Between a Rock and a Hard Place by Ann Shorey

Ann Shorey

Recently I’ve heard from several fellow authors who are staggering under a load of family issues, illnesses, unexpected re-writes, and just general distractions. One thing they all have in common is looming deadlines.

Sounds like 2012 in my house.

My husband’s mother died at the end of February that year, after a lengthy decline. Our home filled with far-flung family members coming for the funeral and to help sort Mom’s belongings between them. My husband was appointed executor.

Five weeks later, my husband (a real estate broker) underwent surgery for a torn rotator cuff. He couldn’t drive for six weeks, and since the real estate business requires lots of driving, I was his chauffeur, both on business, and to physical therapy twice a week. For six weeks.

Fortunately, my next deadline wouldn’t fall until the end of the following January. Lots of time. Then I got sick. And sicker. When January 1, 2013, rolled around, I was 30,000 words short of completing my contracted novel. I felt overwhelmed, exhausted, and brain-dead.

I know from talking to other authors and reading their posts that the gut-clench that comes from being so far off the mark isn’t unique to me. So I did what King Hezekiah did in 2 Kings 19:14. I spread my work out before the Lord and prayed for His guidance. Here’s what He led me to do (with my suggestions included):

1. Most Important: Pray often!
2. Enlist a prayer partner to walk through the pages with you.
3. Take the total word count remaining and divide it between the number of days left. I don’t mean all the days of the month, because you should take a bit of time to check in with your family and attend church, if nothing else. So, in my case, 30,000 divided by 26 came out to around 1,100 words per day. No problem, right? Unless the brain-dead issue comes in.
4. Using a legal pad, I sketched out all the plot points that needed to be resolved by the end of the novel to be sure I didn’t leave any hanging threads. A legal pad may not work for you—whatever you use for note-taking would be fine.
5. I then arranged these plot points in their proper order. Point A needs to happen before Point B in order for Point C to make sense. Take time to think these points through to their logical conclusions. You may surprise yourself with some previously overlooked scenes.
6. Force yourself to stay at your keyboard until the day’s word count is completed. 
7. Share each completed chapter with your prayer partner for critique and encouragement.
8. Repeat Numbers 6 and 7 until you type “The End.”

This was some of the hardest writing I’d ever done, but at the same time the most rewarding. The Lord should have been listed on the cover of the book as my co-author because ideas flowed from His Creativity to my struggling brain.

If you’re in a similar hard writing place right now, let me testify that God is faithful. He does answer the prayers of his loved ones. Love’s Sweet Beginning is the result.

PS: My editor said this was her favorite book of the series. If she only knew . . .

About the Author

ANN SHOREY has been a story collector for most of her life, and has been a full-time writer for over twenty years. Her writing has appeared in Chicken Soup for the Grandma’s Soul, and in the Adams Media Cup of Comfort series. She made her fiction debut with The Edge of Light, Book One in the At Home in Beldon Grove series, which released in January 2009. The final book in the series, The Dawn of a Dream, released in April, 2011. Her latest, the Sisters at Heart series, debuted in January, 2012, with Where Wildflowers Bloom. The third book in that series, Love’s Sweet Beginning, released in February of 2014. She’s tempted to thank Peet’s coffee and Dove chocolates when she writes the acknowledgments for her books.

When she’s not writing, she teaches classes on historical research, story arc, and other fiction fundamentals at regional conferences. She lives with her husband in southern Oregon.

Ann loves to hear from her readers, and may be contacted through her website, www.annshorey.com, which also contains her blog, http://annshorey.blogspot.com/ or find her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/AnnShorey.

Love's Sweet Beginning
by Ann Shorey

LOVE’S SWEET BEGINNING

What will it take for a once-privileged young woman to make her way in the world?

It isn’t Cassie Haddon’s fault that she has reached the age of twenty-five without possessing any useful skills. Until the War Between the States, she always had servants. Since then, she and her mother have been forced to rely on family to care for them. But now the well of human kindness has run dry—and Cassie must find work to support them. Unfortunately, leaving the past behind is easier said than done, and Cassie must summon all of her courage and wits to convince local restaurateur and grocer Jacob West that she’s exactly what he needs.

Making Historicals Relevant by Ann Shorey

Historicals are very popular with today’s readers. What are the reasons? Is it because readers like to escape to another place and time? Is it because they have a huge interest in what transpired before our time? Both reasons are very likely, but I think we could include another reason. The fact that people have experienced the same hurts, desires, and joys since the beginning of time. Today, we welcome author Ann Shorey, as she shares her thoughts on making historials relevant to readers.

Making Historicals Relevant to Today's Women

I’m so glad Dawn asked me to share tips on making historical novels relevant to today’s women. Women’s issues are a passion of mine! Divorce, death, infidelity, infertility, you name it. My main suggestion is to choose an issue that faces today’s women and decide how you can place that dilemma in a historical context.

As I plot my historical novels, I ask myself, “How would these situations translate to the lives of today’s women?” Today’s issues are worked into each book.

In researching my family history I came across references to many of my female ancestors who were faced with situations that affect women today. Of course, a hundred and fifty years ago their lives were completely different than ours in the sense that they lacked the recourses and resources available today. However, the problems were the same. That’s what sparked my interest in writing about yesterday’s women. I wanted to discover how they would have handled those issues.

In my first novel, The Edge of Light, protagonist Molly McGarvie’s husband dies (the back cover tells you that, so I’m not spoiling anything!), leaving her with young children to raise. This is a situation that faces countless women today, either through the death of their spouse or divorce. As I wrote about how Molly handled her life change, I was mindful of today’s women. Her choices were made in part by the times, but also through God’s timeless guidance. That never changes.

The problems raised in The Promise of Morning, the second novel in the At Home in Beldon Grove series, come about through different set of circumstances. Ellie Craig’s husband makes choices that affect the entire family. As a result, temptations arise, both for Ellie and to another woman in the story. Those temptations are as real today as they were then. How we, as women, chose to deal with them provide a sub-context in the story. Again, I wrote with today’s women in mind. Many of us have experienced major upheavals because our spouse took a new job, lost the one he had, or just plain made a bad decision.

I’m happy to answer questions about writing historicals, or any other writing related matter. Please leave a comment here and feel free to contact me through my website, http://www.annshorey.com/. You’ll find my book review blog http://www.annshorey.blogspot.com/ there, too.

ANN SHOREY has been a story collector for most of her life. Her writing has appeared in Chicken Soup for the Grandma’s Soul, and in the Adams Media Cup of Comfort series. She made her fiction debut with The Edge of Light, released in January 2009. When she’s not writing, she teaches classes on historical research, story arc, and other fiction fundamentals at regional conferences. Ann lives with her husband in Sutherlin, Oregon. The Promise of Morning is the second book in her At Home in Beldon Grove series.
Contact Ann through her website at http://www.annshorey.com/.