Lapping the Couch by Guest Blogger Cindy Ervin Huff

I want to introduce you to Cindy and hope you find her post as inspiring as I have. Be sure to watch for her debut novel Secrets and Charades coming out March, 2017. We're planning to have her visit with an interview closer to her book release date!
Enjoy!


Lapping the Couch to Meet Writing Goals

By Cindy Ervin Huff  ”

"No matter how slow you go, you're still lapping everyone sitting on the couch."
--Diane Flegal, Hartline Literary Agent

I found this quote in a recent blog post by Diane Flegal. It resonates with me. I am often comparing myself to

those who publish gobs of stuff throughout the year and those who are making the big bucks for their novels. I sit on my couch and vegetate, setting my mental goals to reach their awesome writing heights. Then I whine and complain when I’m still miles from that goal with each passing year.

Turn around and see how far you’ve come.
But when I turn around I see I’ve come miles from where I was ten years ago. Even with bumps and potholes that have derailed me for seasons of time, I am still on the path to the finish line of being a multi-published author.

Each year I grow my blog, publish a few more articles or short stories. And I write more than I ever bother to submit. Last year I wrote my second novel. This year my debut novel is heading toward publication. Look for my historical Secrets and Charades in March 2017. This year I am writing a sequel amid meeting publisher’s deadlines for marketing prep for S & C and editing my contemporary novel. I still have high goals. My to-do-list gets way too long and life events take precedence over some of those writing goals. And I still beat myself up for not doing more.

Miles ahead of the moaners
Over the years I’ve met people who want to write a book. They moan about the if-onlys and the some-days. And you know what? I am miles ahead of them. Rather than complain about the moments I don’t have, I grab the ones I do to write. I am on course even if the wind dies down and I am dead in the water due to unavoidable life dramas. And with aging parents there is a lot of drama. Makes couch sitting more inviting.
However, I’m in the water heading toward the island of multi-published authors. Who knows, if I keep pressing forward I might become a best-selling author or even an author who is being read hundreds of years after my death. (sweet!)

Look at your own files. It matters not if they are published pieces. How is your journey? Are you lapping the couch in your writing goals? What projects could you finish staying away from naysayers? How about not comparing yourself to others? Are you grabbing moments to write? Is the path to your computer worn more than the path to your couch?

As for me and my writing
If I sit down with the moaners and naysayers who quit when stuff gets hard, I’ll never get one fraction of an inch closer to the finish line than I am today. I battle my urges to be a couch potato when it comes to achieving my writing goals, sometimes the couch wins out and I binge watch something on TV. Then I rally and grab my PC. I will not watch others pass me and wallow in jealousy. No, I’m lapping the couch and it feels pretty good.

ABOUT CINDY:
Cindy Huff is a multi-published freelance writer and president of the Aurora Illinois chapter of Word Weavers who loves to bring her imaginary characters to life. Her debut novel, Secrets and Charades will be available March 2017. When she is not writing articles, editing posts or talking with her imaginary friends, she cares for her aging parents, helps with her grandchildren and binge reads.  Her main goal and passion is to encourage other writers in their journey and believers as they grow in faith. Check out her blog Writer's Patchwork at https://jubileewriter.wordpress.com/author/jubileewriter/


Connect with her:
www.facebook.com/cindyehuff
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CindyErvinHuff
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/8029703-cindy-huff


Contact her for guest blogs or speaking engagements at
cindyshuff@comcast.net


Thanks for joining us, Cindy.
Blessings, Readers!

A Warm Welcome to Debut Author Amy C. Blake!!

I'm excited to welcome a new young author to my blog today! 

1.      Readers love to know about writers, so tell us a little about yourself, family, dogs, cats etc.

I’m a pastor’s wife and homeschooling mother of four from Columbus, Ohio, and we have a spoiled, 11-year-old English Springer Spaniel named Chrisgo. 

I earned my BA and MA in English from Mississippi College, the place on which Verity College in Whitewashed is loosely based. 

My husband and I met at Mississippi College and argued against each other in Argumentation class. We still debate about who won the argument because the teacher voted for him while the class voted for me (which, of course, means I won).

2.      What are some of your favorite activities?

I love to read suspense and YA fantasy, along with other genres. I enjoy playing games like Spades, Rook, Euchre, and Dutch Blitz with family and friends. I also like cuddling on the couch with my kids watching good movies.

3.      What made you want to be a writer?

I’ve always loved to read, though for years I never had enough self-confidence to believe I could become a published author myself. Eventually, I took a couple of writing courses, attended writers’ conferences, and decided to give writing a try. I started with short stories, articles, and devotionals and was encouraged when some were published. Then I moved on to books. My first novels were pretty bad, but they helped me learn how to write. Now I’m glad I stuck with it through the discouraging seasons.

4.      If you could do anything that you are not doing now, what would it be?

Right now, I’d love to be sitting on Poppa and Grand’s porch in Mississippi soaking up some sunshine. These Ohio winters are too cold!

5. What age range is it for? And with female protagonists, I'm guessing it's mainly for girls, or is it for both genders?

Whitewashed is primarily for girls, especially those in the older teen/younger twenties range who are transitioning into adulthood. However, I've had a few male readers tell me they enjoyed the book, and many women all the way into their senior adult years tell me they couldn't put it down.

6. What’s the novel’s theme? Or what do you want readers to take away when they’re done?                                                                                                                                   Whitewashed has several themes interwoven into the plot, but I'll just tell you about one. Patience is a real stickler for truth, so much so she sometimes can't see people. She's even been known to scream truth in the faces of people she loves, and in so doing caused much more harm than good. I want the reader to learn, along with Patience, that truth and mercy go hand-in-hand. Just as God is a God of truth who is merciful to His children, we should be people of truth who also show mercy to others.

7. Whitewashed is book 1 in the On the Brink series. The other stories feature Patience's sisters, correct?                                                                                                          Actually the other two On the Brink books feature Patience's two best friends, Nat and Christy, who are also homeschooled. Christy's story is set in Buckeye Lake, Ohio, and ties into the 1920s when Buckeye Lake--with its amusement parks and nationally-known ballrooms--drew huge crowds. Nat's story is still in the works, though I'm pretty sure it'll be set in Washington DC.

Connect with Amy here: 

http://amycblake.com/

Amy C. Blake Facebook author page

Amy C. Blake Twitter page

BOOK BLURB:

Eighteen-year-old Patience McDonough has a plan. Despite her parents’ objections, she will attend Verity College in Hades, Mississippi, and live with her grandparents. She’ll complete her degree in record time and go on to become a doctor. 

But things at the college are strangely neglected, her class work is unexpectedly hard, Grand gets called out-of-town, and Poppa starts acting weird—so weird she suspects he has Alzheimer’s. On top of that, she has to work extra hours at her student job inputting financial data for the college—boring! 

Soon her job gets more interesting than she’d like: she finds that millions of dollars are unaccounted for and that something creepy is going on in the Big House basement. She discovers secrets tying her family into the dark beginnings of Verity, founded on a slave plantation, and she is forced to question the characters of people she has always trusted. Finally, confronted with a psychotic killer, Patience has to face facts—her plans are not necessarily God’s plans. Will the truth set her free?

Buy links for Whitewashed:

paperback copy on Amazon

Kindle edition on Amazon

paperback copy on Mantle Rock Publishing

Thanks for joining me here today, Amy!

Blessings!

A Warm Welcome to Debut Author Sharyn Kopf

Welcome to Sharyn Kopf, a fellow-writer from here in Ohio, and a friend. Her debut novel is releasing late this month. I asked her to share a bit about her writing journey to publication. Read on . . .

A New Dream
I stood in my friend’s kitchen, watching her stir spaghetti sauce, trying not to cry. The man I’d fallen for wasn’t interested. It was over and my singleness stretched before me like a desert highway.

The first time I met him, I stumbled into a crush like a high schooler. We sat in a circle on a carpeted basement floor with about 20 other singles, playing Catch Phrase, and he made me laugh. And if there’s one thing I find irresistible, it’s a man with a sense of humor and a spark in his eyes that tells me there’s more where that came from.

Over the next few years we became friends and, for a moment, I thought we were moving toward something more. We flirted like teenagers, laughed at inside jokes, winked and smiled at each other, and I touched his arm every chance I got.

Then, just like that, it was over. He wasn’t into me and I was trapped in the emptiness.

“Why?” I asked my friend. “Why can’t I move past this?”

She tilted her head, studying me, as if she wasn’t sure how much I could handle. “You’re grieving something you’ve lost, Sharyn. It’s OK to be sad.”

Isn’t it funny how one moment can change how you look at your life? Well, maybe not ha-ha funny but making-sense-of-the-ridiculous funny. In that one comment, I realized I wasn’t just grieving the end of a relationship I now know never would have worked out, I was grieving the loss of my dreams for marriage and a family of my own.

A few years later, another dream ended—or was, at least, postponed—when I put aside the romance novel I was working on and started a nonfiction book about grieving singleness after 40. Though I fought the nudge to write about what could best be described as my deepest wound, I couldn’t ignore the feeling that not only was this what God had wanted me to write about all along, but that it might be why I’m single in the first place.

So, I started chronicling the pain, slogging my way back toward hope. Words turned into pages that turned into chapters and, eventually, a book was born. It was, I’ve told anyone who asks, cathartic.

After years of working on this manuscript, though, I felt completely wrung dry. The most vulnerable writing of my life and it wasn’t going anywhere. I had to put it aside . . . until the day I took the concept and turned it into a novel, which I submitted to the One Hope Contest with Write Integrity Press.

And won. The prize was a writing contract. When my editor learned the book had started out as nonfiction, she asked to read the proposal, then decided to publish that one too.

Both books—Spinstered: the Novel and Spinstered: Surviving Singleness After 40—will now release through WIP’s sister imprint, Pix-N-Pens Publishing, at the end of the month.

I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was five years old. My dream of publication always involved writing romance . . . until God brushed that dream aside and gave me a new one.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t write a melt-your-heart kissing scene when the situation calls for it.


Sharyn says:
In January this year, I started a new blog with four other writers specifically for single women over 40. If you want to know more about this single journey—and find out when my books will be available—please visit me there at www.girlsnightin40.com.



BIO:
Sharyn Kopf knew she wanted to be a writer the moment she wrote her first poem at the age of five. She still considers it one of her best works.

After college, she made good use of her degree in communications by writing for newspaper, radio, TV, marketing and public relations. Most recently, Sharyn has made her living as a freelance writer and editor. Her work included co-authoring/editing Coping with Traumatic Brain Injury: One Woman’s Journey from Death to Life (published by BookJolt, 2012).

Then in February 2013 Sharyn won the Write Integrity Press One Hope Contest in fiction. Her first novel, Spinstered, will be published by Pix-N-Pens Publishing this month, alongside a nonfiction version titled Spinstered: Surviving Singleness After 40.

In her spare time, Sharyn plays the piano, makes the best fudge ever, rages against unnecessary uses of the Oxford comma and watches too much HGTV. She lives in Bellefontaine, Ohio, where she moved in 2013 for the sole reason of being close to her family.

Connect with Sharyn here:
Facebook: www.facebook.com/sharyn.kopf
Blog: girlsnightin40.com
Business Website: www.route1manuscripts.com



BOOK BLURB for Spinstered: The Novel

Three friends. Three stories. Three women trying to figure out how they ended up over forty and still single. 

Committed to her job and pushing fifty, Catie Delaney has almost given up on her dream of love and marriage. Maybe, she tells herself, she’d be happier just embracing her singleness. Maybe that's been God’s will all along.

 For social worker Jolene Woods, on the other hand, being on her own gives her time to pursue her passion—running a halfway house for women just out of prison. The only pothole is her best friend, Trevor, who has silly ideas about them being more than friends.

Then there’s Uli Odell, a graphic designer who’s only a month away from hitting forty. If only she can convince her boyfriend, Cole, to stop messing around and commit already. Desperate not to be a spinster, she guilt-steps her way from one dumb choice to another.

Into this mix of feminine angst walks Brian Kemper -- the latest GWP (Guy With Potential) to join their church’s singles group. But just as something seems about to happen between him and Catie, her world falls apart.

While Catie deals with her unexpected pain, Jolene and Uli face their own struggles. 

Three friends. Three stories. Three women looking for hope.


Blessings!