Author: stephaniehurt

Stephanie Hurt lives in Georgia with her husband Tommy and their son Hunter, along with two dogs, Daisy and Jake. When Stephanie is not lost in one of the worlds that she creates, she's an accountant and children's minister. She has been writing the stories that fill her mind since she was a teenager. The moment a story comes into her mind, she's mesmerized and soon she's diving into the story with a cup of hot green tea and a notebook. Before long, the story has bones and is ready for the laptop. She happily types away in the early morning and at night. You can always find her with a notebook full of stories that have yet to come to life. Follow her journey in each of her over 40 published works! Stephanie Payne Hurt loves to hear from fans and hopes that she's helped them go to another world for at least a while! Connect with Author: Twitter: https://twitter.com/StephanieHurt4 Email: https://stephaniehurt4@gmail.com Website: www.stephaniehurtauthor.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StephaniePayneHurt Sign up for my newsletter at www.stephaniehurtauthor.com to keep up with upcoming events and new releases.

Writing on a schedule…LOL!

Good Tuesday morning!

I’ve been working on my 2017 writing project schedule and it’s so exciting thinking about the future works that will come from this crazy writer’s head. One of the problems with setting this up is as I think about the new works, my mind wants to write them, now!

But, I’m trying to be a disciplined writer… yeah, that just doesn’t work for me. Now, let’s just get this one thing straight, I do schedule the books release dates and make sure that I have enough time between now and the release date to write said book, edit and to revisions.

The funny thing about this writer’s brain is that stories are constantly coming into my head, so what do I do when that happens so that I don’t lose it. I have a handy dandy notebook that says in my writer bag. Writer bag? Yes, my writer bag. Tomorrow’s post will be all about my writer bag. It’s quite nifty even if I do say so myself.

But, back to scheduling, whew, I get so distracted. As for scheduling, as a writer, I do need some discipline or I’d never finish a single piece of work. It is fascinating to me when I sit down to work on my schedule for the next year. Of course, I always have works that spill over into the new year, but then I need to fill up the rest of the year. Right now I have works scheduled into 2018, which is amazing.

So, if you haven’t tried working out a schedule, I suggest you sit down and pull out a calendar or planner. All you need to do is make a list of your current work in progress, then a list of upcoming works. Figure out the word count that you desire, divide it by the word count that you want to complete on a daily basis. Now you’re ready to write them in your calendar and schedule it out. Believe me, the time and effort it takes will be well worth it. But remember, don’t over schedule yourself, which I have a tendency to do. Make a workable schedule and enjoy the moment you finish each work of art.

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Don’t forget to sign up for my newsletter at www.stephaniehurtauthor.com for all of my news and new releases coming up…

Without Internet! What I learned

Good morning! It’s good to be back with the rest of the world. If you’ve noticed I was absent for several days, which is due to the fact that I had no internet since last Wednesday. It was very eye-opening, to say the least, and here’s what I learned in those six days without connection to the world.

Let’s start with, I grew up in the age before the internet; so I’m aware of what it’s like not to have it, but when you run a business in today’s world, it’s detrimental to have it. I never realized until this past six days how many of my programs need the internet to run efficiently. Of course, I could do some things, but the bulk of the program wouldn’t work due to no connection to the main server, wow!

As a writer, it was a quiet time with no conversations with fans or fellow writers. Also, I finished a book and was set to release it, but guess what can’t do that without internet. And as a writer, I need to promote, promote, promote, that also can’t be done without the internet. I felt like I was out in a remote field somewhere without food or water, in regards to my writing. But as luck would have it, I was able to meet my daily word counts and expand on them without the interruption of social media, that was a plus!

In a whole, I felt disconnected with the world and I can say I’m happy to be back with the living. It’s not just the social media aspect, which is important when you are an author and also run a website/publishing company, but it’s the fact that in today’s world, the internet holds an important role in most everything we do.

With that said, it’s wonderful to be back with all of you wonderful people. Now, on with my life which is already in progress.

As always, good writing and May God Bless you…

No use crying over missed words…

Good Monday morning! I do hope everyone here in America had a wonderful Thanksgiving! And also my wonderful friends across the pond, I hope you had a wonderful weekend. As for me, well, I had a great one. But, with a holiday that’s busy, I missed my word count over the time off.

Word counts are important to a writer, right? The longer I write the more I realize that word counts can be pushed around a little. Yes, I know I’ve written about word counts being important and technically they are, but here’s my new philosophy.

Ok, I have deadlines, just as most writers do. I know what I need to get in every day, but when things happen, say life, for instance, stressing over a day or two of missed writing, well, it can make for a miserable time. So, I’ve devised a strategy. I have a writing journal where I keep up with my word count and where I need to be every day. Then I adjust as needed. Which of course means that I might need to double up on my word count for a couple of days.

If my book needs to be 30,000 words, then I’ll set my deadline to give me 35 days of writing. I try to write 2000 words a day usually, which means that I type 1000 words for two books a day. This way if I’m lagging behind a little, then I can add to one or more days to make up the lost time writing.

You may think that five extra days isn’t enough, but if you keep a journal and keep up with the words needed to get to the end and the daily count, then you’ll see that you actually could end up with days left, which is wonderful, you can start another book 😉

Now, back to the writing, as I said, I’m a couple of days behind… A little hint, I gave myself extra days for the holidays, so…

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Just a little reminder, fall in love with Laird Ewan before the 2nd book comes out in just days from now! myBook.to/HighlandersHeart

highlander-heart-front-cover200

 

Seeing it clearly…

blurry

Good morning! Hope all is well…

Have you ever looked at your work in process and your mind was more like the picture above? I’ve done this so much that sometimes I have to step away. But what can we do as writers to clear up the fog in our brain?

This weekend I spent most of the time laying around, trying to get over the cold that took over my body on Thursday. I’d planned on doing a major catch up on word counts, but every time I looked at my laptop, I groaned. My head was fuzzy, which is understandable with a cold, but the fuzziness I’m talking about is story line fuzzy…

As you know from my many posts, I try to outline all of my manuscripts, but even then, fuzziness can take over. Just this past week I had one of those, ‘where was I headed with this part of the story’ moments. I went back and forth between my outline and my manuscript, making notes and trying to regain the momentum. The best thing I did was to step back, take a breath, then go back to it.

Ok, so sometimes with deadlines we can’t do that, but I’m not talking about stepping back a week or more, just a couple of hours. Maybe take a long walk, going over the story in your head. And yes, the walk will help clear your head of the fuzzies. I’ve worked out more story problems while putting my tennis shoes on and walking up the road. Amazing how much it helps. If it is raining, then you can watch a movie, lay back and listen to music, or even plot out another story.

But what I’m getting at is when the story gets too much to handle, step back, clear your head and begin again. It helps. I actually scraped a whole manuscript doing this. Yes, it scared me to death, but I did it and was glad I did when I started over. For some reason, we go down a rabbit hole that there’s no way out of, and that can lead to a deeper hole, LOL!

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Highlander’s Bride is coming soon… Keep watching for the cover reveal!