7 Tips to Keep Your Career on Track over the Holidays By Marie Wells Coutu

Travel is essential to the business of being an author, whether attending conferences, doing research, or speaking at events in other parts of the country.

Marie Wells Coutu

And now that we’re in the middle of the busy Christmas season, many of us are traveling or visiting with family and friends. Since this season, as well as summer vacations, wreak havoc with my own writing schedule, I asked some multi-published authors how they keep their careers on track during such times.

Here are some of their tips:

1. Plan ahead. “If I have a vacation coming up,” says Christy Award winner, Beth K. Vogt, “I try to do everything I can to make it a vacation. So I work hard to meet my deadlines -- guest posts, my regularly scheduled blog posts, etc. -- and leave my writing obligations at home so I can concentrate on my family -- and relaxing and having fun -- while on vacation.” Multi-published author Cara Putman adds, “If you want to take a true break from writing, the word count [in advance] will have to go up to compensate.”
   
2. Decide on what you “must” do during the trip and what can wait until you’re home again. Deborah Raney, best-selling author of more than 30 novels, says, “My main goal when I travel is simply to not get behind on e-mail. That goes a long way toward helping me catch up quickly when I get back home. But if I’m on deadline, whether I’m traveling or not, I will need to write.”
   
3. Write while someone else drives. Or don’t. “Ken enjoys driving and I can get so much writing done on the trip each way if I put my headphones on,” Deb Raney says. But Beth Vogt has found that writing in the car is “just not comfortable for me. But I do like to brainstorm in the car with my husband.” And Cynthia Ruchti, who has won awards for both fiction and nonfiction, takes a mixed approach: “Only under a tight deadline would I write while my husband is driving, since it feels like turning my attention away from him, even though it is work. On a cross-country trip, I would write. But if it's just a couple of hours on the road, we use that time to talk and take in the scenery...and watch for hazards!”
   
4. Always have a notebook with you to capture ideas and inspiration that will hit while you travel, advises Cara Putman.
   
5. Use “neutral” time while traveling, such as during a flight or while waiting for one. Cynthia Ruchti says, “I write while waiting in airports or if grabbing a meal alone at the airport. I try to either write, ponder, or edit while in flight, but the tight conditions don't always allow that. Sometimes brainstorming with a pen and notebook is more productive in-flight.” Deb Raney, on the other hand, rarely writes during a flight. “If I’m flying, I don’t usually write on the plane unless it’s a longer flight and I have a row to myself. But I often choose a flight with a long layover because I love writing in airports. It’s great people-watching, wonderful white noise, and few interruptions.” Beth Vogt agrees. “I definitely can tune out and write in airports. TIP: Invest in a good pair of noise-cancelling headphones.”
   
6. Travel with books, says Cara Putman. “Reading is as much a part of writing. Pick up that book by an author you've wanted to try and see what you like. What worked? What didn't?”
   
7. Minimize your actual writing time, especially if you’re traveling with or visiting family. That’s one tip all of these authors agree on. “It's easy to let writing assignments take precedence over everything else,” Cynthia Ruchti confesses. “But if they do, then relationships suffer, my health suffers, or I just plain miss out on the wonder around me while my focus is on my computer screen.” But sometimes deadlines mean there’s no other choice. Beth Vogt finds that an immoveable deadline often falls during a family vacation or during Christmas or spring break. “What I do then is juggle. I let my family know that I'm going to have to write during the holidays or vacation, but that I will also mark of time (or days) for fun. Sometimes I get up extra early or stay up late and write when family is sleeping.” Cara Putman agrees: “If you need to write while you're traveling, think about what will be least disruptive to the trip. Do you need to do it at night or should you [write] first thing in the morning. Capture the moments so you can still enjoy the trip.”

Hopefully, these tips from successful authors will help you maintain your writing momentum while not interfering too much with your vacation and family time.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

About the Author

Marie Wells Coutu’s newest novel, The Secret Heart, will be released in February 2017 from Write Integrity Press. Follow Marie on Amazon.com to be notified when it becomes available. The Secret Heart, loosely based on the lives of Bathsheba and David, is the third book in the Mended Vessels series. Books in the series are contemporary re-imaginings of the stories of biblical women, including Esther and the woman at the well. 

Her debut novel, For Such a Moment, won the Books of Hope Contest. Thirsting for More, the second book in the series was a finalist in the 2016 Selah Awards Contest and a semi-finalist in the Royal Palm Literary Awards sponsored by Florida Writers Association. You can find more about Marie and her novels on her Facebook page (Author Marie Wells Coutu), at her website (MarieWellsCoutu.com), or follow her on Twitter (@mwcoutu). 
Marie retired after 15 years with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, and she and her husband now divide their time between Florida and Iowa.

The Secret Heart
by Marie Wells Coutu

 The Secret Heart

Beautiful Shawna Moore married Hunter Wilson, the governor of Tennessee, after a whirlwind romance, only six weeks following her first husband’s death in Iraq. Now, she wonders if the governor loved her at all or only hoped to avoid a scandal.

An investigative reporter—and friend of Shawna’s—is asking questions. If he discovers the truth about Shawna’s baby, Hunter’s chances for reelection could be ruined. But keeping the secret is destroying their marriage. Will Shawna convince Hunter to choose his family and drop out of politics, or will he continue to put his career first?

The Secret Heart will be available for pre-order in mid-January. For a sneak peek, download the first chapter here.

Copyright and the Writer

Copyright law protects our work and protects the work of others who may have written something we'd like to use in a blog or article. We need to know the law. Today, Cara Putman gives us an explanation of copyright and how it affects writers. -- Sandy

Cara: As an attorney who also writes, I often get asked about different legal issues that writers run into as they write. One of those issues is copyrights. So what are they? Copyrights are a property interest in the books, songs, poems, art, etc. that you create. The government has decided that it values the creation of art, and giving the creator a property right – or way to make money on what they create – encourages the creation of more books, poems, and other forms of art.

As writers, we care because we are creating art but also because we sometimes use other people’s creations in our works. Currently, copyrights in the United States last for the life of the creator plus 70 years. That is why you will see estates still managing the copyrights after the author has died. For example, the C.S. Lewis estate chose who would make the movies and how the rights to the Chronicles of Narnia would be and continue to be licensed. Not all of us create works with the staying powers of a Lewis or Tolkein – but we can dream!

By registering your copyright with the US Copyright office, you are putting the world on notice that you have a copyright to your work, but you do not need to do that. You have a copyright just by writing/creating your art. The Copyright office has a great website that can help you go through the process of registering a copyright: http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.pdfa and http://www.copyright.gov/forms/. 

One side note: you can’t copyright a title. It’s not uncommon to find similar or identical titles on books or other artworks. That doesn’t matter. It’s the content itself that is copyrighted.

But what if you want to use something that is copyrighted in your book? What do you need to do? You will need to contact the copyright holder for permission and make sure you allow time because it can take a long time to go through all the steps to get permission. But if a work is no longer protected (it’s been more than 70 years after the creator’s death), then the work has moved into the public domain and anyone can use it. That is one reason you see dozens of remakes of Pride and Prejudice. Jane Austen’s copyright protection expired years ago, so now anyone can use her premise and reprint her books.

Copyrights are complex. There is much more we could discuss. If you have further questions, be sure to consult the copyright office website (Http://www.copyright.gov) or consult an attorney who practices in the area.

Have you ever run into copyright issues with your work? Any questions about what is legal and what isn't?

~~~

Cara C. Putman graduated high school at 16, college at 20, and completed her law degree at 27. An award-winning author of seventeen books with more on the way, she is active in women's ministry at her church and is a lecturer on business and employment law to graduate students at Purdue University’s Krannert School of Management. Putman also practices law and is a second-generation homeschooling mom. Putman is currently pursuing her Master’s in Business Administration at Krannert. She serves on the executive board of American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW), an organization she has served in various roles since 2007. She lives with her husband and four children in Indiana. You can connect with her online at:

Purchase links:

Christianbook.com: http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/product?event=AFF&p=1141766&item_no=681783

Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/shadowed-by-grace-cara-putman/1115951174?ean=9781433681783

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1433681781/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1433681781&linkCode=as2&tag=carput-20

About the book:

Rachel Justice is desperate to save her dying mother. She doesn’t want to leave her, but she accepts her newspaper’s assignment to travel to Italy and photograph war images. No one knows her photography is a cover and that Rachel is really seeking to find the father she never knew, hopeful to get some help with her failing mother. Dedicated to her mission, Rachel is focused on completing it. Soon, though, she finds her priorities and plans changing when she is assigned to Lt. Scott Lindstrom, on mission as a Monument Man. Their meeting will have far-reaching consequences. Will this derail her plans? Will she ever find her father? Is her faith enough to carry her through?

People can read the first chapter here: http://caraputman.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Shadowed-by-Grace-chapter-excerpt.pdf

Roots: Keys to Our Pasts and Futures by Cara Putman

Isn't this a cute group of kids? My dad's buried under the pile. I'm probably eight, since I'm guessing Joel is about one.

You can learn a lot about me by looking at this photo. I smile big. I’m the big sister.

And I got to thinking about what that means for the characters I create. Right now, I’m  working on deepening the main characters for a new series’ proposal. I’ve got the historical hook – a really unique and high-concept one.  I’ve got the setting – dictated by the history. I’ve even got most of the plot points and conflict. The hardest part of the process for me is taking the time to drill down into the main characters' psyches. Even after all the books I’ve written this is where I still have to work – and it is work for me. What makes them act, think and talk the way they do?

For example, most who know me correctly identify me as Type A within about three minutes. Look at this photo. Doesn't it make sense? I'm your stereotypical first born...just read Kevin Leman's Birth Order book if you're not sure what that entails. And this photo clearly shows that. Who has her arms wrapped around all three of her siblings? Yep...

But that's a simple characterizer. Identify the birth order of characters and it gives a core set of criteria for how they might act. But it's certainly not a guarantee.

I also tend to engage a full room -- doesn't matter how many people are in it. That's not necessarily a function of my birth order. For me, I think it had more to do with being an early homeschooler who felt the need to break the stereotype that homeschoolers are wallflowers. And I genuinely like people. But why might a character be an extrovert or introvert? What's the lie they believe about themselves?

All of these questions require thought and diving deep. Hard work. But critical to creating characters readers can emotionally connect with. And that after all is what we all want!

What’s a book you read lately that had characters that were rich and deep? If you’re a writer, how do you dig deep enough to create those kinds of characters?

Cara C. Putman lives in Indiana with her husband and four children. She’s an attorney and a ministry leader and teacher at her church. She has loved reading and writing from a young age and now realizes it was all training for writing books. An honors graduate of the University of Nebraska and George Mason University School of Law, Cara loves bringing history and romance to life.

Cara love for readers to stop by her website where they can read excerpts of her books including her spring releases Cherry Blossom Capers and A Wedding Transpires on Mackinac Island. Http://www.caraputman.com and you can find her blog Http://blog.caraputman.com. She’s also on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/cara.putman and Pinterest.

Immersing Yourself in History by Cara Putman

Please welcome Cara Putman this Manuscript Monday to discuss researching history.

Immersing Yourself In History

Three of my first four contracted books involve a step back in time to the days of World War Two. I may have been born in the 70s, but I’ve always held a love for and fascination with the life and times of the 40s, particularly the war years. In many ways, it was completely natural to find my first novel set during that time. And it was a joy to uncover two additional stories from that time period.

But how does someone who was born 30 years after the events weave them into a story in a believable way? Here are a few tricks of the trade I’ve learned.

1) Study the culture and media of the time. I have always LOVED the old black and white movies from the early forties. Bringing Up Baby, It Happened One Night, You Can’t Take It with You, and the Thin Man series are some of my favorite movies of all time. Add in Fred Astaire & Ginger Rodgers, Gene Kelly and Bing Crosby, starlets like Katherine Hepburn and Myrna Loy and you can begin to get a feel for the styles of the time.

Now you have to be careful. Much as I love Audrey Hepburn, I can’t use her in a book from the early 40s…she wasn’t acting yet. So writers have to pay attention to copyrights on movies…Kate Hepburn wore pants in Bringing Up Baby, which released in 1938. By 1943 that was a well-established style that many attributed to her. And that leads me to my next tip…

2) Buy resources that illustrate the styles and vehicles of the time. As I wrote Sandhill Dreams, I realized I needed help describing the different styles in hats and clothing. I turned to Amazon and found a couple great resources. One was Everyday Fashions of the Forties as pictured in Sears Catalog. It’s perfect…Sears stores and catalogs were available throughout Nebraska, the setting for my World War Two series. Now I had the catalog illustrations and descriptions for the styles. It also gave me the details to back up things I knew, like during the war women couldn’t purchase pantyhose, so they drew lines up the back of their legs to mimic hose. But they also had make-up specifically designed to look like hose. Those are the details that make a book and a time period come alive.

3) Interview people who lived during that time – if you can. My time period is the early 1940s, so I interviewed my grandparents and others who lived then. If you plan to write about an earlier time period, then you’ll need to rely on resources like journals, newspapers, and other written accounts. But if you can, take the time to track down those who lived it. One night I had a delightful conversation with a veteran who had traveled through the North Platte Canteen 5 times as a soldier. Each visit was different, and he gladly shared his impressions and memories with me. His stories reinforced those I had found through other resources.

4) If you can’t interview people, don’t forget to look for sources that did. I found several invaluable resources in published books, Public television broadcasts, and spending a day with the Fort Robinson Museum curator who had interviewed dozens of veterans when they returned to the Fort. While I couldn’t interview these people, others had.

If you are writing or hope to write a historical novel, take the time to get the details right. Your readers will thank you.

You can learn more about Cara Putman by visiting her Web site.