Authors are a strange breed

If you've ever wondered what authors do all day, I'm about to tell you.

Sometimes we do nothing. Literally nothing. Well, okay, maybe we sit around and THINK a lot, but to the onlooker, it seems like a whole lot of nothing.

Sometimes we write zero words. Sometimes we write 10,000 words.

Sometimes we work ten minutes a day, sometimes twenty hours.

Sometimes we read books or watch TV to get inspired. Vacations are good for inspiration, too. I highly recommend those.

For those of us fortunate enough to call ourselves full-time writers, we far from have a regular schedule. We don't follow the normal workday 9-5 routine. And if we are lucky enough to have a husband who likes to cook, we don't even have to do that (yes, honey, I'm talking about you).

I'll tell you about my latest book that I'm about to publish, Stone Rules. It's about 100,000 words. (Romance novels are generally about 80,000 to 110,000)
I started writing this book in April. I got about 25,000 words written and then I hit a wall. I had major writer's block. I was also suffering from carpal tunnel so typing hurt.
I waited and waited and waited to be inspired. I took some aforementioned vacations. I watched a lot of TV (too much). I pouted a lot because I wasn't writing.
Then in August - WHAM! Inspiration struck and I finished the novel in three weeks. Whoa!

Morning, noon and night I was writing. I'd be up at 6AM and write for 6 hours and then edit it that night before bed. Rinse. Repeat. For three weeks and 75,000 words.

You may think, oh, cool, you took the summer off. Uh, no. Not cool. Do you know how hard it is to have a story in your head but you can't get it on paper? It's torture.

It's hard for us to 'get away' from work because we live in a fantasy world in our head. Our characters go on vacation with us. They don't stop talking to us just because we want to lay on the beach or go skiing.

We carry a notepad and a voice recorder EVERYWHERE. Because you just never know when a good idea will pop out of nowhere.

Then after all the writing, comes a month (or sometimes months) of editing. Some writers like this part. Me, not so much. Usually by the time I publish a book, I'm really sick of reading it.

And what do we do after that? You guessed it - we start all over again. Some authors have 2 or 3 books going at the same time. I can't do that, I can only have so many characters in my head before I actually become schizophrenic.

So there you have it.

To trigger warn or not?

A lot of stuff is going around lately about so-called 'trigger warnings.'

If you don't know what a trigger warning is, it is something authors may post on their book information page that will advise potential readers of sensitive material contained in a book. This could be anything from cheating to rape.

As an author, my stance is to not provide trigger warnings. Most of my books have a notation that state they contain adult material.

Let me tell you why I'm against trigger warnings. The plain and simple fact is that in most of my books, the trigger warning will spoil the plot. And for the 99.9% of readers who don't want to know the plot, this will ruin their experience.

My advice to readers is this: if you have a major issue with something, whether it be divorce, cheating, rape, molestation, cancer, death, adoption, abortion, guys that wear blue shirts, women who bake...., please either ask a friend or email the author. We would be happy to tell you individually anything about our books.

For the record, here is one blanket trigger warning: my books may (and do) contain sensitive subject matter. If you do not want to read books that deal with real-life situations or deeply emotional issues, you may want to pass mine on by.

I'm always happy to discuss my books with readers. So please e-mail or message me on Facebook if you have any questions. I certainly don't want anyone getting upset over a book I wrote. My books are for entertainment purposes only. And I hope to keep entertaining you all for many years to come.

Happy reading!!

Book Giveaways

Thank you to all who participated. If you didn't win this time, I will for sure have more giveaways in the near future.

If you are a winner or a paperback, please contact me at samanthachristy@comcast.net with your mailing address. Paperback books will be mailed out within three weeks. If you have an international address, please allow extra time.
If you are a winner of a kindle book, please email me your name and the email address to which you would like the book gifted. Kindle books will be gifted within a week.



Winners of the mailing list paperback giveaway of Stone Rules on 10/22/16

New subscriber - Danielle Fuselier
Past subscriber -  Joelle Yates

Winners of the 'Favorite Mitchell Sister' paperback giveaway on 10/14/16

Purple Orchids - Pauline Moore Dallas
White Lilies - Luna Lighthouse
Black Roses - Amy Korbel


Winners of the Abstract Love kindle anniversary giveaway on 8/3/16

Tracey Jacobi
Becky Takach Wise

Winners of the Be My Reason (original cover)  anniversary giveaway on 5/30/16

Betty Jo 'Wooton' Manint
Ashley Dalton



Here are the winners of my paperback giveaways on 4/25/2016

Michelle Tooke - 1st signed copy of Black Roses

Shawna Curtis - Imperfect cover (proof) of Black Roses

Nidhi Agarwal - Imperfect cover (proof) of Black Roses

Kim Lambert - Be My Reason (old cover)

Diana Sowada - Be My Reason (old cover)

Barbara Pitcher - Be My Reason (old cover)

Andrea Morgan - Abstract Love (old cover)

Amber Binion - Abstract Love (old cover)

Jessica Patterson - Abstract Love (old cover)

Sara Yarbrough - Abstract Love (old cover)

4,000 is just a number - but it's a pretty damn big one to me!

On the 14th anniversary of 9/11, which also happens to  be my son's birthday - my book sales passed the 4,000 mark. I can see it now . . . some of you are rolling your eyes because really, in the overall scheme of things, 4,000 is not a big number considering all of the books out there. But, just a mere eighteen  months ago when I picked up a pen and started writing a story that was bouncing around in my head, I didn't think ten people would ever care to read my book(s), let alone 4,000. And, this doesn't even include the 15,000+ free downloads of my books over the past fifteen months.

Of course, this will never make me rich, but I'd say it's not bad for what started out as a hobby.

Who knows, maybe five years from now, it will pay the bills. If not - I'm okay with that. I won't stop writing just because I'm not the next Nora Roberts. I won't stop writing when I get bad reviews. I won't stop writing because my kids or husband beg me to cook dinner (Domino's is on speed-dial).

I will stop writing when my mind goes blank - when my characters quit bugging me to tell their stories - when my head stops spinning from all the unwritten scenes that beg to be written. Basically - when I'm dead.

What's in a name?

One of the best things about being a writer is the ability to create entire personas. I get to build a character from scratch. I can pick their personality, their background, their physical features, and their profession. But from the very first characters I ever developed (Brooklyn Vaughn and Nate Riley), to the characters I’ve already picked for my next four books; my favorite part of the character development process has always been naming them.

People ask me how I pick names for my characters. My process is not methodical. It does not entail a lot of research into heritage or the root meanings of names. For me, it’s all about matching the personality to the name and a general overall feeling.

The first thing I do when I have an idea for a book is to loosely outline the plot. Then I think about what types of characters I’ll need. Are they damaged? Is he a playboy? Is she a debutante? Once I get a feeling about the personality of my character, I start thinking of names. There are some really great name-generators out there and it’s a lot of fun to weed through them. I make separate lists of first and last names. Generally I’ll pick a first name before a last name. However, for my 7^th book, which will be the first in a series of three books following the same couple, I picked my hero’s last name first. Then a few weeks later, I was at my ten-year-old son’s baseball game and the team started cheering for a boy as he went up to bat and I thought, ‘Wow, what a cool name for my character.’

Once I wrote an entire book and then changed the name of a secondary character. That rarely happens. Usually I get attached to the names of my characters. I guess that’s how I knew he didn’t have the right name—I was willing to change it.

I’ve used all four of my kids (Ryan, Kaitlyn, Austin and Dylan) in one way or another as minor or supporting characters. I’ve also used the names of most of my friends as well, although none were overjoyed to be part of the chemotherapy group in Abstract Love.

I’m always up for suggestions. If you have a great name you’d like me to use for one of my upcoming books, by all means, tell me. If I use it, I’ll send you a signed copy of the paperback!

Here is a list of my main characters in my first 6 books:

Be My Reason – Brooklyn Vaughn & Nate (Nathan) Riley

Abstract Love – Keri Brookstone & Jace (Jason) Jarrett III

Finding Mikayla – Mikayla Parker & Mitch Matheson

Purple Orchids – Baylor Mitchell & Gavin McBride

White Lilies (coming July 2015) – Skylar Mitchell & Griffin Pearce

Title TBD (coming Fall 2015) – Piper Mitchell & Mason Lawrence

Post-publishing Depression

Yes, you read that correctly, and I'm going through it right now. It's a very real thing . . . for me, anyway. My next stop is Goodreads where I'll find out if any of my author friends experience the same thing.

Did you ever plan a really extravagant vacation? If you have, you'll know what I'm talking about here. You plan for months, maybe even years. You do the research, pick the best locations, look into flights, hotels, or tours (okay, for me it's cruises). You suck your family into the planning and everyone gets so excited you can hardly stand to be around each other without talking about it.
You with me?
Then you take the vacation and it's great. All seven days of it. Then it's done and you come home and you sit down and say, "What now?"
You unpack and mope around the house for a while. You do a little laundry and then maybe upload your pictures on the computer, longing for that wonderful feeling you had the last few days leading up to the vacation.

Now insert BOOK in place of VACATION. We plan for months (maybe even years). We do all the research,pick the best setting and look into details we're unsure of. We suck our families into the planning, asking them to help come up with character names, places, or situations. We get so excited that we can hardly stand to talk about anything else during the months of writing and subsequent editing. Then we publish it and it goes into the Abyss along with the millions of other books available out there.
So, we pack up our notes, binders and drafts and put them into a box that gets tucked away somewhere in the office closet. Then we repeatedly admire the pretty cover picture that is now next to the description of our book that is live on Amazon.
Then we mope around the house for a while, contemplating doing all the things we neglected to do during the writing and editing process. Cleaning out the fridge, dusting the baseboards, making sure the kids are well fed . . stuff like that.

But, ultimately, just as I always start planning my next vacation the day I step off the plane/ship/beach, I end up picking up that brand new binder I've been holding onto. I fill it with divider tabs, fresh paper and sticky notes, because as a writer, there is only one thing I know that will cure my post-publishing depression . . .

Writing another book.

Writing a book vs. birthing a baby

I wrote this the day I finished my Abstract Love manuscript.

I used to think that writing the first sentence of a book was that moment that one would remember forever. But since I've become a writer myself, I now know that it's the last sentence that ranks right up there, just below the day I got married and the birth of my children. Because that is what completing a book feels like, the birth of a child (on a smaller scale, of course, and usually weighing in at less than a pound). 
That last sentence is what you think about, dream about and obsess over for months and months. It is what drives you to write, what fuels your thoughts and what embodies your dreams. It is such a high. But at the same time, it's bittersweet because now I know the ending. 
At 3:30 today, I wrote the last sentence of my second novel. Fueled by the emotions of a near-tragedy in my own family today, I believe I was able to put those feelings back into my writing and hopefully, I came up with an ending that will make my readers feel that wonderful connection to the characters that writers hope they can convey. I've decided that I could care less if I sell books, I love writing and will continue to do it until someone takes the pen (or keyboard and mouse) out of my cold, dead hands.

     

Me with my youngest baby.