Inspired by Life ... and Fiction

Novelists bound by the pen, sisterhood, & more

What To Do After Completing a Book

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I recently received an email from a writer named Payton who completed the first draft of her first book. She had a lot of great questions. Here's one: "What does your process intel after finishing that first draft? What should I do?" This is a question I actually get from a lot of new writers completing a book. Let me tackle the question by first sharing what my process is. Second, I'll finish … [Read more...]

Good Friday

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Good Friday is a revered holy day that marks the death of Christ. It’s easy for us to throw around the word GOOD when it relates to Christ’s death, isn’t it? We know his death was for our GOOD. And we can be happy and grateful for his sacrifice. But it’s NOT easy to use the word GOOD when we talk about the difficulties and death of anyone else. In fact, the word death usually evokes deep … [Read more...]

Four Tips for Crafting the Mood of a Scene

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Over the past decade, my five children have all moved into the teen years. Needless to say, we’ve had drama. And quite a bit of it. Moods swing high. And they swing low. Sometimes in a matter of minutes. All the moodiness in my house reminds me of the need for creating moods in our stories. But all too often, manipulating the mood falls to the bottom of our list of writing to-do's. When … [Read more...]

Editing Until Your Brain Hurts!

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Lately I’ve been in editing mode. I just completed rewrites on Never Leave Me, the second Waters of Time book, releasing early next year. (The first book in the series, Come Back to Me, releases in just a few months!) After turning it in, I jumped into a line edit for my second Colorado Cowboys book, The Heart of a Cowboy, releasing in October of this year (which, by the way, you can … [Read more...]

5 Must-Haves For Fan-Favorite Romance Novels

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Happy belated Valentine's Day! I just love romance, don't you? My favorite genre as a reader is definitely romance. As a historical romance author, I'd even go as far as saying that I'm more of a romance writer than historical writer. My stories always end up with a romance element. It seems to come out whether I'm writing time crossing or YA or historical. Most of the time readers … [Read more...]

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