Hello! Welcome to Monday morning coffee and chat!
I really appreciate all of the questions that I get from my readers. Today I’m answering the question, “Did you take courses to improve your writing skills? If not, what happened to develop your writing skills?”
I hope you learn more about me through my response:
I’m so grateful for your visit, today.
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Tell us about your current release. Fate of the Watchman is a fantasy novella that tells the story of Lester Sharp, a man obsessed with his work and his own world. He doesn’t even know the rest of the world exists, but when time freezes, and he’s met by a very unlikely stranger, all of that changes. He soon finds himself witnessing tragedies he never could have imagined while trapped in a single moment of time.
What advice do you have for aspiring writers? Don’t rush. Your stories are wrapped up in your experiences. The more life you live, the more believable your characters will be and the stronger your message will feel. The best thing you can do is to dedicate time to learning the craft of writing and honing your skills. Everyone wants to tackle a novel right out of the gate, but there’s a lot of value in writing short stories to develop as a writer.
As I write this, I’m sitting in my office in my home. My children are home from school because we had an ice storm last night and school was closed. It is dry and warm in our house and I have bread rising in the kitchen. My husband has a good job.
I don’t think this passage is intended to admonish those who don’t always rejoice, who don’t always pray, and who aren’t thankful in everything. In fact, Solomon, the man whom 1 Kings tells us that God gave him “wisdom and exceedingly great understanding, and largeness of heart like the sand on the seashore”, who was “wiser than all men”, (1 Kings 4:29-30) tells us in Ecclesiastes 3 that there’s a time to hate, a time to mourn, a time to weep, a time to break down — that there is a time for everything under the sun (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8).
It gives my heart and mind peace to know that I have the power of the Holy Spirit inside of me to draw upon and then find that I can start rejoicing, despite the circumstances. That I can pray through good times and bad, and keep a constant line of communication open. That I can be thankful in all circumstances because I know the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6).
Tell us about your current release: My newest release is for Christmas, Better Than First, Olympic Hopefuls book 1. Better Than First is like Hallmark Christmas Movie meets Touched By an Angel. Isla Flores has been a paraplegic her whole life and she needs to earn her place in the Paralympic games. When her best friend and coach, Duncan Schmitz challenges her to make a twelve item bucket list to complete before Christmas, she’s not only forced to see life off the track differently, but her coach, too.
How did you make the initial step into writing your first novel. What were some of your major roadblocks and how did you overcome them? I didn’t tell anyone when I first started. I had an idea (and that book has never and probably will never be published) and I wrote it in the span of one month. It was awful, but that didn’t matter, I’d done it. I told my closest writing friend and she challenged me to write another one for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) the following month. I took up the challenge and wrote my first published book the following month. That was probably what got me started writing fast. Two books in two months to start is a big task and pretty much broke any notions I’d had about what speed I “should” write.