*NEW* Historical Clean Romance Novel

I still don't know when the release date will be (though I am hoping December 2014 or January/February 2015), but I am so excited at the possibility of having not one, but two novels out! It's been a long time since A Secret Fire came out (May 2012), so it is about time for this novel to have its long-awaited debut.

I can't say much about it, but I can say it is a clean regency romance set in the early 1800s. This novel (still untitled, yikes!) is far different from my first book in content, writing style, setting, and pretty much everything else except for the fact that they are both clean romance that will (hopefully) make your heart flutter!

The past few years, I have grown a great deal, especially, I believe, in discovering my writing style, so I hope it has only improved! 

Anyway, I am incredibly excited about this new novel, and I hope those of you who are reading this are, too! I will keep you updated with more information as it comes, and hopefully we will have a title and release date soon! 

Thanks for reading!

Back on Track!

Good news! No, great news! I've finally received the inspiration needed to overcome this writing dry spell I've found myself in the past months (almost a year…), and it feels so good! Last post was all about how boring my most recent story was turning out to be, so I took a break. A long break. After a couple months and a few long talks with many of my family members (Husband, Mom, Dad, sisters, Grandma - thank you!) I finally found the inspiration I needed to get me started again! And boy, does it feel good to write again. I am loving it.

I ended up having to change a lot of the story I had before, fixing plot points, altering characters, and making it all much more interesting, so I basically scrapped the 70+ pages of writing I had and started over. I hope it turns out better than what I had before!

Having a baby to take care of 24/7 is also making it harder to write, so I've come up with a way around it to make it easier. For me, in order to write, I have to completely immerse myself in the story. I have to know what has happened before, what will happen after, and what is happening during the part of the story I'm writing. I need to know each of the character's feelings, who is present, where they're going, who's going to be talking, etc. So it's been hard for me to get in to the moment of the story I'm writing when I have to stop to pick up my daughter, pull her away from the bookshelf, pick up her toy she dropped, or put her to sleep, and then go back to my story and completely lose my place. Needless to say, it's been difficult for me.

So I'm having to adapt how I write, and I changed my normal ways to make it possible for me to get into my writing much more quickly. I ended up writing an in-depth outline of the story. Now, I write outlines for all my stories, but this was an in-depth, in-depth outline. As in, I have a summary of the summary of the summary of each scene (literally), so I can get into where I am quickly. And it has already helped! My outline ended up being 32, 620 words. Yes, it's like a book in itself (as my husband pointed out). And it has helped me so much.

I can't wait to continue writing this story I've been working on, and I hope to be finished with the first draft within a couple months! It's been so long since my last book came out, May 2012, and so much has happened since then to keep me from writing (school, graduation, husband's masters degree program, low self-esteem, pregnancy, first baby, work, house work, cooking, cleaning, moving, missions, family, and so much more), but it feels great to be finally back on track! And hopefully I can make it last for good now. Keep a look out on the blog to find more updates on the novel I'm working on, and hopefully I'll be able to reveal more as I keep up the writing!

Thanks for reading!

Bored Much?

I've been writing my new novel, and I've run into a few complications. As in, I wrote about 70 pages, then decided I didn't like the story at all. I took a few weeks off for Christmas, New Years, Anniversary, etc., and because I just wasn't really "feeling it," you know? Well, problem is now, I opened up the story again and read a few pages in the beginning, middle, and where I ended, and now I've lost even more of my desire to write it. I always let my emotions come out when I write, maybe too much, and that's why I think I'm not enjoying this new novel. Now it's nothing like anger, depression, or heartache. No, it's more like boredom. And that's not really what you want to read or write about, is it? Boredom? No, not really at all.

My life has completely changed since having my daughter. I wouldn't change it for the world, because I feel more uplifted and whole than I have in my entire life. Plus, having a little girl to take care of and play with is, to me, the most exciting thing in the world. Still, some days, I find myself feeling more bored than usual. I can usually shake that boredom feeling by going outside, taking a drive, getting out and doing something, but this winter has taken its toll on me by keeping me locked up indoors. Can't push a stroller in a foot of snow, can't drive safely with icy roads, can't play outside for long or we catch colds. So the result is boredom. And when I feel bored, I can sometimes manage to squeeze a bit of writing in between naps and feedings, but my writing inevitably becomes boring, too. Not that writing (the verb) is boring, just the stuff I write is boring. (Have I mentioned that word too much now?)

I feel like I'm to the point in my story where I either delete the entire thing and start over from scratch, or I carry on, writing a boring story which no one, including myself, will enjoy. And I'm pretty sure I know which direction I want to take. Stories, to me, are supposed to be a fun escape from the boredoms, problems, and unhappy endings of this world, a place a reader can go to enjoy moments in their lives by reading something happy and uplifting. Stories aren't supposed to be boring and depressing! (But that's just my opinion.)

So by writing this (boring) blog post, I've finally come to my decision. Yes, it's incredibly frustrating to start over, but hey, isn't that what life is all about? Making mistakes, changing, starting over and over again each morning of each week of each month of each year? That's the only way we get better, after all, with practice and change. So I suppose that's what I'll be doing with the story now: practicing writing non-boring scenes and changing the things I don't like. And hopefully by the next blog post, I'll have some more exciting news. Maybe the snow will have let up, maybe my sister will have returned from her mission, maybe my husband's car will be fixed, maybe my story will be finished, or just maybe, my writing will no longer be boring.

But until then, happy reading!