With the release of her new book, The Hunted, Patricia Lewin, a.k.a. Pat Van Wie, is sure to garner a lot of attention.

From the time the Waynesville resident was in grade school, she was an avid reader. She often read high school level books, especially science fiction. Tolkien and Asimov were her favorites. Graduating from Florida Atlantic University with a degree in computer science, Van Wie went to work for IBM as a computer programmer and eventually became a software project manager, but she left that to pursue her love of writing.

How did she stray so far from her computer career?

Van Wie, who moved to Waynesville four years ago when her husband took a faculty position at Western Carolina University, had read the Writer’s Digest for years, and in the back of her mind she knew it was something she would eventually do. In 1987, when she was still with IBM, she was working on a project she found tiresome. As she leafed through her Writer’s Digest one day, she saw an advertisement for a writing conference. It was going to be held in Orlando, close to where she lived. Van Wie decided to attend it. “That weekend literally changed my life,” she said. During the conference, she was impressed by the fact that writers she had met throughout that weekend were actually making a living at writing, and none of them were named Stephen King. That is when she realized that she could do it too.

At the Orlando conference, Van Wie met a woman editor who was starting a new romance line. That editor piqued Pat’s interest in writing women’s fiction. Until then, Van Wie had only written short stories and science fiction and had never actually finished a story. But she started entering her novels in contests.

Contests can help a new writer learn to meet deadlines, said Van Wie. Deadlines leave you no time to worry or develop writer’s block, a problem that plagues many authors. Van Wie is fortunate - she has never suffered from writer’s block.

“If I’m not writing, I feel guilty,” she said.

Every day she sits at her computer and writes, whether it is good or bad. Contests are also a good way for a first-time writer to get feedback and, if you are a finalist, an editor of a publishing company will be the last one to judge your story. That could lead to a book contract.

In 1993 Van Wie sold her first book to Harlequin. Keeping Katie was a contemporary romance about a woman who adopted a daughter and, when they threatened to take the girl away, she ran. It was Van Wie’s third completed book.

Ideas, according to Van Wie, are all around.

“It’s simple,” she said, “ideas are everywhere. You just have to open your mind to them.”

A television program was the inspiration for that first book, and her first sale was the result of being a finalist in a writing contest. Her first agent approached her after she was the Romance Writers of America Golden Heart Finalist three years in a row. It is a prominent contest, and the agent was known for finding her authors among the finalists, which gives writers another good reason to enter contests.
That agent worked with Van Wie through three books, approximately four years. Then, Pat began to go in a different direction, contrary to the type of work the agent liked to sell, so they parted ways.

A year later she signed with the prestigious Jane Rotrosen Agency in New York. She met her agent Meg Ruley at a writing conference in 1996. Van Wie could not stress enough how important those conferences are to a writer’s career.

“You can meet editors, agents, writers, and published authors at conferences,” she said. “A conference can help you learn your craft and the business end of writing.”

Under the pseudonym Patricia Keelyn, Van Wie wrote five books for Harlequin. Harlequin requested a proposal, three chapters and a synopsis for each book she sent them. Bantam required it for the first book she sold to them, and after that, she said it became a verbal proposal. She wrote three books under her legal name, Pat Van Wie, for Bantam.

All of her romance novels tended to have an element of suspense in them, which eventually led in a different direction. As her plots and pacing became more hardcore suspense, Van Wie’s kernel of an idea about a man who wanted to protect children grew into The Hunted, a suspense thriller. The idea prospered as she was on her way home from a writing conference. When she ran it past a couple of other published authors, they started brainstorming and by the time she got home, she had a full-blown idea and began writing the book.

While finishing another book that she already had contracted with Harlequin, Van Wie sent a proposal of 100 pages and synopsis for The Hunted to her agent. Ruley loved it and sent it to Ballantine, who bought it.

Over the years, Pat has learned to understand the structure of a story, what works and what doesn’t, her characters and plotting. First-time writers often worry more about grammar and the technical aspects of writing and tend to lose sight of the actual storytelling process. Reading can help a writer, she adds.

“How can you write if you don’t read?” she said.

Van Wie usually works six hours a day. She starts at nine or 10 in the morning and works for three hours. Then, she breaks for lunch and a half hour on the treadmill. Feeling refreshed, she returns to her computer for another three- hour stretch. Her only deviant to the rule comes when she is on a tight schedule - then she can put in nine to 10 hours a day and often eats at her computer.

Overall, she stays very flexible when she writes and doesn’t worry about writing her chapters in order. If she knows her ending she will go ahead and write it.

Pat has one daughter, has adopted three stray cats, loves to travel and spends time in her garden. In truth, however, she admits that writing consumes most of her attention.

“I know it sounds boring, but writing is my life,” she said.

In addition to her busy schedule, Pat recognizes the value of joining a critique group and recommends that first-time writers find one. She has formerly belonged to five different groups. She said writers need to find one they mesh with. As needs change, don’t be afraid to move on.

Although the market is tight, Van Wie doesn’t feel threatened by the new trends in publishing such as on-demand publishing and e-books. She hears a lot of authors say they wish they had started writing 10 years ago when the market wasn’t so stiff. Van Wie thinks getting published has never been easy.

“Competition has always been stiff, and that’s not going to change,” she said. Pausing for a moment, she added, “I believe there will always be a market for good fiction and good writers.” What’s a realistic goal for a writer who wants to make writing a career? Van Wie said writers are individuals with different goals; it all depends on how much you put in to it.

As for goals, Van Wie admits to dreaming about her name on the New York Times Bestseller’s List.

(Tamara Fairchild is a free-lance writer who has been published in international magazines as well as local newspapers and literary magazines.)

 

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