UPDATE: The winner is…LL!
*~*~*

Hello, my name is Anna Hague, and thank you to Delilah for letting me be a guest blogger.

As I’m sure many authors do, I get asked many questions about my creative process. Where do you get your ideas? How can you come up with so many stories? Are your characters hard to write? Where do you get your names?

Bingo! I think that may be one of the hardest parts of writing. Your characters’ histories and personalities are important, but their names have to be perfect for their character. I was once halfway through writing a book for a publisher, and it wasn’t working. I didn’t have a tight deadline, but nonetheless, I had a tentative deadline for a book I wasn’t happy with. What was wrong with it?

I read through the entire manuscript searching for the problem. Every time I read the hero’s name, I cringed. This guy wasn’t a Jason Mathews—not at all. His name removed every bit of sex appeal I knew this guy had. Who was he?

One evening, I was watching Dateline. I love analyzing where exactly the criminal went wrong in case I need to commit the perfect crime. The lead detective’s last name on this murder investigation was Caldera. The name danced into my brain, reclined on red velvet sheets all while eating 70 percent dark chocolate. Conjuring up images of my dark-haired hero with olive skin, the name Caldera personified who I wanted him to be.

Now, for the first name. This is where I have a treasure trove of possibilities. In my other job, I’m a sports journalist, and for the last several years I’ve taken a less stressful version of the job and do freelance reporting for our local high school sports. Every event I go to, I grab a program or lineup list. These team lineups are priceless, and almost every name I have in a book has come from these lists.

The women in my novels, written and to be written, include an Allee, Haley, Emma, Sabrina, Evangeline, Rose, Avery, Lily, and more. My men are Jamey, Cameron, Tyler, Keller, Devon, Adrian, Maverick and Jordan.

Maverick was perfect for Thunderstruck because it’s set at a ranch in South Dakota. When I was writing the paranormal story, I found two kids on the boys’ soccer team named Maverick and knew I had the right name. Who became Mr. Caldera? Jordan. Jordan Caldera replaced Jason Mathews, and then the story sizzled.

Still on my list of athletes are Cannon, Thunder (who incidentally batted back to back in the baseball lineup), Gator, and Tremor. These are real names, not nicknames, and somewhere there has to be a story for all of them, but right now, they’ve yet to wander onto the page. Right now, I’ve got a Rose and Aaron and a Devon and Lily to deal with.

Thank God for high school sports.

Contest

Check out the word search below and find ten names I mentioned in my character list. Email me with your answers, and I will choose a random winner for a $10 Amazon card. Contest ends June 1. Email me at annahague80@gmail.com.

About the Author

Anna Hague spends part of her days in the writing cave creating her own spin on love stories. The other part of her days, she is a freelance sports reporter crafting stories about a variety of athletic events including high school, college, and professional level sports.

Anna reads all sorts of love stories, and she writes the same way. She has an erotic romance series with Wild Rose Press and has published the contemporary romance Heart Series and opened up the paranormal Storm Canyon Series with the first book Thunderstruck.

She lives in Central Indiana with her husband, three parrots, and two dogs.

Her motto: Creating different paths to love because different is the only way I know.

Social Media links:
E-mail: annahague80@gmail.com
Website: www.annahague.com
Facebook page: www.facebook.com/AnnaHagueAuthor
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100010050496430
Amazon Books. https://bit.ly/3hEPjlYAnnaHague
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/AnnaHagueAuthor/
Book Bub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/anna-hague

The Word Puzzle

Greetings all! When I brainstorm ideas for blog posts, the first question I always ask myself is what are readers interested in and what new something about those topics am I able to bring to the table. My default answer is always: books. But what specifically about books? Romance. Yes, but that’s still vague. So, then, I began to think about the different kinds of romances—historical, regency, erotic, romantic comedy, inspirational romance, speculative romance, romantic suspense, etc. I asked myself what I could comment on each of them that would be noteworthy.

My second act when deciding on a theme or issue is to scroll through my past posts to avoid duplication of topics, unless it is my specific intention to update an older post that has become obsolete. I always want to provide fresh and interesting content, and that can be made difficult when blogging weekly, especially when one has been doing it for years. I also want to ensure that I write accurate information. There’s nothing worse than reading an article that is jammed with misinformation, incomplete, or not well thought out.

This brings me to my third question. I must ask myself if there is another material available for me to write a post that will do the topic justice. Let me tell you, this topic came extremely close to failing to meet this criterion. I’ve had plenty of blog ideas that I’ve had to nix simply because I did not have enough supporting documentation. Search engines for this subject were not my friend, and part of that has to do with the name which I’ll briefly discuss later. I wasted hours reading through articles that didn’t help. (And as an aside, this is how writers and bloggers fall down that proverbial writing rabbit hole. They begin searching for one thing and end up looking at everything else that gets thrown in their path on their search. I don’t know how many times I catch myself asking, “What’s that?” Then, off I go to chase the white rabbit knowing good and doggone well what happened to Alice. Forget finding the queen. Off with my own head. One would think I would have learned by now. But anyway…

Today was no different than any other day for me deciding on a topic, except I found myself having a hard time focusing. Nothing was popping, and everything seemed a distraction. I finally decided to revert to my handy dandy massive pile of spirals that I have stacked in a box. This is where I take notes when working on novels or important takeaways from edits. Truthfully, there’s no telling what one will find in those things. But I digress. As I flipped through one of my writing notebooks, I noticed a question that I had scribbled in the margin and had long forgotten. But I do remember the conversations that followed. An idea began to formulate. Read the rest of this entry »

UPDATE: The winner is…ButtonsMom2003!
*~*~*

Being a writer—no, being a successful writer—isn’t only about getting words on pages. I wish it worked that way, but in the real world, or at least for the independently published authors…

1. We write a book
2. We scrounge for cover art to hand to the cover artist
3. We look for decent editors (or in my case since I am an editor, good beta readers to find my errors)
4. We pay or learn to format our books ourselves
5. We upload the books on all the platforms where people buy books
6. And then…we try to figure out how to get people to notice our book amid the millions of books available on all those platforms.

And that’s where you can really fall down that rabbit hole and waste an inordinate amount of time while you try to figure out what works.

I have a website. That’s a must for authors—the first order of business for any author.

I have a blog. Now, authors say blogs are dead, but I think mine does okay. See the number of folks on the left who get this daily post mailed straight to their inbox? I choose to continue this blog because it serves as my “face” to the real world out there. I talk about what’s real in my life. I talk about my books. I invite other authors to come to talk about their lives and their books. It’s a friendly place. But as an author, I have to do so much more.

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter… Gah. How can I be in all places at all times? Simply put, I can’t. And I do not want to pay someone to manage my social media, even though I’ve seen some authors who have the right support do very, very well. You see, I tried it, but it was work managing that support and I don’t really want anything more on my plate. I’ll do the occasional Facebook and Amazon ad and call it done.

And then my dd offered to do something for me.

She noticed all those lovely, luscious book memes on Instagram and Facebook and wondered why I wasn’t doing them. I told her flat out I didn’t have the time or the talent. Since she’s got online school to supervise every day and has to sit in the livingroom or dining room with the kids anyway, and it doesn’t take up every second of her time, she said she’d give it a shot. It looked like fun to her. Fun?! Of course, I worried about what those ads might look like because her taste and mine are not the same, and she doesn’t read romance, doesn’t get the genre at all.

But hey. She wanted to help.

So, for a little over a month now, I give her a cover and maybe a snippet about the book or a piece of an Amazon customer’s review and off she goes.

I told her donuts and the color pink feature in my latest release, Preacher…

And I thought, That’s alright. At least people will stop and look.

And then she saw my cover for my next release, Hardman, and asked whether I had more art with this guy because she said he was hot! This one’s simple. Stark. Sexy. I like it!

And she’s only gotten better. I wanted her to go back and do memes for books I already have out there but folks might have forgotten exist or had no idea they existed…

I had this Texas Cowboy story about a wild-child judge’s daughter who gets caught going Lady Godiva on a motorcycle by a pair of Dom deputies… She found this art!

The story that followed was about a schoolteacher voyeur spying on a deputy’s playroom. This one’s just too cute!

When she put all the Texas Cowboys together, she did this and I snorted with laughter.

My favorites so far? I love, love the biker girl and voyeur girl, but I love this one too!

And has it helped? I really think so. When I look at my sales on Amazon, there are more of my older titles selling, so I’m going to keep her employed for the longterm doing my memes. She’s becoming a goddess (and a godsend—just one more thing I don’t have to worry about)!

What do you think? And which is your favorite image from the ones I provided. Comment for a chance to win a backlisted title of your choice!

UPDATE: The winner is…Jeanine Lesperance!
*~*~*

I feel like I have to explain my desk before I start. 🙂

The document on the bottom is my bloggers’ schedule. Duh. Anything that says “DD” is mine. So yes, I do “pencil” in my guests on a hard copy. The squishy toy on the left is a fish squishy the 7-year-old gave me when she heard I was scouring the house for the stress ball my physical therapist recommended I exercise my hand with. She said it would be better because it’s softer. LOL. She’s really sweet. The tile on the right says “Artist” and it was from the 16-year-old, who gave it to me for my birthday this year. I love messy paintbrushes—to me, they are a testament to the work that, lately, fills my “well” with happiness. The pretty jar holds a tiny, very fragrant candle I light when I want to improve my mood. And in the bottom right corner is my mom’s mousepad with all the presidents through 45 on it. I gave up my Thor’s hammer pad for mom’s…well, because. I like touching something she touched every day.

So, to the cards…

I have this “Women’s Empowerment” deck of cards sitting on my desk to the far side. It was a gift. I generally don’t like the new age stuff. I prefer tarot cards, famous quote books, etc., for my daily inspiration, but the WE cards are pretty. I opened the box and looked for a card that “called” to me today. These two made me pause.

The first reads, “Be still my mind. Be here now.” I’m not a “now” person. I’m a dreamer (a great thing to be for a writer, BTW!). However, I have work to complete and need some focus, so this thought helps.

The next says, “I enjoy the ups and downs of everyday life. Only the present moment is real.” I do appreciate the ups and downs. If we didn’t have them, life would be boring and we’d never learn a thing. The “only the present moment is real” thing is also very true. What you do now defines who you are and will be. So, today I will write because I want to be a writer. Writers who don’t write are just dreamers without the proof of the stories spinning in their heads.

So, does any of that help me begin my workday? Um, yeah. I guess. As soon as I hit “publish” to post this blog, I will begin “the work” and then I can claim to be a writer once more.

My philosophy isn’t deep. It’s self-serving, right? I need a kick in the ass because I have a minimum of 2,000 words to write today!

If you’d like to deliver that kick, tell me how you go about girding yourself to do “the work” of being who you are for a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card!

These contests are closing soon!

1. My Furbaby-Jealousy (Contest) — Win an Amazon gift card!
2. Anna M. Taylor: Who’s On Second? (Contest) — Win an Amazon gift card!
3. Diana Cosby: Inspiration From Nature – Deer (Contest) — Win a FREE book!

Along our writing journeys, it’s not uncommon for writers to struggle with confidence. One of the things we can do to build confidence is to recognize and overcome self-defeating behaviors, like negative self-talk. Negative thinking can be detrimental to our performance, make us doubt ourselves, and inhibit our creativity.

We all wonder if we have the stuff it takes. As beginners, we wonder if we have an inkling of talent. Once our talent is validated by other writers and readers, we still wonder if it’s good enough, if we have what it takes. It’s good to acknowledge that we don’t know it all and to have a desire to learn and grow, but doubt can hold us back. We shoot ourselves in the foot by creating and feeding feelings of inadequacy.

Being unprepared can leave us feeling inadequate, so reading, attending workshops, and staying informed on the craft of writing and the market is another way to help us feel prepared. When positive thinking is paired with common sense, we can stay open to possibilities.

Confidence can be built by setting and achieving goals, so it’s pretty important how we choose to set goals and measure them. Short term and long terms goals should be realistic and achievable. Don’t set yourself up for failure by setting a goal like, “I will be published by this time next year.” Unless you’re independently publishing, a goal like that is out of your control, and the result will leave you feeling helpless or like a failure. Set goals with smaller steps. A long-term goal might be to produce a polished product for submission with the next ten months. Then set short-term goals to make it happen: Two new pages a day or two hours of writing a day, for example. Perhaps take an online class or find a critique partner.

“Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.” – William Shakespeare

Most of us were raised in a competitive and comparative environment, where our achievements were profiled and graphed into percentiles; where we were matched up against our peers as a gauge to see how we were doing. It’s no wonder so many of us have self-esteem issues and doubts about our abilities. Thank goodness teachers, counselors and parents have learned to work in teams to choose learning methods suitable for children of all capabilities. Students are treated as individuals and encouraged to learn at their own speed and in the manner best suited for them.

Sometimes, we make mistakes. Sometimes, a project crashes and burns. Sometimes, we have to do something wrong before we figure out how to do it right. And that’s okay—as long as we’re moving forward.

You have to be willing to make mistakes.

I know writers who never get started because they’re always planning, plotting, and talking about the book instead of putting words on pages. Know anyone like that? There are writing students (not actually writers yet) who read every book on the craft and attend all the workshops and conferences and ask questions and take notes and plan, plan, plan.

It’s a good thing to be teachable and eager to learn, but you can’t learn to write until you put words on paper. The people who don’t get that far want everything to be perfect before it gets on the page – or they want it to come out perfect on the first try, so they wait until they’re good enough. Guess what? Ain‘t gonna happen.

You have to be willing to make mistakes. You have to be willing to write badly in order to learn to write well. Ask yourself: What’s the worst that could happen?

“Confidence comes not from always being right but from not fearing to be wrong.”  – Peter T. McIntyre

I’ve been a worship leader for quite a few years, and I always say to my team of singers, “If you’re going to make a mistake, make it with confidence, and no one will know you didn’t intend it that way.” I have been known to sing the wrong notes or words, but I sing them with such authority that everyone follows along. Confidence grows with practice and with maturity.

I wrote a how-to-write book. It was a pretty big deal. Who was I to write a book that would be marketed beside admired and credible instructors? It was a lofty goal to write an instructional book, but I’d been leading workshops and teaching online classes for years, and I had a lot of encouragement from other writers, which built my confidence in my ability. I always ask myself, “What’s the worst thing that could happen?” Writing this type of book was something I’d thought about for a long time. It was as big of a step as writing or submitting my first book. My long-term goal was to submit it for publication. My short-term goals involved gathering my notes and thoughts, preparing the manuscript, and getting feedback.

Imagine my delight when the publisher I had dreamed of made an offer. The process was so different from my other publishing experiences that it was a stretch. The editor of Writing With Emotion, Tension and Conflict told me I should be proud of this project. And I am. I did something I had only dreamed of doing.

I have high hopes for the future generations of students and young adults receiving recognition for intrinsic value. We should all know that our value lies inside of us, not in our performance.

Some things just can’t be measured. What makes one book better than the next or one writer better than another? Only perspective. Only the reader, when you get right down to it. Because story-telling can be so subjective, I might enjoy a book you can’t finish, and a story I think is drivel could land on your keeper shelf.

No one can tell you whether or not you’re going to sell a book, publish fifty more or be a success. Another writer can read your work and assure you it’s good, but that’s not a guarantee. There are no guarantees when you start writing, and that can get frustrating.

As much as we’d love for there to be, there’s no writer’s crystal ball to foretell the future.

Take a man with a desire to run a hundred-meter race. He buys a pair of Nikes, goes out and gives running a shot, but he doesn’t do very well. Why not? He didn’t practice! He didn’t study how other runners achieve endurance through diet and exercise. He doesn’t know how good he really is until he’s trained by learning all he can, eating properly for energy and muscle and all that—and after he’s ready, after he’s prepared, by stretching to limber up and then running.

Then running again and again and again until he’s fast and he’s confident that he’s fast, and he’s ready to compete.

In many ways submitting a book is a lot like that. Your manuscript will be compared to all the others that cross an editor’s desk. It will be scrutinized for its ability to make the publishing house money in the marketplace—bottom line in this business. The only way you can have the confidence to know you’re submitting something with a chance of making it past that test is to learn your craft and practice, practice, practice. Work at writing and work at it until you get better, until you hit your personal stride. Then share it and get feedback from people you trust.

So how can you grow your confidence?

Confidence is gained by successfully completing a task and recognizing the accomplishment—repeatedly. By acknowledging a success, your brain processes, “I can do this again.”

We can’t nurture confidence if we don’t recognize or even appreciate what we’ve done. Don’t ever demean an accomplishment by saying or thinking, “I was just lucky” or “Anyone could have done it.”

Don’t look at a project as too large. Break it down into steps and accomplish them one at a time. If it’s helpful, record your page/time goals and accomplishments in your planner. Check them off as you reach and overtake each one. It’s like that joke, “How do you eat an elephant?”

One bite at a time.

Celebrate each success along the way.

Have a chapter one achievement award party or treat yourself to something special for milestones reached. Give yourself fun stickers or hearts on your calendar—something visual to note progress.

Learn from your mistakes. This might sound simple, but if one method didn’t work, try a different one. You can’t expect a different result from the same behavior.

“Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.” – Lou Holtz

 Confidence is conditioned behavior.

Many years ago, a study was done at the University of Wisconsin. A scientist tied a mouse’s front feet together and placed the animal into the cage of another mouse. The mouse whose cage was being trespassed easily beat up the mouse with its feet tied. After that happened several times, the scientist put mice without tied feet into the cage. The mouse who’d won repeatedly was so confident by then that it took on and defeated mice even larger than itself. Under ordinary circumstances, that mouse would have run when it saw a larger opponent, but it had been conditioned until it believed it couldn’t lose. And it didn’t.

Condition yourself.

Congratulate yourself.

Celebrate your successes.

Sure, sometimes self-doubt is much deeper, it’s inadequacies we’ve carried with us from childhood and relationships and past hurts and experiences. But there’s help for those things, too, in recognizing it and getting help if need be and working on it. You’re a valuable person. You’re worth it. You deserve to give yourself the gift of improving yourself and reaching for your dream.

“If you want confidence, act as if you already have it.”  – William James

Whisper My Name

Ripped from the headlines…

Laurel Whitaker has spent her entire life burying her infamous past and becoming a normal person.

Joe Cavanaugh suspects she’s in trouble. His job demands honesty, and it’s his nature is to protect.

Will Laurel’s truth be her undoing…or his?

BUY LINK: https://amzn.to/3hl5a5g

About the Author

Cheryl is the author of more than fifty books, both historical and contemporary. Her stories have earned numerous RITA nominations, Romantic Times awards and are published in over a dozen languages. One thing all reviewers and readers agree on regarding Cheryl’s work is the degree of emotion and believability. In describing her stories of second chances and redemption, readers and reviewers use words like, “emotional punch, hometown feel, core values, believable characters and real-life situations.”

Amazon and Goodreads reviews show her popularity with readers.

With a 4.9 star rating on amazon, Cheryl’s bestselling non-fiction books, Writing With Emotion, Tension & Conflict and Write Smart, Write Happy by Writers Digest Books are available in print and digital.

A few days ago, was the anniversary of my mother, Betty’s, death from cancer. I’ve worked through the stages of grief. I celebrate her life and all that she taught me. Like most, I didn’t appreciate her lessons until years later. I’m going to share the top three with you.

#1—Compliments. We are not given a finite number of compliments. Give them often and spread them far and wide.

I work part-time in a beauty salon in my small town. They don’t really need me; clients can make appointments online, and there are only two stylists working at a time (due to COVID-19). They keep me around because I compliment freely. I praise the stylist’s work, the outcome, shoes, jackets, the sunny day. I say it all. The best part is that it makes me feel better to see a person’s face light up.

In the Writing World—I compliment often. I send messages to authors that I’ve never met when I discover their book and enjoyed it. I respond to posts that make me think or feel. It is an easy way to network, and I’ve made great connections that started with a simple comment.

#2—Pick Your Battles. Why waste energy on something you will never win?

I remind myself of this every day since it is election time. Especially, when I see posts on social media. I do my best not to engage, however, my “snooze” button is getting a workout. The only thing I can say is that if a person is acquiring their news from a Facebook post as their only source—I’m not sure that they can be educated.

In the world of Romancelandia, there is a battle brewing weekly or so it seems. I have not returned to twitter since the RWA debacle; I can no longer handle the vitriol. I do admit to following some of the interactions, but I rarely enter the fray. I will comment on the never-ending trademark filings for commonly used words.

I try to follow Rule #2 because fighting a battle takes energy and emotion. My goal is to use my energy on my writing, and if there is any leftover, then dusting my old house.

#3—Acceptance.  No one is perfect so why should we expect our friends to be?

You might be jealous—I have a friend who is the authority on everything. She is – just ask her.

I’m a part of a group message where we share our day to day victories and fails, our news, and our concerns. If I post that a friend received a cancer diagnosis—she’s had three this week. A mention of how you called somebody to express your sympathy at the loss of their parent—she tells you how you did it incorrectly. Somebody had a kitchen fire—she’s lived through two and the damage was much worse.

It’s exhausting and sometimes very frustrating. However, she has many good points, so I choose to overlook her responses, or I try to. I know I cannot change her, nor do I have the time to try. Yes, she can be an annoyance, but I’ve become used to her and I now “prepare” myself for her responses.

I could also go on about Betty’s rules concerning no white before Mother’s Day or after Labor Day—Take that Vogue! Her belief that you should never offer a beverage without a napkin. If you give a purse or wallet as a gift, you should always stash some coins and a dollar in it for luck. And finally, good-byes should take at least fifteen minutes.

My hope is that this fall you might try to incorporate one or more of Betty’s lessons into your life. It will enrich yours and others.

I’m Melanie Jayne/M. Jayne, and I write Romance. I live on a grain farm in central Indiana with my husband and our mastiff, Duncan Keith. I’m a huge sports fan and cannot wait for SEC football to begin. I have a deep attachment to The Real Housewives franchises and daytime court shows.

My books incorporate true stories from life and many of my characters are over the age of 35. My heroines are usually larger than size 16 and never apologize for their love of food and dislike of diets.

About the Author

Melanie Jayne/M. Jayne lives on a farm in Indiana with her husband and Duncan Keith her mastiff supervisor. She is addicted to trashy TV and TMZ.com. She writes The Novus Pack Series featuring a human psychic who lives amongst werewolves and several Contemporary Romance Series that feature characters over the age of thirty-five.

You can learn more about me and my writing here:
https://www.facebook.com/MelanieJayneAuthor
www.ReadMelanieJayne
on Twitter @1MelanieJayne
https://www.bookbub.com/authors/m-jayne
https://www.bookbub.com/authors/melanie-jayne
readmelaniejayne on Instagram

Setting, for me, is where every book begins.

Yes, I love getting to know the characters that slip out of the shadows at the back of mind where they’ve been living, sometimes for decades without my being aware of them. I enjoy the plotting process which consists of waking up in the middle of the night to mull over possibilities, running down roads both promising and dead-end, and throwing possibilities into a Word program called “Notes”, but I have to have a strong picture in my mind of where everything happens before I can write the first word.

I love going for solitary drives accompanied by Neil Diamond going full blast while the world around me becomes part of me. I’m a mountain gal born and bred. I don’t understand cities. They don’t speak to me. But give me the wilderness and I come alive.

That’s true even when I’m writing erotica.

Case in point, I’m in the process of releasing two self-published books. Cry of the Wolves will hit the virtual shelves on the 29th. I haven’t set on a release date for the companion novella Call of the Wolves, sometime in July.

The two connected stories came to me unbidden. I had no idea that’s what would happen when I went for a hike near Crater Lake at a place known as The Gorge. The Rogue River of southern Oregon flows through The Gorge, or rather it fights to. As I explain in the forward for the two Wolves stories, an ancient volcanic eruption sent molten lava to the Rogue. At one spot, the river was squeezed into a narrow channel. Every spring during snow runoff, the river screams and boils as it struggles through the lava.

That’s where I found my characters. Each in their own way, they listened to and watched the ageless battle between rock and water. That wild place impacted them as deeply as it did me and gave rise to the ghost wolves. I’m including a couple of pictures I took. I just wish readers could feel the spray and sense the ground shivering.

A big part of the writing business consists of getting the word out, which is what I’m doing right now via a couple of projects designed to try to garner reviews.

In case you’re interested in getting your hands on some free ARC (advanced reader copies) in exchange for a voluntary review, I recommend becoming a member of Book Sirens, https://booksirens.com/advanced-reader-copies, and/or The Hidden Gems, https://www.hiddengemsbooks.com/.