Tuesday Shoutout

Southern_Writers_button

Hope your Tuesday morning is wonderful! Mine has been blessed so far. For one, I got up this morning, for another I received my March Issue of Southern Writer’s Magazine. What’s important about that? Well, let me fill you in…

This month I’m featured on Page 5 in the Magnolia Corner section. Check it out:

Magnolia Corner SPH temp

Pretty cool to be included in such a wonderful magazine that supports writers at every turn. When Gary sent me an email about wanting to include me in the Gallery of Stars I was so humbled, but then he asked me to write something for the Magnolia Corner. If you haven’t subscribed to Southern Writer’s Magazine, then I suggest doing so. As a writer, the subscription is 100% tax deductible, but it goes way past that. This magazine will open new doors for you.

So, go over to http://www.southernwritersmagazine.com/ and check out all the things they offer, like Mic Nite and the Suite T blog. I’m telling you now, it’s a must for writer’s.

Go by and check out my page in the Gallery of Stars at http://authors.southernwritersmagazine.com/stephanie-payne-hurt.html

Visit Me in SW Gallery

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Monday morning!

It’s Monday morning and my weekend was way too short, but exciting. Saturday was my book signing in Zebulon. It turned out really well and I’m excited about the future events that could spin off of it.

Now to add to my excitement, today the article I wrote for Southern Writers Magazine’s Suite T blog is available on their website. Here’s the link for you to go by to read and share: http://southernwritersmagazine.blogspot.com/2015/11/lining-story-up.html. The article goes over the way I line up a story before I write it. I do hope it helps other writers.

My manuscript that is on Wattpad is still racking up the votes and reads. The comments are really good and I hope that helps with the stories success. It’s still in the hands of Harlequin, so fingers crossed that it does well.

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

If you cut it off, it will grow back, Who knew!

You may be wondering what I’m talking about. Today’s post is two fold. Since I’m on a low calorie diet, that means I’m eating salads, salads, and more salads. That means I’m buying lettuce constantly. A couple of weeks ago as I scanned down the many thousands of posts on Facebook I ran into an article about regrowing lettuce. Well since I’m eating so much lettuce (feeling somewhat like a rabbit) I decided to read the article instead of passing it by.

It was talking about the kind of lettuce that I eat, which is Romaine. All you do is cut the hard end off which you can’t eat anyway and put it in a cup of water. Now I have letter regrowing in my cups. Yes I did a happy dance on my patio the other evening when I saw my little lettuce sprouts reaching up to the sky. Of course my hubby and son laughed at me and they’ve played some really mean tricks on me regarding my little baby lettuce sprouts. Who knew you could grow lettuce from your cut off stalks, well maybe some of your knew, but I didn’t.

As for the 2nd meaning, I’m talking about your manuscript. I’ve been working on Chase, the 3rd book in the Five Oaks Ranch series and something just didn’t feel right about one of the scenes. I read it and reread it until my eyes crossed. Then I made the decision to cut the whole scene and start over. Guess what? It worked! Once I decided to delete the whole scene that wasn’t sitting right with me, I felt better.

Then as I started back over with this section of the book it took on another feel altogether and actually led into another scene I hadn’t even thought of. So, it helped to cut it off and let it regrow and then it multiplied! Now that’s the kind of cutting off I like.

So, how’s your writing going? I hope it’s going well. Also, have any of you ever replanted something in order for it to regrow and multiply. I’d love to hear about it.

As always, good writing and May God Bless You!

P.S. Just a little exciting news, I’m featured this week in Southern Writers Mic Nite! Here’s a link to said article: http://www.southernwritersonline.com/mic-nite.html

photo credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/7467877@N07/4970032832″>Novelty Gene Autry Barlow</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/”>(license)</a>

Giveaway on Southern Writer’s Magazine site…

Good Monday morning. I hope all of you had a great weekend. As for me I start this week with a special piece of news. I’ve joined forces with Southern Writer’s Magazine for a giveaway. Sign up this week for a chance to win a signed copy of “Safe in the Pirate’s Arms”. It’s been great all the help Southern Writing Magazine has been handing me.

Here’s the info on the giveaway:

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Upcoming releases and other talk…

Good Tuesday morning everyone. I hope your week is great so far. The weather here in Georgia has gone up slightly, but looking forward to a cooler trend this weekend. I love Halloween and you definitely need it to be cool for the costumes. We have Trunk or Treat at our Church and it’s always a blast. We serve hot dogs and hot chocolate along with all the candy the kids can fit in their bags. I can hardly wait.

As for upcoming releases, my author friend V. Steele has a new release this Friday. V is from right here in Georgia and she loves a good romance. Her My Prodigy Trilogy is coming to a close this Friday with the release of Nadia’s Revenge. Since she uses my publishing service, Horseshoe Publishing, to create her covers and do edits, I was able to read it before the release. Since I do enjoy vampire romances, I enjoyed this one. But let me warn you, the this book has some violent elements, but in the end it’s really good.

V effectively ends the series. I look forward to some of the new things she has coming out. We have many things in common, the main thing being we both love a good romance. Since she’s a Georgia girl too, well it just makes it all the better. The book is on Pre order at Amazon until Friday and then it will be up for sale. So check it out!

For the second release, I’m pleased to announce that the article I was asked to write for Southern Writer’s Magazine will be out soon. I approved the final draft yesterday and am really excited about it. If you don’t already subscribe to Southern Writer’s Magazine, then I suggest you check them out. They offer so much for authors and work closely with you. Also they support authors at every turn. I’m proud to be a subscriber of their magazine.

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Foggy Fall Morning

When I woke this morning it was foggy outside. To me a foggy fall morning is beautiful. The fall colors become a soft emerging color through the fog. It’s as though you’re alone in the world as the fog closes in around the house. As I sit here looking out the window I can only see a little ways and then you meet a gray wall. For some reason when it’s foggy as when it snows everything is quiet. It’s as though the creatures outside are afraid to make a sound or maybe they’re just in awe of natures shadowy appearance.

Hopefully the foggy morning will not seep into my brain. I plan on doing some writing today. I need to get Open The Heart out and ready to go. Also, I need to do some promoting for Monday. I will be featured on Southern Writer’s Magazine’s Blog page called Suite T. This is so exciting. They’ve been so wonderful to me and my writing. If you’re a writer you need to subscribe to their magazine. It’s very inspirational and informative.

I’d also like to recommend a website that’s very good for a writer and a reader. If you’re like me and grew up reading Avon Romance books, then you need to visit http://www.avonromance.com. It’s a great site to catch up with other romance readers and get to know their editors and authors. I’m proud to be able to contribute to their wonderful website. I recently went through some of my old romance books in the attic and was surprised at how many of them are Avon Books. When I was young I would look for the Avon logo on the spine and that always told me what was inside would be great.

Avon Books carry some big author names. If you haven’t checked them out, then you’ve been missing out. I’ve found several new authors to read and recently was excited when I saw an older author of romance write a post on there. It’s funny how much I enjoy the posts on this site. Some of the posts even give you interesting insights into their world.

As for me, I’m feeling pretty good this morning. I was able to spend a couple of hours last night with my nieces. One of them is my editor and cover designer. She’d been away at University of Georgia. I was so glad to get to talk with her and catch up. I was able to surprise her with a paperback copy of Victoria which was the last book she designed for me before she left for college.

Wishing everyone great writing, and May God Bless You…

Pumpkin Pie Spice and everything nice…

It’s Halloween and I love it. I don’t get into all the scary stuff, but I do love to dress up. Last year I was Noah in the Ark. What will I be this year? Hummmmm…… I have several ideas but no reveal until tonight at Church. We’re having our annual Truck or Treat and I always go all out with my costumes for the kids. I’m a big kid at heart so why not show it to the world. I’ll be posting a picture of me tonight.

As for the Pumpkin Pie Spice, I purchased my first seasonal coffee creamer of the season. It was heavenly this morning as I took the first sip of the creamy concoction. It made my day seem so exciting and mysterious. As the clouds roll in setting up for the rain to come later tonight, I’m working on my second cup of deliciously flavored coffee and thinking about a third. Why not?

As for everything nice, my book sale is up on most of my sites, but not on Barnes and Noble yet. Hopefully by the end of the week. I’m excited about my upcoming blog post in the Southern Writer’s Magazine Suite T blog which will appear November 18th. Things have moved along pretty quickly with my writing and I’m just riding on this wave of awesomeness.

Looking into a couple of advertising areas that have been recommended to me. Let me know your thoughts on these two sites: BookBub and Blodads.com. Have any of you used these sites and how did it go? Do you have another recommendation?

Hope all is well on this spookiest day of the year. Happy Halloween and stay safe, but have a marvelous time being someone or something else today.

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Never Give Up Your Dream…

Well, the SYTYCW2013 emails have been sent out and I didn’t receive one. I’m not sad or mad or upset, just gives me more drive. There was 640 really good entries and the editors had to choose only 50 to go on to the next step. I don’t envy their job. But you never know, my work was read by an editor at Harlequin.

I had a really nice message from a fellow author that’s published with Harlequin and she gave support and her experience. She entered last year and she too did not get picked. Well guess what, she still heard from one of the editors and now has published a couple of books through Harlequin. They told her that all though for the contest they can only pick 50 that doesn’t mean that they don’t look seriously at the others.

So, I still have hope. Anyone that knows me wil know that I’m resilient. Writing is a dream passion of mine and it’s been such a crazy year and a half. I’ve been featured in two magazines and several blogs. Also this week I’ve been honored with being featured as the Must Read of the week in the Southern Writers Magazine blog. Here’s the link: http://southernwritersmagazine.blogspot.com/. Scroll down and I’m on the right. Then when I was on a Children’s Ministry website getting a game for last night I noticed a Barnes and Noble advertisement. I had three of my books featured in the ad along with some other great reads. Needless to say I did a happy dance. So I’m still on a high right now.

As we move on from the drama of the contest wait, there’s always some writing contest going on and our name is out there. Let’s focus on what we as writers do best, let’s write. You never know when that call might come in saying, “We want you to write for us.”

Good writing and May God Bless You…

My post in the “Southern Writer’s Magazine” here!

Yep, I’m all smiles. I just got my copy of the July issue of Southern Writer’s Magazine. I was honored to be featured in this months issue in their Magnolia Corner. They featured the cover of my novel “Rekindled Flames” and my answer to this question:

Do you base any of your characters on people you know? To find out my answer go to http://www.southernwritersmagazine.com/ and subscribe. It’s a great magazine for writers and readers.

Thanks for all the support!

Honors and Prayers

First and foremost let’s get to the prayers. If you’ve been listening or watching the news you know about the tornadoes that hit Oklahoma yesterday. It’s so tragic in the fact that lives were lost and homes destroyed. I sat and cried last night and this morning after seeing the devastation. It always affects me more when children are involved. They were so young. Please pray for those precious souls and their parents. Pray for the heroes working diligently to help. Prayer is what they need now.

As for honors, I was given a very special honor yesterday. I was asked to be a sponsored author in the July issue Southern Writers Magazine on their Magnolia Corner page. The book that will be spotlighted will be “Rekindled Flame”. I’m really excited about this opportunity.

Hopefully this post finds all of you well and safe. As storm season get’s into full swing, please heed the warnings and keep safe.

As always good writing and May God Bless You and those in our thoughts today…