Becky Wade's Blog, page 47

Inspired by Scripture

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Meet My Team!

My next book, Rocky Road, releases on Valentine’s Day!

As I think back over the process of writing this novel, I’m especially grateful to the talented people who helped me bring this book to the cusp of publication. They are….

Charlene Patterson, editor

Charlene was one of the editors I had the pleasure of working with at Bethany House Publishers. She went freelance many years ago. Because I had a history with her and lots of respect for her skill and experience, I knew I wanted to hire her as my editor when I, too, “went freelance” with my writing. She was the first person to read Rocky Road and she provided lots of revision suggestions. As always, her feedback was excellent. After revising the manuscript, I sent it back to her and she performed a combined line edit and copy edit.

Courtney Walsh, cover designer

My very good friend and fellow author Courtney Walsh is talented at many things, cover design among them. I adore her. Plus, I trust her eye and her artistic style, so I partnered with her on my Sons of Scandal covers. After I hired an illustrator to draw the couples on the front of each book, Courtney took it from there. I’m thrilled with how the covers have turned out!

Sophia Walsh, proofreader

Sophia Walsh is an avid reader who received her degree in English. I was very fortunate to have her in my corner this time as Rocky Road’s proofreader extraordinaire.

Reba Buhr, narrator

Reba Buhr is an actress, host, and voice-over artist who can be heard in video games, commercials, animated series, and over 250 audiobooks. She does an outstanding job narrating the female point of view scenes in Rocky Road‘s audiobook.

Ryan Hudson, narrator

Ryan Hudson narrated the male point of view scenes in Memory Lane. I couldn’t have been happier with his work on that audiobook and was delighted when he returned to narrate Rocky Road. Note: this is a stock photo I grabbed to represent Ryan. This isn’t actually Ryan. He doesn’t release photos of himself. Which adds an enticing air of mystery, does it not? I’m feeling inspired to write a book about a heroine who doesn’t know that her favorite male narrator (the one whose audiobooks she listens to as soon as they become available) is actually living in her building. But I digress….

Joy & Crissy & Amy, beta readersShelli & Jennifer, beta readers

I added a new beta reader this time out–Kay Whitton. If I had a picture of Kay, I’d share that here, too! I’m thankful to all of these women who generously read Rocky Road at its final stage to hunt for any lingering typos and mistakes.

I LOVED collaborating with all of the people I’ve mentioned above. They each brought their skills to the table and Rocky Road is so much better for it.

It takes a village!

Celebration Time!

Hi friends and happy Wednesday! 

My thirteenth novel, One Wrong Move, is getting ready to release on February 6th.

In celebration and anticipation of One Wrong Move’s release…I am doing a Welcome to Jeopardy Falls Giveaway!

This giveaway will introduce you to the Land of Enchantment, New Mexico, where the fictional town of Jeopardy Falls is located! 

You have the chance to win:

Turquoise Earrings 

Turquoise Bracelet

New Mexico Suncatcher

New Mexico Pinion Coffee

A hand-carved Jeopardy Falls Cedar Cutting Board

New Mexico Mug

New Mexico Tote Bag

A bookmark of One Wrong Move’s handsome hero Christian

New Mexico Candle

One Wrong Move Custom Coaster

and a New Mexican Cookbook (not pictured)

All the handmade items were carefully made in the Land of Enchantment itself! 

All you have to do to enter is:

Pre-order One Wrong Move!

But there is a special bonus for EVERYONE who pre-orders One Wrong Move! 

Everyone who enters will receive the following: 

The Prologue of Book Two in the Jeopardy Falls SeriesA Digital New Mexico CalendarA Book Club Kit with Recipes & GoodiesA One Wrong Move Word SearchAnd Jeopardy Falls Character Cards! 

You will receive these items on or soon after the release of One Wrong Move! 

You can click the link below to enter the giveaway over at Rafflecopter! 

So be sure to enter soon and be welcomed into the world of Jeopardy Falls!

Good luck!

FINE PRINT:

Sweepstakes ends February 6th at Midnight ET. US Only. Void where prohibited. Not affiliated with Instagram or Facebook.

I’ll never send you a DM with a link and ask for info or credit card information to enter or win. (1) name will be drawn at random from all entries. 

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/4605e8017/?

You might wonder why it’s helpful to an author to pre-order a book. There are a lot of reasons, but I’ll just share three big ones.  

According to Penguin-Random House:
“For an author, pre-orders can alert retailers that they should pay attention to your book, and from the bookseller perspective, the pre-order quantity is a good early indicator of a book’s success and can lead to retailers increasing their initial orders.” 

Also, when you preorder a book, it’s a clear message to the publisher that there is demand for that author’s work, that series, and those characters.

And, finally, for an author whose book might have even a shot at landing on a prominent bestseller list, pre-sales added into first-week sales can make the difference between getting there or not. 

So, if you’re interested in buying a book, consider pre-ordering it. It can be really helpful. And there are so many fabulous novels releasing over the next few months you might want to pre-order. Here’s a list of the Most Anticipated Christian Fiction 2024 on Goodreads. So many great titles. Drop by and cast your vote. It’s so hard to pick just one. 

https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/188697.Most_Anticipated_Christian_Fiction_2024

Question for you: 

What new release are you excited about? 

As always, thanks for joining me this week 

Best, 

Dani

The History of the Handsome Peacoat

My husband and I watched and enjoyed the Scottish crime series, Shetland (warning: some violence and language). Early on in the series, the likeable hero, DI Jimmy Perez (played by Douglas Henshall, left), begins wearing a distinctive wool coat, or peacoat, which was later sold at auction and raised more than £2,700 for a school in Glasgow.

I really liked the character and the coat, so my husband found a pea coat (sometimes spelled as two words) for himself on a resale site.

Now, he wears it in the winter complete with a wool cap, which I think is a rather handsome ensemble.

Tonight at dinner, we found ourselves wondering about the history of the pea coat, and thought I would share a bit of it here.

Not everyone agrees on the origin of the name. Many believe it comes from the Dutch word “pij,” which referred to a coarse kind of thick blue cloth. Another theory is that a similar coarse fabric known as “pilot-cloth” worn by the lower ranks and nicknamed “petty-officer cloth” was shortened to “P-cloth” and therefore, “P-Coat.”

What everyone does agree on is the coat’s military background. The pea coat was used by the Dutch, British, and American navies as outerwear that could withstand the rain and cold temperatures often experienced at sea. It was a work jacket for harsh conditions aboard ships, so it was short to provide ease of movement and close-cut to keep out the wind.

I was surprised to learn the pea coat has been around since the 1800s. While most credit the Dutch with first creating the coat, it seems the British navy made it popular. Then the coat made its way across the Atlantic where the U.S. Navy adopted the coat for “reefers”, the sailors responsible for climbing the rigging of sailing ships.

Whatever its origins, nowadays, the pea coat is enjoying a heyday as a fashionable style of coat for men in any profession during the colder months. And I for one, quite like the trend!

Do you or a loved one own a pea coat? Are you fond of any historical garments or styles?

Ecclesiastes

I always enjoy reading the book of Ecclesiastes.  In younger years I never paid much attention to the book, and had even heard that Solomon was a little off his rocker when he wrote it near the end of his life.  By then, of course, he had been pulled away from his devout love of God by his foreign wives, who led him into idolatry.

But Ecclesiastes is chock full of wisdom–it’s just a wry and jaded wisdom, and its truths aren’t exactly what a lot of folks want to hear.  Give it a read sometime soon, and you’ll see what I mean.

Old Ruins. Roman Columns In Baalbeck, Lebanon

I particularly loved this passage found in chapter six:

Enjoy what you have rather than desiring what you don’t have. Just dreaming about nice things is meaningless; it is like chasing the wind.  

A friend of mine used to paraphrase this by saying, “A lot of people spend all their time wishing for things they could have . . . if they didn’t spend all their time wishing.” 

And this verse:  Everything has already been decided. It was known long ago what each person would be. So there’s no use arguing with God about your destiny.  

Lots of folks who imagine themselves champions of their own destiny will be dismayed to read this. But nonetheless, it’s true.  God, who is eternal and lives outside of time, has already written the book of our lives, and the story includes the choices we freely make/made.  It’s all been decided in eternity. But we live in in the present, so our choices are free and real to us.

And here’s a great verse for a writer/speaker: The more words you speak, the less they mean. So why overdo it?

Why, indeed?

Over and out,

Angie 

Inspired by Scripture

This Sunday feature is brought to you by ClashVerseoftheDay.com. You may sign up to receive a beautiful photo with Scripture in your inbox each morning or view the verse each day online.

Winter Wonderland & Snow Days, Back to School, and Juggling Stories

The Boise area has had some major snow over the past ten days. We normally don’t get a lot of snow that is deep and lingers long. This is one of our snowy years. Deep and lingering. And while it makes for horrible driving, it is beautiful to look at.

My oldest is a teacher in Boise, and she’s had two snow days over the last week. When I was a kid (also in Boise), we never had a snow day. Not one. We went to school, no matter the weather. Yes, and we walked 12 miles barefoot, uphill both ways. LOL!

Seriously, I remember my surprise when my kids got a snow day (different school district from where I grew up, out in the country, bussing required). It truly was unexpected for me. It isn’t unexpected any longer. Boise is more than five times the size it was when I graduated from high school. It’s a very different place for school kids today than when I was young.

And need I say, I am ever so thankful my work allows me to stay at home and off the roads when the weather turns cold (it was below zero this week).

The birds love me…
That’s a lot of snow for us!

Because of my planned trip to Israel in the fall (that sadly didn’t happen), I skipped taking a college class for the Fall 2023 term. But I am back at it for the Spring 2024 term. This semester, I’m taking Introduction to the Study of History. From the syllabus I received on Tuesday of this week, it’s going to be an intense sixteen weeks with a ton of writing. More than any class I’ve taken in years.

But hey, I only have two novels to finish during the same time period. How bad could it be? Right?

Textbook #1
Textbook #2

And speaking of the two books I need to finish, I’m trying something I’ve never done before. I’m writing two books at once. The contemporary Christmas romance is 50% done. The biblical novel, which I started writing this week, is 10% done. I’m hoping the two very different time settings will make it easy to keep the stories separated in my brain. But if the history class messes with my schedule too much, it is the Christmas story that will have to wait until summer for completion because it’s due date is a little further out.

Here’s the image I’m using as inspiration for the biblical novel. Oh, how I am loving this story that is set around the time of the birth of Jesus! Updates about this book will follow in future posts.

I hope you are warm and safe wherever you are this January.

Now, before I go, please tell me what book you’re currently reading. I’m always on the look out for something good to add to my list. Especially when it is cold and snowy and a fire is going in the fireplace.

~robin

Do You Like a Challenge?

With the cold front that has swept the country this week, I’m feeling a strong desire to shirk all responsiblities and curl up in a cozy nook with a warm beverage and a good book. I haven’t given into said urge . . . yet . . . I’m still going to the day job and pounding out words on the computer at home. However, I keep my Kindle and tea mug close at hand in case I can sneak in 20-30 minutes of book time.

The novel I’m currently reading is a new find, a book by an author I have never read before. Because I have so little time to read for pleasure, I usually stick to my favorite tried-and-true authors. Thanks to a new reading challenge, however, I’m broadening my horizons this month. And I’m pleased to say I’ve been very happy with my new discovery. I just might pick up another book by Rachael Anderson in the near future.

How did I come to select this particular book, you may ask? The inspiration came from my annual Posse Reading Challenge. Every year, readers in my Posse Facebook group help me select 12 challenges or themes for the year. Each month we tackle a different challenge and share about the books we chose to read. It’s a fun way to share recommendations and find friends who read the same types of books. We make a point to keep the themes broad so that no one is pigeonholed into reading a book they aren’t interested in.

Here is our schedule for this year:

As you can see, our challenge for January is to read a book with a number in the title. Hence my selection . . . Five Kisses.

When the theme is a little tricky, like this one, I try to help readers get ideas. This time I pulled together a graphic with some number options to get the creative juices flowing. It’s been fun seeing how many titles people have come up with to fit the category.

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Do you enjoy participating in reading challenges? What are some of your favorite types of challenge themes? Which of our Posse Readign Challenge categories seem the most interesting to you?

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If you would like to join our Posse Reading Challenge, we’d love to have you! Simply click here to join The Posse.

Story Shift

There are two kinds of writers in this world. Well, perhaps three. 

Plotters

Pantsers

Hybrids

Plotters plan the story before writing. They know where it’s going and what comes next. 

Pantsers are those who write “by the seat of their pants.” They have an idea, sometimes very detailed, but they simply start writing and let the story play out on the page. 

Hybrids are those who do a little of both. 

I’m a pantser, through and thought. Not that I haven’t plotted. My books with Guideposts required a fair amount of plotting for approval of the story. But apart from God’s grace, that is not my method. 

Instead, I let ideas and characters swirl around in my head until the characters start talking to me. And then I write. As a pantser, the turns in a story often take me by surprise. As do some characters who appear on the page. But never have I had such an unexpected shift in a story as I recently had with my work in progress (WIP). 

This isn’t a contracted WIP. It’s simply a story that has been in my head for over a year. In August, I pitched it to an editor who was excited about it. A few weeks later, before I could get those sample chapters written, I discovered the editor had left the publishing house. In some ways, I’m now seeing that as a blessing. 

Why? Because no matter how much I love the characters of this story, and no matter how much research I did to flesh them and their situations out, I couldn’t hear their voices to start writing. So last week I decided to sit down with a blank screen and see what translated from my brain to my fingers to the screen. And what happened shocked me. 

You see, in my planning, the main character was a young man. I had also thought there would be the point of view of a young woman and the young man’s mother. But when I started writing, it was the young woman telling her story. In first person. Present Tense. 

Now I’ve written first person before. All my full-length novels are told in the first person. But never present tense. Yet as I read over what I’d written, it felt right. I think the story will follow the same themes as in my original idea, but now it will return me to my first love—exploring how women have lived through history. How they took control of their circumstances. How they coped when they could not. 

I’m not sure what, if anything, will happen to this story, but I’m excited to work on it. To see where it leads. What I do know from over 20 years of writing is that no project is wasted time. 

If you are a writer, are you a plotter, panster, or both? Even if you aren’t a writer, what category do you think you’d fall into if you were? 

Writing on backsides & bottoms . . . and 2x4s & concrete

Do you love moving? Does anyone love moving?? I certainly don’t. And yet that joy is looming in our very near future.

On one hand, this move is exciting and is a huge blessing! New house, new beginnings, unpacking all the stuff that’s been in boxes for the past year. It’s like Christmas, remembering all the stuff you forgot you had—and perhaps realizing you should have tossed before you packed it, LOL.

On the other hand, moving up-heaves your life and is such a pain, and majorly messes with my writing routine and schedule. But one thing I’ve already L-O-V-E-D about this move…

This past Saturday following a family lunch celebrating our daughter-in-law’s birthday (HBD again, Kellie!), we gathered at the house that’s still in frame stage and wrote all over the 2x4s and concrete. I’ve shared this before but my sweet mom used to write on the backsides and bottoms of gifts she gave. I still treasure this little statue she and Dad signed…

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So walking through the house this past weekend with family and friends writing Scriptures, blessings, and even snarky little sayings on the walls and concrete was especially meaningful. Mom would have been right there in the thick of things!

This is one of my favorite pics from the day…

It’s of our son Kurt outlining Kellie’s very pregnant belly so that we could include Ari (our soon-to-be-here granddaughter) in the grandchildren’s room. LOL Can you see the outline below?

Doing this was Joe’s idea, but Kellie, ever ready for a challenge, was all in!

The reason the word “Flex” is written in orange is because that’s the builder’s term for that specific room in the house. Its use is “flexible.” We’ve designated it as the grandchildren’s room, and traced Leo’s handprint on the framing leading into the room…

Our daughter Kelsey followed suit, commenting that her hand print looked more like an oven mitt. It was C-O-L-D that day so gloves were in order.

Here are a few more…

“May the Lord establish your steps.”“Shalom”“Finish the book”
Rather self explanatory. LOL Kellie wrote this in the doorway of my office.“Werk. Werk. Werk.”
Kellie struck again! She wrote this right under where my desk will be.

This next one is harder to see (I took a panorama of it) but I love it. Kelsey’s boyfriend wrote Peace, Joy, Love, Restoration with crosses interspersed in the center of the family room. Perfect.

“Peace, Joy, Love, Restoration”

There were tons more but I loved being out there with family and friends, walking through the framed house, dedicating it and dreaming—and trying not to think of all the work that’s yet to come. And with a book that needs finishing before all that begins.

Lord willing, we’ll be in this house for many years to come. And it’s still in the Nashville area so we’re not moving far.

Have you ever written something in a house you’ve built or lived in? Perhaps you stenciled something on a finished wall? Or put your mark in freshly poured concrete?

One more thing…

I recently visited with a really fun book club (more on that next time), but as we started the meeting that night, we played a game they had seen us play on this blog. It’s where we share the last three pictures on our phones—no matter what they are. It was pretty funny. For one of the gals, it was hemorrhoid cream. She laughed and said, “Hey, I’m just keepin’ it real.”

So, wanna play?

Here are my last three pics on my phone along with a brief explanation…

This was actually the first image in a quick video I made for our kids last night telling them I was making them fried apple pies. Lovely, I know, but the finished product was pretty yummy!

Fried apple pies are such a pleasure to make. I enjoy making them about as much as eating them. Working with the dough, cooking the apples until they’re almost caramelized… And really, I counted this as research for the current book I’m writing. Because someone in the book is making them and I’m currently writing that scene. Research is hard work. : )

And of course, the last pic is of LEO! He’s sporting some new jammies, and filling them out quite well as you can see. GramTam may need to size up next time!

So, you game to play? If yes, please describe the last three pics on YOUR phone!

Much love, friends, from a very cold and snowy Nashville. I’d so appreciate your prayers for Kurt and Kellie as they’re expecting Ari’s arrival (our first granddaughter) any time now. Kellie is scheduled to be induced on Friday—if she doesn’t go into labor before then, and we’re all sitting on ready. I hope Leo’s ready for a baby sister because he’s about to have one!

Tammy

A BONUS PIC for all you dog lovers…

Our adorable little Clifford, our daughter’s Chihuahua (that she fostered then could not give up )