When the story is clear as the blue sky…

It’s a beautiful Sunday afternoon! The sky is clear and brilliant blue.

That’s the way I feel about my writing today. All five of the books I’m working on are coming in very clear, might I say, loud and clear. To get my mind in writing, after Church I went outside and cleaned in the yard. This helped because now I want to write on all five, but as you know, that can’t happen all at one time, but I can try to get in a little on each, I hope.

So, how’s your writing going? Do you have a clear mind? If not, I’ll suggest going outside and breathing the fresh air. It will do wonders, I promise.

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Series Emblem Reveal…

It’s Wednesday and I feel alive! What about you? Have you smiled this morning? As I write this, I can’t help but smile. Why you might ask? Well, I’m doing a small reveal today, which is exciting.

When you create a series, sometimes you create an emblem that represents that series. Well, when I created the Wishful Harbor Series, I wanted a special emblem and my awesome design team went to work to make sure that the dream I had for this series came to life. Of course, I’m not revealing the covers yet, just the emblem, for now…

So, I’d like to introduce you to the Wishful Harbor Series!

wishful harbor design

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Monday’s coffee & writing…

Oh my, it’s Monday already! How did the weekend go by so fast?

So, this morning I’m hoping to be back on schedule with my daily writing. Of course, that was supposed to be last Monday, but life happened and that didn’t happen. I have itchy fingers and characters stomping their feet in my head, so… Writers got to write!

Two thousand words, here I come…

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

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…

Monday wonderings…

Good Monday morning! Yes, it’s Monday people. It’s a new week, so let’s make the best of it.

Have you ever wondered how much what you watch, listen to, or read affects your writing? For the last 35 years, I’ve written manuscripts, journals and such, but the surprising thing is that all of this affects my writing. It gets into our minds and hearts, strengthening us as writers. Should I say, beware of what you watch and listen to, LOL!

I watched several movies and shows on Highlanders, hence, a Highlander series. I watched the Love Comes Softly series, hence, a mail order bride series. Now I’m hooked on Grey’s Anatomy, but three seasons behind at the moment. Will I write a medical series? LOL! I don’t know so much about that, but it would be fun…

Oh, then music, yes, wonderful, stimulating music. There are so many country songs that fill my head with cowboys and romance, then there are classical pieces that inspire historical romance, oh and pop classics that inspire romance in general.

As writers, we’re artists, so everything around us inspires us. Even the blowing of leaves in the trees can inspire us. So, go outside, listen and be inspired. Watch, read and listen to things that inspire you.

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

While I wasn’t writing…

Old Notebook Paper

What a wonderful day to write! It’s rainy and a little chilly. Yes, I’m back to writing and so glad.

But what happens to me when I don’t write… What happens when tax season takes all my time and leaves none for writing… Well here goes!

1: The characters in my head go nuts. Really… They go nuts. They run around screaming and yelling, constantly! Some days I wonder if I’ll lose my mind before I can write again.

2: The untold stories are filling the space around the crazy characters. Every moment of my day is filled with thoughts of where my characters can take their lives. I name characters while I depreciate assets. Yes, one character might turn up named Asset, just saying.

3: I wonder around feeling unwhole. Does that make sense? To writers, it should. As a writer, we fill the voids with our writing and when we can’t write, it just makes a hole.

4: I’m terminally stressed when I don’t write. Writing is my stress reliever… so what happens when I can’t write, well, my stress level goes up, up, up…

5: The most important thing that happens when I can’t write is I get behind and have to catch up.

Ok, so, you get the picture. Writing is my stress reliever and it helps keep me sane in this insane world. Maybe you don’t have this problem, but I do. As an Accountant, wife, mother, children’s minister, and writer, I need to keep the characters at bay or my mind will explode.

Yesterday was my first time to write over 500 words in over four weeks. It was as though my head cleared of the fog and I relaxed. My characters were walking around in my head, whistling and happy. It was a great day. Now, as I sit here, preparing to get in my daily word count, which sounds great… I’m smiling.

Just a little tidbit, I have a new series coming this summer and I’m uber excited. In the coming days and weeks, I’ll be revealing a few little things about it. But, you’ll have to be patient. Let’s just say it is big, real big, at least for me…

As always, great writing and May God Bless You…

P.S. Please help me get out of Twitter jail by going over to https://twitter.com/StephanieHurt4 and give me a follow. It’s hilarious that I finally get up to following 5000 and have over 4300 followers, but Twitter locks me down from following anyone until my followers go up. LOL! Yes, I just asked you to follow me on Twitter, I told you my mind has been compromised from lack of writing.

Friday’s Second Cup…

Good Friday morning! We’re finally almost to the weekend. My short vacation is almost over, but that’s alright since tax season is over with, I’ll have a little more time to relax. For now, I’m sipping my second cup of coffee, baking blueberry muffins and looking forward to my third cup of coffee… 15357511258_cbf39f66bb

So, now that I’m back to a regular writing schedule, I’m back on my works in progress. I have four books in the works, two almost complete. Now to get back into the groove and push those words out.

It’s amazing when you take a short break from writing, the words still come in. My mind swirled with words constantly. It was hard not to sit down at my laptop and put them into my manuscripts, but time wasn’t there to do this. Of course, as a writer, this was a difficult time. Especially with my characters screaming at me on a daily basis. But the characters have calmed some since I’m back to writing.

So, what is everyone working on? Me, I’m working on Lacey’s Choice, Highlander’s Son, Georgia and a new series, which I’ll let you in on a little later.

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Tuscany is Free today & tomorrow!

Tuscany is Free for two days! If you haven’t experienced the world of Tuscany, now’s your chance while it’s FREE!

Tuscany is a contemporary romance set in the hills of Tuscany’s olive groves. It’s filled with mystery, adventure, betrayal and a love that builds from Chapter one and follows loves Legacy.

Go on an adventure to another country in this romance that takes you to one of the most beautiful places on earth, Tuscany. The magical lure is found on every page of this book.

This book hit the Top 55 in Harlequin’s SYTYCW15 contest. Then was picked up by the awesome publisher Solstice, which took it to an all new high.

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As always, good writing and may God Bless You…

Moment to Reflect…

Good morning! It’s been a while, but tax season has been crazy. You know it’s been busy if I haven’t been able to write in a couple of weeks. Yeah, I know, that’s not good. I’ve missed it, but now I’m back in action…

So, how’s everyone doing? I’ve missed interacting with all of you. Now that I’m back, you’ll be overloaded with posts, books, and lots of promotions. So get ready… get set…. go…

To my first post, I go…

While I’ve been away, ‘A Light Upon My Heart’ became an Amazon bestseller. Yep, I did a little happy dance at my desk… Glad no one could see me. If you haven’t check out this one, then grab it while it’s only .99.

Naomi Harris is only 18 when she’s sent from Georgia to Montana to marry a stranger. Joseph Walsh is a wealthy, 30-year-old, ranch owner, but he’s lonely and in need of a Christian bride. Naomi’s poor home life doesn’t prepare her for life on a large ranch and Joseph’s not sure how to react to the innocent young woman that he brought across the country to be his bride. Many obstacles stand in their way as they strive to make their marriage work, but can they get past them? The worst one is the secret that Naomi keeps, it could destroy what they’ve worked to gain. She can’t go back home, ever…

The sale will only be for a limited time… so get it before it goes back up!

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Thursday Thoughts…

Good morning! For some reason this morning I feel excited that something is about to happen with my writing. I felt this way just before I made it to the top 55 in Harlequin’s SYTYCW contest in 2015 and also right before I submitted Tuscany to Solstice. But I don’t know what it is this time.

You may be asking, Stephanie, do you have anything submitted to a publisher, and my answer would be no. I guess, but don’t know, it’s the feeling of a coming announcement or maybe the new series that I’m starting in a couple of months, which by the way is really, really exciting for me. I don’t know. It’s just this strange but delightful feeling that has me humming and singing, thank goodness I’m alone in the house at the moment 😉

So, how are you feeling today? Any news to share?

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

P. S. If you haven’t joined my newsletter, then give it a whirl. I just hit send on my latest newsletter this morning. It’s easy to join and I don’t fill your inbox with needless chatter, just upcoming releases, and sales… www.stephaniehurtauthor.com