Inspiration: Adrenaline

The Thursday's Children blog hop is a chance for authors to write about what inspires them. Thanks again to Rhiann Wynn-Nolet and Kristina Perez for hosting.

     I've been averaging about six hours of sleep all week. Some of you might be used to that schedule. I'm not. But that's ok, because I don't feel tired at all. In fact, I've been in a pretty close state to permanent caffeination, just without the coffee. 

     You might know the feeling. Some blame it on their muse. Some call it a writer's high. To me, it's similar to the feeling I had when I was first falling in love with my husband-to-be and I was so enraptured I didn't need to sleep and actually forgot to eat. (If you know me, you know that latter point's a big deal.)

     I've had so many ideas swimming around in my head since I finished JuNoWriMo last month (hence the six hours of sleep every night). But it's all so exciting! Just a few days ago, I settled on the name for my next novel. I've gotten in touch with an amazing artist I'm hoping will make my book trailer and am looking into starting a Kickstart campaign. I've spent hours on Shutterstock browsing for the perfect cover photo (haven't found it yet). It's been a long time since I've been this excited about a project.

     If I had one wish, it would be that I would never grow jaded as an author. It'd be that I could approach every single novel with this same degree of anticipation and joy. I feel like one of the most blessed woman on the planet right now.

     And that's a truly inspirational feeling.

Random Fact: The one all-nighter I pulled in college wasn't for schoolwork, it was for the school paper. Another editor backed out about seven hours before the paper was due at the printers, so I jumped in and got it rolled out.

WIPpet Wednesday: Christening Book 2

     I'm so glad it's Wednesday. Know why? Because you WIPpeters are some of my all-time favorite
online buddies, and I've been waiting all week to share some great news with you! Ok, maybe I shouldn't call it news. Developments is a better choice. Here's some new developments.

     I'm working on my followup novel to The Beloved Daughter. But most of you know that already. What you DON'T know ... is that IT HAS A NAME!! My next novel will be called Not Alone. I have such high visions and hopes for the book and for what's to come after it's printed. In fact, as we speak I'm in the planning stages of starting a small Kickstart campaign in August so people can preorder copies (yes, I'm even doing international shipping because I love my WIPpet friends so much!).

     Anyway, in addition to working on some of my pre-pub promo for Not Alone (the baby has a NAME everybody!), I've been working on something else really fun called The Beloved Daughter: Bonus Materials. See, after I ran my Amazon free promotional period for The Beloved Daughter, a lot of people read it and then downloaded my special-needs memoir, A Boy Named Silas. The blaring message these readers were sending me was, "We don't just want to read your novels. We want to know about you, too." Who wouldn't be flattered by that?

     So I started working on a Bonus Materials ebook. Just picture a DVD. If The Beloved Daughter was the movie, this new ebook would be the bonus disc. So far I have character studies on each of the characters, outtakes (scenes I took out, with author commentary), sneak peaks (the first chapter of Not Alone, the NOW-NAMED followup to The Beloved Daughter), and my favorite part - Becoming Beloved: A Mini Memoir. In this section, I talk about my experiences writing The Beloved Daughter through to my post-publication depression last spring. I hope to show my readers that even though I write really heavy fiction, I also have what might pass in some spheres as a sense of humor. (Who would have thought, given what I write about, right?)

     So... after that long introduction, today's WIP is from my all-time favorite chapter in The Beloved Daughter: Bonus Materials. It's in the mini memoir section, and the chapter is called... well, we'll get to that in a minute.

***

     During the first month of its publication, The Beloved Daughter got only five-star reviews on amazon. You can imagine what it did to my ego reading phrases like riveting and heart-wrenching, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED (in all caps for emphasis), page turner, and couldn’t put it down.

     I’d check my review page every hour (although my husband might argue it was more often than that), and whenever a new review popped up I’d make some kind of meek comment like, “Got another five-star today.” I even remember at one point thinking something along the lines of, Wow, I didn’t know my novel was that good. 

     Can you tell I needed some humbling?

     My first four-star review came a month after The Beloved Daughter was published. I should have been ready for it. But I wasn’t.

***

     Ok, so the chapter this WIPpet appears in is called "Reviewers’ Curse (or The Day My Best Friend Only Gave Me Four Stars)." So my chapter title (and subtitle) plus the nine sentences above, make a total of ten - perfect for a WIPpet post on July 10th!

     Anyway, you'll have to read the Bonus Materials when it comes out to hear the outcome of this fateful day, but I'll give enough of a spoiler to let you know that my former best friend remains my current best friend, and that I no longer stalk my amazon review page.

     (Very often.)

***

Blog Love: Thanks to K. L. Schwengel from My Random Muse for the WIPpet fun.

Random Fact: My very favorite bonus features from a movie is the deleted scenes from Rat Race.

Straw Poll: Like I mentioned, I'm getting kickstart campaign ready in preparation for Not Alone's release. Could you anonymously click on what you're most likely to do once that campaign is up and running? (No commitments, I'm just wanting a general feel to help me gauge where to set my fundraising goal.)

When Alana starts here kickstart campaign for "Not Alone," I'd be most likely to:
	1. Pay $5 in exchange for the ebook when it's released.
	2. Pay $20 in exchange for the paperback when it's released (USA).
	3. Pay $35 in exchange for the paperback when it's released (non-USA).
	4. Pay even more because I'm filthy rich and would love to support Alana's writing.
	5. Wait until the book is released and think about buying it then (no hard feelings).
pollcode.com free polls

The Bible (Submissive Women Version)

     I recently got involved with the Book Club network, which is a social network gathering site for

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Christians (think Goodreads for inspirational lit). On one of the discussions, an author mentioned how her editor had her take out a fight between a husband and wife because the wife wasn't being very submissive to her husband.

     After thanking God that he led me down the self-publishing path for my Christian suspense novels, I had to chuckle. If I read a novel where a woman refuses to fight with her husband, that's probably not going to encourage me to be more respectful to him. It's more likely to tempt me to throw the book against the wall, or at least roll my eyes at the goody two-shoes wife who can't find it in her heart to be so unsubmissive as to argue with the Head of the Home.

     And then I started thinking even more. What if a well-meaning editor got her hands on the Bible and took out all the cases of women acting unbecomingly to keep the rest of us sinners from walking down the same path?

     Well, first of all, Rachel and Leah would have been best friends, in spite of the fact that they were both married to the same man who only loved one of them. They would have remembered that God is a God of love and harmony, and that in and of itself would have given them good cause to get along just great and share their husband with perfect equality. Because otherwise women today might read about Rachel and Leah's petty fights and find themselves tempted to be jealous of their own sisters in Christ, and we know what a mess would come from that.

     We also don't want to teach women readers that prostitution is an appropriate lifestyle choice. We better make Tamar a shepherdess like the rest of those matriarchs, and we should change Rahab to something a lot more acceptable. Maybe a fabric dyer? And we wouldn't want to mention the fact that Samson spent the night with a harlot, so we better change his all-night consort. Maybe he was with a midwife? Midwives would have been up at all hours. Maybe she needed a strong hand one night and asked the strong Israelite to help her.

     What else? We all know that we Christian housewives need all the help we can get when it comes to submitting to our husbands. So we better change Abigail's actions, so that instead of saving her entire household from King David's wrath in direct disobedience to her husband, she should have just taken her death like a mouse instead of serving the future king of Israel.

     Oh, and what about Ruth? I mean, Ruth is pretty perfect when you put her on the scale of feminine righteousness. But then there's that whole scene where she spends the night at the feet of an inebriated, single, hunky, potential husband-elect. Now, we know that Ruth's purity was never questioned. But what kind of message would Ruth's brazen behavior give to poor impressionable teen girls? That they can spend the night cuddling with their love interest as long as nothing "improper" occurs? Nope, we'll have to cut that scene completely. Same thing with the ancient King David and his little snuggle bunny Abishag.


     With all the different kinds of Bibles in print today, I wouldn't be too surprised if an edited version like this could finds its way onto the bookshelves. Which only leaves me to wonder... who would really want to read it?

Blog Love: Not only is it part of my regular humor column for Christian Home Magazine, it's also part of Regi McClain's new Music and Mirth Monday linkup!

Random Fact: I was named after Anna, the character in Luke who blessed baby Jesus when she saw him in the temple.

Book Fun: Check out my friend Pauline's blog, where she's giving away 4 Christian ebooks, including The Beloved Daughter!

Inspiration: Freedom

     Happy Fourth of July. It's Independence Day here in the US, and we've got a busy day of picnics, parades, games, and fireworks planned. And since Independence day this year coincides with the Thursday's Children linkup, I want to take a minute to say how thankful I am for the freedom I enjoy in the good old US of A.

     Do I agree with every single decision my country has made? Nope. Would I ever want to be in charge of making these decisions myself? Not a chance.

     Lots of people today lament the direction our country appears to be heading. But do you know what? The United States is still a great place to live. We have top notch doctors who saved my son's life after his traumatic birth experience. My family and I have a roof over our head, meaningful employment, and the freedom to educate our sons at home (or at the library, museum, park, or zoo as the case may be on any particular day).

     I can go to church on Sunday, or any other day of the week, and never once has our service been interrupted by uniformed policemen or angry mobs. My kids and I can pray over our McDonald's ice cream cones and nobody's going to arrest us.

     Unfortunately, people around the globe are suffering horrendous human rights abuses. Religious freedom is thrown out the window to government-sponsored intolerance. Every day pastors and laymen and women are throw in jail just for speaking out about what they believe.

     Today, I am inspired by freedom. And I'm writing about it too. My novels are inspired by the true stories of courageous believers who risk their lives just to meet with other believers or own a Bible.

     Their stories might not get told in their respective countries. I'm going to make sure they get told in mine.

Book Love: Check out The Beloved Daughter, my debut novel highlighting religious persecution and human rights abuses in North Korea.

Blog Love: The Thursday's Children blog hop is a chance for authors to write about what inspires them. Thanks again to Rhiann Wynn-Nolet and Kristina Perez for hosting.

Random Fact: My ideal Fourth of July celebration would include a cross-country trip to Massachusetts to hear the Boston Pops concert live.

WIPpet Wednesday: "Just Too Scared"

     Happy July, everybody! Which means I'm done with my crazy month of JuNoWriMo and will hopefully be blogging a lot more. And it's almost Fourth of July, so happy Independence Day to all my US friends reading this! 

     I haven't started editing JuNoWriMo Draft 1 yet. My mind - and wrists - kind of need a break. So for now, in honor of the first week in July, here are seven sentences that didn't make the first cut into the manuscript. Hannah is a young woman who escaped North Korea and then was trained by an American couple to return there as an underground missionary.

***

            Would she have decided to back into North Korea on her own? Probably not. Hannah felt like she owed it to the Sterns. They wanted her to do it, and Hannah agreed. Since she was the only female graduate, Hannah was hailed as the brave one. As the Yalu River came in sight, Hannah wondered if it wasn’t the other way around.

            Maybe she had just been too scared to say no to the Sterns.

***

NEWS UPDATE: The Beloved Daughter placed first in the Book Club Network's book of the month contest! Thanks to everyone for their votes! I'm really floored. Tweet the good news!

Blog Love: Thanks to K. L. Schwengel from My Random Muse for the WIPpet fun. And thanks to fellow WIPpeter Raewyn Hewitt for the interview about The Beloved Daughter!

Random Fact: There have only been four years of my life in which I have not lived under the same roof as a Trekkie. And what glorious years those were...

TMI on the Fourth of July

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      It's July! Which means my month of un-blogging has officially come to an end. It was a great month writing my next novel, and if you want to know when it's ready to read, please sign up for my newsletter!

     But enough about me! Today I'm talking about somebody else. A friend I knew way back when Phillip and I were so newlywed I could still fall into the "blushing bride" category.

     I first met "Sally" when we moved several states away so Phillip could take on the youth pastor position at her husband's church. Sally wasn't your typical pastor's wife, either. She had a penchant for speaking whatever was on her mind, and she expected everyone around her to do the same. Not a bad quality, mind you, but my newly-married sensitivities weren't quite ready for Sally when we first met.

     Sally and her husband were only a few years older than Phillip and I. Our first official outing together was to see the fireworks on the Fourth of July a few towns over. We all rode together in their huge minivan, which gave us a great chance to get to know each other. Maybe a little too much of a chance, actually.

     Phillip and I were married in a very informal, boisterous church. I had already received my fair share of post-honeymoon jokes our first Sunday back as a newly-married couple. I thought I had gotten through the worst of it. That was before I met Sally.

     I have no idea how we got on the topic, but Sally started talking about adjusting to married life. She mentioned how hard it was for her and her husband to learn to sleep together (in the literal sense, not the Biblical one). "He's just so hot! He makes our bed like an oven." And then Sally turned and looked me square in the eyes and asked in total earnestness, "So is Phillip hot in bed?"

     I knew exactly what she was asking. I knew her question had very little to do with my month-old sex life. But my blushing alone probably upped the temperature in the minivan by a good two or three degrees.

     Nine years of marriage and three kids later, I'm not so thrown off by intrusive questions. In fact, one year I'll probably look Sally up and answer the question I was too embarrassed to so many years ago.

     Yes, Sally. Phillip is very hot in bed.

Blog Love: This post is participating in two different events. (Yes, I'm moving up in the blogosphere!) Not only is it part of my regular humor column for Christian Home Magazine, it's also part of Regi McClain's new Music and Mirth Monday linkup!

Random Fact: During our first year of marriage, temperatures got so high in May that the blinds to our bedroom window melted.

I Love Indie Books Blog Hop Giveaway

Now open for entries! Win a $20 gift card.

It's been an exciting week! My inspiration novel, The Beloved Daughter, set in North Korea topped off at #5 in Christian suspense on amazon's bestseller list. That's a good reason to celebrate if I can think of any! And what better way to celebrate than a giveaway? First prize gets a $20 Bath and Body Works Gift Card. Second prize gets a free paperback copy of my debut novel (or a free e-version if you live outside the US). Just sign up below to enter. Then be sure to check out all the other blogs listed below. We're all giving away great prizes!

Amazon bestseller: #5 Christian suspense

And while you're at it, check out The Beloved Daughter ebook here if you're interested in award-winning Christian suspense right at your fingertips.


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Check out other great prizes from these other blogs!