Thanks for joining me for the Beat the Heat Blog Hop. I have been invited to join a blog hop with several other writers by my friend, the lovely Barbara Brink. With temperatures rising into the 90s this week and little desire to spend time outside in the heat, I thought this would be a great time to do some hopping. If you haven’t read any of Barbara’s books yet, I recommend the Frederickson Winery series. I flew through all three books and enjoyed getting to know the characters.
Visit Barbara at her blog
So what questions did Barbara have for me? Read on to find out.
What am I working on now?
The past two months have been spent formatting and preparing a marketing strategy for my newest book, Jessie, which will be available on July 20. Jessie is my first foray into historical fiction and I greatly enjoyed all of the research I did to prepare for this book. This story follows the Cole family after being displaced from their home on Merritt Island, Florida to make way for the growing United States space program. The youngest of four boys, Jessie dreams of becoming an astronaut but must adjust to a new life in town and come to grips with some family turmoil before he can have any chance of pursuing his dream.
Now that everything is close to be finalized with this book, I have also started research for my next story in the Seasons of Faith series. It’s exciting to get back to these characters and see where they are going next.
How does my work differ from others?
I write very character driven stories. Many readers have told me they feel like they’ve made new friends when they finish reading one of my books. The plot is obviously still important, but I want to provide characters that the readers can relate to and, to hear they are considered friends at the end of a book is the highest compliment I can receive.
Why do I write what I write?
I write inspirational fiction because I’ve gone through dark times in my life and lost sight of hope. It was through God’s continuous love that I came out of that darkness and found my heart yearning to share that love with others. Christians aren’t perfect, we are still flawed and broken, but through Jesus Christ we have hope. I want everyone to have the chance to have a relationship with God that can provide joy like nothing else on this earth.
How does my writing process work?
It’s a miracle I ever finish a book. I usually get a fleeting idea of a character, a setting, if I’m lucky a whole scene, and that is my starting point. I don’t outline and I never know where the story is going to go. All four of my current books have had slightly different processes and I believe my writing style will continue to evolve, which is part of the fun. The Seasons of Faith books have an ensemble cast with separate storylines that intertwine, so I may work on one character’s storyline for several days before going back and working on the others. Fortunately, with Scrivner, the new writing program many authors are raving about, moving these scenes around has been made so much easier.
Now let me invite you to meet some of my writer friends.
Natalie D. Wilson is a lover of the written word by profession and by heart. Her days are spent encouraging the youngsters, at the elementary school where she serves as a library-media specialist, to become lifelong readers. She and her husband, Will, are Georgia natives and the proud parents of two very precocious and messy rescued parrots. The Immortal Reborn trilogy is the start of Natalie’s Children of Angels series. The development of an idea which first began with a simple piece of music years ago. It is her hope that you will find the world she envisions as captivating as she has, as she developed and imagined the world of the Nephilim.
Be sure to hop on over to their blogs!
Natalie’s blog http://nataliedwilson.com
Valeries’s blog http://www.PenHelp.wordpress.com