Tag: Stephanie Payne Hurt

My Characters are fighting me!

Ok fellow writers, you know what I mean when I say, ‘My characters are fighting me!’ It’s the craziest thing. You’ve got the outline, it seems to flow pretty well. The middle and ending are completely figured out in my head, but my characters are not flowing well in the front.

What do I mean? Well, let me explain myself. I’ve worked on the first couple of chapters, but they don’t seem to work. My characters are very familiar to me because this is the 2nd book in a series, so it’s not that. It’s having all the characters together at one time. Which is crazy, right? Every time I start working on it, everything seems off.

So, what do I do? One thing I’ve done is put it out of my mind completely, well not completely but out of sight. I’m taking a little break from it, then will go back fresh and start in the middle where the story is the strongest for me. Let’s just hope the front part comes to me as I write the middle and ending. Thank goodness for Scrivener!

Do your characters give you problems? How do you handle them?

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

But one good thing about this one, the cover is beautiful and completed! Here’s a sneak peak!

Lacey's Choice front cover

 

TBT – Moonbeam & Roses

Moonbeam & Roses New Cover

Moonbeam & Roses came out in July 2012! So I’m throwing back four years… This book pulled at my heart strings. It includes romance, drama, and healing of the spirit all in one book. As I wrote this book, I wondered how I would take the traumatic injuries that the heroine had.

Here’s a little excerpt to give you an insight into Moonbeam & Roses:

As Wes came up behind her, she suddenly felt different.  Her heart was suddenly fluttering wildly. It had to be the beauty of the night sky and the scent of the honeysuckle vines growing along the fence outside the barn. He put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed it affectionately. “What’s on your mind?  You have been unusually quiet tonight.”  She turned and smiled up at him.  “I guess my mind is on this beautiful night.  The stars are so bright.”  She leaned her head against his chest, thinking how nice it was to be here with him.   She looked up into his dark eyes.  He was devastatingly handsome, with his dark hair and rugged face, not to mention the black Stetson.  He was definitely a cowboy to the bone.

Wes was also studying her face.  She was a beautiful young woman.  Her blonde hair was just past her shoulders.  The moonlight reflected off it like moonbeams.  She had hazel eyes so gentle; a man could drown in their depths.  For the first time he was focusing on her like a man for a woman, not just a friend. He looked deep into her eyes.  Slowly he lowered his mouth to hers and gently kissed her lips, careful not to linger for fear of losing control.  When he lifted his head, she was smiling.  “That was nice, but what did I do to deserve that?”

He laughed and hugged her close. “That was for being my friend and listening to my problems.  I need to talk to you.  Let’s walk down to the house, I need a drink.” He took her hand and they walked to his house.  What was up with him?  Serious was not one of his common emotions.  When they were settled on his couch with waters in hand, he turned to face her. 

“I have some news.”  He paused to take a drink before he continued. “I received a call last night regarding a job in Montana.  It is a great opportunity for me.  I will be training horses for a large ranch.  They will supply me with a house and stables for my horses.”  He watched for any emotion on her part. “Sara, I told them I would take the job.  I will leave in two days.” 

For those of you that read my current work, my writing style has changed some, but the feelings behind the words are the same. If you haven’t read this one, then check it out. It’s available on most ebook and paperback sites.

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Don’t forget about the fun giveaway I’m running…It’s in my posts…

 

Toes in the Sand Giveaway

toes in the sandBelow are the ways to enter Stephanie’s latest giveaway. It starts now, and ends Wednesday, May 18th at 10:00am. The winner will be given the option to pick any one of her many books as the prize! (this excludes collections) Make sure you are watching so you don’t miss any of the chances to get your name in the drawing.

On top of this over the next 9 days, if she reaches 200 likes on her author Facebook, and every 100 after that until the end of the giveaway, she will have a flash giveaway!

Time Flies…

Good morning! I know I’ve been AWOL for several days. With tax season coming to a head and book deadlines, I’ve been covered up. Sometimes I wonder where my brain is when I make my writing schedule. I should’ve thought about the lack of writing time I have in the last six weeks of tax season, but I didn’t.

Can you believe the first week of April is almost in the books? Time is flying by so quick this year. Lily has already been released and coming up soon on the A Light Upon My Heart release on April 30th. I’m now working on The First Mate’s Lady, the continuation of Safe in the Pirate’s Arms. It seems like just yesterday, I was setting up the release schedules and now I’m deep into them.

So, how is everyone on this beautiful day? For those that were so awesome to share my cover reveal for A Light Upon My Heart, I’ll be announcing the winner in the morning. So be watching and if you haven’t had a chance to share, you have less than 24 hours to get in the hat for the drawing. Thanks again for all the support!

Now back to my busy schedule, already in progress…

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

The Free Book Debate…

Good morning! Hope all is well with you on this beautiful morning. Georgia is having a beautiful day today, but the weather will be here for Thursday and Friday, so we need to enjoy today and tomorrow!

As for today’s topic, it’s permafree books. There’s much controversy about this strategy. Most authors split the fence on this topic. I’ve played with it periodically through the years, but my newest try at it has been a success. Why do I say that, you might ask? Well, here’s why…

Do you see the number just above this sentence? That’s where Ridge is at the moment. Since I put it on permafree several weeks ago, it has stayed in the top 100 in this category and notice it’s not the free category. You’re probably saying, ‘but it’s free so you’re making nothing on all those downloads’, well that’s true, but here’s why it’s a good thing.

The week that Ridge went free, there wasn’t a lot of change in sales. But the next week and all the ones to follow showed a huge difference in my sales. suddenly it was like I could follow the readers journey. Each book in this series started selling in order of the series, then my other books started in the same way. It’s like the readers are buying the Five Oaks Series, then working their way through each of my series. Kind of like watching dominoes fall in a row. I’ve also started selling my older published books, which a couple of them had to be dusted off from sitting on Amazon so long 😉

SO, I’d say my trial period worked. Ridge will stay free. My suggestion is to wait until you have a couple of books in your series out before you go free with the first one. That way the reader has a direction to go in. Then sit back and watch it do the work for you. It’s like free advertising!

Have you tried this? How did it work for you?

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

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…

photo credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/58612482@N07/12551866924″>02.07.2014</a&gt; via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a&gt; <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/”>(license)</a&gt;

Seaside Beginnings Today!

Seaside ad

Well, Seaside Beginnings released today. This has been coming for a while and with its release today, I’m feeling really excited. If you haven’t picked up your copy, then grab it before the weekend when the price goes back up. It’s only $1.99 on Amazon for three more days!

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

 

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…