Was your proposal PERFECT? You know. Flowers, starlight, candles, down-on-one-knee perfect? Straight-out-of-a-romance-novel perfect? Well, mine wasn’t. Are you confused? I was, too. You see, my then-boyfriend and I had been dating for over two years. He was getting ready to graduate in a month, and everything was up in the air. I was stressed out […]
What About Setting? #Giveaway
I write in layers. That means, my first draft is mainly dialogue, character thought, and emotion. Once I complete the book, I go back in and add setting, description, movement, body language, and timeline. I used to weave my setting and timeline in as I wrote the first draft. Until my editor asked if I […]
Revisiting Characters
A Texas Bond, book three in my Texas Hill Country series, officially released last week. It was inspired partly by my husband and I dabbling in flea marketing after shopping them for years. The picture I included is the booth we had full of items we created or repurposed. It was fun fitting our […]
Wandering
by: Staci Stallings Let’s start with this: I am not a Lord of the Rings fan. I apologize to those of you who love it, but I must confess that I am not among that number. My children once had the movies on our television in the living room, and I didn’t leave my office […]
Books & Puzzles # Giveaway
I love jigsaw puzzles, but it’s been several years since I’ve done one. When I was a kid, I remember my Uncle Spud always had a puzzle. When I visited or spent the night with my cousins, he’d let me ‘help’ with his puzzle. Over the years, my parents bought me puzzles and my love […]
Life In Fiction #Giveaway
Today, I’m welcoming my guest Amy R. Anguish. I recently had the pleasure of editing Amy’s book, Saving Grace. I love this story, love the characters, plus there’s humor and plenty of swoon worthy moments. And I’m not just saying that because I’m biased. I’ve been a friends to romance fan for years. Here’s Amy: […]
Between Books #Giveaway
Many moons ago, we saw a movie that inspired me. In the story, a young girl’s parents were authors. On deadline, they rarely spent time with her. Until they finished. When she came home from school that day, the whole family painted a room in their house. Though I’ve always made a point to work […]
Why Contemporary Romance? #Giveaway
July has swept many changes into my world. Instead of writing, I’m editing. I’ve sent rejections to writers. But while I dashed their dreams, I gave them tips on what they needed to study and hopefully encouraged them. I’ve learned that editors aren’t mean wannabe writers who want to rewrite my book. I didn’t really […]
Top 10 Book Dedications on my Shelf
Readers often overlook the book dedication (unless a book is dedicated to them), but they mean a lot to us authors. And some of them are just as entertaining or endearing as the novel itself. For example: To Collin Firth. You’re a great guy, but I’m married, so I think we should just be friends. […]
When It Rains It Pours #Giveaway
Blessings that is. I knew book two of my Hill Country Cowboys series was releasing in mid June and my backlist title, Counting on the Cowboy was re-releasing in a western collection in mid May. But I didn’t know the collection would be in Walmart. I didn’t even look. But my husband did. It was […]