Showing posts with label Contemporary Romance. Show all posts
Suzanne Hartmann is a homeschool mom of three and lives in the St. Louis area. When not homeschooling or writing, she enjoys scrapbooking, reading, and Bible study. PERIL: Fast Track Thriller Bk. #1 is her debut novel.
On the editorial side, Suzanne is a contributing editor with Port Yonder Press and operates the Write This Way Critique Service. She has also written an e-book on the craft of writing, Write This Way: Take Your Writing to a New Level
JOURNEY TO PUBLICATION
While most authors write for years before they decide to get serious and seek publication, my journey began with a nudge from God to write out the stories I’d entertained myself with while I sat through my kids' violin and piano lessons and baseball and soccer practice. After questioning whether I could be having a premature mid-life crisis, followed by much prayer, I realized God was calling me to write.
So in spite of the fact that I had very little experience writing fiction (my training was mostly non-fiction), I dove into research about NASCAR, then set out to weave my stories into a novel. Once I began writing, it almost became an obsession to get all of the stories from my head into the computer—what I call a brain-dump. That became the narrative outline I followed to write the story. Essentially, it was a series of main plot points I needed to thread together. I thought of it like a dot-to-dot. The main plot points were the dots and as I wrote, I created with the lines that lead from one dot to the next.
After I finished writing the first draft, I had SO much to learn, but God was faithful and led me to some Christian writing forums, and from there to an awesome critique group (when I hadn’t even heard of such a thing even a week earlier). After spending five months doing a major revision under the guidance of my new critique partners, I felt I had polished “my baby” enough to send it out to agents.
Four months—and many rejections later—I found myself dejected and bordering on bitter. Thankfully, God sent me a wake-up call through a Bible study I had just started, and I realized I had taken my eyes off Him. Instead, I began looking to people in the publishing industry to tell me what I needed to do to improve my manuscript. Once I confessed, then turned my eyes back to God, He immediately sent two rejection letters with some hints at what I needed to do.
That led to another round of major revising and cutting the wordcount from 117,000 to 89,000 (yes, I actually cut out about 25% of the story). After that came another round of query letters and rejections. This time, however, I felt like God was leading me to wait. It was hard, but I did. Eventually, “out of the blue,” a friend offered to send a referral to her agent, Terry Burns. Although he initially rejected my manuscript, he said I could revise the first few chapters and resubmit. That was the key. He loved the new opening and offered me a contract!
It took another year and a half of waiting before OakTara offered a contract. This time the waiting was even harder because I wasn’t the only one (or even the main one) making the decisions regarding who to query. I had to put my faith in the agent God had led me to.
It feels like it’s been a long journey, but to go from never having written a novel to publication in five years, is relatively short for the publishing industry. Thankfully, God didn’t let me know at the beginning how far out of my comfort zone He was going lead me. But throughout the process, He has been faithful to lead me where I needed to go, has encouraged me when I thought I couldn’t go on, and continues to equip me as I now venture into the marketing aspect of the publishing industry.
Here’s a little about the book God nudged me to write. I pray that readers not only enjoy a good read, but will pick up on the themes of honesty and the importance of following God even when where He’s leading doesn’t make sense by human terms.
PERIL: A Fast Track Thriller:A top-secret agent.
A high-profile assignment.
Danger at a NASCAR track.
A top secret agent with enhanced strength must use her extraordinary abilities during several high-profile assignments, from the White House to NASCAR tracks, while escorting the first Muslim king to convert to Christianity. When unwanted publicity and the attention of a NASCAR champion threatens to expose her secrets, she becomes a terrorist target with danger surrounding her on all sides.
“Plenty of action and unexpected twists.”
Foreword by Jimmy Makar, GM of Joe Gibbs Racing
You can find Suzanne on-line at:
My Blog - Write This Way
“Every story has its own path to travel….”
What road are you traveling?
Have you ever thought about the roads you’ve traveled? Bumpy, windy roads. Roads filled with potholes, forks, and turns. Up mountains. Through valleys. Quiet, country roads and bustling, noisy intersections. Have you considered how few roads are actually smooth?
I’m not one of those writers who dreamed of putting words on paper from an early age. Writing wasn’t in my career path. If I had seen it coming, I probably would have made a u-turn and headed in the opposite direction. After all, I’d spent twelve years writing and editing audit reports. Painful, excruciatingly so. You see, I’m one of those perfectionists. You know the kind.
But, I have always wanted to read, loved to read. Had to have a book in my hands. Don’t you feel lost if you don’t have four or five books lined up ready to read? Me? I have sixteen ~ shhh, don’t tell my husband.
After I dropped out of the workforce to taxi my two sons around (and to make sure one of them actually attended school, he had a slight problem with that!), God planted the “writing” seed in my heart. “Me? Write? No way,” I scoffed. I was convinced I was wrong. God didn’t want me to do something that I didn’t enjoy, did He? Surely, I was mistaken. Talk about facing a mountain.
The writing seed dug in, took root around my heart with the idea for Journey’s End, which germinated from a newspaper article about a mobster, finally convicted for his crimes years later. God watered the seed until it grew into a manuscript, even fertilized it with a stack of rejection letters and dismal contest results. God helped me to focus on the positive comments. One manuscript grew into two. Then, three.
A dear friend from Carolina Christian Writers directed me to White Rose Publishing and on New Year’s Eve in 2010, five years after I started down this crazy writing road, White Rose Publishing offered me a contract for Journey’s End, my first heart racing, God-gracing book in the Marshals of Journey Creek series. Can you think of a better way to end one year and to begin another? Who needs fireworks? Shortly after that, my second book, Journey’s Edge, finished second in the 2010 Unpublished Beacon Contest.Wow! Thank you, God, for not giving up on me! For walking hand-in-hand with me on this crazy exciting journey and for filling my heart with joy!
What is your own journey like? Curvy? Full of potholes? Are you facing a mountain? Don’t give up! When you open the mailbox or email to a rejection, cry, rant, and stop writing for a while. Then, look at the rejection again with a fresh perspective. Pick out the constructive ideas on how to make your writing stronger and better and dig back in. Because the feeling is ever so sweet when you get that affirmative email or phone call…
Whatever road you’re on, my prayer is that God blesses your journey! Journey's End can be found at http://www.whiterosepublishing.com.
Along with classroom study, we took field trips into the heart of the Flint Hills and visited with old-time ranchers, schoolmarms and post-mistresses. It was such a delightful experience, especially our drives into the pastures. We would get on these back roads and drive over pasture guards into the open range. We would travel for miles without seeing another car or even an electric line—just pure, native prairie. That summer, I fell in love with the Flint Hills and it has stayed with me all this time, finally culminating in the contemporary romance series, the Seasons of the Tallgrass.
My hero in this book is an NFL quarterback, so I also had to know something about football. For this research, I went to the children's section of the library and checked out an armload of books. I also watched a lot of football games on television and asked my football-loving friends and family hundreds of questions--all so I could write two or three scenes with authenticity.
The highlight of this research occurred when I met and visited Amy at her home in Colby, KS. Amy was a joy to work with and is such a lovely person. My visit to her home was an unexpected blessing, as she shared some special moments from her time as Miss Rodeo Kansas and then as Miss Rodeo America.
Seeds of Summer Book Blurb: When opposites attract, sparks fly--like an electrical malfunction. That's what happens when former rodeo queen Natalie Adams meets the new pastor in Diamond Falls. A heart-warming contemporary romance set in the Flint Hills of Kansas where a former rodeo queen abandons her dreams in order to care for her deceased father’s ranch and her two half-siblings, only to realize with the help of a young new pastor that God can turn even the most dire circumstances into seeds of hope. Spanning the Seasons of the Tallgrass, each story in this series reveals the struggle of the people who live there and the dreams they have for the land until they come full-circle in a never-ending cycle, just as man comes full-circle in his understanding of God.
Visit Deborah at her web site: http://deborahvogts.com
Or her Country at Heart blog: http://deborahvogts.blogspot.com
Many published storytellers say they never quit, when the story within struggled to find an outlet. And that’s the way it was for me. After working as an editor and copywriter and publishing freelance articles, I wanted to write a book. Since I preferred to write a Christian novel I attended Christian writers’ conferences.
At the first one when I learned that many readers enjoy romance, Destin, Florida, came to mind. I’d traveled there for the past twenty-two years and watched the white-capped waves lap white, powdery sand glistening in a reddish-gold sunset. Even though my book would be an inspirational novel about faith I would make it a romance in Destin. After determining a genre I attended a four-day workshop on plotting books with James Scott Bell, an award-winning writer and frequent speaker at Christian writers’ conferences. Also, I read several Christian romance novels and noted the common threads in them, such as strong, handsome heroes. Then, I devised the following plot.
The heroine, Cammie O’Shea, who is a feature writer for a newspaper in Cedar Forks, Georgia, moves to take a position with a new paper, “The Sun Dial,” in Destin, Florida, after she suffers a heart-breaking split-up with her fiancé.
She has to interview, Vic Deleona, the hero and wealthy entrepreneur, to help get “The Sun Dial” off to a good start. Even though Vic is too busy with his real estate empire to even meet with her, his secretary gives her an appointment. However, from the moment he sees her, he wants to date her. In an attempt to get to know her better he schedules business appointments she must attend. Even though she is attracted to him, because of her recent heartache she never wants to date again. But she and a friend, Angie Jones, have break-ins at their homes, and Vic comes to their rescue. Just when Cammie sees a different side of Vic she receives an offer to return home to her old job. Will Vic win her heart, or will she leave Destin?
The answer to that question lay in the characters’ personalities, which I still needed to establish. I made a list of their likes and dislikes, including the foods they enjoyed and their activities, such as swimming. Before I started writing I also noted their physical appearances and wrote a few sentences about each of them. Even though I’d been in Destin many times, I researched the history of the town and the fishing industry there. I also interviewed a couple policemen about crime scene procedures, and spoke often with my husband, who is a residential builder, real estate agent and land developer. To incorporate Cammie’s job as a feature writer I called on my experience working for a retired Associated Press correspondent. By the time I completed my first draft my characters had taken on lives of their own in Destin, Florida.
After editing Love Turn the Tide several times I read it aloud to my husband and corrected the mistakes I heard. When I knew the words, paragraphs and scenes in my head so well I peered at the page without actually reading them, I edited the manuscript from the end to the beginning. Going backward made me see what I had written as if I were reading it for the first time. Lastly, I asked my husband and my daughter to proof the book and tell me about anything that seemed unclear or awkward to them.
At the first one when I learned that many readers enjoy romance, Destin, Florida, came to mind. I’d traveled there for the past twenty-two years and watched the white-capped waves lap white, powdery sand glistening in a reddish-gold sunset. Even though my book would be an inspirational novel about faith I would make it a romance in Destin. After determining a genre I attended a four-day workshop on plotting books with James Scott Bell, an award-winning writer and frequent speaker at Christian writers’ conferences. Also, I read several Christian romance novels and noted the common threads in them, such as strong, handsome heroes. Then, I devised the following plot.
The heroine, Cammie O’Shea, who is a feature writer for a newspaper in Cedar Forks, Georgia, moves to take a position with a new paper, “The Sun Dial,” in Destin, Florida, after she suffers a heart-breaking split-up with her fiancé.
She has to interview, Vic Deleona, the hero and wealthy entrepreneur, to help get “The Sun Dial” off to a good start. Even though Vic is too busy with his real estate empire to even meet with her, his secretary gives her an appointment. However, from the moment he sees her, he wants to date her. In an attempt to get to know her better he schedules business appointments she must attend. Even though she is attracted to him, because of her recent heartache she never wants to date again. But she and a friend, Angie Jones, have break-ins at their homes, and Vic comes to their rescue. Just when Cammie sees a different side of Vic she receives an offer to return home to her old job. Will Vic win her heart, or will she leave Destin?
The answer to that question lay in the characters’ personalities, which I still needed to establish. I made a list of their likes and dislikes, including the foods they enjoyed and their activities, such as swimming. Before I started writing I also noted their physical appearances and wrote a few sentences about each of them. Even though I’d been in Destin many times, I researched the history of the town and the fishing industry there. I also interviewed a couple policemen about crime scene procedures, and spoke often with my husband, who is a residential builder, real estate agent and land developer. To incorporate Cammie’s job as a feature writer I called on my experience working for a retired Associated Press correspondent. By the time I completed my first draft my characters had taken on lives of their own in Destin, Florida.
After editing Love Turn the Tide several times I read it aloud to my husband and corrected the mistakes I heard. When I knew the words, paragraphs and scenes in my head so well I peered at the page without actually reading them, I edited the manuscript from the end to the beginning. Going backward made me see what I had written as if I were reading it for the first time. Lastly, I asked my husband and my daughter to proof the book and tell me about anything that seemed unclear or awkward to them.
After I made the corrections they suggested, I realized I only knew of publishers who accepted manuscripts through agents, and I didn’t have one. However, after two years of work I was ready to market my book, so I searched the web for a publisher. Sure enough, I found Awe-Struck, an E-publisher having a contest for a short, inspirational romance. I didn’t think I’d win, and I knew beyond a doubt that I was a computer klutz. But, I had nothing to lose by entering, and I easily could learn about cyber space if I were to win, couldn’t I? I did win and began my E-journey, which is another story.
But, I will say that I had a fantastic editor at Awe-Struck E-Publishers. Between the features I had written as an employed writer and the freelance articles I had sold, I had published around two hundred articles and had worked with numerous editors who had been helpful. I concluded that working with a good editor who knows the market was a plus. After meeting so many good authors online I also realized that every story had its own unique voice, depending on who was telling it. That made the struggle worthwhile for each of us.
