As the fog clears

This is the view from my front porch this morning. The temperatures have finally warmed up and the threat of rain looms, but you can’t tell by the gorgeous sunrise. The fog is starting to clear and is barely visible in this photo. I feel inspired as the vibrant colors stream through the front windows.

As most of you know from reading my posts I try to get in my word count every morning. This morning as I woke at 6:00 my body and brain felt heavy and filled with inspiration zapping fog. I dragged myself out of bed and fixed breakfast for my son. As I poured the coffee and the delicious aroma steamed up to my nose I smiled. Yes, I need several cups of coffee. Since the time changed the sun comes up later and that always makes it hard for me to wake up. But one look at this beautiful sunrise I feel inspired to get to work. I can do this is the feeling it inspires.

Does a beautiful sunrise inspire you? As for me, I’m off to get in a couple thousand words before a warm shower and then on to the accounting office. I may need that third cup of coffee while I type…

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Monday and the rain begins…

As we slowly transition into Spring the rain starts. Here in Georgia we’re looking at rain until Sunday. Of course it’s better than ice, but it’ll make a long, dreary week. In the back of my mind I wonder in the threat of cold weather is gone or if this is just a tease. At least we had a gorgeous weekend which helps with this dreary Monday.

The clocks moved forward this weekend and hopefully you changed yours, if not you might be late for work, just sayin’. It always throws my body into a crazy frenzy when the time changes. I feel tired and sleepy, but am trying to meet my word count goals this morning. For those that have been asking what I’m working on, well it’s Oakley. This book is really fun to write. It’s been humming along nicely. I’ve received so many nice emails and calls about fans enjoying Ridge and I know you’ll enjoy Oakley. This series is beginning to become one of my favorites. I’ll be releasing some snippets before the release date is revealed.

Now, back to the lousy weather this Monday morning. How does the weather affect your writing? Do you write better when it’s snowing and cold, wet and miserable or sunny and delightful? As for me it’s a toss up. I love to sit by the fire when it’s cold and write, but on sunny, warm days it’s nice to sit outside and write. But I do have to say that sometimes the rain puts me in a blah mood, but sometimes it gives me the right mood to write.

Hope everyone has a great Monday and don’t forget to scoot over to my website to see what the March Madness Sale for the day is… stephaniehurtauthor.com.

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Not perfect, well it’s the first draft…

First off, let me get this out there. My March Madness Sale is ongoing on my website. Today is

SO go by my website and get 20% off my paperbacks. Everyday is a different deal and some days are a mystery amount that includes a mystery gift…

Well, on to today’s soapbox drama… How’s your first draft look? If it’s perfect then you put too much work into it. I know, you’re looking at the screen and thinking I’m crazy, well you’re half right. Your first draft should be just that, your first draft. This is where you get the story down in words, not the perfect, ready for publishing manuscript. That’s why it’s called the first draft.

My first draft’s always look like a murder scene after I get through with them. They’re grammatically horrible and so out of sorts. This is where I throw everything I have at the keyboard and pay no attention to the details of spelling and paragraph breaks. Especially when I use my dictation program on my phone.

I sat the other night in a warm bath with my favorite lavender/ chamomile bath salts. A idea for my current work in process came into my mind, so I grabbed my phone and started dictating the idea. The next morning when I downloaded it into my draft document I laughed until I cried. It was horrible. If you’ve ever worked with a dictation program then you know what I mean. Many times I was so caught up in the story that I forgot to say ‘new paragraph’ or ‘open quote, end quote’. It was plain out pitiful.

It took me a few minutes to clear up the mess. Yes I do go ahead and clean the downloads from the dictation program so that I understand what the heck I was saying. I’ve actually deleted several paragraphs of my first drafts and that’s painful, but needed. Some days I get to about 3/4 of the way done and realize I don’t like where my first draft is headed, so I change the direction.

I do recommend editing your first draft before you send it to your editor. If your first drafts are like mine then it’s a must because my editor would put it back on my desk and say ‘what?’.

So how’s your first draft look when you hit the end?

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…