Monday’s Second Cup!

Good morning! I do hope all of you had a great weekend. As for me, yes, it was great. I received a wonderful review for ‘Seaside Beginnings’. First, I received a text from Reader’s Favorite, informing me to check my email. Then when I checked it, there was a five-star review with this shiny medal attached.

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Yes, it made me smile and do my happy dance. I love to wake to things like this. Now the medal can go on my book covers. This book has been such a game changer for me. The comments and emails I’ve received on this one have been humbling, to say the least. Since it goes into the middle-aged woman and her many changes, it touches something inside of people. Isn’t that what every writer strives to do?

Of you haven’t entered their contest for this year, then go on over. When you enter the contest, then they will put your book with their reviewer list, but they don’t promise a review. The last one I received from them for Ridge took several weeks, but this one only took a couple.

Here’s the link: https://readersfavorite.com/ If you have a book that you want some recognition for, then join the contest.

By the way, the surprises will keep coming this week. One will be a surprise sale and the other is the really neat author help that will come by the end of the week. It’s an exciting new concept, well, not new, but as an author, I know what authors have been asking for and I’ve come up with a plan to help with that. So, with that said…

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Relaxing, yes!

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Does writing relax you? When you’re writing, do you feel better than you did before you started putting words to paper or laptop? For me, it’s a relaxing time spent. So many people don’t understand that point.

I have people that tell me, ‘you need to take some time off from writing and relax’, but they don’t understand, when I’m writing, total relaxation comes over me. It’s the moment that I can get totally lost in another world for just a little while. Even during the busiest part of tax season, I’d find a few minutes to write. That way I had a little relaxing time.

Do you relax while you’re writing? Now, I know that when you’re getting close to a deadline, things can get a little intense, but be honest, even in those moments you’re probably still enjoying yourself, or I hope you are. Becoming an author has been such a refreshing step away from the craziness that can envelop you.

So, does it relax you or stress you out? If it stresses you out, you need to figure out why.

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Almost back to normal…

Good afternoon! It’s good to be back to almost normal. Another tax season under my belt, but man I’m exhausted, mentally. As with every year, I’m taking some time off to get my brain back in the game. Of course in my world, that means getting things completed that have been put off for three months.

First on my list was to get my summer clothes out of the attic and my winter clothes put away. Yikes, my brain can’t handle that all at once, so I moved on to the second phase of my time off work. That phase is to paint our two bathrooms. Sounds easy, but they have wallpaper on the walls that has been there for 22 years. As I started to pull the paper off, well, as my luck would have it, the top layer came off, not the bottom. So I’ve spent the last two days spraying the walls with a mixture of water and fabric softener. All I can say about that is, my house smells like a field of flowers!

So, I’ve been scraping and spraying, spraying and scraping. Shall I go one, no, I don’t think so? So, I’ll tell you what I’ve been up to with my writing. Not much, but I did manage this week to finish a synopsis and submit to the Harlequin Heartwarming Blitz. We’ll see where it goes from here.

As for my word counts which have suffered greatly over the last couple of weeks, I’m working on catching up, but it will take a while. But I am back to blogging and finding out what all of you, my friends, have been up to. So, feel free to fill me in and catch me up to speed on everything 🙂

In the coming days, I’ll be announcing something that I’ve been working on for a while, but wasn’t sure about. But, I’m extremely excited about it. I want to announce it now, but I want everything in place before I step out into the light with my new venture. So, keep watching for news.

It’s good to be back!

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!

Writing Courses…

Ok, I know we’re busy writing the next big one, but have you considered taking a writing course. For the last six or more months, I’ve been taking a couple here and there. It’s been really enlightening. Actually, a couple of them made me rethink a couple of my works in progress to the point I rewrote several scenes.

What kind of courses, you ask? Well, I’ve taken one on Facebook advertising which was very helpful. Maybe you’re thinking, well that is too easy to need a course on, but no my friend, there’s a whole world of ways you can do your ad. I was amazed at the things I didn’t do with some of my former ads.

Then, of course, the marketing courses I listened to. I’ve been going about my marketing in the wrong direction. Who knew? Not me! Lately, I’ve been using some of the concepts I learned, like tags on my books, rewriting my blurbs, how I send out tweets and what I send out. Incredibly I’m seeing a positive upturn.

Then comes the writing courses. These will make you sit up and think. I’ve learned so many ways to make my individual voice stand out. It’s amazing what you can learn about not using adverbs and how best to use commas. Yep, guilty as charged. Some of the writing techniques I learned from bestselling authors has made my daily writing so much more productive.

So, have you tried a writing course lately? All of the one’s I’ve sat through online were free and by bestselling authors. As with many things today, some of them only give you an introduction, then want money for the more advanced courses. I’ve used what I learned from the introductions and put them to good use.

As always Great Writing and May God Bless You!

Word Counts…

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Word count, the eternal question for a writer… I’ve been asked this question so many times that I’ve lost count. How do you know how many words your manuscript should be? How do you forecast it?

Words form themselves in a manuscript and if you’re a writer, you totally understand that statement. Now with preorders available on many book sites, the first thing they ask is what will be your word count, you have to ask yourself that very question. Do you know? Any round about figures?

Here’s how I figure the word count or where it should be by the time I type The End.

Well, as most of you know, I do an outline for almost all of my books. As I do the outline, each part of the outline is a chapter and each chapter should have an average of as little as 1200 words and as many as 2000 words. (That’s my figuring, not a science 😉 )

Then of course, when I finish the outline, I go back and figure up the chapters times the average chapter length. My outline helps me to make sure the story can go the length of the book. If I can only get to number 10, then it will be a fairly short novella, but if it can go the distance to around 20 or more, well, I have a good size book on my hands.

You may be asking how I know it will go the length I’ve figured, well, in outlining, each section should have a good position. Meaning you should be able to make at least a chapter out of that one section. If not, then it will be shorter than expected. When I do my outline, I think deeply over each section and make sure the story can carry enough gusto to finish the chapter.

So, how do you figure your word count? Ever figure too short or too long? It happens, but if it’s not published yet, don’t sweat it…

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Don’t forget to go by and preorder “Seaside Blessings” at many ebook retailers. It’s available at several sites…

Feeling Christmas…

My view as I write this morning. As Christmas draws near, I feel all smiley. I love Christmas, all the elements, the tree, the decorations, the lights, etc. I enjoy getting into the Christmas frame of mind. It would help if it wasn’t unseasonably warm here in Georgia.

Of course, as I sit here, writing this post, I’m thinking of the Savior’s birthday. That’s why I love to decorate and brighten up the whole house with the signs of Christmas because it’s a celebration.

Well, back to my writing. I’ve got a couple of projects in the making and hope to have them ready soon.

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Release for Luke

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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…

Let’s face it, it’s inevitable!

Good Wednesday morning! I hope all is with you and yours. This morning as I sat fanning away yet another hot flash, my mind was whirling. A couple of months ago I mentioned that possibly a series devoted to the 40 plus heroine and hero might be on my horizon. Well now that the Five Oaks Ranch series is almost to a close, or will be by Christmas, I’m rethinking that thought.

Face it people, every second we’re aging. I know, you’re making a face at the screen right now, but it’s reality. Most romance novels are written about the younger heroines and heroes, but what about those older adults that want to find love. In today’s world many older people are looking for love, so why not put some romance into it. Hey, I’m nearing that halfway mark and I still love romance. Good thing since I’m a romance author 😉

The series, of course will be about romance, but with a little humor sprinkled in. Since I’m in the lovely throws of menopause I can so relate to the characters that are pushing their way to the front of my writer brain. Why not have a menopausal heroine or a hero going through a midlife crisis? I think it would make good romance material.

So, what are your thoughts?

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…