Deadlines keep you focused…

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Deadlines are all around us! We have deadlines for tax filing, bill paying, publishing our manuscripts, getting to work, the list goes on. Some days the deadlines seemed to crowd in and boggle our brains, but to put it in perspective, deadlines keep us on track!

As with my work, I’m an accountant which means I’m on a constant deadline. There’s payroll taxes due, sales tax due, income tax filing, and many more items that make your head spin. Maybe that’s why a lot of accountants are introverts, we don’t have time to be anything else!

With writing, you have deadlines for publishing, completed book covers, blurbs, contests, dare I go on. I heard that groan from the masses, yep, you know where I’m coming from. But the deadlines keep us focused. So, maybe we don’t keep up with our word counts and end up putting twenty thousand words in two days, but we get it done 😉

SO, do deadlines help you or make you crazy?

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

By the way, I met my deadline for the finished manuscript for Lily with 24 hours left over. That made me give myself a high five.

Lily Release ad!

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Dust Bunnies of the brain…

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It’s Monday folks! Does your brain feel like this dust filled pan? Mine does. I actually timed my writing this morning so that I did my allotted work before I attacked social media. But wouldn’t it be nice if we could pull out a pan from our brain and clear the dust and cobwebs?

I have several exciting announcements coming up in the next couple of days and weeks. Along with some preorders going up and then a series announcement that has me excited, I’ll be doing a cover reveal for a couple of upcoming books.

If anyone is interested in helping me make these announcements, especially the cover reveals, just let me know. I want to get the word out, far and wide. I’m just bowled over with excitement about the new covers for the works in progress. When you see them, you’ll understand what I’m talking about.

So, how’s your Monday so far? Here’s to hoping it’s great…

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

photo credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/23408922@N07/23807288069″>Project 366 #4: 040116 Harder To Breathe</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/”>(license)</a>

Fascination

Fascination, now that’s an interesting word. It means, the power to fascinate someone; the quality of being fascinating. What fascinates you? For me there are many things, like people, they fascinate me. I love to sit and watch people engaged in conversation. The facial expression, the way the get animated telling a story. It’s amazing, the different things you see in their eyes.

Actors, they fascinate me how they weave a story from memory. But it’s not only the memory part, many people can memorize words, but they can’t show you the words. Actors show you the words in their actions, reactions, and expressions.

Words fascinate me. Amazing, huh, since I’m an author. But seriously, the power of words is vast and complex. As a writer, we can create a life that’s not real, but for us a we write it, we can bring a character to life, give them feelings, expressions, features, all with just words. Then we can bring them to our readers and carry them away to other worlds, countries, or times. Amazing, the power of words.

Life is fascinating. Look at the stages of life. We start out helpless babies, then grow into children, teenagers, young adults, middle-age adults, then as we grow past senior adults, we sometimes become helpless again, back to where we started. We’re given a short amount of time of this Earth and it goes by in the blink of an eye, but how do we make our mark, leave our legacy. Deep stuff!

Ok, now to yesterday’s contest, if you follow me on Twitter and Facebook, then you know I didn’t make it, but I’m not sad or upset. It’s part of the process we call writing. What fascinates some people is the fact that I’m not upset. But that’s not me, I move forward, not backward. So, on with other contests, other submissions, and other publishing.

Since it’s Thursday, I’ll give you some Throwback Thursday. This is one of the books that the research fascinated me. Reincarnation, dreams, and finding the right time all mixed into one book that filled my thoughts for months before I wrote it.

Here’s a little excerpt:

He bowed his head and shook it from side to side. “I don’t understand how a man that’s been dead for over one hundred years can just take over your heart. How can you even think about going back to him? If you love me, how can you love him too?”

Finding the Right Time

Finding the Right Time front cover

Putting it in perspective

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Good Wednesday morning! Today’s the day I find out if I made it to through the 1st phase of the #manuscriptmatch writing contest for Love Inspired Historical from Harlequin. Keeping fingers crossed and saying many prayers!

Do you organize your writing? By that I mean, do you put it into an organizer and set up your writing schedule? As you know from other posts, I’ve began to organize my writing so that I’m more aware of my deadlines and word count needs.

Of course, I have my handy journal calendar that has my deadlines for things like, word count daily requirements, also I have to give my manuscript to my editor, when it needs to be put into Amazon to meet the preorder requirements and when it officially releases. But this past week, I went one step further. I made a file for all of my releases for the next eight months. I now have a place to put research that I print, outlines, and a page with all of my important dates regarding the manuscript. I can even put a copy of any ads I’ve run on that one book.

It may seem like a lot of work, but it actually cuts down on the workload. I have all of the files in this nice, vinyl accordion file that looks nice and keeps all of the paperwork from cluttering my writing space. Try it, you won’t regret it. This is especially helpful when you also have a full-time job. I now have everything at my fingertips. Of course, I have a lot of this in my Scrivener program too, but this way I can do plotting without opening my computer if I don’t want to.

As always, Good writing and May God Bless You…

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Patience is a Virtue!

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Patience… What exactly does ‘Patience’ mean? Well, according to Google, it means the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset. Umm, wow, do writers need patience? Yes!

I’ve always been a mostly patient person on the outside, but on the inside, I’m a nervous wreck. Like today, my brain is a ball of mush because the #ManuscriptMatch with Harlequin is over at 1pm tomorrow, so I have to wait. But, I need to be patient, because as my grandmother used to say, ‘a watch pot never boils’.

As a writer, we have to have patience and here is a couple of reasons why:

Of course, we have to be patient as we write the manuscript. That can be a hard one. The story goes through most writer’s mind faster than our fingers can type, but we have to be patient that the story will be finished when it’s finished.
Waiting on the edits, that can be hard. You’ve worked hard to get that manuscript done, now it’s time to wait.
If it’s on preorder, then you have to wait for the final release day. This one can be hard for me. I get excited when it’s all polished and pretty, just sitting there, staring at me as the clock slows to a snail pace.
And contest, yep, that’s the mode I’m in now. You enter, then you wait, if you win a phase, then you supply the next part, and you wait, then wait some more. At least this newest contest is only a couple of hours away. It can really make you a wreck.
Here’s a good one and one I’ve heard from fellow authors, you turn your work into a publisher and have to wait for a response. That wait can be grueling. I have two submitted to Avon and I’ve been curious, but trying to hold on.

So, are you a patient person or writer. What do you do to keep from gnawing your nails to the bone or eating everything around you?

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Just a little additional mention, my newest book ‘Seaside Beginnings’ is taking off. The response has been humbling, to say the least. I’ve received some of the sweetest emails about it. Ladies are flocking in to ask for more of the over forty books. I’m excited to say that by the end of 2016 there will be another one, but I have several coming out before it. So thanks to all the wonderful response, it makes this writer smile with joy.

Seaside ad

photo credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/85608594@N00/24938724510″>Melody Beattie Believing that things happen too slowly or too quickly is an illusion. Timing is perfect</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/”>(license)</a>

Word Counts, Outlines and Covers…

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Good Friday morning! It’s been a busy week and it will only get busier. Tax season is in full swing and my calendar is getting full, but that’s a good thing. I included a nice, warm picture for all of you caught in the polar vortex and to those of us that just want to walk down that dock and plunge into the water, washing the everyday stress away. AHHHH… As as writer I can imagine it…

I’m often asked how I keep up with my word counts during tax season. To be honest, it can be really hard, but I manage somehow. As you know, I do an outline for each book. With each line of the outline, I try to do a certain amount of words, according to the final length of the book that I have in mind. The outline keeps me focused while my mind is scattered with thoughts of tax returns, numbers and deadlines, both book and tax.

Of course and I’ve said this often, writing is how I stay sane when it’s busy. Writing takes the stress out of my mind and takes me to another place, sometimes another time. When I’m finishing my work day, thoughts of putting words into a manuscript fill me and make the stress start slipping away.

Right now I have a rather high word count daily, but it’s supposed to be less. I originally had figured into my daily writing for tax season, only 2000 words a day. If I do more then good for me, if I do less, well, that has to be carried over to the weekend writing sprint. With my brain going over so much paperwork during the day, sometimes I just have to do something creative, other than with words. That’s when I start

With my brain going over so much paperwork during the day, sometimes I just have to do something creative, other than with words. That’s when I start working on covers for upcoming releases and preorder releases. Here lately, I’ve been struggling with the cover for a historical romance that’s coming out at the end of April. But it will come to me soon, just right now, it’s giving me the hiccups 😉

How’s your week been? Have you kept up with your word count? (I’ll catch up on mine over the weekend, I hope!)

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Just a little note… Seaside Beginnings came out Wednesday and it’s been a great success. I’ve received some of the sweetest messages about it. I’m so excited and awestruck at the response for this book about an over forty woman starting over.

Coffee, I need more coffee…

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It’s too early to be Monday! I know, it’s a holiday and my son is out of school, so why am I up this early. Well, my internal clock refuses to sleep past seven. So, I’m up and writing already. Of course I do have to go to the office in a couple of hours. It’s tax season, so I have to work.

I’m already on my second cup of coffee. The first cup was just a primer of sorts. It’s dreary and cold outside. So my body is in denial about being awake, which makes it hard to get going.

To make things more interesting, as I opened my calendar of release dates, need to be at the editor dates, and all my writing deadlines, I panicked. Being the smart girl I am, and use that term loosely, I looked at this weeks writing agenda, then panicked. Of course, since I’m not completely awake, I looked at next week, not this week. Let’s just say I broke out in a cold sweat thinking I had to turn in Lily to my editor.

Then, finally, I realized that today is the 15th, not the 22nd. To say I was relieved is putting it lightly. I almost shouted, because adding over 8000 words to my already crazy word count this week would be brutal, to say the least.

So, how’s your Monday so far? I know several of you are already deep into this day, so has it been a typical Monday or extraordinary one?

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

When writing Historical Romance…

Have you written historical romance yet or a historical thriller even? To me, writing historical romance is more difficult than contemporary. Why? Well, let me explain.

As I was working on ‘Lily’ yesterday, I got to a part where they were stepping off the train in a new town. That sounds simple, but then I thought about the towns description. Now this part is based in the late 1890’s, so what was around in that time period? Were there still wagons around, had the car been invented (no, I couldn’t remember when the car was invented), or did some towns have electricity then?

The funny thing was, in one part, and yes, it’s still a clean, Christian historical romance, but as the couple walked down the sidewalk they come across a ‘brothel’ and since my main character ‘Lily’ is from a small, Georgia town, she asked about what it was. So, I looked up words for a brothel from that time period, gee I hope nobody looks at my Google searches! Needless to say, the thesaurus was my friend, yet again.

There’s so much to writing historical literature that many don’t think about. Your character can’t simply walk into a room and flip the light switch. Yeah, I had my character walk into a dark room, then realized she needed to light her lantern, so I went back and wrote that in. I had a giggle about that one. Poor thing, I left her in the dark for 5 whole paragraphs before I realized my mistake.

Since I’m writing four historical romances this year, all from different time periods, Google will be my best friend. It’s a good thing that history was my favorite subject in school, but of course, that was …. many years ago, we won’t go into the number of years. As my son puts it, I am part of history, meaning old history. LOL!

So, have you tried writing historical romances? Did you have a hard time keeping it historical, without including more contemporary elements?

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

By the way, Lily is now up for preorder!

What’s coming up…

Lily Release ad!

As most of you know, I schedule my books and try to stay ahead of myself. Well, this year I’m way ahead of that. My 2016 writing is scheduled down to the date the manuscript has to go to the editor, the day the preorders have to be on each site and the release dates. It’s kind of exciting to know what’s coming up.

So here’s a list of what’s coming up for 2016:

Seaside Beginnings front cover Seaside Beginnings – February 17, 2016

Lily front cover Lily – March 27, 2016 (Book 3 of the Magnolia Hill Saga)

A Light Upon My Heart – April 30, 2016

The First Mate’s Lady – June 5, 2016 (Continued from Safe in the Pirate’s Arms)

Finding the Heart – July 1, 2016 (Book 2 of the Alpine Series)

Sowing the Right Seed – August 5, 2016 (Book 4 of the Lean on Him Series)

Georgia – September 5, 2016 (Book 4 of the Magnolia Hill Saga)

That’s just through September, but wow, this will be a busy year for me. How exciting! So, how’s your schedule going for this year? Have you thought about scheduling things to make it easier for you?

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

If I could go anywhere…

Good morning! It’s Saturday and sunny, but really cold here in Georgia. I was thinking about things on my bucket list. Do you have one? Come on, you know there’s something you’d like to do before you leave this place or maybe somewhere you’d like to go.

For me, I’ve always wanted to visit Switzerland. Even when I was young, I’d dream of the snow-capped alps and green meadows below. Once I wrote to the Swiss tourist bureau about a report I was doing on Switzerland. They sent me a whole package on the country. It was great as I went through all the pictures and pamphlets. I was in a dream world, for a while at least.

Well, since I did the research for my book, Tuscany, I’ve added that to my bucket list. As I researched the places and food in Tuscany, my heart was lost to it. Maybe one day I’ll brave a plane trip over there, but I don’t know. It’s nice to dream about it. Since I’m a writer, I can live through my characters. When I wrote Tuscany, I imagined being there. It took me away to another place. Once the book was at the end, I felt sad. So, yes another book set in Tuscany will be on the horizon, but probably for next year.

So, if you could go anywhere in the world, where would it be?

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…