And now, the moment you’ve been waiting for: The winner of a free copy of My Memories Suite scrapbooking software is:

Gigi Murfitt. Congratulations, Gigi!

My Surprise:

Even if you didn’t win my giveaway, you can still take advantage of this sharing code: STMMMS54994 for a $10 discount on the purchase of the MyMemories Suite V3 scrapbook software from the website (to visit My Memories online, click the image, below). When you purchase you win two ways, because the software also comes with a $10 coupon for downloads-a total value of $20!

You are welcome to share this code with your family, friends, associates, Facebook friends, Twitter followers, and anyone else you can think of.

The John 3:16 Blog Hop has now concluded. My thanks to all who participated and made it so fun. 

I can’t wait to give away a free copy of the My Memories Scrapbooking Software Suite. I’ve created lots of fun things with my review copy, including the letterhead banner below, which I’m giving away free today in celebration of the blog hop. Just right click on the image to save it to your computer. In MS Word, from the Insert tab, select header, blank, picture (in the menu bar), navigate to the saved letterhead banner jpeg and double click.  

I found this software user-friendly and intuitive. It comes with lots of free decorations like the ship and sun and waves in my banner.  It’s possible to make gradient backgrounds (as I did when designing this website’s banner with this software) and even to embed videos in your pages. Another great feature of this software is that you can have multiple pages open at once. 

To enter the drawing for a free copy of the My Memories Suite, leave a comment to this post. I’ll post the winner when the blog hop is over next week and include a special surprise. Please also consider signing up for Worlds of Beauty and Danger in the right sidebar for updates on my travels and stories from my author journey. You’ll also receive notification of giveaways and contests, not to mention exclusive discounts on my novels. But that’s not all. I’ll also highlight fascinating facts from my historical research, bringing forgotten details from past worlds to light in posts like Greek Fire: Lost in the Mists of Time and Forgotten in Time: Titanic of the Mississippi, America’s Greatest Maritime Disaster.  Why not sign up now? I’ll wait.

Only one month to go until the John 3:16 Giveaway Blog Hop –

May 7^th – 14^th!

Join over fifty authors and bloggers who will be offering great books and other prizes on their blogs during that week. As a reader, you just “hop” from blog to blog and sign up to win some great prizes at each blog.

But wait…you also have a chance of winning one of two Kindles!

How’s that for fun?

Tell all your friends and join us May 7^th – 14^th for the

John 3:16 Marketing Network Giveaway Blog Hop!

In celebration of its launch, I’m giving away free letterhead and query letter templates on Live Write Breathe. Subscribers to this site will receive weekly writing-related blog posts or videos, and advance notification of teaching resources. I have other plans for this site but don’t want to steal my own thunder, so I’ll hold off on mentioning them now.

The sign-up giveaway on http://JanalynVoigt.com will change soon, so if you want my Scheduler, grab it now.

I’ll develop JanalynVoigt.com as a place for readers to discover my books and learn more about my writing and about me as an author . Although I will no longer blog from this site, I’ll post infrequent notes from my research similar to my posts on Edward and Eleanor: A Royal Love Story that Transcended Death, Greek Fire: Lost in the Mists of Time and Forgotten in Time: Titanic of the Mississippi, America’s Worst Maritime Disaster. Other occasional updates will provide news of interest about my books, writing, and life as writer. In addition, I’ll offer promotional contests to readers and special discounts to email subscribers for http://JanalynVoigt.com.

Thanks for your friendship and interest in my writing. I value you.

By far the greatest steamboat disaster happened just days after Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. On April 27th 1865, the overloaded steamboat Sultana sank in Tennessee with great loss of life, mostly Union soldiers returning home from Confederate prison camps. Of the over 2,4000 people aboard, 1,7000 died. By contrast, the Titanic disaster claimed 1,514 lives.

Why we have forgotten the Sultana but remember the Titanic remains a mystery.

Here’s an interesting tidbit from my research for Tales of Faeraven:

The Byzantines perfected something called Greek fire, which combusted upon contact with water, for primary use in naval warfare (although it showed up in castle sieges). It burned with ferocity, even as one account claims, beneath the water. An eyewitness who saw a lighted barrel catapult toward a besieging army described it as a fireball with a long tail that lit up the night as if it were day and roared like a dragon. Not surprisingly, use of Greek fire ended more than one siege.

Kind of makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

The formula for Greek fire has been lost in the mists of time. While some believe it contained naphtha or petroleum in some form, no one today knows for certain what was in it.

This week I’ve decided to move over and let a fellow-author share a message that resonates with me. Thanks, Brian!

About Brian Holers

An arborist by day and a novelist in every moment he can steal, Brian’s head is filled with stories which can’t be contained. Be it writing, blogging or ranting to friends, his voice is passionate and compelling.

Brian’s fiction is inhabited by characters who, like people everywhere, search for resolution and connection. Characters of faith appear to show God meeting people wherever they are, whether celebrating victory or learning to live with loss.  Ultimately they must, in keeping with the words of the prayer, gain the serenity to accept the things they can’t change, and the courage to change the things they can.

Raised Christian, Brian now lives in a Jewish home in Seattle, Washington with his wife and son. The family spent 2006 traveling through East Africa, Southeast Asia, Israel and New Zealand. His experiences have given Brian a lifetime of stories to tell.

Life Is Art 

A common stereotype tells us a true artist is tortured. Has us believe that, in order to create works of art from a variety of experience, to make something out of nothing, an artist must figuratively wrestle with demons, must go inside him- or herself to a dark place where anyone with sense would refuse to go; and that, by doing so, an artist is irreparably altered to the extent he or she will never function in polite society again.

It’s simply not true. Maybe tortured artists are just the ones we remember. The ones we read about in tabloids or history books, or see laid out bare, in all their tragic glory, in the movies.

It is true that self-abuse can make a person creative. We crave conflict, in life and in art (number one rule of fiction: create conflict).  Many perceive reality, ordinary daily life, as dull, and prefer dark places. When an artist wallows in torture or pity, the creation may be beautiful, or if not beautiful, then memorable. More likely it will be simply twisted or unusual, barbaric, and will draw the reader in, like reality television, only because he is unable to look away.

Writing is hard. Getting to a creative place, then staying in that place, can take many steps. A writer has these beautiful thoughts, envisions vivid scenes filled with color and symbol, then they turn to dust when a blank page or blank screen appears. The greatest impediment to art, is immersion in reality. It’s not easy to get away from ourselves. So we look for shortcuts to the exalted state of mind required to write. Alcohol. Drugs. Reimagined childhood pain.  Something comes out. The page is no longer blank. The words go together.  They sound pretty good.  Our friends read it. They say, “whoa.  Dude.”

Thus, we keep illness alive. Personally, I guess I’m lucky. I’ve always been high on life. Low at times too, sure. The type of person who can go to imaginary places will be an emotional person. We’re so drawn to the worlds that live only in our minds that we sometimes forget to develop practical skills. We have to write, or else. Or else we can’t make a living. Or can’t stomach what we do have to do to make a living. Most of what I learn, I learn from writing. My goal has always been to get to the truth. The primary ingredients for me are time and discipline. If I tried to drink and write, cry and write, abuse myself and write, uninformed art would follow. Complaining. Drivel. Victimization. Crap.

We all struggle. It’s called being human. We all have a certain instinct, at times overpowering, to do things that aren’t good for us. Drink, dope, be lazy, abuse ourselves and those we love.  Without a plan, we fall to the least common denominator. We look for relief from the pain life has brought us, then the relief makes us stop feeling and we seek out more pain. The other choice is discipline. Personally, I’ve never been smart or energetic enough to simultaneously ruin my life and do anything productive at all. When we embrace the darkness, it may seem to open the door to creativity, assuming we have enough discipline left to write anything at all instead of just staring at the pictures in our drunken minds and saying, “I’m a writer.”  The drivel I’m able to write when I’m just letting things go, is a pale substitute for the clear, laden, beautiful prose that grows from sitting down at a chosen time in a chosen place and working. And working. And working. And unlike drivel, hard-fought art lasts. It actually matters.

Life is hard and potentially very sad. It is filled with brokenness, want and disappointment, and the potential for great melancholy. It is so hard, and so unlikely, for things to work out exactly as we want them to.  We hope and we work to carve a little corner for ourselves, and in the end we’re met with loss and tragedy. No matter what, no matter how good we are, how hard we work, how much money we have, we’ll never get out of it alive. Astonishingly little is in our control. Still, it’s what there is, and it’s a gift filled with potential beyond measure.  And underneath all of it, the one emotion that remains, and must remain, is hope.

I can’t get to that hope, to that beauty underneath, without working very hard. Writing is the hardest thing I’ve ever tried to do. I’m fortunate to have been uncommonly blessed. I’ve always been high on life. I’ve always enjoyed uplifting, positive stories about real people. People who struggle, as we all do, but who find a way to overcome. And not just stay lost in brokenness.

I can only write that, I can only create that imaginary world, by choosing to be positive and living soberly. The world we create when we write is elusive. So hard to get a finger on it. But in order to get it on paper, sometimes I have to stay back until it shows its face. I have to be waiting, patiently and diligently. Looking. Ready.

About the Book

Fathers, sons and brothers reconnect over tragedy in this blue-collar Southern tale of love, loss and the healing power of community and family.

Vernon Davidson is an angry man. After a lifetime of abuse and loss the 61-year-old is ready to get back at God, his co-workers, and everyone else is in his north Louisiana hometown. He drinks too much to numb the pain, shuns his friends and embarrasses himself in the community. The once-cautious Vernon spirals into a reckless mess.

Only when he is reunited with his estranged nephew Jody is he forced to confront his situation. Jody is struggling in equal parts after inflicting a self-imposed exile upon himself by fleeing the family, and thereby himself, for a new life thousands of miles away. Now his father, Vernon’s brother, is dying and Vernon agrees to retrieve him for his brother’s sake.

Jody embarks on a reluctant journey back to his Louisiana home and the two men together embark on a journey that will ultimately change their lives.

Brian Holers’s Doxology examines an impossibly difficult question: how does a man go about forgiving a God he has grown to despise after the tragedies and endless disappointments he has faced?

Get Your Copy of Doxology on Amazon.com or BarnesandNoble.com.You can also purchase Doxology for your iPad/iPod/iPhone in the Apple iBooks store.

Visit the website for Brian Holers

Photo Credit: Marilyn Holmes 2011

Sometimes victory only comes

through surrender.

About DawnSinger

book one in the epic fantasy trilogy, Tales of Faeraven 

Kai, a Guardian of Faeraven, delivers the dying High Queen’s summons to Shae, a princess of Whellein. Together they fly on Kai’s winged horse to Faeraven’s High Hold, where all is not as it seems. Visions warn Shae of danger, and a dark soul touches hers in the night. Although Kai is pledged to protect her, when Shae meets an attractive but disturbing musician, no one can save her from her own wayward heart.

To fulfill prophecy, Kai and Shae must reach the Well of Light before the Daystar completes its arc of the sky. On a perilous journey, they battle Garns, giant raptors and even the wraiths of their own regrets.

Can they find a way to release the DawnKing — and salvation — into a divided land?

Release date TBA

About WayFarer

book two of the epic fantasy trilogy, Tales of Faeraven

Elcon, an untried youth, assumes his duties as High King. But as trouble stirs between nations and rebellion threatens Faeraven, his position is far from secure. The Guardian, Kai, returns from the Cavern of Death without Shae, Elcon’s sister. Can Elcon trust Kai’s claim that the Elder youth accompanying him is the DawnKing of Prophecy, sent to deliver Elderland from the enemy known as the Contender?

Driven to prove himself, Elcon embarks on a peace-keeping campaign into the Elder lands, where he meets a beautiful Elder princess. But Aewen is betrothed to another, and Elcon has promised to court the princess, Arillia, upon his return. Declaring his love for Aewen would shame them both and tear apart the very fabric of Faeraven.

Elcon’s choices lead him into the Vale of Shadows, where he learns that to deliver his people, he must first find his own redemption.

Release Date TBA

Contract Signing for DawnSinger and Wayfarer, the first two books in the Tales of Faeraven epic fantasy trilogy

I stared at the email, half-expecting it to somehow morph into a rejection, but no. It was still a contract offer.  Letting out a yelp, I snatched my cell phone to call my husband.  Later that same day, after opening another email, I would call him back to share more joy. It was a writer’s dream, and it was all mine. In a single day I’d landed a two-book offer and an agent.  Barbara Scott of Wordserve Literary would negotiate the contract for DawnSinger and Wayfarer, books one and two of my epic fantasy series, Tales of Faeraven. Peace and a quiet joy washed over me. It was as if something out of alignment in my life had slid resoundingly into place.

So how did I reach this enviable position? It came through sacrifice, long hours and pain.  I had to develop a focus on writing as a career and work toward my goals no matter what anyone else thought. That’s not to say that my family didn’t support me. They did. But the sometimes-deafening silence that emerging authors hear from the publishing world sends a message, whether intended or not: You don’t matter. Against this silence, a writer can consider herself fortunate to receive a rejection. In the face of such discouragement, it’s hard to keep going, but that’s what you have to do. I can’t teach that piece of the puzzle. It has to come from within.

Would I do this all again? Yes, without a doubt. I’d tackle things differently, though. It wouldn’t take me so long to believe in myself and my writing, for one thing. I’d embrace my journey instead of pining reach the destination. I’d study the writing craft sooner. And I’d never, ever let anyone tell me what I can’t do.

Writing, like marriage, is an odd mixture of passion and duty. The same writers who speak of “falling in love” with a story complain about “having to” edit it. Some marriages are easier than others, and that’s also true of books. Some pearls make it to publication with few edits, but often, by the time a novel reaches readers, its writer is sick of working on it.

Given these conditions, it’s not surprising to learn that the second books in series frequently disappoint readers. Preventing this from happening to your second book requires a look at this syndrome’s causes.

Time Frame  

A debut novel usually benefits from years of labor as its author polishes it over and over in order to land a contract. But a second novel, when contracted from a synopsis and likely written in a matter of months, doesn’t go through as strenuous a process.

 Solutions: 

• Simply being aware of this as a problem is half the battle. Commit to giving your second book your all, just as you did with your first.
•  Before you submit your second manuscript, make sure you put it before a number of “eyes.” Accept knowledgeable critiques, remarks from beta readers and/or paid editorial advice.

Interruptions

A writer often has to set aside writing the second book in a series to work on edits and/or promotion for the first. While necessary, interruptions stifle the creative flow. Most writers find returning to a cold manuscript difficult.

Solutions:

• Have all books in a series written before you submit them for publication. Previously, writers held off on writing a second book until the first had sold. This made sense because publication usually went through traditional publishers. These days it’s harder to win that traditional contract but easier to become published. Take this advice if you would hire an editor and independently publish your work, should it fail to land a traditional contract.
• Learn to write your first draft quickly so that, by the time edits for the first book hit, you’re ready for them.
• Dedicate part of your day to writing and part to editing, with a break in between. Your brain will learn to readily switch gears.

Conflicting Emotions

During edits, a writer must face, accept and overcome weaknesses. The angst this causes can attach itself in the writer’s mind to the series itself. To draw a parallel from marriage: While undergoing marital counseling , it can be hard to remember first love.

Solutions:

• Go back over your notes or read earlier entries in a writing journal to remind yourself why you love this series.
• Reconnect with your novel’s theme, which you hopefully drew from one of your passions.  Prayer and meditation can help.

Eroded Confidence

It’s common knowledge that artistic people are their worst critics, and that’s certainly true of writers. As a result, while dealing with edits it’s easy to lose confidence and take fewer risks with the second book, which can rob it of zeal.

Solutions:

• Re-read any endorsements or encouraging comments you received for your first novel.
• Remind yourself that your publisher believes in you enough to work with you.
• Give yourself permission to dream about what could happen in your story. Don’t censor your ideas, but simply write them down. And when you go back over your brainstorming session, be wise but bold.

Creative Desire  

When the passion in a marriage fizzles, it’s tempting to look elsewhere for fulfillment. In the same way, when a writer loses that loving feeling for a project, other tempting ideas can siphon creative energy and distract attention. This has an adulterating effect on the work at hand.

Solutions:

• Rather than ignoring new ideas, write them down (briefly) and save them for later. This keeps them percolating on the back burner until you’re ready for them.
• Stir your passion for the work at hand by dreaming about the story, exploring the nuances of its characters and mentally writing the next scene.

If you follow these steps, you’ll soon recapture your passion and for your series.

Answering Mike’s Questions by Nick Harrison inspired this post.

Janalyn Voigt, author of novel books