Another Writing Blog Hop

Ok, so Megan Whitson Lee tagged me in a blog hop – thanks Megan! So here we go, four questions and three tags (though I may not actually do the tags. I struggle with tagging people who haven’t already done this.)

What am I working on/writing?

This is kind of fun to answer – I should be working on Love Defined, the third installment in the Remnants trilogy. But I hit a little wall in the plot and so, to try and clear my head, I started a new novella. It’s SO nice to be back in straight-up Romance Land. It’s set in Ireland (contemporary). The heroine, Rachel, is looking for a place to put down roots, but the hero, Colin, is shaking off roots and embracing a footloose and fancy-free lifestyle. We’ll see how they  manage to work through that as things progress. But so far, the sparks are flying.

How does my work differ from others in its genre?

Well–if you’ve read here long, you know I’m a big believer in characters who are real. Messy Christians, like you and like me, who sin, repent, and do what we can to be the person God wants us to be but have to struggle for every step forward. I know this isn’t always popular in the CBA world, but I’m okay with that. I write the kind of Christian fiction I used to scour the shelves looking for – books that had the same real feel that secular novels have, without all the sex, violence, and excessive profanity (true profanity, e.g. taking the Lord’s name in vain).

Why do I write what I do?

I touched on that above. But I also feel it’s so important that there be fiction out there that helps Christians who are struggling with the fact that being a Christian is hard, it’s not always pretty, and that doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong. It just means that you have to have faith and that it’s okay to struggle with that.

How does my writing process work?

I get a vague idea of a plot, usually in the middle of the night, honestly. Then I sit down and start writing and see where it goes. Generally after the first few chapters I have a better idea of where the next few chapters are going to lead and I follow where the characters take me. Sometimes they throw in twists and turns — but most of the time, that’s for the better. It’s a wild ride.

So I’m tagging Laura Jackson and Mary Hamilton.