by: Staci Stallings When readers think about the joy an author must feel when creating characters —the sheer exhilaration that here is a person under your complete control, that you can mold and form and make them do whatever you want (HAHA right!), I’m quite sure very few of them ever think about the issue […]
Plotting & Pantsing Explained + giveaway
Spend any time on social media with your favorite authors these days, and you’ll come across a number of terms the average reader doesn’t understand. Like any field, there’s a bit of lingo involved that can confuse a person on the outside looking in. Always a reader first, I enjoy sharing some of that insider […]
Christmas and Families
It’s the last Saturday before Christmas. Please take time to enjoy these few days before Christmas with your family and loved ones and friends. I do love Christmas. My husband and I have a tradition of shopping in a small mountain town, Blue Ridge, Georgia, the first or second Saturday in December. We find […]
Putting Christmas in a Book # Giveaway
Hey y’all. As I mentioned in my last post, I’m all about Christmas. But what happens when your editor asks if you can move your story from Spring to Christmas when you’re doing her editorial revisions in Sept? You do it. But I’ll be honest, it was hard to get in the Christmas mood when […]
The Truth about Lamp Lighting
by: Staci Stallings The Bible says that God’s Word is a lamp at my feet. My dad always said that God put the lamp at our feet and not on our head. That means we’re supposed to focus on the next step, not how we’re getting all the way down the tunnel. I’ve thought about […]
A New Beginning by Merrillee Whren
Last month I talked about a letter I had written to myself that contained goals. I was pleasantly surprised to see that I had accomplished all five things on the list. One of the things on the list was to request my rights back for one of my Love Inspired books, Montana Match. A week […]
Planning a Wedding
One of the things I find most fun when writing Christian romance is planning a beautiful wedding at the end of a book. Of the five books out so far in my Abundance series, three of them end in weddings, including the most recent books I’ve written, Love and Roses and Love, Lies, and Homemade […]
Finding The Perfect Holiday Cover…
Has been one big challenge. In years past, I did good to scramble together one Christmas story. I love Christmas stories, but by the time I’m finally in the mood to actually think about Christmas, it’s upon us. (Crafting gifts has the same issues) So, last year, I wrote a Christmas story and held on […]
Backstory
By: Staci Stallings Many, many moons ago on a writing loop I was on at the time, there was a massive discussion about backstory. For those who don’t know, “backstory” refers to a character’s story that happened before the current story starts. Basically, where did this person come from and how did they get here? […]
Where in the World is Saddle Springs, Montana?
Inventing geography is a ton of fun! Right up there with finding character inspiration photos and house floor plans and music that matches the mood or theme of the story. My characters need places to hang out, which means they need a town with a few amenities even if they live out on a ranch […]