Paint Yourself Into a Book With Special Guest Leeann Betts

Today we sit down with author and storyteller Leeann Betts as she brings us inside her house and writing projects. Welcome, Leeann! Take it away.

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Living in an old house provides lots of opportunity for devising plots, particularly when the task at hand is painting a room. As I slathered yet another coat of paint over the neon blue bedroom walls, I got to thinking about how painting and writing require similar processes.

Here is mine:

1. When painting a room, the first step is to visualize what color you want on the walls: choose the genre, then the characters and setting. If your book is a romance, you want to choose your hero and heroine and an antagonist who will try to keep them apart. For a mystery, you will choose the problem, who did it, and then create a sleuth to find the solution. Setting includes the time period as well as geographical location. Understand your characters’ goal, motivation, and conflict, and make the goal worthy of the journey.
2. The next step in painting a room is repairing the defects: come up with a plot line. Most often, you’ll find that the first thing you think of for a plot will be the easy point. To create a compelling story, you must think beyond that first idea, and ask more “And then what?” questions.  Fill in the holes in the plot. Don’t let your hero off the hook too easily.
3. Unless you want your entire room the same color, you’ll likely tape off areas: In writing, your outline, synopsis, and elevator pitch will keep you on track. For seat-of-the-pants writers, you don’t have to write a ten-page outline. Even an elevator pitch, fifty words or less, can keep you on track. And for those who love to outline, the joy still emerges when a character says or does something you weren’t expecting.
4. Finally, after all the preparation, now paint: Writing requires tools. Included in your toolkit will be something to write on; a notepad and pen; a space where you can write; some software, and patience. Set daily or weekly goals for your writing. Occasionally read over what you wrote the previous day and make a few changes. Keep your outline in front of you to keep you on track. Review your characters’ GMC to make sure your character is changing and moving toward their goals.

Sometimes I fool myself into thinking I can paint a room in a couple of hours, forgetting all the preparation and clean-up to make the job truly complete. Just as painting a room doesn’t begin and end with a single brush stroke, writing a book takes a lot of preparation, process, and finish. But it can be done. I am living proof of that. I’ve painted many rooms and written a number of books. You can too!

Readers, leave Leeann a comment to get your name in the drawing for this week's giveaway of a book by Crystal Barnes!

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Leeann Betts writes contemporary suspense, while her real-life persona, Donna Schlachter, pens historical suspense. She has released five titles in her cozy mystery series, By the Numbers, with Hidden Assets released the end of June. In addition, Leeann has written a devotional for accountants, bookkeepers, and financial folk, Counting the Days, and with her real-life persona, Donna Schlachter, has published a book on writing, Nuggets of Writing Gold, a compilation of essays, articles, and exercises on the craft. She publishes a free quarterly newsletter that includes a book review and articles on writing and books of interest to readers and writers. You can subscribe at www.LeeannBetts.com or follow Leeann at www.AllBettsAreOff.wordpress.com All books are available on Amazon.com in digital and print, and at Smashwords.com in digital format.

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A Writer's Resolution

Elaine here, hoping everyone had a wonderful Christmas. Are you ready for 2017?

Like everyone else, I’ve resolved to be better during the New Year. Eat healither. Exercise more. Stop a bad habit. One thing I’ve learned from past failures is how important it is to have someone hold me accountable. Other than God, of course, because we’re always accountable to God.

Since I lost my dear husband this year, I don’t have him to hold me accountable. So for my writing resolution, I’m asking you, our STT readers and writers to hold me accountable.

My writing resolution for 2017 is to publish a new series of three books I’ve been working on for years. These books began before I started writing Christian fiction. They were standalone secular stories, and Harlequin was interested in one of them, but I couldn’t bring myself to agree with their terms. It isn’t because they were erotic. They were clean romance, but missed the mark of what I wanted to say.

For years these stories simmered on the back burner as I waited for the Lord’s direction. I revised, adding some sermonizing, but preaching isn’t my gift, and my characters didn’t sound authenic. Most of my inspirational themes come across as witnessing. Christian characters overcoming the world’s difficulties through their faith. I revised again, but that didn’t work either.

Then I realized these stories were more like parables, circumstances everyone can relate to, but with an overreaching theme that teaches a moral. I don’t know why I’d never noticed it before, but every one of these plots had the same theme—people deceived by the wolf in sheep’s clothing.

The obvious title of my series became The Wolf Deceivers. Though the villain in each book is known by the POV character and the reader, the people are deceived. In the first book, set in Scotland in the 1770s, the clan is deceived, and the chieftain must fight the villain to save his people. In the second book, set in Regency England, the London aristocracy is deceived, and the heroine must fight the villain to regain her reputation. In the third book, set in the post Civil War South, the ex-Confederates are deceived, and the hero must fight the villain to achieve peace.

I’m amazed at how easy the edits are now with this new perception, and I take that as my green light from God that I’m on the right track. I might even be able to promote these books to the secular audience. After all, Jesus used parables to speak to those who didn’t have the spiritual perception to see or hear.

At any rate, now that I’ve shared my resolution, I’ll be more likely to carry through, and it will be a lot easier than sticking with my diet.

Thank you for being my witnesses, and since I’ll need comparable books about wolves in sheep’s clothing, if you’ve read a book with such a villain, please mention it in your comments. The first book I remember reading with this type premise is Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier, but I'm sure there are many more in both Christian and secular genres.   

Do you like audiobooks? Comment on any post through Dec 31 to get your name in the drawing for Stephenia McGee's audiobook version of Leveraging Lincoln.

Created Creative and Lovin' It!

Happy, Blessed, Favor-filled Wednesday, y'all! Caryl McAdoo here, and I'm so glad to be with you today on Stitches Thru Time! "Woven Wednesdays" are to share crafts (or recipes). And I do love trying new recipes. I saw one that looked so good and easy the other day on Facebook, that I went and got ingredients for it today, so I'll have to let you know how it goes! 

1-2 tsp melted butter in each cup of a cupcake pan, then a Tbsp brown sugar, then place a maraschino cherry in the center. Drain a can of crushed pineapple (retain juice) then put a heaping Tbsp crushed pineapple into each cup on top the butter/brown sugar/cherry :) 

Make a yellow (or pineapple cake) batter up  according to box instructions except replace water with the drained pineapple juice - adding a little water if needed to get to required amount of liquid for the cake. Then pour batter over the rest to fill each cup. Bake in pre-heated 350 degree oven 30-35 minutes until golden brown and toothpick comes out clean. Cool 5-10 minutes. Place cookie sheet on top the muffin pan and invert! Serve warm...

Doesn't that sound SO EASY? 

One lady said some people like to use pineapple tidbits because they look like a flower, but her family preferred the crushed by far. Another lady said spray every cup first, too. But that isn't what I'm writing about :) Don't you just love it that every single person has a desire to create inside them? It's because we're made in His image, and He is a Creator! The Master Creator!

One creative outlet He's given me is singing new songs. He gives them to me, and I love to sing them. I'm reminded of a part in one called "Angels Unaware", a part of the chorus goes:  "He can count the stars! He hung Jupiter and Mars! He made every bird and butterfly as different as you and I." I'd love to sing it to you if only I knew how to attach a song URL!

At our River Bottom Ranch in Grand Prairie, TX

But we all love to create, make things, from scrapbookers to painters and recipes to quilts! My husband likes to build barns. He's on his fifth now! Here's one of his firsts built when we inherited TWELVE quarter horses from his dad. PawPaw bought on Mare, Lady Bingo, then "created a herd". 

My horseshoe, saw blade, creation

And here's something I did with some of Ron's old junk to decorate one of the outside walls of barn two :) That's my shadow :) And my son takes all sorts of old furniture and stuff--a lot he picks up free on people's curbs. He saws, sands, paints, hammers and repurposes it into something brand new he sells for buckage! There's TV shows of men who do this for a living! And I love watching them.

And guess what else I like to create! Stories! I've always loved the written word and God led me to an awesome writers' workshop where I was mentored and learned the craft of creative writing. I just released my 19th title this month! Story & Style, The Craft of Writing Creative Fiction. I pray it will help many many aspiring authors and also, multi-published authors!

What qualifies me to write a teaching book? Thirty years writing for publication and fifteen years editing manuscripts professionally...and I did mention nineteen titles. I'm currently writing three series: two romance - historical and contemporary and a Biblical fiction. So this is another way I enjoy creating.

We ALL do! Even people who say they don't have a creative bone in their body. They excel at wrapping the most beautiful gift packages you ever saw, or maybe their garden is their outlet. The expressions of creativity are as numerous as the stars in the sky! BTW, if you're a city dweller, you owe it to yourself to drive to the country and check out the night sky!

So what do you like to do to when your creative juices are flowing? Inquiring minds want to know :)   
If you write, or know someone who does or wants to, I'd love to draw a name from among the commentors to this post and bless her or him with a copy of my new book!  

AND check out the Stitches Thru Time Giveaway going on this week! A COMPLETE Declaration of Independence Anthology by Amber Schamel, Murray Pura, Joseph Lewis, and John Amadeo. So your ONE COMMENT gets you in both drawings! 

More blessings to your and yours! Come back and see us :)