Juggling Family & Writers Conferences

by Lisa Jordan, @lisajordan

Autumn is my favorite season because September and October bring several special dates to mind—my wedding anniversary, the birthdays of my two boys and the American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW) Conference.

I’ve been attending ACFW since 2005, which is the first year I met Susie May and knew she was someone I wanted to help mentor me through this crazy writing journey.

That initial conference was everything I dreamed and even more. I formed friendships, realized I had a ton of things to learn about the writing industry and leaned into the knowledge God called me to be a writer.

Attending conferences are not required to get your books published, but they allow you to build relationships with other writers and industry professionals, which is one of the essentials for a writer’s career. Investing in a conference means investing in educating yourself as to what industry professionals are looking for as they read hundreds of proposals that come across their desks or fill their inboxes.

However, the months and weeks leading up to the conference can be challenging especially if you’re a parent, working inside or outside the home. When I made plans to attend my first conference, I needed to take time off from my day job and find care for our two boys, who were ages 14 and 11 at that time because my husband worked second shift at the time. We needed someone who could be available for our boys after school and help with their extra-curricular activities.

One more juggling act for writers wearing many hats.

For us, our primary responsibility was to find care for the boys. They stayed with friends who had kids close in ages to our boys, and they lived within walking distance to both boys’ schools. I felt confident leaving them with responsible adults because I knew they’d receive great care.

In order to help our friends take on the additional responsibilities of our boys’ activities, I used a weekly calendar and wrote out all of their after school activities and homework projects that needed to be completed while I was gone. I made sure my boys understood their responsibilities in seeing these things to completion. I wrote out checks for lunches, school pictures and made sure they had clean clothes for school and practices.

I reviewed everything with Hubby, the boys and the family who would be caring for them for those days. I made a few casseroles ahead of time that could be frozen, and I gave them to my friend’s family to help with evening meals. Even if they decided not to serve them for dinner, she had an extra meal on hand for some other time when cooking time was tight. Plus by adding two extra boys to their family of 5, I wanted to make it as easy as possible for her.

Once my boys’ needs were taken care of, I focused on preparing for the writers conference. I studied the ACFW conference information on the website, ordered business cards, prepared my one-sheet for pitching and communicated with my upcoming roommate. I packed my suitcase and printed boarding passes for one of the greatest adventures of my life.

Having peace of mind about things on the home front allowed me to keep my focus where it needed to be while sitting in workshops, meeting with editors, chatting with agents and getting to know other writers. I called my boys each night and talked about their days, making sure they were ready for the next day.

Once I returned home from conference and after passing out hugs, I made notes about what worked that year and what needed to be improved for the next year’s conference. Yes, I was already planning ahead because I needed that time to budget the money and have the days marked off my work schedule.
If you desire to attend a writer’s conference, but wonder how you can leave your family, don’t despair. With a bit of planning and asking family or friends to help out, you can work everything out in order to attend your favorite conference.

TWEETABLES

Juggling Family & Writers Conferences @lisajordan on @NovelRocket #writing http://bit.ly/2xgTbCa

Want to attend a writers conference, but unsure because of family? @lisajordan shares on @NovelRocket #writing http://bit.ly/2xgTbCa

Trying to balance kids and a conference? @lisajordan shares how she managed it on @NovelRocket #writing http://bit.ly/2xgTbCa

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Lakeside Romance

A Recipe for Romance Sarah Sullivan will do whatever it takes to make her summer youth program permanent. But when she's tasked to teach the teens basic kitchen skills, her hope goes up in flames. Not knowing the first thing about cooking, Sarah needs help. Smelling the delicious aromas coming from her neighbor's apartment one night, she thinks she's found her answer. Alec Seaver might know his way around pots and pans, but the lone-wolf widower doesn't want anything to do with the free-spirited beauty next door. But after he becomes Sarah's reluctant partner, Alec realizes that she might just be the key ingredient missing from his life.

 

Heart, home, and faith have always been important to Lisa Jordan, so writing stories with those elements come naturally. Represented by Rachelle Gardner, Lisa is an award-winning author for Love Inspired, writing contemporary Christian romances that promise hope and happily ever after. She is the Operations Manager for Novel.Academy, powered by My Book Therapy. Happily married to her own real-life hero for almost thirty years, Lisa and her husband have two grown sons. When she isn't writing, Lisa enjoys family time, kayaking, good books, and playing in her craft room with friends. Visit her at lisajordanbooks.com.

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1 Do, 1 Don’t and 1 Why Not? for Writers

by Beth K. Vogt, @bethvogt

Oh, how we writers love to give each other advice, don’t we?

Why, yes, yes, we do.
Between all of our mistakes and all of our successes – and please, no one ask the ratio between the two – we have a wealth of advice to share.

Keeping it simple today, here’s a Do, a Don’t and a Why Not?:Do something new.

Most writers want to improve their craft. They join professional organizations. They attend conferences or local writers groups. They read blogs – like this one – and magazines. If a conference speaker offers practical ways to improve your writing or if an article suggests steps to strengthen your social media presence – do it. Simple, right? But how often do we hear good advice and then never implement it? Last May, my agent spoke at the local ACFW Colorado Springs meeting on how to use Facebook to build your platform. One of her suggestions was to do FB Live. To be honest, I didn’t want to go live on my Author FB page. But I forced myself to do this one new thing because she said readers respond to FB Live. Since my first hesitant attempt, I’ve done FB Live two more times. And you know what? My agent was right! These posts have gotten great interactions. Next time you attend a conference or workshop or read a blog post or article ask: Based on this advice, what one new thing can I do? Hint: Accountability is a great motivator. Tell someone what you’re going try and ask them to check back for an update.

Don’t believe everything you think.We all struggle with doubt and face fears. But we can’t buy into to those doubts and fears so that they stop us from pursuing our dreams. As I was writing my second novel I thought, “Who am I to think I can write a book?”What a ridiculous thought since I’d already published a novel.Learn to monitor your thoughts. Evaluate if the doubt undermining your efforts is realistic or if you’re listening to a lie. When you are afraid, remember what author Mark Twain said: “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.”

Why not celebrate someone else’s success?
Progress. Accomplishment. Win. There are all types of success along the writing road:

• Finishing a rough draft
• Surviving that first editor’s appointment at a conference
• Landing an agent
• Signing a contract
• Holding your “real” book in your hands
• Earning out an advance
• Winning an award

It’s fantastic when success is yours – worthy of a HaPpYdAnCe in your living room or dinner out with family or an online celebration with friends.
But when someone else writes that first book … signs a contract … or is handed an award, sometimes we don’t want to celebrate. We wrestle with the blues … and the green-eyed monster. The best way to beat the blues and to conquer envy? Be the first one to celebrate someone else’s success!Shout it out on Facebook. Send them an email or a handwritten note or text. Before you know it, celebrating will be your first response, not a forced response.

TWEETABLES

1 Do, 1 Don’t and 1 Why Not? for Writers @bethvogt @NovelRocket #writing http://bit.ly/2xLu5g2

Based on this advice, what one new thing can I do?  @bethvogt @NovelRocket #writing http://bit.ly/2xLu5g2

Progress. Accomplishment. Win. There are all types of success along the writing road @bethvogt @NovelRocket http://bit.ly/2xLu5g2
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Almost Like Being in Love

She’s won a luxurious dream wedding—now all she needs is the groom!

Winning an all-expenses paid Colorado destination wedding might seem like a dream come true for some people—but Caron Hollister and her boyfriend Alex Madison aren’t even engaged. How is she supposed to tell him that she’s won their wedding and honeymoon when he hasn’t asked her to marry him? And while everyone says they’re perfect for each other, how strong is a relationship when it’s built around protecting secrets?

Realtor Kade Webster’s business savvy just secured his company’s participation in the Springs Tour of Homes. He never imagined he would run into Caron Hollister—the woman who broke his heart—right when Webster Select Realty is taking off. When Kade learns his home stager won’t be able to help with the Tour of Homes, he vaults past all the reasons he should avoid Caron, and offers her a temporary job helping him on the project. This time, their relationship is purely business—Realtor to Realtor.

Spending time with Kade again has Caron questioning who she is and what she wants. The man intrigues her—at times infuriates her—and reminds her of what she walked away from. Has she been settling for what everyone expects of her? How can Caron say “I do” to one man when she’s wondering “what if?” about another?

Beth K. Vogt is a non-fiction author and editor who said she’d never write fiction. She’s the wife of an Air Force family physician (now in solo practice) who said she’d never marry a doctor—or anyone in the military. She’s a mom of four who said she’d never have kids. Now Beth believes God’s best often waits behind the doors marked “Never.” Beth’s first women's fiction novel for Tyndale House Publishers, Things I Never Told You, releases May 2018. Beth is a 2016 Christy Award winner, a 2016 ACFW Carol Award winner, and a 2015 RITA® finalist. Her 2014 novel, Somebody Like You, was one of Publisher’s Weekly’s Best Books of 2014. A November Bride was part of the Year of Wedding Series by Zondervan. Having authored nine contemporary romance novels or novellas, Beth believes there’s more to happily-ever-after than the fairy tales tell us. An established magazine writer and former editor of the leadership magazine for MOPS International, Beth blogs for Novel Rocket and The Write Conversation and also enjoys speaking to writers group and mentoring other writers. She lives in Colorado with her husband Rob, who has adjusted to discussing the lives of imaginary people, and their youngest daughter, Christa, who loves to play volleyball and enjoys writing her own stories. Connect with Beth at bethvogt.com.

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What's Your Writing Mission Statement?

by Cindy Sproles, @CindyDevoted

I recently began attending an intense writing class. It’s true that a good writer never stops learning, and I want to always present my best work, so you can imagine my surprise when the first comment from the instructor was a question. What is your mission statement?

A mission statement was never something I considered for my writing. 

We have one in place for our ministry and for our conference, but a personal mission statement for my writing just never occurred to me.

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Simplifying Writer Research

by DiAnn Mills, @diannmills

Writing and research go hand in hand. Every topic in a novel needs an element of research. If the manuscript isn’t accurate, the reader will recognize the flaw and toss our work aside. If a writer is spot-on, she will be rewarded with good reviews and more readers. Sort of a no-brainer for us writers.

How do we conduct the process effectively and efficiently?

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To Follow or Not to Follow the Yellow Brick Road of Writing Rules

by Ane Mulligan, @AneMulligan

When I added novels to my writing, I quickly learned I knew nothing else about writing fiction—other than dialogue. I picked up a couple of mentors and bought a few books on the craft. I absorbed and followed those “rules” of good writing until I had a good handle on them.

I remember hearing new writers complaining about published authors breaking the rules, so why couldn’t they? There’s a very good reason: an experienced author has mastered those rules learned how to break them. We can’t stop on the first broken rule and camp there, saying, “If they did it,so can I.” If you keep reading, you will discover most of the time they don’t break them.

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New Look - Same Great Content

Welcome to the new look of NovelRocket.com!

At NovelRocket, our goal is authors helping authors launch their dreams. Launch your process of writing a novel. Launch your book to the next level. And, ultimately, launch your career.

The writing process can be a lonely adventure, but we want to be there to help you every step of the way with tips, ideas, and insights into the craft of writing, the publication process, and all aspects of the writing life.
Our contributors are published authors who all have all sorts of wisdom and insight in the world of writing and publication.

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You Would Resent Having Overnight Success

by James L. Rubart, @jameslrubart

It’s true.

Even though you don’t entirely believe it. Neither did I.

When I went to my first writing conference back in 2006, I wanted the agent I submitted the first 10 pages of my manuscript to, to email me before I even got to the conference and say, “Oh, wow! You must send the rest! Now! Now!”

(Truth be told, in my deluded, uneducated state of mind, a small part of me expected that to happen.)

What I Needed, What you Might Need as Well

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The Secret to Powerful Stories

by Rachel Hauck, @RachelHauck 

This secret will change the way you craft stories. I’m not kidding. What I’m about to tell you will impact your writing all the way to the core and maybe even get you published.

I’ve been judging a contest. I feel like I could cut and paste the same comments in each one.

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Nature or Nurture?

by Marcia Lee Laycock, @MarciaLaycock

I recently put my maiden name into one of those “learn about your ancestry” sites and this is what it said –

Lee: Irish: reduced Americanized form of Ó Laoidhigh ‘descendant of Laoidheach’, a personal name derived from laoidh ‘poem’, ‘song’ (originally a by name for a poet).

That was not a surprise. I knew I had descended from a long line of storytellers. I spent enough time around my Grandfather, not to mention my father and five uncles, to know the truth of it. They were a raucous bunch prone to argue and sometimes fight, but when one of them started telling a story the room would go quiet with respect. Of course, when he was done, they’d all say he was “full of the blarney,” but that was taken as a compliment received with a smile of pride.

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How to Write a Memorable Romance Scene

by Michelle Griep, @MichelleGriep

Nobody wants to admit to reading romance novels. Those are for the trashy sort, the kind that hang out in laundromats, the losers with awkward social skills who don't have a hope of ever snagging their own happily-ever-after. Right?

Wrong-o bucko.

Besides that statement being politically incorrect and highly intolerant, it's also a huge misconception. In fact, romance novels are and have been some the hottest selling books flying off the shelves. So rest at ease if one of your guilty pleasures is snuggling up with a romantic tale. In fact, I just wrote a kissy-faced scene today and had to stop and think about the actual nuts and bolts of romance. And since I did all that brain work, thought I'd share . . .

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Chasing the Muse

by Randy Singer, @litfuse

It dawned on me recently that I did not begin my writing career seventeen years ago when I started the manuscript for Directed Verdict, my first book. It actually began nearly ten years before that when, as a young attorney, I had fully developed plot lines kicking around in my head.

And it happened while I was running.

At the time, I was a young associate in the litigation section of a relatively large firm. I loved my job but it was a lot of hard work, grinding away on big cases, reviewing reams and reams of documents. It was a far cry from the exciting life of the television lawyers who get to try a major case every sixty minutes. To relieve stress, I would do a lot of running. And while I ran, I would think about my cases, or about other lawyer’s cases, or about hypothetical cases and how I would try them.

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Never Miss An Opportunity for A Good Argument

by Rachel Hauck, @RachelHauck

Zap-Pow! Then What Happened?

Tension is king.

Definition: Most of us hate conflict and confrontation. Even in our books. But tension is king! Donald Maass suggest tension on every page. Better yet, on every line.

Tension doesn’t mean argument. Tension means “things aren’t going well.”

For example: A conflict arises for your heroine. She gets pulled over for speeding. Instead of the officer letting her off, she gets a ticket. This upsets her. While she’s getting a ticket, her mother calls to say Uncle Ned is coming Sunday and our girl is expected at the house for dinner. She blows up. Why is Mama always so bossy? Our heroine will do what she wants for Sunday dinner. She might have plans already. Ever think of that, Mama?

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“Editing” Life

by Tamera Alexander, @tameraalexander

I'm currently heavy into writing the first full-length Carnton novel (title yet TBD). Each day when I begin writing, I reread what I’ve written the day before. It’s part of my routine. It helps me to get back into the flow of things, plus I have a pretty wicked editor inside me that I have a tough time shutting down.

I tweak here and there. Remove sentences. Move things around. Delete information that either the character—or perhaps the reader—ended up not needing to know at that point in the story.

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First Drafts

by Katherine Reay, @Katherine_Reay

The First Draft…

It’s wonderful to be here today. As I write this, The Austen Escape is a couple months from release and I begin a new story. In fact, this very morning, I pulled out my colored pens, opened the file in Scrivener and started, in earnest.

The blank page, or the blank computer screen, is a daunting sight. It’s exciting because it is just that – blank. We can fill it with anything and that anything has the potential to be great. But that catches our breath too because it must be filled – and that it will require hundreds of hours and thousands of words.

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4 Questions to Ask Yourself After You Write a Scene

By Michelle Griep, @MichelleGriep

Just because you've written a scene doesn't mean you can pack away your computer and grab yourself a brewskie. Guess what, little writer? Your work is NOT done. There are some questions you need to ask yourself after each and every scene you write . . .

1. What was the conflict in this scene? Were the stakes dire enough?

If you can't identify a conflict in your scene, delete it. Yeah, that's harsh, but cut the fat and get to the lean mean story. No one wants to read about characters who don't have problems. Readers want to punch those kinds of characters in the head.

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Act 2 Plotting in 5 Easy Questions

by Susan May Warren, @SusanMayWarren 

I always get the Chapter Seven Blues. I know it’s inevitable, but I seem to forget that it happens, and often I’ll find myself down in the kitchen, moping (and looking for chocolate) and my husband will say… “You’re at Chapter 7, aren’t you?”

I’ll turn, stare at him, and nod. “How did you know that?”

“Because the excitement of the story has gotten you through chapter 3, and Act 1, and the momentum carried you into chapters 4-6, but now the steam has died in the middle of Act 2, and you’re down here hunting for inspiration.” (This is usually accompanied by him taking the bag of chocolate chips out of my hand.)

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3 Ways to Get the Most Out of Your Paid Ad

By Patty Smith Hall, @pattywrites

Whether traditional or self-published, every author is looking for the best way to market his/her book. Specifically, how do we attract new readers? One way that has grown in popularity are websites like Bookbub, E-Reader Café and My Book Cave who send out email blast with information on sale books.

Here’s how it works: When a reader registers on one of these sites, they are sent to a page with a list of genres they like to read. This is no short list—every genre you can think of is listed, all the way down to sub-genres. The reader is given anywhere from one to five choices that they can follow. Then every day like clockwork, a selection of books on sale from their chosen genre is emailed to the reader with links to the sale sites.

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Complicating Success

by Allen Arnold, @TheStoryofWith

How do you define success as an author?

Perhaps you base it on whether you regularly hit your daily word count. Or maybe success is when the publisher you’ve longed to partner with finally signs your new series. If you’re already published, then success might be hitting a bestseller list or exponentially growing your readership.

All of the above seem like logical ways to measure success. They offer tangible metrics by which we can count progress, compare results, and control our calling.

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I’ve Gotta Be Me, She Said

by Dan Walsh, @DanWalshAuthor

Believe it or not, my column this month is about the Characters in our novels. In short, the idea of making them seem and even feel like real people to our readers. This is a major priority for me. I think with good reason.

Last month, I quoted one of my favorite writing quotes: “The secret to great fiction writing is to create characters readers care about, then do terrible things to them.” That article mainly focused on the second part. Today, I want to focus on the first, creating characters readers care about.

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3 Ways Your Cover Sells Your Novel

by Emilie Hendryx, @eacreativephoto

May name is Emilie and I judge books by their covers.

There. I’ve said it!

I know we’re all told not to, but I do and I’d wager you do as well. We’re told it’s what’s on the inside that matters, and in a way that’s true, but most of the time we won’t make it past a bad cover to see the inside.

I recently wrote a post on my blog titled The Truth About Book Cover Design. In it, I laid out specifics on what makes a book cover “bad” and why you shouldn’t try and design your cover yourself. In this post, I’d like to focus more specifically on why having a good book cover matters.

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