Fonda, N.Y. ? Although more than a decade has passed since Ludima Gus Burton happened to read her first romance novel, she clearly remembers the title and author.

“It was ‘Partners in Crime,’ by Anne Stuart,” she said. “I picked it up because I thought it was a murder mystery. I’d never read romance.”

Ludima Gus Burton works on a manuscript in long hand at her dining room table in Fonda, N.Y. Burton, 81, has three romance novels published, several manuscripts on editors' desks and a mind brimming with more plots and characters.

It’s no wonder she remembers. The morning in March 1991 when she picked the paperback off a library rack proved to be a defining moment in Burton’s life.

Nine years later at the age of 80 she would experience the thrill of becoming a published romance author herself.

Now 81, Burton has three novels published, several manuscripts on editors’ desks and a mind brimming with plots and characters.

“I have more books in my head than I’ll ever have time to write,” she said. “Of course, I expect to live to be at least 100, so I have 20 years ahead of me.”

Although age has whitened Burton’s straight, chin-length hair and rounded her shoulders a bit, the years have done nothing to quell her infectious cheerfulness and zest for life. Her new vocation, discovered long after she had retired from a 24-year teaching career, has a lot to do with that.

“Oh, it’s what keeps me alive,” Burton said adamantly. “So many people don’t do anything when they’re retired. I can’t even imagine not having this to do.”

Sitting in the dining room of the old Victorian house she shares with her daughter in rural Fonda, a mixed-breed terrier named Buster asleep at her feet, Burton recounted her evolution as a writer.

“I fell in love with romance,” Burton said. “After I read that first one, I started taking them out of the library 10 at a time, reading one a day.”

Three novels in one year

A month later, she found herself without a book to read. “I was too lazy to go to the library, so I decided to write my own,” Burton said. “That’s how I started to write.”

The story ideas percolated each morning during Burton’s 20-minute walk to and from her grandson’s school bus stop. She sat at the table for hours a day, writing with a sharp pencil on lined paper in her schoolteacher’s even script.

“That first year, I wrote three books,” Burton said. Then, as now, she wrote her first drafts in pencil because that’s what feels most natural to her.

“I didn’t know anything about writing at that time,” Burton said. “I didn’t know about having a beginning ‘hook,’ or developing characters. I just wrote.”

She bought a $150 word processor, and later a laptop computer, to transcribe her longhand into typed pages. She started sending manuscripts to publishers and accumulating rejection letters.

“For nine years, I was rejected by everyone,” Burton said. “My rejection file is four inches thick.”

But Burton kept writing and rewriting. She joined the 8,400-member Romance Writers of America, an organization which provides support and guidance for aspiring and published writers. In 1993, she joined a newly formed local chapter.

“That’s when I really began to learn the art of writing,” Burton said. “A lot of people think romance writing is very easy. We’re put down a lot.”

But romance writing isn’t as easy as it might appear, she said. “It requires discipline. We go to conferences and workshops all the time; we’re constantly learning our craft.”

The national writer’s group also gave Burton reason to travel outside the Albany area again something she had enjoyed before her husband suffered a heart attack and left her a widow at 59.

“I’ve been to conferences in Hawaii, Dallas, Orlando, New Orleans. I get to go places I’d never go otherwise,” she said. And she treasures the friendships she has made, both locally and across the country.

‘Every nerve tingled and sang’

Romance novels vary in their sexual content, from “spicy” to “sweet.” Burton writes only sweet romances, with no explicit sex or vulgar language. About the steamiest she gets is this:

“His arms around her were tight bands. Her soft curves fitted with his hard muscles as though poured there. The beat of his heart made her feel warm all over as every nerve tingled and sang,” Burton writes in “The Love Potion.”

A lack of explicit sex is a handicap when it comes to getting published. “Very few companies today publish sweet romances,” Burton said.

One of them is Avalon Books, an imprint of Thomas Bouregy & Co. in New York, which publishes hardcovers for the library market. It calls itself “the Family Channel of publishing,” focusing on “wholesome fiction” suitable for all ages. It receives about 1,200 manuscripts a year and publishes 60.

Like every other publisher, Avalon rejected Burton’s early efforts. Then, a few years ago, she read that Avalon was soliciting manuscripts.

“I sent them a cover letter, synopsis, and first chapter of ‘Only for a Year,’ which had been rejected I don’t know how many times under various names,” Burton said. “You never throw anything out when it’s rejected; you rewrite, or use parts of it for a different book.”

Making connections

Four days after she sent the query, Burton got a letter back. “I figured it was another rejection. I almost tossed it out.” But the editor wanted to see the whole manuscript.

She was thrilled.

Months passed. She heard nothing. Then, at a writer’s conference, Burton met Avalon’s senior editor, Erin Cartright. She told Cartright about another book she had written, and about the one languishing on the publisher’s slush pile. Cartright agreed to look at both.

“She accepted the first book right away,” Burton said. “I didn’t even have to revise it. And three weeks later, she accepted the second one.”

“Only for a Year,” a story of a marriage of convenience that blossoms into true love, was published in June 2000. “The Tycoon and the Schoolteacher,” a story of two people from disparate backgrounds who learn to resolve their differences, was published in October that year.

“Meanwhile, I had written a third book ‘The Love Potion’ and they published that in February 2001,” Burton said. “So from an absolute desert, I had a blooming garden. Three books in a year and a half is fantastic!”

‘Never give up your dreams’

Burton’s primary incentive to write is the pure joy of the craft. “But to be published,” she said, “that shows you’ve accomplished something. You’re down in black and white for the rest of your life.”

“I’m in it for the fame and glory, not the money,” she said, laughing. “Which is a good thing, because it doesn’t pay very much.”

Romance publishers typically pay an advance of $3,000 to $5,000, plus royalties, although the top authors get much more. Avalon’s advance is less than $3,000, with a 5 percent to 15 percent royalty on sales over 3,500 books; but usually, Avalon prints only 2,000 copies, most of which go to libraries, she said.

She is tickled by the local fame she has achieved since the publication of her books.

“The fact that I didn’t get published until I was 80 offers encouragement to a lot of people,” Burton said. “I tell people to go ahead and do what they love, no matter what their age, no matter the obstacles or rejections. Never give up on your dreams.”