Quit Tomorrow, Not Today by Ane Mulligan

Ane Mulligan

Gina Holmes appeared on a talk show recently. Her advice to writers was, “Quit Tomorrow not today.” Sage advice and something she and I know a lot about.

I met Gina at a writers conference in 2004. We were both at the beginning of our writing careers. We became critique partners, along with a couple of other writers, and by 2006, we were sure we’d get that call any day.

We'd signed with agents by then, who were sending out our full manuscripts. Every year, we’d tell each other, “This is the year!” But each year would go by without contracts. We were doing everything right. We continued to grow in our craft, attended conferences, and yet ... those coveted contracts were just out of reach.

One year, I went as far as pub board, only to have the slate filled for that quarter. The editor was moving me to the next quarter. Then she retired. And her hard drive was wiped clean. The hard drive with my manuscript on it.

Discouraged? You bet your bippy! But I never thought of quitting. I couldn’t anyway; I’d have exploded. There’re too many stories and voices bubbling up in my head.

The only people who fail are those who quit. If you’re that discouraged, quit tomorrow; but don’t quit today. Instead, today start a new manuscript, write a blog post, plant a garden, write a short story, start a photography journal.

There are a lot of ways to spark your creativity. After all, if you’re a writer, you can’t quit writing. So don’t even think about it. I’m glad I didn’t. When I finally got the call in 2013, I had several manuscripts waiting and ready.

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While a large, floppy straw hat is her favorite, bestselling novelist Ane Mulligan has worn many: hairdresser, legislative affairs director (that's a fancy name for a lobbyist), drama director, playwright, humor columnist, and novelist. Her lifetime experience provides a plethora of fodder for her Southern-fried fiction. She firmly believes coffee and chocolate are two of the four major food groups. President of the award-winning website, Novel Rocket, Ane resides in Sugar Hill, GA, with her artist husband and chef son. You can find Ane on her Southern-fried Fiction website, Google+, Facebook, Goodreads, Twitter, and Pinterest. Her sophomore novel, Chapel Springs Survival, will release Dec 3^rd, 2015.

Writing Stubborn by Heidi Chiavaroli

Image courtesy of wokandapix/Pixabay

Since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. ~Hebrews 12:1-3

I am a runner.

If you read that sentence and you are also a runner, we have just formed a unique bond through cyberspace. We have an understanding of one another and what it takes to run.

I am also a writer. Likewise, if you are a writer, you and I can relate to one another in a unique way. We understand this journey is not always an easy one, but it is so worth it.

Whether a runner or writer, the bond we share (besides the fact that we like to torture ourselves) is a certain character trait. Maybe trait is the wrong word, because it’s more of a decision. A decision to be stubborn. To persevere. Gina Holmes calls it Sticktoitivness. Name it what you will—grit, determination, or resolve. But I believe this is what makes success.

When I am finishing up a ten-mile run, when the muscles in my thighs are burning and my feet are on fire, when I can see that beautiful white mailbox where I will allow myself to walk (oh, how glorious is just walking!), when I push myself to finish strong because that’s who I am and who I want to be, trusting that my stubbornness will pay off, that I will be a better runner for pushing through the pain…that’s when I know victory.

And yes, when I’m writing. When I’m past that beautiful and inspiring beginning, when I’m sweating through the middle and agonizing over the climax, when my eyes glimpse that glorious moment when I can write The End, when I can just read a book without feeling guilty that I’m not pounding out the words on my own laptop…that’s when I know victory. I have chosen perseverance. Sticktoitivness. Stubborness.

And there, in the pain and suffering, is how I improve. How I find victory. How even, I can become more like my Savior as I fix my eyes on Him, the ultimate goal.

But wait, that’s just the beginning. Because now I must let go of my writing. Let my sweat and work—my baby—go. I must offer it up to God, trusting Him to do what He will with it.

I believe the same goes for everything in our lives—whether it be writing, mastering a sport, bringing up children, growing our careers, or our faith. We can only give our absolute stubborn best…and let God finish the work for us. (He’s good like that, you know.)

How do you help yourself push through those tough times in writing? How do you make yourself finish a project? How do you write stubborn?

Heidi Chiavaroli is a writer, runner, wife, mother, and grace-clinger—not necessarily in that order. Ever since taking her first trip to Plimoth Plantation with her sister, mother, and grandmother at the age of nine, she has been fascinated with history and its significance to today’s people and culture. Heidi is the winner of ACFW’s 2014 Genesis Contest, Historical Category. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband, two sons, and Howie, her standard poodle.

Scene Setting Tips by Gina Holmes

Gina Holmes

When I began writing novels, description was not an area of strength for me, and setting was just a place to plop my characters. Fast forward ten years and my publisher compliments my upcoming release with a “You can smell the salt in this one.” DRIFTWOOD TIDES (releasing this September) is set at the Outer Banks in North Carolina. You can’t set a book a place like that without readers expecting a richly painted scene. They want to feel the cold ocean foam on their feet, feel the grit of sand between their toes, hear the seagulls circling above, see the cotton candy colors in the sunset . . . and yes, smell the salt.

1. The best way to learn to master setting is by reading other books that have done just that. One novel that sets the scene better than maybe any other book I’ve read is To Kill a Mockingbird. Here’s one example of the masterfulness of her scene-setting:
   
   “Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop, grass grew on the sidewalks, the courthouse sagged in the square.” You don’t get better than that.
   
   
2. Go feel the roses.
   
   It might go without saying to go to the place you are setting your work, but I’m going to say it anyway. Close your eyes and listen, first to the obvious sounds: sirens, traffic, subway, whatever. Don’t stop there. Listen for the underlying background noise: car doors slamming, the flutter of pigeon wings. Listen beyond that to the softer noises until you’ve made note of all the sounds the setting has to offer. When your eyes are closed and you’re noting a particular sound, before you open your eyes, try to guess what you’re hearing.
   
   While writing DRIFTWOOD TIDES, I sat on the beach, closed my eyes and heard what I would have guessed to be a sprinkler system rapidly firing. I knew it couldn’t be, but that’s what it sounded like. It was actually the sound of chirping cicadas and the sprinkler system description was something I was able to use to describe that sound in the book.
   
   You can do the same close your eyes technique for smell and touch too. Write down as many descriptions and comparisons as you can while they’re still fresh in your mind.
   
   
3. If you can’t go there, visit vicariously. Watch movies set where your book is, take lots of notes.
   
   
4. Observe the details. One little trick that brings fiction to life lies in writing in the little things that we take for granted. Not just the sandy beach, but the water that fills a footprint left in the sand… watch how it’s absorbed back into the ground and the tiny bubbles that pop up right before it does.

You get the picture. And if you do it right, so will your readers.

Have you read any particular authors that make their settings real? What do you do to help you set the scene?

Driftwood Tides
by Gina Holmes

Gina Holmes writes about flawed people living in a flawed world with the help of a perfect God. She's a two-time Christy and ECPA Book of the Year finalist as well as winner of the INSPY, Inspirational Reader's Choice and Carol Award. Her third novel, Wings of Glass was named among the best books of 2013 by Library Journal. You can connect with her on Facebook, Twitter or her website.

DRIFTWOOD TIDES
He made himself an island until something unexpected washed ashore.

When Holton lost his wife, Adele, in a freak accident, he shut himself off from the world, living a life of seclusion, making drifwood sculptures and drowning his pain in gin. Until twenty-three-year-old Libby knocks on his door, asking for a job and claiming to be a friend of his late wife. When he discovers Libby is actually his late wife’s illegitimate daughter, given up for adoption without his knowledge, his life is turned upside down as he struggles to accept that the wife he’d given saint status to was not the woman he thought he knew.

Together Holton and Libby form an unlikely bond as the two struggle to learn the identity of Libby’s father and the truth about Adele, themselves, and each other.

My Journey to Publication by Gina Holmes

Happy Fortifying Friday, readers! Annette here. Last week, Gina Holmes' debut novel released and if you're friends with her on Facebook, you were probably invited to post her book cover on your profile to show your support. I loved her story of how she came to be published and am grateful she's here today to share it with us. Please welcome Gina today. I hope her testimony encourages you as you head into your weekend. Happy writing!

My Journey to Publication
by Gina Holmes

Years ago I had a brilliant idea that becoming a writer would be an easy way to bring in some fast cash. I wrote everything from greeting cards, to articles to short stories, poetry, and even a children’s books. I collected quite a pile of form rejection letters.

After a few years of minimal success, I decided to focus on larger goals.

In six weeks I wrote my first novel. I took this to sell at a local writer’s conference. It was there I met the man who would become my agent, Chip MacGregor. He scared some with his brash frankness, but I saw a truth teller. I pitched him that first novel. He smirked a little, then turned me down.

Chip and I prayed together before I left that appointment, and I’d made a friend. I spent the next year or two editing that first novel, and learning the craft of writing. After that, I wrote my second, third and fourth novels, all suspense. Rejection after rejection . . . after rejection followed.

Through these years, I ran Novel Journey, wrote and edited. I attended many writer’s conferences, built relationships in the industry and learned all I could about the business. I had several agents who weren’t quite right for me and then at an ACFW conference Chip announced he was starting his own agency. He also made it clear that he was interested in representing me. Chip and I were friends, our philosophies lined up, and I knew he was very good at what he did, so the partnership was a no-brainer.

Over the following months, I would get calls from Chip every now and then making sure I wasn’t planning on jumping ship just because it was taking us a while to get a contract. I think we were both concerned we were letting the other down during this time. Chip always kept my spirits up by letting me know he believed in my writing and that I would get published eventually because “greatness will win out.” I think he represented me close to two years before I was contracted.

In 2008 I think, I started reading things like Memoirs of a Geisha, Peace Like a River, Jane Eyre, Watership Down, etc and thought that maybe I was writing in the wrong genre. I wasn’t sure, so I figured the only way to find out was to try writing something a little different.

I presented a third-person medical mystery to Chip along with a few chapters from my first-person women’s fiction novel about a young mother dying of cancer. I asked Chip which one he thought we ought to pursue. He said, “They’re both good and I can probably sell either, but Crossing Oceans seems like your true voice.”

One fine day, Chip called me when I was at work in the hospital nursery, surrounded by crying babies, nurses and doctors. Via cell phone, he said, “Gina we have an offer. It’s okay to scream now.”

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Gina's debut novel, Crossing Oceans, has just released. Here's more information:

Nothing deepens a stream like a good rain . . . or makes it harder to cross.

Jenny Lucas swore she’d never go home again. But life has a way of upending even the best-laid plans. Now, years after she left, she and her five-year-old daughter must return to her sleepy North Carolina town to face the ghosts she left behind. They welcome her in the form of her oxygen tank-toting grandmother, her stoic and distant father, and David, Isabella’s dad . . . who doesn’t yet know he has a daughter.

As Jenny navigates the rough and unknown waters of her new reality, the unforgettable story that unfolds is a testament to the power of love to change everything—to heal old hurts, to bring new beginnings . . . even to overcome the impossible.

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In 1998, Gina Holmes began her career penning articles and short stories. In 2005 she founded the influential literary blog, Novel Journey. She holds degrees in science and nursing and currently resides with her husband and children in Southern Virginia. Her debut novel, Crossing Oceans, is set to release summer 2010 with Tyndale House Publishers. To learn more about her, visit: www.ginaholmes.com or www.noveljourney.blogspot.com