Ellen Hartman

A few years ago at the Romance Writers of America convention, Harlequin gave out the convention bags. They have pictures of Harlequin covers on them, including some vintage books. I love my bag. Anyway, I noticed a hockey book on the Harlequin bag. I looked it up online and now have in my hot little hands a copy of Rink Rat  (copyright 1951). As a Harlequin author who wrote a hockey dad book, I was intrigued. I have to share a few tidbits. 1. From the back cover: Look behind the scenes of professional hockey...into the dressing rooms. Okay. What? Really? I'm so in for that. (Except, I've been in the car with a hockey bag before and I really believe a hockey locker room must...well...reek. Maybe that's why we're just looking and not actually going behind the scenes.) 2. More from the back cover: Why did the young man from the back streets of a prairie town fight his way to the very top and then...but that's the story. Back cover copy is a bit less obvious t...

Here is an excerpt from my hockey dad book, Calling the Shots . It's coming in October 2010 from Harlequin Superromance! There are purchase links on my website . -------------------- Bryan was beyond late. He’d missed Allie’s entire practice. He just hoped she was still at the rink. He’d texted her that he was going to be late, but she hadn’t replied. His sister, who watched Allie when he was gone, wasn’t picking up either. Not good. So not good. People weren’t almost an hour late to pick their thirteen-year-old kids up from hockey. At least not people who were good at being parents. He was going to have to arrange a backup plan for the nights he was coming in from out of town. One more arrangement he needed to get under control in this whole precarious mess he and Allie were calling a family. He sure as hell hoped Erin’s new life was worth it. He pulled into the drop off circle at the front of the rink. It was past nine o’clock—no one was going to complain if he left the Lexus the...

One thing writers love to talk about is process . What’s your process? Do you use charts or worksheets? Outlines? Do you wing it or do you have a plan? What kind of highlighters? Do you edit on screen or on paper? Do you collage or fill out character sheets or let it come to you during the book? I can answer all of those questions about my process. I like to think I’m a fairly orderly, organized, and prepared writer. Except, once I hit a certain point in a book, the entire process goes out the window and the one word left to describe what I’m doing is desperation . Will I ever be able to finish? Will this pile of nothing turn into something someone wants to read? Will my editor ask for the advance back? How many times can the word “just” possibly appear in a manuscript? Who typed this thing? Who thought this was a good idea for a book? How is this ever going to end? Am I really out of M&M’s again? Etc. I thought it might be fun to share some pictures of what my “process” looked lik...