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No time to write a book? Nonsense. I’m a great believer in writing in the nooks and crannies of your life - in your lunch hour, while you’re waiting for a meeting to start, and in the half hour before bedtime.

You can write a book, no matter what other commitments you have.

Unfortunately, getting started is a challenge, especially with a novel. Often you’ll write 50 pages just to get the right “voice” or tone for the novel. Once you’ve found your voice, the novel bubbles out.

This article How to write a book really, really fast makes the point: “Participants are allowed to bring in a plot outline, but McLeod says he didn’t get mired in the details. His notes on character development consisted of little phrases: Leonard thinks about God. Leonard meets a girl. Leonard wonders if he is gay.

‘I knew if I could get the voice down for my character, the actual plot — getting him from place to place — would be fun,’ McLeod says. Fuelled by coffee and Rockstar Energy Drink, the spoken-word poet spent the entire first half of the first day on his novel’s opening paragraphs. Once he had turned 20 pages of free-flowing ideas into an opening stanza in a straightforward, slightly comical tone that he liked, the flood gates opened and the novel poured forth.”

So don’t believe that “I can’t write a book” if you take a while to find the right voice for the book. Finding the book’s tone is half the battle. If you want to write - do it.

Got an unpublished romance novel on your hard drive?

If you have, and you’re an unpublished novelist, you can enter Harlequin’s Instant Seduction Writing Competition and win your own editor for a year. I’m guessing that the editor will be your own private writing coach, so you can get your novel published by Harlequin.

Instant Seduction: Harlequin Presents Writing Competition! at I (Heart) Presents reports: “It’s an exciting time for Harlequin Presents: from January 2008, there will be 12 of our intensely passionate romances available every month.  And with this increase of titles comes a great opportunity for aspiring authors – we will be looking to buy more books for publication!

The old saying goes that first impressions are lasting impressions – and when it comes to reading a Harlequin Presents, that certainly holds true.  If the first chapter doesn’t immediately grip the reader with its pace, passion and intensity, then she won’t continue to turn the pages.”

Most novelist spend the entire time they’re writing praying to the gods for a great opening paragraph. That is, a hook which will entice readers to read on.

Their prayers were answered for these two writers.

Blonde Faith (WALTER MOSLEY)

It’s hard to get lost when you’re coming home from work. When you have a job, and a paycheck, the road is set right out in front of you: a paved highway with no exits except yours. There’s the parking lot, the grocery store, the kids’ school, the cleaner’s, the gas station, and then your front door.

The Fall of Troy (PETER ACKROYD)

He fell down heavily on his knees, took her hand and brought it up to his mouth. “I kiss the hand of the future Mrs. Obermann.” He spoke in English. Neither she nor her parents understood German, and he disliked speaking demotic Greek. He considered it vulgar.