Month: March 2013

Today’s a special day…

For me today has several meanings. Of course it goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway, today we celebrate our Risen Savior. It’s an awesome day for a Christian. 

It’s also a special day for me as a mother. Today my handsome son turned 14. It’s so hard to believe he’s 14. I’m so proud of him. He’s a good young man and makes me smile everyday. When I look at him I see a miracle. He was a twin, but I lost his twin during the pregnancy and the doctor wasn’t sure he’d make it. It was a miracle that he did. I call him my miracle baby. He withstood all the obstacles and survived. Some ask if he’s spoiled and I proudly say “You bet he is”. 

Hope everyone spent time with their families today and enjoyed this beautiful Easter Day. 

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

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Formal writing, What’s your style?

I’ve been told that some of my books are written a little too formally. I usually laugh because I’m a very southern speaking girl. For those that are not familiar with the Southern speech, usually I have clients that are not from here that call just to hear me speak. I laugh and tell them to get a life. So when someone says I write formally I have to laugh.

As for my writing, I don’t feel like it’s that formal. Sometimes I use ‘I could not’ instead of ‘I couldn’t’ but when I look back at it, that’s the only way it sounds right. I hear a lot of writers that send their work to editors and when it comes back certain parts no longer sound right. Well not right in the sense of the feel it originally had. You have certain ways you speak that gets points across and the wording is crucial. When you change even one word whether formal or not it changes the feel.

In my first couple of books I was so careful to use good English, but as I published more books I leaned more toward the down to earth style. When I relaxed a little, the reviews went from ‘written a tad formal’ to actually talking about the book.

So what’s your style? Do you watch your couldn’t and shouldn’t or do you just write from the seat of your pants and throw the English book out the door? I think that’s when you get through to the reader. You can even throw in some ‘yeah’s’ and ‘ain’t’. I know ain’t is not a word, but in the south it’s part of our vocabulary 🙂

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Does your cover reveal too much?

As with any writer I always struggle with my cover design. Sometimes I’ve got a picture in my mind of how I want the cover to look. During the writing of my books I’m constantly thinking of the cover. Some parts of the book inspire the cover.

It’s so discouraging to pick up a book and look at the cover expecting one thing and reading the book to find something totally different. I’ve done this several times as I know you have too. For example, the book has a vampire on the cover and the only thing about vampires in the book is a short part from a nightmare with a character. So why put a vampire on the cover when the book is not about vampires at all but about something totally different.

Then you get into the aspect of revealing too much with the cover. Let’s say that in the book there is a secret that will not be revealed until the middle or end of the book. You don’t want to put something about that on the cover if it will tell the reader what the secret is. This just spoils the whole suspense plot. 

So in my opinion the cover has to be thought over quite a bit. The cover can reveal a lot about the book. When my assistant and I designed the first couple of covers it was so wrong. We quickly revised it until we were happy. I was careful not to reveal too much about the plot but I also made sure the cover was relevant. 

Hope this helps if you’re working on your cover. It’s often one of the hardest things to me as a writer other than the dreaded description, but that’s a whole new blog post 🙂

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Are revisions sometimes a good thing?

I’ve been playing with the idea of revising two of my novels. Tender Flames and With All My Heart are two of my novels that I published last year.

Tender Flames was one of my first attempts at publishing and I’m proud of the results, but I feel like I need to listen to my readers. I’ve had several great reviews on this book but I’ve also had some good,but enlightening reviews. Some of the readers made suggestions that they thought would make this a novel to be reckoned with. So, I’m planning on doing a revision and then packing it with the second in the series “Rekindled Flames” which is doing great. I plan to sell the both together in a package deal.

Then there’s With All My Heart which is my Christian romance. I’ve had some great reviews on this one. So many have said they wished it was longer, well that good come to reality. As the release of the second book in this series is coming soon, I also plan to release the lengthened edition with the new book. The new book will also be released separately.

So, as I’ve seen several authors do this and have great success, I hope to make them even better. I’m actually excited about reliving these novels. As a writer you live the lives of your characters while your writing, so I get to revisit old friends and make them even better.

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Excitement and Tears…

I know I’ve already posted my normal daily post, but just had to do this one. It’s a separate post because this one is on my life.

Yesterday was an awesome day at Church. Well, any day at Church can be awesome, you just have to be open to it. But yesterday was above the normal bar. We had a Easter Cantata. For those of you who don’t know what that is, well it’s a music driven play. The Church Praise Band performed several songs and we had video’s to go with them and a speaker in the background. It went really well, and yes I cried. I know you’re not surprised. I’ve always been open to the fact that I cry easily. I’m emotional what can I say and especially when it comes to my Faith.

The second most important thing was two of my wonderful children from the Children’s Ministry were saved last week and they went down front yesterday to make their choice public. Yep, I cried again 🙂 It’s so awesome when children make that most important decision. It makes my job so rewarding. I’m always in awe of how the Lord works in such young lives.

Then since we had rain yesterday, the annual easter egg hunt was held inside in the sanctuary. I was worried about how it would go, but I shouldn’t have been. It went off without a hitch and the children had a blast.

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Getting to the heart of a writer…

I’ve been asked several times lately why I love to write. Well, that’s an interesting question. I write for a lot of reasons. I enjoy it for one. It’s very satisfying to put my thoughts and whims on paper and then have people buy them. I love to sit down with an idea and watch it take shape under my fingertips.

You know it’s the writer’s bug you have when the simplest thing inspires you to write. Watching a sunset can inspire you, but when you have the writer’s bug even a lady bug crawling on  leaf can send you into a writing frenzy. Maybe that’s a little over the top but it’s not far off the mark. As a writer everything inspires me.

Sometimes I get an idea in the middle of the night and I have to get up and write it down. It will take over your thoughts until you get it down on paper. The heart of a writer is often open and raw. The only way to heal it is to write.

I know that if you have a true writer’s heart, then it’s a gift from God and you need to just open a notebook or turn on your computer and start writing. You only live once and if you’re meant to be a writer you need to at least give it a try. I’ve enjoyed every moment of being a writer. I’m so glad that my assistant gave me a nudge to publish the dusty manuscripts in my files. 

As always good writing and May God bless you…

Here is a revisit from an October 2012 post about my newest book “Rekindled Flame”. I just thought I’d revisit it since this book is finally a reality and doing well. Happy Sunday night friends…

Stephanie Hurt - Romance Author

Have you ever had a love in your life that you gave up? Did you always wonder what would have happened if you would have given that love a chance? What if there was more to the story? What if you had a good reason to step away from that love? Well, your heart will never be the same….

Check out an excerpt from the 2nd book in the “Flames of Love” Series, my current writing project, “Rekindled Flames”, it may have you thinking about that love that you gave up.

“As we lay our dear friend to rest, let’s reflect on his life for a moment.” As Lydia listened to the pastor start on her father’s great life, she lowered her head. It was hard to believe he was actually gone. As she tried to get her head straight, she felt as if someone was burning a hole in her…

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Memories…What do you do with them?

It’s Friday and the weekend is almost upon us. Are you planning a big writing weekend? Me, I’m planning a working weekend which hopefully includes some writing as it’s supposed to be a rainy weekend here.

Now to the post at hand. We all have memories, but what do we do with them. Some dwell on them and let them take over their lives. Not healthy. Some give them wings and let them   fly away. Sometimes that’s a good thing when they’re memories that need to be forgotten. But most keep the good memories held in a special place to visit from time to time.

I use memories in my writing a lot. Sometimes life is the best inspiration for a writer. It can give your story depth and realism. The best way to keep a good memory alive is to immortalize it in fiction. Sometimes a bad memory can be rationalized in fiction too. If that bad memory haunts you at night, put it in fiction and leave it there for the rest of the world to see.

As for me I’ve incorporated many memories, good and bad, into my writing. Some of the most emotional parts of my books are pulled from memories. Putting them into my writing has helped in lots of ways to cope with those memories and to learn to put them into perspective.

We all have times of haunted dreams and secret smiles, but we also have the chance to put them where they need to be, in the past. Move forward and make new memories. Living in the past is normally not a healthy thing. Living in the past hinders moving forward and reaching goals. Put them in fiction and move ahead…

As always, good writing, and May God Bless You…