Erica Marie Hogan's Blog, page 6

Read, Write, Read Again

Read, write and then read again. That’s been me these last couple of weeks. Sometimes, reading is the only way I can break through when writing slows down. When my mind just can’t get past that block that won’t let me continue. Or when my book seems to be slowing down, getting boring and I can’t figure out a way to bring it back to life. Sometimes, just reading a little bit gets my head spinning and I can write. Sometimes, it takes reading a whole bunch of books before I break through.

As a p...

Questions

Ah, the questions one gets asked when you become a new author.What’s your book about? What genre is it? What do you like to write? Howlong have you been writing?All of these are common, especially when people find out how old I am. Then the questions turn to.Really? You’re only 23? That’s so young!And wouldn’t you know I just love hearing that? (Not really)

The Review

More than anything, I think an author wants reviews. We want to know what the reader thinks, we want to see their praise and love for the stories that mean so much to us. But at the same time, we dread seeing reviews. We dread seeking them out, nervously asking someone if they’d be willing to review it. What if they don’t like it? What if they give it 1 star? What if asking that person for a review turns out to be the biggest mistake ever? It’s a risk that we all have to take for the sake of...

100 Pages

So, last night I reached 100 pages in my current WIP! Whenever I reach 100 pages in my book, I celebrate a little. It’s an accomplishment to me, to reach 100 pages and to still not have the ending of the book anywhere in sight. I feel exhilarated, full of excitement because I know that the book will be long, most likely nearly 400 pages. That’s the most exciting part of all, watching the book grow longer, keeping an eye on that word count as it climbs from 20,000 words to 50,000 to 80,000.

Wh...

Reading & Writing Historical Fiction

I love reading. Ever since I picked up my first book, I’ve loved reading. I discovered that warm and fuzzy feeling when a good romance ends. I discovered the edge-of-your-seat feeling when reading a suspense novel. I discovered that I could cry, when moved by a character’s faith and struggle. Reading was the best feeling in the world. Then I discovered that I could write and that opened up a whole new world. The thing about these books (another discovery I made) is that they were all Historic...

Dreams DO Come True

Since I was a little girl I wanted to write. I’ve been writing stories since I was ten, always with the dream of being published prominent in my mind. That’s thirteen years I’ve been learning about writing, actually writing and improving my writing. Sometimes it felt like being published was SO FAR AWAY. Like the times I would enter and lose writing contests. Or some of the brutal criticism I would receive from the judges of those contests. That was never easy and at times I even thought mayb...

My 5 Step Process

When I start a new novel I always go through a process. I can never just sit down and start writing, not without knowing the outcome of the story. There has to be a timeline, there has to be a plan for the characters. Knowing their own unique personalities before I begin is most important to me. In the novel I’m working on now I have SO many characters that separated them by their ownersonality has been difficult at times, but working in so many different settings has helped and it is probabl...

The Block in the Road

Everyone experiences writer’s block at some point. I used to think that it was just me and let it feed my doubt about whether or not I was meant to be writing. I thought that a good writer wouldn’t have such struggles. But as I learned and grew in writing I discovered that what I experience is normal. There is always some point in my writing when I don’t know how to go on. The purpose is to keep my future readers interested, to keep them so engrossed in the story that they won’t put it down,...