Ruth Ann Nordin's Blog, page 51
May 15, 2016
The Mistaken Mail Order Bride is Now Available
Here’s a quick overview of the Chance at Love Series:
The Convenient Mail Order Bride (Book 1) – already available
The Mistaken Mail Order Bride (Book 2) – released today
The Accidental Mail Order Bride (Book 3) – due out September 4 (you can pre-order if you want)
The Bargain Mail Order Bride (Book 4) – due out January 7, 2017 (or sooner, depending on how things go, and yes, you can pre-order this, too)
Here are the links to buy The Mistaken Mail Order Bride:
Eric Johnson has been writing to his mail-order bride for months, and at long last, the day she’s due to arrive has come. Only, the young lady who comes off the stagecoach isn’t at all what he expected. She’s homely in appearance, and she has an orphan child with her.
However, he is a man of his word, so he’s going to marry her. He had enjoyed their correspondence over the past year, after all, and really, initial impressions aren’t everything. But when the preacher pronounces them husband and wife, he finds out she’s the wrong lady.
Caroline Benton’s just as shocked as he is, not realizing she’d gotten off at the wrong town and followed the wrong man home. Why, oh why, didn’t she think to ask him his name? Now she and the orphan child she brought with her are stuck in a strange town with a man who’d been waiting for someone else.
She can’t imagine he’s at all happy to be paired up with her for the rest of his life. Not only is she rather unattractive, but she doesn’t know the first thing about housekeeping. Just what is she supposed to do to convince him it’s not the end of the world that he married the wrong mail-order bride?
A couple more things:
I’d love to know your opinion about the email I just sent out to those of you on my email new release list.
If you’re on my email list, I am going to do something different this time. Instead of putting in an extra scene (prologue, epilogue, or deleted scene), I decided to explain the orphan’s backstory and then discuss the gun laws back in the historical old west (in the United States) from the research I did. Below, I am including a contact form you can fill out to let me know what you prefer. The most popular response will be the thing I’ll go with.
(If the form doesn’t work, you can leave a comment below this post.)
[contact-form]
Also, Janet Syas Nitsick and I have a private Facebook group.
It’s a casual group where we can talk about anything that’s on your mind. If you’d like to join, here’s the link. Just ask to join and we’ll let you in.
May 13, 2016
Day 3 of the 3 Day Quote Challenge
I got nominated by wivesrepublic to participate in the quote challenge. You can check out her blog posts here.
ID 53713504 © Ionescu Viorica | Dreamstime.com
“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” (by Norman Vincent Peale)
This is my third favorite, and what I like most about it is that it encourages people to shoot for their dreams. I don’t want to live my life holding back because I let fear hold me back. I believe at the end of my life, I’ll only regret the changes I never took. So to me, it’s worth taking the risk. And I’m passing on this quote (and my reasoning for picking it) to anyone who might be inspired to shoot for their dreams.[image error]
***
Wivesrepublic does a much better job with posting graphics than I do, so I don’t have a neat way of displaying the rules. What I’ll do instead is type them out:
Post for 3 consecutive days.
Select and share 1-3 quotes per day.
Challenge 3 bloggers to join each day.
I’m not sure who else might want to do this challenge, but I’ll pass it on to anyone who’d like to participate.
May 12, 2016
Day 2 of the 3 Day Quote Challenge
I got nominated by wivesrepublic to participate in the quote challenge. You can check out her blog posts here.
ID 49111827 © Djvstock | Dreamstime.com
“Courage is doing what you are afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you are scared.” (by Eddie Rickenbacker)
This is my second favorite quote. As writers, we have to put our stories out into the public if we want to be read, and this is a frightening thing. We have to stick out from the crowd. Any time you take a risk and publish a book, you are showing courage. I’d take it as a badge of honor. Not everyone out there is willing to do it. So if you do publish a book, you are showing a lot of courage, and that’s something to be proud of.
***
Wivesrepublic does a much better job with posting graphics than I do, so I don’t have a neat way of displaying the rules. What I’ll do instead is type them out:
Post for 3 consecutive days.
Select and share 1-3 quotes per day.
Challenge 3 bloggers to join each day.
I nominate these bloggers to join the challenge:
May 11, 2016
Day 1 of the 3 Day Quote Challenge
I got nominated by wivesrepublic to participate in the quote challenge. You can check out her blog posts here.
ID 25875948 © Vladimir Pavlović | Dreamstime.com
Here’s my favorite quote of all times: “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” by Toni Morrison
That’s not surprising since this is the very reason I started writing to begin with. In my opinion, this is one of the best reasons to become a writer. The story you desire most of all to read can be the very story that sparks a passion for a future of many books you’ll come up with.
***
Wivesrepublic does a much better job with posting graphics than I do, so I don’t have a neat way of displaying the rules. What I’ll do instead is type them out:
Post for 3 consecutive days.
Select and share 1-3 quotes per day.
Challenge 3 bloggers to join each day.
I nominate these bloggers to join the challenge:
May 9, 2016
Updates on What I’m Working On (And What’s Soon Coming Out)
There is a lot going on, so I’ll try to keep things brief.
The Mistaken Mail Order Bride is coming out this Sunday (May 15)!
This is book 2 in the Chance at Love Series. Book 1 is The Convenient Mail Order Bride. This one if the sheriff’s story. If you’ll remember, the sheriff was one of Abe’s few friends who helped him out. He was expecting his mail-order bride, and on the day he goes to meet her, he inadvertently marries the wrong woman. ;)
I now have it up for pre-order on Amazon. You can also find it on the other retailers: Barnes & Noble, Kobo, iBooks, and Smashwords.
Multi-Author Boxed Set Coming June 7!
It’s only $0.99!
I’ve recently had the privilege of being asked to join The Hero Least Likely boxed set with bestselling authors Darcy Burke, Christi Caldwell, Rose Gordon, Sue London, Erica Ridley, and Lauren & Devon Royal. I’m sure you recognize those names.
May 6, 2016
#FirstLineFriday
It’s Friday again, so you know what that means. It’s #FirstLineFriday!
Thanks for tagging me, Rami Ungar! If you like science fiction, thrillers, or horror, I think you’ll enjoy his books. He’s one of the nicest people you’ll ever come across on the internet.
Now if you’re unfamiliar with this meme, let me break it down for you. On Fridays, you do the following:
Create a post on your blog titled #FirstLineFriday, hashtag and all.
Explain the rules like I’m doing now.
Post the first one or two lines of a potential work, a work-in-progress, or a completed or published story.
Ask your readers for feedback and then encourage them to try #FirstLineFriday on their blogs (tagging is encouraged but not necessary).
I’m going to pick the very first couple of lines from The Earl’s Scandalous Wife.
“No, I can’t,” Miss Paula Leighton protested. She shook her head, her fists clenched at her sides. “I won’t do it, Stewart!”
I have two neat tidbits to share about this book. April Gregory McPhillips made the Perry doll that is in the picture next to the paperback copy of this book! Isn’t he cute?
Thank you, April!!!!!!
***
If you like the idea of #FirstLineFriday, why not try it yourself? It’s fun, and for novelists it’s great practice on openings. In fact, I think I’ll tag someone.
Okay, let’s look at my most recent followers, see who I want to torture tag…
I choose Lauralynn Elliott (another super nice person I know)! Congratulations, you’re being tortured you’ve been tagged! You have today or next week to do #FirstLineFriday. Good luck, and have fun with it!
April 30, 2016
Z is for Zone
This is it. The last post in the A – Z Challenge. Whew! Now I won’t be clogging up everyone’s inboxes all the time.[image error] Thanks for being patient with me as I did this. It was a fun challenge, and I’m glad I took it. But I can see how it’d be overwhelming to try to keep up with all these posts.
Anyway, without further ado, let’s do the last one….
ID 32416481 © Irantzu Arbaizagoitia | Dreamstime.com
The zone is when writing takes on a magical kind of quality. The words are flowing easily. The story plays out like a movie in your mind, and all you have to do is write down everything the characters are saying and doing. This is the best feeling in the world for the writer.
I wish I could say it’s easy to get into the zone. I’d say I hit this point about 75% of the time when I write. On days when the words aren’t flowing well, I write a couple hundred words, stall, do something else (like writing this blog post), then go back to the story. Most of the time this is because I’m not sure what happens next in the story.
Yes, I can hear the plotters now. “You’d know what happened next if you plotted.” But I can’t plot. Not successfully. Every time I’ve even made a simple outline for my book, things change within a chapter or two because the characters don’t like the plan I came up with. I don’t believe plotting is for everyone. If it works for you, great. For me, I find being a panster is the best way to go. So maybe today’s post is more for pansters.
Below I have a few things to try to get into the zone when you’re writing. If you have any other tips I didn’t think of, or if I’m wrong about plotters having it easy, let me know. I’m all ears.[image error]
Get away from the family. This is often easier said than done. Kids or the spouse can come up to you at any time while they’re around and bother talk to you. Even when you explain that you’re working and need them to leave you alone, chances are only 50% they’ll listen.
Exercise. There is something about exercise that helps boost creativity.
Don’t go online. Again, easier said than done. Emails and social media have a way of beckoning to you when you need to be writing. Sometimes I go to the park or another place that doesn’t have Wifi access.
Sit and write. I tell myself, “Just get 250 words in”. Usually, once I do about 500, things flow a lot easier, and I find myself writing more naturally.
That’s what I have. Got any others? I’d love to hear them!
This post is part of the Blogging from A – Z Challenge. Thanks again for bearing with me as I did this! Now I’ll go back to the posting only a couple times a week.
April 29, 2016
Y is for Yesterday
Today I want to talk about how important it is to focus on the present and move on into the future.
ID 61401353 © Yiorgosgr | Dreamstime.com
We can get stuck in “yesterday” if we’re not careful.
The Trap of Regrets
If only I had done this. If only I had done that. This is the land of regret, and it serves no purpose. Sure, learn from the past. Things we failed out in our writing, publishing, and marketing can be great tools to help us do better next time. But you don’t want to get stuck in the past. There’s no point in gaining experience if you aren’t going to learn from it and do better next time.
This is why I don’t believe in going back and rewriting books that are already published. If you find a typo, go ahead and fix it. But if you keep going back and rewriting everything you write, you won’t have time to work on your current stories. Your fans will want your next book. I know you want to reach new fans, but you can do that with your future stories just as well as you can with past ones. Plus, the more books you have, the better your chances are of being discovered and of making money.
The Importance of Grieving
Now, another case of looking back into the past is the tendency to compare our sales from yesterday to how they’re doing today. I don’t know about anyone else, but once Kindle Unlimited came, my income dropped by 50%. Then there was the pages read thing that popped up in Kindle Unlimited, and my income dropped by 60%. I didn’t go into Kindle Unlimited, and authors who didn’t go into the program were punished. I wasn’t surprised when it happened, but I hadn’t expected the drop to happen so quickly.
I gave myself permission to feel bummed out over this, but I wanted to put a cap on how much time I was going to let myself grieve the loss in income. I didn’t want to get stuck in “yesterday”, but I also knew in order to move forward I had to go through the dark period of mourning. Denying it was only going to delay the process. So I gathered a bunch of sad songs and played them while I wrote my works in progress. Some days were easier than others. Sometimes I wrote while crying. Sometimes I went for a walk. I even decided not to take a trip because I wasn’t in the mood to be social.
Once I gave myself permission to go through the grieving process, I found it a lot easier to take comfort in writing. Writing became the one thing I could do that made me feel better. It took about two months to work through all the stages in the grieving process. Getting over a major blow like that doesn’t happen right away. But by going into the grieving process I had left yesterday in the past and moved forward. Some days I felt like I had started at the beginning. It wasn’t easy. It never is. But there came a day when I was writing and actually found comfort in the sad songs. Then another day came when I was in the mood for an upbeat song. Then I went back to the sad songs. It was a rollercoaster ride of ups and downs. The day did come when I had finally accepted where I was at, and I was at peace with everything.
What I learned from that experience is that income does not always go up. I think this is a myth we’re led to believe. The more books = you’re guaranteed to make more money. Because everything just snowballs. No. Not really. I’m writing more books this year, and my income is still less by 60%. But will staying the past solve anything? No.
The best way to deal with things is by moving forward. That might mean changing the way you’re doing things. Sometimes you have to shift to another plan. Sometimes you stay the course. Each situation is going to be different. All you can do is weigh the pros and cons of each decision and hope you make the right one. And if it turns out you made a mistake, re-evaluate everything, and make the best decision you can. We’re all human. We’re prone to mistakes. The key is not to get stuck in them.
This blog is part of the Blogging from A – Z Challenge.
April 28, 2016
X is for X-Factor
The X-Factor is an unknown or unexplained element that makes something more interesting or valuable.
ID 48398960 © Numax3d | Dreamstime.com
Your main character can’t know everything. He will only know what he personally experiences and what someone tells him. Other than that, he can only “think” he knows something. This is what I call the x-factor in writing the emotionally engaging character. Point of view is not omniscient. It can’t know everything. Its view is going to be limited. So if you want the reader to know something the main character can never know, you will have to give the point of view of the character who does know the answer.
Sometimes what the main character never knows (but the reader does) can be a powerful tool in storytelling.
For example, I have one book where the villain becomes kidnaps the heroine. The hero and a lawman both believe the villain killed his wife. So they’re even more anxious to find the heroine. The heroine finds remains of the wife’s skeleton under the dirt in the cabin the villain took her to, further leading the reader to believe he did kill his wife. Long story short, the book ends with the hero, heroine, and lawman believing the villain killed his wife. But I (the author) knew this was not the case. So I had to insert a scene in the villain’s point of view where he remembers his wife tripping on her dress and falling down the stairs, thereby breaking her neck (and dying). So though he is a villain in every sense of the word, he was innocent of murdering his wife. The only way the reader was going to know this was if I inserted his point of view. Otherwise, the reader would go on believing he killed her.
That is the x-factor at work when you’re writing fiction.
Some of my favorite scenes in movies, TV shows, and books are those in which I’m given additional information the main characters never receive. And this helps demonstrate the power of point of view. Point of view is limited. It is narrow.
In real life, we have a limited view of things. We can only know what we pick up with our five senses (touch, taste, smell, hear, and see). When someone tells us why they did something, we have to take their word for it. We can’t know with 100% accuracy that things really happened the way they told us. For all we know, they could be lying to us. But regardless of the situation, we pull in everything we experience with our five senses and from what others tell us. Then from this, we develop a set of beliefs about ourselves the world around us. We develop bias. We make judgments based on what we think is right within our limited view of the world. In other words, we have tunnel vision.
The same needs to be true for your character if the character is going to be “real” to the reader. The more I learn about point of view, the more I love it. It is a tool that really allows us to delve deep within our character.
Don’t be afraid of your character not knowing everything. That’s okay. It’s actually realistic if the character doesn’t get all the answers in a neat little package. Instead, play around with giving the reader additional pieces of the puzzle by using other characters’ points of view.
Now, this doesn’t pertain to every story you’ll write, but it can pertain to some. And it might even make the story that much more intriguing.
This post is part of the Blogging from A – Z Challenge.
April 27, 2016
W is for Writer’s Block
There’s a debate over whether or not this actually exists. I’ve heard convincing arguments against it, but I still believe this exists. Anything that prevents a writer from being able to sit down and write the story is writer’s block (at least in the way I define it).
ID 69428317 © Gearstd | Dreamstime.com
The sources of writer’s block varies.
It can be real life demanding you tend to more urgent needs (such as an illness or filing taxes).
It can be exhaustion. (This is why I recommend taking two days off a week from writing to refresh yourself. I don’t believe a writer needs to write every single day. Setting up days off to regroup can really help for the longterm stamina needed to consistently publish books through the year.)
It can be something in the story that isn’t going right. Maybe the character is leading us in one direction, but we think the character is making a huge mistake so we try to steer the character in another direction. (Most of the time, this is why I hit writer’s block.) Sooner or later, the character totally rebels and stops altogether. You can force the issue, but the story ends up sucking when you do. (And yes, I’ve done this, only to regret it.) This is why I believe in letting the characters lead all the time, even when it scares me.
Whatever the issue, there are times when you can feel stuck.
What can you do to help combat it?
The hardest part can be pulling yourself up out of the writing funk. I have a few tips. If anyone has any they’d like to add, feel free to add them.
Work on something else. The only problem with this is that you might get sidetracked and end up ditching the original story. You want to finish the original story. This probably works best if you can write more than one story at a time. But if you can work on the second story, finish it, and then get back to the original, you’ll be okay doing this method.
Write ahead. If you know for sure a scene will be coming up in the story, go ahead and write it out.
Try writing 250 words and see how things go. I learned this tip from a podcast Joanna Penn did with James Scott Bell, except he said he does 350 words. I thought he said 250. I just read the transcript and see I was wrong by 100 words. But I think the principle is still a good one. Try a little bit and see if it gets things going. Here’s the site for the podcast info: http://www.thecreativepenn.com/2015/0...
A tip I just learned from another podcast at The Creative Penn that Joanna had with Michaelbrent Collings sounds promising. The basic idea is to put something ridiculous into the scene to get things rolling. So if you’re hero is trapped in a room, and you are trying to figure out how to get him out, you can do something like have a bird come into the room and say, “Let’s get out of here.” The hero would ask the bird, “How are we going to do that?” Then the bird might say, “There’s a window over there.” Then you take out the bird and write the scene. I’ve tried this a couple of times already, and I think it actually works. I don’t write in the bird. I just imagine the bird. I hate rewriting anything, so the less typing I do, the better. But you can modify this idea to fit your personality as a writer. Here’s the link if you want to hear more from this podcast: http://www.thecreativepenn.com/2016/0...
Step away and take a break. Sometimes you just have to do that. And there’s nothing wrong with taking time off to regroup if you need to do it. I know being vigilant is important, as I wrote in my last post. But I also know there’s a time when you have to take a break.
The blog is part of the Blogging from A – Z Challenge.
