The 2012 Annual Conference for Romance Writers of America has just wrapped up, and I think it’s pretty much true a good time was had by all. This, to me, is remarkable.

Take 2000-plus, articulate, talented, determined women, put them essentially in competition with each other for very scarce publication resources, add some alcohol (some is a relative term), sleep deprivation, travel hassles, and awards-ceremony tension. Toss in the zipper that sticks just before a pitch session, the room key that won’t work, and the crises at home that MUST pop up when Mom or Wife goes AWOL for more than a day, and…

You get one of the nicest gatherings of any professional association I’ve ever attended. I put off attending any writers’ conference at all until I had nearly two dozen completed manuscripts. I dreaded giving up any of my precious unstructured time to a gathering I was certain would be a cross between Survivor and Sorority Carnivores From Outer Space.

I could not have been more wrong. Maybe I’ve spent too much time around litigating attorneys, maybe I don’t understand my own gender; more likely, romance writers are a culture unique on the planet. They believe in true love, they believe the big prize is a chance to live a life based on honor and integrity, they believe in an abundant universe despite any and all evidence to the contrary.

I was nominated for a RITA award this year, which went to the very talented and gracious Tessa Dare. She deserves it–she deserves several RITAs, come to that–but being nominated made me ponder what I’d say to my professional community if I had their attention for ninety seconds.

I’d say what every award winner said when it was her turn in the spotlight: Thank you. Thank you for being such a supportive, adult, generous, constructive group of people. Thank you for offering a sense of community, regardless of our differences. Thank you for writing all those wonderful books, because the world needs happily ever  afters and the people who believe in them.

OK. Now, over to you. You have the microphone, the spotlight’s on you. If you could tell your immediate community anything, if you could focus their attention in any direction, what would you say?

To one commenter, I’ll send a signed copy of Joanna Bourne’s RITA award winning historical romance, The Black Hawk.

Once upon an earlier time, I took an interest in Family Systems Theory. How do families work and what happens when they don’t? How are families the same from culture to culture, how are they different? The topic is absorbing, and even if you started life in a basket surrounded by wolves on a hillside, you have issues about family (or the lack thereof).

In the middle of this preoccupation, I also took an interest in the emotion of anger, partly for its universality. In every culture, there are expressions of anger, some subtle, some violent, some humorous and everything in between. Then too, anger is a handy tool. It connects us and distances us at the same time. The object of your anger, be it a person, ideology, trauma, or parking ticket, exerts great sway over you, even as you wrap yourself up in the righteous conviction that you would NEVER pass a law that lame, act like such a jerk, or otherwise resemble the object of your ire in any way whatsoever.

Some people excel at using anger as fuel. They steam around on the strength of resentments, old wounds, and seething fantasies of revenge and power. Take their anger away and their identities would collapse—countries can function this way too, of course. If you don’t know what you stand for, you can generally avoid the hard, scary work of figuring it your identity by making a loud, messy business out what you’re know you’re against.

Personally, I’m not on keen on carrying around a lot of anger, though I understand it’s a useful emotion if properly dealt with. When I feel it getting a grip on me, I try to find some micro ritual for getting off the anger hamster wheel. A good book can figure prominently in that process, but so can cleaning off my desk, taking a load of novels to the women’s jail, talking to a good friend, or journaling.

As a writer, though, anger for my characters is good stuff—not because it leads to fight scenes. Oddly enough, as author and literary agent Donald Maass has pointed out, fight scenes (like intimate scenes) can be down right skip-able, particularly if they’re all action and no empathy. (For that and other brilliant writing insights, check out his “Writing the Breakout Novel” series.)

What I like about anger as an author, and have come to respect about it as a human, is that it generally disguises some more complicated emotion. The villain is angry at the hero, but if that villain is going to pull his share of the dramatic load, then as an author you’ll reveal that hurt, loss, powerlessness, and family honor (and perhaps a hint of egomania) are all fueling the Bad Guy’s dastardly plot.

Generally, if a character is acting, speaking, or reflecting angrily, we’ll soon catch a glimpse of shame, fear, exhaustion, bewilderment, or a more humanizing emotion at work. If the Regency heroine is ready to wallop the hero’s cheek for challenging some drunken lout to a duel over her honor, behind her fuming about men’s crack-brained arrogance, you will soon sense that she’s scared not of the ensuing scandal, but of losing her beloved.

Anger for the novelist points the way to the emotional minefields that make books so interesting to write—and hopefully to read.

Was there a time though, when you read a character who was angry, angry, angry, and that character just didn’t work for you? If so, was it because the underlying emotion never quite saw the light of day, or was there another writing flaw at work?

 My editor once observed that the heroes of my first three books are “so different.” Gayle Windham, The Earl of Westhaven, from “The Heir,” is a studious fellow with a legal bent, a man comfortable with management and the complexities of business. His older half-brother, Devlin St. Just, from “The Soldier,” excels at the equestrian arts, has little use for polite society, and loves the scent of freshly baked bread. Rounding out the trio is Valentine Windham, who by virtue of obsessive focus has perfected musical skill to the point where his book is titled, “The Virtuoso.”

At first I considered that their individual traits were simply large-family dynamics at work, where differentiation occurs because (in my opinion) parents can’t focus as closely on eight separate children the way they can one. Then too, if a child is competing for scarce parental attention, the child is more likely to hone individual strengths and even capitalize on weaknesses, the better to stand out from the crowd.

Then I looked more closely at the heroes I’d written: A consummate manager, a consummate equestrian, a consummate musician. Heaven help me, I’d written into these men three of the largest dreams I did not make come true for myself.

When I started law school, I worked for Fortune 100 firms as a contract administrator. I negotiated deals with the federal government, oversaw subcontracts in the tens of millions of dollars, and generally wallowed in commerce—only to find I stank of corporate endeavors, and it was not a pleasant scent to wear eighteen hours a day.

Before that, I’d wallowed in music. My friends were musicians, my profession was music, my academic focus was music, and my recreation was music. I was playing catch up, though, because as intuitive as my grasp of music theory was, as much as I loved music, I was a lousy performer who’d gotten a late start with my instrument. I saw a lifetime of feeling inadequate stretching before me as a musician, and I headed off to law school instead.

And the horses? I love horses, but again, my love does not equate to proficiency in the saddle. I thought I’d contribute something to the sport by managing recognized equestrian competitions. I was good enough at it, but the job was thankless, full of liability, and without remuneration. I have managed my last horse show.

I still own horses, I still have a piano, and I still run my little law practice. My musical, business and equestrian dreams did not come true, though. I’d thought I chosen different roads in the yellow wood, and set aside the dreams I’d originally envisioned. Now I find those dreams served one more purpose by defining the heroes of my first three books. Their Graces have eight surviving children, and I’m looking forward to finding more resurrected dreams in their books.

What about you? Have you set aside dreams, only to find them back in your life in some altered, more enjoyable form?

To one of this week’s blog commenters, I’ll be giving away a signed copy of “The Virtuoso.”

Sir Isaac Newton said, “If I have seen farther, it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.” (letter to Robert Hooke, February 5, 1675-76). I haven’t read romance for almost forty years without coming across some giants, or giantesses, as the case may be.

The first was Judith Ivory, then writing as Judy Cuevas. I was at the end of a miserable pregnancy, on complete bed rest, in bed on my left side, trapped in a little apartment with My Mother the Registered Nurse, and scared to death of impending motherhood. Into this slough of despond dropped a little book called, “Starlit Surrender,” an earlier incarnation of “Angel in a Red Dress.”

I devoured it, and for the first time in my reading experience, went right back to the start and devoured it all over, right then and there. It is my all time, best ever, favorite book. Drug addiction, divorce, intrigue all in a historical package (Georgian, technically, though the feel is Regency). And the writing—sumptuous, glorious, wonderful writing, and she does it in every one of her books. If ever there was an author whom I wish were more prolific, it is she.

Then there’s Mary Balogh, author of one of this year’s Publishers Weekly Best Romances, “The Secret Mistress.”  A big portion of my keeper shelf is Mary Balogh, with the Simply’s having pride of place. And the whole time I’m reading her books, in the back of my mind, I wonder, “Is it because she’s Welsh that the language is just so exactly right? Does Welsh origin give one a spectacular touch with sexual tension? ARGH. How does she do this?” (And when can I start dating Welshmen?) I buy Mary Balogh hardbacks the day they come out, without reading the flap. Have to have them. And when I go to heaven, Bewcastle is going to give me that smile that’s worth waiting three hundred pages to see. He is.

Eloisa James is another must have. She has the knack of sketching a character’s internal landscape in little, deft strokes, even as the overall image emerges lush, nuanced, and perfectly meshing with the other characters. I could eat these books up with spoon. And I heard her speak at a national conference. For the words, “Love heals shame,” I will dwell eternally in her debt.

J.R. Ward, for many, many reasons is on this list too. I think she more than any other author has hit the nerve of men’s loneliness for each other, of their need for fathering, and brothering, and purpose shared with other men. This is touching stuff, occasionally profound, and it requires a very confident, daring hand. When it’s wrapped up in paranormal creativity, vampire libido, and alpha-dawg dialogue, it’s irresistible. I periodically read through the whole Black Dagger Brotherhood series from start to finish.

There are many other authors about whom I will gush at another time–Joanne Bourne, Carolyn Jewel, Loretta Chase, Meredith Duran, Julie Anne Long, Jennifer Ashely, to name a few. These are some of the ladies who are mega-vitamins to my motivation. For me, their books function just as effectively as pharmaceutical stimulants, (about which, more later), and you can’t overdose on them. To these writers, I cannot offer enough thanks. If I never put fingers to keyboard in pursuit of publication, I would still owe these women for the relief from loneliness, boredom, fatigue, and frustration their works have given me.

It’s a wonderful world when for just a few bucks you can stand on the shoulders of giantesses such as these, again and again and again. Now, if you will excuse me, my keeper shelf is calling me, and not even for a hot Welshman will I ignore that.

So whose shoulders do you like to stand on, hmm?