question - especially when I was Secretary of the Society of Authors in Scotland - of many agents and editors who all said the same thing.  ‘I want a good book, a well-written story.'

In other words write from the heart. The head needs to be there too, of course, but write with passion and conviction and make the editor say ‘Wow.' Then you'll sell.

GW: Does writing romance novels pay the bills? What would you say to someone who intends to quit their job and write full-time?

ER: It does for me but I have been unbelievably lucky. One of my earlier books brought me in the princely sum of £1000. That did not go far. I was overwhelmed to have Someday Somewhere wanted by more than one publisher and so, for the first time, in almost thirty years of writing, I can more than survive on my advances.

I would never recommend that anyone give up paid employment in order to write unless they have a partner who is earning. Writing a good book is difficult enough without adding the stress of wondering how to pay the electricity bill or the rent.

GW: How important is getting an agent?

ER: I can only speak for myself here. My agent has literally changed my life. She recognised a good story in a manuscript that needed work and she has the ability to turn lights on in my head so that I am able to see where I can improve. Besides that she's enormously intuitively encouraging. For instance, although we'd only spoken a few times, she rang me just after 9/11 to see how I was feeling. I lived and taught in Washington DC and, like many others, I was devastated and very much appreciated her call.

On a lighter note, agents get better contracts that writers get on their own. Remember the £1000!!!

GW: How important is self-publicity?

ER: This is a difficult one but in this day and age, self-publicity is necessary. It doesn't sit well with my psychological profile - I would prefer to sit at home and write but as one agent told me years ago, there is only a certain amount of money that publishers have available for publicity and every year more and more writers want some of it.

I have a website, I know a wonderfully creative printer in Dundee who makes me bookmarks, postcards and bookplates. I won't stand on anyone else's head to be noticed but I do belong to the Romantic Novelists Association and in fact wish I'd joined it years ago and so I go to conferences, meetings etc. There is a certain amount of self-publicity in that. I ask myself, ‘Am I doing this or that in order to interest another reader?' You can tie yourself in knots with self-probing but I've decided, yes, I hope to sell a few books but mainly I'm there for the joy of friendship. Besides there's always someone at an RNA meeting who knows the answer to the obscure question that's been bugging the WIP.

GW: What are your do's and don'ts in writing a romance?

ER: Golly - what presumption!

I would say - don't write something because it's flavour of the month. Write the story you want to write even if it's seen as unfashionable. Don't copy. By that I mean don't think, So and So is fantastic, I'm going to write a So and So. Sorry, only they can do that. Write your own book as well as only you possibly can.

GW: What's the most important thing you've learned about writing for publication?

ER: I don't even have to think about this one. Never to give up, to believe in what I'm doing because I'm constantly honing my skills by working hard, listening to others, reading good books in all genres. It took me five years to sell Someday, Somewhere and I almost despaired but I went on, found an agent who believed in me, and now that book was not only short listed for the RNA award but is on the bestseller list in Germany. Not bad for a novel that several knowledgeable people told me could not be sold.


Eileen Ramsay's books, including The Stuff of Dreams are available pretty much everywhere. For more information on Eileen's life and work, or just to get a freebie bookplate, you can always visit her website.

For more information about the Romantic Novelists' Association, and for details of upcoming events (including the Commercial Women's Fiction workshop in October) visit the RNA website.