New Direction

I have moved my blog so if you aren't redirected, go to shannahatfield.com
Thanks!

My Kindle

Since my books will first be published in an electronic format, I decided I needed to check out the whole e-book format and ordered a Kindle.
Whoa, Nellie! Was that a great idea.
I just got it the other day and I already love it. It is lightweight, easy to read, has way to many fabulous features and, if I am feeling lazy (which happens on a fairly regular basis) I can set it to read to me. How cool is that!
If you are looking forward to a summer full of wonderful books, think about investing in an e-reader. You can download books for free and hundreds of them are available for $2.99. How can you beat that pricing?
*Note - This is not a paid advertisement for Kindle or Amazon. They don't know me at all, I just happen to love this product!

Captain Cavedweller

This guy, my hubby, my very own Captain Cavedweller, is awesome.

Not only does he support all my efforts, he puts up with my random craziness, encourages my wild ideas, and melts my heart on a daily basis.

He provided a wealth of inspiration for our hero, Clay, in Heart of Clay.

Similarities I think they share include:

• Honesty and Integrity
• Big Hearts and Broad Shoulders
• Warm Blue Eyes
• The ability to joke and tease about anything and everything
• The ability to love unconditionally
• Hero worship from their wife
• An addiction to football, hunting shows and Pat McManus books
• Love of the most disgusting smelling sausages. Ever.

Knee-Deep in Clay

Trying to decide on the title for my first novel was a bit of an exercise in patience and creativity.

I knew from the start I wanted the title to include "Clay" but beyond that, I had no clue.

So I played around with phrases. Some started with Clay, some ended with Clay. For a while I thought I'd call the book "Bound in Clay" but it just didn't feel right.

Then, when I least expected it, the name just popped into my head and I knew it was exactly the name I'd been looking for.

"Heart of Clay" was perfect. It was a title that was fairly short, sweet and too the point. It really sums up what the book is about and I like the hidden meaning you can find in the title as well.

Watch for it soon...

What, When and Why

Last week, I wrote about the Who and the Where of my first novel.

Some other important details include the What, When and Why.

The What: As in what is the storyline? The story follows Clay and Callan, a mid-30s couple, who have fallen out of love and aren't even sure they like each other anymore. Clay discovers Callan has kept a secret from him that drastically alters life for them both. There is tragedy and heartache, but also some lighthearted fun. And I couldn't keep from throwing a bit of my bizarre sense of humor in there as well.

The When: modern day. These could be your neighbors down the street. I wanted to keep the characters real.

The Why: This is a hard one - why did I choose these characters, in this place in their life? Because I know them so well. They have been speaking to my heart for years, and I finally sat down and listened.

Where Do They Live

Living in the Northwest, it seemed natural to have the setting for my first novel be somewhere in the Northwest as well.

Where, exactly, took a bit more time to figure out. I knew the hometown in the story needed to be within driving distance of a big city. It had to have a small town atmosphere. It needed to be somewhere there were changing seasons. Somewhere with rural roots, yet also a place of progress and growth.

So I did what any creative and desperate person would do and made up a town. A town named Tenacity. If it were a real town and on a map, you'd find Tenacity, Oregon, located just an hour southeast of Portland.

I realize the name is a little off the beaten path, but when I finally decided on Tenacity I knew it was perfect.

The perfection comes not from the town, but from the characters who live and work there. The characters in my stories. I'm excited for you to meet them soon. They are tenacious, stubborn, and determined. Especially the women. Most especially the women.

Which is why half-way through writing my first novel, I knew I would write two more stories set in this community. So it seemed only right to call the series The Women of Tenacity.

The Bees Knees

Today's random post has nothing to do with any book I am writing. Just giving you an advance warning.

Last night I actually heard the phrase "Bees Knees" used in a commercial - for McDonald's. I couldn't believe it.

I was convinced I hadn't heard it correctly, but when the same commercial came on again a short while later, there it was as plain as day, "Bees Knees."

I can't tell you how much I loved hearing that. Call me old-fashioned. Call me weird (you wouldn't be the first or the last, I assure you). But I love those old phrases that no one uses anymore.

Phrases like:

Bees Knees


The Cat's Pajamas

The Cat's Meow


Ab-so-lute-ly


Horsefeathers


Applesauce


Hittin' all Sixes


Glad Rags

I for one vote to bring some of those fun old phrases back.

For a great book that uses so many of those fabulous phrases, check out Keeper of the Bees by Gene Stratton-Porter. It's an oldie but a goodie!

Who Are These People

After obsessing over my first chapter of my first novel, I knew I needed more than Clay and his wife Callan (her name took a while to come to me) as characters in the story.

They needed friends and family. There needed to be antagonists and foes. Somewhere in there a child or two needed to appear.

Then came the task of figuring out who are these people? What do they mean to the story? To the main characters?

Some of the characters I had a lot of fun creating. A few of my favorites include Callan's dad and younger brother as well as Clay's young cousin.

Other characters are meant to not be liked such as Callan's boss.

Then there are those characters meant to be loved like Callan's two little nieces.

When they are all mixed into the plot, sprinkled with dialogue and given a sense of purpose toward the end result, it is amazing to me that it all works. But somehow it does, the story flows and all is right in my world.

Book One

When I decided to write a novel, I knew I wanted the storyline to be centered around a couple in their mid-30s facing a crossroads in their relationship. They would have to make some really hard and potentially life-altering decisions.

I wanted the characters to be real, for the readers to become their allies and friends. There had to be depth and emotion. But I also wanted there to be light-hearted moments and humor.

And I knew one of the two main characters had to be named Clay. Don't ask why, he just had to be.

So before I actually sat down and started writing, I did research on how to write a book, looking at the basics. Then I spent a few days sketching out an outline while the characters began to form in my head.

By the time I got the outline finished, the two main characters and a few of the other characters had introduced themselves to me and I was ready to write.

I started with the first chapter and wrote it. Then rewrote it and wrote it again. This process went on for about a week when I finally decided to leave the first chapter alone and started writing randomly whatever popped into my head.

This book was written completely out of order. I would sit down and write what would later become chapter 9 then jump back and write chapter 3. Once I had what I would consider the main chapters or driving points of the book written, I started going back to write the inbetween chapters that bridged the gaps and made the story flow.

Then I went back and rewrote every thing again.

I quickly learned that rewriting is essential and every bit as important as the initial writing because that is where the story is fine-tuned. Where the characters gain depth. Where the wordsmith plays.

Write What You Know

Back when I was young and fearless and lacking in knowledge in nearly every conceivable aspect of my life, I received from great advice from my aunt Maxine.

I was getting ready to head off to college and she threw a little going away party for me. My own parents were quite certain the 9-hour trip to the college I was going to attend was the last stop before the end of the earth. Due to that fact, the family rallied around I think as much to console my mother as to send me off.

Knowing my love of reading and writing, my aunt told me to "write what you know" and you can't go wrong.
Studying communications/journalism at college, I decided to go into newspaper writing. I enrolled in one killer writing class with a tough-as-nails teacher that wasn't particularly fond of me. She gave us writing assignments and would always find some horrendous thing wrong with mine.


I remember one assignment in particular, she asked us to write a human feature story and fill it with details, to capture the heart of the characters. I poured my all into that assignment and the paper came back with a "B-" and a note that I would never make it as a journalist but I might have a chance at writing romance novels.

Her comments stuck with me, as well as the advice from my aunt to "write what you know." I did go on to spend 10 years working as a newspaper journalist before switching gears into marketing, but it was during that time I discovered I didn't know enough to have a good writing voice.

Now, many years and an abundance of experience later, I finally feel ready to "write what you know." There is a never ending supply of facts and information I don't know, but I'm okay with that. That's where research comes into play.

If you are thinking of writing a book, a short story, an essay, even a letter,  think about what you do know, what you've experienced, what personal knowledge you can pull from and go from there.

Thanks, Mom!

In honor of Mother's Day I wanted to give credit where credit is due.

I love to read. Absolutely love it. In an average week, I read at least two books (this is in addition to working full-time, writing, blogging, and attempting to keep Captain Cavedweller from feeling ignored, starved or otherwise neglected).


That love of reading came from my Mom. She loves to read, or at least used to before she lost most of her eyesight.

I can remember her reading me stories throughout my childhood. There are fuzzy memories of being rocked with a storybook that move into clearer pictures of her sitting on my bed at night and reading me "Little House on the Prairie" stories as well as "Trixie Belden" books.

As I got older, the roles reversed and I read to her, but I did treasure that time we spent together reading. When I was in high school and then college, we sometimes read the same books and then compared what we liked about them or the characters. She liked the thrillers much more  than I did. I was always much more inclined to pick up something with sappy characters and a happy ending.

So Mom, thanks for sharing your love of reading with me. It is a gift I've enjoyed my entire life and one that has taken me places I've only imagined, sparked my creativity and fueled my dreams. For that I am deeply and profoundly grateful.


Happy Mother's Day!

Rejected

As I mentioned in my last post, I was inspired to write a novel partly because it is something I've always wanted to do and partly because I read one that was so awful, I couldn't believe anyone would publish it and knew I could do better.

I sat down and started writing in mid-February 2010. The novel was completed by mid-April. I then spent the next few months fine tuning it. When I thought it read well and was fairly certain all typos had been removed, I started writing a query letter.


How hard could it be, after all, to write a letter saying, "Here is your next bestseller?"

Turns out, it was much harder than I anticipated.

After spending nearly another month writing what I thought at the time was a good query letter, I researched agents and sent off a query letter in July.

Knowing it can take weeks to receive a response, I kept tinkering with both the novel and the query letter. I waited every day for some fabulous email to pop into my inbox saying "we'd love to represent you." Unfortunately, I waited in vain. So I reworked my query letter and sent it off again. And waited. And waited.

How could they not love my book? I loved it. The handful of people I asked to read it loved it. What was wrong with these agents, anyway? 

When no email arrived letting me know I'd soon be a well-known author, I came back down to reality and decided to rethink my game plan.

Rewriting the query letter at least a dozen more times and tweaking my novel again, I decided to get serious about searching for an agent and became a frequent visitor of websites like Guide to Literary Agents and Query Tracker.

I started the process again by sending letters to several agents at a time.My goal was to query at least 10 agents a week, which I did right up to the holiday season.

And you know what happened?

I started getting responses back to my queries. Oh, none of them said "I love your book, let me represent you," but many of them offered positive comments and great feedback.

After having received dozens of rejections, I have come to appreciate each one. I figure if the agents, who receive hundreds of query letters every week, thought enough of my query to send a personal reply, then I must be doing something right.


In my limited experience, I have already learned that rejections are a good thing if you pull out the positive pieces and apply the advice given. So bring on the rejections. I'm ready.

Getting Started

When I was in the third grade I wrote a story about a raccoon. My brother Doug had a pet raccoon at the time and when I had an assignment to write a story for school, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to share my thoughts about Bandit. The teacher seemed impressed with my efforts and read my story aloud to the class.

That was the moment I knew I wanted to be a writer.

I used to make up ridiculous bedtime stories and tell them to my nieces and nephew that would do anything but help them fall asleep.

During my high school years, I wrote articles for a local paper, worked on the school paper and yearbook. I went to college and graduated with a degree in communications before starting off my career as a newspaper journalist.

After 10 years of writing for newspapers, I switched gears and went into marketing which turned out to be a lot of fun for me. But I missed writing.

So for a few years I wrote freelance feature articles for a regional magazine.

Still, I wanted something more. After reading a book that I thought was truly awful in the winter of 2010, I finally decided "I can write better than this." So I sat down and wrote a novel. Then I wrote two more.

Now I am knee-deep in searching for an agent and trying to figure out the best way to see my novels published.

Join me as I go through the adventures of finding my way in the world of writing and publishing. It should be an interesting journey.