Hello all you romance writers! I am thrilled to be the guest editor for this weeks Romance/Love newsletter.

Some of you may know me from the Horror/Scary newsletters I used to do, or the Drama newsletters. For everyone who's never heard of me, I'll just say that I'm a born romantic, who loves to write poetry about all sides of love.

I couldn't resist writing a darker poem about jealousy, for example. A poem that I've included in this weeks highlighted picks. I know most people like to pretend that they don't have a jealous bone in their body. But deep down, we all know better, don't we? It was fun to really get into those jealous feelings, and then write about them in my poem.

When you write about love and romance, you're really going to have to dig deep, and explore all those feelings you have inside you. Yes, all those ugly little ones like revenge, guilt, jealousy, anger, hate, fear, etc.

You know how often those little buggers come up when you're in a relationship. You don't imagine that it's any different for your characters do you? Besides, a story with no conflict is just plain boring. So, like it or not, it's best to make your characters a little less than perfect.

It can be really fun to put your characters in situations that are so tortured and twisted, and they're so tied up in knots, that you can't imagine how they're going to get out of this mess. You can bet if you want to know how, your readers will too.

Sometimes writers get so caught up in all the "rules" about writing that they forget the most important thing of all. You're telling a story. A story that should make the reader want to know what happens.

You won't keep your readers engrossed if all your charcters are flat, one-dimensional cut-outs, instead of real human beings with fears, quirks, hatreds, anxieties, jealousies, and desires for revenge. Just like you, and everyone else on the planet.

Tell a good story about what happens next, better yet, show what happens next. Show your heroine in despair because her boyfriend didn't come home again, then show her anger, and how she decides to take her revenge on him and the other woman.

Keep those emotions real, and make them an intregal part of the story, put yourself in her place. Then put yourself in his place. Write how you would feel if it happened to you. Then write what you might do.

Keep writing like this, showing the full complement of human emotions that come up for everyone in relationships, and you're well on your way to writing a good, maybe even a great, romance/love story.