Isn't it romantic?

Soft spoken and a balding 50-something, this computer programmer has spent most of his career in state government and is so mild mannered you could mistake him for bad taco sauce.

Beneath the shirt sleeves of Ted, there beats the heart of an artist, a lone wolf howling with passion. Ted Hommel is a romance writer.

After 120-odd rewrites, Hommel is currently shopping his first novel, a contemporary work about a single mother who falls for a co-worker. Hommel spent years as a single father and the novel is something of a tribute. And a learning experience.

For, Hommel said, "There are certain things I don't know about women."

Like when to wear white flats, or whether a woman would tell another woman to "calm down," for example. And, of course, foreplay.

Men's "erotic fiction" is a much different ball game than women's, Hommel said. An average romance novel needs to spend about eight pages, or eight minutes of reading time, setting up a love scene. There is no wham, nor bam, nor thank you ma'am, but rather the most tender of caresses.

Hommel is one of very few men in Mesa's Desert Rose Chapter of the Romance Writer's of America. Last weekend, the group hosted the 12th annual Desert Dreams Writers Conference.

"At our meetings we say 'Hi ladies and Ted,'" said event organizer Debbie Uribe.

The conference, held at a hotel in the shadow of Mesa's Fiesta Mall, was attended by about 170 aspiring authors. A few dozen published writers and agents addressed such topics as writing with humor, dialogue, using all five senses in one's writing and, of course, how to write for Harlequin.

The romance novel industry makes up 55 percent of paperback publishing in the United States, and more than 200 million books are sold each year, according to Desert Rose. The genre, and its various sub-genres, have their root in Samuel Richardson's Pamela, according to Desert Rose.

Richardson, one of English's first novelists, was a sort of stodgy and excessive writer with a virtue and virginity obsession, a man who liked to see his young female characters threatened by loveless, though handsome, devils.

Today, however, romance writing is a woman's game and a big one. One where the heroine fairly often engages in sexual intercourse.

Harlequin Superomance editor Laura Shin said she reads between 800 and 1,000 submissions for publication each year and of those about four are printed. Shin said her Toronto office regularly receives calls from would-be hired guns who offer to crank out the work fast and cheap.

Harlequin's not interested in fast and cheap. An author needs to create a "level of true emotion there that affects the reader," Shin said.

"They can tell when it's faked and I can tell," she said.

The Desert Dreams conference smacks of an Amway induction meeting. Conversations drip with buzz words and tales of huge successes and "We are all professional writers" and "We all have the talent, it's a matter of a little luck and a little timing."

And having an agent.

Everybody writes in a specific genre.: romantic suspense or historical romance or the racy stuff of Harlequin's Temptations line.

Gone, for the most part, are the doctor-nurse non-consummated romances. Today's heroines meet their matches in wit and style. No ditz, no helplessness, please.

Tips were abound at the conference, from how to maintain a professional attitude, to how to write for Harlequin Presents.

tom collins/catalyst About 22 years ago, someone gave Cathy Torbert a romance novel and this wife of a military man was hooked. Since then she has read literally thousands of the works.

For those tips, look to Regina Anna Emig Ronk, literary agent and former hypnotherapist-turned-writing coach.

According to Ronk's "The Real Publishers' Guidelines" an novel should run 55,000 words and feature a wealthy independent hero, an "executive who stays macho fit," for example.

The heroine should be "independent" and "intelligent," i.e. "the kind of person you'd like to have as a friend."

Ronk, who set up shop about two years ago, has found that there is in fact a hypnotic quality to reading, "The writing experience itself is a hypnotic trance," Ronk said. She said she started using her hypnotic talents on novelists and found herself becoming a writing coach.

"I could help them think they were better writers," Ronk said. Today, she represents 32 writers, including Ted Hommel, who will owe her 15 percent if he gets picked up.

Ronk said she is one of the few agents who work with unpublished writers, and that the industry often puts burgeoning novelists in a Catch-22: Publishers won't look if the writers don't have an agent and an agent won't look unless their work is published.

Most of the writers at the conference were between their late 30s and 50s, women you might see at Sweet Tomatoes or a James Taylor concert.

A best-selling author is a woman in gold bracelets and an abrasively patterned Needless Markup's blazer, and carries herself like budding Danielle Steele. A distinct attitude of Don't you know who I am? emanates from her being.

Linda Lael Miller, for example, has 10 million books in print and has made the bestseller lists.

Miller was a single mother when she entered the romance game in the early 1980s, "Being a single parent in the early days, it was really tough," Miller said, though her kids "never missed a meal."

"That's a success," she added.

Today, Miller cranks out two to three novels a year for Pocket Books. Her latest is The Vow. Miller said she doesn't use her life experience in her writing, but rather to "make up stories in my mind."

Jaclyn Reding, started her career when she attended Desert Dreams 10 years ago.

Before that she "hadn't sat done to write a word down." In two years, however, Smith had produced 800 manuscript pages. Her novels, two, White Heather and White Magic, one published and another in the chute, are either restoration or regency historical works. The regency work, for example, is based back to Jane Austen's work.

Once your foot is in the door, the pressure is there to produce a novel or two every year, Reding said.

After five years of trying, Cathy Torbert is still an aspiring writer and has spent that time looking for success' "magic formula" - "But, there isn't one," she said.

"The main thing they say is just write," Torbert added.

About 22 years ago, someone gave Torbert a romance novel and this wife of a military man was hooked. Since then she has read literally thousands of the works.

Torbert said she enjoys category romances and that's what she'd like to make her mark on.

"If you don't write what you like, you don't usually do well," she said.

Twenty dollars off the $155 price of conference admission is what the $65 a year membership in a Romance Writers of America chapter gets you. Also access to workshops and guest speakers on topics like law enforcement or anything else someone might want to write about, organizer Uribe said.

Authors need to learn the path to a "satisfying ending," said Vijaya Schartz, of the RWA Valley of the Sun Chapter. Nothing is more important "In women's fiction the ending has to be satisfying," Schartz said.

Hommel continues his work on his novel, changing a character here or there, letting the work "mature."

"It's not the words, it's the idea (that makes a good book)," Hommel said. "Keep the idea, just change it around."