Ruth Ann Nordin's Blog, page 24

Updates on What I’m Doing

For the time being, I’m putting An Earl In Time on hold

I am having an author friend go through it for me to help me figure out where I went off the rails with this one. The beginning is perfect. I love it as is. But there’s something that developed around the time the hero and heroine meet that is off. I’m having trouble pinpointing it, which is why I asked my friend for help.

My friend is doing a wonderful job of helping me already, but I want to take time to really think everything through. My plan is to take notes on her suggestions, put them aside, and let my mind work on it. In the meantime, I’ll work on other books.

This morning, I sat down to readjust my publishing schedule for the rest of the year.

Perfectly Matched (Husbands for the Larson Sisters Series: Book 2) is still set for March 27

This is already completed in its final version. Thankfully, it happened before all of the commotion started around here.

A Perilous Marriage (Marriage by Necessity Series: Book 1) has been moved to May 27

At the moment, I’m having a situation where I have some house repairs that need to be done, and this has made it hard for me to sit down and focus. Instead of pushing myself to get this polished up and out into the world by May 7th, I decided to move it to May 27.

Interview for a Wife (Nebraska Prairie Series: Book 3)

I’m moving this to July. It will finish the Nebraska Prairie Series.

   

I’m putting The Cursed Earl (Marriage by Necessity Series: Book 2) for September

On Smashwords, I put October, just in case this ends up getting delayed. Originally, I had slotted Heiress of Misfortune for Book 2, but as I was wrapping up A Perilous Marriage, the more logical book to do next was this one. I shifted Heiress of Misfortune to a January/February 2022 release.

Suitable for Marriage (Husbands for the Larson Sisters Series: Book 3) is expected out in November

I have no idea for the Daisy Larson (the youngest of Tom and Jessica’s daughters), so my plan is to work on Jeremiah’s romance (Wyoming Series: Book 4) after I finish up Suitable for Marriage. I’d like to get Jeremiah’s story out in March 2022.

Making a Realistic Publishing Schedule has been cancelled for the year

I have put this book on hold for the whole year. I was going to get this out in the summer, but with everything that’s going on, there’s just no way it’s happening.

The Benefit of Writing About The Larsons Using The Multiple Series’ Method

Today’s topic is mainly about why I love writing multiple series in the same world instead of writing one really long series. I notice the way I present my reasoning does jump around a bit. I tried not to make it so jumpy, but apparently, my brain doesn’t follow a linear path all that well.

Perfectly Matched opens with Patricia and Erin, Tom and Jessica’s daughters who are now grown up, talking about how their parents met at a barn dance. They mention how their father was clumsy and nearly ruined their mother’s hair. I wrote about this years ago in A Bride for Tom. I have made other references to this incident in Shotgun Groom, too, but this time it’s coming from the angle of other characters. And to be honest, it’s really fun to get a different character’s perspective on the same event. While Joel was laughing about the event because he thought Tom was a doofus, Patricia and Erin think it’s romantic because their father was so nervous around their mother.

In the Nebraska Series, Tom’s mostly viewed as a bit of a goofy character who is naive in some ways. But when you branch out to the Husbands for the Larson Sisters Series (which is the one that involves Patricia and Erin), Tom isn’t that type of character at all. Instead, Tom is a well-meaning protective father who would do anything for his daughters. According to his daughters, he is larger than life, and I really don’t think any father is more loved than Tom in any of the books I’ve ever written. If Joel ever started cracking jokes at Tom’s expense when those girls are around, they would be the first in line to defend him. So Joel better watch himself when he’s around these four girls.

While writing Perfectly Matched, I thought back to Eye of the Beholder when Nelly and Patricia were hanging on to Tom’s legs. I didn’t plan for that incident to be a foreshadowing of how the future was going to play out with this family, but it turned out to be that way. Maybe the subconscious mind knew they would grow up to have a close relationship with their father. At the time I wrote Eye of the Beholder, I just felt it in my gut that Tom should have all girls. But, I did feel a little sorry for him since he really wanted to toss around a ball with a boy, so I’m going to give him all grandsons.

Back to the leveraging of past books to enhance a current one…

In Perfectly Matched, Patricia tells Jim about the time her father was on the wagon trail. I just glossed over it in this book, but it was really fun to bring up that incident from the Larsons’ past. I wrote about this time in Wagon Trail Bride. Eye of the Beholder was the first Larson book I wrote, and in there, Dave told Mary about his family leaving New York because his father wanted to get land out in Nebraska. It was a treat to give this perspective from a member of the Larson family who was born after the event.

When I look at the Larson books, I don’t see them as individual books. I actually see them as one large book. To me, the individual books are really chapters. They’re all connected. In fact, I see the Regency books the same way. Even though we’re not dealing with one specific family in the Regencies, I keep everything in the same world. I even used Nelly’s Mail Order Husband to connect the Regencies to the Larsons by making the hero of that book a descendant of Lord Edon. Early on, I had been itching to somehow link the Larsons with the Lord Edon or Mr. Christopher Robinson (because they’re my favorite Regency characters), and I finally got my chance with Nelly’s book.

Being able to write multiple series within the same world gives me greater freedom to flesh out the characters. I don’t have to stick with one particular generation or focus only in on one branch of the family line. I can go down whatever branch I want. For example, I get to see Tom and Jessica when they’re young and fall in love. I also get to see them as parents later on in their lives.

I also like doing multiple series in the same world because I can move around to whatever interests me at the moment. I don’t like having to go write in chronological order. I know some authors do this, and I understand some readers prefer this method since it’s easy to keep track of everyone. That method has just never worked for me. I have to go with the story (or series) that I’m itching to write at the moment. That’s why I started out writing about Dave and Mary’s children and stopped. After writing Harriett’s story, I lost interest in Dave and Mary’s kids. I still have Adam, Jacob, and Eli to write about. I don’t know when I’ll get to them, but they are on the “To Write” list.

Right after finishing Wagon Trail Bride, I wanted to write about Richard and Amanda’s children so that I could “see” Richard and Amanda years after they had gotten established in Omaha. I figured with all the pain Amanda had been through, it would be nice to see how her future with Richard ended up. For me, writing romances for Tony, Mark, and Annabelle was a way for me to see Richard and Amanda’s extended happy ending. So really, Wagon Trail Bride isn’t complete (in my mind) without The Rejected Groom, The Perfect Wife, and The Imperfect Husband. Once I got those all ironed out, I was ready to move to another Larson. In this case, I had the urge to write about Tom and Jessica’s daughters, so that is what I’m currently working on.

I’m not sure what will be up next. I have no idea what I want to do for Daisy, so I might take a break from the Larsons. I do want to write Jeremiah’s romance in the Wyoming Series. That will probably be the book that I’ll focus on. I’d like to get to Daisy’s romance afterwards, but we’ll see where inspiration takes me.

Decided to Write Jeremiah’s Romance (Wyoming Series Will Get a 4th Book)

Here’s the Wyoming Series at a glance to help refresh everyone’s memory because looking at a cover helps remember what book an author is talking about:

   

After The Rancher’s Bride came out, I guess Jeremiah appealed to quite a few people because I have been asked if I’ll write his book. The truth is, I did have someone in mind for him, but the age difference between him and the heroine was greater than what I usually do. I had discussed this age difference early on with a friend, and this person advised me to replace this heroine with someone else. The thing was, I didn’t want to pair him up with someone else. So in the end, I decided the best thing to do was not write the book. That way I could avoid upsetting a lot of people. But then I had a conversation with someone else, and this person pointed out a book where there was a big difference in ages between the hero and heroine. Then I thought in real life, how many men marry women a lot younger than them?

Alright, so here’s the deal. I always had it in my mind that Jeremiah was going to end up with Katie. The problem was that Katie had to be a child in The Rancher’s Bride because that’s how the story worked best for Abby and Thayne’s story. They needed a matchmaking meddler for the story to work. Originally, she was seven (I think), but I bumped her age to ten to make her more mature in the story. I couldn’t, however, make her too much older because she still needed to have some inexperience in order for her matchmaking schemes to come off as innocent rather than manipulative.

Jeremiah’s age was set because of Wade. Wade and Jeremiah grew up as practically brothers, but Jeremiah had to be older than him because he was someone Wade could look to for advice. Wade wasn’t the personality type to take advice from his younger siblings, even if they did make some good points. Someone of Wade’s personality needed someone like Jeremiah to keep him from making rash decisions that would have gotten him killed. So Jeremiah had to be older than Wade. Jeremiah was 34 in The Rancher’s Bride. Katie was 10. This makes him 24 years older than Katie.

Katie is the only person I’m interested in pairing him up with, and I’ll list two reasons.

1. Katie and Jeremiah are prominent characters in the Wyoming Series. I prefer to stick with core characters when I do a series. Introducing a brand new character in Book 4 doesn’t have the same appeal to me as using an existing character who has a history in the series. That is why I paired Wade up with Millie. We saw Millie in the opening scene of The Outlaw’s Bride. For me, it was fun to find out what happened to her and to follow her story from there. I introduced Katie in The Rancher’s Bride. I don’t have to go and create a brand new character when Katie is already there.

2. Jeremiah’s closed off, romantically speaking. He needs someone who has the ability to get through his wall. In order for that to happen, he needs someone who has a sunny outlook on life, is persistent, and is willing to do whatever it takes to wiggle her way into getting what she wants. That fits Katie perfectly. Katie is the only one who can do this. I didn’t intentionally set it up that when I wrote The Rancher’s Bride, but I believe the subconscious part of the brain plays a bigger role in connecting things up in storytelling better than the conscious mind does. This is why I’ve long ago learned to “trust the process”. Somehow, things end up falling into place, and the right characters end up coming together. I don’t consciously pick who ends up with who once I set up Book 1. If I were to try to fix Jeremiah up with anyone else, the story wouldn’t work because he’s not meant to be with anyone else.

I don’t know how many people are put off by the age difference between Jeremiah or Katie, but if you are, this is a book you’ll want to avoid.

Katie is going to be an adult when I write about her and Jeremiah. She’s going to volunteer at the orphanage and young men are going to come by to court her. Jeremiah’s going to be shocked by how old she’s gotten since she’s been out at the ranch with Abby and Thayne most of the time, and Jeremiah will fight his attraction for her because of his age and the fact that he had sworn he’d never marry again. Katie’s going to see him in a new light at the beginning of the story, too, but unlike Jeremiah, she’s not going to fight her feelings for him. So that’s pretty much the setup for the story, and I’m excited about writing it. I even got a cover made for it.

Right now I’m working on A Perilous Marriage, An Earl In Time, Interview for a Wife, and Suitable for Marriage. A Perilous Marriage is almost done. I’m getting close to the end. But when I finish that one, I’m going directly to Heiress of Misfortune because it comes right after A Perilous Marriage, and I want to keep the events from A Perilous Marriage fresh in my mind. So I’m going to start Jeremiah’s romance once I am done with An Earl In Time or Interview for a Wife. It depends on which one gets done first. Regardless, I probably won’t have Jeremiah’s book ready until about March 2022.

I know that seems like a long time from now, and I am anxious to start this book now that I have the stage set for it, but I’m going to be good and finish the other books first.

What I’m Working On

Where to start? There’s so much to include. I’ll try to make things brief so the post doesn’t get too long.

Perfectly Matched will be out March 27

(Husbands for the Larson Sisters Series: Book 2)

This one is now up on pre-order on Amazon, B&N, Kobo, and Apple. Here’s the page where you can find it if you want to reserve your copy today: https://ruthannnordinauthorblog.com/chronological-order-of-my-books/my-historical-westerns/husbands-for-the-larson-sisters-series/perfectly-matched-husbands-for-the-larson-sisters-book-2/

As a quick reminder, this is Patricia Larson’s romance. She’s the second daughter of Tom and Jessica. This is a cute romantic comedy, and for those of you who prefer romances that contain little to no sex, this one has only kissing in it.

A Perilous Marriage

(Marriage by Necessity Series: Book 1)

I’m hoping to get this out on May 7, but I’m currently behind schedule, so I might have to push the date back. The good news is that I managed to get to 50,000 words before I was forced to take a week and a half off from writing. I suspect this book will be another 10,000 to 15,000 words before it’s done. As long as no other surprises come up, I should be able to get this out on time.

An Earl In Time

(standalone time travel romance with a fairytale feel to it)

I’m planning for this one to come out in July or September. I’m 54,000 words into this one, but it’s turning into a longer story than my usual 60,000-65,000 word count. I suspect we’re looking at 80,000 or so for this one. If I can’t get this out in July, I’d like to get Interview for a Wife out in July instead.

Interview for a Wife

(Nebraska Prairie Series: Book 3)

As a quick reminder since I only recently created the Nebraska Prairie Series, Books 1-2 used to be in anthologies I had under a publisher. I got the rights back to Books 1-2 last year, republished them, and decided to add Book 3 to the series.

The Purchased Bride was in the Bride by Arrangement anthology, and The Bride’s Choice was in the A Groom’s Promise anthology. If you have those anthologies, you already have these books.

I’ll post the anthology covers for quick reference and then post the new covers for the individual books.

Anthology covers:

 

Individual books:

   

I’m currently at 25,000 words in Interview for a Wife, and it’s looking like I’m about halfway into it. That’s why this one might come out before An Earl In Time.

Suitable for Marriage

(Husbands for the Larson Sisters Series: Book 3)

I’m hoping to get this out in November. I’ve gotten 9,000 words into it so far. This is Erin Larson’s romance. Erin is Tom and Jessica’s third daughter. At this point, it looks like it’ll be another cute romantic comedy, but we’ll see as the story progresses.

***

I finally updated the old covers for the South Dakota Series. I’ve been itching to do this for years, but until recently, I didn’t find the right models I was looking for.

I have to give a shout-out to Book Brush for how easy they make creating book covers.

I’m not sure how many authors bother reading these posts about my works in progress, but Book Brush has a background remove feature that allows you to remove a white/gray background from a model so that only the model remains. It can take a long time to remove models from a background if you use a program like GIMP. I still use GIMP, but it’s for the small touches rather than the main cover itself. Anyway, Book Brush allows you to easily take the model and place it in any new background picture you want. The whole process takes less than five minutes once you figure it out. Book Brush also includes fonts for the text.

I typically buy model photos from Period Images since they have models in historical clothes and have a focus on romance. I use the background photos from Dreamstime.

With that aside, here are the old covers for the South Dakota Series:

   

(Some of you may remember this cover for Bride of Second Chances since it’s the original one:)

And here are the new ones:

   

If you see those covers change on your e-reading device, it’s because I changed them. I know this can be startling, and you end up wondering if this was a book you’ve already read. The same thing happens to me when an author updates their covers. The reason we update covers is to look more professional.

The Danger of Unrealistic Expectations (A Serious Flaw in the Writing to Market Mindset)

*Note: When I speak of “writing to market”, I am including the “writing to trend/fad” under this umbrella.

ID 110017464 © Ognyan Chobanov | Dreamstime.com

I’m sure by now everyone is aware that I’m opposed to the Write to Market strategy. Today, I’m going to list another reason why I hate it so much. (In fact, the more I explore it, the more I hate it.)

At the moment, I am having my kid go through a book titled Common Sense Business (Principles for Profitable Leadership) by Theodore Roosevelt Malloch and Whitney MacMillan. This is for his homeschool class titled Business: Sole Proprietorship. I figured since I run a business (which is being an independent writer), I would teach him what really goes into entrepreneurship.

While I was reading this book to prepare the lessons on common sense ways to run a business, I came across a portion that addressed the false notion that we must ALWAYS win. Winning, in terms of business, is all about profits. It’s this idea that we must see success after success, and the more we get, the more we’ll continue to get. The book continued to state that the culture in the United States is based on this unending increase that leaves no room for drops in income or failures.

As I was reading the book, I realized this mindset has trickled into the writing community. The whole purpose of writing to market is to win all the time. It’s about making more and more money. There might be a book here and there that doesn’t perform well, but the belief is that you WILL make more this year than you did last year, and you WILL make more next year than you will this year. And on and on it goes. The expectation is that it’s always going to be better. And if you don’t continue to win, you have not done something right.

So basically, it trains authors to feel like failures if their income drops. This is why when authors lament that they had a drop in income, they get bombarded with things the author did wrong. Their cover is lousy. Their description needs work. Their keywords are wrong. They didn’t do the right ads. They didn’t do enough ads. Their story sucks. Their website needs an overhaul. They aren’t engaging enough on social media. Etc, etc, etc.

There is always a reason to blame the author for a lack of sales. The writing to market mindset ignores the reality that sometimes you can do everything right and still see a drop in income. It is NOT always the author’s fault. The world we live in is ripe for success, but sometimes failure comes into the equation, too. It’s not realistic to think that everything must continue to go up. There are times they come back down. We will all face failure at some point because no one is perfect. Can we improve something with our book? Sure. But will it ever be perfect? No. Perfection is a myth.

When you give yourself over to this myth that you can create the perfect book with the perfect metadata and the perfect marketing plan, you’re going to end up disappointed. You face enough of these disappointments, and you’ll end up losing your enthusiasm for writing. The love you once had for creating new stories will wane. Writing will get harder and harder. The pressure to sell more is going to take over, and if you can’t hit the amount of sales you want, you’re going to get increasingly frustrated until you grow to hate writing.

Life is all about ups and downs. It’s just part of the ebb and flow of human existence.

This is true for every area of our lives. Do you have a good day every single day of your life? Does everything always go your way? Is today better than yesterday? Is tomorrow guaranteed to be better than today? Will next week be better than this one? Can you rely on things always being wonderful? Are the people around you always pleasant to be with? Are you always pleasant around them? Are the things you own always working like they should? Are you blessed with a repair-free existence? What about your health? Have you been well every single day you’ve been alive?

I could go on, but you get my point. If other areas in our lives are filled with ups and downs (good times and bad), then how can we expect writing to be any different?

“But, Ruth,” someone might say. “You can control your books.”

While that is true, you can’t control who buys it. That’s a factor that no author, regardless of how good they are at everything else, can accommodate for.

And yet, this is what writing to market is all about. Even if it’s not said aloud, the expectation is there. Writing to market gives the unrealistic promise that if you follow a specific formula, you’re guaranteed success because you are writing what people want to buy. This mindset is dangerous because it’s not grounded in reality. It sets the bar way too high.

As much as I hate to say it, the people selling courses promising that “you too can make tons of money if you follow their strategies” are making a big chunk of their income selling courses to authors. There’s good money to be had in these courses. When they brag about their “six figure income”, how much of that is from the courses they’re selling?

Regarding authors who brag about their “six-figure incomes”, how much of the money they make is partly due to the fact that they have an “in” at retailers you don’t, such as a personal rep at Amazon who can help place their book in front of more customers? I’ve personally benefited from special treatment at Apple years back (don’t remember how long ago at this point, but it was when self-publishing was taking off). The special placement I got from Apple helped me gain a footing over there that I otherwise would not have had. Also, how many of these authors know other authors who have a big readership to give the book exposure you can’t? Years ago, I remember Dave Ramsey mentioning a book on Amazon that had to do with building good habits. After Dave Ramsey mentioned that book, it zoomed way up in the charts at Amazon. Now, in this case, I don’t think the author knew Dave when Dave mentioned him on the show. But there are authors in the writing community who know each other, and group promotions happen. These promotions are legit. I’m just pointing out that being mentioned by a highly influential person can give you certain perks not available to other authors.

The extra perks some authors have change the equation quite a bit. That’s why you can’t compare yourself to someone else. Just because an author is making a certain amount of money, it doesn’t mean you will. The writing to market community fails to point this out. They make it sound like if you follow the advice in a certain book or course, you’re going to sell a lot of books. So you’re left believing that if you aren’t making the kind of money these other authors are, you are a failure, and you’re often blamed for not doing something right.

If you’re starting out today, it is possible for you to pay bills and even make a living, but be prepared for some ups and downs along the way. Things don’t play out the same way for everyone. If I had not started out back in 2009 with ebooks, I doubt I would be where I’m at today. Timing places a big role in success. Those who hit something big early benefit from it. Look at Bitcoin. I remember my sister telling me about Bitcoin about a decade ago. I wish I had gotten some back then. But that ship has long sailed for me. However, I did luck out with the writing thing. Would I be able to make good money if I started out today? I don’t know because I’m not starting out today, but my gut tells me there is no way. The field is different than it used to be. Back then, there were so few ebooks out that it was easy to get noticed. Now there’s a ton of books available, and a lot of them look professional. It’s hard to distinguish one book from another sometimes.

There is hope. I see people starting out who have been able to make money. Some supplement their income. Others quit their jobs and write full time. It’s going to be different for every author. You do your best and hope it pays off. That’s all any business owner does, whether it’s in the creative arts or running a restaurant or a store. Not all businesses succeed. It could be that you do everything right and still don’t make it. That is not your fault. It’s just the way life is.

Here’s the truth about the writing business. Income goes up and down. Some books sell better than others. Some books will receive praise and others will receive criticism. You can’t hit a home run every time you go up to bat. You’ll have years that are great and years that aren’t so great. That’s okay. I really think the writing to market mindset puts way too much pressure on authors, and I’m afraid all it does is weaken their joy and enthusiasm for writing. Writing should be a reward in itself. I realize you can’t eat joy and enthusiasm, but it sure is a lot easier to write when you’re enjoying what you’re doing. That’s why having realistic expectations are so important. Realistic expectations prepares you for the ups and downs that come with writing, and I believe that, ultimately, they lead you to a sense of peace that I don’t think exists in the writing to market community.

Why I Hate Sad Endings

ID 44418116 © Vvvita | Dreamstime.com

As I was browsing WWII movies for my homeschool kid to watch, I ended up down a rabbit trail and saw a movie that looked like a cute romance with a feel good ending.

The reason I believed this movie was a romance is that it was branded as a romance. It had a cute cover with a man and a woman on it. The trailer made you think there’s going to be a happy ending. At first, the trailer presents a man who is bitter due to his paralysis, but later in the trailer, you see him laughing because the woman has come into his life and cheered him up. I get that trailers aren’t there to give away the ending, but the entire way this trailer and the movie cover were presented screamed “this is a romance where the couple ends up together”. This is part of branding. Other movie trailers have been like that. Other movies have used covers like that. In other words, this particular movie followed all of the tropes that actual romance movies do. This sets up the expectation that this movie would be a romance as well.

A part of branding comes in with customer expectation. The marketing department is responsible for tying in key ingredients to alert the right audience that THIS is the movie for them. (The same thing happens with books.) If you promise something you don’t deliver on, you’re going to upset people, and those people won’t want to watch/read anything else because you will have lost your credibility.

Anyway… I scrolled through the reviews because I happen to be the person who wants to know what I’m getting myself into before I read a book or watch a movie. (Since I have a husband and four kids, homeschool one kid, and write books, I have a very limited amount of free time on my hands. That being the case, I don’t want to waste that free time on something I won’t enjoy.)

I saw a review that said something along the lines of, “Terrific movie. Get your tissues ready. He’s going to do the best thing for her and let her live a life with a man who is normal. He’s making the ultimate sacrifice just for her. How touching!” I’m paraphrasing, but that was pretty much the gist of the review, and it told me this is NOT a romance. How can it be? The main characters don’t end up together.

My original thought was that the man, who is bound to a wheelchair, decided to tell the woman it would never work. I thought that was why they didn’t end up together. That, in itself, would have been a bummer. But it’s actually worse than I thought because as I continued scrolling through the reviews, it turns out he ends up committing suicide so that the woman he loves (who happens to love him back) will be free to be with a man who can walk. (Or, in the words of the reviewer, “Give her a normal relationship.”)

I can’t tell you how much that ending upset me. One reviewer basically said that the movie missed the potential to show how a disabled man could find redemption and hope despite his circumstances. I wholeheartedly agree. I know people who have loved ones who are disabled. They’ll never live “normal” lives. But does that mean their lives have less value? I understand not all disabled people can fall in love and get married (as is the case with my friend’s grown son who has low-functioning autism). But the character in this movie is paralyzed and in a wheelchair. He has the mental and emotional capacity to love and be loved in a romantic sense. So why shouldn’t he be allowed that? Just because he can’t have sex or have children, he’s not deserving of love? There’s more to love than the physical intimacy side of things. There’s companionship. If my husband ever ends up being unable to be intimate with me, I’m staying with him. You don’t flush love down the toilet because things aren’t perfect. But that is, in essence, the message in this movie.

Also, I was floored by how many reviewers thought this movie was a romance. It was a tragedy, not a romance. Is it any wonder why there are authors out there who think their books are romances when the couple does not end up together due to separation or death? It’s movies like this that make the romance genre difficult to explain to new writers who want to place their books in the romance category when their books don’t belong there. These are authors who want to give a tragic ending to the story, but they want to label it as a romance because romance is popular and they want the book to be in a popular category. They do this in hopes of increasing sales, not because they understand the romance genre or even care to understand it. Readers like romance because the couple ends up together. That’s the whole point of romance.

I don’t know if any writers are reading this, but when you are working on your cover and book description, make sure you focus in on what the book is really about. Don’t promise something that’s not there. If you have a serious story, have the cover and book description reflect that. Don’t make the reader think they’re getting themselves into one thing when you deliver on something entirely different.

I’m so glad people leave reviews, esp. the spoiler ones. If it hadn’t been for those reviews, I would have wasted my time on that movie, and I would have been depressed for the rest of the day. I want happy endings. I’m not a sad ending kind of girl. I know people out there who love sad endings. I have a friend whose favorite movies involve people and pets dying because they’re “emotionally touching”. I’m not the same way. I hate endings like that.

I live in real life. I’m aware that bad things happen in the world. All the news does is tell me the sky is falling and that we’re all doomed. I swear, social media has only made things worse. It’s why I limit myself to what I do online. I don’t need more of this negative stuff in my life. When I pick up a book or sit down to watch a movie, I want to escape. I don’t care if bad things happen during the course of the book or movie, but I want there to be a happy ending. Happy endings are about hope. They give out the message that even though something bad happened, it doesn’t mean you have to stay in a pit for the rest of your life. Happy endings are really about overcoming obstacles. You can’t control everything that happens around you, but you can control whether or not you let it break your spirit. To me, happy endings emphasize that. That’s why I prefer them to the sad endings.

What about you? Are you a happy or sad ending kind of person?

Working on An Earl In Time

This is turning out to be a lot of fun to write. I’ve never written anything like this before. Being able to work outside the world of “realism” has opened up an assortment of possible story ideas to work with that regular romances don’t allow.

I chose to open a scenario where the American heroine, in our contemporary time, inherits an English estate and intends to sell it. But she’s unable to sign the contract to sell it, and she’s unable to leave the property. In both cases, magic is behind it, though she doesn’t realize this until about 1/3 of the way into the book.

On the historical timeline, there’s the hero who got transported, by magic, to a parallel world when he arrived at the same estate to deal with his father’s funeral. So he’s in the same manor she is, except their worlds are distinct. While her world moves forward in time, his does not.

The hero is in June 17, 1817, and he’s stuck in an endless loop of the same day. The servants aren’t aware of this. The hero is the only one who knows everyone in the household has being stuck in June 17, 1817 for a little over two centuries.

So those are the two main things I had figured out when I began this story. I started writing to find out why they’re in the situation they are and how they’re going to get out of it. My creative brain doesn’t work by outlining, at least not for long stories. I went into this knowing nothing except that the heroine is going to find a way into the past so she and the hero are in the same world. It’s a romance, and I want these two to be in the same physical space in order to fall in love. I also know there’s a happy ending. How to get to that happy ending is still a mystery to me, and I’m almost 50,000 words into the story. I think I have about 30,000 more words to go, but we’ll see how things play out.

In addition to this being a romance, my goal is to write something that can truly be classified as a fairy tale. I originally thought this was going to take on a Grimm fairy tale feel to it because the story does start out pretty dark. But as the story has been progressing, it’s taken on a lighter tone. Certain elements of this story started to remind me of Disney fairy tales. I’ve inserted three animals that were magically turned into humans. There are going to be two fairies who will pop up later on. Growing up and watching Disney fairy tales, it’s common for the main characters to be able to communicate with animals, sometimes animals turn into people, and sometimes a fairy plays a role in the storyline. So, really, I think An Earl In Time is going to be midway on the spectrum between a Grimm fairy tale and a Disney fairy tale. Not too dark and not too light.

One thing I decided I’d do early on is give colors significance because, to me, that helps with the magical flavor of the plot. Good and evil has its colors. I based the colors for good from the cover. (The entire inspiration for this story came from the pre-made cover I bought on the Book Designer website.) So that’s why red and gold represent good. It took some time to decide the colors for evil, and those finally ended up being pink and purple. (I happened to be working on perlers at the time and loved the way the pink and purple beads looked together.) Green is about to come onto the scene, and I suspect blue will soon follow. Green and blue will be the neutral colors.

I spent days naming (and renaming) the main characters because I wanted their names to have significance. I got the name “Willow” from the gothic names online search I did. (In the heroine’s contemporary timeline, the story does have a dark tone to it. I’d say why but that would be a spoiler.) Her last name has no significance assigned to it, though. I just remember the name “Knudson” from when I was a senior in high school in the Florida panhandle. That name was pretty popular there. I liked the name but never had a reason to use it until now, so I figured, “Why not?”

The hero was harder to name. In the end, I settled for Julian Azazel. I changed his name a couple of times, but this one finally stuck. Julian means youthful, which is to represent him never aging for about two centuries because he’s frozen in time. Azazel means scapegoat. The curse the hero is under was placed on him because of something that happened before he was born. In essence, he is the object of the villain’s wrath. The villain was unable to go after the person who got in his/her way, so he/she is going directly after Julian and (by extension of the curse, Willow). I don’t want to give the villain’s gender because it would be a spoiler. I have a very limited cast of characters in this book, so even a hint would ruin things.

At the moment, I don’t know if the villain is justified in being upset or not because I’m still trying to figure out how the big conflict even began. All I know is that in the villain’s eyes, the “sins” of the grandfather have passed on to the grandson.

This is one book that I really don’t know what is going to happen beyond a chapter or two as I’m writing it. I feel like I’m writing in the dark with no roadmap. I only have a flashlight. So when a turn in the path comes up, I only know about it right as I reach it. This has taken me outside my normal comfort zone for writing because I’ve never written a book so dependent on “trusting the creative process” like this. The use of magic has widened my options. I think it’s good for writers to break free from the same old-same old and explore new methods. I think it revives the creative brain.

I only said something to a very few group of people, but before I saw that pre-made cover up above, I was giving serious consideration to not writing in 2021. I felt like my creativity had dried up, and while I had ideas, I had no motivation to write. It’s why all of my projects are behind schedule right now. I wasn’t able to write anything for about 2.5 months. Then I came across that pre-made cover one day because I like to browse pre-made covers from time to time just out of habit. I fell in love with that cover. I held off on buying it right away because I needed a story for it. In a week, I had the idea, and I purchased the cover. As soon as I started writing the story that went with that cover, the motivation and desire to write all came rushing back. And I was able to finish Perfectly Matched, start on A Perilous Marriage, and continue with what I had started in Interview for a Wife. That’s why I think it’s good for an author who gets into a rut to break free and do something different. That something different could be the spark needed to light the creative fires again.

You Don’t Need a “Six-Figure Income” to be Financially Successful (A Post for Writers)

ID 112598251 © Sibgat | Dreamstime.com

While homeschooling my youngest, I am having him go through the book titled Everyday Millionaires by Chris Hogan as part of his Personal Finance class. I came across a very interesting piece of information that I think will relieve a lot of writers of the stress of having to make that golden “six-figure income”.

Here it is: “One-third of millionaires never had a six-figure household income in a single working year. Only 31% of them averaged $100,000 household income in a single working year.” (That’s on page 73 of the book.)

That’s great news, everyone. Okay, yes, I realize that means two-thirds of the millionaires did earn “six-figures”. But NOT all of them did, and that is good news. Why? I’ll explain below.

Over and over, this is a theme that keeps popping up in the writing community. This push is in most writing groups, on podcasts, in blog posts, in online courses, and in books. Everything seems to revolve around the “six-figure income”. Everything. If making six figures isn’t your goal, you are not a “serious” writer. If you don’t make six-figures, you run the risk of feeling like a failure, and then you might conclude there’s no hope for you. And it is way harder to get the respect and approval of other writers if you aren’t making this kind of money.

Well, today I’m happy to say that it’s not how much you make, it’s what you do with the money you earn that matters most. It’s a lot easier to get ahead if you have no debt. That’s why I avoid debt like the plague now. When you’re in debt, you’re not only forfeiting your future income to someone else (most often a bank), but you’re also paying interest on that debt, which means you’re paying more for the item you purchased than what it’s really worth.

I get that we all need a place to live and a car to drive. But the key is to pick a house and car that you will keep long-term. That way, when you pay them off, you have the benefit of owning those things outright. Then you can take the money you used to hand over to the creditor and put that in savings or an investment account instead. This allows you to get ahead. The problem comes up when you are constantly trading your cars in for a newer model or swapping homes because you like moving around a lot. If you like to move around a lot, rent instead of buy. You’ll be much further ahead in the long run. (My husband and I use to get newer cars all the time, so I know what I’m talking about here. The dealerships and banks will love you, but you’re robbing your financial sanity. Also, we lost a lot of money when we sold our house in 2015 to move to Montana. We should have just kept renting until we were ready to settle down in one spot.)

Also, cutting back on expenses helps, but this is common sense stuff and I’m sure we all know the ways that are best to do that. I won’t weigh down the post with all of that.

I’m sure everyone is wondering, “Is there a point to all of this?”

Yes, and I’ll get there right now.

My point is that a happy writer is one who isn’t stressed out about how many books they need to sell in order to bring in a certain level of income each month. You don’t need a lot of things to make you happy. Real happiness comes from being content with what you already have. Sure, look for ways to improve your situation, but don’t let the “I don’t have this” mindset rob you of enjoying what you have in this moment. If you woke up this morning with a roof over your head, food on the table, and clothes on your back, you’re already doing better than some of the world’s population. That is something to be thankful for. I’m afraid that our culture has become so materialistic that we have lost sight of just how blessed we really are. And losing sight of this blessing has made a lot of people miserable because no matter how much they make, they still aren’t happy. You might end up making a six-figure income with your writing, but it’s not going to magically make all of your problems fade away.

You don’t need to be a millionaire to be happy. Personally, my goal isn’t to be a millionaire. My goal is to not have to worry about how many books I sell in a month in order to pay my bills. That requires a certain level of financial independence. The better you position yourself financially, the less reliant you are on sales to make ends meet. That removes a lot of stress from our lives and allows us the freedom to write more of what we want than writing what the market wants. I’ve come across authors who are making a lot of money, but they’re writing to market, and this is making them miserable. They hate what they’re doing, but this is the only way they can make money right now. A lot of people have lost their jobs over the past year because of Covid. Real life happens. That’s why it’s good to save what you can. The stuff you save helps to act as a buffer in case the unthinkable happens.

I believe in having some fun. You don’t want life to pass you by while you sit at home all the time. You need to live life. But the key is to find the balance between spending and saving. You do want to build up good memories with loved ones. The more well-rounded your life is, the happier you’ll be. And when you’re happy, you’ll get more enjoyment out of writing.

That’s all I have to contribute to this topic at the moment. I found it very encouraging to read about that millionaire myth since I saw how it can apply to writers. I hope this post will relieve the anxiety some writers feel about not making a six-figure income. People who made less than six-figures a year were able to become millionaires. If they can build up their wealth on less then six-figures, you can have a good writing career on less than that, too.

Native American Romance Series Trivia

Since these books are interconnected, I thought I’d address them in one post.

   

This series started with a book that isn’t in the series. That book was Meant To Be.

     Old cover on the left; new cover on the right

I actually wrote Meant To Be to help me get better acquainted with the historical western mindset. I believe I wrote this in 2008 but published it in 2009. Back then, I knew I needed serious help feeling like I could take myself to the historic old west. People who criticize the Virginia Series have a valid point. Those books do come off as “modern”. People suggested I just stick with contemporary romances, but I really wanted to write historical ones. I was determined to overcome this hiccup in my writing life. No amount of books or internet research was helping in this area. I needed to mentally and emotionally BE there. So I chose to write a story where I brought characters from the present to the past. In doing that, I was forced to see the past through their eyes. This method did the trick. Ever since then, I’ve had no trouble transporting myself back in time.

Anyway, Meant To Be primarily focused on Ted and Megan, but Cole was a secondary character. During the writing of this book, I realized Cole wasn’t that bad and wanted to redeem him. So I gave him his own romance, but it was brief and pretty much glossed over for the sake of the main story. Because of this, I decided to write a story that focused on Cole and Penelope. This was how A Chance In Time came into existence.

While writing A Chance In Time, I came across a surprise character who pretty much showed up out of nowhere. That was Woape, and she was from the Mandan tribe in North Dakota. Woape was close to giving birth, and Penelope took her home to give her a safe place to live. When Woape gave birth, Penelope realized the father was white, and she assumed the worst (that Woape had been raped by a white man). But, as the author, I knew that wasn’t what happened, and since I was never able to go down that rabbit hole in A Chance In Time, I decided to write Restoring Hope.

I began Restoring Hope with the idea that Woape ran away from marrying Citlali. She was going to marry a white man who was going to get her pregnant before dying. Gary was supposed to marry her to give her a safe place from Hothlepoya and his men who sought to harm her. They were supposed to have more of a marriage of convenience where neither was meant to fall in love with the other. That way when I killed him off, there wasn’t supposed to be any emotional attachment to him. Then she was supposed to return to Citlali and fall in love with him. So the original plan was to kill Gary off for real. The problem was that the scenes with Gary kept going on and on, and the more time I spent with him, the more I liked him and didn’t want to see him die. I was in a corner, though, because the events in A Chance In Time still had to take place. Woape was supposed to end up pregnant and at Penelope’s home. That’s how I decided to come up with the idea where everyone believes Gary died. That way, I was able to get Woape to leave town and meet up with Penelope.

In deciding to let Gary live, I could no longer pair her up with Citlali. So when she returned to her tribe, she rejected Citlali’s offer for marriage. Thankfully, Woape’s sister was there and happened to be secretly in love with him. I kind of felt sorry for the guy since he wasn’t as bad as Woape made him out to be. He was just reserved with his feelings.

Before I could write Citlali’s romance, though, I had to write about Gary’s sister. Julia was an unintentional heroine. I introduced her in Restoring Hope, and she was intended to be the villain. She, however, didn’t agree with me. She was just an older sister who felt as if she was unappreciated by her little brother. She had valid reasons for feeling the way she did, though her actions were wrong. The second part of Restoring Hope was basically about Julia rectifying her actions. It wasn’t my intention to pair her up with Chogan. But I needed to get a way for her to find Woape and Gary, and Chogan was the only character I had on hand who knew how to get to his tribe. That’s how Chogan got that role. Also, I couldn’t make their journey a quick one. I needed time for Woape to have the baby at Penelope’s and then return to her tribe. That’s why I added in those scenes where Chogan taught Julia how to hunt. During the course of that, I realized I enjoyed writing more about Julia and Chogan than I did about Woape or Gary, so I spent more time with them as the book went on. I was originally going to end the story with Julia agreeing to marry Chogan when he proposed, but I decided I’d rather spend more time with them. That’s how I decided to write a book that would focus on them. They are one of my all-time favorite couples in all of the stories I’ve done. So, in the end, I settled for Julia telling him no at the end of Restoring Hope. That way I could pave the way for Brave Beginnings.

When Brave Beginnings started, it was a year later (I believe), so some time had passed in the series. I needed to have Chogan and Julia cross paths. That’s how Julia and her aunt ended up in Bismarck. And since the Mandan tribe was close by, they could naturally encounter one another. Well, the subconscious part of my brain decided to bring in Ernest, another man from Julia’s past who had proposed to her (and she had said no to him, too). I had no idea where I was going with Ernest when I wrote the scene where Julia and Ernest come across each other at the bank where he worked, but I told myself to “trust the process” and went with it to see where things would go. I knew Julia couldn’t end up with Ernest. She loved Chogan, and quite frankly, I did, too. So Ernest never had a chance. But I did bring in Julia’s cousin with the intention of pairing Ernest up with her. This, however, didn’t happen because Ernest steered off course and became a bitter and spiteful character. It surprised me when I realized who he really was beneath his pleasant exterior. But I kept going to see where things would go. It led to Ernest doing everything he could to separate Julia from Chogan, and since I was enjoying writing about Julia and Chogan so much, I wasn’t in any hurry to wrap their story up. As a result, Brave Beginnings ended up being the longest book I’ve ever written. It turned out to be around 116,000 words long. (On average, my books tend to be 60,000 words long.)

While writing Brave Beginnings, I was able to lay the ground work for Citlali’s romance by showing that he did care about people but felt a responsibility to the tribe to be the future leader, and, as the leader, he had to rely more on logic than emotion in order to be objective in how he handled tensions that popped up among the people. What he needed was to find a balance between logic and emotion, and that was my goal for him in Bound by Honor Bound by Love. That book was more about him than it was about Onawa, but she was necessary in order to bring about this balance to his personality. My favorite part of this book was when he left the tribe to look for Onawa and then found her.

During the writing of this series, I ended up taking a trip to Bismarck to visit the Heritage Museum and a nearby old Mandan village. I also read a book published back in 1909. One thing that struck me the most in my research was how much the smallpox epidemic took its toll on the Mandan tribe. They struggled to increase the size of their tribe, but in the end, it didn’t work out. Because of this research, the background for Brave Beginnings and Bound by Honor Bound by Love dealt with the way the characters struggled with the fallout from the smallpox epidemic. Bound by Honor Bound by Love ends with Citlali and Onawa having a son, so there was a happy ending for them, but the book also ends on a very sad note because he takes items important to the tribe to show to the white men who want to write a book about his tribe and their customs. (The book I read from 1909 was what inspired this idea in my story.) There was only one way this series could have ended because it’s how history played out. I couldn’t give Citlali a complete happy ending. His people were dying out. It was only a matter of time before there were no more full-blooded Mandans left, and he knew it. So that’s why he shared everything he did with the white men who went on to publish a book based on what he told them. That was the only viable way he had of preserving the Mandan legacy. For the record, the last full-blooded Mandan died in 1971. I cry every time I think of the ending of this book. It was the hardest ending I’ve ever had to write.

I did make two videos from my trip to North Dakota. I’ll share that in this post. (The videos are older and not the least bit professional, so please don’t judge it on how it looks.)

These are models of what the earth lodges were like and how they lived in them…

This features items they owned (which are on display at the Heritage Museum) and pictures taken at the old Mandan village…

A Deceptive Wager is Available!

Click here to read the description.

This is the last book in the Marriage by Design Series.

   

I really enjoyed this series. I almost didn’t write Lilly Lowell’s romance because it was going to require me breaking into the Regency timeline and disrupting the list. Breaking the Rules, Nobody’s Fool, and A Deceptive Wager come between The Earl’s Inconvenient Wife (Marriage by Scandal: Book 1) and A Most Unsuitable Earl (Marriage by Scandal: Book 2) in the Regency timeline.

Most readers seem to prefer a set timeline that is easy to follow. This is why so many authors plan out their books before they bother even writing anything. Once the plan it set, they also don’t deviate from it. (I’m speaking mostly on behalf of romance authors. I understand why authors writing fantasy and science fiction need to write in order. The series won’t make sense if they don’t.) But in romance, each book can also serve as a standalone. I feature a different hero and heroine in each romance I write. Even so, most readers still like a neat chronological order to follow.

So the question was, “Should I insert a series that takes place between Book 1 and Book 2 of a series I’ve already completed?”

I almost didn’t do it, but then I saw the pre-made cover for Breaking the Rules and inspiration struck, so I decided to go through with it. Looking back, I’m glad I wrote this series. I understand how the timeline of events can get confusing. Lord Edon (Ethan) and Mr. Christopher Robinson are not married yet in these books, but Lord Roderick (Nate) is married. So it can be a bit complicated. I did the best I could to clear up the confusion by inserting an author’s note at the beginning of Chapter 1 of Breaking the Rules and Nobody’s Fool, and so far, I haven’t received any feedback saying it was confusing. *fingers crossed that continues*

Anyway, A Deceptive Wager is the final book in this series. I am going to miss the characters, but I will admit that my favorite parts of this whole series was bringing Ethan and Christopher back for cameo appearances. I don’t know what it is about those two characters, but I just love writing them whenever possible, and it was a blast to see them unmarried again since they were at their most caddish behavior during that time in their lives.

Now that I’m done with A Deceptive Wager, I’m moving back “later” down the timeline. A Perilous Marriage begins a new series which comes after the Marriage by Fairytale Series. so I’ll start going in order again.

If you’d like to get A Deceptive Wager, here is where you can find it:

Amazon US

Amazon UK

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

Apple

Smashwords