Tag: Romance

Weddings, a romance authors inspiration…

Image

 

It’s a beautiful day here in Georgia. The sun is shining brightly, the air is clear, and the wind is blowing like a small hurricane. Well, my son had a bass club fishing tournament today so the house is all mine. I actually slept in this morning which is a luxury that I normally don’t indulge in. 

Also today is a wedding at our Church. I love weddings. It’s so exciting to see the vows exchanged, the smiles of love, and the promise of forever. So many weddings today end up in divorce. I always say a prayer for the couple and hope that their union will be forever as it should be.

As a romance author I’m finely tuned into the feelings and atmosphere. I try to catch every ambiance and put it into my treasure chest of inspiration. A wedding is so romantic in it’s simplicity or in some cases it’s extreme elegance. 

Romance is such an intricate part of our lives. I can’t imagine not having some type of romance in our lives. You may be sitting there thinking that romance is dead, but it’s not. It’s in everything we do, you just have to open up to it. Even the most simple thing is romantic if you’re open to it. My assistant says I could find romance in a bag of frogs 🙂 Well sure, haven’t you ever heard of kissing a frog to find the handsome prince. 

Hope everyone has a wonderful Saturday. Enjoy the day and remember to stop and smell the romantic roses. Live as though it’s the last day you have.

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Your leading man…

When writing a romance novel you’ve got to have a leading man. How do you design him? Here’s the top ten things I ponder when creating my leading men. Hope you enjoy even if you don’t use them 🙂

1: Leading men always need to be able to take charge, be the hero type, at least for me. They have to be able to handle whatever the leading lady throws at them, or at least eventually handle it.

2: In the same instance, I like my leading men to be able to show emotion, whether it’s anger, frustration, or down right cry. It shows a human factor.

3: Most of my leading men have to be able to wear a Stetson and ride a horse. I know that’s just a personal preference, but it works in my books. The black Stetson is kind of my trademark.

4: Most of my leading men have dark hair and blue eyes. You definitely have to define the leading man’s looks and stick with it. If somewhere along the story he suddenly goes blonde and green eyed you have a problem.

5: What about size? Is he tall and lean or medium height and husky? It’s up to you, but it’s a pivotal point. If he’s a string bean with no muscles and the heroine needs to be carried off into the sunset you might have a problem.

6: Is your leading man a general good guy or does he have a bad side to go along with it? Sometimes your leading man has to be a little bad to get the lady, but that’s just my opinion. Sometimes they have a little rogue in them that draws your leading lady in. 

7: Will your leading drive a car or a truck? You may say that doesn’t matter, but it does in most stories. If he’s a high powered business man that wears a suit to work, nine times out of ten he’s going to drive a sporty car versus a four wheel drive truck. Now if he’s a cowboy he’s going to drive a truck. It makes the story more realistic to get the small details straight.

8: Will your leading man be a business type, a cowboy, a blue collar worker, or maybe be unemployed for the sake of the story? You can’t go from one thing to the other in the same story without a story line to support the change. 

9: Is your leading man educated? In a lot of story lines this is important because the dialogue needs to lean in one way or the other.

10: Ok, this is a biggy with me, is he romantic? Will he bring the leading lady flowers when things go wrong? Will he be the first to say those three little words that most men have a allergic reaction to? Or is he totally unromantic and moody? Your call…

I could go on forever, but these are the top ten things I look at in a leading man. Sometimes if you sit down and do a character sketch ahead of time it helps you to keep the story in line. 

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

    

 

2:

Amazing! Have you tried this?

Image

 As writers we try everything to get our work noticed. We go on sites and follow other established writers to see how they do it. We put our name everywhere. I’ve put my name in some of the most unlikely places. Some have worked and others have just plain out flopped around like a dead fish.

Well I’ve found a couple of avenues for my work and I wanted to share them with you. Some of you may already be using these channels and if so I hope it’s going well, if not I hope this gives you some new advantages.

1. The Independent Authors Network

     I’ve been playing with the choice of paying for a space on this network. I researched it and noticed that some of the authors I love are on there and it’s relatively reasonable. It’s a $24.95 one time fee for a basic membership and $74.95 a year for a Gold membership. I chose the basic. It’s like a author family of sorts. The network sends out your info periodically on their social media and other authors or readers send out your links and you do the same for them. I’ve noticed a real change in my sales since joining. My author page, yes I got an author page shows six of my books and some of the links that are clickable for purchasing my work.

2. Romance Writers of America

   I wanted to join this earlier than I did, but the entry fee kept me held back. I’m really glad I decided to join this wonderful organization. I get a magazine monthly and newsletters periodically. They both provide some great advice and instruments I can use in making my author platform more sturdy.

3. allromanceebooks.com

    This is one of the sites where you can sell your books. It doesn’t cost anything to set up a publisher/author account and have your books sold on their site through Paypal. You can put as many books as you want to on their site. It’s fairly easy to put your books on their site and they take several formats. Actually they recommend publishing them in several formats. I set this up and was able to put five of my books on there yesterday and already have had sales. You get 60% royalty. I figure that’s pretty good especially since it’s another avenue for my books to be seen and it’s FREE.

Maybe this will be helpful for you or just old news, but it helped me. My objective is to let others know when I find a great way to get my work seen. These are not my only avenues, but are my newest. If you use other sites, please list them and send to me. It could warrant a whole new blog post of what others use to market their work.

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

 

Your Heart! Is it protected from your writing?

You may be saying, what??? What I’m saying is simply this, as writers we put our whole heart into what we do, or at least we should. To me it’s like pouring out my soul when I write. I sometimes finish a writing session as feel so drained and other times I’m cleansed from the incessant chatter in my head by characters that just have to be heard. Writers, you know what I mean 🙂

When you pour your heart into something and then it doesn’t go well, how do your heart feel? Sometimes it really bothers me when sales are down and then an upturn starts and I smile. But my heart does a flip flop and sometimes I wonder if it stops for a second to bask in the good fortune.

My newest novel has been doing really well, which is exciting. The funny thing is and maybe it shouldn’t surprise me, but it seems that people are buying it and the first book in the series together. The sales are coming in twos. One day I did really well and the sales were even on both books in the series. Maybe I should do more series, ummm,,,

So back to the heart of writing. If you go into your writing with both feet forward and your heart encased in the whole process, make sure that you’re ready for some aches and pains. Writing is a process and sometimes it doesn’t go like we want it to, but other times it goes better than expected. My heart stays on a constant roller coaster. i just hope it’s up to the challenge 🙂

In romance writing you have to put your heart in it. Sometimes it’s a lot of your own heart that you write about. Your fantasies, your flops in the love department or just what you’ve experience in the heart department. Some of my favorite writing has been from my own experiences, changed a bit for obvious reasons. Don’t want anyone to think I’ve lived a fantasy life. 

So on this Saturday as you go about your house cleaning, your chores, your errands and hopefully your writing, put your heart into it, but put a protective hedge around it. Don’t let the downs affect your heart, keep the heart pumping and keep writing 🙂

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

 

It’s Release Day! Finally!

Well today’s the day. It’s the release day for “Rekindled Flames”. I’m so excited about this one. Some of my blog friends have posted promotional blogs for me. Thanks for that. The author community is awesome. We have to look out for each other.

Here’s a brief description:

“Rekindled Flames” the 2nd in the Flames of Love Series By Stephanie Payne Hurt

He haunts her dreams; She torments his nights!

When Lydia returns home for her father’s funeral she’s forced to face hard reality. She left town two years earlier with a secret and a broken heart. As she sits at the graveside she sees the man that’s haunted her dreams for those two years. She realizes it’s time to tell him the secret she’s carried around for two years, but will he forgive her or turn away? The fire they started that fated New Year’s Eve two years ago has smoldered, building in intensity and heat. Can they rebuild the fire or will the secret put it out forever? Take the journey with these two and find out if love wins or will it burn out?

 

Books will be available in EBook edition on Amazon, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, Sony, Apple, Kobo, Google Play and Diesel. Paperbacks also available through these sites as well as CreateSpace.

Not sure what time today it’ll be up and available, but just keep checking. Please if you take the time to read it submit a review. It would be greatly appreciated.

As always, great writing and May God Bless You…Image

Getting ready for promotion Monday…

It’s crazy getting ready for a big promotional day. I’ve posted on as many sites a I can. My press release went out last night and has garnered some nice response. This has been a much awaited book release. Since it is the 2nd book in my “Flames of Love” series it’s been asked about for months. It’s been crazy the response I’ve had to the first book in the series “Tender Flames”. I’ve been really honored by the responses.

Here is the description for Rekindled Flames

He haunts her dreams; She torments his nights!

W Lydia returns home for her father’s funeral she’s forced to face hard reality. She left town two years earlier with a secret and a broken heart. As she sits at the graveside she sees the man that’s haunted her dreams for those two years. She realizes it’s time to tell him the secret she’s carried around for two years, but will he forgive her or turn away? The fire they started that fated New Year’s Eve two years ago has smoldered, building in intensity and heat. Can they rebuild the fire or will the secret put it out forever? Take the journey with these two and find out if loves wins or will they walk away? 

If anyone wants to join the promotional Monday, just let me know. 

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

 

“Rekindled Flame” Release date Monday February 25th

Image Oh yeah, if you’re wondering, yes I lived through the IRS audit on my client. It took 6 hours and ten years off my life 🙂 I did manage a compliment by the auditor on my accounting and my thoroughness. But it’s over and done. Found nothing to complain about. YESSSSSS.

Now to more important matters at hand. Monday, February 25th my novel “Rekindled Flames” the 2nd in the Flames of Love series is finally officially going to be released. I’m super duper excited 🙂 Life has really gotten in the way of this release, not to mention those pesky other books that just kept vying for my attention :0

So to all my blog friends, if anyone would like to help with the promotion of my newest release just let me know and I’d be very appreciative. I do return the favor by the way.

As always, good writing and May God Bless you!

Back to the living so to speak…

I guess some of you are wondering where I’ve been. Well, one of my tax clients got a nice little audit from the IRS and I’ve been elbow deep in dusty file boxes pulling out everything that they asked for and gave me a week & a half to do. During tax season it’s tough to juggle this extra work, but I managed to finish this afternoon and the audit is tomorrow morning. Please keep your fingers crossed.

As for news that bears saying, I finished “Rekindled Flames” the second book in the Flames of Love Series Sunday night. It should be completely published by Monday so I’m really excited about this. This has been one of those books that really had me in a little bit of a miff. My mind would stray in and out of the writing on this one. I love the book, but had to really work on the ending. 

If anyone would like to help on Monday with promotional social media help just send me your email address and I will gladly send you the needed promotional doo dah’s. Thanks in advance.

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Have I gotten too comfortable with my life?

Do you ever sit back and look at your life? I’ve been doing that a lot lately. I know that my life is way too busy most of the time. I’m a wife, mother, accountant, children’s minister, and now a published author. Sometimes I don’t have time to think straight, well that’s if I could think straight 🙂

Last night was Valentine’s and here is a rundown of my night. I worked in my office which is beside my home, until 5:30. I finally walked across the driveway to the house and gave my hubby his card and chocolate covered caramels. I gave my son a reese heart and box of m & m’s, plus a card. Then I made bacon, egg and cheese toasted sandwiches. I know really fancy for Valentines dinner, but it was scrumptious. Then I grabbed my laptop and worked on tax returns while we watched Duck Dynasty. (Our new favorite show.)

I know this sounds really unromantic, but it was actually nice. We sat as a family together, even though I was working, our son was on youtube, and my hubby was playing with his new I-phone. To me this is a great night. 

But when I turned my laptop off and gathered all the paperwork back into the carry box, I thought about my life. I realized something that I’ve known for a while, I’m set in my ways. I’m happy just sitting home instead of going out to dinner with friends. I don’t care to go out, going to the store has gotten to be a chore. I work, I write, and I do my ministry, but I don’t do much of anything else. My husband says he feels the same way. Have we lost touch with the world. I don’t know if we’re just in a rut or what.

I’ve been struggling with a decision, which I won’t say what just yet, don’t want to jinx it. I’m feeling somewhat lead to make a change in my business that will surprise some people and some will say it’s about time. If I do this it will open up a lot of opportunities to further my writing.

So, as my friends, pray, cross fingers and I promise I’ll let you in on the secret really soon. I’m waiting a little bit longer to make the decision. I’ve discussed this with my husband and my assistant. They’re both very supportive. I’ve also let a couple of personal friends in on it for their input. I really think it will be a positive step in my life. So in the coming weeks I will let you in on some of the changes to come. 

As always, good writing, and May God Bless You…