Deadlines or Procrastination!

Deadlines… A writers nemesis, but necessary. As an Accountant I have many deadlines to meet, and as a writer, I also have them. They surround me and some days I feel overwhelmed. But I love what I do on both fronts, so I push toward the next deadline with zeal.

But, procrastination also plays a part. As I’m procrastinating now by writing this blog. Sometimes I work best with a looming deadline. Then other times, a chill runs up my spine as the anxiety fills me.

As writers, we set release dates for our work, then work toward them. It’s like a means to an end. If we don’t set a deadline, then where will our work go? I do a schedule every year that sets deadlines for the draft, the editing, and the release. This is setup by evaluating the work itself. Is it to be a full length novel or a short novella? I calculate the words per day, but I manage to add some empty days that allow for procrastination, but still have me meeting my deadline.

What about you? How do you handle deadlines?

As always, good writing and May God Bless You!

Life steps in…

It’s Thursday, but it feels like Monday! Some days I wake up and just want to go back to bed, cover my head and sleep. Today is one of those days. But guess what, I’ve got a business to run and way too much to do for all of that. So, I managed to drag myself out of bed early so I could meet my morning word count. Did I meet it? Well, let’s just say I’ll have a writing lunch…

So, what is your day like? Recently I had the pleasure of doing an interview with Southern Writer’s Magazine, which will come out soon. It was eye-opening as I wrote out my answers to the interview questions. I realized that every day I manage somehow to schedule in some stress-relieving words. You may be saying, didn’t you already know that? Some days I think I don’t get enough time to write, but then others I get more than enough.

Yesterday I caught myself daydreaming about a character that has filled my head lately. Before I knew what I was doing, I was filling up stick it notes with character traits. Thank goodness I was waiting on a file to download, or I would’ve gotten behind. Then, the rest of the day, my eyes would go to those notes, wanting to write the story. Well, hopefully, today I’ll get to put a little work in on it.

Life steps in, but writing is part of that life, so make some time to focus on your dreams. This life is short, so make the most of it. Don’t forget to get up and walk some, it’s good for you and many writers don’t realize this. But that’s for another post.

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

black ball point pen with brown spiral notebook — Photo by Tirachard Kumtanom on Pexels.com

Writing a book is easy!…

Hello, Sunday morning…. What happened to Saturday? It went by too fast and now the weekend is almost over. I feel like I’ve accomplished nothing, yet… Oh well, life goes on.

Here’s a question… How many times does someone come up to you and say, ‘Writing a book is easy, I can do that with my eyes closed.’? I’ve lost count of the people that have told me that when they found out that I’m an author. Usually. I just say, ‘Go ahead, give it a try.’ I know that they haven’t looked into what it entails and probably wouldn’t see it through.

If you’re a writer, you know what’s involved. It’s not the easy job that most think it is. There’s more to becoming a writer than just writing. Most people think that if you’re a writer, then all you do is sit and write. LOL! There’s more to it than that. So, here goes a short list of what goes into the writing of a book, and this is a short list, so it doesn’t get into everything.

1: A story comes to you… This could be the whole thing or just an idea.

2: You begin to outline or put together notes on the idea for the story. At this point, you’re setting up the characters, setting, and plot.

3: You start to write the story. This process could take you a week or couple of years according to how fast the story comes to you or the time you have to get this process completed. Sometimes the story doesn’t come as fast as you want it to.

4: As you write your story, you develop an idea for the cover and at that point or somewhere down the road, you design a cover that goes with the story. (This isn’t as easy as it sounds.)

5: Alright, you’ve written your story, designed your cover, now what? Edit, edit and edit some more. Then you read your story and possibly write more or change some of the story. At this point, I’ve deleted whole chapters that hurt the flow of the story, yes, I said whole chapters. It hurt but had to be done.

As you can see, this is just the start. There are so many other steps to writing a book. This is just a quick, condensed version, but you get the idea. It’s not the easy process that some think it is. But, it’s a rewarding process once it’s done and you’ve published your work.

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

3 Cup Friday!!!

It’s Friday, I’m three cups of coffee in and I think I’m going for the whole pot. Why is it that I can’t get awake this morning? I’ve completed my 2-mile morning walk, ate breakfast, had a shower, but still, I’m foggy. So much for the 2 thousand word goal for the morning…

This has been one of those weeks. As an accountant, the end of a quarter and the end of the month means extra work, but on top of that, I’m a writer, so… To say I’m a little overwhelmed, well, that would be the understatement of the year. Oh, did I say I’m going on vacation tomorrow and haven’t packed a thing, not a thing! Usually, I’m the one that packs three days before vacation, but not this time. Ugh!!!

But other than that I’m totally pumped that the first three chapters of Tuscany edits have been sent to me and I’ve completed them and sent back to my Solstice Publishing editor. I was really glad it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. So, we’re one step closer to the publishing of Tuscany!

So, have another cup of coffee and enjoy your day, but remember, it’s Friday!

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

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>

Coming out of the rain!

Good Tuesday morning! It’s wonderful to look outside this morning. The sun is streaming in through the windows and everything looks great. We’ve had rain and dreary weather for over a week, so the sun shining this morning makes me smile. Although it’s a little cool this morning, I’m not complaining one bit.

As a writer I go through many phases of writing. Some days I feel like it’s raining in my brain and the floods of thoughts seem to overtake me. It can be overwhelming, but then the sun comes out and the writing begins. I’ve been coming out of the rain for the last couple of days. During the busiest part of tax season I had so much going on in my mind that I couldn’t get a hold on my writing.

Now that the sun has come out I can’t seem to write enough. Of course I still have to go into the office and do accounting, but my mind is still focusing on the stories that cross back and forth. I’m a major multi-tasker so usually I have a note pad handy for those moments when I can’t get them to stop screaming at me. Some days as I do data entries which usually I do this automatically after over twenty some odd years I can do these in my sleep, I use my dictation app on my phone and write as I work. Yep I’ve got it bad.

If you’ve been following my blog the last couple of days you know I’m doing a fun giveaway of Ridge. This is because Oakley is coming out really, really soon… So keep up with all the news and subscribe to my website at stephaniehurtauthor.com for updates. Also, watch out for the questions that help you rack up points for chances to win a copy of Ridge.

I hope you enjoy your day and make the best of it!

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Here’s a little reminder of the giveaway rules and today’s question:

Do you prefer a moonlit stroll in the country or on the beach?

Don’t push that button!

It’s Friday people and it’s time to celebrate the weekend, well almost time. For me it’s already the weekend. I’m taking a couple of days off to get over the 12 hour days for the last three months. But of course I’m writing and working on publishing things that have been left out in the cold for too long.

Since I’m working on the finishing touches of Oakley, my mind goes to deciding when to publish. Well sometimes we get so excited about our finished manuscript that our need to get it out there for everyone overrides the fact that we’ve left off a couple of needed steps.

When you publish a manuscript you have a responsibility to your reader to make sure the work is polished and pretty… Have you read over the work. Have you read over it more than once? Are you feeling really good about the finished product? When I get my work completely finished and edited I have this feeling of “Yes it’s as it should be” and that’s when I hit the button. If I have any doubts I read over it again and usually I find something that I missed the other times. It’s worth the time.

So, make sure you feel good about the finished manuscript, not just excited that it’s finished. It’s your work, shouldn’t you want it to be the best it can be?

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

As the fog clears

This is the view from my front porch this morning. The temperatures have finally warmed up and the threat of rain looms, but you can’t tell by the gorgeous sunrise. The fog is starting to clear and is barely visible in this photo. I feel inspired as the vibrant colors stream through the front windows.

As most of you know from reading my posts I try to get in my word count every morning. This morning as I woke at 6:00 my body and brain felt heavy and filled with inspiration zapping fog. I dragged myself out of bed and fixed breakfast for my son. As I poured the coffee and the delicious aroma steamed up to my nose I smiled. Yes, I need several cups of coffee. Since the time changed the sun comes up later and that always makes it hard for me to wake up. But one look at this beautiful sunrise I feel inspired to get to work. I can do this is the feeling it inspires.

Does a beautiful sunrise inspire you? As for me, I’m off to get in a couple thousand words before a warm shower and then on to the accounting office. I may need that third cup of coffee while I type…

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Live Life; Follow Your Dreams…

Today I turn 46! Wow, it’s hard to believe I’m almost half a century old. But I don’t feel 46 and I sure don’t act it. Actually most people say I act 10 but that’s another story for another day. I live life and enjoy it immensely. We’re only give one so live it. Many people tell me I don’t get out and do things enough, but the truth is I live my life the way I love to live it, by following my dreams. No I don’t go alot of places and do a lot of things outside of my job, my writing, the Church and my family, but that’s the way I like it. Am I a hermit? No, because the definition of a hermit is someone who lives their lives in complete seclusion from the outside world. I do leave my house occasionally.

How do I follow my dreams? Well for one thing I have a phenomenal life with a great family and wonderful friends. I follow my call to serve my Lord, Jesus Christ by ministering to children, I love Accounting and get to work everyday doing just that and then there’s my writing. I followed my dream and get to write romance novels which has been my dream for more years than I want to count. Do you live your dream? If not, get to it, because we’re not promised tomorrow and today is only 24 hours.

As far as acting my age, not a chance. I don’t feel my age so why act it. If you act your age you’ll get old before you need to. I love to giggle, cry, laugh out loud, share my joy, sit in the floor with the children and sing, cartoons, children’s movies, and so many more things, not to mention extra marshmallows in my hot chocolate. Oh and sprinkles on my cookies, doughnuts, and cake, did I mention I love sweets!

Do you live life to the fullest? It doesn’t take a lot of money to live life. All you need is a dream, a desire to follow it and a supportive family. I stop and smell the roses, do you?

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…