Ruth Ann Nordin's Blog, page 32

People I Have NOT Heard From About The Stagecoach Bride (If you’re on this list, check your spam folder.)

This is the only post I’m going to make regarding this. I don’t want to keep cluttering up my blog trying to get in touch with people who have a copy of The Stagecoach Bride. So this is the only time I’m going to post this.

These are the people I still have NOT heard back from.

Gillian

Heather

Rebecca

Lisa

Iris

Rosalie

Shayna

Dawn (I need you to fill out the form on this blog post because I need an email address in order to contact you directly, unless you want to post the email in the comments below)

Linda (Five minutes ago, I got a message in my inbox telling me my email could not be sent to your email address. I’m not sure how to reach you.)

If your name is on this list, please check your email. It’s likely that my email ended up in your spam folder. The subject will read: Re: [Ruth Ann Nordin’s Author Blog] If you read The Stagecoach Bride, please fill out the form below.

This is the last time I’m going to try to round up people who have The Stagecoach Bride. We’ll be going back to my regular blog posts now.

 

 

Eye of the Beholder Trivia

Quick note about The Stagecoach Bride: Before I get into the trivia part, I want to send out a quick reminder to anyone who has read The Stagecoach Bride and filled out the form. I sent an email out to quite a few people, and while most have gotten back to me, several have not. Please check your spam folder just in case the email ended up there. The subject heading will read, “Re: [Ruth Ann Nordin’s Author Blog] If you read The Stagecoach Bride, please fill out the form below.” As a side note, if you have The Stagecoach Bride and would like to fill out the form, here’s the post to do that.

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I enjoy reading through trivia that goes with the making of movies, and today I thought it’d be fun to offer some trivia about what went into the writing of some of my books.

Trivia for Eye of the Beholder

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1. Neil Craftsman was originally given the role of the hero. He was supposed to be Neil Larson. I also had come up with the brothers, namely Tom and Joel, who were supposed to look at Mary and only see what was on the surface. I got halfway into Chapter Two where Neil was on his way to meet Mary at the train station when this question popped up in my mind: “What if Neil rejects her?” I spent a couple of days weighing the pros and cons of making the Neil the antagonist, and in the end, I created Dave Larson and gave Neil the last name Craftsman.

2. This book was submitted to Harlequin and Wild Rose Press back in 2008-2009 when I was on the fence about self-publishing or traditional publishing. Feedback from both places expressed an interest in the story. One wanted me to give more “angst” between Dave and Mary, and I didn’t want to change their relationship to what I felt was too much of a romance trope of endless friction between the hero and heroine. The other wanted me to add more description, which I wasn’t interested in doing. So I ended up picking the self-publishing option, even though it was a very unpopular option back then.

3. The miscarriage scene was inspired by my own miscarriage during my first pregnancy. Mary’s experience was pretty much mine.

4. Isaac Larson has the same birthday as my firstborn son, which is August 7.

5. My original plan was to write Eye of the Beholder as a standalone book. While writing the scene where Jessica tells Mary why she married Tom, I knew I would end up writing Tom and Jessica’s story. That was beginning of me writing a story for each Larson sibling. It’s also why the books were written out of chronological order. Back then, I didn’t even think about writing a series in order.

6. I had originally planned to put Neil in prison after he abducted Mary. He was supposed to take Mary to a remote cabin, and she was supposed to swim to get away from him. (This was why I had Dave teach her how to swim.) But when I saw the way Neil was with Emily even though she wasn’t his child, I realized Neil was redeemable. I ended up keeping Mary’s abduction to the train and giving Neil a change of heart.

7. Dave’s threat to Neil that Mary never heard was that if Neil touched Mary again, Dave would kill him. And Dave was serious.

8. I knew Isaac and Emily would end up together when Mary and Cassie (both pregnant at the time) were talking on the front porch at Connie’s house. This was the scene where Cassie and Gwendolyn guilt trip Mary into making clothes for Cassie’s baby. Cassie felt the baby kick, and I thought, “There’s a connection between Emily and Isaac.” At that moment, I knew I’d be writing their book.

9. The book was set in Omaha, Nebraska because I lived in that area at the time and had easy research at the local attractions. I’m not much of a book reader when it comes to research. I prefer to be there in person and learn the history by seeing what people wore, how they lived, etc. Though, for the sod house, I went to Minnesota because there were no sod houses I was aware of in the Omaha area. I’m sure South Dakota or Iowa had them, but my in-laws happened to be in the area at the time, so that’s why I went there.

10. Before I wrote this book, I was mostly writing fantasies and YA thrillers. I had written Falling In Love With Her Husband, An Inconvenient Marriage, An Unlikely Place for Love, The Cold Wife, and Romancing Adrienne before I wrote Eye of the Beholder. My plan was to go back to writing the other genres when I was done with Eye of the Beholder, but, as you can see above, Eye of the Beholder inspired more romances.  Eye of the Beholder is why I ended up falling in love with writing the historical western romance genre.

11. The reason I started the book with Neil’s mail order bride ad was because I had recently read a romance that started off with an ad, and that hooked me in right away to that story. Writers in my critique group didn’t like that as a way to start the book, but I’m happy I did it.

12. The idea for this story came after I read a lot of romances and noticed that every single heroine was thin and gorgeous. I also noticed that movies and TV shows feature these types of women a lot. I wanted to write about a heroine who wasn’t society’s definition of perfect. I wanted a hero who could look past the superficial, and in doing so, he shows others around him what real beauty is. Cassie wasn’t in the original plan of the story since I had marked Neil down to be the hero, but after I put Dave in, I created Cassie, too. Cassie turned out to be a big part of the story, and without her, the story isn’t nearly as effective.

If you read The Stagecoach Bride, please fill out the form below.

I already heard from two people, but I suspect there’s more who have this book:

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If  you have this book that I co-wrote with Stephannie Beman, fill out this form.

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If you don’t want to fill out that form, leave your email and name in the comment section of this blog post.

Updates on What I’m Doing

I finally had a chance to sit down and figure out my publishing schedule for 2020. I had to go to working on two books at a time instead of three (due to the time spent homeschooling). I also have to publish a book every other month to help pace myself so I don’t get overwhelmed. I love homeschooling and plan to keep homeschooling until he graduates high school. He’s in the 8th grade right now, so we’re looking at four more years.

For the moment, I have had to drop the Larson sister series. That is the series featuring Tom and Jessica Larson’s daughters. I expect to get back to that when I finish the Wyoming Series.

Okay, so here’s what you can expect for 2020.

Things That Drive Me Crazy As a Reader

Disclaimer: These are my opinions. I do not represent every reader out there.

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1. Too much description.

As a reader, I don’t like to dwell too much on the world that is around the characters. I like to focus in on the characters. I want to know what they’re doing, what they’re saying, and what they’re feeling. I like enough description to get a picture of the setting the characters are in, but I don’t want to be weighed down by so much description that I know every detail on a character’s clothes, exactly how a room looks, or how many blades of grass are in the field. Okay, the thing about the blades of grass are an exaggeration. No author I’ve read has ever said how many blades of grass are in a field, but for all of the heavy description they use to make sure I can see everything in that scene, they might as well have.

I also find it distracting that when characters are having a conversation, the author will insert random thing that doesn’t add to the scene. If characters are discussing a necklace, then yes, describe the necklace. But if the characters are discussing a necklace, why go into the color of the chair across the room or the sound a bird is making from outside? That has no bearing on the conversation, and all it does is pull me out of the story. I know why authors do this. It’s because they’re told to include all “five senses” into every single scene. Even I fell victim to this terrible technique after going to a critique group, so I understand the author’s plight. As a writer, you want to make a book that fully engages the reader.

But from personal experience, it’s much better to keep the reader’s attention on what is  happening to the characters. Fiction is a story seen through the eyes of the character. If a character is having a serious conversation, would they really care about the design on an antique lamp in the corner of the room that has no bearing on the conversation? No. They would be worried about what the other character is telling them. Always keep the focus on the what matters most to the character when you’re writing a scene.

2. Character Info Dumps

There have been books I’ve read where I’m pretty much told everything about a character right away.  I don’t want to know everything about a character as soon as I start the book. I’m not sure why some authors do this. It’s almost like they decided to do a character bio in order to learn who the character is and then forgot to remove it when they published the book. Instead of being told who the character is, I, as a reader, want to learn who the character is as I read the book.

Storytelling is about layers. Those layers are uncovered a little at a time as the story progresses. Information comes about by the character’s actions, thoughts, and feelings. Just as we don’t get to know everything about a person when we meet them in real life, we shouldn’t know everything about a character as soon as meet them, either.

Also, reading is a subjective activity, so it should be up to the reader to decide whether or not they like a character. The author shouldn’t come in and say, “This is the person you’re rooting for, and this is the person you should hate.” Let me, as a reader, decide that for myself. The ability to allow a reader to make their own judgments on a character is one of the most effective storytelling tools in a writer’s arsenal. If a writer can make a reader feel strongly about a character (whether good or bad), then that, in my opinion, is the sign of an excellent storyteller. I’ve read plenty of “meh” books, but those that made me feel strongly for a character are the books that have stuck with me for years.

3. Useless repetition.

Repetition can be a powerful storytelling technique when done right. If it adds to the tension in a story, it’s good, and it should be used. For example, there was a short story I read where the main character killed a person, and during the story, he’s worried he’ll get caught, so he is in a cycle of repeating the same thoughts to himself over and over. He ends up breaking down and screaming that he did the crime when a police officer is ready to leave. He would have gotten away with the crime if he had just kept his mouth shut, but by use of repetition, we see how his conscience ended up getting the best of him.

I am not opposed to repetition. What I’m opposed to is repetition that has no point to the story. Its only purpose seems to be to fill up the pages because the author wanted to increase their word count. Or, perhaps, an author worries that the reader won’t understand what the theme of the book is or that the reader won’t know this is the character’s love interest unless the reader is told this repeatedly.

Every scene in a book has to contribute to the overall story. And breaking this down, I also think every sentence in the book should contribute to the story, too. If there’s a sentence that doesn’t need to be there, throw it out. There’s no point in making the reader groan by adding stuff that doesn’t need to be there. All you’ll end up with is a reader who skims the book. And sadly, I’ve skimmed a lot of books over the years.

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Since I almost hit the 1,000 word mark, I’ll stop here.

What about you? Are there things that drive you crazy when you read books? If so, I’d love to hear them. Please don’t say the author or the name of the book. I want to keep this focus on a storytelling technique gone wrong.

You Can’t Have It All

The phrase “You can’t have it all” has been going around and around in my head for the past couple of weeks. My mother used to say it when I was a child. I haven’t really thought much about it, but as I realized how much I was juggling, it occurred to me that this phrase sums up why I’ve been feeling overwhelmed for the past month.

I’ve been trying to have it all. I’ve been trying to spend sufficient time with my family and homeschool my youngest because those are priorities. Then I’ve been trying to manage the writing aspect of my life, and that includes the business side of things like record keeping of expenses and social networking. Add on that just the basic running of a home and other things that inevitably pop up in life, and I was hurling toward another round of burnout. I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to embrace my limitations.

Over the past week, I’ve been working through a list of what I need to keep and in what order those things fit. Then I started crossing off the stuff that needs to go. So this is the new plan, which I hope will help me find the proper balance.

The first thing I’m doing is cutting back on writing. I’m not going to stress a daily word count anymore. I’m going to give myself a set time to write early in the mornings. When that time is up, I will go to homeschooling. I was trying to sneak in writing between breaks in the homeschool day, but I really need to stop that because it’s left me feeling frazzled.

Non-writing tasks will have to be done on days I don’t schedule to write. I will still be making these blog posts because I love blogging. Facebook, MeWe, and emails, however, will be sporadic. I dropped everything else. I know the changes I’m making will upset some people, but I’ve been stretching myself too thin. If I don’t scale back, I’m going to crash and burn. Then I won’t be writing at all because it’s impossible for me to write during burnout.

I want to keep writing because that has always brought me joy. I’m not sure what my output will look like for next year. I have no idea what books will be out and when. I’m just going to take each book as it comes and do the best I can to tell a good story. I want to have fun with what I’m writing. I’m a firm believer that a story that a writer loves writing is the very best possible story it can be, and I want to honor everyone by giving you my best.

Forever Yours is Now Available!

This is Dave and Mary’s third and final book!

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I have put it in the Nebraska Series because their other two books are there. Plus, they fit in with the first generation of Larsons, and all of the first generation is within the Nebraska Series.

Here are the books in order:

Her Heart’s Desire (Sally Larson’s romance)
A Bride for Tom (Tom Larson’s romance)
A Husband for Margaret
Eye of the Beholder (Dave and Mary’s first book)
The Wrong Husband (Jenny Larson’s romance)
Shotgun Groom (Joel Larson’s romance)
To Have and To Hold (Dave and Mary’s second book)
His Redeeming Bride
Forever Yours (Dave and Mary’s third book)
Isaac’s Decision (Isaac is a second generation Larson but this book wraps up the subplot between Dave Larson and Neil Craftsman I started in Eye of the Beholder)

About this book

With that aside, Forever Yours is a cute romantic comedy. We’ve already established Dave and Mary are in love, and they’ve had some difficult times in the past. I thought for a chance of pace it would be nice to give them a lighthearted story line.

I bring back the first generation Larsons, so you can get an update on them and revisit old friends.

The Outlaw’s Bride (and following books in the series) Will Go Forward

Thank you to everyone who took the time to answer my question about waiting for a few months between releases on a book where the series is closely knit together.

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A sneak peak for The Rancher’s Bride will be inserted at the end of The Outlaw’s Bride

One of the concerns brought up with a couple of beta readers was not knowing what happened to Abby. Abby is the heroine for Book 2, The Rancher’s Bride.  After bouncing some ideas around over the past week, I decided to put in a sneak peak for Book 2. That way people can find out what happened to her on a particular night that is a key event in The Outlaw’s Bride.

My new email list

Also, I noticed a couple of people mentioning the importance of knowing a specific release date for The Rancher’s Bride. With homeschooling and other stuff happening that has thrown my entire writing schedule into chaos, I can’t pinpoint a specific date. I’m not getting as much writing in as did earlier this year. All I can do is give you an estimate. I’m looking at publishing The Rancher’s Bride in Summer 2020. I’m hoping I don’t have to move the date back. If the book doesn’t turn into a long one like Fairest of Them All and The Imperfect Husband did, I should be fine. But I can’t make any promises.

So to compromise, I have brought back my email list. That way when I have a new book out, you’ll get an email in your inbox letting you know about it. I’m only going to use this email list to announce new releases. I know some authors do giveaways, free reads, post a special scene, send pictures, give personal stories about their lives, etc, but I really don’t have time to do that.  So if you sign up for the email list, you will only get a simple email that says, “Here’s my new book, and this is where you can find it.”

You can go to the email link on this blog to sign up, or you can go directly to the site on MailChimp at this link.

As a disclaimer, the emails are kept on the MailChimp site. I will only use them to send out the new release emails via MailChimp. You’ll probably get an email about six times a year.

I did a test run on the sign up page, and everything went fine, but one person had an issue with it. If you’re unable to sign up, I don’t know what to tell you. I’m not a technical expert. I guess the best thing to do in that case is make sure you’re subscribed to this blog (top right corner of this page–just under the roses) or subscribe to my monthly newsletter if you only want to get an email once a month.

 

How Long Are You Willing to Wait Between Book Releases in a Series?

I’m having something of a dilemma, and I would like your help figuring out the best course of action.

Warning: this post contains spoilers.

The Wyoming Series has an overall plot that covers the entire series.

So far, this is what I’ve done in this series. I’ve finished The Outlaw’s Bride, and I started The Rancher’s Bride.

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I typically make the series plot low key when I write them. In this case, the series plot is more center stage.

Here is the series plot:

The villain is currently in possession of Wade’s ranch. The villain also has Wade’s two-year-old son as a hostage. This is where we are at when we begin Book 1. From Book 1 to Book 3, the plan is to rescue the boy and get the ranch back.

Without trying to give too much away, this is the series format:

Book 1: The goal is to get the boy away from the villain. Mic and Lillian (hero and heroine of this book) help in this pursuit, but I don’t go into what happens with the boy because that is a big part of Book 2. I also leave a couple of other minor things up in the air because these come into play in the rest of the series.

Book 2: Abby (heroine of this book) has the boy, and her main goal is to reunite the boy with his father (Wade). She is injured, however, and needs to stay for a while with the hero of this book (Thayne). This ends up happening by the end of this book.

Book 3: Wade (hero of this book) has his son back, and now it’s time for him to take back his ranch. This is accomplished by the end of this book with the help of the heroine of this book.

I’m thinking a Book 4 would be necessary to successfully wrap up this series. It depends on how the series plot is flowing. I may or may not get the villain behind bars or send him to the cemetery. It’s too early to tell what will happen. But the villain will be brought to justice by the end of the series plot.

As an aside, let me make it clear that each book features a specific romance plot.

Book 1: Lillian is on her way to her mail-order husband when Mic intervenes. He says he’s there to save her from marrying the wrong man, and part of this will require her to marry him. Does she agree and go with him, and if so, will he give her the happy ending she longs for?

Book 2: Abby is injured and has lost her way to get the boy to his father. She ends up at Thayne’s ranch, and she’s forced to stay there while her injuries heal. Unfortunately, he has a ranch hand and a couple of other men coming by who knows she has the boy. She’s fallen in love with Thayne, but it might be too dangerous for her to give into her feelings, so she has to make the decision between bringing him into the dangerous situation she’s in or letting him go.

Book 3: I haven’t started this book yet, so I’m not clear on the actual plot of this one, but there will be a plot where Wade finds love with the heroine of this book. I won’t know the details of this until I’m writing it.

Book 4: If I wrote this, it would involve another hero and another heroine and how they fall in love.

So in a nutshell: The books are independent as far as the romance is concerned, but they are intimately connected in relation to the boy, the ranch, and bringing the villain to justice. This would be one series best read in order because you’ll miss something if you jump ahead.

Now for my dilemma:

I can’t afford to sit and wait to write each of these books and then publish all of the books at once. I need to publish enough books every year to supplement my husband’s income. My five-year goal is to be free from the burden of needing my writing income in order to make ends meet around my house.

I have two choices at this juncture.

1. Publish Book 1 in January, Book 2 this summer, Book 3 this fall/winter, and maybe Book 4 in early 2021.

2. Drop the series completely. I can’t guarantee I’ll come back to this series. I don’t know what will happen in the future.

My question to you:

Are you okay with waiting months between each book’s release?

OR

Will you be upset if you can’t get all of the books at once?

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I’m going to tally up the responses I get. If it’s 50/50, I’ll drop the series. There has to be a significant percentage of people who are fine with waiting for me to continue with this series in order for me to go through with it. I already did something where half the people were upset with a decision I made, and I vowed to never go through that again. So that’s why I’m coming to you today asking for your input.

What I’m Working On

It’s been a while since I made one of these posts, so I thought I’d do it now.