In a world of corporations, concrete, and business suits, there are still cowboys. I love writing about them because to me, they are a dying breed. As long as time can remember, there was cowboys.
With every cowboy I write, I try to make them as real as possible. Since I personally know a lot of cowboys, I have lots of examples of what a true cowboy is. It’s more than the jeans, cowboy boots and Stetson. They are true men that are hard workers, rough handed, and down right tough guys. That’s the ones that are the real thing.
Each one of my cowboys that I’ve written has encompassed one of the cowboys I know. One cowboy I knew was an older man with that weathered skin, keen eye, and cowboy swagger. He was the epitome of an old world cowboy. There was never a conversation that we had that didn’t involve a horse. I loved every minute of each conversation. But now he’s gone, and I long for those conversations.
So, do you love cowboys? Maybe you know one, or even married to one. Let’s give it up for cowboys this Thursday!
Deadlines… A writers nemesis, but necessary. As an Accountant I have many deadlines to meet, and as a writer, I also have them. They surround me and some days I feel overwhelmed. But I love what I do on both fronts, so I push toward the next deadline with zeal.
But, procrastination also plays a part. As I’m procrastinating now by writing this blog. Sometimes I work best with a looming deadline. Then other times, a chill runs up my spine as the anxiety fills me.
As writers, we set release dates for our work, then work toward them. It’s like a means to an end. If we don’t set a deadline, then where will our work go? I do a schedule every year that sets deadlines for the draft, the editing, and the release. This is setup by evaluating the work itself. Is it to be a full length novel or a short novella? I calculate the words per day, but I manage to add some empty days that allow for procrastination, but still have me meeting my deadline.
Hit a wall with your current project? At a loss for words, literally? Yep, I’ve been there and other writers have too. The words stop… The creative juices reach a dam and stop… It’s like your internal hard drive crashes…
Push past that wall…
Everyone hits a wall, it’s only human. It’s how you react to that sudden wall standing in front of you that counts. So, here’s a couple of things I do when that wall jumps out and blocks my path.
1: Step back… Yes, step back. If you’re at a wall, then you need to clear your head, and redirect back to the project. When this happens to me, I’ll put that project aside and bring out an upcoming project to outline or even create some ads to inspire me.
2: Go back and read from the beginning of the project. Reintroduce yourself to the characters… Fall back in love with the story…
3: Don’t give up! Even though it seems like you’ve lost the battle, you haven’t. You’ve hit a wall that all writers hit. Push past it! Don’t let it control you. You’ve got this.
Now, get to writing and know that there will be obstacles, but you have the power to push through them. You’re a writer and that’s what you do. So write!
As always, good writing and May God Bless You…
P.S.: Don’t forget that Marina’s Story is coming out on Saturday.
Good Tuesday morning! Time… It just keeps marching on and sometimes it marches all over your good intentions. Yep, been there! But, I’ve started doing a couple of things that work for me. SO, here goes:
As I said in Saturday’s post, schedule your advertising ahead of time. That gives you a good slot of time to write. Without having to do your ads every day, then you can focus on other things, like writing…
Set a time to write every day. For me, I try to write every morning before I get dressed and head to the office. That’s my time to write. Sometimes I even set a timer to make sure I get every second of writing time without having to glance at the clock.
Don’t go down the social media rabbit hole. I’ve gone down that hole so many times and lost precious writing time. Go ahead and write before you go on social media, then you don’t have that temptation.
And don’t forget the time gem – the weekend! When I schedule my daily word count, I always put in double on Saturday and Sunday.
Now, my most important way to make time work for me is to do a schedule. I know what I need to get done everyday. If I meet my word goal for the day early, then I can either get in extra words or I can do a little promotional posting. But a schedule helps you keep up with your upcoming releases and you’ll never miss a deadline again…
Don’t forget that the way to meet your deadline is to focus on your writing time. Make sure that you have figured out how much you need to do each day to meet your goal. Make the time work for you…
It’s finally Saturday. How do you spend your Saturday? Me, I take a little longer cuddling my coffee, then I check my social media. My house gets cleaned and laundry done, not saying it’s put up, just done. Then I get to work on my weekly ads.
How do I schedule for a week? I’ll let you in on a little secret, I have a post spreadsheet. On my spreadsheet I have the books that I will post on for the upcoming week and where. I input the information for ads that are coming out and also, my blog posts are mostly done ahead of time.
Why do I schedule all of this ahead of time? I want more time to write. But how do I do it? Well, I use Hootsuite, Twitter Scheduler, Facebook Scheduler and other programs. No, I do not pay for the subscriptions, I do as many on each of them that I can.
A little hint, do not overload your social media with books. Post stuff about yourself, your life, inspirational pictures, pets, and so on. Let your fans know who you are. I try to alternate book posts to every four hours or more. That way I’m not too overpowering.
So, what are you doing today? Are you kicking back, enjoying a good movie? Live life… Laugh a lot… and Love…
It’s Friday! With the tax deadline coming up quickly, I’m excited that it’s Friday because I need a break. But, I’ll be writing this weekend as I have deadlines there too!
Do you plan your year of writing? I do. I’ve already got my writing for 2021 planned out and the covers are in process. Of course, as writers know, something new could be added during the year, it’s just the way our minds work.
As you can see, I’m finishing up 4 series in the above releases. I’m sad to see those series end, but I’m excited for the new series that I’ll be starting for 2021. And it will be a little different from my usual. I will give you a little info now. There will be 5 books in the series and they will be somewhat suspenseful. But I’ll fill you in on more about that soon.
Dreams fill our nights and guide our days. Some dreams are just imagination, but some dreams are real. Let’s explore them…
As a young girl, my dreams were filled with horses, grand pianos and writing… Well, I’ve made one dream come true, writing. And through my writing, my dream of owning horses can come true. If you’ve read any of my books, then you know most of them have horses in them. It’s my way of living one of my dreams.
Do you live your dream or just dream about it? Always remember that some of our dreams are right in front of us, we just have to focus on them. So, will you make it happen today?
Wow! We made it people, we’re halfway to the weekend… I have question and it’s one that’s been asked of me, plus I’ve asked it myself. What is the genre you write in?
It’s like sitting down to watch a movie. You have to choose what you want to watch. If you love Rom Com’s, then you’re not likely to choose a Horror Flick. Same with books, people are specific when they look for a book.
So, you’re probably saying, you write romance, that’s easy. But, when you put your book on a publishing site, it’s not that easy. Ok, the main genre is romance for me, but there are many styles of romance. It’s endless and sometimes gives me a headache. How do you break it down?
For example, when putting a book on Amazon for instance, you have to list 2 categories and then 7 keywords. Yikes! And if you get it wrong, you won’t explode, but your sales may not either. If you get it right, you nail it!
Now, the categories for romance are long and sort of specific. Yes, I know that I don’t write Dystopian Romance. To be honest, I had to look up Dystopian, just to clarify. And no, I don’t write Erotic Romance. But, does my book fall into Contemporary, New Adult, General, Comedy, Western, etc… The list goes on.
My best advice on this subject is to go to writers that write like you. See where they have their books at and always, always, look at the bestsellers in that style. Because if they aren’t bestsellers, then they may be doing the same thing as you, trying to wrap their head around it.
Oh, and don’t forget the keywords. This is something that I change up often and I mean often. Of course, sometimes Amazon will put your book in other keywords or categories, like if your book is short, it could be listed under Kindle Read under 2 hours. Do your research!!! Let me repeat that so that all of those in the back heard me, DO YOUR RESEARCH!!! Don’t you hate shouty capitals. Well, I hope I got your attention.
Go now and look at the book that’s not selling as well as it should. No, really, go now. You can’t afford for your book to be sitting in the wrong spot. It’s like a cook book that’s put under historical romance. Wrong! So get to it. And let me know how it goes. Make sure that you keep a spreadsheet on sales before you make the change, then after. See if it works and if you haven’t see a change in a couple of weeks, tweak it.
It’s Tuesday morning and I’m cozying up with my coffee cup. Morning’s are so hard, but after a couple more cups of coffee, I’ll have this thing in hand…
Ok, so I promised part 2 of my outline process would be about structure. And I always do my best to live up to my promises…
Structure!
Outlining gets me through the writing progress, but as I stated in my last post, there needs to be structure, the bones to the writing.
Now, this is the way I structure my writing process. It works for me and I hope it works for you.
Start your book by introducing your main character. Don’t overdo the backstory, but let your reader know who the main character is all about, what they are looking for, or what they need to happen. Maybe it’s looking for Mr. Right or solving a mystery.
Then, of course, things can’t go exactly right with your character, that would be boring. So, something needs to happen that changes their course, maybe setting them up for an exciting change. Maybe it’s an obstacle that’s put in front of their goal.
At this point, the character will want to give up, but they press forward.
In the middle or somewhere near it, your character should be at their breaking point. Your reader should be asking, what will happen next? I call this the top of the hill.
As you start to let things happen that go right for the character, you need to toss in one last zinger. Your reader has started to feel like they know how it will end, but then…
Now, and only now do you let your character have victory. This is when they slay the dragon, win the love, or find the killer.
This is the closing out of your story. Your character marries their love, sees the killer put in prison, or whatever their turmoil was, ends and they see the rainbow, so to speak. Then they walk into the sunset, or fall off a cliff, if it’s a cliffhanger for the next book in the series…
Now, I now this was a very relaxed explanation, but that’s how I roll. I don’t get into fancy words, because that just confuses the situation. This is how I do it and it may or may not work for you. It works for me!
It’s finally Saturday and what does that mean, well, for me that means that I’ll be writing and working on the outline for my next release. Outline? You mean you don’t do outlines for your books? Well, let me enlighten you to how I outline my books to make writing them a little more streamlined.
Ok, let’s get a little into why I outline over winging it. To start building a house you have to lay out the plan, build the foundation, then the walls, and so on. Get the picture. It’s the same with writing a book, or so it is with me. I need to set up the groundwork first. That’s why I have a notebook for each series that lays out the details so I don’t have to go back and forth trying to remember if Ridge has blue eyes or if Sara is an author. But back to the outlining. Here goes:
1: Start with a blank paper. Don’t give yourself any distractions. Then get lost in the story that is unfolding in your mind. And remember, the outline doesn’t have to be perfect because you’re the only one that will see. So just write.
2: I separate my outline by chapters. But you can just do it like a book report, down the line, separating by paragraphs. It’s up to you. This is your outline, nobody elses!
3: At this point you should try to remember a couple of things. Even though you’re just putting down the bones of your work, you need to also remember that those bones have to hold up the story, so make sure that you have a start, middle, and end to each chapter or section of the book. Start your first plot, then build on it, bringing the reader to a moment of what’s going to happen. Then your main character hits a roadblock, something that keeps them from solving their problem or mystery. You’ll lead your reader on an adventure where they are left wondering if the problem will get solved.
4: At this point, you’ll be at the midpoint, or close. Make sure that you’re at the top of a hill with a looming cliff that the reader feels like they’re about fall off of, then toss them a rope. Give them hope for their hero or heroine. But as a writer, you’ll want to have a cut in that rope so that the story stays interesting up until you rescue your character and have a happy ending, or lead up to the next book if it’s a series.
5: Yep, I know. How the heck do you do all of this and not go crazy? Well, for me, I have to think of it like building that house we talked about earlier. If your bones aren’t strong enough, your house or story in this case, will crumble. And the point to all of this is to make sure your story holds up in the storm and by storm, I mean readers!
Part 2 of this post will be the structure. So, stay tuned for the next post and don’t forget, even if you don’t outline, make sure it has a rise and fall or your reader will give up before they ever find out the fate of the main character.
As always, good writing and May God Bless You…
And since I’m all about pirates this week, don’t forget to check out Captain Tanner in Safe in the Pirate’s Arms!
Stephanie Hurt - Romance Author 