Tag: characters

Working ahead of yourself!

Good Friday morning! Yes people, it’s Friday. For me, I’m on my second cup of pumpkin spice infused coffee and thinking about the third. Hope all  of you have great plans this weekend that don’t include going to the West Coast of Mexico. Hurricane Patricia is scary looking. To my Mexican friends and all of those in the path, stay safe.

Now on to today’s post. As you know I’m working on the last three books of the Five Oaks Ranch series. Luke is over halfway completed and Maggie is outlined. My mind has been drifting this week to Maggie’s story. Since it’s outlined, I’ve been playing with some of the pivotal scenes within her story. A couple are really exciting and I had to get them out of my system so that I can finish Luke, hopefully this weekend.

Of course I’ve been looking for photos for the Cauthen Christmas book which will end the series, sadly. I feel like I know the Cauthen’s personally. But that’s what happens when you spend a good chunk of time creating every aspect of their lives. That’s why Maggie’s story is pulling at me.

The Christmas book will be so sweet that I almost started writing it the other night, but I have to make sure that Maggie doesn’t become rogue and go in a different direction. You know how sneaky those characters can be 😉

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Clicking On and Off…

Writing doesn’t work like a light switch. You can’t just switch it on and off at your whim, can you? I sometimes struggle with writer’s block. It feels as though the writer in me has been turned off, but it wasn’t my choice. Some days this scares me because I love to write, what if it doesn’t flip back on?  So, what controls your switch? Good question huh!

I’ve worked on this question for a while and here’s what I came up with. It’s not an exact science, but it makes sense, for me that is.

Life controls my switch a good bit of the time. I’ve realized that when something is going on in my life, usually something stressful, life turns the switch off. No matter how hard I try, what comes out of my mind through my fingers isn’t satisfying. So, control the stress, keep the switch on. Easier said than done.

Guess what else controls your switch, other story characters. I noticed that when I decide to work on just one story, another story’s character steps in and holds the switch. It’s as though they’re saying, ‘work on my story or the switch goes off, your choice’. The only way to deal with this is to at least give the other story a few lines, then the switch is untouched.

Does this sound crazy? Think about it. How many times has your switch went off and you struggled to get it back on? Did you have something going on or was there another story pushing at you? Now you’re seeing what I’m talking about.

Try to push stress out when it starts in and give the other characters looming in your brain a little love, it might help.

What flips your switch?

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

P.S. If you get a chance, come by and join my Street Team. I some special prizes inside the Street Team portal that you might enjoy. Go to www.stephaniehurtauthor.com and follow the instructions, it’s easy and fun…

Word Count & Scrivener

Good Saturday morning! Here in Georgia it’s simply gorgeous with the sun shining and the temps comfortable. Makes me want to go outside and sit the rest of the day writing. But my house needs an overhaul 😉 That doesn’t mean that I won’t end up out there with my laptop.

I’m working on two manuscripts at the moment. Of course ‘Chase’ is one of them and then I’m also working on a new Christian Historical Romance, but that one will be discussed at a later date. As for writing, I’ve been trying to get in my daily word count and then some. Since the stories are flowing pretty steadily lately, it helps me to stay focused.

One thing that is helping with my writing lately is a program that I’m trying out. Have you tried out Scrivener yet? Several authors have suggested the program to me, but until now I’ve been using word mostly. So about a month or so ago I decided to test the waters and I’ve not looked back yet.

This program incorporates my trusty outlines and character lists into the same screen as my manuscript. I can keep it all at my fingertips at all time. Better yet as a new character is created I can simply add them to the list and never skip a beat. I’ve even got the outlines typed out for a couple of story ideas for later in the year.

What’s fun is with my 5 Oaks Ranch series I can copy my character list over to the next book. That way I don’t have to keep going back to the books before and search out a character. Let’s just say I love this program and highly suggest trying it out. They offer a trial version so that you can make sure it fits in with your way of writing.

Well, I better get back to mopping my kitchen and doing laundry because it won’t do itself. Also the sooner it’s done, the sooner me and my laptop can head out to sit on the deck and get lost in another world, if just for a while.

So, what are you up to today? Hope it’s fun…

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

So much water under the bridge, Ghost Love is 3!

Ghost Lover Advertising

Good morning everyone! I do hope you’re having a wonderful morning, for some of you a wonderful afternoon, maybe even early evening. Well today’s a special day for this writer, it’s the 3 year anniversary of Ghost Lover being published. I’m a proud mama for sure.

Ghost Lover came about a long time ago in my head and was originally named ‘Can This be Real’. But once I was ready to edit the final draft Ghost Lover came into my mind and the name was cemented in my writing history. It’s been a crazy ride since I hit the publish button on this one. There’s been 3 covers, yes 3.

book cover Ghost Love front cover GhostLover2

Yep, that first one, well let’s just say it didn’t last long. I fell immediately in love with the second one, then of course I fell over my own feet with the third one. As the book evolved, so did the cover. The third cover goes with the revised, 2nd edition which I published several months ago. I’ve grown as a writer over the last three years and realized that Ghost Lover needed a more detailed edit.

Here’s a few fun facts about Ghost Lover.

1: It was written over ten years ago under the name ‘Can This Be Real’.

2: This was the first book to make me cry and laugh in the same paragraph. Yep, this book touched me.

3: I received my first call from a big publishing house with this one. Actually I had two call me wanting me to republish this one under their name. As you can see, I didn’t. I stuck to my guns and held strong.

4: This book went International and did really well which totally blew my mind as a new writer.

5: I still have a book cowboy crush on Jared. He’s some kind of gentleman and still makes my head spin.

If you haven’t read Ghost Lover then now’s the best time. For a limited time it’s on sale at Amazon and Barnes & Noble for .99. Yes, I said .99! I want everyone to fall in love with Jared and Jess, the couple that started my writing career. I’m forever grateful.

So, have you fell in love with a cowboy lately? If not, then check out Jared. He’ll steal your heart and lock it away forever…

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Anniversary sale

What happens when…

Good Tuesday morning! Well the main tax season is almost over and I’ll be back to my regular blogging schedule. But this week will be majorly busy for me. I’ve been fitting in a little writing here and there, but not enough for my sanity. So here’s today’s thought for the day, What happens when…

What happens when you want to write but you don’t have your computer handy, well you pick up a pen and paper. I started a new manuscript the other night and was too tired to get up and grab my laptop, so I picked up my handy spiral bound notebook and started writing. It felt amazing to put pen to paper again. Of course I know those pages upon pages of handwritten words will have to be put in the laptop, but for now I’m content do it the old fashioned way.

What happens when you have a deadline for one book but have to start another one so the characters will let you sleep. Yep I started a new historical romance two days ago and yes I know Oakley is due out really  soon! Sometimes you have to just give in to the loudest voices in your head.

What happens when figure out toward the end of the book that you accidentally renamed a character midway of the book. Yep, guilty as charged. Well, you can either stay with the new name and go back to make changes or you can search all the wrong name entries and correct. But I’m sure glad I’m now using Scrivener so that I have a character list, especially for those that don’t appear many times.

So what do you do when this happens to you?

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Quilting a story

IMG_0233

It’s Friday people! Have you figured that out yet? So have another cup of coffee, sipping it slowly while you take a deep breath and say ‘I got this’. Ok, now on to the reason for the picture of the quilt above…

This is a quilt that I inherited from my grandmother. I lovingly put it out every winter on the back of the couch in the den. It’s really old, but well made. Of course I have several of her handmade quilts and actually several of her mothers, but this one just speaks to me. Maybe it’s the wagon wheel design, I don’t know, but it’s the subject of today’s post.

As when my grandmother started this quilt more than seventy years ago, she had to have an idea of where she was going. Then she had to pick out the colors, the patterns of material and just the right backing. It’s the same when you sit down to start you books. You need a direction to go in. If you just sit down a write down words well it’s not going to mesh into a story.

Just as you would do with a quilt you do it in steps. Here are some of the steps:

1: Idea for the story. Usually it takes you by surprise… so be ready.

2: Just an idea doesn’t make a story, you’ve got to have an idea of the bones just as a quilter has a pattern or idea of how they want it to look.

3: Gather your materials. This means, put down an outline and character write up. Make sure you have most of what you need to quilt your story together.

4: Piece them together with pens. This is where you put the parts together. Don’t put the wedding before they meet. It never works out that way. Some days I write part of the story that won’t even happen until several chapters later, but I write on the top of it where it fits in. That way when I get to that part, it’s ready to sew in.

5: Once you’ve got these parts down, then write to your hearts desire. That’s the way a quilter does. They get the supplies together in usually a organized way and then they start putting it together, piece by piece. Each piece should fit just right to make it come out correctly at the end, because who wants to get to the best part and realize they left out some of the pivotal pieces that would make it come out even.

Well, that’s my take on things. Of course there’s so many more steps to putting your book together, but these are just a few of the ways to quilt your story together. Make sure each masterpiece you create is the best you can do and don’t skimp on the middle to get to the end. Every quilt needs a good, well placed middle.

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Writing in layers, like our lives…

As I sit and ponder writing, life and the many things we do, I see the layers of it all. Layers are all around us. We have the family layer, life layer, work layer, faith layer and so many more layers it’s crazy. As writers we have even more layers than most.

Some days my layers overlap and I have to push them apart so that I don’t get overloaded. Some layers are heavier than others but in the end they’re what makes us who we are. My writer layers come in multiples, sometimes when my writer layers overlap I get knocked to the wayside. That’s when my mind can’t stay on one story and the characters start running over one another.

Do my layers of life and writing run into one another? Yes they do. I’ve seen many days when I struggled with the writing layers, but that’s what makes a writer work harder. As the characters run around trying to get heard, I wrangle them into the stories that flow out of my fingers. The layers of a story unfold and then a new layer starts. Oh the life of a writer’s mind.

How many layers do you have? If you peel them back carefully can you find your true self. As for me, when I peeled back my writer layer I found myself. I hadn’t realized that I needed that layer peeled back. For many years I left that layer piled under so many life layers and once I revealed it I started a fresh start. My writer layer has brought me into a new world of wonder and other worlds.

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

What if the words stop…

I’ve been asked many times where the words I write come from. Most people come up to me and just simply ask, ‘What if the words stop coming?’ For a writer that would be horrible, a nightmare come true. But the funny thing about a writer’s brain, it runs on overdrive most of the time. Sometimes we might have a hiccup in the process, but the words flow continuously.

Some have asked how I work on so many books at one time. How do I keep focused enough on each one to make the individual stories work? **Smiling broadly** Well it comes from too many stories going through that if I don’t get them on paper as they go through I’m afraid my brain will explode. If an idea comes through for a new story, well it has to be written out. I love to sit with a pad and pencil and just let the words flow through me. It’s exhilerating, but sometimes when you have a deadline working you have to push the others to the side. Of course that story still nags at you constantly.

But then I wonder if one day the words might stop. Of course for me they’ve been coming at me since I was a teenager and that’s been a long time. No, I’m not saying how long, but it’s been a while. If one day I develop some sort of problem where the words stop I don’t know what will happen. It’s been such a big part of me to put a story together in my mind that I think I might stumble some.

Then again I get a lot of my inspiration from music lyrics, people watching and life, so I guess in my mind, I’ll always have a story coming through. But if the music stops, the people disappear and I stop living, then the story would probably stop. Life has added so many stories in my head that I don’t think I’ll ever run out of material. I’ve experienced life through so many eyes and lives that I always have a new spin on a topic that I’ve touched on before.

What if the words stop… Let’s just say I hope they never do. I’ve come to love my characters that flow in and out of my head. They’re a part of who I am and that may sound crazy, but if you’re a writer you know where I’m coming from. After you spend hours with a character and their life, well it’s as if they’re your best friend. A couple of my books touched me so much that I was an emotional wreck during the process, but the words flowed even as the tears and the memories that spurred the story on came crashing through. Some memories never stop flowing through and they conjure up many stories that fill the books I write.

So, have you ever wondered what would happen to you if the words stopped? Scary thought…

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…